Frustration

[E-85]

I’ve come to a point in my life where I’m at a crossroads and frankly I don’t know what to do. I wanted to switch my attention over from one hobby (robot combat) to another hobby (level design), but with the current state of Valve and TF2 I don’t know if I should.

This choice was one I’ve dwelled on for years. I started my “journey” into robot combat around 2015 when both Battlebots and Robot Wars were given reboots. Ever since I have tried to get something put together to go and fight and even taught myself how to use Autodesk Fusion 360… however, financial issues have been the biggest setback in my ability to compete. I have looked for alternatives and ways to help alleviate these financial issues, however none have turned up over the past few years. Because of this, I’ve made a decision to put robot combat to the side and focus on level design: something I had started as far back as high school but never really committed to.

I started designing levels for games as far back as 2016 in Roblox, a few of which got put in a few now discontinued games and a few that were made, but never put in. I had started looking into map making for TF2 around 2018, but between my old laptop’s hard drive breaking and family issues I’d rather not talk about, I put it aside until I got my new PC. I dabbled with a few ideas in 2023 but nothing ever really stuck. I’ve wanted to focus more on making maps for TF2 this year… but a number of things have made it tough for me to say if the time and effort learning Hammer would be worth it.

The first big problem is obvious: casual is unplayable. Why should I toil away making content for updates when the only people that can “enjoy” the content are bots and? Sure, you can make a map for fun, but I don’t want a map that’s just fun for me: I want maps that are fun for everybody, and can be enjoyed by everybody. Plus, most community servers are trade, idle, or 24/7 2fort or Hightower with very few “vanilla” servers… which I feel like also lowers my desire to make a map since few community maps would give people the ability to try it out.

Secondly, the TF2 community itself. I feel like the less Valve does and the less they’ve chosen to respond, the more hostile people have gotten towards the community members whose content gets added to the game. I mean for crying out loud YouTubers were saying they’d quit if Prop Hunt was added and freaked out at the possibility of it being added to the game, and others saying if you liked playing it you were “delusional” and should “go play something like Roblox”. It’s something that makes me wary of wanting to try because I don’t want people chewing me out for things that may not be my fault.

The last issue is, well, Valve. The removal of TFS2 yesterday via DMCA struck a nerve: it may be in their rights to do, but the fact it was taken down while actual TF2 has been sitting here slowly rotting and falling apart just grinds my gears. On top of that, I feel that community updates are somewhat predatory, using the community as a way to buy buy buy because “a portion of the money goes to the creators”… who make, what, a penny to Valve’s dime?

I just feel frustrated and lost is all. 2024 is already off to a sour start and frankly I don’t know what to do. I don’t care about making money off my maps, I just want to make maps that are fun… but why waste my energy on another hobby that winds being as pointless as the previous?

 

[Brokkhouse]

Hi there.

I can definitely empathize with your frustration. The TFS2 situation has shaken us all, and no day goes by on the TF2Maps Discord without some mention of the omnipresent bot crisis and the unplayability of casual. TF2 is in maintenance mode and Valve is not doing all that much anymore.

That said, it's still a fantastic game, and this community (and all the other TF2 communities as well) is a long way from dead. We are more active this year than we have been in years.
I think you need to decide why you would like to make maps, and whether those ambitions are compatible with this game. The vast majority of TF2 Mappers do it because it's fun - it's a passion, a distraction, a hobby, whatever you wanna call it. I can tell you one thing for sure, and that is that this community is going to be alive, in one way or another, for many years to come. Valve may be changing, and this is definitely worrying, but what we have here will not go anywhere. Even if Valve suddenly decided to stop adding maps, people would keep making them. There are still many MvM maps being made (and played regularly in places like potato.tf) despite Valve not having added a single one, ever.

