Victims of Architect ratings griefers
By
Aliana Blue,
Posted on: 2009-05-24 15:28 in Mission Architect
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I haven't read through this entire thread, but I'll chime in with my current favorite suggestion to improve the rating system: weighted voting. The more missions in an arc you complete the more your vote counts. That way "drive by downraters" will still happen but their votes won't be nearly as impactful.
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I could live with that.
Of course I don't think it's better than my original suggestion for the star rating system.
It has to do with FIRE for those who haven't seen it. 
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!
The problem with that is that shorter arcs are more vulnerable and one mission arcs remain in the same boat as everyone is now.
WN
Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story
Well if it was weighed by percentage of objectives completed (required or not) that would discourage people from making what are essentially paper missions....
On the downside, stealthers' votes wouldn't count for as much.
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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I really find that most people don't leave feedback at all. I think, out of the 40 or so that have played my arc, only a fraction have rated it and only 3 or 4 have left feedback in game with a couple others doing reviews on cohmissionreview.com .
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If you have a (40) after your arc, that is the number of people who rated it. The MA doesn't keep track of the number of players who started it, or played, but didn't give it a rating.
Had a librarian look it the critique. They saw nothing wrong with it. They stated that it looked like something found in most book lists that are out today looking over lowend material. It wasn't editor quality because an editor would have seen the overuse of commas and thrown the material back in the face of the writer and yelled out "Crap! Now get the hell out of my office!"
Oh, but maybe what is wanted is a critique like this; "I'm sorry Mr. Smith, but we've had a large number of submittals this year and we couldn't possibly fit another book into our schedule. The proofreader can only go so fast. Thank you for your understanding. Good day!"
And a note about professional writing; writers do not argue with editors or critics. Arguing with other people is the first thing that kills so many wannabe writer's books.
If the writer didn't like it and felt compelled to attack the critique, then they should give up writing altogether. The world is harsh and people can be harsher. I have knife and gunshot wounds to prove that. You are not as special as your mommy and teachers have told you.
If people fancy themselves as novelists here, then they need to stop wasting time here and write their novel elsewhere where they are not limited to 1000 letter sections. Get over yourselves. You may not be as good as you think and your friends are going to pick your side everytime because they are supporting you and their critiques don't count as professional critiques because they are biased as well in a more positive way.
There was mentionings of star padding so don't whine about getting low stars when you're obviously trying to force high stars.
At this point, given the venom spewed by a few in here, I would see that same pretentiousness come out in the stories and I would auto zero star the whole lot of stories.
I've gotten 1 stars and 5 stars and everything in between. I knew this issue was coming which was why I did the grown up thing and accepted that I was going to get good and bad along with honest and not-so-honest ratings. The ratings are coming from a bunch of people playing a game. A game that is open to all sorts of people from teen on up.
When I can see kids talking in Atlas about how they treat all the people they don't know on the web like dirt because they know they can get away with it and that it is fun to mess with people like that, I have very low expectations from them and the groups they are around.
Ratings should be the least of peoples worries because the actions of late in the game show an underlying problem which is that the people associated with CoH are now being viewed as hateful and discriminating and the type of players that the normal players will not want to be around. It doesn't matter that there are a few good players still left, there are several times more bad players giving the whole game a bad name.
Yeah I know the 1 apple in a bushel quote, but we are talking about 85% of the bushel being bad. And at this point I'd say that 15% are good players is being very generous.
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And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?
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The relevance is that while I recognize that ratings griefing does occur, I cannot think of an obvious way to clearly distinguish between ratings griefing and genuinely harsh ratings in the general case, which makes its very difficult to formulate an enforceable policy regarding ratings griefing except in very obvious and extreme situations. Even then, its unlikely to be enforceable automatically, without the involvement of customer support to research the issue carefully. That may require more time than its worth to enforce.
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I'm curious as to why people are allowed to rate before spending, say, 5-10 minutes on a mission.
If you're not willing to invest at least that much time to provide a fair evaluation, your assessment isn't really worth recording.
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I'm curious as to why people are allowed to rate before spending, say, 5-10 minutes on a mission.
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Let's say i enter a mission. The very first thing I see in front of me is that every single foe in the mission is an Elite Boss (AV downgraded to EB, won't ever be less than EB even in heroic.)
Should I be forced to wait 5-10 minutes to rate that thing 1 star?
Well, under the current rating system you have to give the benefit of the doubt that all ratings are honest and personal opinions of the arc, given that there are no "rating criteria" other than personal opinion ( and nor should there be ).
Otherwise, the current rating system does not work. If any rating is in doubt than all rating are in doubt and become meaningless.
That being said, I think the current rating system needs to change. To what I am not sure. I have been leaning to a , + (-1,0,1), voting system. The current gradient of 0-5 does not any more meaningful information. Better to move it back down to "I liked it" (+1), "It was okay/not bad" (+0), or "It was horrible' (+-1).
Sir Zane (Lvl 50, Inv/SS/Nrg Tank);Atomic Jake (Lvl 50, Kin/Rad/Elec Defender)
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--------------------------------------------------------------
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I'm curious as to why people are allowed to rate before spending, say, 5-10 minutes on a mission.
