IDEA! Improved ignore list for foundry authors!

apocrs1980

Ok, So after being continually bombed with rude, nonconstructive, and down right mind numbingly stupid 1 star reviews here is what is desperately needed for the foundry:

An improved ignore list! If I add that @handle to my ignore list they are no longer able to play any foundry missions from my @handle again, or until I decide to remove them from said ignore list.

I believe this will curb people's ridiculous behavior when it comes to crapping all over foundry missions just because they can.
It will also prevent that player from playing any future content from that author, and also make them think twice about their unwanted nonconstructive reviews just because they were "high" and thought it was funny to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> all over your work.
If that payer is being cut off from all of the authors work out there just because he chose to abuse the foundry review system he would find himself able to play less and less content as authors block them.

I debated even posting this but after the 3rd week in a row of being anonymously 1 star bombed ten times in a row I'm really getting sick of it, and would love some sort of tool to block future tools from posting reviews that are unwarranted.

It's not perfect but authors need a way to protect themselves from the 1 star trolls.
Please show your support if you agree with this idea and lets make it happen!

redneckronin

In principle I agree 100% with your idea.

However, my concern is that it would give Authors the ability to pre-censor the votes they get.

I'd love for Authors to be able to weed out the trolls, but fear such a mechanism would be as open to abuse as the current system.

All The Best

apocrs1980

I don't think it would,

Lets say I am an author who does really terrible foundrys but I believe everything I make is god's gift to the gaming universe.
So when actual reviews come back 1 star 2 stars 3 stars telling me whats wrong and I choose to block them rather than listen to the criticism.
The reviews I got are still there and do not go away, but I have now cut myself short of those people who would have otherwise played my next foundry creation, which in essence would lead to far less reviews and plays of my future creations if I am abusing the system backwards.
In that scenario I would be shooting myself in the foot by starving my future quests of plays, reviews, and tips because I was an over zealous author with the ban hammer.
It makes perfect sense to me.

redneckronin

So, if the Ratings are already tallied against your existing content, and you want plays for upcoming content, what is the purpose of a "blacklist"?

Your above post demonstrates why we don't need the system you propose, not why we do.

All The Best

redneckronin

What would be a better way in my opinion would be to have a "collective blacklist".

So lets say "@TrollHandle&quot; has been busy posting "troll reviews". If enough Authors (recipients of reviews) "flag" @TrollHandle within a given time-frame then it gets brought to the attention of a Moderator appointed by Cryptic to review the situation.

If that Moderator decides the reviews in question are indeed Trolling then @TrollHandle gets banned from leaving reviews across the entire Foundry, but not from playing Foundry content.

That way were are not individually pre-selecting our review audience, and there is some degree of control for weeding out the Trolls.


All The Best

narayansingh

Not to be snarky or the like... But at least you are getting plays.

The quests I have done rarely show up on the list to be played. The only way I get plays is to come on these forums and ask for reviews.

Which to me is a really stupid way to do it.

The one I have that actually got out of "for review" still does not appear on the new list. So I create for my enjoyment, knowing that the quest will probably never get played.

xhrit

narayansingh wrote: »

Not to be snarky or the like... But at least you are getting plays.

The quests I have done rarely show up on the list to be played. The only way I get plays is to come on these forums and ask for reviews.

Which to me is a really stupid way to do it.

It is not what you know, it is who you know; translation : one's knowledge and skills are typically less useful and less important than one's network of personal contacts.

narayansingh

xhrit wrote: »

It is not what you know, it is who you know; translation : one's knowledge and skills are typically less useful and less important than one's network of personal contacts.

Which is very true.

But the way they have the list/tabs set up is just crazy to me.
For instance... I just checked the new tab. The first two have over 23,000 and 21,000 plays/reviews. Now explain to me how a quest with that many plays/reviews should be considered as "new"?

celestarion

I was asking myself a question. Do you think some authors create specific accounts to give 1 or 2 stars to the concurrency? The Foundry is based on a list in this game, and the more your are on the top of this list the better.

I'm certainly paranoid, but sometimes it seems that someone is controlling my average rating by giving 1 star without any comments when my rating is growing up.

redneckronin

One thing they could do to limit the impact of "uncommented 1 star" ratings is to have any Star Rating that is without comment only have half the weight of Star Ratings with a comment.

Then as Authors we'd be able to see the reasons behind low ratings, and if they were genuine hopefully address them, and if they were trolling we could "report" them.

