Forgers vs. the Competitive Community

[Ladnil]

I wrote this response in the V4 maps discussion thread after reading many, posts praising the return of Onslaught and Warlock and a few disparaging posts about the new designs. It kind of grew larger than simply responding to what Mr. Mongrel wrote though, and I want to make sure more people see it.


Just bring in something new.
It's become increasingly apparent that KC and crew have differing opinions than the forging community.
What the forging community thinks is bad may not be what the rest thinks is bad.

I also have a feeling that hate towards some of these new maps stems from simply bad experiences on the first or second personal go-through.
The forge community... not just the MLG forge community but the greater Halo forge community... is full of insulated thinking. People begin with the best of intentions, trying to make the kinds of maps that they personally like to play, but then as they start networking with other forgers and start being influenced by the designs of other forgers, their perspective changes. A hallway is no longer just a hallway, it's a unique arrangement of Platform XXLs, a base is no longer just a base, it's a really awesome stacking of pyramids. Maps aren't just maps anymore, they're forge maps, and to a forger those are not exactly the same thing.

None of us do it on purpose, at least I like to think so. Maybe some do, I'm not in anyone else's head. Regardless, forgers aren't cynically building maps expecting all of you to hate them. When 90% of the people you play with are forgers and 100% of the people who offer any feedback other than "this map sucks" are forgers you start to get insulated though. It's unavoidable. The echo chamber reinforces the things that a forger appreciates in a map, and as I explained above, those are not always the same things that a general player from the community likes.

All of you are not innocent either though. How many of you have even played these maps once before declaring Onslaught and Warlock to be clearly the best? Even among those of you who have played them all, how many games? Were you playing with organized teams? Did you have callouts and strats and flag routes and a grasp of the spawn system like you do with Onslaught and Warlock? Most of you are treating these maps and past maps as if you expect them to all play as well as they can play within the first few games, and the familiar comfortable maps are coming off looking better to you.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you, the competitive community playing these maps, need to help us, the forgers to stay grounded. Run games on our maps. Give them a chance with an open mind and an acceptance that you don't yet know how to play them as well as you do the already established maps. Abuse the hell out of the spawn systems, camp power positions, intentionally slow down gameplay, and just generally play as if thousands of dollars were on the line. Tell us if things bother you about the maps after a handful of games. We need the help to maintain focus on what really matters in map design, and I would hope that you would value the improvements made to maps we produce.

[Thunder]

Wall of text was too intimidating for me to begin reading...

[Puroxicity]

Wall of text was too intimidating for me to begin reading...
Well its full of great info... So don't be to scared there cowgirl (;

[Toomuchmooin]

Lol at Puro, I just hope I don't start calling people cowgirl now. But I do agree with Ladnil because as much as I loved Amp, The Pit, and Wizard (I know that amp and pit weren't among the list, just naming classics) I personally would like fresh blood among the map pool because I believe with a new game should come new maps and some gameplay variation like armor abilities, that is why there is a new game in a series... and that fact that bungie was under contract, but I feel like Reach probably would have come anyway.

[steelcity007]

Wall of text was too intimidating for me to begin reading...
I thought the same thing hahahahaha

[Ladnil]

Yesm 600 words is insanely huge. How silly of me to think people might read more than a tweet's worth of text.

[HEA7]

I was scared by your avatar picture...

[Thunder]

Just messin with ya bro. I'm just to lazy right now.

[Fliktrocity]

Good post Ladnil.
Everything you said there was true.
I got out of competetive gaming until the last event and it got me pumped up and I realized that the way I was designing maps wasn't the way I should have been because I had gotten out of the loop of competetive play.
I look back at my first few maps and realize that these were probably some of my best (design theory anyways).
If I would have known how to forge well when I created these maps then I believe that they would have been alot better.
Its always nice to have good players on your list to help you test a map and its important to constantly play competitively yourself when you forge for MLG.

[Eclipse]

this needs to happen, but also realize, a poorly made map WILL be insulted ie. 7 grave lifts, to make a 7 level map. That is just stupid

[Ladnil]

Good post Ladnil.
Everything you said there was true.
I got out of competetive gaming until the last event and it got me pumped up and I realized that the way I was designing maps wasn't the way I should have been because I had gotten out of the loop of competetive play.
I look back at my first few maps and realize that these were probably some of my best (design theory anyways).
If I would have known how to forge well when I created these maps then I believe that they would have been alot better.
Its always nice to have good players on your list to help you test a map and its important to constantly play competitively yourself when you forge for MLG.

I think that's a fairly typical forger's story. Very often the thing that sparks a person to learn to forge is a great map idea, but when they don't have the technical forging skills to pull it off it comes out badly despite having a solid core design. If the person sticks around to improve their forging after their first map likely goes unnoticed, they start to pick up the new perspective of a forger and that perspective carries over into their future designs.

They lose some "purity" if you want to use that term. Gameplay was 100% of their concern before they learned to forge, but once they acquire the skills to pull off a great map, gameplay might only be 75% or sometimes even less and things like originality and aesthetics start to creep into the forger's mind. These things are not worthless, but they start to climb beyond their proper place.

