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Unfair Ratings/Reviews
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Hello,
I have noticed some unfair reviews and ratings given to missions in the foundry. Not just my missions, but others as well. Unfortunately, people expect everything to be perfect in this beta version of the Foundry, and are very quick to blame the author for every bug in the mission, or their inability to win the battles. The complaint that irritates me the most is when they give a bad rating because it was too hard for them. Dont blame the mission creator for your failures in the game!
I test each mission with all three classes in all three classes of ships to make sure it isnt too easy or too hard, and Im sure most other creators also test the published versions of their missions. I also have some people in my fleet test them too, and make adjustments accordingly. One such reviewer says omg QQ omg QQ I couldnt turn my ship I was defenseless! Well, thats an attack, and you need to learn how to survive or counter it. I make my missions to be challenging without the ridiculousness of dealing with the Elite difficulty mode. Yes, you will likely die a time or maybe even two and have to respawn, but you will have no injuries to deal with.
Here are the things that are the most irritating I have seen in reviews:
- Enemies dont patrol they just stand there this is a foundry bug
- Shooting through walls also a foundry bug on every map Ive used
- Bridge officers dont follow you through interiors also a bug due to improperly defined map walls
- Enemy was shooting the wrong energy type or using the wrong weapon this is something that has to be done in order to make different factions behave as allies etc.
- Minimap was blacked out this is a foundry bug on outdoor maps that seems to happen when you add objects to the map
- Mission was too hard get better gear and abilities and skill them properly
If you are reviewing missions and did not bother to read anything in the foundry bugs thread or have not used the foundry yourself, please do not give bad reviews for things the creator has no control over. If you think something was a bug in the foundry chances are it is, so give the author the benefit of the doubt and dont penalize them for it. Also, read other peoples reviews before you play a mission. If you see others have had no problems with it, then likely if something goes wrong it is something happening unique to you. Oh and if some dialogue boxes have a few typos in them, that just makes it look more like an authentic Cryptic made mission
Thanks for reading,
Stacy
I have noticed some unfair reviews and ratings given to missions in the foundry. Not just my missions, but others as well. Unfortunately, people expect everything to be perfect in this beta version of the Foundry, and are very quick to blame the author for every bug in the mission, or their inability to win the battles. The complaint that irritates me the most is when they give a bad rating because it was too hard for them. Dont blame the mission creator for your failures in the game!
I test each mission with all three classes in all three classes of ships to make sure it isnt too easy or too hard, and Im sure most other creators also test the published versions of their missions. I also have some people in my fleet test them too, and make adjustments accordingly. One such reviewer says omg QQ omg QQ I couldnt turn my ship I was defenseless! Well, thats an attack, and you need to learn how to survive or counter it. I make my missions to be challenging without the ridiculousness of dealing with the Elite difficulty mode. Yes, you will likely die a time or maybe even two and have to respawn, but you will have no injuries to deal with.
Here are the things that are the most irritating I have seen in reviews:
- Enemies dont patrol they just stand there this is a foundry bug
- Shooting through walls also a foundry bug on every map Ive used
- Bridge officers dont follow you through interiors also a bug due to improperly defined map walls
- Enemy was shooting the wrong energy type or using the wrong weapon this is something that has to be done in order to make different factions behave as allies etc.
- Minimap was blacked out this is a foundry bug on outdoor maps that seems to happen when you add objects to the map
- Mission was too hard get better gear and abilities and skill them properly
If you are reviewing missions and did not bother to read anything in the foundry bugs thread or have not used the foundry yourself, please do not give bad reviews for things the creator has no control over. If you think something was a bug in the foundry chances are it is, so give the author the benefit of the doubt and dont penalize them for it. Also, read other peoples reviews before you play a mission. If you see others have had no problems with it, then likely if something goes wrong it is something happening unique to you. Oh and if some dialogue boxes have a few typos in them, that just makes it look more like an authentic Cryptic made mission
Thanks for reading,
Stacy
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I understand where you're coming from, but the difficulty level is still part of the mission's design. I played an awesome mission the other night, until it came to ground combat that had at least 50 spawning borg drones all in one spot. I died like 10 times, before I had to abandon the mission and give it a low rating.
