Can MA be saved?

I am guessing most people, like myself, are very discouraged by the treatment the Dev's have given Mission Architect and how it seems fruitless to make new arcs. Most of the review threads have dried up and the flow of new arcs has slowed to a snail’s pace.

This trend seriously depresses me because I felt the Mission Architect was the best innovation this game has seen. I joined this game shortly after launch (pre-issue 1) so I have seen them all. Honestly, before I14 I was starting to consider canceling at least one of my family’s accounts, but Mission Architect really breathed new life into the game. I had so much fun writing arcs, got so much pleasure having other players enjoy my arcs and the amount of enjoyment I got from playing the new content other players created was exciting.

Now however, I feel MA is on life support and fading fast. The issues I see are:

1 – It is just way too difficult to find the “real” arcs in the sea of test, farm or abandoned arcs for the average player.

2 – The reduction in exp that has reduced MA farms has also badly curtailed the average player from playing in MA and it's hard to blame them.

3 – The rating system that buries excellent arcs with 100’s plays on page 300 plus because they are “only” 4 stars. Think what you will, but with the current system anything other than a 5 star rating is negative because it reduces the chance of your arc being played.

4 – Dev’s Choice is poorly implemented and not used. The few lucky people that got Dev’s Choice (most during Beta) have enjoyed page 1 treatment for six months.


I sincerely hope something is done to address the issues with MA and it is done in reasonable time fame. My question to everyone is can it be revived and if so how?


WN

We are past the fad now. Past the exploitation as well. I expect that the people who like to play new content and people who like to be creative will slowly return to the AE.

Good xp is one thing, but I care more about new and interesting stories and I am not the only one. Maybe in time it will grow popular again for the proper reasons. One thing that might help is when we create some 'eventlike' things we can do with the AE and then promote it of course.

Like a few Halloween themed arcs next month.

There are a number of things that I think are contributing to the failure of MA and Wrong covered the majority of them in her post but, I think there are a few other factors as well, not all dev related.

One of the dev related thing that WN didn't mention is the downright poor search tools for someone wanting to look through MA to find stories to play. They have made some strides but, how there is still not a tool that lets you sort arcs by number of plays (which I have been requesting since open test) is really beyond me. I have also always felt that ranking arcs by number of plays times star rating would be far more effective than the current, in my opinion, broken ranking system.

Another dev related thing was the effect of the devs deleting toons for abusing the MA farms. This, to my mind, is a perfect example of why having no clear rules for what constitutes a EULA violation can harm the game. I have to wonder how many players are deliberately avoiding MA now because they don't want their toons to get nailed. If you are very sensitive about your toons, and don't want to risk them being wacked the simple answer is to avoid MA entirely.

Some of the other problems with MA are related to how the player community reacted to it. I'm going to skip the whole farming thing, as I feel that was yet another example of the devs failing human psychology 101, and focus on the actual story content arcs. Writing a story arc is a lot of work and, I can speak from experience as someone who doesn't bother to put that much work into his own arcs. As I said before, you get precious little "in game" economic incentive for the time spent writing one of these so, most people are probably looking for the reward of sharing their output with CoH community members. Anything that takes away from this positive reinforcement is going to throw the brakes on future output. It's my feeling that a number of seriously overcritical reviewers on the forums helped contribute to the downturn in MA story output by disheartening authors. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is a game. People play games for fun. If something isn't fun people are not going to do it. By limiting the number of players willing to spend the time to generate story arcs, output will, of course, go down.

I honestly don't think MA is recoverable without the devs throwing some sort strong "in game" economic incentives back into it. Until that happens I really don't see content going back up any time soon.

It's my feeling that a number of seriously overcritical reviewers on the forums helped contribute to the downturn in MA story output by disheartening authors.

If someone decided not to put up a story arc because of what critics in this forum say, the vast likelyhood is that it's no loss.

I think MA can be saved but it just takes time.

