When are you going to fix the Ratings?
By
Alari_Azure,
Posted on: 2009-05-23 06:58 in Mission Architect
Why not have the simplest option of all for this? It won't eliminate griefing, but it will force folks to experience your arc.
Offer suggestions on either abandoned or finished arcs.
Offer ratings only for finished arcs.
This way, if a griefer really wants to zero-star everything you publish, he or she can, but it's definitely going to take more time. For example, take an arc that's soloable in about forty-five minutes. Most folks aren't going to play through the entire arc like that just to zero-star it unless they're downright malicious.
Maybe it could work?
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The rating system is terrible. They need to remove the ability from players to downrate an arc at all. Either give it a "thumbs up" or no rating at all. You'll be able to see if there are a significant number of people that liked the arc, not some average that can be heavily skewed by a few griefers.
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..thats a horrible idea. Making it so that only good ratings are allowed means sorting the crap from the diamonds would be absolutely impossible.
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Arc ID 58363!
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The rating system is terrible. They need to remove the ability from players to downrate an arc at all. Either give it a "thumbs up" or no rating at all. You'll be able to see if there are a significant number of people that liked the arc, not some average that can be heavily skewed by a few griefers.
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..thats a horrible idea. Making it so that only good ratings are allowed means sorting the crap from the diamonds would be absolutely impossible.
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verily so. I can see a bunch of folks 5 starring a farming mission.
I can see it, cause guess what, THAT IS EXACTLY what had been happening prior to the removal of many arcs. So much so that I just stopped taking the 5 or 4 star ratings seriously at all. They are not/were not/will not be a good judge of what is or isn't a good arc.
so reverse griefing in THAT way would be even easier with the suggestion you quoted.
I say the star system die in fire, like the Dev's choice and HOF badges and think of:
1. New ways to give good writers acclaim.
2. New ways to make it easier for folks to find arcs that they would think are great and good quality. (Some of this is happening with Issue 15)
3. New ways to see the idiocy (plenty of it in the MA still) and avoid it.
4. New ways to get the 4th or more mission slot for authors that HAS NOTHING to do with the whim of he playerbase.
Do all these and the devs are golden.
Also as the poster above mentioned, I can't believe that they actually went ahead with a star system and thought that it was a good idea, after:
1. Numerous folks in beta said it wasn't a good idea and pointed out why (as an aside I'm sensing a DISTURBING patten here with that and the last few closed betas, but I won't get into that right here, as I could write novel about how much THAT pisses me off)
2. The fact that the forums had the same idiotic system that they had to get RID of for the SAME REASONS!
/em boggle.
That is all.
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Well said A_F. I could not agree more... especially about the closed beta comments. Love the MA. But it's very disheartening to me to see that many pointed out the rating flaws very early on in closed beta and continued in open beta. Yet no changes were even attempted.
I know that that's water under the bridge. But the right thing to do now is have the star system die in the fire as you said.
Great post A_F.
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Why not have the simplest option of all for this? It won't eliminate griefing, but it will force folks to experience your arc.
Offer suggestions on either abandoned or finished arcs.
Offer ratings only for finished arcs.
This way, if a griefer really wants to zero-star everything you publish, he or she can, but it's definitely going to take more time. For example, take an arc that's soloable in about forty-five minutes. Most folks aren't going to play through the entire arc like that just to zero-star it unless they're downright malicious.
Maybe it could work?
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I'm trying to like the idea, but I can't. People should be able to rate a truly crappy arc with a truly crappy rating without having to endure the whole thing.
I think we just have to accept the idea that our arcs can be rated for reasons other than those that we personally think are valid.
When you force a reviewer to jump through certain hoops to rate something, you not only cut down on griefers - you also cut down on honest reviewers.
What we really want is for folks to rate arcs for the "right reasons". That can't be regulated by a computer system. Let's just accept that any rating system implemented will not perfectly reflect the information we want it to, and figure out what the ratings "really mean" for ourselves, like the "many plays, 4 stars" rating has evolved into the "true" metric for finding good arcs.
Divorcing badge rewards from the rating system was a great move.
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..thats a horrible idea. Making it so that only good ratings are allowed means sorting the crap from the diamonds would be absolutely impossible.
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It's already impossible to do this. Searching through the four-star arcs, you generally are finding that all of the really great farming missions are up at the top with 999+ votes, while all of the truly good arcs (like One Million Eyes) are on page 300, slowly languishing to death. With this system, at least, it would be easier to locate the arcs that have been voted positively. I think such a system would flourish even better with search terms implemented, although the terms themselves should be limited to something like 3-4 picks (so that you don't have a Youtube situation where people just paste a bunch of random crap into their descriptions to get search hits).
