Originally Posted by Eden's Fall
![]() (or the "OMG it's LOLBat" crap)
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What keeps you away from AE arcs?
C'mon now, if you found it demoralizing to have people low-rate your stuff, why would you call that arc out that way? That's one of my favorite arcs - the mobs are mean but I laugh and laugh.
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To be fair, LOLBat is not my cup of tea, and I do not enjoy it. However, given how many players DO enjoy it, I fully admit that there must be something there worthy of drawing others in.
Thank you, I stand corrected...and sheepish.
![Embarrassment](images/smilies/redface.gif)
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.
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I am sick and tired of pseudo-comedy arcs in the Architect. No, the Freakshow are not cute. No, Dr. Aeon's antics are not funny. No, I don't want to hear debates about "arrest vs. kill." There are few things I like less than overt comedy, and it seems like that's most of what's out there. What has ALWAYS been out there.
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On the other side of the discussion, getting arcs played isn't just impossible now. It's been impossible for me since day one. I have a couple sitting at four stars, who've had a combined total of less than 30 playthroughs since the Architect came out, and most of those are people I specifically asked to try them. I don't think they're bad, because I usually get good responses, but there are probably ten times as many arcs as there are actual players, and I don't blame anyone for not bothering to rifle through the pile.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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On the other side of the discussion, getting arcs played isn't just impossible now. It's been impossible for me since day one. I have a couple sitting at four stars, who've had a combined total of less than 30 playthroughs since the Architect came out, and most of those are people I specifically asked to try them. I don't think they're bad, because I usually get good responses, but there are probably ten times as many arcs as there are actual players, and I don't blame anyone for not bothering to rifle through the pile.
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Perhaps categorizing the missions and arcs would help players find something they are interested in.
"What are you looking for?"
-Click "single mission" or "multi-mission arc."-
"What style of mission?"
-Click "comedy," "CoH lore," "Player created lore," etc-
"Would you like to face EB's and AVs?"
-Click "Yes" or "No."
This is just an idea, but I think giving players a better way to sort the missions available to find what THEY like and will fit THEIR playstyle could help with two problems. First, it will get the lesser-played arcs out of the AE purgatory basement (helping the authors), and second it will help stop the flooding of missions that pop up for you to have to sort through on your own (helping the players).
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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This is just an idea, but I think giving players a better way to sort the missions available to find what THEY like and will fit THEIR playstyle could help with two problems. First, it will get the lesser-played arcs out of the AE purgatory basement (helping the authors), and second it will help stop the flooding of missions that pop up for you to have to sort through on your own (helping the players).
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It would also be awesome if the edit-and-republish feature worked better, in order to bring arcs back up-to-date when some change in the system ruins them.
I've made an AE arc.
I think one guy played through it (And I asked him to do it, just so I could get the badge!)
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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? |
"Forum PvP doesn't give drops. Just so all of you who participated in this thread are aware." -Mod08-
"when a stalker goes blue side, assassination strike should be renamed "bunny hugs", and a rainbow should fly out" -Harbinger-
The problem I have is that when you try to find something between the mass of unrated arcs you have to plow through a whole load of open farms, poorly concealed farms and "tests of skill" trash before you find something decent.
I want to play arcs from people who have never been rated before, but I don't always feel like dealing with all that garbage you know?
Maybe they can add 2 categories or something. One with story arcs, and one with "tests of skill" and such maps.
@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
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.
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- The Do-It-Yourself Laser Moonbase Project, by @Twoflower. I liked it because it actually let me accomplish something as a self-motivated villain, and there was no return to status quo at the end. I was not treated as a means to someone's end, which is something I hate about redside. Found via AE search.
- Saul Rubenstien's Discount Task Force, by @Ascendant. I liked it because it is damned funny. Found because I knew Ascendant would not disappoint.
- Blight, by @Witch Engine. Although this arc won an award for Best Enemy Group, it is excellent in all respects. I hear it might have suffered from the AE changes, with mobs being replaced by generic placeholders, which would be a shame. Found from personal communication and recommendation.
- Astoria in D Minor, by@Cheshire Cat. An excellent horror arc that shows rather than tells, and has some interesting mechanics to it. May also be suffering from dev changes as of late. Found from personal communication and recommendation.
I don't recall if any of these I have listed were from guest authors, but one of the absolute worst arcs I have ever quit partway through was from a guest author, who shall remain nameless. Let's just say that being internet famous or a celebrity nerd doesn't make you able to write an arc for beans.
I will take a flip through Police Woman's list later, but the arcs I recognize so far on her list are mediocre at best. I will have to see which ones I have tried and give a few more a shot, perhaps. I've also taken a look at Venture's reviews, but the arcs he rates highly are often somewhat staid and boring storywise, and at least once he hated an arc that I loved. Reviewers are only useful assets if you agree with their tastes.