Part of the problem is that the devs did not anticipate the number of people putting arcs up. This broke several things; search ability, rating, and peoples patience. I think these nerfs are pretty rough but if people really want to play/make storys they'll keep putting them out. Hopefully we'll get a nice shiny new search/browse feature for MA. I think that would make things so much better.

Do I believe that reviewers have the power to destroy MA by driving people away from writing stories? No. But, IMO I think everyone, including myself, could be a little nicer to people who are putting their work up for scrutiny. Even if someone's work is not that great, you have to figure that that person sat down and spent many minutes/hours/days putting it together and may be emotionally invested. Obviously if they put it up for review, they're looking for some form of feedback. However, I personally believe that eviscerating their arcs is not very effective in helping people improve, but hey that's just my personal belief.

I just wanted to pop in and say that my review thread has been inactive not because of me being done with MA, but rather because of games like Arkham Asylum and then Scribblenauts.

Seriously. Scribblenauts is freakin' awesome.

I'm padting cos its easier on the iphone.

WN:

"I am guessing most people, like myself, are very discouraged by the treatment the Dev's have given Mission Architect and how it seems fruitless to make new arcs. Most of the review threads have dried up and the flow of new arcs has slowed to a snail’s pace."

i only speak for myself, but:

a. I intend to write more arcs over the Winter. I havent since The Audition purely for RL reasons. The I16 changes have had no effect on how i will write my arcs. The main reward players should expect from me is whatever narrative enjoyment they provide.

b. My review thread has slowed because i got a new gf recently and i've also been cycling a lot. Nothing to do with the MA.

c. My girlfriends awesome.

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

I think it's because 1) ANYBODY can make an arc, and 2) most people don't read the forums. They have to rely on the search function to find arcs to play, and when that function turns up a bunch of arcs full of spelling errors (in the titles even), poorly designed custom critters, glorified paper missions full of the aforementioned poorly designed custom critters, and outdated farms, it just makes player-designed content appear vastly inferior to the most tedious of dev-designed content.

The rating system is utter garbage. The only arcs that can maintain a five-star rating for any length of time before a griefer comes in and 1-stars them back to page 300 are the ones that are already so popular that the sheer volume of 5-stars overwhelms any negative votes they get. (This is not to imply that the popularity of these arcs is undeserved. I have 5-starred some of these arcs myself). Dev's Choice...we've already discussed ad nauseum what a joke it is.

Add to that the seriously bad rap MA has gotten when 99.99% of all conversations about it outside this forum have contained the word "farm," it's no wonder people don't want to play it.

As for incentive to create new arcs, no, a tangible incentive isn't needed. It's the opposite of needed. We had incentives before, in the form of badges, and look what happened. People who create arcs for any reason other than the fact that they enjoy creating arcs shouldn't be creating them. Part of that enjoyment though, comes from someone else enjoying your creation. If nobody is playing your arc, what's the point of publishing it? If nobody is publishing arcs, what is there to play? It's a vicious cycle.

I haven't actually published anything in months myself due to a chronic case of too many half-formed ideas and not enough fully formed ones, and an obsession with making my Scrappers moar awesome. The fastest way to earn the inf to do this seems to be through tickets, so I have been actually playing people's arcs.

Personally I have no problems with the MA until this new bug that seems to have sprouted up. My custom group is broken. I have 2 custom groups with standard enemies ranging from 25-54 and when playing as my level 50 everything is all out of whack. There will randomly be level 29s, 41s etc. And one of the groups refuses to spawn any of the enemies that go past level 45.

Yes, MA can be saved ... and yesterday I was treated to "proof of life."

No, that's not the name of a new story-driven arc. I agree with Hercula that until the devs "fix" what they just broke (removing full experience from custom critters using standard powers) ... that real story based arcs won't be played and enjoyed as before.

HOWEVER ...

I just played my first new, post-I16 farm -- and it rocked!! If it weren't for the fact that its a farm and posting its name or ID number here would only create problems for it, I would tell you both. But I won't.

