MA: I weep metaphorical tears of despair
By
3dent,
Posted on: 2009-04-10 24:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Sure lets keep talking of Making More while everything else falls apart Because of it, Please rush right out and keep making them till No one has a base left.
Brutes: Doc O'Bay (yup, was me lvl2-48) Doc O'Bay Jr., Sihing, Belphanior, Mr. Lich & Joker's Wylde MMs, Rad'Man Corr, Lockup Dom, Suicide King Stalker, Lord Florentine DB/WP Brute, Tygercide Scrapper......Scrapper?? what the heck is he doing here???
The same thing happened on test server. Do you remember the hurricane of awful ninja missions and just completey dross.
By a few days prior to live, you could pretty much pick a random arc and be fairly certain you would get a reasonable mission - at least onet that ranked above newspaper
One thing that would help quality arcs rise to the top is the star rating of an arc NOT being shown until a statistically relevant number of players have played and/or rated it.
It is ludicrous that someone could sling together a heap of steaming something, put it out there, get his supergroup to play and all rate it 5-star and for a while at least it will be popping up in peoples searches as highly rated and they'll be playing it.
On the other hand a well crafted arc might never get played again after the first player one stars it because the villain's cloak was the wrong shade of black (or whatever).
On balance, from my vast exerience playing MA arcs (LOL, I wasn't in the beta, so it's been about 5 hours or so) it seems that:
- yes Sturgeons Law does apply
- yes, we need a better mission browser
- (we also really need a way of selecting missions that are soloable! One EB, One Lt and 6 minions in the first room is not soloable by 99% of the stalkers out there, I'd hazard!)
As to the farming/no farming discussion - here's my suggestion: How about a "farming mission" checkbox in the mission creation screens and a "show farming missions?" checkbox in the mission browser (and if you play an arc that is just a farming mish when you had answered "no farming missions" then flag it as inappropriate content)
But I have enjoyed some of the missions I've played and I am in the "glass half full" camp, not the "doom!" camp.
And then there are the 1 star grievers who like to give 1 stars to persons just for the fun of it. Happened to me just minutes after publishing it. You can only hope things level out. But when you see a mission with 1 star. That doesn't say a thing!
I don't plan on going near this until May atleast. Unless a SG person asks me to try their arc, even then I'll ask before hand if it has story etc.
By then there should be some decent content bobing about. Hoepfully some stuff on the forums by people I respect/trust saying "try this it's well done"
I also have 2 arcs I want to create my self but I want to do them well and indepth. Anticipation and all that.
Also on the farming thing, I like to farm now and then so if it proves worth while farming MA created missions I might switch to doing that. But I wont be standing round AP giving with the "lff plx will pay inf plx" crowd. If it wasn't likely to bring the nerf bat, I would suggest people create missions with a prefix of Farm- or similar for dedicated farm missions so those who don't want to waste their time looking at farms dont have to.
[ QUOTE ]
And then there are the 1 star grievers who like to give 1 stars to persons just for the fun of it. Happened to me just minutes after publishing it. You can only hope things level out. But when you see a mission with 1 star. That doesn't say a thing!
[/ QUOTE ]
I 1 star badge farms or anything the authors done that could be regarded as self indulgent ie beat my toon.
I'd like a search function to lob off all content that consists of too much of something ie badge cheat mish with max glowies. I'd rather look at details of what each mish will hold and then exterminate it from my list regardless of stars and without starring" into a retrieval bin.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
[ QUOTE ]
who are you or me or anyone to decide what a [censored] arc is and think it's better to have them removed.
[/ QUOTE ]
We all are able to decide and should be able to decide and discuss in public as long we remain civil. What we aren't able to do, and maybe shouldn't be able to do, is impose our limits upon others. 
However I feel it's worth pointing out (even in my verbose way) that it is possible to do better than just add an objective to a destroyed atlas map full of a custom mob and hit publish, leaving most other fields as defaults/empty... Or to do tho old 'play me - quick badges' mission of 20 clickies just like the other 200 similar missions already published... Or the 'JD is godlike' 1-mission arc where my character is an extreme AV just coz I'm so uber...
Hell - if a single person reads the OP and decides to actually hold off til they add even a minutesworth of thought then maybe, just maybe, that's a little better quality for everyone to enjoy.
My views are subjective but it's much like people's tastes in food: I like hot food, others like french or italian or whatever. But if the chef is using manure as the main ingrediant the meal will taste like <expletive deleted> for all...
[ QUOTE ]
And two, is did you really believe this was going to end any other way?
[/ QUOTE ]
The optimistic part of me hoped so.
I was extremely nervous about publishing my first mission as it may just be ingame but you are publishing to the masses. It's easy to look a complete idiot if you stand up in public on a whim and start spouting any ill-thought out trash... Publishing in MA isn't that much different. It's still communicating with the public.
