Doctor_Gemini

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Eva, I think it's fair to say there are great stories that just can't be realized in the AE. So, to some extent, the available gameplay will always guide the story writing.

I'm sort of ambivalent about defeat alls, but I can see why it would be a wise move to consider whether a defeat all in any particular story is going to annoy players who aren't fond of that gameplay aspect. You don't have to write stories to appeal to everyone (if that's even possible) but you should have a good idea of who your audience is, and make sure to write to their satisfaction in the ways they care about.

So, I guess I'm saying there's a middle ground between you and Gemini and common sense should be used as a guide in any particular situation.

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I don't know that there is a middle ground as such. It depends on whether you are writing an arc based on what you want to see, or writing one to be enjoyed by the most people possible.

I do the former myself, I don't care if my arc has 10 1-star votes if I like it. While my ego enjoys the great feedback I've gotten over my own arc, I wouldn't change it if I were getting nothing but bad feedback.

If you're writing for the masses, then the question is, does there need to be a middle ground? I believe that most people dislike defeat-alls because I've decided it's so. The 20 or 30 people who've mentioned something similar online to me, and the people posting their dislike of defeat-alls in this thread, is not a scientific poll of the playerbase. So, the answer to the question depends entirely on whether or not the author thinks having one or multiple defeat-alls will hurt the ratings of their arc.

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Except if you're writing an arc about a biological zombie infestation, making it technological or magical would be changing the story.

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Then what you find at the end is an aerosol cure. You release it. Zombie's cured. No change in the nature of the infestation.

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If the story is about a bunch of lunatics attacking an orphanage, and you give the lunatics leaders, you change the nature of the villain group, and therefore potentially the story.

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Which is why I said, alternately. you create some "Boss" lunatics which act as the mission goals, not that they are the leaders, just that they are too tough for the police.

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If he heard you, he's a witness.

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One my character might want to leave. Just because my contact doesn't want any witnesses does not mean I share his goals.

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If you don't feel these scenarios justify defeat alls, just don't play arcs with defeat alls. Because frankly, all these "I hate defeat alls, nobody should ever use them" posts are as much telling people how and what to write as a post saying "I hate Malta, nobody should do arcs about them."

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Then you should learn to read before you go on a rant, I guess. Using your same logic, I could claim you're telling me I MUST use defeat-alls. All I did was give my opinion on the subject, and consequently that I usually will not play them. I never said "As lord of the Earth, my opinion must be followed by all, and you will like doing so! Removest thy defeat-alls or face my wrath!"

You disagree, good, there's nothing to discuss if everyone says "me too", "I agree". (and, actually, I don't think we're even in disagreement over how you use defeat-alls). However, when you give a number of examples of scenarios that you suggest only work as defeat-alls, don't expect me not to say how they can work just as well without being such when you're using them to challenge me.

It would be an interesting experiment (which I sadly do not have the salesman skills nor the internet time to do myself) to have someone make two relatively equal arcs, one with defeat-alls, and one with none, promote them both equally, and see which one gets the most votes (note most votes, not highest number of stars).

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So, in other words you're suggesting people change their stories to fit the unfounded prejudices of a portion of the playerbase,

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Really??!! Wow, I'm glad you're here to tell me what I'm saying by reading between the lines. I had no idea I meant anything of the sort. I'm a real [censored] telling people they have to change their arcs. I better go back and edit between the lines so I stop saying such things.

Here I thought I was just refuting the contention that some situations require heavy lampshading to avoid a defeat-all. Maybe. on the other hand, there could be an actual discussion on the subject if people were not trying to put their own unfounded prejudices into other people's posts. You and Xyzyx gave scenarios that you seemed to think should be defeat-alls in response to my statements so I gave one of many potential reasons they did not have to be in rebuttal. That's discussion, not "do it my way!....and KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!!"

Speaking of unfounded prejudices, finding it frustrating to run back and forth over an already cleared map to find the last guy is not an unfounded prejudice. It's a valid reason to hate defeat-alls.

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If a defeat all has three floors, you're doing it wrong. The fact that nobody you didn't engage didn't see you is a meta-game excuse...assuming of course that you stealthed with actual stealth, and not scrapper/tanker/brute "stealth."

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Nobody saw me because if I didn't see him, he didn't see me. Since if he had seen me he would have attacked me as I was not stealthed. I have to assume he simply heard the sounds of his companions bones breaking and chose to remain in hiding, quaking in fear.

I16 could be GR, we just know it's not Going Rogue. It could be Going Rouge though.....

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For an organized villain group, yes, "defeat the boss and the PPD will mop up" works. However for the aforementioned homicidal lunatics, anything that could cause a disaster if it got out (fact: a single zombified hero can cause a global zombie pandemic), a "leave no witnesses" scenario...the list goes on.

