What keeps you away from AE arcs?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2010-12-11 19:09 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Yep. Assuming I can find them.
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Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
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? |
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What keeps me away? Well, what someone considers 'good' I could consider awful. I did a Dev's choice arc, set to around level 20 because it seemed like a nice, easy one to do for the Dev's Choice played badge... and I faced two E-Bs which I loathe and despise so I never played another (this was before the orange warnings). I play to relax, I like to win so I can actually experience the story but when E-Bs come along I hit a roadblock and it earns a black mark with me. There's a multitude of story arcs on both sides that I hate including the Alpha slot unlock for this very reason.|
Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
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? |
Friends occasionally bring me back in for RP arcs or arcs they've made personally because they're friends and I like to support them, I like teaming with them. But try one outside that little circle? Forget it. I'd rather farm the old Council Empire map over and over than risk trying what someone else considers a story.
Tyger (50), Mutation-Controller Mind/FF - oldest Mind/FF on Union
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Oh I'm sure I'm a minority. I was just curious if I were ALONE. Apparently, I'm not. And believe me, I am all for getting equivalent XP to what I would in the game... what I meant was, if it's a lightning fast dash-in-do-this-get-out-not-a-lot-of-xp mission, same as you'd get if you stealthed a mish, would you get upset?|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I'll be nice in saying this since I like you Samuraiko, but you're a minority.
[snip] I'm still of the opinion that the AE buildings should be nuked and arcs should be able to be put IN THE GAME WORLD by authors, and available via level appropriate in game world CONTACTS. |
And I've said for a while that I think that rather than making stuff "Dev's Choice," the really good arcs should become new actual missions for the contacts in the game (like the filler missions between the uber story arcs we get from contacts).
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Originally Posted by Emberly
Hell yes. I have played more than one arc that had a great story and poor rewards. The problem is that everyone thinks their story is great, and the resources available to filter out the crap are inadequate. Sturgeon's Law applies.
As an aside, I try to play as many of the arcs I see in people's signatures as I can. I figure they care enough about their work to advertise it, I can do them the courtesy. Most of them are so bad I don't finish them. None of them have been so good that I would replay them. There's no useful, reliable way to find decent arcs. |
As a matter of interest, I'm curious which AE arcs you've really liked (if any), whether they were in someone's signature or not, so as to get an idea of your taste.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
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Thanks, I've bookmarked the link. I'll try some of those out tomorrow.
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Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
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.
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I have found quite a few bugs that have prevented me from creating, namely things labelled profane or copyright that aren't, at least outside of CoH canon. A couple of examples: I tried to make an arc with Black Scorpion, but his name is either profane or copyrighted. (Apparently there isn't a character named Black Scorpion in the CoH canon anyway.)
I also wanted to make an arc involving the Praetorians stealing the AE tech to use to make their training exercises. (Is that breaking the fourth wall, by the way?) I tried to call it Virtual Nightmare, but 'Nightmar' is profane or copyright.
Besides that, the Incarnate stuff has also taken time away from making arcs.
to 
TO THE END!Villains are those who dedicate their lives to causing mayhem. Villians are people from the planet Villia!
Outside of farms and exploits, I consider AE arcs to be fanfiction that our heroes/villains "play" in an arcade-like facility.
I've never been a fan of fanfiction, and I didn't come to Paragon City/Rogue Isles to play a game-within-a-game
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Well I was going to try an arc from your signature this evening, but most of them were levels 40+, and I was on a level 26 fire/fire blaster and didn't want to switch. I went and played one of Bubbawheat's instead. Wasn't in his signature, but I figured his forum name and global might be the same.|
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
Oh I'm sure I'm a minority. I was just curious if I were ALONE. Apparently, I'm not. And believe me, I am all for getting equivalent XP to what I would in the game... what I meant was, if it's a lightning fast dash-in-do-this-get-out-not-a-lot-of-xp mission, same as you'd get if you stealthed a mish, would you get upset?
And I've said for a while that I think that rather than making stuff "Dev's Choice," the really good arcs should become new actual missions for the contacts in the game (like the filler missions between the uber story arcs we get from contacts). The arcs in my signature, I'll admit, range from "what was I thinking?" to "this is good, even if I say so myself." They are not the best arcs I've ever played. I haven't even listed all my arcs (yes there's a 7th that's not in my signature, because I created it to test the limits of the AE... and admittedly the arc sucks). But they're arcs that others have played and even enjoyed. As a matter of interest, I'm curious which AE arcs you've really liked (if any), whether they were in someone's signature or not, so as to get an idea of your taste. Michelle aka Samuraiko/Dark_Respite |
I don't tend to read people's signatures, and AE arcs aren't usually on my mind when I'm on the forums, so I rarely think to use them as a starting point. This thread only caught my eye because it isn't in the MA section.
