Change AE Search Interface To Remove Fire Farms From Results

[CraterLabs]

Is there any way to do this? Whenever I get a character to a place where I don't have an active contact I like to hit up AE for some missions at my level but there's no way to search for things without pages and pages of "Fire Farms" advertising their "Fast Completion" or "High Ticket Output" or whatever. I can never remember that tag that people use for story-focused missions, and a lot of my favorite story creators don't even know to use that tag anyway so I'm sure that won't find 'em all. A way to say "exclude any results with the phrase "fire farm" in my results" would rock.

 

Thanks, dev team!

[Rudra]

If this can be implemented, then it should apply to all farms, not just fire farms.

[Greycat]

You *can* just try using "random." Surprisingly few farms have shown up for me on that.

 

But, yeah. Boolean type searches (NOT farm NOT fire) would be useful. (Yes, typing in -farm or NOT farm brings up... farms.)

[lemming]

Yea, I think another category is needed, just to say "This is a farm" and be able to say you don't want those.

[Shin Magmus]

     When the farmers of Germany go on strike again, and there's a food shortage, you guys are going to be really mad that you didn't treat farmers better and avoided visiting their farms. 

[CraterLabs]

On 9/26/2024 at 9:58 PM, Greycat said:

You *can* just try using "random." Surprisingly few farms have shown up for me on that.

 

But, yeah. Boolean type searches (NOT farm NOT fire) would be useful. (Yes, typing in -farm or NOT farm brings up... farms.)

 

Especially if we can select multiple things, yeah. I actually have a mission called "River Of Fire!" that gets, I think, probably more exposure than it should because of the occasional confused fire farmer who rolls up to it and decides to just play the story instead of dumping it immediately when they realize it's not that, heh. Theoretically -fire would exclude missions like that in ways that -farm wouldn't. Either way, being able to specifically exclude stuff we're not looking for would be awesome.

 

On 9/26/2024 at 10:27 PM, lemming said:

Yea, I think another category is needed, just to say "This is a farm" and be able to say you don't want those.

 

Yeah. Honestly, if players could somehow tag missions as farms in addition to the devs listing them as such, that might be a good step.

[Black Zot]

On 10/6/2024 at 7:14 PM, CraterLabs said:

Yeah. Honestly, if players could somehow tag missions as farms in addition to the devs listing them as such, that might be a good step.

 

You'd have to start by getting people to tag things AT ALL.  Tagging systems only work when they're mandatory/enforced.

[CraterLabs]

6 hours ago, Black Zot said:

 

You'd have to start by getting people to tag things AT ALL.  Tagging systems only work when they're mandatory/enforced.

 

Maybe? I always try to check those boxes when I rate a mission ("Ideal for Teams", "Kid Friendly", "Complex Mechanics", "Canon Related", etc.), I'd definitely check a similar box for "Farm [XP, Inf, Tickets, etc.]" or something.

 

Even if I'm the only one doing it, that'd at least be one or two fewer farms to deal with a week for everyone else, heh-heh

[Jiro Ito]

On 9/26/2024 at 6:59 PM, CraterLabs said:

 I can never remember that tag that people use for story-focused missions

 

It's simply "SFMA"  

 

🙂 

[Greycat]

19 hours ago, Black Zot said:

 

You'd have to start by getting people to tag things AT ALL.  Tagging systems only work when they're mandatory/enforced.

 

That's why I think just putting in support for boolean searches might work better. Even if we had every person who made something in AE rush over and tag them, there are still plenty of AE missions, farm and otherwise, where the creator isn't here or otherwise able to do it.

 

Though I think the farm arc folks would do it if we had specific farming tags ... Farm (fire,) Farm (s/l,) Farm (cold,) Farm (special / unique.) Or something. They'll already put that in descriptions.

[UltraAlt]

On 9/26/2024 at 9:59 PM, CraterLabs said:

I can never remember that tag that people use for story-focused missions, and a lot of my favorite story creators don't even know to use that tag anyway so I'm sure that won't find 'em all. A way to say "exclude any results with the phrase "fire farm" in my results" would rock.

