Shorter Arcs getting more Play and more Ratings
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2009-05-15 13:43 in Mission Architect
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Are you concerned at all if other players play your arcs or not? 
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Concerned, yes. So much so that I'd bend over backwards and tailor my Arc to cater for certain playstyles so as to please a bigger crowd...? No.
I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
The problem with short arcs is that no matter the length, you still get only three published arc slots. I put up a short arc that I made as a joke. It's gotten more plays than both my longer arcs put together (although it's also been up longer). I've gotten some badges out of it and it's made some people laugh. But it's not staying up, not while I have actual stories to tell and limited arc slots to tell them in.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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The problem with short arcs is that no matter the length, you still get only three published arc slots. I put up a short arc that I made as a joke. It's gotten more plays than both my longer arcs put together (although it's also been up longer). I've gotten some badges out of it and it's made some people laugh. But it's not staying up, not while I have actual stories to tell and limited arc slots to tell them in.
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this. I play shorter arcs usually. But I want to make as much content as possible - thus I make longer arcs (okay I've only finished one, but it was 5 missions until I cut it to 4)
Short arcs with story content is the way to go. Make it farmable, and you will have two audiences.
If you want both story and plays, do your arc in as few missions as possible.
My short, humorous, arc had 999+ plays in less then 48 hours. It does have story, it is fun, and short. I would not reccomend it to soloers, even though it can be soloed, depending on AT and diff. It is full of Custom characters and the file size is 84%.
I find out don't expect people to read the description. I get complaints all the time, because people don't read. The mission I am talking about. The last part of my description says "not reccomended for low levels or solo play, AV/EB depending on diff.
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MA ArcID: 1197
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill
I admit that when checking MA for unrated arcs to try, I am more likely to play a short arc than a long one. This primarily becuase I usually don't have long blocs of play time available, and I'd rather not log out with an arc unfinished.
Most of my own arcs run 4-5 missions, and I've noticed more plays on my shorter ones, even though I think the long ones are better. However, I'd rather the story I want to tell, than crop out the good stuff to meet an arbitrary length limit.
I agree short arcs will get more play. I think this is a direct result of the TF mechinism. I really have no idea why they had to make you be on a task force to run the missions but I see people not wanting to waste time quitting tfs and reforming them if they do one mission and feel the arc is not worth playing. If you could just drop the mission arc and remain teamed, you would have a better chance the team would do longer arcs in my opinion.
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Short arcs with story content is the way to go. Make it farmable, and you will have two audiences.
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Anyhow, I wonder how much of the issue is due to all the "Complete X Mission" badges that the Devs put into the MA system. With there being dozens of those badges going from 10 missions to 100 missions and then X missions that are Heroic, X that are Villainous, etc... it's no wonder that short arcs get played so much more often.
Game-wise, sometimes I have time for a huge meal, sometimes I only have time to grab a snack. The very short arcs are AE snack food, and finding good ones can be challenging. I've written both, and play both according to available time and what I feel like at the moment.
Arc 55669 - Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal (video trailer)
Arc 64511 - The Wrecking Ball
Arc 1745 - The Trouble With Trimbles
Arc 302901 - HappyCorpse
I think the problem is most people want to do the whole arc in one sitting. If they don't have a lot of time, they're going to pick a shorter arc.
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Short arcs with story content is the way to go. Make it farmable, and you will have two audiences.
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Finally /ignored because I'm sick of seeing you posting your farming whines all over the forums.
Anyhow, I wonder how much of the issue is due to all the "Complete X Mission" badges that the Devs put into the MA system. With there being dozens of those badges going from 10 missions to 100 missions and then X missions that are Heroic, X that are Villainous, etc... it's no wonder that short arcs get played so much more often.
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My goal is to get all the idiots to ignore me, so I don't have to continually listen to their "holier-than-thou" crap when it comes to people who farm. It's nice to know you place yourself in this list. 
