King of the One Star Arcs
By
dugfromthearth,
Posted on: 2012-05-01 05:39 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Saint V - There seems to be a low-level resurgence of interest in MA again. Glad to hear of your experiment.
I think it'd be nice of the devs to take some time and polish the jewel they created here, but there's more focus on expansion than anything else right now. Still...
- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie
Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608
Quote:
I apologise if this sounds dickish, but BECAUSE English is a second language for me, I'm extra unforgiving about basic mistakes like they're/their/there and so forth. It's understandable that arcs will launch with spelling mistakes - mine have - but I expect those to be either genuine typos or fast-writing quirks. These are easy to miss. I do not expect them to be shoddy grammar and the dreaded "plural apostrophe" which suggests not simply poor command of the language, but poor command coming from a native speaker. Foreign speakers will rarely make these because they're often taught how to spell before they learn how to speak.
|
Originally Posted by Saint Valencrime
The third thing I noticed is if English is your second language then welcome to my one star kingdom. People seem to be merciless about giving good creativity and good ideas one star for a few spelling errors. Its too bad that there is no spell checker function to avoid this trap.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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.
|
See I disagree. I can export any arc, run it through a spell checker, and then suddenly its good by your standards. I am not looking for a dictionary when I play MA. When I first played the Positron TF no one was yelling "Hey, they used a reflexive pronoun when it should have been a demonstrative pronoun, lets get $target". If I create a yardie adventure you can be dead cert I am not using the King's English.
The MA has a triple scoop of creativity. You have creative costumed NPCs that set the mood. You have good dialogue and clues. Then you have interesting plot lines and parodies.
That is the strength of the MA. Its not 9999 warehouse tile sets. Its not setting up chain effect hades because someone wanted cold themed minions. To me that makes it the most important reason to encourage someone with a good idea to keep trying.
Quote:
When I first ran SSA1.7, I was pretty much disgusted with the technical ineptitude of the arc's text, which clearly wasn't proof-read even a single time. It took so much away from the experience of what is otherwise the best of the SSAs so far that it's not even funny. And I don't mean just ugly grammar, I mean writing so bad on a technical level it made it impossible for me to care about the overall plot and story, and just resort to punching things in the face.|
Originally Posted by Saint Valencrime
When I first played the Positron TF no one was yelling "Hey, they used a reflexive pronoun when it should have been a demonstrative pronoun, lets get $target".
|
If you're going to write text for your arc more than "go there do that," you need to make sure that text is worth reading.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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.
|
I've been trying out this idea, and I have to say:
There are some wildly funny arcs in the one-star dustbin, whether they are intentionally so or not. I've been enjoying myself immensely. Thanks for the idea!
@Quantum Evil Rad/Rad Corruptor
Making the world safe for maleficent particles since 2004.
if you find arcs that you like, post them and people will play them
vague statements that there are good things in there is nice
arc ID's and names is even better
The Mission Architect could be so great...
I have played some great arcs with fine writing. I have also run into obvious (AND poorly-written) farms, and I have also had 10 absolutely invisible and unbeatable NPC stalkers !!ASSASSIN STRIKE!! me dead within two seconds of entry. Quite a range of results.
What is absolutely needed is a better search/rating mechanism. There has to be a way to find the gems beyond word-of-mouth. It is pretty tough to get a team together for a MA run since it is a dicey proposition what you will find. And I cannot even assess if the rewards for doing an MA arc are reasonable or not.
There are a good number of great arcs. Finding them among all the dreck is very, very tough.
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
Quote:
Then post them. Help people find them. Don't just say there are good arcs - be specific.|
Originally Posted by Melancton
There are a good number of great arcs. Finding them among all the dreck is very, very tough.
|
It is better to light a single candle then to curse the darkness.
I have made posts with lists of good arcs for lvls 1-10 and 11-20.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=287853
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=288465
Enjoy your multi AV door ambushes, kill all city maps and find the 9350395 glowies. There's a reason the arcs are one star
I only ran into one tough arc tonight with chain hold minions but I got through it. I played another mission with British Cyborgs. They were not just cyborgs they were British Cyborgs!!! They seemed polite and didnt say too much.
Then I worked more on making up some one star minions of my own. It takes a lot of time to figure out the exact costume parts that have the right bad anime look.
Notes for myself on creativity needed for arcs
Boss 7 d/t
Objects 3 d/t
Captives 6 d/t
Allies 10 d/t
Ambush 1 d/t
Escort lots
Patrol 2 d/t
Battles 4 d/t
Object 8 d/t for defendable and destructible
More d/t = the need for more creativity in an arc
There are only 5 attack powers suited for weak NPCs
Make multiple versions of recurring NPC bosses with different power mixes for better replay value
There are nine aspirations that serve as goals in Feng Shui...
Quote:
Did you actually read the first post? You know, the one where in the second half, OP described the arcs' content and how it wasn't like that at all?
|
Originally Posted by Dz131
Enjoy your multi AV door ambushes, kill all city maps and find the 9350395 glowies. There's a reason the arcs are one star
|
,'&#
{}... .-
01234
"*_
?;!hgfauirebcew
Quote:
He was too busy one-starring arcs without even bothering to read the text or move beyond the entrance.
|
Originally Posted by FlashToo
Did you actually read the first post? You know, the one where in the second half, OP described the arcs' content and how it wasn't like that at all?
|
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
Arc 91925 Rumble Rock has escaped
This was an interesting arc. It had a mix of custom NPCs and game NPCs that made sense. This was frustrating because with some feedback it could have been a 3 star arc. It looks like the one star hatred came from the cargo ship finish. I have been using a Ninja/Devices MM to test and was able to bring down the bosses with some difficulty
Arc 51060 Madam Wing's Challenge
The first few sentences of an arc sets the stage. In this mission the author used the introduction to say how the warehouse smelled like bird droppings. It had some interesting NPCs but was lite on the story.
