I think its tough to keep a 5 star rating due to a number of factors that each author has very little control over if any.
My take on the ratings system is at this point if you can maintain a 4 star rating past 20-30 plays you are doing good.
If you want to go for DC or HOF you need to make something fresh and that stands out. Then you will need lots of support to get at least 20-30 5 star ratings. Once your arc starts to get attention things will kep going at 5 stars or it will drop to 4 really fast due to the balance grief voters. If you can get past them you are golden as they represent a minority of the playerbase. If they catch you early you are sunk and republishing might be th best option.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
Barring getting a Dev's Choice, you're not going to be able to maintain a 5-star rating. It's the simple fact behind a completely subjective system like this, especially where a single 1 vote can dynamite a rating so terribly. I've yet to see a single non-Dev's Choice arc that's managed to stay on the front page with 5 stars for more than a few days. Don't take it as a slam against the quality of your work or anything, it's just that the rating system is so utterly wonky and star ratings, on a whole, don't work well for a system like this.
I frankly look more closely for 4-star rated arcs, because those ones have usually been played repeatedly and fine-tuned because of how many people have gone and played them, rather than just friends of the author.
Grief voting? It seems like I can't stay on a 5 star rating for more than 24 hours. Does that mean that people are looking to keep other arcs from staying at 5 stars, just so theirs can be more highly ranked than mine?
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Grief voting? It seems like I can't stay on a 5 star rating for more than 24 hours. Does that mean that people are looking to keep other arcs from staying at 5 stars, just so theirs can be more highly ranked than mine?
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rank to win.
I guess there really are villains out there. 
It's not just grief voting. Every non-5 star vote will pull you away from the average you need to maintain in order to have five displayed stars (4.5+). So even if someone felt your arc was really good but not perfect, and by their internal voting standards that's a 4, they've just hurt your rating.
This problem is the reason why we don't have a Hall of Fame arc yet despite having several 999+ arcs. We had one... and it kept wobbling on and off the HOF thanks to be mathematical implausibility of a 4.5+ average.
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!
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We had one... and it kept wobbling on and off the HOF thanks to be mathematical implausibility of a 4.5+ average.
[/ QUOTE ]I would argue that we had one that kept wobbling on and off because a lot of people truly didn't feel it deserved 5 stars 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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We had one... and it kept wobbling on and off the HOF thanks to be mathematical implausibility of a 4.5+ average.
[/ QUOTE ]I would argue that we had one that kept wobbling on and off because a lot of people truly didn't feel it deserved 5 stars
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Its a bit of both, I think.
Either way, I find most if not all of the truly good arcs are 4 starred. anything 5 star tends to have very few votes to its name at best.
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Arc ID 58363!
The mentality that an arc deserves either five stars if it's good, or one star if it's not good (or zero for complete jerkoffs) doesn't help any.
Five stars should be the best of the best, the cream of the crop, the cat's pajamas(?). Four stars, in a world where ratings were fair and accurate, is still quite good.
QR
It was pretty funny as I was playing just now, so could watch what was happening with MA tickets.
One of my arcs hit 5 stars for the first time in about a week.
I then saw a 3, 2 4's and a 2 or less come in.
There went the 5 star rating.
I congratulate anyone who can maintain a 5 star rating. You clearly are doing something right.
Don't worry, it's just the way things are, mine constantly bounced between 4 and 5 stars over the 14 plays it's had so far.
It is stupidly hard to maintain a 5 star rating past probably 20 plays as mentioned, if you do somehow pull it off, you're golden but I'm content with my 4 star rating at the moment, it means I'm not the best but it's still a pretty good arc.
My biggest concern is why are there isn't any feedback on lower star ratings?
I have no problems with someone reserving a star or even two if they didn't enjoy my arc, but when I see lots of 5 star comments etc... and then all of a sudden I lose a star on average without any feedback. It likely means that someone has abandoned my arc or rated it poorly.
Both arcs have over 30 plays easily so having it drop so suddenly without feedback is kind of worrisome. I'm just wondering if I'm doing something wrong.
Is it common to get bad ratings without feedback?
I had that happen this morning. Logged off last night with 35 ratings and sitting at 5 stars, logged on this morning and it was 43 ratings and 4 stars. Had been on page 1 of the search for villainous, but immediately fell into obscurity. I saw a three and a couple of fours yesterday and figured that ride at 5 was going to end pretty quick.
Sure enough, it did. Oh well, it happens.
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Is it common to get bad ratings without feedback?
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I would say it's normal.
As for the comment about being happy with a 4 star rating, I agree. It means a good, solid arc.
