Don't be so quick to dismiss those 3 votes as griefing. It's really impossible to tell or know their motives. Here are two scenarios as an example:
1) The arc was sitting at 4.50 and then 3 4-star votes came along to drop it to 4.488. Lack of tickets could simply mean they followed the tutorial (and most people I know who aren't familiar with AE) and clicked on the 1-star first followed by 2, 3, and 4.
2) A team of 3 played your arc and simply didn't like it, voting a 1 or 2.
Seriously, wouldn't you need a group bigger than 3 people to really grief an arc with that many votes?
At any rate, this is exactly why I wish we could either see the exact rating to 2 decimal places and/or how many votes in each category we've received.
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123 ratings at 5-stars last night, nicely sitting on the 3rd page.
126 ratings at 4-stars now this afternoon.
Losing all the 0-stars was a good first step, but it's not stopping these people.
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Are you kidding? You think that you're such a genius that anything less than a 5 star rating is the result of griefing?
Have you considered the possibility that it's not griefing? Maybe people just think your arc sucks.
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123 ratings at 5-stars last night, nicely sitting on the 3rd page.
126 ratings at 4-stars now this afternoon.
Losing all the 0-stars was a good first step, but it's not stopping these people.
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I agree. In fact it shouldnt be allowed for you to rate anything except 5 star. elsewise someone can grief me.
derp derp derp.
griefing will happen so long as theres a portion of humanity that enjoys revelling in schaudenfreude
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
At least show us the true rating or a breakdown of them. This guessing game got old a long time ago.
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At least show us the true rating or a breakdown of them. This guessing game got old a long time ago.
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QFT for real numbers... 
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
Unfortunately, since the removal of the "x people have played your arcs" badges, you can't tell whether someone has played your arc and hated it or low-rated it without playing it.
I find it amusing that people are *still* dismissing vote griefing as "why don't you just admit your arc sucks?" Even some of the most discerning critics have flat out said they don't rate lower than 1, and when all the 0-star votes were removed....voila, a bunch of arcs jump up to 5 stars. Frankly, most players aren't that discerning.
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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Unfortunately, since the removal of the "x people have played your arcs" badges, you can't tell whether someone has played your arc and hated it or low-rated it without playing it.
I find it amusing that people are *still* dismissing vote griefing as "why don't you just admit your arc sucks?" Even some of the most discerning critics have flat out said they don't rate lower than 1, and when all the 0-star votes were removed....voila, a bunch of arcs jump up to 5 stars. Frankly, most players aren't that discerning.
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I'm not saying griefing doesnt exist. I'm saying theres no way to actually stop it from happening, and frankly, some arcs do suck or are mediocre at best.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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At least show us the true rating or a breakdown of them. This guessing game got old a long time ago.
[/ QUOTE ]Then the crying would switch to "Wah, wah! 4 people gave me 1 star! They must be griefing!"
Just get over the fact that some people might legitimately dislike your arc. Dropping from 5 stars to 4 is very easy, if you were very close to the edge between the two, as already proven in this thread. It might be griefing, but it also could very well be that your arc needs improvement.
I get that authors would like to consider any review short of perfection as griefing (not just in this game...in, say, the NYT Review of Books too).
But it ain't so.
My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
Not to mention. more exposure means more likelihood someone wont like your arc. before i15 my arc was 612 votes with 4 stars. most every vote i got was a 4 or 5 star.
come i15. i shot up to 5 star, lost about 11 votes from losing zeroes, and have since zoomed along to 643 or so. Have I gotten a few someone rated your arc or 3's? Yes. Do i think they were malicious? not really.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
Griefing is griefing, and it sucks. But just because you drop from 5 to 4 stars overnight doesn't mean you were griefed.
I use a pretty stringent but straightforward rating system, and I don't care who does or doesn't like it; I stand by it. It goes something like this:
1) Learn to use the Mission Architect at least well enough to successfully publish a mission.
2) Publish a mission that does not grief or rickroll the player. If it says it isn't a farm, it had better not be a farm. If it's supposed to be a "challenge," there had better be some challenge to it, however mundane. If it's supposed to be a "story," then there had better be some vague semblance of a story: a character, a conflict, a resolution. Posess at least a vague grasp of grammar and spelling in the language you're attempting to write. (And if I'm not fluent in the language, I won't rate your arc at all, since I'm not qualified.)
3) Learn the ins and outs of the Mission Architect well enough to publish a story that isn't borked in some obvious way. Learn to tell a story in a manner that is fairly cohesive and coherent. Learn the language in which you're writing well enough to graduate middle school, and have someone proofread the text in your arc to catch any glaring mistakes you may have made.
4) Publish an arc which isn't a self-indulgent Mary Sue story, which flows well and isn't very annoying to complete, which makes sense, which contains believable characters and/or dialog, and which is at least somewhat immsersive and fun. Spelling, grammar and punctuation should be spotless, although I'm willing to overlook a typo (maybe two). Challenges should be truly challenging. Stories should begin with a character and a reasonable premise, and proceed through a series of challenges or revelations, to arrive at a conclusion that is in some way exciting or entertaining. If you have satisfied all these criteria, as well as those in the previous numbers listed above, then you are telling CoX stories at least as well as the professional game developers usually manage to do.
5) Publish a story which is truly iconic, hilarious, shocking, horrifying, or moving, leaving me a lasting impression. OR publish a story which is mechanically so different from any existing developer content that it is inherently unique, fresh, and exciting. OR publish work that leaves me wondering how the hell you came up with it. Level five is for inspired storytelling, lasting impressions, true literary value, or other groundbreaking work. The developers have published game content at this level of sophistication only rarely.
So, there's my rating system. How many of the criteria you met determines your rating. Pass all of them up to and including a number and that's your rating. I make every effort to be consistent and objective in applying my rating system.
Very few user-published story arcs rate a 5 by my rubric. (Though there have been several.) Most of the "good" or routinely well-received arcs get a 4 from me, and many more arcs, including some very highly-rated have gotten just 3 stars from me.
So, why am I so exacting in my system? Why can't I just give all the pretty good stories 5 stars and feel good about it?
Note that I actually have rated several story arcs at five stars. I want to reward inspired, creative, meticulous work, and five stars is all that I have with which to reward it.
So I'm stingy about handing out the stars to works that don't posess that sort of quality or caliber.
To the OP, I'm the sort of player who might have 3-starred your arc, and I don't apologize for it.
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To the OP, I'm the sort of player who might have 3-starred your arc, and I don't apologize for it.
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Oh I don't mind that, as long as you explain it. Doesn't help anyone a damn bit otherwise and I cannot fix what I don't know about. Even worse if it's a bug created by a patch that broke something earlier that day and you don't know until much later that you're getting downrated for something that is outside your control and didn't know about.
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I'm not saying griefing doesnt exist. I'm saying theres no way to actually stop it from happening
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Griefing could be all but eliminated with a much better system.
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
The easiest way to stop the griefing is the approach I use. Dont worry what your arc is rated at . This is a game and some people are considering the MA as another form of pvp . I opted out. I publish my stories ,play them ,enjoy them and either leave them published or pullem down and make some more. I know some really good stories will be lost with that approach but it keeps my stress levels on an even keel not worrying what someone else thinks about my writing skills. And by no means do I think anything I ever wrote is worth 3 stars much less 5. Most of my stories are straight out of a Harlequin book . . . Or maybe that was The Watchmen . It all sort of runs together after a while.
You actually care what kind of average rating your mishes get ? and the only way it isnt 5 stars is because of a deliberate plot to lower your rating ? Is this a trick or something ?!?
@Viking Queen.
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Unfortunately, since the removal of the "x people have played your arcs" badges, you can't tell whether someone has played your arc and hated it or low-rated it without playing it.
I find it amusing that people are *still* dismissing vote griefing as "why don't you just admit your arc sucks?" Even some of the most discerning critics have flat out said they don't rate lower than 1, and when all the 0-star votes were removed....voila, a bunch of arcs jump up to 5 stars. Frankly, most players aren't that discerning.
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I also find it funny that once an Arc that got a number of 5 Star votes goes to 4 Stars, said authors suddenly cry "It MUST be Griefing!" followed by "How will ANYONE find it if it's off page 1?!".
I got news for you...IF an Arc is really SOOOOOO good (and doesn't really deserve less than 5 stars); word of mouth among players shoould keep plays coming. If you drop to 4 stars and plays stop, maybe it isn't 'griefing', but rather some people who (for whatever reason aren't really enthralled by the Arc as much as the first group was.
