The GD Rating System Is Garbage
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- čas přidán 11. 10. 2022
- Final video of this kind, then Twitter can stop crying. I've kind of noticed over time that I have taken each topic that I wanted to cover in order from least frustrating to the most. This topic is where I became the most emotional when originally writing the script and I had a lot of things that I wanted to say but I had to restrain myself. With this video I am providing a replacement system for the current rating system as it has plenty of problems right now. Whether they are willing to embrace this new system or considering changing their current one is up to them in the end.
Music used:
Bloodborne Soundtrack - Ryan Amon, Tsukasa Saitoh, Michael Wandmacher, Yuka Kitamura, Cris Velasco, Nobuyoshi Suzuki
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Elden Ring/Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Soundtrack - Yuka Kitamura, Tai Tomisawa
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Penumbra Trilogy Soundtrack - Mikko Tarmia
www.mikkotarmia.com/ - Hry
A couple of things I want to correct and state. First of all, other than the bit with Rivalsa where I will admit I went overboard, stop taking these things and the levels I showcase as personal attacks. Much like I had to iterate in the GD Art Criticism video, they are levels to showcase that other people have linked to me in reference to what I discuss. I don't care what the level is, I don't care who made it, I wanted something to showcase and that's it. Just because your level may have been demonstrated here, it doesn't suddenly mean I'm saying your level is garbage or that you're a terrible creator. It may follow a trope that I state has been repeated countless times but that doesn't suddenly make it a bad level or mean that I am roasting the creator's abilities. Don't put words in my mouth.
Secondly, throughout the entire trilogy of videos of this kind I've been told repeatedly that I sound aggressive throughout all of it. I suppose that's fair, I raise my voice with some hints of frustration here and there. But I'm not mad or furious when voicing this. You have to remember that for most of you, this is the first time you hear me in a somewhat aggressive tone when voicing a video for majority of it. You've heard my story-telling voice now for the past 2 years since I introduced my voice properly to the community. To suddenly hear me express in different emotions throughout an entire video is probably going to be really alarming. But to put these three videos simply, let's just say that these are thoughts I've had in my head for years and it would appear that majority of people seem to share them. Some of my close friends didn't end up agreeing with all of them in the end and that is perfectly fine.
And finally, as I've already made clear in the description, you won't see more videos of this kind. This was a one-time thing and I have no interest in keeping it going, I've said everything I wanted to say. I did end up seeing some people saying that I'm milking for attention with these videos which is pretty tone-deaf to think if they were to look at my actual CZcams catalogue but rest assured, I really don't see myself going down this route of content again. Even if it wasn't me who had made these videos, this community really doesn't handle situations like these well and the reactions I managed to provoke proves that.
Shouldn’t need to comment this, people need to know this stuff is trash
Issues or mindsets that are this deeply embedded in a community are near impossible to fix. I commend you for trying your best and maybe changing the way people think
I'm glad you spoke your mind Storm, as it gives people like me who share the same thoughts as you a voice and a chance to be heard by the large majority who either cause the problem or do nothing to fix it
I'll admit, the first time I saw the art criticism video, I was happy someone finally said what I wanted to say for so long
This is exactly how I feel with my levels… thank you for making this
This doesn't justify the fact that your whole video is contradiction and hyprocrisy.
Most veteran GD players thinks the exact same way, it's just that stormfly actually has the balls to make this video
nah even newer players like me think like this too 😂
@@Anxmaly666 good to know
@@Anxmaly666same
i started 3 months ago and this is actual shit
@@p4tchPL What do you mean?
Made a lot of really good points here, I love your ability to consistently point out the BS in this community that we're all so adjusted to. Anyways I honestly 100% agree with creator points being a bad system. Ditch that one achievement and make levels because you want to make levels. For the sake of motivating new creators it might be a good idea to add some kind of profile badge for anyone who got a rated/featured level, but definitely not an increasing score that rewards pumping levels out.
Slightly unrelated and this may be a bad take... but I recently replayed some map pack levels (+ some general old levels) and a lot of them are actually really good. It's an entirely different style of gameplay, and I'm kind of sad that people hate them for being technical when in reality it's just because most modern levels totally handhold you. I'd love to see a resurgence of that style tbh
(also I think a problem with mods rn is that its treated as a status symbol rather than just a person who's volunteering to help rate levels. there's lots of people, especially younger players, who don't want to be a mod to send levels, they just want to be a mod so that they can be a mod)
Agreed
Colon W moment
Y’all are out here complaining about the moderator system which is so minor, but ignoring the literal game breaking money wasting IOS 15 bug that literally makes it impossible to play GD on IOS 15 on any device older than an iPhone 11. It’s so sad that literally no one is talking about this. Honestly we should complain about stormfly for bringing attention to the wrong and most minute things…
@@blue5gd The mod and rating system has been broken for *years,* with no intention or interest of getting fixed. The iOS 15 bug would obviously be fixed in 2.2, because atleast we know that _will_ come out at some point.