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...
I'm beginning to think we need a "The Ratings System Sucks Eggs" FAQ.
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I'm curious as to why people are allowed to rate before spending, say, 5-10 minutes on a mission.
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Let's say i enter a mission. The very first thing I see in front of me is that every single foe in the mission is an Elite Boss (AV downgraded to EB, won't ever be less than EB even in heroic.)
Should I be forced to wait 5-10 minutes to rate that thing 1 star?
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Yes.
Better that than the alternatives.
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I'm curious as to why people are allowed to rate before spending, say, 5-10 minutes on a mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
Let's say i enter a mission. The very first thing I see in front of me is that every single foe in the mission is an Elite Boss (AV downgraded to EB, won't ever be less than EB even in heroic.)
Should I be forced to wait 5-10 minutes to rate that thing 1 star?
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Yes.
Better that than the alternatives.
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Except in that instance it would still be one-starred. And if the person just quits then the arc IS NOT get a fair and representative view of what the playerbase thinks of said arc.
Now if you could display the number of QUITS for an arc, as well as number of playthroughs, in addition to having to wait 5 minutes, sure.
As an aside, as I've said before if your arc has AVs or EBs it should be stated in the intro. Personally if I ran into an arc like that after all the things I just said were put in place, and there was no warning at all from the author that that was the type of mission it was, I WOULD wait the FULL five to 10 minutes just to MAKE SURE I zero star it.
If you arc is a challenge arc SAY SO.
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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I'm curious as to why people are allowed to rate before spending, say, 5-10 minutes on a mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
Let's say i enter a mission. The very first thing I see in front of me is that every single foe in the mission is an Elite Boss (AV downgraded to EB, won't ever be less than EB even in heroic.)
Should I be forced to wait 5-10 minutes to rate that thing 1 star?
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Yes.
Better that than the alternatives.
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Is it? Consider a mission that someone dislikes because of extreme difficulty, and under the current system would give a 2. Now imagine that person having to spend ten minutes stewing over the fact that they have to spend ten minutes stewing before rating. This is unlikely to make them more generous.
Let me put it this way: if the *devs* put in a ten minute wait, I wouldn't hold that against the player, even if I was tempted to do so, to try to be as objective as possible. However, if the *player* somehow had the ability to flag their mission as "cannot rate until at least ten minutes of play has elapsed" I *would* hold that against the player if it turns out they've also decided to inflict ten minutes of continual stupid on me.
You might argue that if I really didn't like it, I should abandon it without rating at all, but that would make this feature a sycophant-switch, invalidly skewing ratings upward. I might tolerate the ten minutes out of principle if I felt that the author did that deliberately.
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(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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I'm curious as to why people are allowed to rate before spending, say, 5-10 minutes on a mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
Let's say i enter a mission. The very first thing I see in front of me is that every single foe in the mission is an Elite Boss (AV downgraded to EB, won't ever be less than EB even in heroic.)
Should I be forced to wait 5-10 minutes to rate that thing 1 star?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes.
Better that than the alternatives.
[/ QUOTE ]
Is it? Consider a mission that someone dislikes because of extreme difficulty, and under the current system would give a 2. Now imagine that person having to spend ten minutes stewing over the fact that they have to spend ten minutes stewing before rating. This is unlikely to make them more generous.
Let me put it this way: if the *devs* put in a ten minute wait, I wouldn't hold that against the player, even if I was tempted to do so, to try to be as objective as possible. However, if the *player* somehow had the ability to flag their mission as "cannot rate until at least ten minutes of play has elapsed" I *would* hold that against the player if it turns out they've also decided to inflict ten minutes of continual stupid on me.
You might argue that if I really didn't like it, I should abandon it without rating at all, but that would make this feature a sycophant-switch, invalidly skewing ratings upward. I might tolerate the ten minutes out of principle if I felt that the author did that deliberately.
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Yep. We would end up in a situation far worse than the rating cartels 5 starring the farming arcs/bad arcs past the legitimate content situation we were in.
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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And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?
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The relevance is that while I recognize that ratings griefing does occur, I cannot think of an obvious way to clearly distinguish between ratings griefing and genuinely harsh ratings in the general case, which makes its very difficult to formulate an enforceable policy regarding ratings griefing except in very obvious and extreme situations. Even then, its unlikely to be enforceable automatically, without the involvement of customer support to research the issue carefully. That may require more time than its worth to enforce.
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On the other hand, if they were serious about banning repeat offenders, someone like Heavens_Agent would be ok, as he had actually played the arc in question and THEN decided he didn't like it, rather than the more obvious "this person has started x arcs, and immediately quit and assigned them a low rating."
If this is too difficult to datamine, then it's a case of the devs making promises they can't keep to assure the players that what we predicted would happen, wouldn't.
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
IMHO:
quits/finishes info: Bad and griefable.
deaths/finishes info: bad and griefable.
"You have not played this mission log enough to rate it.": Cuts down on legit ratings, and does not impact deliberate griefing.
