Are people playing your maps seriously?

[DCHalojunkies]

Have any of you felt like people aren't playing your map seriously enough to enjoy it? I'm guilty...when I play someone's foundry frankly I don't take it too seriously...I just explore and try to stay alive.

A lot of the better maps won't play to their potential the first couple times out. They shouldn't. Remember when you played your first midship game with MLG players and how that went? The firing angles and getting teamshot to high hell, not understanding the natural cover angles well enough to stay alive, etc.

My point is people don't want to really get to know a map when there are 100's of maps floating around. There's a good chance you'll never see the map again so why bother?

I've been thinking about how to deal with this other than self-promotion. I think one way is to get a group of map designers together and go strength-in-numbers...release official map packs. A hardcore group could also agree to playtest each other's maps seriously...in other words develop setups, record gameplay, look for gameplay elements you want to change, tweak, and repeat.

Other than that any ideas?

[BillyBiscuits]

I agree with you 100%. With all the maps out there, it can be extremely hard to make your map stick out without constantly bumping your thread, self promotion or cross promoting. It can be frustrating to you when you know your map is better than others that are receiving attention. Some people can't just hang out in forums all day and politic. It also takes a while to get adjusted to a map, know routes, weapons, spawns. So for the testers, this is a lot of time out of their day.

[Eshelon]

It's very difficult to take criticism on your own map. Mainly because it's hard to distinguish between people who are giving a true unbiased opinion and people who simply hate the map because they don't understand it (and those people typically lose custom games they play on it). To really truely give a map a serious shot, you have to play it multiple times and really figure out the angles that the designer intended you to set up from.

Once you have a deeper understanding, then you can better appreciate the maps design.

On the flip side, sometimes people have legit concerns and as designers, it's easy to play ignorant and pretend that person's concerns aren't valid.

In my map Armory, I have now made close to 10 different versions (tweaking it hear and there based on feedback). I take every ounce of feedback I get seriously, but if what is being asked doesn't make sense or when implemented, doesn't yield the desired effect that promotes solid competitive gameplay, then that element is removed.

Just my 2 cents.