Public Discussion: Feedback Quality and Quality of tests

Slightly away from the point of this thread, but it would be really cool if there was a rotation of showcase maps running on the servers by default, with some beta maps people think are ready for extensive testing as well.
There really aren't any servers that run custom maps past UKCS 2 and some foreign language servers in europe, and from what I know, only a few youtubers servers that run them in NA. What lets them fill the server despite not being on quickplay is they have an active community. While there is an active community here, I think there would have to be more advertisement of the servers before they hit the point where they stay active a lot of the time.

Fr0Z3n said:

We do have that normally, we just haven't taken them off the 72hr rotation yet.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't the showcase maps been off the rotation since the winter 72hr contest (6~ months)?

The EU server is running degrootkeep atm

itd suck if our servers were to become popular custom map servers

wed have to kick half the server every time we have an imp

Sergis said:

itd suck if our servers were to become popular custom map servers

wed have to kick half the server every time we have an imp

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More server traffic means more regulars, which means more donators which means more money.

There could be an imp-specific server.

I like the idea of an in game voting system. If only it was possible to do the voting during the load time for the next map...

Feedback Contests. Don't know how it would work, but the best, in-depth, most useful and clearest feedback wins a prize.

RubbishyUser said:

Feedback Contests. Don't know how it would work, but the best, in-depth, most useful and clearest feedback wins a prize.

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How about the prize is a 2 hour marathon test for a map of the winner's choosing?

(which could obviously be the winner's own map, but wouldn't have to be)

I'm just gonna drop in and say that people REALLY don't like playing on servers that are KNOWN to have terrible maps, if they can't vote to change to maps they know are half-decent, reliably.

Also, the name of the server doesn't attract people from the server browser, and the servers aren't on quickplay, so you're pretty much only gonna get regulars, who will probably wait for imps.

EDIT:
For a functioning custom map pub server in TF2, you need:
- An attractive server name that makes clear there's a consistent community there
- Avoid trapping people on bad maps
- Let people play maps they want to play, even Valve ones
- Get interest in playing on in-development maps on top of that.

Maybe we should have some kind of casual play submission system. Not like the casual play event, but "this map is totally cool for playing on a rolling pub server". I'm not sure how it would work. I think it should basically be like how imps are done, where uploaders can add and remove maps on the list and replace old versions, and as a mapper you can just ask them or post in a thread saying "hi my map". Then when people go to !nominate, it'll use maps from that list.

I don't think it should be limited to showcase maps. That's like putting extra basil on the pizza you already ordered and payed for, when it's already spiced, and your friend needs help cooking but you're ignoring him.

I think imps are fine of quality, as long as people who are senselessly railing on the maps 24/7 keep getting muted or kicked. Gamedays seem to get just barely better feedback than imps though, like they're not hosted with enough deliberacy or something.

On the back of what Aly said about why people have been giving so much feedback to the Valve beta maps and comparatively little to custom maps - the Valve beta maps are available at any time, our alphas are not.

I find it really difficult to give any kind of in-depth feedback on maps in alpha because there is so little time for them to make an impression on me. That big feedback post I made in Cactus Canyon's thread yesterday was the result of about 12 hours of play over the course of a week. The amount of time we play our alphas is comparatively paltry and I end up not knowing what to say about the map in question. Like, I've only played pl_inari and cp_sandyshoals for a combined time of about an hour. They're both maps I want to see finished, they're both maps I want to help in whatever way I can to become great maps, but they're both maps that I have no idea what the problems with them are, and with all this buzz we've been getting lately about giving good, useful feedback, I've been feeling pretty bad about the fact that I can't, because I've had so little time to form an opinion on them.

I know that TF2M is pretty good when it comes to getting map testing in comparison to other communities, so maybe I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth here, but anything that can increase the amount of time we're playing these maps is something I'd appreciate.

EArkham said:

You know, there's a source plugin that lets you vote on maps. That might be handy as another data point. One simple question: "Is this map fun to play?"

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henke37 said:

I like the idea of an in game voting system.

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I think Geit was saying he used this plugin on Alpha Omega and "it worked wonders for them", but even judging by the numerous amount of '1-spammers' when map votes come up, I don't think votes are useful in-game. There also comes the idea that 'would it even be useful' as a statistic: 1. you can just ask people ingame if they find it to be fun, 2. the showcase discussion thread showed votes made arbitrary decisions for results (100 like it, 101 don't - the majority of people don't like the map!), 3. fun is not only subjective but also relies on many variables (gameplay, classes, players, skill levels, etc) - people saying they didn't have fun on a map does not necessarily mean the map is 'not fun', 4. votes are annoying and distracting and many people evidently not only do not take them seriously, but don't want to deal with them (Even when I used them on alpha omega, it would come up, and I'd hit a random number to get that awful distraction off my screen as fast as possible). Like many things, nice idea in a perfect world, but alas.

I can't stand map rating server votes, mostly because they always get in the way. I also don't think the worse experience is worth the data the gather. If you could make it popup in victory time or the last 5 seconds where everything locks up before map change then that'd be fine, the latter i'd prefer to the former.

Maybe when it's time for a map switch, just bring up a survey for 30-60 seconds and let people rate the map on different criterion and write any comments they had? It's only an extra little bit of time, and it'd probably help with the issue of people leaving rushed, "2 minutes in" feedback. The survey could also be modified by the map creator for specific questions that they want answered, but I'm not sure how that would work from a plugin perspective.

I don't think early/beginner mappers like myself would have much to gain from a binary, "fun or not fun?" voting system. Looking at stats that say "3 people liked the map, 11 people didn't" doesn't tell me what, where, or how to improve, at all. It just tells me that my map is bad and that I'm bad at mapping, which is information I can glean very clearly from the tests. If anything, it would just discourage me from doing further work. I can see how a vote system would be good for comparing nearly-finished maps to each other, but I don't think it would deliver valuable, or even useful information to a map author...at least, not as well as testing and feedback would.

It's redundant at best, and discouraging at worst.

The question is always has really strong bias or players are voting badly or miss the vote and end up trying to switch weapon.

Votes as serious data in a test are a stupid idea.

imo any mandatory thing in a playtest after a month or so will have people thinking piss off already

encouraging feedback is one thing, forcing it is another entirely

I think that there is no good way to ask for detailed feedback while in game play, especially not with voting.

But can't there be a command to use the steam overlay to visit the map topic here on the forum? Even add a keybind for it in the last round and tell people to just hit a key to do it.