@@RealDJB wasting thousands of people’s money on the game for over 2 years with constant complaints and App Store reviews about it has no excuse to not even be fixed in a quarter of the time. Instead everyone in the community b*itches about “coins in robtop levels” and “bad moderation system” instead, which is completely subjective.
I like the fact that people didn't like generic levels at first, but end up making them just to get a rate
The very definition of "you've become the very thing you swore to destroy"
You know, people that dont like generic and people that build it is different (+ all moderators building generic levels hahahahaha)
my first rate is called acid II so luckily that didnt happen to me
Agreed
why do you like that?
@@stretcho4642
where’s acid 1
This is why I love the impossible level list. The levels don't have a standard to get rated, so they just make whatever fits the atmosphere and some of those levels are unique as hell.
Meth Death X
vitrification
exactly.
it suffers from the same problems mentioned in this video though, like almost exactly all of them. its slightly better though i guess
i adore the ILL. like it doesn’t matter how hard those levels are, because in the end i enjoy botting/watching them a lot more than this “demon list” or even the featured page.
the way demons are rated makes me feel bad for creators who create demon levels. so much more effort usually put into them just to get shat on by bias and a shitty system. should’ve just stuck to the simple “send to robtop” thing :l
lack of communication is also a thing that they refuse to change. so demon levels usually never get told if its good enough or not
Yes, just like diabolic clubstep
I think the demon system works like normal levels now after 2.2
@@thebunGD good
i personally love the simple idea of levels just getting automatically rated once a set number of mods have sent them
there's tons of cases where 20+ mods send a level and it just never gets rated, without an explanation
if Rob trusts these people and personally chose them as mods, why do things like that happen? a third of your entire team of 90+ people are fine with a level being rated, but you didn't like it, so it just won't get rated? do you really care that much?
Rob has a system to see the average rates mods send, and he uses that data to rate levels, so why not just add an automatic system that takes those averages and auto-rates a level if 15+ mods have sent it? it would save him A TON of time to work on other more important stuff
plus, creators don't know how many mods have sent their levels, something as simple as the osu! interface showing "7/15" would be amazing, or if a level gets rejected by Rob, let the creator know so they stop trying to get it rated
it's heartbreaking to see creators wait and wait and wait without actually knowing if Rob saw the level or not, just make that visible to the creator, at least let them know if it was rejected
thats true, and even worse is that if you have no connections with the gd community, your level wont be rated, even if its rateworthy
yeah this issue is really bad and i hope it gets addressed once 2.2 is finished
If multiple mods praising a level to get it instantly rated, it would also increase the amount of favoritism that goes into the process. I think this would only make the problem worse.
@@Brawlnana not really, if something, it would just get rate-worthy levels rated, generic levels would still get rated just like today, but it would allow for more people to experiment, knowing their level only has to be reviewed by a set number of mods to guarantee a rate without it feeling luck based
getting 15 sends isn't too hard, and honestly, if 15 mods with a lot of experience, chosen by Rob himself like your level, there's no reason for it not to get rated, it's not like it affects anyone anyway
im a creator with 2 levels
1 neonatic (got sent but never never reated) (spend 2 months on it)
2 nightlife (didnt even get sent bcs wulzy didnt like the gameplay, but got sent by other mod) (spend 2.5 months on it)
and in both situations levels are just unreated i was nonstop waiting
and i didnt get any resoults
from flustration i quit the game for awhile "2/3 months"
than i came back
and it still hurts me to see a 6 star modern lazy level made in a day getting reated
this video mostly shows the reason why my motivation for creating in gd is getting lower and lower
As a stargrinder, yes I can say that this is a huge problem. When I look through the featured tab I rarely see anything very unique, its all usually the same thing. The most creative stuff actually isn't the featured levels, its the ones that are just given a rate. They use unique forms of gameplay and visuals that the others don't have which makes playing them really fun. I really hope that the two new types of rates (Legendary and Godlike) will fix some of the problems, and if Elder Mods get the ability to rate levels, maybe a system where 3 elder mods have to decide to rate it, then maybe, just maybe, the system will improve.
This is probably the most cap and least facts
@@myntifresh6557 What is a fact is this ratio :tf:
there was a level called "enter the mines" which is a STAR RATED medium demon, and it's extremely unique for a level like it. Rob rlly shitty
@@Lhaj3 Its not that they all need to completely unique, its that all of them look WAY too alike. I can't even tell the difference between most of the levels.
So true now that 2.2 is out, there are so many star rates that deserve epic. Everything from the gameplay to the effects.
FINALLY SOMEONE CALLS OUT THE DAMN PORTAL SPAM THING. I'm working on a collab right now, and on at least a couple occasions, had to tell people to redo a part or had to clean up the part myself. People are obsessed with portals to an unhealthy degree, and if you ask me, levels don't really "feel" anymore. Electroman Adventures and Blast Processing are two of my favorite levels in the game, for a good reason. Each part in both levels stands out on its own, and feels like an adventure of its own. Modern levels don't have that. Every level feels like a blob of clicks. Recently, I had to help someone fix a collab cause there were so many clicks that a million transition problems and bugs that I had to clean up, and I mean with no exaggeration, that my part and the first part in the level were the only ones that truly fit the music instead of having clicks for the sake of it.
