Need help figuring out what to do with my Foundry Mission

gethralkin1

I haven't posted a mission on the forum before. However, due to a bug in the Foundry update over the early part of the year - and the subsequent lockout from the editor during the Foundry downtime - my mission "The Anger in the Sky" suffered a large quantity of poor reviews.

Proportionally more 1-star than 2- and 3-star ratings were because the mission wouldn't finish once a player got to the end (most 2- and 3-star comments also were about the glitch). One player's 1-star rating comment was that he hated the alien species I had in the mission. Another one explained his 1-star because of bad grammar (the grammar isn't really 1-star worthy, I had a few typos, that's it).

Although I do see a lot of reviewers unfairly overly critical of Foundry authors, I am guessing the 1- and 2-stars it got were because of the glitch near the end.

I know how frustrating it is to make it through a nearly hour-long mission (even a good one) and then, when it's almost over, am stuck on a map and have to abort it. However, it's equally frustrating to not be able to raise the mission overall score because of all the 1-star comments that brought it down from a about a 4.6 (last Fall, and before the Foundry patch screwed it up) to a current 3.28 rating.

I was finally able to use the editor to replace the beam out point that went missing with the patch, but all those players that gave me poor ratings are mostly either not in game or not reviewing anymore - or they aren't even in the game anymore.

A handful have replied to say that they would run it again, and while one of them still has yet to review it, the rest have updated their comments with 5 stars each. So, the glitch was the issue.

And yet there is this low 3.28 rating. So, my question is should I take it down and republish it fresh, or just let it stay that way and wait for more players to rank it? The rate at which it is played doesn't make it seem like the score is going to move much at this point.

Suggestions?

redbeard

Many creators would be happy with a 3.28, but in this case Cryptic is at fault for the low rating. I would scrap it, change the name, and upload again. Before you delete the mission, copy the mission, change its name, and add something like an invisible box to the map otherwise it will erase your maps, mission, and there will be nothing in the copy. Make sure it actually copied and is playable online, then delete the original mission.

In the future I would suggest putting all your mission info, and the accepting dialog in a text file. Next time the foundry has a glitch change the mission info to "Currently Testing" and the accepting dialog to "Currently Testing" and no other information. People will just skip anything that says testing and when the glitch is fixed put your info and accepting dialog back in.

When I have time I will be more than happy to play your mission :-)

duncanidaho11

Gethralkin doesn't need to delete the original. If you chose to publish an imported copy, you can keep the old version around as an unpublished mission (it just takes up a project slot, it won't get out to the public). That way, you have the reviews of those who played through your mission when it was in a good state. You also have a fallback if you encounter issues with the fresh publish. (ie. trouble getting new ratings. The Foundry top three system is offline right now and Foundry traffic does seem to be down.)

gethralkin1

Thank you, both of you. I really needed some support in weighing my options, and I didn't want to resort to a permanent change that would ruin something.

One of the reasons that the mission was getting ratings right from the beginning was because of its placement near the Dyson Gate to the Delta Quadrant. I made it convenient to pop up on the top three system, a trick that I learned doing the AEI mission challenge, so I'm sorry to see that's glitchy now.

After a health hiatus, I've been trying to refresh my Foundry experience by going in and looking through my missions again and see where I've made typos, spot glitches, etc. - fresh eyes and all that.

This one, however, was a complete surprise earlier this year with so many "hating" the mission all of a sudden, that I couldn't understand what happened until, in March, someone on Discord chat helped me figure out what the deal was (can't remember who, now, or I'd thank them here too).

Anyway, based on both your suggestions, I am going to keep the original and republish a copy as new. I have put TESTING MISSION as the only description before, and still received negative feedback saying that it would have been great if the mission was finished. (?!?!?!) So, you can't win every time.

spiritborn

gethralkin1 wrote: »

I have put TESTING MISSION as the only description before, and still received negative feedback saying that it would have been great if the mission was finished. (?!?!?!) So, you can't win every time.

that's why I put up a rather long description on my current WIP Project, that said essentially "this is an incomplete work and I don't want people judging the mission because of that" and also did not reveal the Foundry door and said that it was intentional that I didn't reveal that.