Easier to debate with people who are ignoring me to cause they always concede to my points.
I've published one fun short arc, have seven unready for primetime long arcs. I probably play 3 shorts to 1 long in general because of the time slices I have.
If I start a long arc, I usually want to finish it at a sitting.
The other problem with long arcs is if they aren't vetted enough, it is pretty frustrating to play play half of an arc and hit some impasse like a super tough EB.
I now only play a longer arc if it has the SFMA tag or if I read about it on the forums. If I know the author is looking for feedback, I am more likely to play it, as it shows they actually care and I'm not going to be wasting my time on something someone threw together just because they could.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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Anyhow, I wonder how much of the issue is due to all the "Complete X Mission" badges that the Devs put into the MA system. With there being dozens of those badges going from 10 missions to 100 missions and then X missions that are Heroic, X that are Villainous, etc... it's no wonder that short arcs get played so much more often.
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The badges really should have been based on individual missions completed, not storyarcs.
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I think the problem is most people want to do the whole arc in one sitting. If they don't have a lot of time, they're going to pick a shorter arc.
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this. I dont have alot of time when i'm gaming. thats why I can't do tf's to get the tons of merits i desire for stuff. same goes for tickets.
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
I try to make a habit out of playing at least one MA mission every time I'm on. Usually I treat it as a substitute for a newspaper/radio mission so a one or two mission arc fits in better. Maybe something like this is why it seems shorter arcs get more play?
Having said that, I do try to set aside one day where I go looking for the longer arcs. Usually this means I get a more involved plot and (usually) better stories. Because of the time it can take to go through a 4-5 mission arc, these are a bit like task forces. You have to be sure you have the time to commit to it.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
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Anyhow, I wonder how much of the issue is due to all the "Complete X Mission" badges that the Devs put into the MA system. With there being dozens of those badges going from 10 missions to 100 missions and then X missions that are Heroic, X that are Villainous, etc... it's no wonder that short arcs get played so much more often.
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The badges really should have been based on individual missions completed, not storyarcs.
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Meh, I'm at about 90 arcs played, and I've done about 50/50 short vs long arcs. Those badges are nowhere near unattainable. Unlike some of the test badges, not to mention the ones for playing HoF arcs. Also, your auto-complete "missions completed in test mode" badge farm will count toward the "play x heroic" or "play x villainous" badges if you set it to the proper alignment.
Besides, all the "Want it NAO" badgers already have played some published auto-complete badge farm 100 times and are probably busy trying to kill a bazillion guys in test mode.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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Anyhow, I wonder how much of the issue is due to all the "Complete X Mission" badges that the Devs put into the MA system. With there being dozens of those badges going from 10 missions to 100 missions and then X missions that are Heroic, X that are Villainous, etc... it's no wonder that short arcs get played so much more often.
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The badges really should have been based on individual missions completed, not storyarcs.
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Meh, I'm at about 90 arcs played, and I've done about 50/50 short vs long arcs. Those badges are nowhere near unattainable. Unlike some of the test badges, not to mention the ones for playing HoF arcs. Also, your auto-complete "missions completed in test mode" badge farm will count toward the "play x heroic" or "play x villainous" badges if you set it to the proper alignment.
Besides, all the "Want it NAO" badgers already have played some published auto-complete badge farm 100 times and are probably busy trying to kill a bazillion guys in test mode.
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Probably? They certainly are.
I've made two arcs... "Dorothy is Dangerous" 98685 which is a Wizard of Oz FUN mission where you take down Dorothy as a favor to the wicked witch. It's fun, and I've play tested it with about ten groups, listened to their suggestions, and tweaked things to make it better. I can't do that effectively with a long arc. A short arc is easier to debug.
