Regarding Recent Changes to Architect

What's particularly grating is that legitimate arcs require a lot more time to create than exploits. Once the exploit is discovered? I mean, you don't need text, even. Just slap in 'bob' in all the required text fields, place the appropriate whatsis, and go.

The people who put in the time to create an interesting mission and story? They loose far more.

I just wish this had happened BEFORE I plunked down cash for 2 super boosters, GR preorder, and 5 extra mission slots. Ungh.

To the Red Name(s) It May Concern:

It's a rule. An unmoderated medium will always degenerate to the lowest common denominator. It's like leaving books of matches in the classroom. The entire student body is not necessarily going to be involved, but, lacking the proper supervision, that school is going to burn to the ground.

I know what you thought. You had this idea, the first of its kind. You thought the players would share your vision for the AE. You thought you could trust the players to use it the way it was meant to be used, the way you thought it should be used. You thought you could let the system police itself. The "good" arcs would rise above the rest, the chaff would sink to the bottom, and abusers would be flagged. It was a noble approach, but not realistic, and, given the game's long history of the constant push-and-pull relationship between yourself and the "min-maxers", I'm surprised you would even entertain the notion.

This is your wake up call. The players cannot be trusted. It was admirable to give them the opportunity to prove otherwise, but by now you must realize the conclusion is unavoidable. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You built this system. You're going to have to step up and manage it properly.

The conflict is centered around this question of rewards. How much is too much? How little is too little? What exactly is the magic formula for risk vs. reward? You've always been sketchy about this answer, and understandably so. If you say the answer is "5", then 12 new forum posts suddenly appear discussing the best way to attain "4.999999".

Personally, I don't care about XP. I care about story. Wipe all XP from the AE and I would still use it. I know I'm not alone thinking this way, but I also know I'm likely in the minority. However, at the same time, if you continue along your current path and nerf AE to the point where it ceases to be a functional tool with which I am able to tell a story or find enjoyable stories authored by other players, I will stop using it. I'm not alone in thinking that way either, and, face it, if you persist in alienating the authors that create the content for the AE, it will fail, and poor Doc Aeon will be out of his shiny new job before he's barely qualified for benefits.

You already have two classifications for AE arcs: Honored arcs (includes Dev Choice and Hall of Fame) and Published arcs. This implementation shows that you have the ability to 1) differentiate the rewards between the two classes, and 2) lock arcs in a "finished" form that forbids further edits and changes.

What is needed here is a third classification for arcs. Something in the middle that borrows from both. Let's call it "Approved arcs" for now. You can think of a better name later.

Honored arcs continue to have (or the option to have) "normal" rewards, just as they do now, while Published arcs have no rewards at all.

Enter our new category: Approved arcs. Arcs that are in the Published class can be submitted to a queue to be reviewed and checked for exploits. When they have passed quality control testing and are deemed exploit-free, they are locked and passed into the Approved class. Approved arcs will have XP and ticket rewards just like arcs currently in the Published class. Not nerfed XP but XP in line with what a player would expect to achieve through normal gameplay.

Of course, the quality control process has a certain cost involved. Let's look at the Cost-Benefit Analysis.

For the cost of adding mod(s) to the AE system, you would reap a number of benefits.

First and foremost, you would completely eliminate the players' ability to abuse and exploit the AE system. This, on its own, would let Positron sleep more soundly at night and make him a much more pleasant person around the office. Additionally, you would save all the future costs involved in fixing any as yet undiscovered exploits.

Next, you would be able to continue to keep your definition of what is "acceptable" AE content in-house by exercising direct control over which Published arcs qualify for Approved status and which do not. Arcs would rise or fall on their individual merit, not get struck down as collateral damage by the latest nerf levied against farmers and exploiters.

Another benefit, and perhaps the most elegant of all, would be that you could roll back every nerf and change you've made to the AE thus far. Give us back Sky Raider Engineers as allies, put the Prisoners group back in, take those silly throwing knives away from custom melee sets, and so on. Abuses for disportionate rewards would be a thing of the past! Features that were once useful for authors but since removed because they were exploitable for farmers can be inserted back into the system with no qualms or hesitation.

