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Uhh, I usually say THIS MAP SUCKS just for lol's at the intro camera's, and recently I haven't been giving much feedback to avoid the sensitive nature of some people (who just need to grow up for ****s sake). If I really said what I thought during testing lobbies on most maps, I doubt I'de be allowed back. You can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen bitches.
As a map author, your job in testing is to aggregate and filter through all the feedback you receive. This is a game where there are many design philosophies, and an individual player’s experience is highly subjective, so you will always get conflicting feedback. You are trying to get a general view and look for patterns and trends. Rarely should you change something because of just one piece of feedback. Honestly, as long as they’re not being insulting or just plain stupid, I don’t care what they say. Just throw it in the feedback pile.
people will **** on a map just to **** on it. if they feel it doesnt change what they expect from forge....so if you are not doing anything, new, even if its visually stunning and is fun, they get bored of it quickly, so you have to adapt many different techniques to explore. and dont blow your load into one map, me personally if something doesnt work on a map ive done and completed, then i take that experience from the first map, and create an entirely new map from each experience. which will one day culminate in the perfect map, until then i just pump through ideas. I suppose i should work on zepherian vijil redemption
I think the main issue is your casual player/forger doesn't give feedback that helps make the map work the way you want it to, they'd rather see it turn into something they prefer to see or that they know works for them. Which at the end of the day is incredibly unhelpful for the forger and the map no longer becomes your work. Now when a map needs serious help then you should just ignore those comments.
I usually take opinions where people have only played the map a few times on the basis of how they feel. Was the map fun? Did you want to play the map again? Anything beyond that without a lot of game experience won't catch the depth of the map, so I ignore it, unless I already respect that forger's opinions. So if someone who's never seen the map before thinks your map is **** (even if it's colored by someone else's opinion), don't pay attention to their specifics; just take a note that your first impressions need work and move on. I understand your frustration in a testing lobby, but that's how public opinion is going to work on your map when you release it, anyway. You get about 20 seconds of someone's attention on map posts, and if the top comment is something along the lines of "this sucks", you're not going to get a second look by many.
I was in a testing lobby. A map showed up that could have easily played 25 vs 25. We had 8 people total... There were three giant platforms connected by a total of 6 stairs and some gravity lifts. The map had atleast 20 power weapons. At the end of the match the guy was asking for feedback on his 'competitive' 4v4 map as he thought it was solid as is. How do you give feedback to a map like that? The guy was at such a beginner level of forging that it would have taken hours to explain to him his flaws. In my personal opinion, when I come across a forger who is below a basic understanding of forge, it is best to just let them be. At that point in their forging career they just need to keep forging, I don't see explaining map design to someone who makes a map like that. The best thing for them is to just keep practicing. The guy said his map felt like construct, how the hell could anyone think a map like that played anywhere close to construct. At that stage, just keep forging and they'll figure it out. The guy you're talking about in the OP sounds like a douchbag, but that's the forge community. Everyone has an opinion and I recommend you take the majority of it with a grain of salt. Forge opinions are subjective and everyone has a different opinion of what is best in forge. Take the example I gave for instance. I was miserable playing on that map, but the creator was probably have a jolly 'ole time and thought his map was near perfect. He was probably in that testing lobby to see if he should trade his 14 rocket launchers for 17 fuel rod cannons. At the end of the day, the majority of forgers almost never get their maps played on after testing. There are a few 'best of the best' maps that get played on everyday but after that, it just sits in the creators file share. I know every forger wants people to love and play on their maps all the time, especially after spending days making the map. This just doesn't happen. That is why I don't do testing lobbies anymore. I just don't enjoy other people's maps enough in a gameplay aspect to want to participate. I have found that I love forge, for the forging. I love looking at other people's creations because I'm blown away at what can be done on forge, but I don't give a **** about how a map plays when I'm looking at it. I suppose it's because I'm into forge for the forging aspect and not the gameplay aspect. I guess I'm just not into custom games anymore. Anyways, I have no idea how this post went all over the place. It's 7:54 a.m and I'm sitting in the parking lot of Home Depot. I guess I just wanted to share my opinion of forging/custom games/testing lobbies. Tl;dr just read Limeys post, something about staying out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat. I didn't say that in this post, but I pretty much just agree with what he said.