I'd say it's definitely common; arc's that I don't enjoy I tend to just bail on. But again, 5 stars shouldn't mean "Good" - it should mean "Exceptionally Excellent!" Equate it to hotels or restaurants, getting five stars is a huge deal - not getting five stars doesn't mean you did something terribly wrong, or people hate your arc - it just means that at least a few people don't think your arc is perfect.
I'm really conservative with my ratings for the most part; I don't give out many five stars. I do give out feedback when there is a specific reason that I didn't give the person a better rating (like one arc where for some random reason there was a level 15 boss spawning in a level 8 mission - that boss didn't scale down to the appropriate level, and the mission didn't auto-SK us up. It was the last map in the arc, and I really enjoyed the arc up until that point - so I absolutely gave feedback on the problem).
Most of the time when I hand out a sub-5 rating though it isn't for a specific reason. You don't always know the missing ingredient, but you know you didn't absolutely 100% friggen love the bowl of soup you just ate.
There is also the other problem with regards feedback, you may have actually gotten it BUT it may have come from the EU side of things, currently the transatlantic comments aren't making it through sadly
Why no feedback on low ratings?
A friend and I were grinding out one-mission arcs last night, trying to get the Escapist badge. We ran a LOT of really, really horrible, stupid, poorly written, or just boring arcs. We handed out some 2's, 3's, one or two 5's, mostly 1's.
Very rarely did I give feedback, thoguh, because I fear retribution. Many of the arcs we did were clearly 15 minute efforts by 12 year olds and I didn't want backlash voting against my arcs if I pointed out that I didn't enjoy the arc and why.
I mean, is there anything constructive you can say about a mission where you have to go murder prostitutes because they're "nasty"? c.c
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!
What they should do is have it like the online shopping places have it.... where you see how many people voted it five, how many voted it four, etc. If you see 10 five-star votes, and 2 one-star votes, you have an idea of what to expect.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
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I like that idea. My problem seems to be my arcs tend to be a little wordy and not everyone likes that. My lowest ratings are for that reason primarily. I got a few 3s and feedback saying that when I got several 4s and 5s because of the story and characters.
I'm not going to change it when most of them like it and a handful don't, so I can't win. But something like you suggested might help.
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My biggest concern is why are there isn't any feedback on lower star ratings?
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A combination of pain in the butt griefing and some people living in mortal fear of their global being visible and getting one-starred in return.
Dec out.
What Decorum said.
Ratings are anonymous. Feedback is not.
Also, apparently there's authors out there who are vindictive little monsters, that will seek out all your arcs and one (or zero) star them out of spite if you tell them they misspelled something.
I haven't encountered any yet... but people tell me they exist.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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My biggest concern is why are there isn't any feedback on lower star ratings?
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A combination of pain in the butt griefing and some people living in mortal fear of their global being visible and getting one-starred in return.
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Pretty much. Most people seem to think daring to say "yes, I one starred your arc" is inviting them to go into RAEG moad and 1star all your arcs.
I still stand by the idea that the law of averages will kill the chance of anything but the most amazingly brilliant arc ever from ever staying at 5 stars, though.
Not to say thats a bad thing. I'm highly proud that I have an arc that's stayed solidly at 4 and continues to bring in 4-5 4 or 5 star rates a day.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
Apparently there is a way to keep a 5 star rating. Just add the string "JSNTS" into your arc description. Go ahead and search on that.
I've managed just over 24 hours on the front page with my 2nd arc, which was rather cool.
However, I figure 3 plus is good, and whilst the comments are great for my fragile little ego, I would really like to hear from the people who one and two starred - so I can decide if their concerns are things I want to address or not.
For instance, I had an arc two starred because it didn't contain custom mobs except for bosses, and the reviewer didn't consider the buckets of patrol text or any of the story stuff important. In that case, I decided that that wasn't a concern I wanted to address for that mission - he clearly isn't part of my target audience.
#2409 - The Mystery of the MAGI vaults. Azuria has contacted you to help her stop the thefts from the MAGI vaults.
#68054 - Out of the gutters. Left for dead, you swore that you were through with being a victim (alt villain beginning story)
Does anyone have any suggestions for keeping a 5-star rating? I seem to keep bouncing up and down between 4 and 5 stars. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I've been trying to solicit feedback for what anyone has to suggest for improvements to my arcs.
It seems like either I get a pat on the back, great job etc. or else nothing at all...I'm not sure if anyone is dropping my stories and giving me zero or 1 star...is there any way to tell? Everyone who has given me feedback has been positive except one, and it looks like his mission was bugged and resolved itself the 2nd time he went in.
My arcs are 3207 and 53420. Can anyone take a look to make any suggestions on improving things?