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Sorry Peter. Fire/Ice Blasters aren't uber
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She's a ice/fire tank, and, sadly, I agree. She isn't uber. But I certain if I dial it down, I shouldn't have any trouble finishing. That or get a team. 
Current favs: Champ: Frau Schmeterling-22 MM 50s: NOTW-Blaster, Cat-Girl Commando-corr, Queen of the Dawn-PB, NOTW-Def, Peterbilt-Brute, IcedTNA-Tank, Archilies-scrap, Mann Eater-stalk, Redemptive Soul-toller, Mt Fuji of A-Team-Tank, Hot Stuff Vale-Dom
My MiniCity
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[ QUOTE ]
Sorry Peter. Fire/Ice Blasters aren't uber
[/ QUOTE ]
She's a ice/fire tank, and, sadly, I agree. She isn't uber. But I certain if I dial it down, I shouldn't have any trouble finishing. That or get a team.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think Voo was referring to his namesake.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
Meh, keep it up if you wish, Kong. You're not the only one doing reviews, and frankly, they're going to happen no matter what with this kind of feature, no matter how people feel about them (not being harsh with those that don't like them, those are just the facts).
Might be worth having more do the reviews, I guess, to spread things out and leave room for disagreement. That's why Rotten Tomatoes can be somewhat useful.
And Voo, while it would be nice if we could just rate it on our own (like we can rate other players), that would just leave a huge pile of missions with no way to discriminate the good from the bad unless you played it yourself. Ratings, reviews, and critiques have their pros and cons, but they are around for a reason. Too much stuff out there! Some good, some bad, and we don't all have time to be a reviewer for a job, heh.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
It still sucks to hear from someone that a mission that you published that most people like:
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Oh, and Viv, sorry, but your arc sucks
[/ QUOTE ]
Kind of discouraging for someone who just wanted to play around with the system and have some fun.
I haven't played your arc yet Viv but I've got it in the cue.
Current favs: Champ: Frau Schmeterling-22 MM 50s: NOTW-Blaster, Cat-Girl Commando-corr, Queen of the Dawn-PB, NOTW-Def, Peterbilt-Brute, IcedTNA-Tank, Archilies-scrap, Mann Eater-stalk, Redemptive Soul-toller, Mt Fuji of A-Team-Tank, Hot Stuff Vale-Dom
My MiniCity
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Arc ID 36974: V'kta A'cha Vox'm
Rating: 5/5
Notes: My biggest complaint was supposedly fixed. Note to all - if you want your NPC allies to follow you around, don't give them Earth Armor: Rooted where they may spawn in a ditch.
Overall: Really enjoyable story that fits well in the CoH universe.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you Jack! Also, to note, I have as Jack mentioned addressed the issue about Onus Vox as an ally slapping rooted on as soon as you rescue him - he is now an Invul/Stone tank... which makes it VERY hard for me to beat him with the "original" Onus Vox. 
Would love to hear how others feel about this arc - I have received very helpful criticism from Jack and others and am trying to polish it up the best I can.
Thanks,
Robert "Escher"
"I swear you could fling a man hole cover across the street and hit more notes than 90% of those idiots on American Idol" -Desmodos
"Every time you post I feel like I been hit with a fist full of smart! Thanks." - Volken re: Sucker Punch
Arc #36984 V'kta A'cha Vox'm
Viv, I will play your arc later when I take a break.
I approach the star rating where I consider 4 to be the "this was very fun and made sense and wasn't completely impossible (with no fair warning)" rating, and 5 is just if something completely knocked me over with awesomeness and felt like it could be something the Devs had done as part of a zone redesign (like the Faultline or RWZ arcs).
Other than that, though, I really don't rate things with lower stars, unless I think it was legitimate screwed up. If it was just perhaps somewhat uncreative or uninspired, I always think "y'know, a 10 year old might have made this", and then I just don't rate it or leave a comment instead.
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Oh, and Viv, sorry, but your arc sucks.
