I'm all for people going about the review/rating process however they choose, but I feel the need to point out something with yours: You give gameplay no weight, because it's subjective to an extent, but give 25% to aesthetic appeal? It doesn't get much more subjective than what is visually appealing to someone.
I think gameplay is more subjective than visuals. You can observe and quantify the artistic qualities of a map based on commonly observed design principles ranging from lighting, negative space, and color contrast down to the physical geometry and details, especially as they pertain to player acquisition. Gameplay on the other hand has too many dynamic variables and principles that nobody can agree on. For example, there are some Forgers that wont even listen to gameplay feedback unless it comes from "good players'. Fortunately, you don't need a Fine Arts degree to comment on map lighting. Aesthetics has become a broad term to cover how pretty a map is, but I try not to give it too much significance, as it is just a small part of the way a map looks visually. In Halo 5, lighting is probably the most significant aspect of a map's visuals.
The zero comment is meant to illustrate how flawed the gameplay rating would be because everyone looks for different gameplay out of a map based on how they want to play on it. Even after playing the map multiple times under different settings and circumstances - whereby an understanding of the map is hopefully obtained - one's biases will still present themselves. If I go on a hallway map and say it has no verticality, I could give it a low weighting because the gameplay is "linear". But what authority do I have to say linear gameplay should have a lower weighting than vertical gameplay? What of the person who dislikes vertical gameplay that ends up enjoying the map? I could tell you what I don't like about a map and why I didn't like playing on it, but if you asked me if it plays well or not we're probably going to start butting heads based on what we want out of the map. I don't like swiss cheese, but some people do. Is there a map making manual that says swiss cheese is bad? If we all agreed on that, then it'd be great, but we don't, so I don't think I can give a swiss cheesy map a lower rating than a dairy free one just because some nerds don't like that style of map. That's why I think gameplay should be 100% subjective and 100% unweighted. Is that not the best way to foster creativity? Otherwise we get into "what is right and wrong", like the long standing sentiment that asyms are better than syms.
I think the contest is different because it's designed specifically for the maps to be played several times and compared to one another to find the best out of a pool, therefore gameplay needs a value to compare to another value. You don't post on the map page with the intention of having your map compared to every other map that was previously posted, which is basically what the rating system does. It's a rank. There's just way too many variables and i've reached a point where I'd rather see a like/dislike system.
It would probably be a disaster, but I've always been curious to see how ratings would change if they were totally anonymous.
I'd go on a rampage and nuke all the maps with 1s. But seriously, the arguing over ratings... think it shows why mines the best. There's so little to it, what could people argue over?
I like the 100 point system suggested by @A 3 Legged Goat and will provide a more accurate score. I have a few additions to the system though. I'm not sure exactly how the current rating system is done but I think we need to have three overall categories that the map would be put under. A map would be put in one of the three categories: Functional, Mix, Artistic. Most maps would probably go under Mix but the other categories would allow people to get a good score on other forms of maps that aren't what you would expect in matchmaking. For example, over the years i have made a series of maps called "Jump". They are maps meant to test a players warthog driving skills so they are based around function and not aesthetics. In the categories things would be weighted different to reflect the categories. I also think that with reviews people should provide a comment for why they gave each score so the creator can take any constructional feedback to make the map better or keep it the same. It is possible to get a rating system that eliminates most biases.
There should just be no ratings. -Forgers get butthurt / discouraged -Newer Forgers get discouraged by low scores -People rate maps with completely different criteria, making ratings super inconsistent -People abuse ratings and give higher /lower ratings to try and bring the average rating up / down -People are more inclined to view higher rated maps, which tend to be aesthetically pleasing maps so it just becomes an endless cycle of good aesthetics -> high rating -> more eyes -> more high ratings because of aesthetics -People are less inclined to view lower rated maps, making some maps DOA if they get a few early low scores -People recruit their friends who like their map to rate their map, inflating their ratings -People are hesitant to give anything but a high rating, so a lot of maps don't get the feedback they need to improve -People don't offer as much feedback / thoughts on a map they rate because the rating does a lot of the speaking for them -Reviews separate the discussion into two different areas on a map post and make it tedious and difficult to follow Quite simply, ratings are just too abusable and in the end they don't result in a net positive for anyone.
