What keeps you away from AE arcs?
For me the biggest issue with the MA is finding the good stuff amongst the dross and then finding a team to partake of it. It does seem that the MA is dead on its feet on Defiant at least - can't speak for other servers - but there seems to be a genuine lack of interest in it and plenty of other stuff happening.
That and then actually finding the good stuff.... that's a taskforce in itself.
![](http://repeat-offenders.net/savecoh/SaveCOH_Blue_leaderboard.jpg)
Thelonious Monk
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.
|
- Pull up the list of arcs, sorted by my level range, finished arcs, my alignment, sorted by rating or filtered by 4-star ratings.
- Search through four pages of arcs with extreme AVs, arcs made solely for level 50s, arcs with nothing but custom characters, and arcs with descriptions along the lines of "stop teh kitty grils!"
- Finally pick an arc that has a decent description.
- Do about two missions before discovering that the plot is nonsensical.
- Quit mission.
- Go through four more pages of junk to find another good-looking arc.
- Do about two missions before finding one where I need to click 20 glowies in Oranbega.
- Go through four more pages of junk to find another good-looking arc.
- Oh, hey, every single minion in this guy's custom enemy group has a hold or stun. And I'm on a Corruptor. Nooooo.
- Go through four more pages of junk to find another good-looking arc.
- Do one mission before I encounter something that was horribly broken by updates to AE. But the arc itself still looks good, if it'd just work!
- Go through four more pages of junk to find another good-looking arc.
- SURPRISE, EXTREME ENERGY MELEE/WILLPOWER ELITE BOSS AMBUSH!
- Go through four more pages of junk to find another good-looking arc.
- It's actually just somebody's well-designed farm. That's five issues old and barely even gives XP now.
- Go through four more pages of junk...
There's some good stuff out there. I've played a lot of it. Which is a big part of the problem, since missions for, say, low-level villains are relatively rare, so I've played most of the good ones in some ranges.
This actually seems like a really good idea. Dumping all the arcs that people don't care about and just haven't bothered to unpublish seems like it would clear up the clutter a lot.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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. |
With H/V merits you can. And just doing regular tfs you can get shards.
For some people (I'd bet a huge number) AE tickets are freaking useless.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
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... |
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
1) Interest in other parts of the game. I like AE, but there have been a lot of things added in other areas over the past several months, too, and I've been focused on those.
2) The inability to find halfway decent arcs. Unlike others in this thread, I don't see a way to improve this, either. It's simply too hard to judge what makes a "good" arc from a short description. (This problem isn't unique to AE, either; there's plenty of stuff, even newer stuff, that's considered lousy out in the regular game, too.)
3) The nastiness of the AE community. As much as I love AE, the hangups of the AE community are so odd and so intense that I've never promoted my arcs to any extent on the fora. Back when AE was new, I couldn't so much as list a new arc without one or more of the AE community's self-appointed arbiters of taste lambasting me for using custom characters, or not using custom characters, or being too serious, or not being serious enough, or using a line of text like, "It feels cold in here" (that gets you responses like, "Don't you know some people play robots that can't feel temperature! UR RUINING MA IMMERSION!!!! RARRRGH!"). There's also way too much complaining about the limitations of the system. Personally, I'm glad it works at all.
4) The nastiness of the non-AE community. I regularly get yelled at and criticized in my otherwise great global channels for being an "exploiter" because I use AE, and "AE is only for farming." This sort of thing is coming from people who'd gush about how wonderful some of the stuff in AE, if appeared in regular content. On the other hand, no one will run an arc that doesn't give overwhelming rewards; the achiever mentality isn't as strong in this game as it is in some other places, but it's still significant. Add the "AE is fanfic and fanfic sux!" and "AE is a waste of dev time!" crowd, and it's no wonder AE leaves a bad taste in authors' mouths. (Listen, I think raids and end-game systems are horrible, but I'm not going to trash the devs just for wanting to implement them.) Simply put, the hostility to AE in-game is so intense that I'll only run AE content solo these days.
5) The bad handling of AE on the devs' part. As I've said on numerous occasions, within anyone who creates content that can be communicated, there is an "artist" and an "entertainer." The artist wants to create for the pleasure of creating. The entertainer wants other people to appreciate the thing created and to be applauded for creating it. The AE system does all right for the artist. I can and have used it to create things simply to amuse myself. It does terribly for the entertainer. AE arcs (as opposed to the AE system in general) don't get any significant promotion from the system or the devs. The most they do is promote the odd arc to "Dev's Choice," which does little enough to raise its profile. (It doesn't help that some of the existing dev's choice arcs have been broken by patches and never fixed, but that's a different rant.)
