What keeps you away from AE arcs?

For those of you that do find and play actual story arcs in the AE, thank you. But for the many that either don't, or have stopped. What is the biggest reason that keeps you away from the AE building? Can't find the good arc from all the farms and junk? No chances for purples/Incarnate shards outside of Dev Choice arcs? Not really aware of AE at all?

And a second question, what's something that *would* bring you into the AE building to try out an arc?

[tl;dr mini-rant below, feel free to ignore]
The MA/AE community feels like a dying breed. Authors find it hard to get plays on new arcs. Five star arcs get downrated to four stars where they pretty much never get played again. It feels like the devs have abandoned it, handing out only 2-3 Dev Choice awards in a year, Hall of Fame is practically impossible to reach, the search engine for finding an arc is terrible, and the ratings system and sorting system just plain doesn't work the way its intended.

And the only time the AE gets any real attention is for the exploits. I'm sure everyone knows the term "monkey farm", but how many people know the term "Teen Phalanx Forever"? Even doing something to highlight the best arcs of the year has largely been ignored, when the year before it was a rousing success. Even the third Aeon Challenge, the last dev-supported event only created a single new Dev Choice arc, when the last two challenges created three. And those challenges have been the *only* source for new Dev Choice arcs recently. Where's the incentive?

Edit: Those who want to find good arcs to play, sorted by level range and theme: Go Here

Nothing - I play them often - but for the past couple of weeks I've been suffering from shard and badge fever - but it's now over, so I'll be back to playing AE arcs again

Mostly because I haven't enjoyed too many of the arcs I've played. Especially the so-called "funny" ones. God, they're just awful.

Finding a good arc is far too difficult. I don't want to have to sift through a million options, I want to get on and play a couple of nice missions. How many thousand farms are out there that I need to go through to find one decent arc?

Also, there are far too many dead arcs cluttering the search. I think a wipe is in order... give a global message of the day so authors can save their arcs, and unpublish everything. Let it be restocked.

Maybe an option in the GUI that lets you search your global friends list for new publications?

I think the CoH engine makes for a poor storytelling environment, even if it's getting slightly better these last issues (but then, these new interactive options aren't available in AE).

Even if the above wasn't an issue, another problem is most people who think they can write can't write. Combine that with a faulty rating system, and it's not worth sifting through ten mediocre arcs to find a single good one (and I'm being generous with the ratios here).

I do play AE arcs sometimes. I get frustrated with the following:

Finding an arc that isn't someone's ticket farm and isn't really badly written.

Arcs that are written for level 40+ characters, but flagged as levels 1-54. Quite a lot of stuff is too tough for a level 8 character with TO enhancements and only 6 powers. (I play the introductory arcs that Flame Kitten did quite a lot with low level characters.)

Arcs that have custom power sets. This can be good or bad, but mostly bad. I've tried quite a few arcs where the arc designer designed characters to spam mez effects. I'm guessing these are designed for scrappers/tankers/brutes/stalkers who shrug off mez effects. Harder to play with a blaster or a defender.

Arcs that are over fond of Elite Bosses and Arch Villains. I don't like EBs or AVs. I don't want to play arcs with these. I'm not uber or leet.

Honestly, after playing in AE for a while, I often feel like I shouldn't even try playing anything but a scrapper or a brute. I kind of get the feeling that many AE writers feel that the regular game is too easy.

The last arc I played in AE left a sour taste in my mouth, and I haven't felt like trying again since. It was an arc by @Heraclea complaining about the developers nerfing experience on custom characters. As if the developers would ever play that lousy arc. People who waste my time to make a statement only make a bad experience. Preach on the forums, leave it out of the game. Or at least warn me.

Other things keeping me away from AE lately is all the shiny new stuff. I18 and I19 added lots of stuff to try out.

I want a better way of finding arcs that are appropriate for my character's level and level appropriate TO, DO or SO enhancement slotting. If it is built as a challenge for someone's level 50 purple IO build, I want warning well in advance.

I want to find a way to find story driven arcs, so I can avoid farms. I have no problems with farmers, but I aren't one.

I've played some really great AE arcs. But they were hard to find, and I don't want to keep playing them over and over until I tire of them. I want to find new ones to try.

the biggest turn off for me is no purples/shards outside of dev choiced content

another turn off for me is i think a lot of the hyped arcs, guest author arcs, dev choice arcs, and hall of fame arcs overall just suck, the mishs are in no way fun to play and half of them the rewards are nerfed to hell cause authors cant edit dev choice at their whim

another turn off for me is the ticket cap individual maps, if i run a mish on the dreck map and get to 1500 tickets before i even finish 1/4 of the map, then something is wrong

i also agree that there should be some sort of timer put on so that invalid arcs are auto deleted after say 30 days of it being invalidated

Hmmm.

I'd agree on a "purge" of some sort. Or at least having WIP hidden by default. Something. There's a lot of arcs that are farms, or abandoned, or just don't work any more.