Just because the first 50 or so who played it 5 starred it, it DOESN'T follow that if Player 51 gives you less than 5 stars, or - heaven forbid - drops the arc but still rates it; it doesn't mean he 'griefed' you.
When you submit ANYTHING to a WIDE audience, you will ALWAYS see three types of response:
The Person who thinks your work is the BEST THING EVAR!
The Person who is completely ambivilent towards your work and could give a rats [censored] one way or the other abiut it.
The Person who believes your work is UTTER CRAP.
And no, you DID NOT write the one piece of fiction that is the exception to all the above. If you can't take or even believe tht meone (or even a good percentage of folks) DON'T feel your Arc is 'the best thing ever'; go back to playing Dev created content, and spare yourself the aggrivation. (Oh, and don't try to claim "I'm not upset by all this really, I just think Griefing is bad and any chance of it occuring needs to be removed...' because:
1) If you WERE NOT upset about it, you wouldn't go on a public messgae board to vent your frustrations.
and
2) If you really hate griefing, cancel your subscription to this and any other MMO you may subscribe to, because whenever you play a pubic game with other real people live whose ruleset is this complex; griefing will be a fact you are FORCED to deal with.
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To the OP, I'm the sort of player who might have 3-starred your arc, and I don't apologize for it.
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Oh I don't mind that, as long as you explain it. Doesn't help anyone a damn bit otherwise and I cannot fix what I don't know about. Even worse if it's a bug created by a patch that broke something earlier that day and you don't know until much later that you're getting downrated for something that is outside your control and didn't know about.
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You cant always fix what they dont like without compromising your arc anyhow.
Most of the complaints I get anymore are either "too easy" or "not enough edge"
(on an arc tagged kid friendly and easy , mind you.)
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
[ QUOTE ]
123 ratings at 5-stars last night, nicely sitting on the 3rd page.
126 ratings at 4-stars now this afternoon.
Losing all the 0-stars was a good first step, but it's not stopping these people.
[/ QUOTE ]
I would not be supprised if people read this and then 1 stared your arcs out of spite due to this looking alot like whining and crying.
I wish all my arcs combined had over a hundred reviews.
Call it griefing.
Call it pearls before swine.
Or do what I do, and call it enjoyable enough for yourself and your friends, AKA the people whose opinions you care about.
Given the way people whine I don't see why anyone else should have to justify not liking their arc, or justify their rating. The rating is a meaningless number anyway - no indicator of quality - which means there's no purpose to its existence but to give people something to whine about or crow about, depending on their flavour of stupidity.
I'm quite happy to tell an arc owner their arc sucks, but I don't think anyone should be forced to justify their rating. Welcome to natural selection in action.
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To the OP, I'm the sort of player who might have 3-starred your arc, and I don't apologize for it.
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Oh I don't mind that, as long as you explain it.
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So, if I have this right, you believe--really believe--that anyone who rates your arc with less than a perfect 5 stars owes you some sort of explanation?
And, so long as they justify themselves to your satisfaction, then you "don't mind?"
It seems you don't view constructive criticism as something you should be thankful for and accept with a grain of salt. It seems that instead, you see it as justification that you're owed by anyone who doesn't give you the five stars you feel you deserve.
And that if someone gives you 3 stars without an explanation, you beieve that it's griefing.
Bottom line: nobody owes you any services because they played your arc. They don't owe you feedback any more than they owe you five stars. Rating your arc is the prerogative of the players, and if you don't like it, then don't publish.
I never rated any story with a 5. I never give the perfect score to anyone. If i am impressed, i give a 4 at most. Most of the time i vote a 3 on everything. Really bad missions get a 2. I never gave a 1 yet.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
^ Well said.
Frankly, this behavior alone is enough to be worth a bad rating (and I'm not talking 3+, but 1 or 2). I certainly rate low authors and artists with a terrible attitude in real life, why wouldn't I do the same in game ?
(Don't worry about your precious ratings OP, I won't do it because I don't care enough... but if I ever stumble on a "@Lazarus" arc I'll avoid it without even trying it.)
imho, nobody deserves 5 stars
but I'd hardly call 3 voters giving you low scores as "griefing"
123 ratings at 5-stars last night, nicely sitting on the 3rd page.
126 ratings at 4-stars now this afternoon.
Losing all the 0-stars was a good first step, but it's not stopping these people.