On another note, since I just finished playing an MA arc: One thing that makes doing MA arcs a little tiresome, is the fact that everything takes place in the AE buildings. I like flying/leaping/running/porting from mission to mission. It helps with immersion. Bopping back to AE reminds me I'm playing a game within a game.
personally, time, nothing the devs can do there really, a lot of new stuff was added, so with the reduced free time i have, i have to prioritize, and lore/canon stuff trumps non lore.
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I don't know how you'd find maps that weren't overused. I'd do it if the story were cool, but let's face it, most stories aren't that good. Even then, the author could throw in one xp- and reward-heavy mission in the arc.|
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
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? |
I recently played the Best Hero Arc of 2009 which was okay, but my god did she abuse the Clues. It says upfront that the clues are very important and to read them all but my eyes glazed over at the 25th clue or whatever it was. The writing was good but it needed serious editing to be pared down. Every single one of those clues could've been condensed down to a couple lines and added to the contact info. This is probably a game mechanic, but the fact that you had to constantly run back and forth in order to get clues which were unlocked after certain events was annoying, too. I rarely play with the sound on, so the sheer number of glowies that were activated in areas I'd already covered made the missions troublesome. Plus clues unlocked out of order so the story was disjointed. After a while I just stopped reading them.
And this was one of the better arcs I've run.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
Most of my reasons have been mentioned, but:
It's hard to CREATE in that thing. The interface is clunky and extraordinarily time consuming, and you don't get nearly the customization of the mission itself that's needed in most cases.
It's hard to FIND good arcs in there. And my standard of "good" isn't the same as other people. Talos Island Vice is a well-build storyarc that lots of people have recc'd - I hated it. I can see the quality, but I hated it. So those lists of "guaranteed good" arcs are only good if you share the same TASTE as the listmakers, which is sort of arrogant in its assumption that if THEY like it, YOU'LL like it.
I like farming in AE, but it's hard to find story arcs in amongst the farms. I too am a fan of the idea of having a farm tag to separate the stories and the farms from one another.
A lot of the custom critters are HARSH. They give out LESS xp than normal mobs and many of them are just BRUTAL to fight at less than level 45+. Since I'd mostly like to use AE to skip through lower levels where I've played the content to death, stuff like that really harshes my squee. And the normal mobs are boring and don't feel like I'm playing anything new.
Hmmm...
* Low XPs as opposed to standard missions
* Tickets as rewards
* Real "gold" too hard to find amongst the "dross"
* Unregulated rating system
* Too many Exploiters lurking about (small hands, smell like cabbage)
That about covers it.
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Alright, so I don't really play AE arcs. I've tried a few times, and maybe I should try again, but I don't and I have 3 major reasons.
1.) As many have already said, there is a lot of bad, un fun, not well written arcs out there. They just aren't good, and it's hard to sift through the tons of bad arcs, farms, wanna be farms, and all the other junk, (Half of it seems to me like these people aren't even trying to make arcs for others, just for themselves or friends to mess around in.) To get to the good stuff.
2.) Rewards aren't as good. I have a lot of alts I'm always building new characters and needing new IOs, and even basic IOs add up in costs. No Merits, no purples, and now no incarnate stuff. What time I do have in the game I want to spend building as well as playing, and so I want that extra income of good drops etc that finance a lot of my activities, or I want to be able to get my incarnate drops etc.
3.) This is probably the biggest one. AE has a stigma attached to it in my mind. It was a great idea, but the number of problems it had when it first launched, the constant abuses, the sheer number of farm missions, the fact that any time I see AE teams it's usually some sort of farm, (Not saying others aren't out there, I'm saying I don't run into them.) And the number of times I've gotten random spam invites from team looking to pad their AE team etc.
It's all built up to be this sort of thing where I just generally ignore the feature. It has too much bad juju associated with it in my brain. Which is more a personal\mental thing than anything else, but I really think had the launch of AE and the issues with abuses been handled better, I'd be more interested in the system as a whole.