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Woah, wait... who said this? It's one thing to dislike an arc, and another to be completely insulting about it (which is why I hate those movie reviewers that seem to think it is their job to come up with creative ways to insult a movie... very few moviemakers *cough*Uwe Boll*cough* deserve this). I don't think you can expect too much starwise from your arc until you flesh things out, but it was hardly a bad mission. Though the dialogue of that catgirl boss at the end really made up for things. Hehe, still makes me chuckle to think of that one.
Calash, you're welcome! I'm glad I was able to help out (it helped that we were playing at the same time, heh). To be honest, I'm approaching these arcs a lot like my teaching... one of my favorite parts of my job is helping people improve their writing, thinking, etc., so it's quite fun. Boy, now I want to play your arc and Voo's arc again, just to see what got tweaked.
LifeGuardian's post shows a big problem with the rating system and how people view it. "5 is just if something completely knocked me over with awesomeness and felt like it could be something the Devs had done as part of a zone redesign (like the Faultline or RWZ arcs)." If everyone uses this criteria, very, very few arcs are ever going to make it in to Hall of Fame. If ever. I'm not saying that it should be easy street to get into Hall of Fame, but it's a bit rough if people are going to require 5 star arc to be awesome (and by the sounds of it, better than most arcs already in the game). Awesome is hard to get from a lot of people... heck, people have a lot of differences about the great movies and books out there.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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However, if you list your arc publicly are you not asking for a public response?
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In a simple word, no. Some people posted their arc just so that people on Victory would know they had one, so that it would not be lost in a sea of 10 thousand other arcs. Some people wanted the praise or critique. Some people just want to learn HOW to make an arc. And some just want the tickets for the badges. If someone specifically asks for comments, then by all means, comment away, but I do not think that is what people were all looking for.
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I get your point.... It is sad when no one plays an arc that isn't rated 5, so some people aren't gonna want their arcs rated just because of that.
But here's a counterpoint with a counterexample: My not yet publicly posted arc (ID:3009 I believe named "Crustacean Fancy Pants Plaza)," but was publicly posted on the test server would probably be better off and more played than it is now if people were talking about it on the forums. No one tested it on the test server, so the minute I fixed the major bugs and published it to live, I announced it in a couple channels and within the time it took to run it, I had two simultaneous votes and two feedback messages. One seemed to love it, and the other seemed to hate it. I was left with an overall rating of 3 or 4 and since that day, have had only a third person vote who gave no feedback and left me with an overall rating of 3. Since then, I've fixed at least one glaring issue (we are talking about an arc that ran roughly 99.97% in file size to begin with).
So, look at it this way. Even if it deserved less than an overall 3, I'm gonna get less people playing it, unless someone talks about it. It's obviously one of those arcs that people either really like or don't like. If you didn't like it, I don't blame you, since I really wanted to delve much more into the story than I did. That may partly be my failure as a writer, as common teaching suggests good writing is also concise, eg, in the AE tutorial, mission dialog should be kept to a paragraph at most. It may also be that I had three custom groups running around and hoped people could catch the allusions a little more than I'd normally ask them to. So, considering how unconcise I've been, here (sorry, my fingers get to typing and they just don't seem to stop), the point is for the missions that aren't as well liked I'd think it's better for people to discuss what's wrong so it can either be fixed, highlight it's virtues, but most importantly, keep attention on it, so it can continue to be play tested. And let's face it, there is a point where some arcs really are better than others and some of the ones with higher rankings don't necessarily make sense to me (eg, I saw a farm mission with no dialog the other day on page one ranked by rating with several votes. I gave it a one).
But, I do agree civility should be kept in mind, on all sides, not just the testing responses but the author responses, as well.
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If everyone uses this criteria, very, very few arcs are ever going to make it in to Hall of Fame.
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Would it really be a Hall of Fame if that weren't the case, though?
I just have a skewed bell curve view of ratings where most things would be 3s and 4s (although I'm only likely to actually rate the 4s), where 1s, 2s, and 5s are the exceptions, not the rule.