I agree though that authors shouldn't be held liable for the annoying bugs, so long as they take advantage of any possible workaround.
They can take that difficulty slider and stick it.
well I hope my mission wont get bad ratings- though you will find that when there is a large-ish enemy group- I have just enough allies alongside to make things a little bit easier
However it is my personal belief that the best missions are challenging and yet tell a good story
Well ya 50 Borg is ridiculous. I'm talking about missions that have been tested, and I or people I know have no trouble passing them. Then someone who fails at this game plays and can't win a fight because they have junk gear and useless abilities.
Well, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I think most of the characters on Tribble are test characters for people's mains. That being established, I'm going to make the assumption that A) they know how to play and
If someone who knows how to play the game and such struggles through your mission or it's not up to their tastes and rate your mission poorly. Well, I have to say, learn to space out your encounters better. I've encountered several missions where when you engage the first enemy squadron you basically aggro the second one. If you're pretty good, you can probably come out on top, but odds are you might not make it. So who's fault is that? Is it my fault, I can't handle 2-3 enemy squads at once? Or is it the author's fault that they didn't care enough to space their encounters properly?
Eventually, we should be able to slap level requirements on things. Currently we cannot.
But if your mission is designed for admirals, you should put that clearly in the mission description, first thing.
That however, is a bit different than you scaling your missions so that on normal difficulty you expect people, and I'm assuming people of the intended level, to "likely die a time or maybe even two." Normal difficulty isn't difficult. That's why people play on advanced or elite. Essentially, you are bumping up normal to advanced or maybe even elite. Which means people that do not enjoy playing on a higher difficulty are now forced to. And those that do play on higher difficulties are forced to adjust the setting just for your mission.
The nature of Advanced and Elite already determines if the mission will be harder for the player. Dumping more mobs makes those settings impossible and I will explain why.
On normal, we can pretty much cake walk through ground combat (except the bugged out mobs). You don't really need to worry about positioning your BOFFs or using the right BOFF Skills/ Weapons against the MOBS. Now enter the tendency to make a mission more "Challenging" by dumping more NPC's into the same spot for an encounter.
In a way this will work to make it more challenging(albiet annoying) when the mission is set to normal on the slider.
But here is the problem. On Advanced and Elite settings. Positioning your Boffs, timing skills, arcs, weapons etc all come into play. You dump too many NPC's and Advance/Elite becomes insta-death because there is no maneuvre room, plus mobs now have higher resists, damage output, shield regen etc.
That 1 normal spawn of NPC actors is like 2 times worth of spawns on advanced, and elite probably close to 5 spawns worth. All in one package.
Now here comes the mission that is populated with 5 NPC spawns in the same location. That would mean on elite setting thats like 15 spawns all in one spot? Sound reasonable?
Yes people will cake walk through your mission, yes people will click click click the dialogue boxes ignoring the countless hours of dialogue you thought out. Forget those people. Make the mission challenging but rewarding for the players that are playing for the story. (Most likely they will already have it set to Advanced or Elite)
the mission does not have more than 2 regular mobs agroable at a time
or a major boss AND more than a weak mob.
or have more than 1 regular mob ambush at zone in
so if you put 2 stong mobs abushing at zone in.....people will give you ratings of 2..and thier right
if you make unkillable boss fights...Boss plus 2 other mobs..........folks will give ya a 1, because
it is unplayable...to them
When you write a mission for other players it is NOT thier responcability to be uber geared.
It is YOUR responcibilty to make it fun and playable by the AVERAGE player.
The challange lvl is in the hands of the PLAYERS not you. They get to choose where to set
the difficulty slider...not you.
If your main concern is making the adventure challanging enuff...you have already failed.
Make it fun, interesting.....challange is a function of the game already, it doesn't need your help.
MEOW
If the review says something is too hard, well, that might just be a personal opinion of the player in question, just like he might not like your story. If a lot of people say it's too hard, you might want to reconsider.
