Who interacts with the Mission Architect with consideration to its stories?
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2010-05-12 18:59 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I am trading XP for story every time I turn the game off and go read a book.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
I think a lot of people would trade xp for story if the story is astounding. But almost no stories are.
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But when I'm playing AE, I am playing an MMO. I kill stuff, I expect to be rewarded for killing stuff.
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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To be fair, I don't think AE missions should be rated for whatever rewards they do or don't hand out, because a lot of that is beyond the creator's control.
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Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
Except to the author, who then can't understand why you only gave his obvious masterpiece 4 stars just because it gave poor rewards.
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The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Well, I think part of the problem lies with the 5 star rating system. To me, a 5 is perfection, A+, 100%, no problems, no mistakes, no issues whatsoever. I consider 5 stars so high because there is nothing above it and the only thing under it is 1 - 4 stars. If I could rate a great but not perfect arc 4.9 or 4.8 or some other fraction, I would. But I can't.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
To be fair, I don't think AE missions should be rated for whatever rewards they do or don't hand out, because a lot of that is beyond the creator's control.
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On the other hand, I rarely rate anything less than 3. It has to be really bad to get a 2 or 1 star from me. I may frequently quit something and not rate it all for a variety of reasons. But I figure if you put in at least a little effort you should get some tickets out of it.
I do think that rewards are in the mix to consider, because if I spend 30 minutes to an hour doing someone's arc, I expect to get at least close to what I would have from a regular mission. Otherwise, I feel I have wasted time and effort doing that arc, regardless of how well written the dialogue was, instead of progressing my character.
Other people have different standards than me and rate according to their standards. That's fine by me. But please don't tell me how I should rate something. My rating is my opinion. You may not agree with it, you may not even like it, but it is my opinion and I am entitled to it.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
The problem with the rating system is that it is anonymous.
When you rate an arc, the system should say "this rating will be searchable by other players, is that ok?"
When you click on an arc, you should be able to see who rated it at 5 stars, 4 stars or whatever, so in the future you can know whether those people have tastes that align with your own.
You should be able to create a list of people whose taste you trust, then when you click an arc you get a list of those people and see what they rated it.
You should be able to click on the name of someone who has recommended an arc and get a list of all the arcs they have rated.
That way, you can say to yourself, "this guy usually 5-stars boss farms" and decide whether or not you want to play more arcs that person rated.
If ratings were not anonymous, fewer ratings would be given out. This is actually, in hindsight, a good thing.
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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And there once again highlights the problem that ratings are subjective. I on the other hand don't see 5-stars as perfection. 5 stars would be an A grade, but an A can be anywhere from 90 to 100%. An arc can still have a few minor flaws and still be deserving of an 5 star rating.
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Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
Well, I think part of the problem lies with the 5 star rating system. To me, a 5 is perfection, A+, 100%, no problems, no mistakes, no issues whatsoever. I consider 5 stars so high because there is nothing above it and the only thing under it is 1 - 4 stars. If I could rate a great but not perfect arc 4.9 or 4.8 or some other fraction, I would. But I can't.
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No, not really. More data is more useful. When people give an anonymous rating, they give whatever rating they want, and for the vast majority of players this reflects their opinion (to their best understanding of the highly subjective five star rating system). When you rate publically, and you are also an author, you are constrained from giving an honest negative opinion because you know it could lead to a dishonest negative rating of all your work in retribution. The real problem is that the one star rating has seven times the power to remove an arc from the five-star level (aka the only arcs that most people will ever see) that a five-star rating has to restore it. That makes it a tool for griefing, and that is one of the many reasons why the star ratings are terrible.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
The problem with the rating system is that it is anonymous. [...] If ratings were not anonymous, fewer ratings would be given out. This is actually, in hindsight, a good thing.
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All the other benefits you have mentioned can also be derived by attaching identities to ratings internally but not exposing this information to players. See for instance Amazon's recommendation system, which detects when users who rate one product highly tend to also rate another product highly and makes suggestions accordingly. This is completely possible, but it's also algorithmically difficult and computationally expensive. For Amazon the system translates directly into sales and revenue, which makes the effort necessary to pull it off pay for itself and then some. For City of Heroes, maybe not so much.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
I see your point, and I agree that more data is better, hence non-anonymous.
Sure, a person might just choose not to give an arc a bad rating, rather than rate low to avoid repurcussions, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing: people would theoretically be 'following' you to see what arcs you liked, not the ones you disliked.
The real problem with non-anonymous ratings would be people deliberately rating an enemy low, but that problem corrects itself if people are judging arcs by who rated them highly, rather than what the overall rating is.
I would also be in favor of a "people who liked this also liked..." system such as you suggest.
Something needs to be done, and if they just tackled the Market UI, then I don't think the AE is out of reach.
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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... you do realize that the changes to the market UI could be charitably described as "ambivalent", right?
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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
Something needs to be done, and if they just tackled the Market UI, then I don't think the AE is out of reach.
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@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
Yep.
Are you suggesting that nothing should be done to AE rather than risk the Devs having 'ambivalent' success in making it easier to find arcs you would like?
If so, I can understand that, while disagreeing.
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!
No, I'm saying that the changes made to the Market UI do not make me excited about prospective changes to the AE UI. I would love to see changes made to the AE UI, and backend, but I sincerely hope they are more thoroughly considered and vetted than the changes to the market UI.
In the developers' defense, it is hard to get a proper test of the market UI in beta - because the test server basically does not have a functional economy. It does, however, have a functional AE, so any potential AE change will be tested a lot more thoroughly and the volume of feedback (both in the sense of amount and in the sense of force) will be considerably greater.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
I prefer the anonymous system. Back in early beta testing of MA, your opinions of an arc were e-mailed directly to the author.
I submitted my comments and got a rather pointed response explaining to me how my opinion was wrong. After that, I stopped submitting comments and only used stars. I don't need or want to argue about my tastes in mission arcs.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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That's a shame, I make it a habit to make a courteous "thank you for commenting on my arc" to everyone that leaves a comment be it good or bad. Most of them don't go through since I reside in the EU, but I appreciate them putting in the time to write one.|
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
I prefer the anonymous system. Back in early beta testing of MA, your opinions of an arc were e-mailed directly to the author.
I submitted my comments and got a rather pointed response explaining to me how my opinion was wrong. After that, I stopped submitting comments and only used stars. I don't need or want to argue about my tastes in mission arcs. |
I recall being particularly brutal in one of my comments back in the early days of MA, but the author was very open to the critique and we ended up becoming friends. So I guess it can work either way.
A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691 <- Dev's Choice'd by Dr. Aeon!
Submit your MA arc for review & my arcs thread
Well the way I avoid the xp problem is set my arcs for 50's that dont mean under 50's cant play them but under 50's will struggle so I just say teams recommended, as I really wouldnt want a poor old 30 or 20 trying it and getting nuked instantly. And setting it 50 does sure the xp problem mostly.
The end is just a new beginning, Goodbye all my coh friends and even the enemies, its been a blast I will miss you all. Thank you Paragon team, you gave me a home from home I will always appriciate it.
I haven't been into the AE building for at least three months. Maybe more. I just prefer the missions outside of it.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad