The Gameday Problem

tovilovan

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 23, 2008
391
104
I have to say I'm disappointed with gamedays nowadays. Some months ago I tested a couple of maps there and got HUGE lots of feedback. There were at least 15/20 people there with mics and telling what they thought of when playing the map. This sunday the case was another. There were people playing, but from half an hour I got ONE line of constructive feedback. Which was "Mid is too sniper friendly." Twenty minutes into the game people were saying

Fecking Critical Magnetizer : Can we not change map already
Haas : yeah
Haas : rtv
-{TECU}-XXkillerturtleXX{BBQ} : rtv
[TECU] LabelMaker : lol
[TECU] LabelMaker : nominate
*DEAD* Fecking Critical Magnetizer : rtv
Fecking Critical Magnetizer : There is no rtv is there

And "this map is not very good", "not very creative".

I don't know if I expect too much but... Shouldnt 24 people playing for half an hour be able to come up with more than "this map is not very good"? If I submit my map to gameday, I expect to gain more than the knowledge that "my map sucks".

I don't know what you think, but I was a bit disappointed and sad that I didn't get any help other than watching how it played, which of course is rewarding, but bnot as much as people's thoughts.
 

J4CK8

L11: Posh Member
Mar 4, 2009
820
243
Yeah, I think gamedays should mainly be for mappers as they actually give the feedback. Everyday players that just join the server randomly give you comments like "map sucks" "boring map, can we change" etc. You can tell who these people are due to the "rtv" messages.

I can remember when gamedays used to be full to the point that I couldn't join to test my own map, and there were decent comments being said. Now though, I barely get one comment every other map test.

It seems that troll maps or popular mappers get all the feedback they need, but the people that really want it don't get any. The contest maps-fair enough, they need it. But you get maps with 20 odd pages of comments, and then the new mappers get barely any. I currently have around 3 maps in progress due to lack of comments. I've had to resort to making more in hope that the community might like them enough to give me feedback.
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
Sometimes we appear to have a lot of random people there who have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. For example, one time we were playing some random Valve maps and filled the server pretty well, and when gameday came along there was little room for anyone else. That means we get a server full of people who barely know TF2 has some sort of "custom map stuff". It was bad.

How about we all decide to have 1 hour of "quiet time" in the server before the gamedays? Maybe even password them?

And on each map start, how about a pop up of some sort that tells people we're testing maps and stuff? I know we have a small one, but it's hardly noticeable and it's easy to overlook the default SM message boxes.
 

gamemaster1996

L13: Stunning Member
Sep 30, 2009
1,064
134
You know the solution:_ Put a password on tf2maps for members then we'll only have people from here who know how it works
 
Feb 17, 2009
1,165
376
Maybe there should be a password for the servers, that every mapper should know about?
So that random people wouldnt come in and take up the slots for real mappers.
Damn ninjas :D
 
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UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
And on each map start, how about a pop up of some sort that tells people we're testing maps and stuff? I know we have a small one, but it's hardly noticeable and it's easy to overlook the default SM message boxes.
Thats a must to me. On ukcs they do the same and there it realy works. (they do it whenever someone joins also but just for them). If you want to know how they do it exactly check it tommorow as then they have a test again.

Passwords arent good. Mappers often check the mapping side alot where even though you do get good feedback from you dont get the type of feedback that actualy tells you if its truly fun/good. Randoms allways base their votes on valve maps a bit more which is a quite good standard to check from.

The quiet time however is good, or at least fill that time with customs only so the 'i only love valve map' player leave as those are simply the most worthless players you can get.

Gamedays shouldnt be for mappers only. People that like custom maps should be able to join it just as good as anyone else. Those are the players you aim your map for after all.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
Keep talking, I've been planning/intending to plan some changes cause I haven't liked it myself.

A password is an idea... I just fear that it would be worse because you wouldn't have enough people anyway. :/
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
Oh, and by password I meant just to protect the "quiet time", and then open it as soon as Gameday starts.
 

MoonQuake

L3: Member
Jul 18, 2009
111
21
People like to vote, right?
At the end of each round, put a voting type of message on-screen:

-----------------------------
- Did you like this map?
1 - YES
2 - NO

In 1 line, tell us why you liked it or not.

Thanks for your feedback. This is going to be read by the maker of this map to improve the map.
---------------------------

OR

When a round ends, use motd to display the server welcome page only this time, it leads to the maps "feedback page" on the forum (no registration required, dunno if it's possible to do this) where people can give the map a score, and leave comments. Something simple and clear.
 