All The Best

karitr

As a player only, I think the player base is largely appreciative of Foundry quests. We understand you are amateurs doing this in your own time and this is reflected in the ratings we give. For example, I decline to rate anything I couldn't honestly say was 3 or, more likely, 4 stars. For everything that would get between 8 and 9 if we rated out of 10, I give 5 stars. In other words, I round up not down and from my experience of Foundry quest reviews (and Foundry quests are about the only content I play in NWO) other fans of this content take the same approach.

Our approach does not come without a downside. If we litter quests with 'perfect' or almost perfect ratings, this raises the expectation of those following and if expectations are not fulfilled they are likely to be disgruntled and less than generous with their ratings (particularly if they haven't grasped fundamentals such as the author NOT having control over loot/chest items).

In short, players like myself far, far outweigh the 'troll', the 'jelous-author saboteur' and the plain ignorant. They may add a little perspective to our rosy tinted stars awarded, but we swamp them in numbers with the effect that their reviews look obviously [trollish/jealous/ignorant].

As a solo player, I haven't had the pleasure of playing Cragsteep but having a glance at the latest reviews I think it is this quest and not your Ravenloft story which has had the 'spate of 1 stars'? If so I didn't see anything particularly rude in the 1* comments which were of the 'too hard', 'too long' variety. Interestingly enough, the sort of comments expressed by many players who went on to give 4 or even 5 stars.

Bear in mind also, that with an average play time of 102 minutes, someone has spent almost 2 hours, if not more, playing and completing your quest. It's very, very unlikely that they put in that much effort just for the purpose of leaving a trollish review. Their comment may have been inelegant and their rating overly subjective, but I think it deserves to be considered every bit as much as the 5* "oh my god thought it would NEVER end..." review. There is a common denominator there after all.

ETA: As Cragsteep is a group quest, it is obviously more likely to get a group of 1 star reviews than those played solo. Seeing three 1* reviews one after another makes sense when it is likely those three players shared the same experience with each other.

narayansingh

redneckronin wrote: »

One thing they could do to limit the impact of "uncommented 1 star" ratings is to have any Star Rating that is without comment only have half the weight of Star Ratings with a comment.

Then as Authors we'd be able to see the reasons behind low ratings, and if they were genuine hopefully address them, and if they were trolling we could "report" them.

All The Best

Only thing with this half the weight rating... If you let the quest players know this, which they could learn somewhat easily, they could just put in a one word comment.

redneckronin

narayansingh wrote: »

Only thing with this half the weight rating... If you let the quest players know this, which they could learn somewhat easily, they could just put in a one word comment.

Yes, and if they do that you have an "@handle&quot; to identify them, so if they are trolling it can be reported (assuming they add a "report abuse/troll" function to the review system).

At the moment someone can drop a 1 Star review and remain anonymous, so the author has no way of determining if the rating was in anyway justified, or just trolling.

All The Best

narayansingh

redneckronin wrote: »

Yes, and if they do that you have an "@handle&quot; to identify them, so if they are trolling it can be reported (assuming they add a "report abuse/troll" function to the review system).

At the moment someone can drop a 1 Star review and remain anonymous, so the author has no way of determining if the rating was in anyway justified, or just trolling.

All The Best

True. Now how do we get it done?

lolsorhand

karitr wrote: »

As a player only, I think the player base is largely appreciative of Foundry quests. We understand you are amateurs doing this in your own time and this is reflected in the ratings we give. For example, I decline to rate anything I couldn't honestly say was 3 or, more likely, 4 stars. For everything that would get between 8 and 9 if we rated out of 10, I give 5 stars. In other words, I round up not down and from my experience of Foundry quest reviews (and Foundry quests are about the only content I play in NWO) other fans of this content take the same approach.

Our approach does not come without a downside. If we litter quests with 'perfect' or almost perfect ratings, this raises the expectation of those following and if expectations are not fulfilled they are likely to be disgruntled and less than generous with their ratings (particularly if they haven't grasped fundamentals such as the author NOT having control over loot/chest items).

In short, players like myself far, far outweigh the 'troll', the 'jelous-author saboteur' and the plain ignorant. They may add a little perspective to our rosy tinted stars awarded, but we swamp them in numbers with the effect that their reviews look obviously [trollish/jealous/ignorant].

As a solo player, I haven't had the pleasure of playing Cragsteep but having a glance at the latest reviews I think it is this quest and not your Ravenloft story which has had the 'spate of 1 stars'? If so I didn't see anything particularly rude in the 1* comments which were of the 'too hard', 'too long' variety. Interestingly enough, the sort of comments expressed by many players who went on to give 4 or even 5 stars.

