Victims of Architect ratings griefers
By
Aliana Blue,
Posted on: 2009-05-24 15:28 in Mission Architect
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Thoughts?
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That's not all that different from what I've suggested. I'd be okay with it. It'd certainly be a vast improvement over what we have.
Having recommendation tickets would be a better way, I think, of making the HoF concept still viable and establishing a "pretty decent" middle-of-the-road pool of arcs, which is really the best that can be hoped for with any ratings system.
But, to me, a ratings system is a distant second to search functionality. I'm only trying to accommodate the fundamental idea, because the devs seem to want it.
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I think the down side to not having a HoF system is not being able to give out HoF slots.
On the one hand, the players hsould have some means of giving out slots ot other players whose work they like. On the other hand, some people ruin things for everybody else, so we can't have nice things.
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How would "recommendation tickets" work? How would you get them, how many would you get?
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!
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How would "recommendation tickets" work? How would you get them, how many would you get?
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It'd work something like this:
You're given X amount of tickets per month, as a base. X should be a low enough number that most people will be careful with them.
You can recommend an arc by spending one of those tickets to do so.
You can earn additional tickets by spending time in the MA system, up to a certain number per month. Again, X should be low, so these tickets maintain their value to the player.
You wouldn't be able to recommend the same author more than once in a certain period of time.
Handing out a recommendation wouldn't be anonymous (no reason for it).
Every month, your base amount of tickets would reset.
Such a system wouldn't be immune to abuses, of course, but it'd be a lot harder to abuse overall. It'd put a significant dent in voting rings, which is an abuse most people seem to overlook.
I've seen a lot of ideas about how to prevent griefing, but not a lot to address the other side of the problem. The whole problem needs to be addressed in order to have a system that's of any worth. If a change isn't going to give us a system that works, there isn't any point in making the change.
Anywho, I've employed a similar system in the past and it worked out pretty well.
And this is all proposed under the assumption that it'd play second fiddle to much more nuanced search functionality: Search by author, genre, story or game focus, challenge, origin, etc.
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
I feel that in the end they are going to have to unlink the tickets from the ratings. I'm not sure how they can go about doing that, but because they are directly linked that is why we have such issues with the ratings.
Also it's human nature to grief other people. A lot of us don't do it because we have respect for our fellow player but some people out there get their thrills from being mean. There is nothing you can do about it.
For those I was having dialog with earlier in this thread, my republished arc is now in my sig.
I will thank you ahead of time for honest feedback.
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And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).
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Well, first of all he exaggerated that ...
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I did no such thing. I rescued a single one of the EBs and then spent the rest of the mission walking around the map and watching him free his contemporaries and defeat the big villains all on his own.
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The only issue here is that Geek's arc does have a disclaimer in the description text that XP can be affected by EB/allies. He's very upfront about it, so it isn't like this was an accidental oversight.
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It's not a matter of the xp; I didn't take any stars away for that. I was quite simply unimportant in the big climax of the story, which in turn made me very bored.
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I feel that in the end they are going to have to unlink the tickets from the ratings. I'm not sure how they can go about doing that, but because they are directly linked that is why we have such issues with the ratings.
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I disagree. The griefers would do what they do just for the sake of seeing an arc down-voted. Sure, the idea that they're keeping someone else from getting tickets (or badges, but that's about to not be an issue it looks like) is a bonus for them, but it's probably not the main reason they're doing it.
You're better off stopping while you're way behind.
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I do stat's as a hobby, and as part of being a math teacher. If I have 20 ratings all 4's and 5's and I get one 1 rating, that 1 rating pushes me down to nearly a 4.0 rating. Now based on all the other data, I should haev something like a 4.5. In other words, the 'average' is not reflective of the data set.
In statisitcs there are formulas to determine outliers. They're not that complicated and we use them all the the time to get a good read on what numbers are telling us. Rather then letting one or two anomolus data points skew our measures of center we just toss out the data that is SOOOOO far from the norm as to be unlikely to be valid.
In other words, if 20 people give a 4 or a 5 and one person gives a 1, then it's probable, statistically speaking, that the single 1 star rating is not a valid data point.
