A Letter to Forgehub

Never accused you of writing the words "I'm the best forger"

You didn't really do a good job of writing about your shortcomings in my opinion.

it came off to me as "I was an average forger. wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was. Struggled but kept getting better, befriended the best forger ever, tried to surpass him but failed constantly. Was #2 right behind him. Now I'm amazing at forge, I **** gold. People couldn't understand my genius. They liked other people's garbage for some reason. Made a dope ass map and everybody loved it. Game developers wanted to ride my D it was so good. **** these people in particular."

Note, you didn't say any of those things but I can almost guarantee that's how some other people read it.
(Anyone willing to confirm?)

It's your personality, you probably don't mean to come off that way but it's the way you are.

Even in the WAYWO, when someone posted a top down drawing of a map they were working on, you commented that you don't know how to read those and never need to use them. How you imagine the whole thing in your head and make it perfect the first time you make it.
That kinda **** comes off as super elitist and condescending. You may not mean it that way but that's how it sounds.

I don't have any personal gripe or issue against you. Im merely stating this as an observer and casual forger.

 

We can honestly sit here and discuss this all day long; truly, it is a fascinating subject to explore from a philosophical perspective.

Most of us would agree that popularity is not a measure of quality; therefore, we can interpret the rating scale to mean two separate things: Some people view 1-10 as a measure of quality, while others view it as a way to gauge potential audience.

If you asked me to rate the disc maps in Halo 5 based on their quality, they would probably all receive incredibly low scores. But if you asked me to rate their audience, then I really can't say that the bulk of the Halo community is not playing the Fathoms and Torques and Coliseums of the game. For some reason, these maps have the most appeal.

What is success? Is it reaching 10 on the quality bar, or 10 on the audience bar? Are the two even simultaneously attainable, or are they mutually exclusive?

I think the objective qualities by which we can judge a map are so very small that they're often forgotten.

• Does the map promote only one playstyle? If so, it's probably not good, because where is the fun in playing a map that will play the exact same way every time?

• Does the map reach the score limit? If not, then where is the fun in competing in a setting that is unwinnable?

• Is the map visually readable? If not, well where is the fun in not being able to see what you are even doing?

• Is the map fair in some way for both teams? If not, well where is the fun in being ****ed before the match even begins?

Beyond those things, it really just depends on the intended goals and audience. If you came to me with a box full of crates and told me it was supposed to be a competitive map, I'd probably tell you to start over. But if the map is supposed to be a box full of crates made for BUNGLE, then how can it be bad? That's pretty much what BUNGLE is.

There are plenty of maps in Destiny that play well for one gametype and awful for another. This past week, somebody tried to tell me that the map in Trials of Osiris was a good map because it was symmetric and balanced. I was unable to convince him that it was a bad map for the game mode because it was very 1-dimensional, which a competitive gametype should not be. There are elements of the map that you could argue contribute to a flawed design - doorway camping, small hallways, etc.; however, the problem with the map was the holistic execution, and not these individual parts. It would be callous of me to say that these elements cannot work in another setting. Overcoming those challenges is what leads to designs like Narrows - a map that at first glance shouldn't work, and yet it does.

 

This part stuck out to me

"Does the map promote only one playstyle? If so, it's probably not good, because where is the fun in playing a map that will play the exact same way every time?"

So in your opinion,
Would a map that promotes passive play but demotes aggressively play be a bad map?

What about a map that promotes aggressive play but demotes passive play?

 

I think a map where there is only one winning strategy is a bad map. I think a boss battle where the only way to beat the boss is to do it a certain way is a bad boss. I think a raid with only one strategy is a bad raid.

For Halo, I think most people would agree that there is only one strategy on Lockout Slayer. You can't play the map any other way, and I believe that makes it a bad Slayer map. There are plenty of people who like Lockout Slayer or otherwise enjoy that kind of gameplay, but I don't really find that relevant to the map's quality.

Games are interactive media. It's one thing to design a map with strict paths and tell the player to make sacrifices and tradeoffs while they move around, but if you are removing all of their opportunity to be creative, you are diminishing their ability to interact.

There are of course exceptions because games are not black and white. A campaign level might have only one path if you are, say, pushing down a highway or a derelict ship. But that then comes down to the execution. Does the game's sandbox promote creative interactivity within that confined encounter?