In my opinion, the best thing about AE is that it can be used to create content faster than the two writer-devs can churn it out. The devs need to start making use of that virtue. They should be using their dev-like powers to ram AE content down the player base's throat, and the best way to do this is to go through the arcs that exist and start "promoting" them into the wider game world, assigning them to contacts, and the like. Yes, this would require a time investment for one or two developers. (How large? I have no idea.) Yes, it would require some rewriting and tweaking to convert content from the AE interface to the contact one, which would outrage authors. In my opinion, that kind of outrage is the price you pay for creating something in someone else's IP. All in all, if it gets more "regular" content out there, I consider it a good use of the AE system.
"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"
Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers
A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"
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.
|
Rather than unpublish, they could mark all - ALL - arcs with a 'do not show in search' and send every author a message that asks them to go to AE, PLEASE make sure the arc is playing 'right', "maybe give it a once-over", and then click a button to make it visible in search again. Combine that with a "works in progress do not show in search" function and I think that's clear the search (which needs its own help too, yes) of a lot of dross, without annoying people previous authors who came back and wondered where the arc they spent HOURS on got to.
And yes, switch to a "like"-only system of rating an arc. Showing previous player comments would be nice too.
Sig.
Less pithily: the rating and sorting system is terrible. A better system would put good fresh content at the top of the list. Such systems exist, but the devs didn't pay attention to work done elsewhere and instead ran with systems that have already failed in other places. How they thought a five star system was a good idea after having observed the old forums' thread rating system for years is beyond me.
@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 am not sure it helps you Bubba but I'll give you my reasons.
I really don't care much about story lines, I don't read the regular text so most of the AE stuff will naturally not have a draw for me. The fact that there are limited rewards just makes it not worth my time. I don't get a lot of time to play and it's split on events for a majority of it.
I like to run with my friends who mostly do lvl 50 content and TF's. I will mostly lvl PvE toons via TF's PvP toons I tend to pl. The only time I really do AE is for contests and if a friend says so and so wrote a funny AE arc you should try it. I will always run @Cai's AE contests cause he makes puzzles from the missions and I really like puzzles. I will do arc's from your players choice (when I have some free time respec and incarnate unlock hell ftw) because I like to support community supportive events. (I'll get my vote in on time though.)
"Play Nice and BEHAVE! I don't want to hear about any more of your shenanigans brought up in our meetings at Paragon"-Ghost Falcon @Tritonfree @Philly's 2nd Convenient CIGAL BoBC/INOANN Arts&Crafts Sporks
Average Joes FAP THE MENTOR PROJECT Justice Events
When AE first came out, I thought it'd be great to play other people's stories and I eagerly looked forward to the new fun.
Then it turned into a big farm churner.
Now, I play for tickets. I couldn't give a rat's as--piration about xp, or inf, or drops.
If I get a good story with a ticket farm, that's gravy. But, as many have said, there is soooo much chaff, I don't care to go rummaging for them. Also too many broken mishes means I only play things that are no more than 3 months old.
Now, the other night I had fun with a small team of friends playing AE roulette. The star was the bus, everyone got thrown under the bus. The bus victim had to pick a random AE mish searched by a random word from the rest of the team. We had a couple amusing, one very annoying, a decent farm, and at least one completely borked mission. But honestly, none were terribly stellar for story.
.
Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
YUMMY Low-Hanging Fruit for BASE LUV
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
I've given up on AE, both writing and playing, until the Devs get around to fixing it. I fear they never will.
("Fixing it" - clearing out the farms, implementing a rating system that actually works, etc)
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
QR: Too many instances of hitting "Random" and getting farms. Worse yet, farms that are obsolete with the new rules. I once got a farm that was once a poorly constructed, spread out farm that took too much work and was full of hi-larious jokes about sexual assault.
And I don't really accept "But if you go to this site...". I think that the system should stand up on its own feet for me to consider it. If I have to grab some duct tape and strap a fan-site to it to get it up to chuggin' pace... I'd rather spend time on the features of the game that actually work autonomously.
Edit:
And a second question, what's something that *would* bring you into the AE building to try out an arc? |
Remember how people would whine about all the good names being taken and suggest the devs free up names from inactive accounts and the devs said no? They don't want to risk alienating returning players with that. I'm guessing that same thiking would apply here.
|
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
So glad that set up didn't go to waste.
.
Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
YUMMY Low-Hanging Fruit for BASE LUV
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
Yet another vote for moving AT LEAST SOME of the arcs to appropriate IN WORLD contacts. Honestly I assumed this would be happening regularly when they first announced AE.
|
Sadly MA arcs lack anything substantially different (read, interesting) from conventional mission content, to merit a separate contact.
Familiar maps meet familiar objectives, with pseudo intriguing story lines, which isn't to say there are no creative authors in the games community, there are simply limited tools to breath life into something less conventional then an average tip mission.
Player generated maps would be a start in that direction, using the base editor with some added features. ...
![](http://acemace.randomsig.net/one.jpg)
![](http://signavatar.com/21028_s.gif)
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. |
EDIT: Also, Bubbawheat's new avatar scares me off.
A Guide to Champion Drama
My Videos
Ashcraft been published.