Now if we have 10 5's and 10 1's, that's a TOTALLY different ball of wax, and in taht case, the standard deviation for the data will be substantially higher and suggest that the 1's ARE indeed valid data points. Part of the trick in stat's is that you don't toss the potentially invalid data totally, you just leave them out of the average until you have more data to either confirm that there is a downward trend, or to confirm that they are invalid.
In other words, you get 10 reviews. 9 5's and 1 1. The one is likely an outlier so the average is 5 (not counting the 1). Then you get 5 more reviews all 1. Now that implies that the 1 is in deed a valid data point, so you reinclude that 1 in the average, and then you recalculate.
It's not that hard and I've only had first year stats.
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The problem with statistics is a problem intrinsic in most computational mathematics: people tend to remember the formulas but often forget the contextual applicability. Statistics is one of the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) examples of this.
In this case, there is a subtle flaw in your reasoning (not picking on you specifically: its a flaw replicated in all posts of this nature). The flaw is that you're looking at the arcs as if they have an "intrinsic" value, and all of the individual ratings are attempts to "measure" that value. Under that context, its reasonable to consider whether some reviewers "just aren't very good at it." If 100 people rate an arc a 5, and one person rates it a zero, you could argue that "obviously" the Arc "is a five" and that one zero guy is just bad at reviewing.
However, that isn't really the case. Whether an arc is entertaining to someone or not is highly subjective. As a result, nearly all reviews are a composite score that combines the reviewer's opinion of the technical merits of the arc (which is at least somewhat objective) and its entertainment value (which is highly subjective and not always even possible to untangle from their opinion about its technical merits). There is no actual "intrinsic score" and as a result, the ratings values are an attempt to *create* a composite score across the entire playerbase (or at least the subset that plays arcs), not *measure* the score of the arc.
Suppose we have the hypothetical case that 90% of the entire playerbase universally loves challenge missions, and 10% of the entire playerbase absolutely hates them. A challenge mission might get 9 4s and 5s, and one 1. That one isn't "wrong" its representing that 10% of the player population. Claiming that the arc is really "basically a 4.5, excluding a minority that don't count" would be missing the point.
A single number cannot represent a wide range of circumstantial information. It can really only quantify a single magnitude. In this case, the proper representational number is to average all ten scores including the "outlier" as those scores properly represent the playerbase as a whole. Does that lose information in the process? Yes: as all composite scores and averages do. That's unavoidable.
Now, what happens when the scores *don't* represent the playerbase as a whole? Well, the answer to that question is: let me know when you have an example of a real-world case that can be unambiguously demonstrated to be non-representative, and I'll let you know. The problem is its very difficult to prove that a sample of the playerbase isn't a representative sample in the general case. It can be in specific cases (I can actually point to two in my own case) but even in those cases, the only things you can say are that its statistically likely that some data points are non-representative. There's no way to point to any individual one and make that claim, short of the reviewer themselves stating a clear statistically invalid bias directly.
On the subject of ratings: my opinion is still the same as my opinion in beta: while I think the rating system is problematic in a few areas, ultimately I think players should be allowed to rate by their own internal rating system, whatever that may be. Placing systematic requirements on raters - especially with any form of accountability - greatly reduces the chance for players to participate in the rating system, and in my opinion is counter to the intention of the rating system itself. The rating system is explicitly intended to be the part of the MA that is "for the masses" (as opposed to the authoring tools which are for "authors"). I think its reasonable to make suggestions to players on how to provide the most effective feedback, but I'd stop well short of telling people what constitutes each rating number.
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The only issue here is that Geek's arc does have a disclaimer in the description text that XP can be affected by EB/allies. He's very upfront about it, so it isn't like this was an accidental oversight.
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It's not a matter of the xp; I didn't take any stars away for that. I was quite simply unimportant in the big climax of the story, which in turn made me very bored.
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I think you pretty much completely missed the entire point of this mission, and it's a pretty damn big one to miss -
The entire army of Red Shifts battle was the entire justification and setup for the final mission - that Red Shift had literally removed himself from the timestream through collection of his dupes to make this final stand against Aeon, and so it fell on YOUR character, the one who -would- be returning to the timestream, to witness what had gone down, so that someone else could reign in Aeon in the places that Red Shift could no longer go, as the result of his sacrifice.