And again, this stuff is not intentional. It's a natural human tendancy to be biased, and even being aware of one's own biases is not enough to correct them. The only solution is to have outside influences to counterbalance your own bias, and in the MLG forge community, the outside influence needs to be the competitive community as a whole.

[SecretSchnitzel]

To sum things up. Gameplay + Aesthetics > Gameplay w/out Aesthetics > Aesthetics along. Maps have to play well but also balance aesthetics in a sense to accompanies game play for the sake of player orientation.

Also, some maps truly did play well and are beloved by the community... But we can not dwell in the past. Just because past maps played well does not imply new maps will not play equally well, if not better. Embrace progression.

And to top it off... Variety is the spice of life. New maps breath new life into the game. Does it not get stale playing the same old map the same way you always do? Things need to be shaken up a bit. Isn't learning a map and mastering how to play it also a skill as well?

[Champloo]

Before ANYONE says Warlock or Onslaught are even remotely decent in this game... you should play them, because they are absolutely terrible to be frank.

[SecretSchnitzel]

The speed at which this thread died is amusing. TLN kids are afraid to touch it.

[SaLoT]

Before ANYONE says Warlock or Onslaught are even remotely decent in this game... you should play them, because they are absolutely terrible to be frank.
Again a response without any backing. Sorry and this is a fact, most kids that play these types of maps get smash on by good kids or they just suck in general. Now just becuase you hate a map does not make it less of a competitive map, but to come in and say a map is bad, because you hate the map is just dumb without a good reason to back it.

And lets get off this TLN kid talk secret.

With these statements you make like the one above is just dumb.

[RagingChickens]

80% of the feedback you get from the community is going to be biased, or uneducated. Like Salot said, if you get destroyed on a map, you aren't thinking that it is a map you want to play over and over. In fact, I actually disagree with Ladnil in the last paragraph of his post. Playing the map like 1,000 dollars was on the line will only cause people to be more bitter towards a map when they lose. People should get familiar with a map before they even try to make any feedback on it. Most people (including myself at times. Trust me, I'm no saint) will play a map one time, lose 50-25, and say "This map sucks!" Forgers shouldn't take that kind of feedback. Just ignore it.

I like Onslaught a lot, and I think that Warlock is Element right? Idk, not the point. The point is, feedback with nothing helpful or insightful in it should simply be ignored.

[Ladnil]

80% of the feedback you get from the community is going to be biased, or uneducated. Like Salot said, if you get destroyed on a map, you aren't thinking that it is a map you want to play over and over. In fact, I actually disagree with Ladnil in the last paragraph of his post. Playing the map like 1,000 dollars was on the line will only cause people to be more bitter towards a map when they lose. People should get familiar with a map before they even try to make any feedback on it. Most people (including myself at times. Trust me, I'm no saint) will play a map one time, lose 50-25, and say "This map sucks!" Forgers shouldn't take that kind of feedback. Just ignore it.

I like Onslaught a lot, and I think that Warlock is Element right? Idk, not the point. The point is, feedback with nothing helpful or insightful in it should simply be ignored.

Well, obviously people shouldn't give map testing the same emotional investment of a championship match on the main stage, that would just be unhealthy at best. There is a definite difference between players playing to win like they would at a tournament and playing casually though. All too often in a map test game, neither team actually cares about the outcome so there's all manner of stat whoring, conversations unrelated to gameplay, and stupid rushes because slowing down gameplay is less exciting. Those games don't produce very much useful information for the map's designer. That's all I'm saying, that people need to try and test maps using the same play style they might in a competitive game.

You're right about bad feedback though. It does need to be ignored. The MLG forge forum has had long conversations about how to filter good and bad feedback and how to tell the difference. Being able to ignore the mindless praise from your friends just as easily as you ignore the idiotic "this map sucks" comments is difficult, but necessary.

[IndecentValues]

Hmm. Quite an interesting post.
Well with KC and everyone else not looking at the forge communities maps the same way the gorge community does is simply because of the bias (as stated above) both sides have to one another. I mean to please KC and the rest of the old fashioned halo players the forger's design is simply going to have to be something like Halo CE, or 2 simply because tbe entire group of them are old school players.
But as the forge community collaborates on one map which throws the design off of it's original stage is not always bad. I agree with your statement were you say the entire community needs to come together to test the maps they may or may not 'hate' do to awful experiences is nearly impossible. The maps are really only going to be favorited by one group, whether that be KC, the pros, forgers, or general players due to bias's.

[Fritzster]

I think that's a fairly typical forger's story. Very often the thing that sparks a person to learn to forge is a great map idea, but when they don't have the technical forging skills to pull it off it comes out badly despite having a solid core design. If the person sticks around to improve their forging after their first map likely goes unnoticed, they start to pick up the new perspective of a forger and that perspective carries over into their future designs.

They lose some "purity" if you want to use that term. Gameplay was 100% of their concern before they learned to forge, but once they acquire the skills to pull off a great map, gameplay might only be 75% or sometimes even less and things like originality and aesthetics start to creep into the forger's mind. These things are not worthless, but they start to climb beyond their proper place.