People don't like change, I understand, but some people have lost sight of what matters. Modern levels have no soul I swear
People need to understand these are gamemodes and not orbs. When every second of the level has a portal that changes the game mode, all you do is make the level hard and frustrating to play, and not memorable either. Gamemodes need to last at least 5 seconds because that's the amount of time when you can actually flesh a section out and give it gameplay depth and memorabilia. People remember the wave part from nine circles because it was so long and so hard. Same for the windy landscape dual parts. Can't say the same for any part in Insane Techniques. (I love the song that level used, why was it wasted on such an awful demon)
All of this is completely based on how good the level is made
I personally don't think it's that bad... in demon levels. Demon levels are supposed to be harder so putting fast-paced and quick-changing gamemodes on 3x speed or 4x speed is pretty reasonable. Of course, doing it during the entire level is another story. I have done parts like that in levels before, but I try to occupy maybe 20% of the probably minute-long level with it, not half the damn thing.
I thought I was the only one who felt like the official levels or really good rated levels (especially ones in 1.9 and earlier) feel like some sort of adventures
It’s a thing that died with 2017 only the shitty creaters still do it
i live for your GD rants, Stormy
Me tooooooooo
Haha same 😂😂
me tooo its so emotional and He is saying the truth and facts
sameeeeeeeeeeeeee
Same
In fact. GD rating system is weird, you can find levels unrated very awesome and worked, and some of the recent featured are just from the same creators. The recent featured are... Generic
Again tho, I will say that making creative levels all the time is not easy, and after a while you would feel quite burnt out, but a lot of these levels are generic, and I think that's where the problem lies. We need both types, but we don't :(
Exactly, also, is soo biased as stormfly said in this video, alkali's levels are generic af, but still he usually gets Epic and wekly demon, is extremily biased, phonk town doesn't have stars, but a level that looks like a wulzy creator swap video got rated in less than 24 hours, is just Wild, also, hard and harder levels being over 60% of the rated levels of the game is just ridiculous
Not to mention a lot of “Epic” levels I’ve seen are hardly worth of that title. This was especially the case in early 2.1 (example: “Lunar Abyss” by Frost) but thankfully it’s gotten better since then
@@jajasking9652 right
@@GGsquared it's a good example, why lunar abyss needs epic if has less deco than reanimation.
Janucha has an IRL friend who is a mod that's super shady about it. He once verified an insane demon "phantasmagoria" and asked the mod to send it/put it up for mod vote... but they refused, 2 weeks later the level was rated and the mod explained to him that they had lied about sending it to "not get his hopes up"
Basically, if they told janucha they did submit the level for mod vote and the level remained unrated two weeks later, janucha would know that the mods rejected it.
Yeah, you're not supposed to know if your demon was SENT TO ROBTOP OR NOT, which is a ridiculous lack of transparency
I know something that I shouldn't know (The results of the voting on ONE demon) but speaking too much might get one mod involved unmodded simply because they were kind enough to be transparent, so I can't even speak on the manner even though I really wish I could. If that isn't the most shady stuff you've ever heard then I don't know what it is, the mods aren't transparent because they know that if they are NO ONE will like their conclusions (As shown by the one time Viprin decided to show the voting results for Abyss of Darkness on Twitter).
This needs to change.
@@gosog6159 from several experiences, you apparently aren't supposed to know if your demon gets rejected or approved by the mod team
there's also inconsistencies, several mods shown me and others sending demons in-game but NEVER submitting a demon in the mod server (which is the actual system in place) so which one is it? are they just lying to me? do demons sent in-game even have the chance to get checked?
#RATERINGYPARACOSM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@GDNashit every mod I know definetly discloses if the level was sent, theres usually channels for it (even in most big discord servers)
Fun lil fact, i was the ex-verifier for Phantasmagoria and i created the LDM for that level lol
@@JoicSeth I don't think im clarifying this enough, this is exclusively for demons, by "sending to robtop" i mean knowing if your level was approved in the mod vote or not
One thing you forgot to mention: Most players who make levels are completely ignored. Which in most cases is a good thing. But for some incredibly lame reason, if you're not popular or if you're just another average player/creator, there is absolutely no chance they will EVER see the fruit of their creation. I bet there are several creators out there making some extremely good and fun levels but have zero recognition for it just because the moderators and the developers never take the chance to explore potential. In fact, the only way I personally can imagine getting a rated level is a level request stream. Also, minor detail but the entire rating system is almost entirely luck-based for unknown creators (like me and my friend).
you have my support!
I agree, I made a level that I spent 29 total hours making in the editor and it only got played 16 times. That's it.