The entire point of the mission, from the get go, was that you WERE there to observe his sacrifice as his overwhelming numbers saved the timestream, so that you - yes you, the character playing the arc, could carry on some small part of his legacy, now that you understood the sacrifice he made, and could accept the taking up of his mantle.
It sounds like you pretty much missed the entire point and lesson of the arc, to be honest.
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And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).
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Well, first of all he exaggerated that ...
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I did no such thing. I rescued a single one of the EBs and then spent the rest of the mission walking around the map and watching him free his contemporaries and defeat the big villains all on his own.
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Played it and didn't rate it. Sorry but I have to agree with this.
My rating for something like this would be a 2 at most.
I have a serious issue with the gameplay being taken away from the control of the player, NO MATTER what the story is.
It's a good story, which I would not mind as a novel. Putting me there to watch someone else be the hero is an issue for me personally.
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The irony here is if he didn't have the EBs, people would be screaming that the army of enemy EBs was unfair and docking stars.
Not to mention it says right in the arc description that you'll be getting tons of EB allies and little xp on the mission, so anyone who is suprised by this didn't read the arc warning, and also that if you don't want to rescue the Red Shifts you don't have to; it's really easy to just rescue the single one you HAVE to then ditch him, if you're so concerned about it.
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I do stat's as a hobby, and as part of being a math teacher. If I have 20 ratings all 4's and 5's and I get one 1 rating, that 1 rating pushes me down to nearly a 4.0 rating. Now based on all the other data, I should haev something like a 4.5. In other words, the 'average' is not reflective of the data set.
In statisitcs there are formulas to determine outliers. They're not that complicated and we use them all the the time to get a good read on what numbers are telling us. Rather then letting one or two anomolus data points skew our measures of center we just toss out the data that is SOOOOO far from the norm as to be unlikely to be valid.
In other words, if 20 people give a 4 or a 5 and one person gives a 1, then it's probable, statistically speaking, that the single 1 star rating is not a valid data point.
Now if we have 10 5's and 10 1's, that's a TOTALLY different ball of wax, and in taht case, the standard deviation for the data will be substantially higher and suggest that the 1's ARE indeed valid data points. Part of the trick in stat's is that you don't toss the potentially invalid data totally, you just leave them out of the average until you have more data to either confirm that there is a downward trend, or to confirm that they are invalid.
In other words, you get 10 reviews. 9 5's and 1 1. The one is likely an outlier so the average is 5 (not counting the 1). Then you get 5 more reviews all 1. Now that implies that the 1 is in deed a valid data point, so you reinclude that 1 in the average, and then you recalculate.
It's not that hard and I've only had first year stats.
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The problem with statistics is a problem intrinsic in most computational mathematics: people tend to remember the formulas but often forget the contextual applicability. Statistics is one of the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) examples of this.
In this case, there is a subtle flaw in your reasoning (not picking on you specifically: its a flaw replicated in all posts of this nature). The flaw is that you're looking at the arcs as if they have an "intrinsic" value, and all of the individual ratings are attempts to "measure" that value. Under that context, its reasonable to consider whether some reviewers "just aren't very good at it." If 100 people rate an arc a 5, and one person rates it a zero, you could argue that "obviously" the Arc "is a five" and that one zero guy is just bad at reviewing.
However, that isn't really the case. Whether an arc is entertaining to someone or not is highly subjective. As a result, nearly all reviews are a composite score that combines the reviewer's opinion of the technical merits of the arc (which is at least somewhat objective) and its entertainment value (which is highly subjective and not always even possible to untangle from their opinion about its technical merits). There is no actual "intrinsic score" and as a result, the ratings values are an attempt to *create* a composite score across the entire playerbase (or at least the subset that plays arcs), not *measure* the score of the arc.
Suppose we have the hypothetical case that 90% of the entire playerbase universally loves challenge missions, and 10% of the entire playerbase absolutely hates them. A challenge mission might get 9 4s and 5s, and one 1. That one isn't "wrong" its representing that 10% of the player population. Claiming that the arc is really "basically a 4.5, excluding a minority that don't count" would be missing the point.