If you were able to filter out the furries, terrible origin stories, crap anime "homages" and people making farm after farm after farm, AE might be worth revisiting.
My problem is basically one thing - it's just too much work to find an arc to play that's actually decent. It's just way easier to play dev content - sure, some of it is crap, too, but I can eventually learn which contacts are boring/annoying and avoid them. Obviously you can't do the same in the AE, and there is just such a ridiculous amount of pure crap clogging up the listings that I can't be arsed to wade through it all, especially since there's no real way to tell other than by loading it up (I mean, you can narrow it down some by carefully reading descriptions, but that doesn't help too much).
If there was a relatively easy way to sort the dreck from the actual stories, I would play it a lot more. I don't even need it to sort the good stories from the bad - I can decide that for myself. All I want is a way to find arcs where the author actually put in a bit of effort to make it a *story arc* - a way to avoid all the farms and pure junk.
Stuff like Policewoman's list is a great help, but I wish I didn't have to go outside the game to find things like that. For me it's the effort involved that's the annoyance - I *can* find decent arcs by using the forums and whatnot, but if I have to do that in the first place it makes it much more likely that I won't bother and just go off and do something else instead.
One thing I really wish could be added would be some way to get arc recommendations from people who have similar tastes. I.e. if I decide I like Policewoman's taste in arcs, something I could do where I could 'subscribe' to her arc ratings and the system would show me arcs that she rated high. Or maybe when I finish an arc, it could give a few random suggestions along the lines of 'other people who rated this arc 4 stars also rated these other arcs highly'. Just *anything* so that when I decide I want to play some AE, I don't have to sit down and wade through page after page of dreck (or else play one of the good arcs from the pool of arcs I've already played, which partly defeats the purpose of the AE for me).
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
![](http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5458/curiosityu.jpg)
This is what it means to be a tank!
a well made GUI would solve quite a few of MA's most glaring faults.
one simple change they could make that would IMHO improve things greatly is removing the star system and imposing a simple option to "like" an arc, like on Facebook.
If you like it, you get a vote. If you don't, you just move on to the next one. Goodbye, ratings griefing.
This was suggested and ignored in Beta, but is still an excellent idea.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
I have a hard enough time keeping up with dev-created content.
Going in to AE and then hunting for good player-created content on top of that?
Sorry, that just isn't happening.
As for creating missions, I gave that up after I lost count of the number of times the devs screwed with what you can and cannot place into your arcs.
Devs: Look at this cool stuff we'll let you do!
Players: 'SPLOIT!
Devs: Goddammitsomuch, NERF!!
::::cooldown period::::
Devs: Look at this cool stuff we'll let you do!
Repeat ad infinitum. Thanks, but no thanks.
I want to like AE, but the awful searching and creating processes involved have pretty much turned me off of it.
Statesmonkey Sez: Lighten up! It's a game, for Lincoln's sake!
Also: Six years of casual play begins to look an awful lot like one year of hardcore play.
a well made GUI would solve quite a few of MA's most glaring faults.
one simple change they could make that would IMHO improve things greatly is removing the star system and imposing a simple option to "like" an arc, like on Facebook. If you like it, you get a vote. If you don't, you just move on to the next one. Goodbye, ratings griefing. This was suggested and ignored in Beta, but is still an excellent idea. |
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
This would fix a lot. A four star review might as well be a one the way this system works. Forcing that binary choice would help. It still wouldn't be a panacea though. Still to much dreck to filter through. Still crappy rewards, especially for Incarnates.
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Being able to narrow the field manually and see some meaningful ratings in that subgroup would be handy.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
I usually only play the dev choice AE arcs w/ my farmer.
Since there're no merits, I don't play it with my SF runner.
The rewards aren't that vital to me (as long as I'm getting SOME XP for my time, I'm happy). The problem is, every time I go into AE, I find myself flipping through page after page, looking desperately for something that's a) not a farm, b) is not a "you team up with my character" arc, c) is not loaded with spelling and grammatical errors, d) is not full of stupidly overpowered adversaries, and e) looks interesting and appropriate for the character I'm using -- both in terms of difficulty and in a RP sense. Needless to say, I tend to not find a lot. After wasting enough time doing this, I end up saying the hell with it and go do a newspaper mission or something.
34 heroes,
20 villains, Victory, Justice, Infinity, Virtue, Triumph, Exalted -- some more active than others
a well made GUI would solve quite a few of MA's most glaring faults.
one simple change they could make that would IMHO improve things greatly is removing the star system and imposing a simple option to "like" an arc, like on Facebook. If you like it, you get a vote. If you don't, you just move on to the next one. Goodbye, ratings griefing. This was suggested and ignored in Beta, but is still an excellent idea. |
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
I agree with what everyone's saying here (ratings meaningless, tons of utter garbage to try to wade through, and a really clunky interface). I have found one arc I really enjoy. One. ONE! I'm sure there are more. Somewhere. The tons of farms with 5 stars is a big reason I don't mess with AE.