It didn't even get a difficulty rating either.
i remember of spending weeks trying to get atleast a star rated, or likes, but no matter my effort i won't get this hell damn achievement
I spent over 250 hours in the editor creating an verifying a level just to have it only get 30 downloads…I just wanted little bit of recognition I don’t care if it get rated but I swear it is so insulting to just pour your soul into a level just to only get 30 downloads while some of the most low effort crappy levels that are identical to each other which is basically 90% of the featured tab get rated + 10,000 downloads…
Another thing I felt was worth mentioning is that there is absolutely no reason for Robtop to not want to implement this. While you touched on the Moderator side of things, and their desire for power that this change would strip from them, Robtop only serves to have more free time by having this weight lifted off his shoulder. Since it's already clearly laid out what changes would be made and how the new system would function, the only work Robtop would have to make are technical rather than logistical. For how much Robtop talks about his lack of free time and his immense devotion to getting out 2.2, I feel like he should be incentivized by both the community (The part that wants this change) and also HIMSELF to take some time off of 2.2 to implement the new system. Would give him a lot more time to work on 2.2 without the burden of having to rate/review levels alongside it.
Walter white
Walter white
Walter white
Balter brown
Jesse Pinkman
I miss levels that look like 1.9. They're all just filled with glowy moving stuff now
it all started on 2.0 where people started to abuse the hell of the moving trigger to make obstacles unexpectedly move for no reason other than "it looks cool"
even Geo.Dom. and Deadlocked had movement for the heck of it, thank god RobTop learned to not do that again with Fingerdash, Dash, and hopefully Explorers.
I had a suspicion that this video would be coming soon, this really needed to be made, along with the rest of the trilogy. Thanks so much for what you have done for this community over the years, especially from a content perspective. I'm happy to watch whatever you do next.
i think the thing i agree with most in this video is that experimentation seems to be disincentivized with the rating system. what i would like to call the "slop" of the awarded tab perpetuates itself -- the standards feel like they tend to reward homogeny, and anything outside of that homogeny is seen as not good enough for a rate, and creators that might otherwise make something original, meaningful, or personal are incentivized to feed the slop. because of this, i'm very puzzled that your proposed solution is to establish a set criteria (one which depends on the premise that levels can be objectively qualitatively evaluated) for rated levels. wouldn't that just perpetuate the issue and make the creators that are currently feeding the slop pump out levels that meet the bare minimum of that set criteria and also disincentivize experimentation?
Well established rules would likely take that to account, having a criteria of clear distinction from other levels. There’s no real indication as to what that might imply , but having moderators at the very least try to point out some personal argument as to why a level meets standards would go long way for the oversaturation in levels. Rules that can both suggest a level requires to be perfectly playable (referring to bugs, major skips, ect.) and requires a level to meet originality and complexity standards (properly defended by mods who are willing to care to give thought into that) will still result in ugly levels by any sort of personal preference you might have, but it wouldn’t be…. so incredibly boring as it is right now. It’s much better to have a set of subjective opinions as to why a level meets certain criteria than to subjective decide what makes a level “good” with no sort of guideline (and with these criteria I mean specifically originality and playability which I think no one wants to argue with them being essential in current day)
@pocke ^^^
you get it!
u raise a good point but i cant rlly take this srsly if u arent gonna provide a possible rating system in response to what stormfly said, as this is just nothing more than pointing out a flaw
hi ponk
honestly, the worst thing about the rating system is that there’s an achievement locked behind it. Good luck getting that in a reasonable time.
It's the only reason people strive for rates. Ever since day one it was a questionable addition. Even in 1.9 over 10 million levels were uploaded and only about 5k of them were rated. Nothing ever got better regarding it, and nobody ever talked about it. Really hoping Stormy's efforts with these videos are noticed, and something changes.
@@RealDJB the only good thing about that achievement is that it isn’t a steam achievement, you just need 100 likes for a perfect game on steam, instead of too much time or a moderator friend.
Idk if I'll ever get a rated level no matter how good I think my levels are, and it is going to haunt me having one achievement on steam that I cannot get.
@@ImTheWizard0 True. Rob only rates levels from well known creators. It's almost impossible to get a rated level if you have no cp.
It also motivates people to make cheaply made, low effort, generic modern levels that you see all the time just to get an achievement.
I've definitely had experiences with rating bias, even with levels that did get rated. I made a 7 star level once, which got rated in a single day, and got placed on the first page because why not. It fit the normal level trope. Although very brief, it got 40,000 downloads, a decent amount of attention, before being completely forgotten. On the other hand, I recently made a medium length insane demon, something which I thought maybe would draw in more attention. An unusual difficulty, with an unusual length, as well as a fascinating gameplay style. Because of the demon rating system, this level took over two weeks to get featured. Not only that, it was placed on the SIXTY SECOND page of the featured list. It might as well have just been rated, the feature rating was completely worthless. That placement was out of clear bias of some sort. This level, although it in my opinion deserves more attention than my 7 star level (look at how many 7 star levels there are), currently has a mere 15,000 downloads. It doesn't make any sense.