A single number cannot represent a wide range of circumstantial information. It can really only quantify a single magnitude. In this case, the proper representational number is to average all ten scores including the "outlier" as those scores properly represent the playerbase as a whole. Does that lose information in the process? Yes: as all composite scores and averages do. That's unavoidable.
Now, what happens when the scores *don't* represent the playerbase as a whole? Well, the answer to that question is: let me know when you have an example of a real-world case that can be unambiguously demonstrated to be non-representative, and I'll let you know. The problem is its very difficult to prove that a sample of the playerbase isn't a representative sample in the general case. It can be in specific cases (I can actually point to two in my own case) but even in those cases, the only things you can say are that its statistically likely that some data points are non-representative. There's no way to point to any individual one and make that claim, short of the reviewer themselves stating a clear statistically invalid bias directly.
On the subject of ratings: my opinion is still the same as my opinion in beta: while I think the rating system is problematic in a few areas, ultimately I think players should be allowed to rate by their own internal rating system, whatever that may be. Placing systematic requirements on raters - especially with any form of accountability - greatly reduces the chance for players to participate in the rating system, and in my opinion is counter to the intention of the rating system itself. The rating system is explicitly intended to be the part of the MA that is "for the masses" (as opposed to the authoring tools which are for "authors"). I think its reasonable to make suggestions to players on how to provide the most effective feedback, but I'd stop well short of telling people what constitutes each rating number.
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Ulli still wonder how arc with no cookies gets 5 stars...
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
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On the subject of ratings: my opinion is still the same as my opinion in beta: while I think the rating system is problematic in a few areas, ultimately I think players should be allowed to rate by their own internal rating system, whatever that may be.
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There are two ratings systems in the wider world that I think the devs could learn from: the one at Amazon, which shows the distribution of star ratings (already suggested in this thread), and the one at IMDB, which uses a different formula to calculate absolute ranking than a simple norm. As I understand it, the IMDB formula weights scores by the number of votes accumulated, making it harder for a small (and potentially biased) group of voters to push an otherwise-unknown movie to the top of the lists.
I bring that up here because I wonder what your opinion is on the IMDB formula. In case you haven't seen it, here's the copy-and-pasted text from the IMDB site:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>The formula for calculating the Top Rated 250 Titles gives a true Bayesian estimate:
weighted rating (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C
where:
R = average for the movie (mean) = (Rating)
v = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 1300)
C = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 6.8)
</pre><hr />
Specifically I'm wondering whether using this formula might dampen the effect of having things pop to the front page when they've accumulated a small number of perfect ratings, only to disappear forever when dissenting opinions (griefs or not) are given.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
The IMDB formula isn't the formula they use to generate individual movie ratings. *That* formula they keep secret to reduce the likelihood of vote manipulation. The formula in question is the formula they use to select the top 250. That formula is a "credibility" based formula, and in oversimplified terms what the formula does is compute an average rating for all movies, and weight the rating of each movie against the average: in effect, the less votes the movie has, the more that movie is weighted towards the average of all movies, and the less impact its own specific movies has. The more votes a movie has, the more its rating is weighted towards its own votes, and the less its weighted towards the mean vote.
The premise of the system is essentially based on the notion that if you had *no* votes for a movie, your best guess for what its rating is likely to be is the average of all movies. But as votes come in, you start to become more convinced that the average of the votes you have is more likely to represent the "true" rating of the movie. m=1300 in this case is the tuning parameter for this weighting.
Another way to look at it is that all movies get "padded" with 1300 votes of 6.8 stars to start.
I'm not sure if this makes sense for things other than "Top X" lists because below a certain level it tends to wash out votes altogether, unless the tuning parameter is so small that it becomes somewhat valueless.
Honestly, I haven't looked at the mathematics of alternate voting systems in too much detail since beta. My gut instinct is to think that its not the sort of thing we want in all cases. I played around with a system during beta, but it was a bit too easy to manipulate if you knew the details. I had a thought a few weeks ago about a distance-based iterative vote accumulator, but I'm not sure it would work in practice. I might revisit this now that I have a bit more time (in between thinking about some new arc scripting).