Lucky for us these things only seem to happen on tiny maps

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I have no problem with defeat-alls on tiny maps, but, to address this and the post preceding it, I still maintain there is never a good reason for a defeat-all that cannot be substituted with other goals.

It's not hard to come up with alternatives to defeat-alls in any situation. You write the story, it does not write you. The lunatics invading the orphanage, for example, sure, send the hero into the mission by telling him he must rid the orphanage of all the lunatics. Once inside, he discovers they're after something, or they're a distraction for someone else. Give the hero some goals to complete in the mission and when he's done have the clue state that a PPD swat team arrives on scene and mops up.

Alternately, make a few "boss" lunatics that must be defeated. Once they're gone, the PPD swat team can handle what's left. Then you don't have to use a small map and the player can take out as many of the lunatics as he wants.

A single zombified hero getting loose and infecting the rest of the population only happens if you write it that way. It makes just as much sense for there to be some magical artifact, technological device, or what have you that ends the zombie threat once you destroy it.

As for the "kill all witnesses".....I did an arc where that was the cover, and the fact is no one who I did not engage in combat saw me anyway, so why do I need to kill Joe Minion who was hiding behind the third floor pillar the whole time and never saw me?

I prefer defeat-all to be at the player's option. You can have the contact tell the hero/villain to take out everything in the mission, but actually put in goals other than a defeat-all. Then you can use any map, and if I'm playing a story-based mission straight, I'll take out everything I see. As far as I know once I've swept the whole place, I did defeat everything (and MA rewards provide incentive to do it anyway), without the frustration of discovering I missed something in some corner or other.

For a story-based arc, there is never a good reason for a kill-all. Every kill-all I've seen yet was only an author choice, not a case of nothing else could possibly make sense. More often than not, the author is forcing my character into a role with a defeat-all, rather than it being a necessary plot point.

I don't deduct stars from an arc simply for having a defeat-all in it (of course, I rarely play an arc when I see defeat-all in the description, and then, usually, only if it is one mission on a small map), but I do deduct stars if it's on one of the many maps with tons of places to hide and I end up having to go over the map more than once to find that last bad guy hidden in a corner that I didn't have any way to know I hadn't looked in.

It's bad enough to have to traverse an office building two or three times in some of the dev missions, so an arc that does the same thing to me let's me take out my frustration at the whole concept on the author.

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Ironically, I believe the devs consider (or at least, at one point, considered) scanner mission ramrodding to be a bigger problem than farming single maps, based on some comments by Positron last year.

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Scanner missions killed teaming for me before the AE ever came along. They're as boring and repetitive as farms, IMO.

I haven't seen any difference in non-AE team invites since AE came along, either, no matter which server I'm playing on (including Freedom). The only thing I haven't seen at all are the "Fill Plz" tells and getting blind invited and refusing 3 times from the same person in the span of 5 minutes (it's always 3 since that 3rd invite earns a place on the ignore list).

No and No.

It sounds to me like adding filters to display only emails from SG members, and one to display only emails from people on your friends list, and adding a Delete All button, would pretty much fix the email problem for most people without taking anything away.

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People to tick off:

PVPERS: check
FARMERS: check
BADGERS: check

see where i am going with this?

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People who /RAGEQUIT over dev decisions while claiming without them there would be no game....YET...the game's population has remained steady nonetheless:

PVPERS: check
FARMERS: check
BADGERS: yet to be seen but likely the same as the two above...

see where i am going with this?

My favorite name amongst my characters is Reformed Skull Girl

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OP, a correction. Rikti Farming: Destroyed.

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Oh! Just got done with my first successful run with an easier minion group and nets more xp.

Thanks Posi!

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Really? So this new nerf was nerfed cancelling out the nerf to create a better MA with even more XP's? YAY for nerf nerfs..!

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Still making tweaks. Should be finalized soon.

However, since the ban hammer and report happy people are so abundant i'll just unpublish the arc while i'm offline and only publish it when I want to farm.

Genius!

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Ya, funny how those who petition MA arcs for being a farm, have no problems hopping on a sewer team for XP's and faster leveing. Or, they do speed TF's. Aren't both of these technically called farming?

Hypocrites abound in this game for sure..

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Yeah, because it's not like the devs stated quite clearly in the I14 release notes that the MA was not to be used for farming.

Oh, wait, yes they did! Last I saw, neither the sewer nor TFs were in the MA.

People willfully ignoring the facts in order to make themselves look like martyrs seem more prevalent than the hypocrites today.

I, at least, said I hadn't intended to claim my opinion as fact, which you are conveniently ignoring. Ignoring the rest of the condescending crap in your post, let's discuss this "evidence" and the Scientific Method.

The scientific method says "test your hypothesis". Have you tested or are you just stating anecdotal evidence?