Whats up
Can you name the two levels? I'd love to check them out
@@whythehecknot5038 the 7* is called Fidget, the 10* Chaotic Evil
@@llertt it's a crime Chaotic Evil wasn't featured higher, the gd community loves levels like this judging by the popularity of wherwin's Removed Submission
I watched those levels and fidget is definitely better than whatever chaotic evil is
Another annoying thing that’s used in way too many featured levels is forced coins. The way coins should be put in a level is when the creator thinks “ooh, that’s clever, I’ll put a coin there!” But the forced coins just make it feel like the creator of the level finished the level, then thought “oh no, there aren’t any coins here, I HAVE to put coins here NO MATTER WHAT!” For absolutely no reason like they need to fill some kind of checklist where if they don’t put coins in, they’ll die.
hence why i never put coins in my levels really. have never seen a cool spot. maybe just a me issue but i don’t want to force them.
@@qopw That’s totally fine. Having no coins is better than having forced ones.
I'm currently making a level and adding 2 coins, one will be unlocked from 3-4 alternative paths and tricky obstacles keys that need to be obtained, the other is a hard timing, and I saw no place fit for a third coin so I didn't add one. Lots of creators these days "have" to add a third or a free coin in their level at the end or somewhere easy, not sure why but by no means should this be a necessity.
the fact that it’s only 1 guy looking at dozens of levels a day, everyday, deciding which ones get rate sounds like absolute hell. I wonder why rob hasn’t appointed someone else to also handle rates. It was easy back then when the community was so small, but it can’t be like this anymore. Is it just robs plan to rate levels alone forever while coding the game?
You know, I’ve never understood why so many people have the same thoughts you do, but they don’t say anything about it. I’m talking about the people who have a voice as loud as yours. I’m glad you’re at least saying all of this, because this community honestly does not have enough people speaking out about it’s flaws
people just don't have the words to explain and don't have as much reach as Stormfly has I suppose
Great video again, you're my favorite content creator, because each one of your videos is about a topic that should've been addressed a while ago, the same topics that made me play the game less and less.
It's also great that you propose a solution to the problem, one that you truly believe in, and that you really care about this sort of issues.
I'm so tired of levels that have nothing notable, have boring or bad gameplay, and rehashed decoration.
The struggles of getting a rated level and playing featured levels have bothered me for years, to the point that I don't enjoy playing or creating, and again, it's great to hear an opinion that finally makes so much sense about the topic.
I'll see you again in your next video.
Most dramatic speech since Macbeth
This was pitched a lot better than some of your other such videos I think, it was way more consistent in the points you were trying to express, formed a striking narrative, and you explained the nature of the problems better ^-^
everybody gangsta till he whips out boris johnson
I've also noticed there are flaws in the GD rating system. While I was writing an 18 pages long level review (and counting) about an upcoming Hota1991 level, I've seen 2 enormous problems in the community that weren't in his levels:
1) From GD moderators, Robtop, GD creator school discord server, level reviewers like Wavix (he once said you used strawman lol) , it seems they consider that "more presentable = better".
What I mean is that these people prefers levels that are simple and quick to understand how good they are, rather than the levels that are complex and can only be appreciated when you deep dive into them.
That's not really a problem. But the problem comes when these people says that "because that level is faster to understand and to like, then it's better", which is not true. Of course, if you don't take a lot of time to look at levels, you'll prefer the easiest level to like, but if you take time to actually analyse levels, you'll start to appreciate the most complex ones to understand, and only then you can compare both simple and complex levels and say which one is the best. In my review, there are tens of big arguments that I've NEVER seen anywhere from anyone in all of the GD community in YEARS of being there, because I was the only one to ever review a level this deeply and the way I did. Moderators have to rush through levels, without having the time to fully admire them.
2) There's an obsession with making levels "dynamic", "clean" and "optimised". Extremely often, creators tries to make their levels dynamic, etc... when they don't have reasons to do so. For example, "save as" is a good example of level that is not dynamic. But most of the levels in the featured tab will try to have lots of pulses, move triggers, neon or modern style when the creators have no reason, inspiration or will to do that. It's more common in megacollab.
People will make a level arround a faculty / compliment like "dynamic" without even knowing what it means or being interested in that, aside from making a """good""" level according to the community.
I love playing recently rated levels while listening to this and thinking "yeah, this is all correct"
This is just a plus concerning the osu! part you talked about.
Pending only means a map is finished. It is still possible that a map that presents only 1 difficulty can be ranked. All it needs is that the map is well charted, and if it respect the other criterias, then 1 difficulty **is** in fact enough for your map to be verified.
