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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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.
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I have seen a bit of this, and I've not even run that much in the MA. And it always seems to happen in the LAST mission. One arc had *60* glowies in it, each on a :15 timer (a PM exchange with the author revealed that as a mistake though, as they weren't meant to be required; otherwise, a good arc).
Did another arc tonight that was fine, no great work of art but was ok. Until the last mission, in which you had to beat versions of:
Vandal
Requiem
Nemesis
Countess Crey
Nosferatu
...and a couple more I forget. There were like eight EBs. I got Vandal down to a sliver, then faceplanted twice, and I decided that I wasn't going to go through that seven more times.
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These faults are not due to the length of an arc but the author not properly marking what can be expected inside.
I have to admit when I play I look for short to medium arcs simply because I don't want to spend hours getting through one writer's story.
All my own arcs fall into that range because I like creating custom groups and they suck up file space. I have one story that someone commented they enjoyed it and wished it was an arc. I thanked him for the comments and explained that by the time I got that first story finished I was up to 98% of my maximum file size. There is not a whole lot you can do with 2%.
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I have to admit when I play I look for short to medium arcs simply because I don't want to spend hours getting through one writer's story.
All my own arcs fall into that range because I like creating custom groups and they suck up file space. I have one story that someone commented they enjoyed it and wished it was an arc. I thanked him for the comments and explained that by the time I got that first story finished I was up to 98% of my maximum file size. There is not a whole lot you can do with 2%.
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I understand totally. I had to do a custom group for An Army of One and it sucked up space. I ended up dumping out some custom bosses from the early missions to make room for another custom Lt later.
The problem is that I do feel odd having a single objective story, and I hate people who load up a map with surprise objectives. I get one suprise, maybe, but to have 4 chained objectives?
What would be nice is if we had a better way to manage the space, or some alternative in game listings. There are websites that list arcs but they're not easily accesable the way the main AE interace is set up. It'd be nice if we could also create our own 'portals' in game where a supergroup could crate a clearing house of a dozen or so prefered Arcs.
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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.
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I have seen a bit of this, and I've not even run that much in the MA. And it always seems to happen in the LAST mission. One arc had *60* glowies in it, each on a :15 timer (a PM exchange with the author revealed that as a mistake though, as they weren't meant to be required; otherwise, a good arc).
Did another arc tonight that was fine, no great work of art but was ok. Until the last mission, in which you had to beat versions of:
Vandal
Requiem
Nemesis
Countess Crey
Nosferatu
...and a couple more I forget. There were like eight EBs. I got Vandal down to a sliver, then faceplanted twice, and I decided that I wasn't going to go through that seven more times.
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These faults are not due to the length of an arc but the author not properly marking what can be expected inside.
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Yeah, from the comments I've gotten some authors are shocked that folks low rate their arcs when they put in surprise AV gauntlets in them.
Challenge is fun, but sometimes you DON'T want to deal with that or have the time to.
Going through a 4 or 5 missh arc, only to come through the final missh and not be able to complete it is ALSO enough to make anyone go into a NERD RAGE.
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I don't like long arcs. I don't care much for story. I play this game for rewards. If I wanted a story, I'd read a book.
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lolz! yeah Ill have to agree here. I don't solo. If I wanted to solo and wanted story I would indeed read a book. I wouldn't play an MMO.
I like to keep my missions short. You cant always find a reliable team and time differences and restrictions play a big part too!
However IN my short missions I like to add multiple things to do!
Also regarding story... Only the team leader can read it! People hardly read it anyway... I don't even read them...
I'm with my team and we gotta hit the mission before people have to get going! I'm not gonna sit there and read the storyline!
I'm also not gonna write a good story and just give it to CoX for free! My stories usually involve in game lore tweaked for my nefarious wants. Real simple stuff. Its not like your getting paid.
If you DO just enjoy writing long arcs....then have fun! Don't complain when people don't play them though!
happy happy joy joy 
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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.
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If I understand this correctly, you "grief" rate long missions simply based on the length of the mission?
I certainly hope you don't go out of your way to run longer missions in order to "grief" rate them.
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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? 