We have 440 maps coming in per month. While the review system isn't perfect, its still a filtering mechanism to help appropriate all of the maps pouring in. We have a few ways to limit reviews in the future such as disabling reviews if the reviewer has not downloaded the map. This is currently turned off since we don't have online file browsing and can't download maps. We currently have 2 different weighting systems for reviews given to maps, standard and critic rating. The staff here has the ability to promote certain members to 'Forge Critic' status that display an above average level of knowledge for level design as well as being able to provide useful feedback. When 'Forge Critics' review a map their score is weighted x2.5 times that of a standard review. This helps balance reviews given to maps by those that may not have the same level of experience or perhaps hasn't yet fully displayed their potential skill set for providing feedback. In the future, I would like to empower all users with the ability to earn this forge critic status by unlocking it through their review activities. If a users review is liked by 5 people then this is considered a 'helpful' review. If a member establishes 10 helpful review awards, they unlock the 'Forgre Critic' status so that the reviews they provide in the future will be more heavily weighted. With more established 'forge critics' reviewing maps, I believe that we can rectify some of the prevailing issues to depict more accurate scores in the future. I really enjoyed reading this discussion and hope for more of you to chime in.
The problem with the pit is you can see 90% of the spawns from rocket spawn. What a broken map. Oh it also took everything good about halo 3 and completely ruined it. Must be why the pros like it so much
I've already explained in this thread why I felt it was important. If the ability to review went away, I would still stick around, but I would be looking for some site or someway to receive a review. I really enjoy it, despite the people feeling it brings negativity, it may occasionally do that, but a great review with great feedback or a negative one both encourage me to make more maps, fix my maps, tweak my maps, etc. Offering people the ability to turn off reviews, but tweaking the current system is a FUN way to do this, to me. I enjoy competition even, but I enjoy giving and receiving strong feedback. I do understand this is quite the issue to balance, since it's so appealing to some and such a turn off to others.
I was wondering how to get that title, and now i know. Helpful detailed reviews here I come! These ones will probably be a lot more fun then the ones i have to give in my classes too
While I think some of the issues being pointed about the rating system are valid (especially on judging forgers vs judging maps), I think ratings in general are a benefit, especially when they are weighted towards users with history of well thought-out reviews (Forge Critic system). High ratings on a forger's map are a mark of prestige and a motivating force for people to create more. Showing the newest maps all on the top might give individual maps a "fairer" shot (@ the argument that one bad rating will leave your map DOA), but showing the best rated recent maps will improve (hopefully) the quality of the maps a viewer of the site might see at first glance. This all being said, I think there's a balance to be struck. The current map page displays featured / top / trending maps on the top and sidebar of the page and shows new maps in the body, which I think is an acceptable balance and should prevent a first bad rating from nuking any map.
Only thing I don't like about this is that only people that review competitive maps would get such a title and therefore more 'weight', since the primary focus of the people on this site is obviously towards core maps. A guy could write the best review ever for an aesthetic map, an infection map, a minigame, etc., and it wouldn't be noticed a lot. I for example tend to write an honest, long novel as a review. I can't help myself but covering every aspect of the map, while also critizising in a constructive way, since that is the most important point of a review to me. However, I've got the most experience in non-core maps, that's why I'm confident enough to review them in a detailed manner. I would fail doing that with core maps due to almost no knowledge. Right now you are not able to give likes on reviews, are you? If something like that gets introduced, it should be mentioned thoroughly, so people actually 'like' worthful reviews. I don't get the people saying they don't like to hurt people with honest reviews. Everything can be said in a constructive way, I guess. To increase the number of reviews from that kind of people I would introduce a message that is automatically sent to the reviewer, once the map maker updated his map due to the honest and detailed feedback. The reviewer can now play the map again, and review the map again. No harm done. Of course, I know what you could say against that:"Nobody comes back and writes anooother long block of text... One review has to be enough!" Well, you are right, nobody can control or determine if the person is going to come back. It's just a thought.