How to : Provide Feedback

[Finn91]

Hi guys !

I noticed that some people doesn't know how to provide feedback to help with the improvement of maps !
I'm doing this quick tutorial to help them

1st Step - The testing part

If you didn't see, there is a forum section dedicated to new maps, so this is where you'll find WIP maps etc.
Here's the link -> https://jump.tf/forum/index.php/board,2.0.html
If you're really careful, you can even see there's a description for this section !

These maps are looking for feedback, this is exactly what we want !

Put the map in your maps folder and launch the game.

Play the map, it's not that important if you can't beat it, you can still provide good informations for improvements !
I strongly advise to have a notepad opened and write all your thoughts about the map as you play it.

2nd step - Post your feedback

Once you've written down all your thoughts about the map, you can go back to the forum to post them. Like that, the mapper can read it and this is an useful testing !
So get back to the map post, and use the button "Reply"
You can just copy paste the notepad's content and click on "Post"

Good job !

3rd step - Looking for updates

Once you've done the feedback part, you'll have to wait that the mapper take it into account and make some changes and reupload the map.
So be careful and check the map post, the updates will be uploaded there !
You can download the newest version of the map and go back to the first step !

4th step - The real meaning of this post

Behind this beautiful, obvious and sarcastic tutorial, there's something important I wanted to to talk about.
Bunch of new maps have been added to Tempus recently, among those mine's too. I was kinda excited to see people play after all the changes I made with the great help of mazlli and Steve, map seemed fine and playable !
I saw that kaptain has the world record (good run, sorry about jump 6) and I checked his VOD.

I saw that some people (only Katto actually lmao) liked the map, some were neutral, and some were really harsh about it.
I've no problems if you don't like my map. It's an odd map, it has flaws, but it's also my first map and the first time I opened Hammer. I took a lot of time doing it, it won't make you like it but you can at least have some respect. As a new mapper, seeing "cringe map", people talking about how much they don't want to play this, "idiot mapper" or stuff like that isn't encouraging at all and disrespectful. Again, it's totally fine to not like it, but just shit on the map and the person who made it is just gross.

It's gross and it's also perfectly dumb. If you spotted flaws, things to improve, etc, what are you waiting to just tell me about it ? How am I supposed to know ? Do I have to check every VOD of streamers I don't even know ? Like I know that people spent time to download it, test it, found flaws but not told me what to improve ? Why ? The purpose of testing a map isn't to provide feedback ? Especially if something is bad ? Or to comfort the mapper if everything is fine ?

mazlli was the first person to tell me something, about easily fixable things (like tele height etc) or clarity of map  (even if it's still not really clear but it is better than previously) and clearly stated that he couldn't provide feedback about spacing. No problem with that, he already helped me a lot with one post (actually there was also the repack thing, ty). Steve helped me with spacing, took the fuckin time to do a clip (or whatever it is) of everything that was wrong (especially last ceiling) so I could make some changes to fix all of that. He checked again after uploads to see what was wrong, or what was good now. So the last feedback I got was that everything is good (thanks AGAIN mazlli and Steve btw). So why do I see people who playtested the map complain about it ? And it's not complaining only about subjective things. Why can I see people call me idiot or criticize the design if you tested it and not told me ? Why do you keep these things for yourself and hope for changes ? I clearly stated that I was open to anything that could be improved, so why did I never had feedback about that ? Also, I tested the map. A lot. And without TAS, unlike some people said.  Seeing kaptain runs the map, I realized another flaws, but I think it's a bit too late now, isn't it ?

Basically just respect the people who spend their time trying to make good content for you jumpers. They've the right to make mistakes, to fail or even produce a bad map or a map that unplease you (actually what I made lmao) but being disrespectful won't help them, complaining about something you found bad and not reported is dumb and you even shouldn't have the right to complain about it.

Unfortunately for you guys, I'm working on another map, you won't make me give up with your toxic behaviour and I'll be glad to listen your complains, but this time on the map post please

[donuttt]

Hey Finn,
first off, i can 100% understand where you are coming from. I can assure you, most mappers have gotten their share of flaming on tempus on their first maps and believe it or not, more experienced mappers still do on their latest maps.
I hope your post here will encourage some more gamers to test maps but sadly I believe you can count those gamers on 2 Hands. Our little community has a vocal minority of toxic asshats who never made a map themselves and are too lazy to actually check for new maps here.

That being said I hope you will stay with us and use the feedback you have received (both the flaming and the constructive feedback) to make an even better map next time! Dab Map on the haters 

[maxxy]

Ok so I totally agree with everything you said and if I was one of the toxic person, I'm sorry, I just get triggered easily over jumps I don't like and didn't mean to discourage you or anything.

I did test your map when you first posted it out of curiosity cause i never heard of you before (like many others i think?) and there was something that kinda bothered me : you made a fairly hard T6 (at least first version was pretty hard) but it felt like you made it a lot harder than what you can complete, altho i could be wrong.
I think many people, me included, don't really like when a mapper makes a map harder than what they can do (again, correct me if i'm wrong, it's just a feeling from the spacing) and tend to ignore it, from what i can tell. If that's the case, it would have been better to tell you earlier, but at least now you know.