I personally tend to use larger-then-usual enemy groups in space. Stuff like 6 frigates or a battleship and a cruiser. Beyond that, I tend to also add NPC allies that help you. Some might see that as too difficult, especially once they go to Advanced or Elite difficulty. But - my goal is to have a challenging and interesting fight at normal difficulty. I disagree with the notion that the difficulty is (only) in the player's hand. If the difficulty system didn't suck as much as it does, I wouldn't care, but playing on Elite is tedious and no fun at all to me, and so I build missions that are fun to me at lower difficulty levels. Just like I make stories that I am interested in. Not everyone has to like these missions, and if they review it accordingly, that's fair.
And there is certainly a possiblity I am going too far in some cases.
If You Need more Action you can add EQUAL numbers of Groups on each side of equal strength. In Space I can easily Handle 1 Battleship group, 1 cruiser2 and 1 fighter 2. Again, if I need more action I'll add Groups equally to both sides.
It is a simple Matter to Explain Extra Allied ships or Ground forces... I'll use something Like "Transmit Coded Message to Task Force Omega" to bring in the re-enforcements... this makes your Captain appear to be Crafty and Sly... With a Back-up plan... Very Trek Like..
The Exception is the "Free for All" type encounter where everyone is shooting at everyone. This "Last Man Standing" type encounter is not limited to the number of groups because everyone is Hostile to everyone else.
I Have found this to be a good balance... Your Results or Opinions May Differ...
No, I'm saying exactly what I said, and I never used the word "easy" in my post. Try to read what was actually written.
Me and Judgemark would like to know what your misssion is so we can try it.
The enemies scale up, so they should be challenging regardless of the level of the person playing it. Ok maybe someone in a Miranda will have trouble, but the mission should be able to be completed by a Lt.C and still be challenging to an Admiral.
The difficulty slider is a reality. Some people, like me, think that normal is an absolute joke and never play on it. So I come across your mission and how am I supposed to know to turn the difficulty down?
Another thing is not everyone is that good at the game. While normal is no challenge to me, it may be for other people. So now you've made a mission that was a challenge for you, and other people might have trouble even do it.
I'm not sure why you're surprised about getting bad reviews based on the difficulty if this is your attitude.
I mean, go ahead and do whatever you want, but then don't complain about the consequences.
Well I know for MY mission- i placed a warning in the description to play at normal- advanced if you have a team of less than 3 captains total. The intention behind my missions was to make it challenging and fun to play. However due to foundry bugs, my mission difficulty is tone down somewhat with me placing reinforcements at some of the harder junctions in the game. I do a LOT of what I believe to be thorough play- testing of my own mission where I can sit back and observe the difficulty mode for players specced into a broad category. It goes without saying that some people may not have the kind of respect for a challenge like I do, but I do hope that when my mission does get played- people will be honest with me on it, and tell me where it is too hard. I tested with 3 different toons(2 at vice admiral) geared and specced differently
that you spent a week to make the mission. Seen people leave bad feedback on ebay.com the same way. Sucks but volume should take take of it.
it can hurt to see your mission get one stars especially if not too many others have played it yet but its a slight risk you have to take. just shrug it off as best you can.
actually now that I look, i have 5 ratings, with an average of 1 star, but no one has left feedback, so I dont know where to look to fix. there is only 1 review that has 4/5 on it, but once again no commentary. Would the other 4 ratings be from when I have play- tested the mission right through to the end, but didn't leave any feedback on my own mission or give it a rating?
If your working on a mission that is a work in progress...publish it, try it...take it down.
Don't leave missions up that you intend to do a lot more work on...ratings are forever.
If you get 2 -3 1-star ratings.....its done, pull it, start from scratch. It may not be your fault
but that will not change it's rating..and nobody will touch it...start brand new and rebuild it.
there are just some things that will never change.
meow
i tried your mission and sent you a mail which will explain my feedback. i had trouble completing it due to the difficulty as i played it solo (even though its meant for a team as you say) so i chose not to leave feedback via the system itself as it seemed unfair as i would have to grade it poorly because i could not complete. my mail explains more.
anyway the system is bugged so you probably dont have 5 ratings, it just tells you that it has. it would seem you only have the one person play it and they gave you 4 stars but your average rating is 1 star.
that is because the system is dividing your score by 5 instead of the number of people who have played it. other people have the same problem so they need to fix that.
it seems the person who did play it chose not to leave any feedback.