I'm not trying to be facetious here, I'm seriously asking you the circumstances under which you observe this phenomena.

You're telling me, I assume, that you have stood there at the MA watching every arc on the first page (or just a large number of them, let's say 5 or more) disappear within the span of...say....5 minutes? Did all 5 of these arcs that disappeared in that time frame get a rating without a play through? Then you did the same thing again at a later date and witnessed the same phenomena?

Is the preceding true, or did you just log in and find the front page had changed? Did you come back an hour after finding your arc dropped to 4-stars and find the front page changed? That would be anecdotal evidence. Good enough to form a hypothesis, but not proof.

After all, for griefing to be occurring, there isn't going to be any playing. All a griefer needs is the time to bring up the MA interface, click play, then click quit and rate. Given that, does 5 minutes sound like an unreasonable time frame for testing your hypothesis?

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I've had my arc get on the first 3 pages of the MA search on three separate occasions, each time with almost all 5-star votes (and the occasional but rare 4 star). Each time, within 30 minutes of this happening, the arc is bombarded with several 1 and 0 star votes. Every time. This has happened, this exact same way, in the exact same time frame, to a half dozen other people I communicate with regularly in game.

After that blitz, when the arcs are buried again from the low votes, they go back to earning almost exclusively 4 and 5 star votes until they crawl back up again. After which the cycle repeats. This happens to all of us, not just me.

Gemini:
If the arcs were really so bad as to deserve multiple 1 and 0 star votes over the course an hour of them reaching front pages why is it only when they reach the front page do they get these votes, and only for a tiny window upon reaching that point? Predictably and reliably, with the low votes ceasing every single time completely and utterly after they are off the front page?

I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on how this pattern can happen over and over and over again and not be suspicious at all.

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I've thought I'd given them. As Mu said, there are probably a million reasons why. I already gave one possible example. What you seem to be failing to take into account is that you have more exposure on the front page and that means more exposure to the dillweeds who play the game too.

I would ask you, as you say this happens time after time after time after time, etc.... do you really and truly believe there are that many griefers out there? It can't just be a handful of guys.

Anyway, it's 2 hours past my bedtime and putting together a coherent sentence is a chore right now so a fuller answer is going to have to wait for another time.

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I don't know if it's been fixed, but there is a setting for a rescue captive that when you lead them to the door, they then betray you and fight instead of just leaving. When I last tried to use it, they turned red but then were giving "invalid target" but that WAS right after launch. It may have been fixed since.

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That's the escort objective, but you can also make them betray you as soon as you rescue them, you don't have to lead them out.

How is it that this was not noticed on test?

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I don't see why people think we need proof when groups are admitting to doing it, but let me put it as bluntly as possible.

My arc is on the first page with 200+ votes and the tickets are coming in at a rate that shows every. single. vote. is 4 or 5 star (mostly 5, in fact). It is a mathematical certainty based on tickets divided by votes. Suddenly, I'm at 4 stars with just a few votes. Every one of them would have had to have been 0 stars because I got zero tickets for them. No comments saying "I don't like this." No "ur arc sukks." No nothin'. Having never received a zero star before it was the highest rated arc that wasn't dev choice on the front page (and trust me, just like every other arc that's been there, it didn't last long), it suddenly dropped due to a handful of votes.

These votes were all done within maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

Ever single person I know who has had their arc on the front page in that same position has had the exact same thing happen. You're clipping along with an occasional 3 star based on dividing tickets earned by new votes when WAMMO you've suddenly got 5-10 0 star votes in rapid succession.

Is there a group that waits for your arc to be the first one under the dev choices to play it that hates everything? Do they only play in largish teams that vote in blocks together? Does their team leader say "I didn't like this, so vote one or I'll kick you from the team" or something?

It's happened to Muu's Footsteps Initiative, for instance. We talk all the time. We're buds or whatever. His arc was doing great on the way to being Hall of Fame and then suddenly there were a slew of 1 and 0 star votes, all at the same time. He had enough ratings to recover from it and eventually it got there, only to get a block of 1 and 0 star votes, all at the same time. It keeps happening over and over again for him because people vote it 4 or 5 because they enjoy it and then as soon as it hits 5 stars again it gets a slew of ones and zeroes.

Coincidence is one thing, but c'mon. When it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, smells like a duck, and openly says, "Hey, I'm a duck," it's probably a duck.

I don't think anyone's out to get me or anything. Hell, since I dropped from the first page I'm back to getting 4 and 5 star ratings almost exclusively again. The tickets I get for free from publishing a decent arc mean more to me than the rating anyway, so that's fine with me. I mean, I wish more people were playing it since that means mroe tickets, but whatever.

It isn't even a large number of people doing it. One zero star vote takes multiple fives to make up for. It only takes a small group of people saying "Hey, my bud's Naruto fanfic is on the last page and these meanies are getting all the votes. I'm going to vote them down to get his arc closer to the front," to mess the whole thing up.