Whoever said it is right, maybe the rating system was the bad idea of MA, because there is just no objective standard. It's hard enough to get people to even apply an objective standard the same way -- go back to the "hanging chad" debacle, for instance, where objective criteria were laid out and you still couldn't get two people to agree what they were looking at. The ratings for MA have a totally subjective standard, and therefore become almost meaningless.
From what I've seen, the "players choice" and "dev choice" are pretty much just whichever missions were posted first. They are not of a lot of use finding good arcs.
Whenever I want ingame feedback on my arcs I trick people into RWZ and running my arcs to help see what's wrong with it and what I need to fix. I can see how my one arc works beautifully on a small team but somehow becomes an epic nightmare with more than three players.
I've posted both of my arcs on the MA forum and have received little response/input except for one person. I'm sticking to teaming with people ingame to help me work on my arcs and if someone finds them and wants to play them - enjoy!
I spent all day Sunday running thru and doing my best to review whatever arcs i could find (I lost my "to do" list from my gfriends which saddened me as well). I discovered that stars on an arc really don't advertise to the quality (good/bad/decent) to a story.
I want to put in a recommendation for a "random" button but in the meantime, I actually flip to every 3rd page to get some sort of variety. I believe that gives more exposure to someone who put time and effort and someone who's more adept in the interface and wants to just enjoy the tool.
Going by star-rating gives me the same feeling i get with my friends when discussing what movies are "good."
Main Server:Victory
***"When you surround an enemy, leave an outlet free [...] to make him believe there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair." Sun Tzu ***
I just post random words into the search engine and see what looks interesting from the search results.
I also intentionally seek out zero and one starred arcs, and look for ones that seem to have some text and thought put into them. Some may be victims of unjust griefing. Others may appeal to the MST3K fan in me.
If they are playable - i.e. not spawning 3 ambushes of Vanguard Swords at mission entrance, like one arc had - I will rate them appropriately. These arcs are also likeliest to get feedback, which I ordinarily do not send, and I try to keep it constructive.
Five starred arcs tend to be disappointing. Many, many of them just seem to be farms, rated highly by the farmer and her friends. An interesting arc is going to draw opinions, and some may be negative.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
I'm going to try to play some arcs tonight. I haven't had too much luck with the "pick one randomly" method yet. And I agree that most of the 5-star arcs appear to be farms.
I found one that was the giant outdoor ruined city map with 60 glowies and only Rikti Communication officers. (Yeah, that got one starred and reported.)
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
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I'm going to try to play some arcs tonight. I haven't had too much luck with the "pick one randomly" method yet. And I agree that most of the 5-star arcs appear to be farms.
I found one that was the giant outdoor ruined city map with 60 glowies and only Rikti Communication officers. (Yeah, that got one starred and reported.)
[/ QUOTE ]
For the love of god don't just one star one for that unless its just map after map of it. At least see if there is story involved. Mine starts out similiarly on the carnie city map, but there is a story driven reason for it.
<sigh> Viv says its no longer "all me".
http://wendy-mags.mybrute.com/
A story driven reason for 60 glowies? It had better be a damn good reason.
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A story driven reason for 60 glowies? It had better be a damn good reason.
[/ QUOTE ]
Nah, not 60 glowies here. 21 if I remember right. Of varying shapes, and only 5 are required. 1 of the ones that isn't required gives a a clue as to what is going on, but the story continues without it. It just gives more explanation.
<sigh> Viv says its no longer "all me".
http://wendy-mags.mybrute.com/
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I'm going to try to play some arcs tonight. I haven't had too much luck with the "pick one randomly" method yet. And I agree that most of the 5-star arcs appear to be farms.
I found one that was the giant outdoor ruined city map with 60 glowies and only Rikti Communication officers. (Yeah, that got one starred and reported.)
[/ QUOTE ]
For the love of god don't just one star one for that unless its just map after map of it. At least see if there is story involved. Mine starts out similiarly on the carnie city map, but there is a story driven reason for it.