Amazing video as usual Stormfly. The more I watch your stuff, the more I wish levels looked like in the old versions of GD
Not enough people talk about how inaccessible the rating system is. Its extremely annoying, difficult, and time wasting just to get mods to see your level. You have usually have to wait an indefinite amount of time for a level request server to open requests and even then it could still take a while for mods to see because of not reviewing any levels (i know sometimes people are busy but it only takes at most 5 minutes to review a level). And lot of times mod servers dont notify you if theyve seen your level and decided not to rate it so you have to wait two months to find out your level wasnt sent instead of just immediately after theyve seen it. Its so complicated and terrible just trying to get mods to see your level.
Not to mention the luck involved because robtop doesnt look at all the levels in the sent list
I was going to say "Why does Stormfly think flow gameplay is automatically bad?" but then I realized that I also hate flow gameplay. Why does it exist
There's like 2 flow levels that doesn't suck and I can barely play the 2nd one
its not a bad style. its the creators fault if its bad.
@@NostalgiaLoverxX constantly switching between gamemodes / parts with an excessive amount of portals
What is flow
As an inactive demon creator, I wholeheartedly agree with everything being said here. It’s so demotivating to know that I basically have to fight just for my level to get noticed, and once it does it’s a gamble of even being considered to be rated or featured. I didn’t even create for CP, I did it because I want people to recognize my work as art that I put a lot of work into it. Most of my stuff is collabs, so it’s also annoying that those people I worked with don’t get that recognition either
What are the names of your levels so I can play them?
There is a day where I truly thought that trying to create levels with unique and strange effects like you say gave somewhat of a fresh breath air to the community. You’ve almost put this into perspective for me and I see that I fall under a lot of this criteria and have appeared to be contributing towards worsening the Geometry Dash community
Personally I think one Creator that has altered the way of creating in the recent times is over defo
not individually him but a couple of creators have introduced this entire neo design to Geometry Dash which I I’ve seen lots of creators start to pick up inspiration from (including me)
So I can totally understand when you see Creator‘s are making levels without any natural regulations, but I feel that this style has given more creators the courage to just completely experiment in the editor in search of trying to find some thing that differentiates from most levels
This is a really cool video and I’m happy you brought light to this
the way the mod/rate system works is what discouraged me from creating anymore. who would’ve guessed?
its your own issue that your motivation to create is for ratings
@@arb8881 why would i make a level that nobody will play and getting no recognition for my effort
@@arb8881 arb, you're a gd mod, you'll get harassed in this comment section lol
@@arb8881 based arb
@@arb8881 its not any better when i throw basically my whole heart into a level just to see less efforted levels get huge recognition and a rating from the game dev himself while mine gets jackshit
I've wanted to see a change in how levels are rated for _years,_ the current system is so unbalanced and secretive. This video gives thousands of players a unique perspective on the situation at hand, and gives a solid starting point for change.
It's great that a large figure in the community is finally talking about these issues with the system. Thank you for making this video.
I’m glad this is being discussed more mainstream now. I spent a really long time (26 months) making a solo-decorated level. I wanted to get a level out, while proving to myself I could get a featured level if I really tried, thus “freeing” me to make whatever I wanted. It’s a glow level but trust me when I say it looks and plays like nothing in the featured section at all. I released it back in may and it got send by one mod and obviously nothing happened. I can point out a couple levels released within two days of mine that were rated… I’m not an arrogant sort of person but you can tell they went through 1/20th of the effort I did. I don’t view myself as a victim of the system, this is just what happened to me.
Same - some of my levels took hours to get rated while there are a few with 27 sends that aren't rated to this day
@@Cobgd my level only got one though, not sure how much that matters. It's very borderline star rate vs no rate too but borderline levels made by cp grinders who I won't name get the rate
Personally I see 2 ways of fixing this issue directly.
1) Create a standard of building in geometry dash and make it well known. Have it be something simple yet not too restrictive. An example would be that a level should be playable with minimal bugs. But who should come up with this? The community as a whole, maybe make a survey of sorts that gathers the opinions of many people that think about what makes a level good. It should be anonymous too. From there the general consensus of what we think makes an acceptable level will determine if a level gets rated or not. Maybe add a quality star rating that the whole community can pitch into. Say I give a level 5 stars (the best) and someone gives a level 2 stars (the lowest in quality) then the level gets an average star rating of quality that rob and ELDER MODS can take into account more than their own opinions. TLDR: add a specific list of basic standards the community can follow and put in a star rating (quality rating) system for each level so that bias from moderators or influencers isn't possible. This also takes out creator points, like mentioned in your vid. But levels would still show up in the featured tab like normal.
2) Don't enforce a standard of creating at all and let people make what they want with no reward. Maybe still keep the community rating (quality) system so levels are given the notoriety they deserve. Make a tab with the highest quality rated levels so they can be properly found and appreciated. Maybe mods can try to make sure levels aren't review bombed because of a hate raid from the community. Ironically, they would be the ones to stop any happenings of bias or targeted attacks.
Both methods use a community driven rating system, not a system from a small amount of blindly picked people with biased inconsistent takes.
Hope stormfly sees this.