One important benefit would be satisfaction of your stated goal that, with Honored and Approved arcs, AE remain a viable method for players to level from 1-50. Although the Approved category would have to start from scratch, if you could add even four to six new arcs per week, it would quickly grow to a respectable size and give players a plethora of options in searching for fresh, player-designed content. Doc Aeon has shown the tenacity to introduce a new Dev Choice arc on a semi-regular (close to bi-weekly) schedule. The standards for an arc to graduate to Approved status would be much less stringent than required for Honored status. I don't think that four to six arcs per week would be unreasonable.

Finally, and possibly most notably for some, it would be time for the other end of this argument to put up or shut up. All those players who have consistently argued that their reason for designing and playing exploit and farm missions was to "test their build" will have free reign to test, test, and test to their hearts' content. They can make the ultimate outdoor map of jellybean, green jello, meow mix, and banana bread and clear it over and over if that's what makes them happy. Unless, of course, it's not about testing their build, and their main goal all along was to unbalance the reward system. Then I suppose they'd leave AE and move on to their next farming strategy. I'm seeing a win-win here.

Don't get me wrong. AE was a great idea. If it weren't for the AE, I can't honestly say that I'd still be playing and paying for this game. Since it's release, it's taken a beating from bad decisions, poor judgment, and overall mismanagement, but it's not too late. AE can be a great idea again. You still have players that believe you can turn this thing around and take control. I still believe, but I'm barely hanging on at this point. Don't let me down. I still have stories to tell.

Screw that, just look at how long it has taken them to give out DCs and nobody has had a legit HoF in several months. This "approved arcs" idea only would add even more unneeded overhead. QA couldn't even find the problems in this patch, you'd trust them to play through your arcs and decide if you're worthy of giving rewards? You'd expect any of this to occur in a timely matter?

For the Nth time, most people will not play AE arcs if they give no reward and that includes a large subset of the authors as well. The "I'll play anything just for the story crowd" is very tiny compared to the total AE community.

Besides which, editing your arc will have to take it off the "approved" list. Authors edit their "Final" arcs all the time.

Dr. Aeon:

I understand the reason for the hotfix, and can appreciate that a better solution is 'in the pipeline.' I'm patient, and I can wait out MA being "sub-par" until the better solution can be implemented.

Here's my primary concern. The majority of my arcs (including a DC'ed one!) have at least one mission with severely reduced XP because of this change, in spite of the fact allies are used in a completely legitimate way.

I can handle that, given that I trust you guys to come up with a better solution than the current one that will soon be put into place.

But I'm very concerned about the players that are 'not in the know' who will undoubtedly hand out low ratings when they find a mission isn't giving XP. I hope something will be done to counter this: for example, starting from April 7th, any ratings below 5 stars that are given between the 7th, and whenever the *real* fix gets here will be removed.

I would really hate to see arcs I've worked so hard on get bad ratings in response to something I wasn't even responsible for, and that isn't permanent.

Because in most cases, a particular player's rating *is*.

I mentioned I was unsubscribing to convey just how much of a problem I thought this was.

I think there's a big difference between 'there's suddenly a new possible exploit that we have to fix or it's going to completely derail the game in the next month -- it's going to cause a lot of problems for nearly all other content, but it's better than the alternative' and 'we've suddenly decided to slap a fix on something that's been around since day 1, which is also going to shred the XP for nearly all other content, but for some reason we find it necessary to tod that rather than wait the month or two for a more sensible fix.'

My objection, and why I'm leaving, has to do with the pattern of decision making that lead to that, rather than the specific 'fix.' That they thought this was a good idea speaks volumes, and means I'm not willing to shell out more money to find out what happens next. Maybe I'll be back in another year, but it's looking increasingly unlikely.

TonyV, your comments about only 'some' arcs being affected strike me as disingenuous. Some? Really? How many arcs do you think have nothing but enemies in them at all?

Your dismissive attitude to why people might be upset their arcs have reduced XP is obnoxious, too. Like others said, it's hard to be a storyteller with no audience.