[/ QUOTE ]
There was no story involved. I should have also mentioned it was a defeat all.
On that obnoxiously gigantic map.
With nothing but Communication Officers.
If that doesn't scream "farm" I don't know what does.
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to try to play some arcs tonight. I haven't had too much luck with the "pick one randomly" method yet. And I agree that most of the 5-star arcs appear to be farms.
I found one that was the giant outdoor ruined city map with 60 glowies and only Rikti Communication officers. (Yeah, that got one starred and reported.)
[/ QUOTE ]
For the love of god don't just one star one for that unless its just map after map of it. At least see if there is story involved. Mine starts out similiarly on the carnie city map, but there is a story driven reason for it.
[/ QUOTE ]
There was no story involved. I should have also mentioned it was a defeat all.
On that obnoxiously gigantic map.
With nothing but Communication Officers.
If that doesn't scream "farm" I don't know what does.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ok. That would be annoying. Mine was originally a defeat all and then I ran it once and changed it because it was painfully annoying. My arc only has 1 defeat all and its the last mission.
Which depending on your viewpoint could still be painfully annoying. :P But at least its a medium sized indoor map.
My biggest issue thus far has been the 100k mark. I had to limit custom enemies signifigantly due to it, and I had to prune alot of text back.
<sigh> Viv says its no longer "all me".
http://wendy-mags.mybrute.com/
Honestly, I skip over MA arcs with "defeat alls".
IMO:
The #1 pet peeve of anything in a TF? Defeat alls.
The #2 pet peeve of original arc misisons? Defeat alls.
I sure as hell am not putting up with them if that's the best you can do. I don't even think it should be an option for MA stuff.
I've already forgotten about most of you
"Find 60 glowies", or "rescue 27 escorts" are defacto defeat alls IMHO. Sure you might be able to skip a few groups here and there, but in practice you're going to be fighting most of the mobs on the map.
I'm more worried about the "find lots of glowies on this huge Orenbenga map", because those are the ones that will find a new clever hiding spot for one of them and I'll spend 10 minutes combing the map from back to front looking for the stupid thing.
I'm sure there is a thematic reason for "defeat alls" that wouldn't be so bad. After all, everyone knows if you leave just one zombie/vampire/werewolf/infected around you're just asking for trouble. 
Main Server:Victory
***"When you surround an enemy, leave an outlet free [...] to make him believe there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair." Sun Tzu ***
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I'm sure there is a thematic reason for "defeat alls" that wouldn't be so bad. After all, everyone knows if you leave just one zombie/vampire/werewolf/infected around you're just asking for trouble.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not in my book. It's nothing more than a time sink, a waste of time and it takes away a choice of what one wants to do in a misison.
"Take out all zombies" is fine if the entire map isn't full of zombies. There's a difference.
I've already forgotten about most of you
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This entire thread makes me sad. Everyone is of course entitled to his or her own opinions and to state them publically if he/she chooses. However, I feel this thread is going to cause nothing but hard feelings for people who have put a lot of thought and effort into their work. Also, it is going to discourage people from playing certain arcs... oh it was only given a 2?!? I'll skip that one. I'd much rather see in depth critiques delivered to each person rather than in such a public way.
I'm sure other people feel this way, but I will probably be the only one to voice this. As a last thought, don't play my arc please, you won't like it.
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On the other hand, I don't want this thread to turn into DeviantArt, where everything, no matter how crappy, is praised and as a result even more crap is posted, praised, etc...
The end result is a site with a signal to noise ratio so low that it has to be expressed in scientific notation and a userbase that is, in short, full of itself.
As harsh as it sounds, sometimes the most accurate feedback is: Your work is terrible and you should be ashamed.
Also, don't be mistaken: My only goal in this thread is to tell you what I think of an arc, not to act as some sort of MA consultant. I'll give tips and hints if I feel like it, but I'm not going to try to rework every arc I play.