Your reasons of this is why I left the game, but this was an issue when I left (which was 2017). I used to make levels, but I stopped after like half of mine just straight up disappeared. The levels I made were supposed be flashbacks to 1.0-1.8, so obviously they would be overlooked by people. To be successful in the creator you have to spend like 500 hours per level, make ridiculous graphics and guide the player through instead of making a non visually pleasing level with more rhythm bases like xstep.
When my stuff kept getting deleted, that’s when i knew I was done.
This also used to happen to me too but I figured out that it deleted the levels due to low object count so I placed a lot of objects in one place and it fixed it
Thank you so god damn much for mentioning the invisible pads in levels meant to help you, I always ALWAYS complain about these
you know what, I don't care anymore. Some of my levels are 100% for sure rate worthy, yet I see a bs generic glow/modern level with an overused background every other recently rated level, I have been debating completely giving up creating for a while now, and game development might just push me over that edge
This is why I only create layouts that take me 5 mins and then beat them.
Did you post it on the discord or on the Reddit community?
the fact that this is moving despite it being about a game is genuinely impressive
The first thing I want to say is that I generally appreciate it when people make videos with as much effort as this one to express their opinion.
I can relate to almost everything said, however I disagree with a lot of it or think it wasn't put across in the right way.
I think this whole video unfairly puts RobTop, Viprin and Pauze as well as the entire moderator team in a bad spot.
The rating system certainly has its flaws, but that's nothing new at all, it's been that way for years. I was for a long time not at all enthusiastic about the rating system, until I looked more into it and realized that the RobTop and the moderator team makes a great effort to make it as right as possible for the community. All the moderators I know are great people who are excited about the game and eager to push the community forward and help. Of course, you can't speak of moderators in general, as they are all different people, but I think it's pretty unfair to blame things like this on the moderator team as a whole. RobTop tries as much as possible to rate levels the way the community wants them to be rated, which is why he wants as diverse a range of experienced players and creators from the community on the mod team as possible. The reason why Viprin/Pauze/etc. are mainly in charge of selecting newly promoted moderators is simply because they are very involved in the community and have a very good connection to him. RobTop actively tries to rate levels the way the community wants them to be rated. You can see that in the rating standards, for example, which have obviously changed over the last couple of years. Discretion is required for certain things in the moderator team, but they still try to create as much transparency to the community as possible. This can be seen, among other things, in the way the magic tab has been changed so that you can directly see the list of levels sent by mods. The demon rating system introduced last year was also created at the request of the community. The fact that the demon rating is anonymous is not a lack of transparency, but serves to protect the moderators. The team tries to please the community, but that is very difficult when different parts of the community want different things. In the end, it's almost impossible to please everyone.
So I think your whole criticism is more a criticism of the community than a criticism of the rating system, because it's not the rating system that favors certain rates, it's the community itself that does it. There are a lot of people who want to gain as many creator points, downloads and likes as possible with as little effort as possible. However, we see this everywhere else as well, such as in the music scene in the charts. There you get to see just as much generic stuff than actually original and experimental.
Most of the community's wishes the team actively tries to follow, but certain wishes also require changes that are far too big and would practically require changes in a new update. Before something like that can happen, RobTop has to finish 2.2 first.
The idea of removing creator points certainly has its advantages, but it is also a great way to encourage creators to build more levels, which keeps the game alive. So it's easier to change the way creator points are handled by certain creators than to fundamentally abolish this system, and that's why I don't see this as a good solution.
I don't deny that favoritism can be present in ratings, in the choice of moderators or wherever, but I don't see it as such a big factor as you describe. To that end, I'm sure it's something that takes place pretty much unconsciously and people aren't even aware that they may not have acted very fairly.
I think it's good that you propose a solution based on the game Osu, where I also see some potential, but it requires huge changes that are simply not possible at the moment and could only be considered in the distant future.
As I said before, this video unfortunately puts the moderator team and RobTop in a pretty bad light, which I don't think is fair given their efforts, and even though it brings some sort of proposed solution, the whole thing is very emotionally charged and thus brings drama rather than actually constructively changing anything about the issue.
(This comment is in no way a hate comment and serves as constructive feedback. If I have said something wrong, please correct me and I am also happy to discuss).
Good comment
I agree the rating system is shit also pretty sure the reason there are a stupid amount of hard and harder levels is because if there are like 2-5 inputs in a level it will be normal or easy most modern hard levels are the equivalent of the difficulty that easy and normal use to be and modern harder levels are the equivalent of what insane levels use to be (8 star insane levels) and the insane levels now are the equivalent of old easy/medium demons. Also the rate standards are suppose to have deco as good as the deco in fingerdash but looking at modern levels they have much more deco and are filled to the brim with unnecessary amounts of objects. The reason people say that the sneak peak of explorers was so empty was because they have been staring at the over decorated hell that is modern levels.