Bear in mind also, that with an average play time of 102 minutes, someone has spent almost 2 hours, if not more, playing and completing your quest. It's very, very unlikely that they put in that much effort just for the purpose of leaving a trollish review. Their comment may have been inelegant and their rating overly subjective, but I think it deserves to be considered every bit as much as the 5* "oh my god thought it would NEVER end..." review. There is a common denominator there after all.

ETA: As Cragsteep is a group quest, it is obviously more likely to get a group of 1 star reviews than those played solo. Seeing three 1* reviews one after another makes sense when it is likely those three players shared the same experience with each other.

People giving Crag one star are trolling, or are brainless lol - What I can't help but find funny though is that there's so many players starting out the game, clicking the best tab or whatnot and rate. They know nothing of the game, nor foundries. (Can't expect people to know the limitations of it tbh.) So they hit rate, and boom off they go into the rabbit whole that is Neverwinter

What they could have done though is perhaps limit reviews in some ways. Depending on how many foundry missions you've played in the past. But I dunno, not really for that myself.

karitr

lolsorhand wrote: »

People giving Crag one star are trolling, or are brainless lol - What I can't help but find funny though is that there's so many players starting out the game, clicking the best tab or whatnot and rate. They know nothing of the game, nor foundries. (Can't expect people to know the limitations of it tbh.) So they hit rate, and boom off they go into the rabbit whole that is Neverwinter

What they could have done though is perhaps limit reviews in some ways. Depending on how many foundry missions you've played in the past. But I dunno, not really for that myself.

You really think people are going to spend 2 hours on a quest just to troll the author? I'm not convinced.

I covered the 'brainless' in my post (though far less harshly), but players who refuse to read, or struggle with English (or Deutsch or Francais) are part of your audience, like it or not. Not getting your knickers in a twist over 1* reviews seems a sensible approach. If a comment is left to quantify the rating, don't be so dismissive. Ignoring to the point of censorship - which apoc is calling for - will hurt more than it will help.

For a start, those of us whose rating scale is between 3-5 not 1-5 may be disinclined to be so generous in future. After all, I only see authors wanting to bar 1* ratings, no one says "hey guys, I know my quest isn't the best, can you STOP awarding five stars. kthx"

wuhsin

apocrs1980 wrote: »

Ok, So after being continually bombed with rude, nonconstructive, and down right mind numbingly stupid 1 star reviews here is what is desperately needed for the foundry:

An improved ignore list! If I add that @handle to my ignore list they are no longer able to play any foundry missions from my @handle again, or until I decide to remove them from said ignore list.

I believe this will curb people's ridiculous behavior when it comes to crapping all over foundry missions just because they can.
It will also prevent that player from playing any future content from that author, and also make them think twice about their unwanted nonconstructive reviews just because they were "high" and thought it was funny to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> all over your work.
If that payer is being cut off from all of the authors work out there just because he chose to abuse the foundry review system he would find himself able to play less and less content as authors block them.

I debated even posting this but after the 3rd week in a row of being anonymously 1 star bombed ten times in a row I'm really getting sick of it, and would love some sort of tool to block future tools from posting reviews that are unwarranted.

It's not perfect but authors need a way to protect themselves from the 1 star trolls.
Please show your support if you agree with this idea and lets make it happen!

Umm.. How are you going to know who to block if they're mostly anonymous? I sympathize with you and your frustration over such crappy ratings, but this idea won't stop the anonymous down-voters I'm afraid..

thalazar1

One way would be to force a reply for 1-2 stars. If you select the 1 or 2 star rating the post rating button should grey out until you meet a minimum ten character reply.
That way you can better tell a legitimate rating from a spam, or at least know who left it.

orodalf

I really think that all reviews should have forced replies. Period.

redneckronin

orodalf wrote: »

I really think that all reviews should have forced replies. Period.

This would be the ideal.

But giving half-weight to non-commented ratings would also work.

Of course that would apply to non-commented 5 Star ratings.

And I think Karitr makes a good point, none of us are calling to "smooth the curve" on five-star ratings, just one-star.

I was flattered as hell to get my first 5* rating, but if I'm being honest I don't think either of my quests are as good as the quests I award 5* to.

Missing Man is, even taking in to account it was my first published effort (and 3rd effort over all), 3 - 3.5 stars. There's a lot of work to be done on detail, lighting and sound with it.

Hidden Valley I am more happy with. For the Valley itself I may go as high as 4.5 (at a push), for the caves (again they need more detail, another look at lighting etc) I'd go to somewhere around 3.5 - 4.

And like Karitr if I can't give at least 3* I tend not to award at all, although I may PM the author with reasons why I didn't award any stars.

As I've said before a simple single 1-5* rating is too crude an instrument to offer real, meaningful feedback (of the kind useful to an Author).