And I actually thought that most people would prefer to avoid being perceived as idiots and so would put at least a little thought into what they published.
It appears that I was wrong and stupidly over-optimistic.
BTW - I already appreciate the irony that anyone who perceives me as an idiot may have enjoyed from the above. So - no need to reply pointing it out.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
[ QUOTE ]
I cite this
[/ QUOTE ]
Genius! 
I particularly liked this part,
"Sturgeon's Law is particularly obvious when the barriers to entry the whims of publishers are removed. Thus, self-publishing, especially in the virtually cost-free environment of the Internet, makes this cruddy 90% visible to the public, rather than leaving it to languish in an aspiring writer's desk drawer. This often leads to the false impression that, for example, Fan Fic attracts poor writers; the fact is that the poor writers have always been out there, but until recently their poor writing had few outlets to the eyes of the public. As one writer put it, "flipping through Fan Fiction.net is like flipping through hell with an occasional slice of the heavenly cheesecake thrown in."
If we assume that the 90% figure applies only to published works, then about one in a million of all things out there is not crud. Most people, though, have seen more than one non-cruddy thing in their lifetime. "
[ QUOTE ]
Such a waste of a tool with such potential committed by tools with such little potential. 
[/ QUOTE ]
You have encountered the wonderful world of player-generated content.
Ah, FFS, noone's forcing anyone to play the [censored].
Give it a few weeks, and only hard-core creative folks will continue to put out arcs and you'll soon learn to recognize the good authors (e.g. the ones YOU think are good).
Right now, people are racing to get the badges, and that'll die down pretty quick as well, despite some STUPID "epic" MA badges. Just be patient and remember this MA thingy will be there "forever".
Surprisingly, the so far DEV chosen arcs I've tried where... ...really not fun at all. I'm guessing I might play some SG/mate created arcs later on, but doubt it will be a common thing for me, as I think the smurfs left the game after a few minutes of trying I14 and probably won't even bother again for I15.
Personally, I'll grind some of the easier badges still left, then go back to ITF and treespec grinding until we get some professional content, but I did enjoy encountering some "new" mobs even if people are clearly over-using that option. Give me Freaks & romans any day!
MA is just another stupid mistake like radio/paper misssions. Why travel and see the world when you can just sit on your fat [censored] and watch it from telly?
"Waste of an issue" describes i14 quite well.
Fighting l33t since 1974
Don't "lol"! Laugh!
Sanity Inc
@8Qbit
I might be a little bit guilty of adding pointless misisons - but I'm not totally sure if it was because of a bug or not
On the day it went live, I decided to get the "Customizer" badge, which is "Publish a Mission Architect Story Arc with a Custom Boss to earn this badge".
So I made a mission called "Badge Mission" used the smallest possible smooth cave map, added a few Hellions, then made a custom boss called "Boss" by just clciking the forward arrows in the charatcer creation screen, so he came out as totally generic, with no real outfit or anything.
I then used the "show errors" window to target all the places were text was needed, and filled then each in with a single letter.
After that, I clicked "publish" - half a second later, I got the message that I'd gotten the "customizer" badge, and then I clicked on "unpublish" to take the mission down.
But later in the evening, another of the badges tracking how many people play your arcs was showing that people were playing a mission of mine, even though I had none published
I'm not sure if that's a badge bug, or if there was some problem with the unpublishing process - but if any of you somhow did play it, then you should know it was made in just 3 minutes with the intention of never being played by anyone
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
It's been out like two days. Give it time for people to chill the hell out over it and it'll improve. Currently everyone and their dog is making things and since it's so new, most of it is just to see what the system can do.
There is no surprise that most of the arcs currently might not be worth the time spent playing them. Anyone can publish an arc in 5 minutes, so that is what is going to happen.
One of the key parts here is what NCSoft will do with their mission browser tool if they keep the mission editor as accessible as now - right now it is at a stage corresponding to early internet search engines. We have not yet seen any google-quality functionality or even anything corresponding to a few other current search engines.
Last I checked, roughly 40-45% of the published arcs were unrated. Of those that were rated 5 stars, around 3% had been rated at least 10 times. I would expect the latter to increase as more people start to play more missions rather than creating them - it is still very early into the release.
[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])
My favourite bit about MA? Great way to level a character. No more boring old mission arcs and enemies for me.
Most 5 arcs are actually a 3 or 4 star mission and just represent freinds voting. I dont take it too seriously. Id rather try a 4star mission (or even 3) with 25 votes than a 5 star with 5 or so.
But atm I go on title, buzz, and recommendations.
And if there are ninja's in the mission? Then they areto be applauded on their stealth skills. Because you can be assured I wont see them. Or the arc they are in. 