Does it take longer to get rewards than before? Absolutely. But what no one ever used to say about farms is that, second for second, there is often no greater challenge, no greater fights, no greater danger... than to be standing at the epicenter that a jillion mobs coming at you and struggling to survive.

Previously, I was never a fan of farms. The idea of door sitting sucked big time to me. But when I16 was announced I wanted to see what I was missing -- and I enjoyed the farms with auto SK. Now I think that farming opponents just don't get it. While it IS about rewards -- its not JUST about rewards. When you're part of a good farm (not doorsitting), its friggin' EXCITING.

However, given my point of view, I still think that MA needs some saving ... I16 farms need to be more inviting. Its too easy now for a tank or a brute, let's say, to crank up a mission to 8 and do it solo. Farms are more fun with more people.

So if you FIND a good farm ... and you CAN solo it ... please DON'T. Invite others. And lets get AE widely populated again!

Great idea, poor implementation.

I've adopted a "wait and see" attitude myself. (I'm a 5-year vet, I'm in this for the long haul.) The recent nerf has been described as a stopgap, almost emergency solution, and I'm hoping for a better one. As someone I play with noted recently, this studio has a habit of coming up with three fixes for a problem and then applying all three, just to make sure. There's a lot of overcorrecting, with the result that sometimes they steer into the walls.

After we strike a balance there, the rating system desperately needs an overhaul for the reasons others have noted. The Dev's Choice category needs to be either given the staff support it requires or be scrapped. It would be nice if they had enough people to also detail someone to go through and delete all the defunct farms, but I'm not holding my breath.

My biggest fear is that all of these things are going to be ignored until after GR comes out, in which case the AE buildings may end up like the arenas - monuments to a feature that never really fulfilled its promise.

The majority of what I'd have to say about this has been said in one form or another by previous posters, so I really only have a couple of comments.

First, one poster touched on this, but I think it needs to be hammered home: Arkham Asylum, Champions Online, etc. These new shineys are *huge* draws from the game at this moment in time, for both players and creators. It isn't helping that there *are* problems with MA that are contributing to the "Heck, may as well go try XXX because MA's borked" attitude. Their influence on things will probably balance out over time.

Second, harsh reviewers are breaking the morale of creators... really?! Come on, I've had a couple of reviews that just kicked my rear, but I took them with either a grain of salt (in one case) or I culled the good suggestions and made my arcs better - just like I've done with all the reviews, nice or not so nice. Heck, I'm almost in Venture's sights, and there's no telling whether that'll be a celebration or a suicide, but I'm still looking forward to it. It can't hurt my arcs, and it *can* make them better. Anyone that claims harsh reviews as an excuse for taking their ball and going home needs to do something else. And the fact remains that most creators don't read these threads or submit their arcs for review anyway.

In short, I think the title of the thread is an example of the doom and gloom mentality that's accompanied every big change to CoH since its inception. No slam intended to the OP, but MA isn't in need of "saving." It's in need of fixing. There's a difference.

Just my two bits.

I currently have four MA arcs at least partially outlined. I haven't decided yet whether to rotate the arcs through the current three slots or purchase more arc slots. My family and I still play and enjoy story-based MA arcs -- but then, we're in no hurry to hit the level cap.

We do, however, like to have a reasonable degree of character progression. Thus far, unless an arc got zapped to zero or minimal XP, it hasn't been that bad.

For my own arc, I do need to add a boss to the general group spawn table (currently it consists of minions and lieutenants, with bosses being reserved as end bosses) to get the XP back up to the 75% mark.

I do think the reduction on custom critters with Standard powers was too much. But I don't consider it gamebreaking. Hopefully as the dev team assesses the impact of the changes and how players are responding/participating, it will help lead to a better balanced system.

If it can be saved, it can be farmed.

You'll be hard pressed to find most players in the MA without commensurate reward per hour spent. However, as soon as you add commensurate reward you provide a farming environment that's better than any map out there until you start farming purples.