And again, this stuff is not intentional. It's a natural human tendancy to be biased, and even being aware of one's own biases is not enough to correct them. The only solution is to have outside influences to counterbalance your own bias, and in the MLG forge community, the outside influence needs to be the competitive community as a whole.

I disagree with mindless zombie forging. The "only" solution to three years of free-labor-to-be in the making is to legitimize it. Forgers' need their bias, that bias is the individuals knowledge of a branch game design, because their bias is 100% misinterpreted on a platform of opinions. If the bolded is your solution as agreed upon with Tak, Zanno, Bob, and basically MLG looking down on forge, then forgers are technically not allowed to be good enough to overthrow their community intentions for the better, in other words, innovation. Any forger and game designer knows that the competitive gaming and end user demographic in general, should not hold leverage to design intentions if any long term good outcome is to emerge out of a great product the creator has made. The soul of game design remains with the creator, otherwise the game design -backbone of what makes it great- transitions into being obsolete. The end user ends up recycling themselves on how well it shoulda-woulda-coulda been, and the end user's own attempts of creating game play are never realistic enough of their own standards. This does apply to Forge and how MLG is using it as a platform of distributing recognition. Sure they'll say that they control their own gametypes, no doubt about it they absolutely do understandably, Forging, and on a grander scale - game design, is still going to continue to exist with or without MLG's good graces of their pure business decisions model. Welcome to the universal free market of online anonymity.

Learn to agree to disagree.

[Puroxicity]

I disagree with mindless zombie forging. The "only" solution to three years of free-labor-to-be in the making is to legitimize it. Forgers' need their bias, that bias is the individuals knowledge of a branch game design, because their bias is 100% misinterpreted on a platform of opinions. If the bolded is your solution as agreed upon with Tak, Zanno, Bob, and basically MLG looking down on forge, then forgers are technically not allowed to be good enough to overthrow their community intentions for the better, in other words, innovation. Any forger and game designer knows that the competitive gaming and end user demographic in general, should not hold leverage to design intentions if any long term good outcome is to emerge out of a great product the creator has made. The soul of game design remains with the creator, otherwise the game design -backbone of what makes it great- transitions into being obsolete. The end user ends up recycling themselves on how well it shoulda-woulda-coulda been, and the end user's own attempts of creating game play are never realistic enough of their own standards. This does apply to Forge and how MLG is using it as a platform of distributing recognition. Sure they'll say that they control their own gametypes, no doubt about it they absolutely do understandably, Forging, and on a grander scale - game design, is still going to continue to exist with or without MLG's good graces of their pure business decisions model. Welcome to the universal free market of online anonymity.

Learn to agree to disagree.

Fritz... I'm blank face

[TsuIVami]

Fritzster wins

[Ladnil]

I disagree with mindless zombie forging. The "only" solution to three years of free-labor-to-be in the making is to legitimize it. Forgers' need their bias, that bias is the individuals knowledge of a branch game design, because their bias is 100% misinterpreted on a platform of opinions. If the bolded is your solution as agreed upon with Tak, Zanno, Bob, and basically MLG looking down on forge, then forgers are technically not allowed to be good enough to overthrow their community intentions for the better, in other words, innovation. Any forger and game designer knows that the competitive gaming and end user demographic in general, should not hold leverage to design intentions if any long term good outcome is to emerge out of a great product the creator has made. The soul of game design remains with the creator, otherwise the game design -backbone of what makes it great- transitions into being obsolete. The end user ends up recycling themselves on how well it shoulda-woulda-coulda been, and the end user's own attempts of creating game play are never realistic enough of their own standards. This does apply to Forge and how MLG is using it as a platform of distributing recognition. Sure they'll say that they control their own gametypes, no doubt about it they absolutely do understandably, Forging, and on a grander scale - game design, is still going to continue to exist with or without MLG's good graces of their pure business decisions model. Welcome to the universal free market of online anonymity.

Learn to agree to disagree.
I would love to respond, but I'm having trouble figuring out what your point is.

Is it that we shouldn't be mindless zombie free-labor slaves that forge without creativity or soul? Do you think I'm suggesting that all forgers need to produce shitty stale designs and never experiment or do anything new? If so, that's not the case. I don't know where Tak, Zanno, and Bob come into this, or how MLG is looking down on forge. I honestly can't figure out what half of your sentences even mean. There's clearly a lot of thought behind your words here, but it's just not coming through.

I know that everything I just wrote sounds really condescending, but I'm at a loss here.

Just to clear up any misunderstanding of what I'm talking about, I'll bullet point it:

Many forgers value aesthetics, uniqueness, and creativity more than they should because of their perspective as forgers rather than just as players.
Aesthetics, uniqueness, and creativity are still of vital importance to map design and evolution, but they need to stay in the back seat.
Regular players are also at fault in the forger/player relationship because too many of them approach new maps with an expectation that they will immediately play as well as they can potentially play.
The solution is for forgers to work together with regular players. We make maps to the best of our ability while trying to keep our own bias for the creative in check and heeding all legitimate feedback, and they work with us to thoroughly test maps and improve them rather than dissing them for not being familiar.