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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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The irony here is if he didn't have the EBs, people would be screaming that the army of enemy EBs was unfair and docking stars.
Not to mention it says right in the arc description that you'll be getting tons of EB allies and little xp on the mission, so anyone who is suprised by this didn't read the arc warning, and also that if you don't want to rescue the Red Shifts you don't have to; it's really easy to just rescue the single one you HAVE to then ditch him, if you're so concerned about it.
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I'm sorry but this is the worst post I have ever read. It has entirely too many vowels. The color is very average and does nothing to pique my interest. I personally find irony offensive and when you make a forum post, it needs to include me in it or don't bother posting at all.
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I'm not sure if this makes sense for things other than "Top X" lists because below a certain level it tends to wash out votes altogether, unless the tuning parameter is so small that it becomes somewhat valueless.
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Well, that's what I'm suggesting though - that this formula be used to do the initial sorting that produces the "front page" of results when opening the MA. That sorting is essentially a "Top X" list (where X depends on how many DC/HoF arcs there are), and currently it consists almost entirely of arcs with a small number of perfect ratings.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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It's a good story, which I would not mind as a novel. Putting me there to watch someone else be the hero is an issue for me personally.
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Isn't the army of EB's all in a single Mission? But the 1 star rating is what gets slapped on the entire arc, right?
And seriously, how does an arc that generates this much discussion deserve the same rating we would give a typo ridden, misbalanced, uninspired romp through some 12-year olds mental backyard?
1 star is the worst of the worst, not a developed story we didnt' care for.
lol ratings griefers
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It's a good story, which I would not mind as a novel. Putting me there to watch someone else be the hero is an issue for me personally.
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Isn't the army of EB's all in a single Mission? But the 1 star rating is what gets slapped on the entire arc, right?
And seriously, how does an arc that generates this much discussion deserve the same rating we would give a typo ridden, misbalanced, uninspired romp through some 12-year olds mental backyard?
1 star is the worst of the worst, not a developed story we didnt' care for.
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1 star is for whatever criteria the "reader" determines.
See the last paragraph of Arcana's post.
And in my case 0 stars would be lowest rating.
EDIT: As an aside, what I just posted is EXACTLY why I don't think the ratings system is a good one, and why authors needs to realize EVERYONE has different criteria for what is "crap" and what is "good" and everything in between.
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1 star is for whatever criteria the "reader" determines.
See the last paragraph of Arcana's post.
And in my case 0 stars would be lowest rating.
EDIT: As an aside, what I just posted is EXACTLY why I don't think the ratings system is a good one, and why authors needs to realize EVERYONE has different criteria for what is "crap" and what is "good" and everything in between.
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Oh pish posh.
Look, there's crap and there's, as Col. Tigh says, craaaaaaaahhhhhhpp.
You can say "it was the worst thing ever; I had all these guys doing 1 mission out of 5 for me" but that STILL puts it better then the mission where nothing makes sense, there's no story, every mob is custom and overpowered, and there are as many 'hidden' objectives can be crammed in there.
I refuse to believe that any arc that took that kind of work is worthy of being rated the same as the real crap that's out there.
You ask me we toss around 1 stars far too often, and 5's just as badly. But given the criteria for the Hall of Fame, I understand a little grade padding at the high end.
And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?
Look, you can say "maybe six people in a row just hated your arc" all you want. You can ignore the fact that people only hate that arc when it's at 5 stars. But when you get a low rating on ALL THREE OF YOUR ARCS, none of which are highly visible or heavily played, overnight, I find it hard to believe that someone just decided, "Hey, I really want to play an arc by this person. Oh, this one's crap, I'll try another...that one's crap too...." Generally when you play an arc by someone and it's total crap, you don't go out of your way to play another arc by them, right?
All this arguing about "how we are supposed to rate" doesn't solve anything, it won't change anyone's mind, and it's obfuscating the real issue, that some people are spiteful jerks.
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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1 star is for whatever criteria the "reader" determines.
See the last paragraph of Arcana's post.
And in my case 0 stars would be lowest rating.