 

It isn't just SFMA with good content.

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Mission_Architect_Tags

"Tag Listing

 

Mission Type Tags

[SFMA] - Story Focused Mission Arc

[RBMA] - Rewards Based Mission Arc (Use at your own risk. For 'legitimate' arcs only.)

Challenge Level Tags

[LBMA] - LowBie friendly Mission Arc

[MLMA] - Mid-Level Mission Arc (Appropriate for levels 20-40, Post SOs and Pre-Epic Pools)

[HLMA] - High Level Mission Arc (Appropriate for levels 40+)

[PCMA] - Pro Challenge Mission Arc

[SLMA] - Solo Friendly Mission Arc

[TFMA] - Team Focused Mission Arc (Put in Both PCMA and TFMA to designate a Team Pro Challenge)

 

Mission Descriptor Tags

[NCMA] - Non-Canon Mission Arc (Not grounded in COH canon, an "Elseworlds" arc.)

[FHMA] - For-Hire Mission Arc (Your character is brought in to work for the contact as hired help.)

[VSMA] - Villainous Self-Motivated Arc (Your character has their own goals, contact helps you instead.)

[SGMA] - Super Group specific Mission Arc (Specific for the author's SG. May not work well for others.)

 

Genre Tags

[ACMA] - Architect System Mission Arc

[AFMA] - Allegory Focused Mission Arc

[CCMA] - Classic Comic Mission Arc

[CGMA] - Crime and Gangs Mission Arc

[CFMA] - Crisis Focused Mission Arc

[DFMA] - Drama Focused Mission Arc

[GDMA] - Global Domination Mission Arc

[HPMA] - Heist Plot Mission Arc

[HRMA] - Historical (Real) Mission Arc

[HCMA] - Historical (CoH) Mission Arc

[HDMA] - Holiday Mission Arc

[HGMA] - Horror Genre Mission Arc

[HFMA] - Humor Focused Mission Arc

[MFMA] - Magic Focused Mission Arc

[MWMA] - Military & Warfare Mission Arc

[MYMA] - Mystery Mission Arc

[MGMA] - Mythology & Gods Mission Arc

[NPMA] - Nemesis Plot Mission Arc

[OSMA] - Origin Story Mission Arc

[PRMA] - Puzzle & Riddles Mission Arc

[SCMA] - Science Fiction Mission Arc"

[CraterLabs]

On 10/9/2024 at 2:47 AM, UltraAlt said:

 

It isn't just SFMA with good content.

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Mission_Architect_Tags

"Tag Listing

 

I kinda wish there was some in-game resource for that. Also, if I had the ability to apply tags to missions I played in AE that don't have any of those, I'd likely add a lot since almost none of the good stories I've seen in the last couple years have used those. I think. Maybe they did and I didn't notice, heh.

[UltraAlt]

12 hours ago, CraterLabs said:

I kinda wish there was some in-game resource for that.

 

Agreed.

 

12 hours ago, CraterLabs said:

Also, if I had the ability to apply tags to missions I played in AE that don't have any of those, I'd likely add a lot since almost none of the good stories I've seen in the last couple years have used those. I think. Maybe they did and I didn't notice, heh.

 

I agree that would be a useful tool as well.

[biostem]

What they should do is to permit farms in AE, but require clear tags, then update the search function to allow excluding certain such tags.  You want to create a farm?  That's perfectly acceptable, but if you do not tag it as such, it'll be unpublished and you get a warning.  Too many warnings, and you can be acted upon.  The same should then be extended to AE content with mature/sexual themes, and so on.  Create whatever you want, just be clear and up front with what your content contains/consists of...

 

EDIT:  My only concern is that someone will invariably try to push the boundary and skirt the system - "Oh I totally have a legitimate mission on the carnival map - you have to rescue a hostage and there's even a boss with lines of text!".