That's not a bad thing. The fact that devs made missions that are farmable shows that farms can be used as a part of the storytelling process. I wouldn't expect many people to be interested in playing your arc for sub-par rewards and no badge credit, though.

To all the people who're up in arms about the search feature - don't expect that people are the slighest bit interested in playing random arcs, whether there are farms in the mix or not. People don't just watch random TV channels - they watch a show they know they'll like, or they switch to a channel that typically shows stuff they're interested in. If you want to get people to watch a new show, you have to sell it to them. That's why TV show A contains commercials for TV show B.

Play host for your arc. Start a group up and lead them through it. If you're really interested in getting the word out, make alts on other servers, rinse and repeat. If you can't get a group to stick together through the whole arc, there's a problem you need to address in either the arc or your presentation of the arc. You'll get much better and much more honest feedback if you're actually present.

If you don't want to put forth any effort to present your work to others, you have only yourself to blame when noone cares enough to play ARC ID 398281 based on a one sentence descriptive blurb.

I won't comment on the changes to MA because they haven't affected me at all. I would still play story arcs for review at 0 xp, and I will be playing story arcs eventually at reduced xp.

The reason I've been out of the MA is due to all the other stuff they added in i16, notably SSK. I've been teaming the hell out of the game, and that's not conducive to the way I like to play AE arcs. I prefer to take those slow steady and solo. And it takes too much time for me to search for a good arc to play whne I'm running a team, it's easier for me personally to do radio/paper and contact missions.

I'll be back, I keep trying, but it's just too easy for me to find a team when I'm on now.

Just a quick snapshot of subjective response to the current state of the game:

The launch of CO and Aion have drawn off players. In my case I16 hasn't been a substantial draw. I'm not into cosmetic changes, so the prettifying of powers... eh.
The one thing I was looking forward to was granite changes, which didn't happen in this issue. So while I'm currently playing those other games, we'll be back for GR.

The reward reductions in AE are unfortunate. Tickets made up for the economic imbalances in the market. It was too laborious to get multiple tens of millions or merits to get the good stuff. Drop rates shoulda been adjusted a long time ago to remove or lessen the "junk" ones hardly anyone uses. I coudl go for weeks or months of regular play w/out a single good drop. Then a single player would get 2 of them in the same tf. I'm not an expert on the drop system, it just feels borked.

As far as negative reviews driving off people, I think the majority of players who used AE never looked at these forums. It's debatable even when someone like Venture went after an arc he hated. The Green Brew uproar certainly didn't prevent it going over 1k plays. Although it probably discouraged the author from publishing again.

Personally, I disliked a certain Axis based arc. My sustained comments had no effect on the author or number of plays.

As has been said Dev's choices are merely tokens. They ceased actively promoting any good arcs almost as soon as AE went live. Some are less accomplished than many quality arcs since then.

As far as farming, I enjoyed the challenge of having a crowd of lieuts or bosses and having to concentrate on survivability. It was a challenge I rarely got in the regular game. I suspect the whiners simply couldn't run such missions.

I'd love to see actual sub numbers, pre AE, during early excitement, and recent numbers. There's lil chance of that, but from what I saw in game, CoX was drawing players from other MMOs who loved the concept. Those players have soince dried up, probably gone back to their original games or the new shineys, CO and Aion.

Another opportunity lost to expand this game beyond a niche.

I'm starting to wonder if the long term prospects of this game do depend on keeping it viable in a niche market. Us harcore players will never leave til they turn off the lights, no matter what the devs do.

AE was an opportunity to expand beyond the base. I've met people in game that bought the AE edition, since gone, who felt cheated once the nerfs started coming down. "Bait and switch" they said.

With these current changes it looks like the devs are driving player's back to the regular game. And if you make AE content, you're strongly encouraged to make it reflect regular/standard fare. Creativity in the form of custom characters/critters is being actively discouraged.

The net effect? Players have vastly added to the 800 or so regular missions in game. In just a few short months, players did what devs should've been doing all along, add story content. Ironically they are increasingly avoided.