My Top 3 One Story Arcs so far
404978 Foil Barth Vader
-- really good looking costumes and decent balance for a lower level hero
500493 Aunt Elle's Chamber of Horrors
-- Modern Horror Movie made into a COH arc lots of cliches
Arc 91925 Rumble Rock has escaped
-- Challenging and good job working together customer and normal NPCs into a believable story, cargo ship warning for pet users
Notes for Self
Ways to Arch a Hero....
Career
Knowledge/Learning
Family (SG, sidekicks)
Wealth
Fame/Acceptance of Peers
Romance
Children (trainees,role model)
Mentors
Health
The Family are those close to the hero who are allies but do not emulate the hero. The children would be those who see the hero as a role model to emulate.
Quote:
Good for you. As someone who hasn't had the luxury of being born in an english-speaking country or of going into school as a kid, I discovered the english language as an adult (which in itself is hard enough already) on the Internet and people making mistakes, especially enough people making the same mistakes, results in me learning the wrong thing. So, I am going to mercilessly vote low if the arc I'm playing is a sorry mess of spelling mistakes that easily could have been fixed if the author actually cared, and you can carry on voting high. Isn't that the point of a voting system? Otherwise we might as well remove it and have the ranking decided by what Saint Valencrime likes and nothing else.
| I am not looking for a dictionary when I play MA. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
So, I am going to mercilessly vote low if the arc I'm playing is a sorry mess of spelling mistakes that easily could have been fixed if the author actually cared, and you can carry on voting high. .
|
What elements do you look for that gets someone 3 or 4 stars? I don't mind people saying what they don't like but explain what you like as well.
I do think there is a simple solution for your complaint. It should be easy for someone to cut and paste text from the mission to a spell checking website or word processor. Its much harder to fix writer's block.
my star system is of course subjective but it comes down to
5: A great arc with both a great story and a lot of interesting elements in the missions.
4: very good arc with either a great story or a lot of interesting elements in the missions. Twinshot arc is a 4.
3: Good arc, the equivalent of Faultline. Good story, some interesting elements in the mission.
2: Radio mission (or a series of them linked by a contact like Striga), most of the original content. You get an intro and conclusion text with a simple story. The mission has one objective.
1: Broken, farm, otherwise terrible
I don't rate down for a few misspellings. A lot of misspellings will drop it down a star.
Came accross something interesting in my AE playing and testing. It appears that you can create NPC mobs as challenging as Boss Fights without having the NPCs spamming holds.
There is a Chinese Astrology belief called the Cycle of Life where two forces togther are more powerful than separately. Wood feeds Fire and makes the fire burn more intensely.
By analyzing power sets you can create NPCs who compliment each other and make fights tougher. In theory you could create tough groups of normally wimpy NPCs by paying attention to which powers work well together.
An NPC with speed boost and ranged ice attacks would shift speed and recharge If you had an NPC with a powerful but slow attack then the Kinetic/Ice NPC would make them more dangerous.
There are a lot of weapons that use -defence or +knockdown. This combination can lead to the bouncy castle attack where the first NPC makes the player easier to hit and the second NPC knocks them down or up.
One of the things I am using this for is learning about slotting henchmen. Tonight I got a call looking for help from a PUG that was getting pummeled. By combining Ninjas slotted for +disorient with +accuracy and the acid mortar debuffs my henchmen managed to curb stomp some NPC bosses who had been wracking up debt for the PUG.
A while back I had this crazy idea on April Fools Day to be the first person to go from level 1 to level 50 playing one star arcs in the mission architect. Playing these arc would show me a lot about what works and what doesnt work for making my own missions.
There were a few things I noticed quickly with some testing. The experience points awarded for MA arcs is bugged. Weaker NPCs are worth more XP becaise of this bug.
A generic minion with 2 primary attacks and 3 secondary defences is worth 40-60 pct of experience. However if you make the secondary power an attack the NPC gets weaker but the XP pct goes up to 100. Martial Arts, Claws, Archery, Dual Pistol (no switch). Fire, and Dual Blades can be combined to create full XP NPCs with no defence, no buffs and no special attack effects.
The second thing I noticed is that some one star arcs have some real creativity behind them. I played Foil Barth Vader 404978 and someone spent hours creating NPC that look like droids and imperial troops from the star wars saga. IMHO you should be able to review the reviewers. Some person took a fun creative adventure and gave it one star because of some stupid pet peeve. This one person's miserable attitude kills the chance of other people playing something that was fun and amusing.
The third thing I noticed is if English is your second language then welcome to my one star kingdom. People seem to be merciless about giving good creativity and good ideas one star for a few spelling errors. Its too bad that there is no spell checker function to avoid this trap.
In the meantime its back to the world of evil super soldiers, Detective McMuffin, Clockwork Terminators, crooked cops and a ton of crazy ideas.