EDIT: As an aside, what I just posted is EXACTLY why I don't think the ratings system is a good one, and why authors needs to realize EVERYONE has different criteria for what is "crap" and what is "good" and everything in between.
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Oh pish posh.
Look, there's crap and there's, as Col. Tigh says, craaaaaaaahhhhhhpp.
You can say "it was the worst thing ever; I had all these guys doing 1 mission out of 5 for me" but that STILL puts it better then the mission where nothing makes sense, there's no story, every mob is custom and overpowered, and there are as many 'hidden' objectives can be crammed in there.
I refuse to believe that any arc that took that kind of work is worthy of being rated the same as the real crap that's out there.
You ask me we toss around 1 stars far too often, and 5's just as badly. But given the criteria for the Hall of Fame, I understand a little grade padding at the high end.
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See I don't understand any grade padding at the high end.
That right there is ANOTHER reason why the star system fails. Folks should be giving arcs what THEY feel it ACTUALLY deserves. Not cause the feel bad that so and so, or their friend, or whatever deserves "a little help in getting HOF"
Honestly the 4th slot should NEVER have been linked to the whim of the playerbase. Period.
And crap for me, AGAIN, FOR ME, is 0 stars.
The star rating system can die in FIRE.
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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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And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?
Look, you can say "maybe six people in a row just hated your arc" all you want. You can ignore the fact that people only hate that arc when it's at 5 stars. But when you get a low rating on ALL THREE OF YOUR ARCS, none of which are highly visible or heavily played, overnight, I find it hard to believe that someone just decided, "Hey, I really want to play an arc by this person. Oh, this one's crap, I'll try another...that one's crap too...." Generally when you play an arc by someone and it's total crap, you don't go out of your way to play another arc by them, right?
All this arguing about "how we are supposed to rate" doesn't solve anything, it won't change anyone's mind, and it's obfuscating the real issue, that some people are spiteful jerks.
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That IS griefing. Doesn't mean the star system isn't crap. . .
Actually, yeah it does, with how easy it is to grief it, among many other reasons.
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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No, under that system - with the '5 star cartels' - it just means the mediocre and what remains of the explotive farms will float to, and STAY at the top; and with just a 'thumbs up' to go by; yoiu'll sift through more pages than you do now.
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Which is why there should only be "thumbs up" and the number of "thumbs up" a single player can give should be very limited.
I really hate the star system. But if it's going to stay, I'd want to at least see the removal of the 0-Star, see arcs ranked by the total number of stars they've earned, and see a breakdown like Dark_Aspect has suggested.
But, really, I just want to see the star system removed entirely, and I want any ratings system used to play second fiddle to robust search functionality. Give us the means to find what we want, and there'll be much less concern over ratings.
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Not sure about this.. I think it would be better to require a comment for 0 and 1 star ratings.
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Problem with this:
If someone's rated an arc 1 or 0 stars, I don't think they're going to want their time wasted any further by being forced to comment.
Thus, comments would commonly be things like "no comment", "it sucked", or "hurilvijdvlknjeu"... which aren't comments at all.
On a related note, there seems to be a growing perception that giving feedback is somehow an obligation. It's not. And I think it's unrealistic to expect anyone to make some sort of investment in the work of a total stranger. Especially if that work is considered bad or even mediocre by the person being asked to make the investment.
If you want feedback, actively solicit it. Ask friends to run through your arc with you and/or solo it, and do the same for them in return. You can actually gain insight about your own stuff in a dialogue about someone else's stuff. Get a little writer's circle going. I'm sure there are a lot of people around here that'd be into that. I'm not, but that's only because I already have one. If I didn't, I'd be real interested in the idea of some sort of "Test Night" with some other authors on my server.
Bottom line, feedback from random plays shouldn't be expected. People are in MA to play, and writing feedback--no matter how brief--is taking time out from that. If they're on a team, they're even less likely to stop and write, unless everyone they're with is doing it as well. Any player feedback you get should be gravy. It should not be depended upon for your arc's improvement.
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Or like we saw with the "jranger" period. people make a prepared text file that they cut and paste that meets or exceeds any requirement, yet says nothing.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages