Giving feedback on custom packs

[kaywhyn]

Ah yes, I totally forgot about sammings. Well, that's good. You're well on your way. Don't give up and keep trying.

[ccexplore]

It seems like there's an unfortunate misunderstanding at play with the recent happenings here.  I've reread Dullstar's review a number of times, and as far as I can tell, the only point made during the review about the sprites specifically, was that neutrals and athletes look exactly the same as regular lemmings when usually they are colored differently, and it is helpful, even vital, to many people to be able to clearly tell which lemming is which kind when they can all appear at the level at the same time.  This is no different from board games like chess and checkers using different colors to depict which player a gamepiece belongs to.  I don't see this as somehow translating to a demand to redesign the current sprites completely.  I do think it's maybe a bit unfortunate that so many sentences were spent during the review on that one problem that is an understandable oversight.

Dullstar did then mention in another topic the possibility of an in-game option that would allow playing levels using the default sprites instead of custom ones.  The primary intention is to deal with cases where the custom sprites present problems for certain players such as difficulty telling the different kinds of lemmings apart.  It was effectively a proposed workaround and not even a particularly agreed-upon one--WillLem quickly suggested two other ways the situation can be handled without such a proposed option.  It'd be like if you got a chess set where all the pieces are one color, and people are talking about the best way in that case and other similar circumstances, to tweak the pieces slightly so that you can actually tell which piece belongs to which player.

I think where things got a bit off-track was when Dullstar also started talking about cases where he worry sprites being designed to be misleading.  But from past context, I believe the intent there is only talking about that possibility in general/in theory, and not meant to be directed specifically at the levels he reviewed earlier.  If anything that was more a reference to WillLem for example, who had actually made a little bit of a splash in the still-recent past of exploring uses of misleading/"unfair" visuals as part of the experience of playing a NeoLemmix level.  For better or worse, some people here gets very worried about misleading visuals being used in level designs (even if in some cases only as a theoretical possibility, rather than having actual examples out there already), and sometimes this kind of concern gets incorporated into the details of various suggestions for improving the NeoLemmix player and/or editor.

I can see how taken all together, the various posts Dullstar made within the same time frame, could unfortunately be not too difficult to get misread as some kind of directed passive-aggressive dig.  But it is not the actual intention I think.  I hope one can look past all this and not become too discouraged by a single person's review, opinions and reactions.

[grams88]

Hope everyone is doing okay.

To be honest I've not found one bad pack here and the amount of work that goes into making a level pack can be a lot of work, it might feel more work for others, a lot of people work at different speeds. I don't like to criticise peoples work especially as we are all unique and like different things. I was in the duke3d community and I felt like they were being very harsh about the earlier duke maps, I love those earlier duke maps, it's just who I am. I don't like to criticise others after all we all put in hard work. I would say try not to criticise in a sense but do try to inspire others, maybe use terms like I love that you did that with your level but.

I'm hoping no one takes things too personally as that creates a hostile environment. Sometimes people can take things personally and maybe it can lead to people just giving up on it altogether and not coming back to the forum. I feel that would be a sad state of affairs just because they felt like they were being overly criticised. IT probably happens on a lot of video game forums where someone feels like everyone is ganging up on them. This can feel very real to people. I don't like seeing others upset over things like that especially as things could of been worded a bit different. Funny thing was I talking to my brother about this very thing and he was thinking the same as myself, if we were to be critical try not to overwhelmed the person who created it. We can't find someone guilty just based on opinions we need the facts to the case.

If I was to criticise I feel like I would say something like this, I stink at timed bombers, I see a lot of these levels have timed bombers which might be my devil.

I've had my fair share of criticism for my level packs, I'm hoping the nuked lems does 100 times better than the skii sloping lemmings. So far people have been liking the pack. Makes me feel good about myself.

[mantha16]

i appreciate the thoughtful replay CC you have at least tried to see things from my point of view.    i do think people need to consider tact and that not everyone appreciates a blunt approach and even if the majority do that doesnt mean its ok to assume that everyone wants it that way. 

whilst its not just about a combination of things I could list exactly what i object to but at this point i think to do that will inflame things further and so it counter productive.  I would simply ask that in future if you want to criticise my stuff in future thats cool but at least if you are going to actually give some suggestions and make it seem like it is a suggestion rather than a demand.

[mantha16]

also gram whilst i couldnt do a lot of ski slopings cos it was very very difficult i did actually like it more than a lot of people seemed to

[WillLem]

As a community, I'm noticing that while we've had a lot of discussions about what makes a level good or bad, we don't actually seem to have this information gathered up into one convenient spot new designers can look to for advice.

I think I suggested that we should have a topic for this as well... can't remember where I suggested it, but it definitely seems like it'd be a good idea. That way, new content creators can simply be directed to the guidelines rather than people having to give feedback which could be taken the wrong way.

That said, it's important to have ongoing discussions about these things, and I wouldn't want such a topic to detract from feedback altogether. Players should still post feedback in topics, and discuss exactly which part of the guidelines the creator may need to refer to. A set of guidelines simply shows that these are things that have been discussed and considered previously, and so are less likely to be taken personally.

At the same time though, we need to be mindful not to also discourage people from either giving any feedback, or to make them feel like they can't be honest with their feedback.

You're absolutely right, and - again - I don't think anybody wants to see less feedback.

I just think it's worth considering that if a newcomer has released their first or second pack, and the first few comments they get are full of problem-highlighting and general naysaying, this is likely to have an effect which is ultimately negative for everyone: the creator will feel discouraged, and others who may be considering making packs and taking part in forum discussion may also not want to get involved. Thus there are less players, less creators, less content, less learning, and the same problems and frustrations keep recurring time and time again.

The solution is simply to temper any negative feedback or problem-highlighting with a piece of equally-weighted positive feedback, at least for newcomers and people who have shown that they respond better to praise. I have to say, I think that generally, people on this forum do do this. But occasionally it does feel like the emphasis is on the problems.

Having a you MUST do this or you MUST NOT do that is more problematic to me. If you have an open medium that allows creative freedom then it should be as open as possible... like regarding CPM if you said "please bear in mind if the way to play the level requires CPM use then some players may not enjoy it" thats fine if you said "you HAVE to be able to play a level without using CPM" I find that a little bit over the top

Agreed. Guidelines should be exactly that - guidelines, which creators can choose to ignore. The understanding would of course be that content which ignores the guidelines is not guaranteed an audience. Some creators will be OK with that, but others may not. Either way, being informed gives everyone the choice, and everyone knows what to expect.

it must be pointed out what works and doesn't work... Feedback must reflect the true feelings of the player, otherwise it is nearly worthless and can be even misleading

We agree on this, then: pointing at problems should be balanced out with praise for what's good, and vice versa. Those who naturally see the good in things should learn to be more honest about what they don't like, and those that tend to see the problems should learn to take a step back and look for the positives before heading straight for the comments.

People need to learn to free themselves from feelings while reading feedback and focus more on logic. Feelings can often get in the way of thinking clearly and wrong impulsive decisions are being made because of it. Take a deep breath, take a step back and analyse in peace what information can be exacted from your feedback.

I do agree with this, and it's an important point, for sure. Those of us who tend to get heated easily could certainly learn to chill a bit now and then. However - similarly, perhaps those with cool-as-steel logical minds could do with practicing warmth and sensitivity now and again, as well!

I don't like seeing others upset over things like that especially as things could of been worded a bit different.

We all have our roles to play in a community forum. Every forum needs its grams88 - someone who wants to see people happy and co-operating.

Incidentally, I'll be looking at Nuked Lemmings for the LP series, I'm looking forward to it!