My biggest beef is that I can't get a recipe at a level I'd use from reward rolls. If these were like Hero Merits, and I could use a slider bar not only to go down in level, but to go up 3 levels, I'd be doing AE a LOT more. Whenever I'm between arcs, or can't find anything my level to do. I'd even try to wade through all the garbage to find something non-hideous!
Recipes like Thunderstrike, Crushing Impact, Doctored Wounds, Efficacy Adapter, all flow like water out of bronze reward rolls. And, coincidentally, these are the very recipes I'm looking for on all my 30-something toons. And these are the very recipes which are not for sale at the AH. You'd think this would be a big win, huh? But my 32 blaster isn't ever going to slot a 32 Thunderstrike. The only toons who are looking for an even-level IO are all 50, and they have no difficulty finding recipes of any sort.
Honestly, so many of us have trouble finding mid-level recipes, I think AE could be much more popular for its rewards if we could just shift that stupid slider bar 3 levels up.
Recipes like Thunderstrike, Crushing Impact, Doctored Wounds, Efficacy Adapter, all flow like water out of bronze reward rolls. And, coincidentally, these are the very recipes I'm looking for on all my 30-something toons. And these are the very recipes which are not for sale at the AH. You'd think this would be a big win, huh? But my 32 blaster isn't ever going to slot a 32 Thunderstrike. The only toons who are looking for an even-level IO are all 50, and they have no difficulty finding recipes of any sort.
Honestly, so many of us have trouble finding mid-level recipes, I think AE could be much more popular for its rewards if we could just shift that stupid slider bar 3 levels up. |
Ok, everyone who avoids AE because you get tickets rather than random drops...you do realize that unless you're 50, tickets can be way more profitable than regular drops right? For one thing, the roll results are weighted, so you get fewer immobilize recipes and more recipes people might actually want to buy. For another, you can save them up and roll at the levels where stuff tends to sell for more. And if you roll in a lower level bracket, you can get desirable lower-level recipes. Where do you think all those Steadfasts and Regenerative Tissues come from?
Yes, the search sucks, the ratings system sucks, it's hard to find good stuff among the dreck, there are too many farms and outdated arcs, most people have no clue how to design custom critters but insist on filling missions with them anyway, people are still allowed to make custom critters with a level range of 1-54 which makes the "my level" search useless, the available tags are limited, the XP isn't as good as in regular missions, it's full of plot holes and spelling errors....but tickets are awesome.
What keeps me away from AE arcs is the new shiny right now, and the fact that I've played so many of them that finding something good that I haven't played is becoming harder and harder. I can't remember the last time I found a decent arc through the in-game search. I find most of what I play through the forums.
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
Ok, everyone who avoids AE because you get tickets rather than random drops...you do realize that unless you're 50, tickets can be way more profitable than regular drops right? For one thing, the roll results are weighted, so you get fewer immobilize recipes and more recipes people might actually want to buy. For another, you can save them up and roll at the levels where stuff tends to sell for more. And if you roll in a lower level bracket, you can get desirable lower-level recipes. Where do you think all those Steadfasts and Regenerative Tissues come from? .
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I am glad you are generating the steadfasts and etc. for us, Eva Destruction. I utterly lack the patience for it. You end up with 20 recipes, vendor half of them, and monkey around in WW's for ages buying all the stuff you need for the remaining 10 or so recipes (and realizing you don't have nearly the salvage capacity, so add a couple more trips to and from base), crafting them, and making yet another trip to WW's to auction them. Average price for all that fussing around crafting items in mid-thirty range? 3 million. I've probably gotten a dozen or so that made 10-15 mill, and 1 or 2 oblits that made even more. But for the time investment outside of the AE mission itself, it's a poor return on my time (Unless the process is something you really enjoy, and it's a fun "game-within-a-game" for you - then it's a smart way to spend your time!).
Lowering the level of the recipes shortens this considerably, since 98% of what you get is unsellable as an IO (No one will pay even half what the salvage costs for a lvl 15 ranged IO, for example). I'm happy to hear you got good stuff! I tried it a few times and got absolutely nothing but garbage. The mid-ranged stuff will at least get me the 3 million per.
For a toon with no infl. to speak of, and no resources, then tickets are a great way to yield a small nest egg. The path to riches, however, it is not.
My main problem... is it isn't really part of the game.
It is like playing a game inside of a game. It doesn't feel like you are actually saving the world or anything else, it is just a bunch of content removed from the "real city" as much as the devs possibly could.
That, and finding decent content to play is hard. There is so much clutter...
Mew