Regarding the question who will enjoy your work? Personally, I have a background in writing. Short stories, worldbuilding, microfiction, and a few long-form projects like novellas and RPG campaigns. I've always written with the following rule of thumb: If my work is collectively enjoyed by my audience at least as long as it took me to create it in the first place, then the whole venture was worth it. That's the mindset I had when I started mapping. Seeing people give you feedback after a map test, watching cool frags happen in the environment you made, witnessing balance discussions in #wip about some terrible sightline you've created or the neat mapgyver detailing hidden somewhere - it's seriously motivating to keep on creating. Even if only a few dozen people ever play your stuff, these things feel good. And chances are, after you've made a couple maps, that significantly more people will play your work.

Come play on our servers some time. We are testing maps almost every day, and it's always a blast, casual be damned.

 

[Tiftid]

On top of that, I feel that community updates are somewhat predatory, using the community as a way to buy buy buy because “a portion of the money goes to the creators”… who make, what, a penny to Valve’s dime?

It isn't entirely "a penny to Valve's dime".
The system is that community mapmakers get 100% of all money spent on map stamps for their map, and I think a cut of all sales of that update's cosmetic case.
If I was paid Australian minimum wage for the work I put into pl_boatload, I would be approx. A$7620 wealthier for it.
I've heard you can make about five times that on a map that gets in the game, depending on its popularity with players.

However, it's a payment that only happens once a year, whereas my minimum-wage job pays me year-round.
Additionally, when you consider the outrageous team sizes of some of the recent maps, having to split up your money so much might result in pretty paltry takings.

But this is dodging the main point.
It's essentially a truth that Valve is paying the community, with almost exclusively the community's own money (since none of the map stamp revenue would have gone to Valve anyway), to make content for their popular online game, while making none themself.
And has been doing so since 2017.

The summer Festival update was a particular disaster, since Valve now knows that all they need to do is vaguely hint at "maps, cosmetics, taunts and who knows what else", and then never deliver on the "who knows what else" part and get an all-time player peak while fully intending to keep doing the same shit they've been not doing for the past seven years.

By the way, I don't know if I have some kind of australian low-population bonus, but casual is far from "unplayable". Every time I've launched it in the last few months, I've quickly been able to find a match with only humans and have a great, fun match of TF2. If a bot joins, it gets quickly identified and kicked.
TF2 is still fun, supposing you play the right maps.

Even if you don't expect your map to get added to TF2, there are several reasonably popular community server networks you can strive to get your maps played in. For a while, my map cp_bruhstbowl was being run on Uncletopia's community map servers!

So it's clearly not all hopeless. Custom maps have always, since 2007, been in a spot where it's rare to have people play on them unless they're officially added to the game. The level of rarity has basically never changed, even with the perceived dropoff in community server quality (and let me tell you, community servers weren't anything special in 2015 when I started playing).

All the prop hunt stuff is just the nature of criticism. I've received harsh criticism on the maps I've published to the Workshop, and even the ones I haven't to a lesser capacity. You'll hardly find a hobby without that level of criticism, and I don't think anyone would call what people have said about my maps toxic criticism, because they think my maps could and should be made better. This is true, but what people tend to overlook is suggesting the right changes to make - fixing one issue could create others and make the map less fun overall.

Don't overlisten to feedback and try to fix every tiny issue, but don't underlisten and assume that negative feedback is just out of some difference of opinion where "they personally don't like the map", because if they could be made to like the map, that would indeed make it a better map.
What you need as a map designer is to be stoic, and confident that the changes you're about to make will make the map fun for more players overall and not fewer, even if your changes aren't fixing an issue people have feedbacked and you're sure that people will feedback it again but angrier this time.

 

[Demoman please]

Oh man I can relate to that. @Brokkhouse already said what I wanted to say, so... Just try to find what you enjoy. For instance, I find peace in spending time alone on idle maps, reminiscing about the past. And sometimes hop on some community servers to micspam a little

Lately, I've also been creating videos with random suggestions for map creators, aiming to motivate them (hopefully) and also archive their work in video form on Youtube.

 

[Midlou]

Focus on specific niches. When you start looking at the vast internet and everything that's going on, things can get depressing real quick. TF2maps is a great community if you want to make maps and share them with people. If I were you, I'd stick around here.

Personally, I recommend 3D printing and game development in Godot as hobbies. Both niches have amazing communities, and you'll find a lot of support and fun there.