[/ QUOTE ]For me its like this. When I choose an arc to run I look to see if its standard or custom critters. If standard I check the faction to see if its CoT, malta, or knives. If its either of those 3 it doesnt get run period. If its custom I look at the levels. Too many times I see folks making missions with lvl 54 critters, so those definately dont get run. If the mission has annoying powersets with insane tohit debuffage or defense debuffage or insane resistance debuffage it gets quit once I find out it does. If the toon I am on doesnt have +perception then I also quit the minute my perception is debuffed. Dont get me wrong, all that stuff is fine if said arc was labled as a challenge thing but most of them simply arent so they wont be getting any playtime from me.
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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.
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If I understand this correctly, you "grief" rate long missions simply based on the length of the mission?
I certainly hope you don't go out of your way to run longer missions in order to "grief" rate them.
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That's a list of criteria and you boiled that down to one thing? I don't think you understand that at all.
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its hard to keep a tf together for a long arc because a story arc involves reading... so unless your group is full of RP'ers... most wont wait around for the reading imo...
I think a longer arc would be successful if it were geared for less people (like 4) so you have a chance for rp'ers to get into it and deal with the fact that people are gonna drop...
did a posi tf a few weeks ago we started with 8 and ended with 3 (maybe 4 I forget) people... but since the tf is not maxed out that you have to have 8 to complete we were able to do it...
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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.
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If I understand this correctly, you "grief" rate long missions simply based on the length of the mission?
I certainly hope you don't go out of your way to run longer missions in order to "grief" rate them.
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That's a list of criteria and you boiled that down to one thing? I don't think you understand that at all.
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This is all one paragraph and a complete thought that ends with "They get an auto 1 star from me." related to what was said earlier in that paragraph.
I did not find a need to respond to the information in the rest of the post.
The rest of the post was an opinion, and I started the thread to gather opinions.
The part of the post that I replied to regarded grief'ing players that created longer missions by automatically one starring them simply because it is a longer mission.
I'm not sure how "They get an auto 1 star from me." can be translated differently. It is a knee jerk reaction due to the length of the mission.
As far as I'm concerned 1 starring something regardless of content based on the length of the mission is grief'ing.
I certainly hope players don't think it is all right to go around 1 starring missions for the heck of it. You should have a very good reason before 1 starring a mission.
1 starring a mission due to the mission length is wrong. period. It is grief'ing.
I hope I made this clear enough so that you can understand.
It was pretty clear in the original post, but apparently you don't understand that last paragraph holds all the information in regards to the final statement :: "They get an auto 1 star from me.
Did the person that I quoted intend that comment to be related to All Longer Missions?
I don't know. I posted two sentences in a reply to this.
1) I asked a question in regards to the quoted and bold text segment.
2) I made a statement in regards to what I thought about the kind of behavior that I thought that they were using.
I certainly hope that you don't go out of your way to grief people either.
I've had my arc one-starred after a general string of good ratings before. Sucked quite thoroughly. Since then, I reserve any rating of below 3 stars for an arc that truly deserves it and has no hope of becoming worthwhile. If I don't like an arc, nine times out of ten, I leave a list of suggestions and don't rate it at all.
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I'm with JadKni on this. I never rate below 3. If it is that bad I quit early and don't rate it at all. I never "auto" rate anything based on particular content. I just think that's wrong.
I realize that means bad arcs I've run might keep high scores but it also doesn't get a vote count increment from me either. Voting at all is my general "thumbs up" for an arc. To me the +1 vote is the real prize in my opinion.
Back on topic - my wife will only play 1 or 2 mission arcs and she strictly does it for the tickets. I prefer to play longer arcs with a coherent story or at least an explanation of why I'm running these missions. However, the longer the arc the shorter the missions need to be for me to actually start it.
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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.
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I have seen a bit of this, and I've not even run that much in the MA. And it always seems to happen in the LAST mission. One arc had *60* glowies in it, each on a :15 timer (a PM exchange with the author revealed that as a mistake though, as they weren't meant to be required; otherwise, a good arc).
Did another arc tonight that was fine, no great work of art but was ok. Until the last mission, in which you had to beat versions of:
Vandal
Requiem
Nemesis
Countess Crey
Nosferatu
...and a couple more I forget. There were like eight EBs. I got Vandal down to a sliver, then faceplanted twice, and I decided that I wasn't going to go through that seven more times.
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