My other one is Judgment 154775 I designed this as a test of skill. Ten AV's on one map, each as different as possible, with the idea being a test of teamwork and skill. I designed it for a full team at high level, but I'm getting comments from people who love trying to solo it. Its HARD, but I don't want it to be impossible, so I've tweaked every one of the AV's at least once, after reading the comments. That is hard to do on long mission arcs.
I would say its the ticket nerf more than anything else. Why do a longer arc if you are going to max out on tickets? The benefit we had before with the extra ticket bonus that increased as the arc went on is basically worthless now. I usually do arcs that are at most 3 missions. I usually do the unrated ones first though.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
Hey, you were that guy that didn't care what my opinion was on another thread.
You are already /ignored.
You response is meaningless and probably intentionally trolling.
Feel free to be a jerk. It suits you.
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It depends on what your goal is... if you are a badge hunter you want the arc as small as posible less time is better
like playing dev's choice arcs for the dev's choice badge line... Butterfly Effect was used the most because it was a med arc period! Not to mention there are still only a few dev's choice arcs which I believe were picked before I14 went live... good to see that all the people really giving it their all and trying hard to write a great story arc are being rewarded for their effort... see, what the dev's forget to mention was in order to get your arc to become a dev's choice not only do you need to write a top notch arc BUT you need to send in a blood sample, pass a physical exam have an IQ of 125 or higher be willing to post on this forum how amazing positron is in a 2000 word eassy (without double spacing I might add...) and convince 57% of the people that play coh that castle's costume does not make him look like a pissed off Librarian with Tourette syndrome! THEN and only then will you have a chance... for your arc to make it as a dev's choice!!
Disclaimer: If I offened posi or castle by this post.. sorry 
if not I'll try harder next time!
wait a sec... is it presumptuous of me to think either of the two would even be reading this post? prob lol
It's better to save the Mystery, than surrender to the secret...
Of course they get more play. I for one play almost exclusively short arcs. Why? I don't like to start something I don't get a chance to finish, and I find long arcs have this unpleasant habit of having AVs at the end of them.
Any arc I build (and all I've made so far) have been short because that way it is far easier to balance them. Admittedly, I'm a little obsessed with balance and grammar.
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I would say its the ticket nerf more than anything else. Why do a longer arc if you are going to max out on tickets?
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I'd thought the 1500 ticket max was per mission, not per arc. I've played through longer arcs and never gotten anywhere near 1500 tickets for a single mission. The only maps that seem to push the envelope on that are ones that are designed for ticket-gain, and even then your ticket counter resets for the next mission.
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The benefit we had before with the extra ticket bonus that increased as the arc went on is basically worthless now.
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I always knew that was there, but honestly never noticed it, so don't miss it.
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I usually do arcs that are at most 3 missions.
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That's a shame. I'm sure you're missing some good stuff.
Shorter arcs definitely get more plays, no doubt. If you glance at the three arc descriptions in my sig, I'm sure you can guess which one has more than 3x the ratings of the other 2 combined. I made a conscious decision to create one "candy bar" arc, since I knew not everyone would have the time for a full meal every time they played, but I'm happy with how all 3 turned out.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
I did a search on this and found no results - hence, this post.
I am working on creating long arcs. It would be cool if other players ran my arcs, but I'm not worried about ratings. I'm writing the arcs for fun. I'll be rotating stories in-and-out. I will probably keep ones that have more votes at any given time in, but will still give me at least one slot to rotate - and, at this point, I'll probably rotate all of them as new arc are made.
This is just to make it clear that I'm not really overly concerned about ratings or plays.
I don't really have a stance on this subject.
It appears that here maybe far more people running very short and short arcs as compared to longer arcs.
I'm not saying that this is good or bad, but it does appear that it will be easier for a very short or short arc to reach the +999 status than a longer arc. (time-wise this should be obvious)
How do you feel about that?
Will it make you more likely to make a "very short" or "short" arc -- in order, to have the possibility that it will be played by more players simply due to the length of the arc?
Are you concerned at all if other players play your arcs or not?