Multiple 1-5* ratings with one each for Length, Combat, Balance, Story, Foundry Use would be useful, but far too cumbersome to implement.

Which is why comments are so valuable, and why I would prefer a compulsory comment, if you want to award a star rating.

All The Best

zbkolde

A lot of the ideas posted here (i.e. forced comments and flagging trolls) are things i discussed with an admin in private messages awhile back. Since then, in giving it even more thought, here's my latest brainstorm:

Make every star count, no negatives. Similar to the Facebook "Like" system. The quests with the most stars will be the higher ranking. It doesn't quite seem right that trolls have the ability to take away stars/ratings given to quests by other people, so just stop it. Each star given adds to the overall rating of the quest. So, it works basically the same as it does now, but removes the purpose and the effect of the trolls.

Just a thought.

karitr

orodalf wrote: »

I really think that all reviews should have forced replies. Period.

Not disagreeing, though it could be argued that once out of the review tab/test phase, the reviews are there for future players not the authors.

That said, what is more informative for an author - "too long" or "Awesome dude"?

lolsorhand

zbkolde wrote: »

A lot of the ideas posted here (i.e. forced comments and flagging trolls) are things i discussed with an admin in private messages awhile back. Since then, in giving it even more thought, here's my latest brainstorm:

Make every star count, no negatives. Similar to the Facebook "Like" system. The quests with the most stars will be the higher ranking. It doesn't quite seem right that trolls have the ability to take away stars/ratings given to quests by other people, so just stop it. Each star given adds to the overall rating of the quest. So, it works basically the same as it does now, but removes the purpose and the effect of the trolls.

Just a thought.

That is probobly the best idea i've read

karitr

I'm not familiar with the FB system, but given the ratio of reviews to plays is probably consistent across the board, wouldn't this just give an advantage to authors who began publishing earlier than others?

Obviously I think my idea is the best and needs no adjustment at all: stop sweating the one stars, they are insignificant in the greater scheme of things.

zbkolde

karitr wrote: »

I'm not familiar with the FB system, but given the ratio of reviews to plays is probably consistent across the board, wouldn't this just give an advantage to authors who began publishing earlier than others?

...

The current system, and really any system at all, gives advantage to earlier publishers. Basically this just takes away the "average" calculation and counts every star, so there is never a negative. If you don't like a quest, don't give it any stars, if it's okay give it one or two, if you really like it give it 5, nothing different than it is now. The 0- or 1-star ratings won't produce a negative, they just produce less of a positive (or no positive at all for 0-stars). The better quests still get more stars given, but jealous trolls can't pull those ratings down.

Let me elaborate, it's early, not communicating too well yet...

Current system: Average star rating, averages the individual ratings given, but does not determine rank.
Positive only system: Does the exact same thing, to give the quest an average star rating for reference, that does not determine actual rank.

Current system: Adjusted rating, averages the individual ratings given with some mystery adjustment calculation, determines actual rank.
Positive only system: Tallies every star given, determines actual rank. Each star is a "Like" or a "Vote Up" similar to what certain web sites use.

karitr

zbkolde wrote: »

The current system, and really any system at all, gives advantage to earlier publishers. Basically this just takes away the "average" calculation and counts every star, so there is never a negative. If you don't like a quest, don't give it any stars, if it's okay give it one or two, if you really like it give it 5, nothing different than it is now. The 0- or 1-star ratings won't produce a negative, they just produce less of a positive (or no positive at all for 0-stars). The better quests still get more stars given, but jealous trolls can't pull those ratings down.

I'm sure I must be missing something as currently the "Best" tab does not give an advantage to early publishers as it is based on an average of the star rating, not the number of plays or reviews - indeed as I look from in-game @brodatv has managed to enter the "Best" list with only 56 plays and 47 reviews. However, if only stars were counted, how would he ever hope to be included in a list of quests that had already received thousands of plays and thus thousands of stars?

*incredibly confuzzled*

apocrs1980

karitr wrote: »

As a player only, I think the player base is largely appreciative of Foundry quests. We understand you are amateurs doing this in your own time and this is reflected in the ratings we give. For example, I decline to rate anything I couldn't honestly say was 3 or, more likely, 4 stars. For everything that would get between 8 and 9 if we rated out of 10, I give 5 stars. In other words, I round up not down and from my experience of Foundry quest reviews (and Foundry quests are about the only content I play in NWO) other fans of this content take the same approach.

Our approach does not come without a downside. If we litter quests with 'perfect' or almost perfect ratings, this raises the expectation of those following and if expectations are not fulfilled they are likely to be disgruntled and less than generous with their ratings (particularly if they haven't grasped fundamentals such as the author NOT having control over loot/chest items).