Edited November 9 by biostem

[Greycat]

57 minutes ago, biostem said:

What they should do is to permit farms in AE, but require clear tags, then update the search function to allow excluding certain such tags.  You want to create a farm?  That's perfectly acceptable, but if you do not tag it as such, it'll be unpublished and you get a warning.  Too many warnings, and you can be acted upon.  The same should then be extended to AE content with mature/sexual themes, and so on.  Create whatever you want, just be clear and up front with what your content contains/consists of...

 

EDIT:  My only concern is that someone will invariably try to push the boundary and skirt the system - "Oh I totally have a legitimate mission on the carnival map - you have to rescue a hostage and there's even a boss with lines of text!".

 

So, couple things with this -

1. Would it be applied to all existing arcs?

2. Would everything *else* need to be tagged, too?

3. Would it be automated?

4. If it's not automated, who's going to police it with our small volunteer dev team? (Especially if they'd have to be reviewed to make sure it's not 'buried' a mission or two deep.)

[biostem]

59 minutes ago, Greycat said:

So, couple things with this

Oh no doubt it'd be a tough nut to crack.  I think the easiest and most "generous" approach to take would be to grandfather in all existing arcs.  I wouldn't want to burden the devs with it.  Perhaps there could be some sport of "user suggested tags" function?  As for policing, maybe arcs/missions created beyond this "grandfathered date" could be reported, similar to how a character with an offensive/violating name would be?  Don't get me wrong - I realize this would be a huge undertaking, and frankly, probably more trouble than it'd be worth or would improve the overall player experience... 

[CraterLabs]

I think that's why making it a casual thing instead of a big overhaul could be the best approach. Don't require mission creators to flag them, but give people who encounter missions the tools to do so.

 

The only concern I can think of with this is that it would create some potential "review bombing" situations, so an arc's creator should get a tell or e-mail in-game to say something like "Your AE mission 'Cool Infamy Farm' was flagged as a resource farming mission, if this is accurate you don't need to do anything, if it's inaccurate please submit a troubleshooting ticket" so that way there's room for the volunteer dev team to look at arcs as needed, but no need for them to look into it whenever the system works as intended

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, CraterLabs said:

I think that's why making it a casual thing instead of a big overhaul could be the best approach. Don't require mission creators to flag them, but give people who encounter missions the tools to do so.

 

The only concern I can think of with this is that it would create some potential "review bombing" situations, so an arc's creator should get a tell or e-mail in-game to say something like "Your AE mission 'Cool Infamy Farm' was flagged as a resource farming mission, if this is accurate you don't need to do anything, if it's inaccurate please submit a troubleshooting ticket" so that way there's room for the volunteer dev team to look at arcs as needed, but no need for them to look into it whenever the system works as intended

Why? If you are going to give the ability for other players to apply flags to someone's AE content, then why have them get a notice to ask a dev or other reviewer to go in and make sure the flag was correctly applied? Why not let the content author remove the flags himself/herself/themselves? They can already apply the flags themselves.

 

(Edit: Still give a notice the flag was applied so the author can go in and remove it, but why require the content creator to have to ask a GM or dev to do a review for them?)

 

Edited November 12 by Rudra

[CraterLabs]

28 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Why? If you are going to give the ability for other players to apply flags to someone's AE content, then why have them get a notice to ask a dev or other reviewer to go in and make sure the flag was correctly applied? Why not let the content author remove the flags himself/herself/themselves? They can already apply the flags themselves.

 

(Edit: Still give a notice the flag was applied so the author can go in and remove it, but why require the content creator to have to ask a GM or dev to do a review for them?)

 

 

Hey, fair enough. I was just suggesting a possible way it could look. I'd be happy with that.

[biostem]

47 minutes ago, CraterLabs said:

if this is accurate you don't need to do anything, if it's inaccurate please submit a troubleshooting ticket"

Why put the onus on the author to report inaccurate tags added by other people, instead of requiring those other people to prove that their tags are accurate in the first place?  Perhaps you could still have 3rd party "suggested tags", but they are given a lower weight and others must elect to include them in their search results, and permit authors to remove any suggested tags they disagree with, but never have them be actionable, (except in extreme cases, like the aforementioned "review bombing")...