Tinker

aa
Oct 30, 2008
672
334
I'd say password them out, if it weren't that at times there aren't a lot of people testing anyway. Better have dumb testers than no testers at all.
 

J4CK8

L11: Posh Member
Mar 4, 2009
820
243
I think most people on this forum know how a TF2 map should work, and what a map needs to be successful. Most people that join gamedays randomly don't even leave feedback in the chat becuase
a) they're mostly there to play/don't know it's a map test
b) they probably don't know anything about mapping

I think the server needs to announce it's gameday/map testing clearly and messages on screen/MOTD/in chat saying it too. I think there is already one in chat that appears but I've only noticed it about 2 or 3 times in all the gamedays I've been to.
 

tovilovan

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 23, 2008
391
104
The thing isn't that the mappers don't get a spot on the server, this sunday there were at most 20 people on the server. A password would just make the gamedays less populated=bad.

I think it's important to see why the gamedays are good, and how to use them for feedback.

1. People play your map and give you their thoughts when playing. This is maybe the most important part, as different people give different thoughts on different things.

2. You can watch the demo to see how the map played in a bigger perspective than from the perspective of one person. This is also important, but sometimes it's hard to see the small problems that makes the map bad. That's why the players' comments are important

3. Your map gets publicity.

All these three points would be impossible to achieve with a mappers-only gameday. Public players have a different view on maps than mappers, it's important to get all perspectives.

The main problem today is that people aren't realizing they're playing to help someone with their map. A SourceMod message upon entering the server would work. The thing is that you don't want to know if your map is good or bad, you want to know WHAT is good or bad. That's why just a vote isn't enough. The players need to be interested in helping. And if we can't force other people to be interested in our own maps, we need to be there ourselves.
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
Some other ideas that might help the randoms mentioning its a test:
- If they typed rtv there will be a message in the chat saying its a map test and you cant use it.
- On each new round have a message like the env_text entity. People will read those for sure
- Allow the mapper to put up a vote to ask about an issue in the map - or anything else thats important for the mapper to know (well, by mentioning one of the admins to do so). It can make the mapper get the info they want.
 
Aug 19, 2008
1,011
1,158
How about reserved slots for mappers?
if a mapper wants to join, a non-mappers gets kicked
(of course mappers won´t kick mappers)
this would require the serveradmin to have a list of all mapper-IDs

dunno if thats possible
 

MoonQuake

L3: Member
Jul 18, 2009
111
21
Whatever way it's gonna be done, it's gotta be simple.

People are lazy, they like simple and their time is precious.

So an on-screen message where people get to just press a key to vote would work. At least to get the general idea about if they like it or not.
Then, just to keep it simple, if we could just have a text field, type in ready, right after the vote, people would certainly type in a little something. I mean, it's in their face.

Even if you only get: I like the tower or I die too often in the long corridor, ...etc... it's valuable input compared to close to no input right now.

I agree about the welcome message saying it's a map testing server.
Maybe we should mention at the end of each round that people can type in comments because the mapper will read them by watching the demo?

Except for the password idea and the kicking people idea, I think that any of the ideas we provided so far would help greatly by providing info to the players and making them come back more often.
 
Feb 17, 2009
1,165
376
How about reserved slots for mappers?
if a mapper wants to join, a non-mappers gets kicked
(of course mappers won´t kick mappers)
this would require the serveradmin to have a list of all mapper-IDs

dunno if thats possible
This^
There should be a necesarry field in your profile where you have to enter the steam id.
 

h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
Regarding feedback from the mappers:
What I have done the few times I played on a gameday was taking a sheet of paper and writing down what was important, in order to post it later in the maps thread.
If you say it during playing, the mapper might miss it, or have to watch through the demo to find your comment. If you don't write it down, you might forget stuff.

Regarding randoms:
I don't think a vote is really that useful. On 80% of all votes I press one of the options on accident, because I juggle weapons all the time. And a lot of people just press one to close the window. However, a regular message should make it clear to them, that that is a map test and that they should try to give feedback on what they like/dislike.
You just need to make sure, that they read the message and give feedback. Well, just is a bad choice of word here, since it is still hard to get got feedback out of most people. Many people don't know what to write, what to look for, what to comment on. Maybe some good questions could help them say something constructive about the map.
 
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Rexy

The Kwisatz Haderach
aa
Dec 22, 2008
1,798
2,533
I suggested reserved slots a while ago, but there was clearly hate for them.