I am more and more getting the idea that we should have a way of seeing what arcs people actively LIKE and WHY, and being able to couple that with a list of players with the same preferences.
Who cares if a lot of people dislike an arc, if people with your similar preferences like it?
Hudson Hawk died at the box office, but it's one of my top favorite movies.
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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IMHO:
quits/finishes info: Bad and griefable.
deaths/finishes info: bad and griefable.
"You have not played this mission log enough to rate it.": Cuts down on legit ratings, and does not impact deliberate griefing.
I am more and more getting the idea that we should have a way of seeing what arcs people actively LIKE and WHY, and being able to couple that with a list of players with the same preferences.
Who cares if a lot of people dislike an arc, if people with your similar preferences like it?
Hudson Hawk died at the box office, but it's one of my top favorite movies.
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I would be completely opposed to any forcing of putting players through dreck if they want to give an honest rating of arc that might be simply bad, unless it came with the first two things that you stated were bad (and honestly are just as griefable as the current systemn)
With that said my ultimate suggestion is: Let the ratings system DIE IN FIRE.
And then choose any of the more intelligent suggestions I've seen being given by players on these boards since before/during/after closed beta for issue 14. Your idea of matching like minded authors/arc players up is included in that list of good ideas.
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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And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?
[/ QUOTE ]
The relevance is that while I recognize that ratings griefing does occur, I cannot think of an obvious way to clearly distinguish between ratings griefing and genuinely harsh ratings in the general case, which makes its very difficult to formulate an enforceable policy regarding ratings griefing except in very obvious and extreme situations. Even then, its unlikely to be enforceable automatically, without the involvement of customer support to research the issue carefully. That may require more time than its worth to enforce.
[/ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, if they were serious about banning repeat offenders, someone like Heavens_Agent would be ok, as he had actually played the arc in question and THEN decided he didn't like it, rather than the more obvious "this person has started x arcs, and immediately quit and assigned them a low rating."
If this is too difficult to datamine, then it's a case of the devs making promises they can't keep to assure the players that what we predicted would happen, wouldn't.
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The devs need to learn to listen to the players in CLOSED BETA when they state something. This is the reason the HAND PICK who they do in CLOSED BETA.
With that said, I admit for this closed beta, they may have had LESS ability to delay the issue any further for reasons already stated in some dev interviews.
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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"You have not played this mission log enough to rate it.": Cuts down on legit ratings, and does not impact deliberate griefing.
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Griefing can go both ways. This opens up an immunity layer for an author griefer to work while avoiding player retribution.
Even worse: there is nothing in the game that dictates difficulty must be noted in the summary, so the player has no alternative than suck it in and walk away without rating because petitioning will do nothing against some one that "just made a hard mission"
Agree on Hudson Hawk, though.
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Hudson Hawk died at the box office, but it's one of my top favorite movies.
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Blade Runner.
Poor box office, disliked by the critics.
Now considered a visionary classic.
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I would agree to changing the current rating methods to require people to play arcs for a significant period before rating [u]if there was a "report for content" button on the MA GUI so that we could report farms easily[u].
Edit: Even still, to go in, test and find out "hey this is definitely a farm", exit, quit TF, and report for content takes a significant chunk of time. The same thing goes for material that is way over the top of T for Teen rating, Copyright violations, etc... We shouldn't have to play through to mission complete/end of arc to report for that kind of thing.
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Hudson Hawk died at the box office, but it's one of my top favorite movies.
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Blade Runner.
Poor box office, disliked by the critics.
Now considered a visionary classic.
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Yes, and it is a great movie.
But Hudson Hawk is better.
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Post your grief story here, and lets help the other grief victims out there to give their stories a fair shake.
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Yep, add me to the list. 5 stars yesterday and on the front page, now buried somewhere deep in the 4 star list. ( my Croatoa arc )
131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )
Thankfully, my arc hasn't been played enough to come anywhere close to being griefed (yay for the MA backwater!).
The 5-star rating system isn't a bad idea, really. The main issue is that this rating system is the only, Dev-given way for a player to judge the arcs that they stumble across in MA. Not only are the ratings themselves subjective to the player (ie: this thread), but there's no real way for a player to know -why- an arc has a 2 Star overall rating. It could be a surprise! all EB mission, or the story could need a lot of tweaking, or it could appear to have been created by a hyper small child.
We need ways to mitigate and contextualize the ratings for an arc, really. One way to do this would be to have an arc's "reviews" be visible to the playerbase, as perhaps a tab or button next to the arc's title that brings them up. There would have to be a system for flagging posts that are spam/griefing of course, but it would give the potential player a better way to know if they want to play an arc, based on more than "hey, it's 2-3-4 starred!"
Then again, I'm also in favor of allowing anonymous reviews/feedback. It would give griefers the anonymous-shield, but it would also protect a person who gives concrit to a writer from being griefed in return. (I know that I'm kinda wary of the g-tell method as it currently is.)
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I haven't read through this entire thread, but I'll chime in with my current favorite suggestion to improve the rating system: weighted voting. The more missions in an arc you complete the more your vote counts. That way "drive by downraters" will still happen but their votes won't be nearly as impactful.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.