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They need to remove the ability from players to downrate an arc at all. Either give it a "thumbs up" or no rating at all.
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This would be a start, but it doesn't address half the issue. It's not just griefers that render the ratings system pointless. The "5-star Cartels" contribute as well. Your solution doesn't do anything about them. So, you're still left with a useless system, and replacing one useless system with another is just a big waste of time.
However, if the ability to recommend arcs were limited in some fashion, that could really change the dynamics. Give players only a few recommendation tickets per month, per account. More can be earned by spending time in the MA system, but there's a cap on how many can be gained in a week. Keep these numbers low. And make it so a player can't recommend the same author more than once in a week's time.
Had a system similar to this implemented a long time ago, in a text-based game. Worked out pretty well.
But this would also have to be combined with far more robust search functionality. 'Cuz ratings systems will never give us the best of the best, only the least offensive and most accessible: a Hall of the Pretty Decent.
"Great" content is too dependent on individual tastes. It's much easier to gain a consensus on what's "okay" than it is to get wide agreement on what's "great". Thus, ratings will always give us the former.
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I think that if there was an ability to place arcs into actual, search-able categories some of the ratings problems might become less visible. If I were able to narrow down the arcs by clicking on the "heroic" category and the "mystery" subcategory, then that is going to narrow down the arcs I see a great deal. A side effect would be that, despite the ratings given, a player would be able to read the descriptions on missions which would normally be buried in the backwaters of the MA system.
If the rating system remains after I15 hits in its current form, or even a modified form, there should be a better way to mitigate the problems it brings. Right now it's easier to find arcs via word of mouth or their ratings, and only then the player is able to read the arc's description.
Er, I think I went a bit off topic there...
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Clicking finish after completing a mission without tampering with the stars results in a 0/5 vote? If so, I honestly don't think people in-game know that. 
No it doesn't. It doesn't give a rating at all.
Clicking the single star, and then clicking it AGAIN, gives the 0/5 star rating.
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I think that if there was an ability to place arcs into actual, search-able categories some of the ratings problems might become less visible. If I were able to narrow down the arcs by clicking on the "heroic" category and the "mystery" subcategory, then that is going to narrow down the arcs I see a great deal. A side effect would be that, despite the ratings given, a player would be able to read the descriptions on missions which would normally be buried in the backwaters of the MA system.
If the rating system remains after I15 hits in its current form, or even a modified form, there should be a better way to mitigate the problems it brings. Right now it's easier to find arcs via word of mouth or their ratings, and only then the player is able to read the arc's description.
Er, I think I went a bit off topic there...
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I absolutely agree here. We need some kind of browse structure and categorization. When I click on the MA interface, I honestly don't want to see a list of Devs Choice, etc... I'd much rather see a list of categories I can browse through to find what I want.
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I'd hug you and give you cookies but there's a monitor and internet in the way, so instead I'll hug my monitor and smear chocolate chip cookies all over it.
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I thought I was the only person who did that!!!!
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Shoot on sight, please.
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I think that if there was an ability to place arcs into actual, search-able categories some of the ratings problems might become less visible. If I were able to narrow down the arcs by clicking on the "heroic" category and the "mystery" subcategory, then that is going to narrow down the arcs I see a great deal. A side effect would be that, despite the ratings given, a player would be able to read the descriptions on missions which would normally be buried in the backwaters of the MA system.
If the rating system remains after I15 hits in its current form, or even a modified form, there should be a better way to mitigate the problems it brings. Right now it's easier to find arcs via word of mouth or their ratings, and only then the player is able to read the arc's description.
Er, I think I went a bit off topic there...
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I absolutely agree here. We need some kind of browse structure and categorization. When I click on the MA interface, I honestly don't want to see a list of Devs Choice, etc... I'd much rather see a list of categories I can browse through to find what I want.
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THIS a 100x yes.
As an aside, half of the Dev's Choice arcs are unimpressive.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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...They need to remove the ability from players to downrate an arc at all. Either give it a "thumbs up" or no rating at all. You'll be able to see if there are a significant number of people that liked the arc, not some average that can be heavily skewed by a few griefers.
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This.
Basically, you can:
- Not rate the arc at all.
- Rate the arc as "Good, but not Hall of Fame"
- Recommend the arc for Hall of Fame.
I think a plays vs deaths or a plays vs abandons rating would boith be used to grief.
I also remind all that since the Devs do not announce when they have taken action agains a user account, they could be taking action against the 1 star cartels and you wouldn't know it.
Even if they aren't getting all of the one star bandits, that may because they are busy dealing with 'meow' characters, because I know from RL friends that they are doing that.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!