For a map like Lockout, I wouldn't say it is very interactive, therefore that strategy ends up being stale and repetitive.

 

More specifically pacing. Imagine lockout slayer punished people for staying in one location, not being aggressive and playing methodically. Would that still make it bad in your opinion. If the map only had one pace of gameplay that a team could effectively win by using.

For example, pit slayer was either super fast and aggressive or slow and methodical.
It could be played at 2 different paces

 

For map design, a map should have multiple strategies, or multiple ways to execute or counter a dominant strategy. But one strategy executed one way every single time - I just think that's not good game design, unless it's a game designed entirely around executing one strategy as precisely as possible, like Super Meat Boy.

 

That last bit is what I try to focus on when I'm building maps. Are the individual encounters fun each and every time? Does each individual encounter promote different ways to approach the conflict? Put enough areas around the map where the confined battles are new and interesting each time, make sure one area of the map isn't overly advantageous to hold out on, and you've got the basis for a good design.

 

Pacing, not strategy. Never mind.

 

Why does every ****ing thread end with goat posting novels and novels of ridiculously obvious ****? Right after telling us all that arguing on a forge forum is a waste of time, too.

I dislike all of you.

 

The point Bodey is trying to make, I think, is that you can't say a good map is one that allows multiple strategies, and in the same breath say that it can only be good if it demands one pace of play.

I prefer fast gameplay as much as anyone, but whether or not it's superior to methodical, or even downright slow gameplay is debatable. The fact that Lockout can be viewed as one of the worst Slayer maps ever, and one of the best Oddball maps ever by the same person demonstrates just how relative/subjective a 'good map' is.

This same argument holds true when talking about who are the best forgers also. I'd personally say that the 'best' need to be good at building a wide variety of styles, for a wide variety of gametypes and player counts. The argument could also be made that someone who's great at one particular style, player count, and gametype is the best. I wouldn't agree, but there's definitely validity in that perspective.

In other words, all of these arguments are stupid, lol. And by the way Multi, the discussions with XzampleZ and Bodey arose from Given's comments that you are the best designer in the forge community, and that he believes there is nothing that's subjective.

On another note, I've said several times that I enjoy the drama that sometimes crops up on the site. I really despise it when it gets personal though. There's literally no good reason for things to ever be taken to that level. I hate reading it. One or both of you should just drop it. Nobody cares who started it, or who's right or wrong. Hash it out together, or let it go.

 

I think a good map should allow players to slow or speed up the pace of the game as necessary, the same as it should have multiple strategies. Otherwise the map plays the same way every time.

I only find fault in a map that punishes aggression and rewards passive play, because that conflicts with the score reaching the limit. I don't think a map that allows players to not reach the time limit is a matter of preference.

 

I agree, yet I've seen a LOT of people argue that Lockout is a great Slayer map after watching a professional match end with a score of 20-16. They'd argue that every kill matters more, and that it takes more strategy and skill to break a good setup. They're legitimate points. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

 

There is obviously another side to the whole Lockout thing. I've seen people say the games are interesting to watch because of that, whereas Warlock bored people because they were just nonstop BR fests. Those are just preferences though, and at the end of the day we all know 343 would never let a Forge map that ends 20-16 in matchmaking.

This is why I have said these arguments are a waste of time. For one, nobody will ever agree and insults always get thrown around, but even if we did hold an intelligent debate and arrived at any kind of consensus, we'd still have a developer who didn't care what we thought.

 

There's no reason it can't be a discussion instead of an argument. And I see these types of discussions as being more valuable than most of the other conversations that happen around here. Even when we don't agree with each other, I almost always see it as beneficial to give some consideration to opposing viewpoints. Closed-mindedness is a terrible thing when working in a creative environment. The moment we feel we know what's best or right is the moment we stop learning/growing/improving. And for the record, I'm in agreement with most of what you've said. I just think there's value in reconsidering whether or not there's any validity to differing, or even opposite opinions.

 

I'm pissed. I've only viewed WAYWO the past two days. I missed out on making several snarky comments during this thread. I could have gained so many likes.

I blame the mods.

 

I can respect that. Forge is weird because there is no manual for level design, so most of us are self taught and develop our opinions based on different experiences. It's impossible to avoid heated discussion during feedback, but it's not impossible to go about it in a constructive way.

But Halo sucks and everyone is salty all the time, so