Because of that, the fact nobody knew you when i asked others who you were and the fact I'm extremely lazy when it comes to writing, I didn't give any feedback although I should have.
I didn't test it afterward and I kinda regret it. I guess knowing steve was giving you a lot of feedback made me think it was pointless to give more.

Also, like donuttt said, there's not many people providing feedback here and i doubt relying only on that is a good idea. I personnally directly ask people to test it and just take the feedback here as a little bonus.

Anyway, glad you won't stop mapping because of that and I'll try to give more feedback when I can.

[mazlli]

We mappers must stand strong, my first map was also a hot mess and everyone still flames me for it so don't worry about it! With that, I'm really hoping you continue to reach out with any questions about hammer/feedback that way you can get the most out of your map as you've clearly stated

[Boshy]

People will always keep complaining about maps whether they are well made or not. The best advice is to just ignore all the useless comments and focus on improving your map based on what people don't like. For example if you see a lot of people calling a certain jump bad (you don't have to take offense to that either) then maybe that jump isn't so great after all and you could make it better. As for the actual useful feedback you won't get much of it unless you specifically ask good jumpers to test your map. Very few people on these forums actually playtest maps, even less would be able to playtest very hard maps. Also generally you wanna avoid putting wallpogo jumps in your map if it's not based around wallpogo, very long jumps are not very fun either because it takes forever to retry them, and lastly you wanna try and have a proper skill curve for your map (doesnt matter that much with t6s though).

[Finn91]

Hey Finn,
first off, i can 100% understand where you are coming from. I can assure you, most mappers have gotten their share of flaming on tempus on their first maps and believe it or not, more experienced mappers still do on their latest maps.
I hope your post here will encourage some more gamers to test maps but sadly I believe you can count those gamers on 2 Hands. Our little community has a vocal minority of toxic asshats who never made a map themselves and are too lazy to actually check for new maps here.

That being said I hope you will stay with us and use the feedback you have received (both the flaming and the constructive feedback) to make an even better map next time! Dab Map on the haters 

We mappers must stand strong, my first map was also a hot mess and everyone still flames me for it so don't worry about it! With that, I'm really hoping you continue to reach out with any questions about hammer/feedback that way you can get the most out of your map as you've clearly stated

Thanks for the support, don't worry for me the flaming is something that I don't care at all. But it's probably not the case of all mappers, especially newcomers. This is why I made this post, maybe some people will be more aware of the impact of their words in the future.  There will always be hate etc, but at least I said what I had to say. I'm also not blaming someone but I'm blaming a behaviour that is not welcoming and encouraging for new mappers. I clearly plan to post my shitty amazing kinda gimmicky map soon, no matter what people can say

That being said, Maxxy mentionned interesting things.

I did test your map when you first posted it out of curiosity cause i never heard of you before (like many others i think?) and there was something that kinda bothered me : you made a fairly hard T6 (at least first version was pretty hard) but it felt like you made it a lot harder than what you can complete, altho i could be wrong.
I think many people, me included, don't really like when a mapper makes a map harder than what they can do (again, correct me if i'm wrong, it's just a feeling from the spacing) and tend to ignore it, from what i can tell. If that's the case, it would have been better to tell you earlier, but at least now you know.

I totally understand that, indeed I'm totally new because I play almost exclusively offline (shitty net) so you can't know my level, and seeing a newcomer post like the new t11 impossible map being hard just for being hard, with questionnable design and major issues don't makes you really want to help with the map. Problem is that we all have to start from somewhere, but I was probably wrong to do a map like this for a first map tho.  Anyways I can tell you that I tested the map and did all jumps, I'm clearly far from a good jumper but I won't release a jump that I couldn't beat, not necessarily in a one go but at least each part individually (It's probably a bad idea tho to think if each part is ok that the whole jump is fine). It was actually problematic for me because I couldn't test properly some ideas I had etc, and I just gave them up (yup I had worst ideas) because I knew I couldn't spaced them properly with my current skill.

Because of that, the fact nobody knew you when i asked others who you were and the fact I'm extremely lazy when it comes to writing, I didn't give any feedback although I should have.
I didn't test it afterward and I kinda regret it. I guess knowing steve was giving you a lot of feedback made me think it was pointless to give more.

I understand that but you were wrong here. I really think that every piece of  feedback (positive or negative as long as it's constructive) is useful for a mapper, especially for newcomers. Even if you want to say the exact same thing than someone else, tell it. Having a wider sample of opinions is always great, like for one specific thing if you've one positive opinion and one negative opinion, what should I do ? For real, never think your feedback is useless if people ask for it.

Also, like donuttt said, there's not many people providing feedback here and i doubt relying only on that is a good idea. I personnally directly ask people to test it and just take the feedback here as a little bonus.

Because yeah as you said, many mappers ask personnally jumpers for feedback. Unfortunately, it's not my case since I know almost nobody (actually I could have ask to one person but Idk, I prefered to post here)  and I was excepting to get all feedback here, where for instance you're doing the opposite (and I think your method is way more efficient but it's just not possible for most new mappers, if not all new mappers).