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? |
For me there are a few reasons why I don't go into AE anymore.
1.) No 'reason' to do so.
a.) No salvage/purple drop chances (and now no incarnate shard drops I presume as well). Sure I can do 'dev approved' story arcs but...meh, I'd rather do new content and/or work on badges/new toons/etc.
2.) Kind of point b/adding onto 1a but...usually people are doing arcs/tfs and that is more fun that trying to figure out what arc is fun and not just loaded with mobs that have all the debuffs in the world in the missions because the author wanted to do a 'challenge' arc.
Only reason I use AE is to 'farm' for tickets for common invention salvage...and that is rare (usually too lazy to do that...).
Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991
Something else; the {risk/reward}/time is horribly skewed compared to regular content when using custom enemies. Because each move is arbitrarily balanced on its own difficulty, it means you can create several infuriating and difficult enemies that give less reward than a standard NPC. Or it goes the other way and you can up with a near-impossible to defeat enemy that gives no more than 100%, no matter what (I'm reminded of an old arc with a Mind/Illusion AV; confuses, holds, pets and AV rec/reg).
Sadly MA arcs lack anything substantially different (read, interesting) from conventional mission content, to merit a separate contact.
Familiar maps meet familiar objectives, with pseudo intriguing story lines, which isn't to say there are no creative authors in the games community, there are simply limited tools to breath life into something less conventional then an average tip mission. Player generated maps would be a start in that direction, using the base editor with some added features. ... |
Tyger (50), Mutation-Controller Mind/FF - oldest Mind/FF on Union
I don't avoid the AE arcs, I just have more than enough regular content to keep me busy. It's a pain trying to find good arcs that stay good. Last time I went into the AE for a day I got fed up with every damned arc having Control/Regen bosses and EBs. The last arc before I quit had Mind or Fire control bosses or EBs in every single mission. Mind Control on lowlevel enemies is just ludicrous. Simple as that. I'm tired of great stories being screwed over by some jerks idea of a 'challenge'.
My experiences creating arcs has been largely positive. My one lowlevel arc, Rebirth, which I made to replace the 1-5 content blueside for me, has gotten a lot of good feedback.
Leave the farms there. Just add a category for them. Voted, Not Voted, Completed, Not Completed, Farm, etc. Less stuff for farmers to sift through looking for their arcs. Less stuff for people looking for story arcs to sift through. Won't exactly eliminate the crap arcs on either side, but will make it easier on both groups.
You know, I sadly assumed this would be the case when I started making my own mission
![]() |
Even with the extreme limitations of the system, some people have found ways around them. The most recent example I've run across is Samuraiko's newest arc featuring a "holographic recording" contact which is really a stealthed NPC. I thought that was clever. It's just too bad we have to kludge things like that, though.
I think there are a lot of great ideas in this thread. Instead of fighting farmers, just give them (and us) a way to mark those arcs as such so people can find or avoid them as they desire.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
I see a lot of people complaining about customs being too hard because the author wanted to make a "challenge" arc for their purpled-out Scrapper. I really doubt this is the case with the majority of these arcs. I think most of these groups are due to things like "Darkity dark dark enemies are COOL! I'm gonna give Dark powers to everyone!" or "my author self-insert AV is going to have all the powers my character does" or just plain player-killer GMing. Face it guys, the majority of the playerbase doesn't have a purpled-out Scrapper.
When you rate an arc you have the option of selecting tags. Does this do anything? Maybe it would help if you had both author-selected tags and player-selected tags visible. That way, if players tag the arc "challenging" and the author did not, it's a pretty good bet that the arc is simply poorly designed and will kill you.
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
I see a lot of people complaining about customs being too hard because the author wanted to make a "challenge" arc for their purpled-out Scrapper. I really doubt this is the case with the majority of these arcs. I think most of these groups are due to things like "Darkity dark dark enemies are COOL! I'm gonna give Dark powers to everyone!" or "my author self-insert AV is going to have all the powers my character does" or just plain player-killer GMing. Face it guys, the majority of the playerbase doesn't have a purpled-out Scrapper.
When you rate an arc you have the option of selecting tags. Does this do anything? Maybe it would help if you had both author-selected tags and player-selected tags visible. That way, if players tag the arc "challenging" and the author did not, it's a pretty good bet that the arc is simply poorly designed and will kill you. |
It's VERY difficult with the current search tools to find a mission (real mission NOT farm or challenge arc) that DOESN'T use those.
I think the main issues stem from how ridiculously useless the MA search tools are.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
Eva, the problem isn't identifying them, as most that have that list "custom powers, Ebs and AVs". It's that nearly every mission has that.
It's VERY difficult with the current search tools to find a mission (real mission NOT farm or challenge arc) that DOESN'T use those. I think the main issues stem from how ridiculously useless the MA search tools are. |
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Same reason I don't like playing non-50s on Double XP weekends.
Character index