That's not to say that AE broke the game or farmers are so rampant that they need to be dealt with by the Devs or what ever. It's been mostly fixed, and having AE in the game doesn't bother me in the slightest, I'm glad some people get good use out of it with their arcs and story telling, but I'm just not that interested in it.
Maybe one day I will be. I do like the building.
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker
Alot of whats been said above, but I also have one personal gripe:
Soometimes, I'm just looking for a quick fix, and it really doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of one-shot missions that aren't farms. It's been a while since I paid attention, but I know the last time I really cared, about a year ago, the prevailing attitude was just "Single mission arcs can't be good". I think that's false, but since the people who seem to actually care about AE seem to endorse that attitude, it creates a self defeating spiral. Maybe someone should host a "best single-mission arc" contest?
Put simply, the reason I mostly avoid AE is that its selection embodies Sturgeon's Law squared.
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Pretty much this. The system feels largely abandoned by the developers first and foremost, the authors who got sick of the clunky interface and four-star purgatory and therefore the players (unless it's a farm or exploit). It's hard to care enough to spend time in it when it seems obvious that few others do.
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Originally Posted by Ramification TM
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. |
I have two arcs in the system. Neither has been advertised outside of the AE system itself.
241 people have played arc #1. It is one mission long, focused on low level characters (lvl 1-30). It's a thing where Villains go into the Paragon sewers to hunt down a newbie Hero sewer team. 4 stars.
32 ish people have played arc #2. It is 4 missions long, took two weeks or so to write, and because of various changes to the AE system over time due to people exploiting everything they can get their hands on, completely unstable. After the third time I updated it to make it work with the new systems, I gave up on it. Currently sitting at 4 stars, but no one has played it in nearly a year.
I do use the AE system as a sort of "danger room" for creating missions suitable to some of my less durable characters.
I think there ARE ways to get a lot of the system, but players haven't been big on picking it up. I can definitely see the completion of an AE arc being the ticket to admitting a person into a super group for example, with the final pop up window being the "password" the player needs to join the group. I also am surprised we haven't seen the birth of "gauntlet clubs," where players build missions that are intentionally nigh-impossible to compete with each other on who can survive/win the missions, again using the final pop up as a codeword that is "proof" the player completed the task.
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Well, there we have it. Case closed.
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Originally Posted by Quinch
Put simply, the reason I mostly avoid AE is that its selection embodies Sturgeon's Law squared.
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The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
[QUOTE=Oedipus_Tex;3374362]
I think there ARE ways to get a lot of the system, but players haven't been big on picking it up. I can definitely see the completion of an AE arc being the ticket to admitting a person into a super group for example, with the final pop up window being the "password" the player needs to join the group. I also am surprised we haven't seen the birth of "gauntlet clubs," where players build missions that are intentionally nigh-impossible to compete with each other on who can survive/win the missions, again using the final pop up as a codeword that is "proof" the player completed the task.[/QUOTE]
I have done this very thing (in bold), and have actually worked on an arc with this premise (in italic). The only problem I had with the italic idea was that what some characters might find a challenging gauntlet that they can scrape by with clever inspiration usage, and/or sweat and tears, others might walk through wondering when the challenge would come... It is a balancing act that is tough to manage.
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I think I've only run one AE arc, Sister Flame's. Love the Disco Trolls.
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Taskforces and their great rewards are keeping me away from AE.
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1) Lack of Incarnate Shards, these are my 'thing' now.
2) With A-merits you can get the exact thing you want with regards IOs without the annoyance of a 'random roll'. I can also earn Incarnate shards in tip missions, making it a twofer.
3) Full of dross.
4) Crap XP.
5) Good Idea, crap and very half hearted implementation.
Ok let me expand on point number 5, the IDEA is good but much like Communism doesn't always work out that way.
My personal feeling is that they spent too much time, effort and resources on the AE when we could have had something else either instead of or more likely earlier than we did have.
It certainly didn't deserve to have a not just a whole Issue devoted to it but a whole damn box release. I personally think it would have been far better if they'd just ditched the AE at the 'ideas' stage, realised that it was just unworkable in the long run and moved onto something else.
The AE is normally only used for farming and even then only when someone discovers a new exploit.
Unfortunately they can't just pull it out of the game and file it under a 'we tried but it didn't work' since now it's a 'selling point' over other MMOs, even if the actual AE itself is a big steaming pile of turd it's something they can stick on the back of box releases as an eye-catching bullet point.