People will always keep complaining about maps whether they are well made or not. The best advice is to just ignore all the useless comments and focus on improving your map based on what people don't like. For example if you see a lot of people calling a certain jump bad (you don't have to take offense to that either) then maybe that jump isn't so great after all and you could make it better

I kinda agree with that too, but it's also hard to tell if people find your jump bad because it doesnt suit their tastes (if I can talk about jump tastes lmao Idk) or because the jump has real design flaws. I'm aware that my map is odd, and I'm not that surprised that people don't like it, but I actually don't really care if it's not cause of bad design etc. Like I saw Starkie saying that teleportations during a jump break the flow etc,  and I understand that point. But I like my map like that, I won't change it for preferences (the map has probably still design issues etc but I did what I could with the feedback I had).

Very few people on these forums actually playtest maps, even less would be able to playtest very hard maps. Also generally you wanna avoid putting wallpogo jumps in your map if it's not based around wallpogo, very long jumps are not very fun either because it takes forever to retry them, and lastly you wanna try and have a proper skill curve for your map (doesnt matter that much with t6s though).

I'll know that I shouldn't except much of feedback from there now.
Also I actually like to put wallpogo with other stuffs, too bad if people don't like it (jump 7 was meant to be much longer actually haha).
I agree to make a map with good proper skill curve but when it's not the case, it also comes from lack of feedback. I tried to ordered the jump but it's hard to do this alone.

Anyways thanks for the answers, I'm not sure it will change anything but at least I learned interesting things and I hope It could help new mappers too, somehow 

[Lopez]

There's no need to hesitate in adding people just to ask them to test your map, even if you're new.
It's been a while so my memory is a bit hazy, but I'm pretty sure when I first started out mapping I added people that I only knew through watching ROTWs, said hi, and asked them to test my maps. Some people didn't accept my friend requests, but everyone that did was very nice about testing.

Maybe some top jumpers would be better qualified to comment on whether or not my boomer-approved strategy is still valid.

[Finn91]

I definitely should do that but I'm the kind of guy who think I'll bother people adding them to ask something like that, this is why I prefered to post here, it's made for that and people can just ignore the map.

Maybe it could be a good idea to make a post where people could tell if they're avalaible to be added for testing, they could also precising kind of map they can/can't do or something like that (maybe it's already on a discord or some where else but im not on discord and i didnt see a "list" like that), with a link of steam profil or discord (or any way to contact them).
Idk, just proposing stuff

[Gorge004]

There is never a map that will please everyone, and the complaints are always more vocal, doesn't mean the majority of people doesn't like it. Keep making what you enjoy and to the best of your abilities, some people will like it and some won't.

[Shunix]

You can't really expect to make a good map as your first and if your map isnt literally great in terms of quality people are going to shit on it. This is especially going to be true when you decide to make a hard map as your first. Mapping is a skill that takes practice and until you put a couple hundred hours into making jump maps the quality of your maps will probably be low and people will rightfully vocalise their feelings about that. I remember it actually bothered me alot when i was a new mapper but looking back most of the critisism was valid and helped me improve as a mapper; its better to get negative feedback than no feedback at all.

Keep working at it and you'll get the positive feedback you long for 

[Finn91]

Gorge you're totally right. I did this map how I liked it and not how people will like it and I wont change that.

At this point Shunix I wished I had feedback at all lmao

[879m]

One of the most useful things to learn about mapping is that 90% of the people who play your maps are idiots who won't like something and will complain about pointless things.

It's up to you to decide who the 10% that are worth listening to are.

[Waldo]

One of the most useful things to learn about mapping is that 90% of the people who play your maps are idiots who won't like something and will complain about pointless things.

It's up to you to decide who the 10% that are worth listening to are.

To add to this, recognize the difference between a map you're making for yourself, and a map you're making for other people. If you want people to like it, you need to make a big effort to get people to play it, incorporate feedback, and respond to criticism (even criticism you completely disagree with). If it's for yourself, still get it tested (and maybe have a hammer savant look over it for mechanical issues), but don't sweat how fun they find it.

[Finn91]

I clearly prefer to make map for myself but still willing to listen to criticism, like ok I make a map for myself but if really no one else like it, what's the interest to share it ?
Thing is that when I posted the finale version, I only get positive feedback, my biggest mistake was to rely too much on the feedback from the forum and to not directly ask people, it's way more efficient.

Also, while I agree to not care too much about complaints etc, I still think that people can also think about what they say and be more encouraging, I know it's kinda naive and utopian to hope people will change but maybe ?

It's really interesting to have all your differents point of views tho, it helps me to understand better how all of this work, thanks

[hex]

people will complain no matter how much time you spend on a map polishing and perfecting. think of any classictm map that could even be considered one of the best of all time and i guarantee there are lots of people who despise it / sections of it. hounding feedback from people is very helpful to know you're going in the right direction and to catch certain obvious flaws, but at the end of the day theres no way to make a map that everyone likes. a good goal is to make a map that some subset of people think is extremely fun to play, not something that'll be super popular. most important thing is to playtest often and make something that you're proud of.