The best part? All of the arcs I know of that have had this happen only get ones or zeroes when they have five stars and are on the front page. Since I dropped off the front page I've gotten all fours and fives again (maybe a three or two). Whenever Footsteps falls off from Hall of Fame status, he starts rolling in tickets again because it isn't on the front page, so people aren't voting it down just because.

If I was getting constant feedback saying people hated my arc and were rating it down because of that, then I'd just think they have a different idea of fun than I do and call it a day. The fact is, even the "negative" feedback I've gotten has come along with at worst a three star rating. Even then, it usually came down to me thinking my arc is clever and insanely fun and them wishing it gave more XP. Since I don't care about the XP, we just don't see eye to eye. And that's just fine.

Nobody has a right to complain if people are rating them down because they don't like it, but that isn't the only factor at work here. Thinking it is simply means you're ignoring the experiences of those with highly rated arcs and the statements of those who openly admit to the behavior.

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If you have 150 5-stars and 50 4-stars and 1 person 1-stars you then you will stay 5-star. If you have 100 5-stars and 100 4-stars and 1 person 1-stars you then you drop to 4-stars.

While you initially state most of your ratings were 5 star and all your ratings were 4 or 5 star, you then mention some 3-star ratings so it's something of a jumble trying to put it together. The problem is, with this rating system, just a few 3-stars in the mix with a preponderance of 5's and alot of 4's puts you only 1 or 2 1-stars away from dropping off the front page. The rating system itself is ridiculous when it's based on averages.

Also, very few people will send you feedback when they rate you so low.

There are numerous explanations for getting a sudden slew of 0 or 1 stars when on the front page. A team might have done your arc and one of the things I keep hearing is only the team leader can see some of the texts. That could very easily lead a team to vote on your arc solely based on how much of a challenge it was for the team, or how much xp/minute they got.

When you're further down in the list, people tend to be looking there for arcs that sound like content they want to play. If your arc is good, then odds are you'll mostly get high ratings then. On the front page, especially high up on it, you have the impatient, radio mission PuG crowd who are likely to choose your mission just because it's the first one they see.

The thing is, a few posters claiming they are going to grief arcs can only do so much damage, as they can only vote once. Every time your arc gets knocked off the front page, if it's due to griefing, it's a different bunch of griefers.

To me it's like UFO sightings. Yes, lots of people have seen 'em, but, there are usually more likely explanations.

However, as I said, believe what you will.

So is someone trying to say the Freedom Phalanx is too long-winded?

You can make an escort objective turn against the player. You might look in that direction. Can't be more specific as I haven't used it myself.

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Ack.

Guess I was just talking out of my [censored] then. I had compiled that earlier post from what I had read from other people. I myself don't even have an arc up.

Sorry about that.

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No worries, done it myself a time or two.

All the stuff that is going on is making me glad I only have one arc so far.

Now I wonder how broken it is....

The simple answer is no.

However, if you're trying to surprise the players by the fact that this NPC is actually an AV-class later on, that is generally a bad idea. People don't seem to like surprise EBs.

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Even the more serious scenario would not require the contact hero to be there in the final mission. In fact, in a lot of ways it's better if he isn't.

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It would be actually nice to have him show up sometime in the arc, though, as a testament of he actually doing something.

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I think my natural dislike for allies in MA makes me think it's better that he went off to the wrong mission, but that's just me.

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I believe one of the badges keeps track of how many people have played your arc. Having rarely ever opened the Badge tab, I couldn't tell you exactly what they're looking at, but usually in discussions of play/rating disparity people mention this method of recording.

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That may very well be, I wouldn't know either. However, I know I have 1-starred arcs after playing through 2 or 3 missions and getting to the point where it's obvious it's not going to get any better so I'm sure others do too. That has nothing to do with trying to hurt someone's ratings, it's because the arc is unbearably bad.

Edit: Yes, I saw the badge that tells you how many people have completed an arc. In my case, all but 2 of my ratings where from people who finished it. I know who one of the people who didn't finish it was, which means the other must have been a griefer.

Except that my arc has never been on any first page of anything so maybe someone just thought it was so bad they quit before finishing it and that was one of my two 1-stars?

I think I'll choose the latter, but that's just me. Anyone else can think whatever makes them feel better.

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You don't get tickets when people rate an arc if they didn't play through. One of my friends who was messing around during the reactivation weekend 5 starred both my story arcs. The first he actually played through, the other he didn't have time to yet. I only got 25 tickets as a result.

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One of my friends 5-starred my arc without playing through it (I know, because I was standing in the AE building with her when she did it and she never even entered the "matter stream") and I got 25 tickets for it.

Just for the record, she told me she did it after she did it, I'm actually kind of annoyed about it.