Dumping the current rating system, I'd agree with. I'd like to see some comments on the arcs in there, too. Plus plays/completes/rates, actually. If I see 5000 people start an arc, but only 3 finish it, well...

Quite honestly, I'm starting to lean toward "Just add the 'farm' tag already so we can avoid them.'"

Writing wise, mine need updating, I just haven't had the motivation to do so - yeah, after writing all those initial tutorials, I haven't been able to get going. Having arcs buried so fast doesn't help, either.

I'd actually like to have Dev Choice (when was the last one? Or the one before that?), Players and Guest in their own interface, as well. Just off to the side. And yes, some dev attention - maybe spotlighting 1-2 a month. Yeah, it means the devs (or at least Aeon) has to dig through them, but showing SOME interest (other than fixing things which give the chorus of "zomg the devs nurft our farmz!") would be nice.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Lack of purples and incarnate shard drops is the big issue for me right now.

Once I've got to the point where shard drops are less of an issue, I'll be in the MA building again checking out arcs.

Way too much crap, way too little quality, way too useless rating system. So-called 5 star arcs are actually worthless crap with writing that would shame your average nine-year-old. The guest arcs vary widely in quality, and the dev's choices, while generally good, are limited in number.

This then raises in my mind a question for everyone who decries the arcs with lousy writing...

... if there were arcs that were well-written, with an engaging story, well-designed enemies, a good and varied use of maps, etc., but that occasionally might be lighter on XP (the way FedEx missions can be sometimes), would you still play them?

For example... a 5-mission arc. Mission 1: solid middle-of-the-road mish for difficulty (mid-sized map, not a DA). Mission 2: a small map, empty save for a boss and his minions beat the snot out of him for (imagine sneaking into the hideout of Jimmy the Fish). Mission 3: large map, a couple glowies, an ambush or two, still not a DA (Jimmy's been messing with something impressive... time to take it away). Mission 4: mid-sized map, rescue some poor schmuck, ambush and a boss (Joey the Squirrel, responsible for abducting the schmuck in the first place). Mission 5: whole hog, mid-sized map DA to impress upon said faction that the good guys will win and they'll remember that fact each time it rains.

A couple of these missions would be a bit light on XP. But if the arc were really well done, the maps not overused, and some good original designs with well balanced powers, would you still play it?

I would.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

You've pretty much highlighted the many problems Bub. All summed up with your last sentence. Where is the incentive?

There is no incentive. For the authors nor the players.

The authors write and it's just impossible to get plays outside of the super critical MA community. Quite a few times including just today a fellow author that I respect left me comments such as- I don't understand this or that instead of just trying to enjoy the story. It's like they don't even read the text.

It's something I just don't understand. For a bunch of authors- where's everyone's damn imagination, lol. Seriously... I already feel as if I am dumbing down my writing and any further dumbing down it'll read like a friggen manual.

The same story I've got lots of praise for also from fellow authors as well. Opinions are like- well you know...

I dunno maybe it's just another one of those things. The author who didn't 'get it' didn't even complete the story and obviously didn't read it at all. Or have no reading comprehension. It's just why waste mine and your time if your just going to half *** read the material. Just to criticise anothers work?

If I want to be critizised I'll go visit my parents.

To me it's no wonder why no new authors stick around. I was very excited and into it when I first began. Spending literally hundreds of hours, heart, and soul into my stories. But now I don't even join the MA channel anymore. Half because of the authors- the other half because people just aren't interested and have no incentive.


It's all a lost cause until the Dev's step up to the plate. The balls in their court. They just don't seem to understand, care, or even get involved anymore. Until they fix the problems you outlined for them, and that have been outlined repeatedly, and discussed to the point of nausea. There will be no further growth and it'll just continue to die.

There' not one single thing you, me, or other players can do at this point.

For me, it's definitely the difficulty in finding a worthwhile arc to play amid all the crap that's in the system. Ideally (for me, anyway), Dr. Aeon's job would be looking through arcs people have made and flagging whether or not they were "publish-worthy". These would get listed in the archive. Otherwise, you would have to look up the arc number to get the arc. Thus, farmers could still have their farms, friends could still share their arcs, and folks wanting to do a random arc wouldn't get weighed down by all the dross in the system.

It'd probably be pretty boring for Dr. Aeon, though, and keep him from the other good things he does for the game, but I think the system really does need a human filter on it.

AE is just too much of a pain in the butt for a player and an author. As you said, once you get to four stars (easy with the way people rate), your arc might as well be dead.

As a player, there's plenty of dev created content in the game with better rewards.

AE, in my opinion, was a waste of developer time.

For those saying that it is too hard to find good arcs, I added a link to one of the only decent quality list of good arcs sorted by level range done by PoliceWoman: Here. It will vary here and there based on people's tastes, but every one of the arcs listed is as good if not better than pre-Going Rogue in-game arcs.