I second the idea of simply deleting everything off the AE and I do mean everything, even the guest author arcs and starting from fresh. Heck give people are 'Farm' tab to put in it, if you're not really going to do much about the actual arcs themselves (I honestly don't think there is time enough in the day for some poor sap to go through the entire AE and delete every farming arc reported).
I venture in occaissionally, when a SG member makes a AE arc for RP purposes.
On making my own AE arcs, I've tried to make my own, but I just don't get it, or can't get past not finding what the right type of map that I want. :/ (is there a map filled with lava, but no tech inside it?)
On playing others, well, truthfully, I've played a few, and all of them have been bad or rather not fit the theme I wanted to go for.
LoL Bat, guest AE author, and the arc was way to silly for my tastes (well written as it was...if I was playing The Tick MMO...this would of fit in nicely).
I don't want the extreme silly. Bad Marvel and DC, has had better serious than I've seen in quite a few AE arcs, and really, I don't want to search through them to find them.
I'd rather not play a "My talking dog has been kidnapped, and ninja dog catchers have caught him, help me get him back!" 
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I reviewed over 150 arcs, Police Woman reviewed a ton herself and we had a few other less prolific reviewers. It didn't really help.
| If we had some sort of reliable reviewers, they could offer up some arcs that are worthy of Dev attention. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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I had the same thing happen to me.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
The feedback (and 1-star ratings) I got on my arcs was so demoralizing that I deleted one and unpublished the other. I didn't have EBs ar AVs in either, which seemed to be the hang-up for many of the raters. Apparently focusing on story interfered with the farmers, so my arc got bad ratings and pushed to the bottom of the pile.
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I spent a good week building, editing, testing, retesting, re-editing, scrapping, starting over, and tweaking an AE arc that I absolutely loved. I wanted something a bit different than the standard "look, crazy people with bats" stuff. So, hearkening back to my childhood, I wrote a four-part arc based around Alice in Wonderland. For each mission, you had to fight a different "suit," ending with an AV fight with the Queen of Hearts. This was a STORY arc, not a "let's see how fast we can run it, maxxing our XP and tickets along the way" arc.
I loved it. It was challenging, but not impossible. It had a good mix (IMO) of melee, ranged, and CC wielding enemies, and was just fun (again, IMO).
But, as soon as it got published, I was being one-starred constantly with feedback complaining that it wasn't farmable, didn't give enough XP, or that it was too tough to solo.
The AE community is not a kind one, and gives off the impression that they only care about arcs and contain one or more of three things: 1) Farms, farms, and more farms. 2) The "OMG..it's teh uber-funny" missions that are hard to follow or understand. 3) Arcs that can't be run unless you are a fully purple IO'd melee toon.
So, why don't I play AE? Because, outside of arcs friends have written for RP purposes, I haven't found anything worth playing or any sense that the AE community cares to give anyone else a legitimate shot.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
And a second question, what's something that *would* bring you into the AE building to try out an arc?
I usually search for specific types of missions rather than pay much attention to star ratings, and so I don't feel the system is nearly as broken as other people do. I search for specific terms, such as fairies, elfs, vampires, demons, angels, etc. I like to play arcs that have a City of Warcraft feel to them. I love this game, but don't find enough magic missions for my taste, so I use AE to fill that gap. If I see an arc with standard villain groups, especially tech or paramilitary groups, I skip it completely.
In addition, I look for the shorter arcs. I mostly solo, so if an arc is labeled as long or if the maps are large, then it really has to draw me in with its description of critters/plot. If I find an arc is too hard because of poorly designed custom powers or whatnot, I drop it before the first mission is over and look for another. But I don't worry about that so much because it's usually obvious early on if the powers are poorly balanced.
If an arc is labeled as having an arch-villain/elite boss, I'm a bit more skeptical because of my solo status, but again, that's really not a deal-breaker if it otherwise sounds interesting. If an arc has drawn my attention through a search, that first mission will be the key to whether or not I attempt to finish it.
I tried to design my own arcs, but I got tired of them being made invalid before I'd published thanks to patches/updates. For a while I decided that I'd wait until the system became more stable before I came back and tried again, but I'm not sure that's happened (or honestly, if it will happen). It seems that every patch makes something or another in my arcs invalid, so I've not played around with creating them in some time.
d