The Observatory feedback megathread!

[roncli]

[roncli]

[roncli]

[LotharBot]

On Mockery: This community is a blend of 3 distinct eras -- the Kali era, the D3 era, and the modern era. Of particular note, we "old school" types who grew up in the Kali era didn't have a lot of modern tools to police games. We didn't have auto-cheat-detection, we didn't have vote-kicks, we didn't have an official level distribution system that ensured only "competition-grade" maps were available, and we didn't have dedicated servers. So we developed an attitude of self-policing. The only tool we had for keeping people from cheating, being jerks, or angling super hard was mocking them and refusing to play with them. And part of the purpose of mocking people who pushed the boundaries was that it set the boundaries for others. For people who did not grow up on Kali, this can come across as us just having bad attitudes, but it actually does serve a purpose of setting community norms. It's something most of the "old school" types are comfortable with -- I'm notorious for hating in-game trash talk (I've asked Lady Silver to tone it down), but even I'll pile on if I think someone is pushing the bounds of what's acceptable. I'm of the firm belief that people mocking Ostrich Farm on day one of the tourney is the reason nobody tried to use FRP, Iconia, or some Lobber BS as a home level on the final day. It set the tone that we expected people to play in legitimately competition-grade maps and not go looking for ridiculous angles (because, even though this was "no stakes", it was a tourney -- sometimes The Observatory is just an open free-for-all, and that would be a better time to explore non-competition-grade maps.) I think it even made a few people back off of June Bug, because nobody wanted to squeak out a win but have the perception that it was tainted. So even though I don't think Lee was angling, I do think it made sense for the community to say "this map is ridiculous".

On Level Design: I used the term "competition-grade" a few times there. For Lee in particular, I do think there's room to push the boundaries (... I made Octave Pro after all), but you have to be deliberate about it, and sometimes it takes a lot of tries. Wrath was rebuilt from scratch four times and Forte was rebuilt 13 times, both designed to push the edges of normal play (one ultra-smart-heavy, one power-weapon only), both with a ton of playtesting from competitive pilots, and neither has become super popular. There are reasons the community has gone away from certain types of elements in levels (such as very large spaces, extremely bright textures, and mega missiles) and while you might be able to reintroduce some of those things, it's also easy to repeat mistakes of the past that a lot of us lived through. I don't think it's reasonable to release levels, expect people to play them, and simultaneously not look for or accept feedback. And it's probably going to be given more constructively if you seek it out than if you just drop a wacky level on someone in a tournament, no matter how low stakes. If you don't want to be stuck playing "the same ten levels over and over again", you have to figure out how to do something new but that also plays really well, and that requires dedication and humility and intentional listening, and also a bit of stubbornness to continue trying things that people might initially not like.

[PFunk]

[roncli]

[PFunk]

I'm sorry for anything I said or did to contribute to Lee's negative experience. We seem to both have reservations about joining for different reasons. While I do think he chose a level I never played before on purpose, it was a legit strategy just like I selected a map I was comfortable in. Mega pillbox, Megathena and Mega Nysa were all his suggestions and he even provided the link to the mega pack for me to get them

[roncli]

[roncli]

[roncli]