In short, players like myself far, far outweigh the 'troll', the 'jelous-author saboteur' and the plain ignorant. They may add a little perspective to our rosy tinted stars awarded, but we swamp them in numbers with the effect that their reviews look obviously [trollish/jealous/ignorant].

As a solo player, I haven't had the pleasure of playing Cragsteep but having a glance at the latest reviews I think it is this quest and not your Ravenloft story which has had the 'spate of 1 stars'? If so I didn't see anything particularly rude in the 1* comments which were of the 'too hard', 'too long' variety. Interestingly enough, the sort of comments expressed by many players who went on to give 4 or even 5 stars.

Bear in mind also, that with an average play time of 102 minutes, someone has spent almost 2 hours, if not more, playing and completing your quest. It's very, very unlikely that they put in that much effort just for the purpose of leaving a trollish review. Their comment may have been inelegant and their rating overly subjective, but I think it deserves to be considered every bit as much as the 5* "oh my god thought it would NEVER end..." review. There is a common denominator there after all.

ETA: As Cragsteep is a group quest, it is obviously more likely to get a group of 1 star reviews than those played solo. Seeing three 1* reviews one after another makes sense when it is likely those three players shared the same experience with each other.

It was Ravenloft that was bombed and each were ten 1 stars within an hour time frame, no comments left.

zbkolde

karitr wrote: »

I'm sure I must be missing something as currently the "Best" tab does not give an advantage to early publishers as it is based on an average of the star rating, not the number of plays or reviews - indeed as I look from in-game @brodatv has managed to enter the "Best" list with only 56 plays and 47 reviews. However, if only stars were counted, how would he ever hope to be included in a list of quests that had already received thousands of plays and thus thousands of stars?

*incredibly confuzzled*

Current system: The longer the quest has been there, the more plays it has received. On April 30th, there weren't near as many foundry quests to play as there is now, so the quests done in beta got a lot of plays and a lot of reviews. At 47 reviews, the adjusted rating is not the actual rating anyway. At 81 reviews my quest had an average of 4.0 stars, but an adjusted rating of 3.47 stars. Supposedly it equals out at some point.

Scenario:

Joe makes a quest, 100 people review it in the next two months. It's an okay quest, so those 100 people give it 2 stars each (scenario, remember), so Joe's quest has 200 stars.

Betty makes a quest one month after Joe, 50 people review it in one month, it's really fun and well-written, so those people give it 4 stars each. Betty's quest gets the same 200 stars.

Six months later, word-of-mouth caused Betty's quest to get more reviews, it's higher rating caught more attention, and it moved up in the ranks. Joe's okay quest isn't doing bad, but it's not ranked as high as Betty's.

Meanwhile, Eric made a quest a month before Joe, and people didn't like his quest. He's not getting many plays or stars. That makes him angry, so he made some alt accounts and ran Betty's quest seven times to give it 0-star ratings out of spite. ...

Having said all of that, your point is not completely invalid. Thing is, a lot of people will always be looking for new quests to play, not necessarily what's on the "Best" tab. The way it is now, our quests disappear after being on the "New" tab for awhile, and as far as i know no one has figured out why. That's why people post their quests here, it's the only way to get any attention to them. To counter the issue you raised, there could be a category of the most stars received in the last 30 days, instead of a "Best" tab. That way newer quests would cycle through all the time. The all-time lists could be separate. The entire quest search/list system needs to be overhauled anyway.

apocrs1980

And... just logged in and I was struck again, who in their right mind has the time to make multiple accounts and one star bomb authors just to grief them, TO whom ever is griefing me: congratulations for the additional 10 one stars you managed to move me down the list a whole .01 points.
Regardless if an author is on the best tab or not, this sort of abuse does nothing but discourage anyone from every bothering to pour any time in to a foundry. I'm at a loss for words at this point...whatever.

zahinder

Punitive measures like an ignore list won't work -- a diehard griefer can just make dummy accounts. Forcing words out of 1 star reviews won't work, either -- legitimate players then open themselves up to reprisals.

I think what we need are better tools to sort for useful reviews. Like 'give me the average rating only from folks on my friends list,' or 'show me all the missions that my friend Bob gave 5 stars to.'


This might help, for example, give the concept of valued reviewers some legs -- someone is trusted for opinions like yours, so you follow their reviews.

zahinder

Also, if you think you are being griefed, report it.

Sure, Cryptic is very unlikely to bother doing anything, but it's worth sparing a minute to shoot off a harassment report.