[ QUOTE ]
Most 5 arcs are actually a 3 or 4 star mission and just represent freinds voting. I dont take it too seriously. Id rather try a 4star mission (or even 3) with 25 votes than a 5 star with 5 or so.
But atm I go on title, buzz, and recommendations.
And if there are ninja's in the mission? Then they areto be applauded on their stealth skills. Because you can be assured I wont see them. Or the arc they are in.
[/ QUOTE ]
Very good point. If there's plenty of people that tried it and rated it high, it's more likely to be worth the rating. While I might enjoy untested arcs later, for now I'll stick with the 25+ tested arcs.
Personally I was originally fine with MA, i liked the concept idea even though there wasnt much chance of me using it.
However, now its actually on live, Atlas is now PI number 2 with every farmer out there spamming 'LF1M MA farm 46+'in broadcast every few minutes, getting like 20 badges per mission, and just a general lack of teams now because you cant invite people halfway through an MA arc so now every mission is like a TF :/
In two weeks when the initial crowd has got bored of MA and left game till the next issue, your going to end up with a split crowd now with half going for MA missions and arcs and half regular teaming, which is fine except people doing the MA arcs cant get new members until they have finished which means unless your online, in the right area at the right time, your stuck soloing.
Im not usually one to say doom, but welcome to i14, the worst issue yet :/
What I see as the problem with the mission browser, is that its not really a mission browser, its a ranking list. Sure you can sort for other criteria, but no more than you could for any other ranking on the internet. Its not a browser, like iTunes, amazon etc.
As an author, you should be able to pick categories and tags and in addition to a scoring system, it should have a "thumbs up/thumbs down" system so the software can recomend missions.
While this wouldn't be easy to implement, its been done before so many times, it couldn't be very hard.
I vote for a rename for i14, its not mission architect at all, its Task Force Architect.
In a mission you can invite new members, you cant in MA missions.
That sounds rather odd to me, I have never had a problem inviting someone while I was in the middle of an arc, and I've been invited to teams before that were halfway through one.
A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691 <- Dev's Choice'd by Dr. Aeon!
Submit your MA arc for review & my arcs thread
[ QUOTE ]
I vote for a rename for i14, its not mission architect at all, its Task Force Architect.
In a mission you can invite new members, you cant in MA missions.
[/ QUOTE ]
Have you tried?
This is wrong, but I made this assumption too at first so it's OK IMO :P
Although MA missions say they're in Task Force mode, you CAN invite people after a MA arc begins.
"The Hamidon is a what what of what?" - Brian the mission guy.
Can understand your point Dave, but you and I both know what the mentality is, or at least seems to be, with an ever increasing section of the player base, so it's not really surprising that 90% of the MA stuff out there is unimaginative rushed rubbish.
However, on the flip side, whatever other failings MA might have, it's biggest plus and largely why it's so popular with so many people is that it is genuinely the first issue that fundamentally gives us all something entirely different to do.
Every issue since day 1 is centred around (and I realise this may sound a bit stupidly obvious) going to a contact at point A, travelling to point B beating the snot out of a group of enemies and returning to point A for another one. In a nutshell that is what all MMOs are about when it comes down to it.
All of the other features we've had in the past like new powersets, bases, inventions, even CoV have given us something different around that central theme, but those features have all been secondary to that. With MA, I feel that the mission creation is central to it, and the combat is the periphery.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
[ QUOTE ]
MA is just another stupid mistake like radio/paper misssions. Why travel and see the world when you can just sit on your fat [censored] and watch it from telly?
"Waste of an issue" describes i14 quite well.
[/ QUOTE ]
/signed
MA is a mistake of epic proportions.
What really annoys me is that the devs put an enormous amount of effort into this, when that effort should have been put to better use.
The resources could have been used to create new contacts, missions, mob types, zones etc that are part of the CoX canon.
What we have now is a Virtual Reality CoX where players are getting xp, inf and badges for someting that isn't real - and by that I mean it isn't set in the CoX Universe.
It's an odd situation but basically it's a virtual world within a virtual world and any amount of game immersion can't be maintained due to this.
MA will end up appealing only to farmers. That's basically it. Farmers by their very nature simply grind and don't get involved in story or character/game immersion.
I really hope that I'm wrong but I believe that in the times to come many people will look back and cite i14 as the point where the game failed.
This is all opinion only obviously....
Proud member of FOXBASE ALPHA and coalition associates.
Hero 50's - 25
Villain 50's - 1
Like in the old Quake/Half-life days, I really really long for an independent review website were you cant trust the few selected reviewers opinions.
Arcs could then be tagged appropriately with info like RPG, farming, Solo, Big Team, Multiple AVs, etc.
That would be nice.
@Spindisc
Super Babes database
http://www.randomdice.com/coh/
Electronic Super Greetings
http://www.randomdice.com/cohgreetings/