Yeah I would agree levels like Perfect Storm should be a Hard/Insane Demon instead of 9 stars that would be much fair
very good way of putting it
I took the psat today and I read a little passage about human behavior and how people react to rewards. The big idea was that people tend to be a lot more intrinsically motivated when they just get to do something they love without really getting anything for it (or getting something without being told in advance.) as opposed to people who do something because they expect an award. I feel like your idea of taking away creator points is a good idea. But the big thing is to have a system where levels are being made out of passion, not out of a desire for reward. I’m not entirely sure if the osu idea you have would work here but I do feel like keeping the rates, but there should be some way to make it seem like it isn’t a reward to work for but something cool that can happen and a seal of quality. Maybe making it to where the daily and weekly levels are the main way of assigning star values, so that way the best of the best are the ones that get acknowledged, but it doesn’t feel like an obligation to get there, as it may still get recognition in other ways. I feel like limiting the pool to levels that really Stand out might prevent a mold of sorts so people are encouraged to experiment and create what they want.
I read the exact same passage lmfaoooooooo
Same
I hate the fact that you have to overdecorate your level and abuse triggers just to get your level RATED. Not only is it annoying to play and barely sightreadable, it also takes too long to make a level. Sometimes people don't even care about the gameplay, they just look at the fancy deco and effects. The levels are generic, not creative and repetitive. You can't even find unique stuff in the RECENT TAB. Demons are getting worse and worse. Most daily levels feel like the same level (Except Rush, that level is godlike). If your level doesn't have a custom background, you won't get a rate. I just wanted to complain stuff about geometry dash. So if this comment isn't as related to the video sorry.
Edit: Shoutout to PA for using the workshop to host custom levels. If a level is good and liked by community, it will find itself somewhere in the frontpage.
Last edit, I have realized that all of the current levels have you go in a completely straight path with the UFO gamemode. Seriously, I know it is hard to make good UFO gameplay but there are no exclusive obstacles that can only be done with the ufo in featured levels today. I have made unique and exclusive gameplay, I don't see why everyone else can't.
imo it seems GD holds a way too high standard on level quality. like if you dont build something with above 40k objects that looks like Astral Divinity ur levels suddenly not good. iv seen so many ppl make genuinely good levels than they get shit on because of some minute shit that makes it bad for some half assed reason. “Oh the balancing isnt good the entire levels trash!!!”
“Oh no theres too much glow!!!”
“Theres no moving structures!!!”
like i get needing a level to be good but fr ppl hold levels to way too high a standard.
All you have to do is go to the unrated demonlist and see the absurd amount of quality levels that are kept unrated because of either burocracy or mod bias, people's work are basically rewarded by if someone likes it or not regardless if the actual quality of it is actually good and/or comparable to other rated works, this is so ridiculous it makes me angry sometimes
What upsets me the most about all of this is the amount of time it takes to grind through all of these levels- even if you beat them all on your first try (which, by the way, good luck on that), it would still take some 500 hours just to beat all the 4-7 star levels in the game, meaning that stargrinding is practically dependent entirely on how much time you have on your hands and not how good you actually are at the game, the latter of which should be the main focus as I hope we can all agree. As such, I never take my LB position as a player seriously and just put my focus on beating harder and harder levels to improve my skill as much as possible, even if it means a lower star count overall, but it's not a decision I wanted to make, but one I made to ensure I could focus on hobbies other than GD while still continuing to play the game and improve at it regularly. So glad someone finally had the guts to bring this issue up; it's been bothering me for forever now and it only gets worse and worse as time moves on.
I disagree with 9:34. These gamemode changes are made without zero purpose. Usually if made by someone who knows what they are doing, changing the gamemodes are made to properly allow the icon to move according to the music. For example, a UFO moves more lightly and gently compared to spider. These gamemodes represent music in different ways. It's up to your imagination to execute the gameplay well and satisfying. It's an art
so u got it then
made with zero purpose = braindead
As someone who has made maps for osu, I can say that the modding system is insanely good for both newer and elite mappers.
One of the things that helps when it comes to wanting to rank a map is modding queues (a forum on the osu website anyone can access). These can be from fixing changes, general feedback, guest difficulties, or keysounding. I would say it’s a tiny bit biased because some people could be really popular or have connections, upload a map, and then get it qualified in the next few days. If you are a new mapper that time could take days or even months just to get it qualified. However, nobody really cares about it too much in the community since every map that is ranked mainly follows the rhythm of the music.
There are a few slips that happen every so often, and a good example of this being the map Zan'ei by the mapper Lasse when it was ranked in early June of 2022. There wasn’t any map problems, but it completely broke the pp system, giving more pp than it should of. This has been sorta fixed recently due to a new rework that happened during the time of writing this comment. However it was mainly allowed because one of the people that worked on developing the pp rework allowed it to be ranked because he initially gave a bounty to whoever could rank a map with those patterns, and a rework was coming soon anyways to fix it. The map wasn't insanely bugged, but it gave around 1.75x the pp it normally would, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
I do think the gd system should have something similar to the osu system as it would let people know what is allowed to be rated and what is not. Very good rant, liked it very much!
A creator shamelessly ripped off of my level and got 60k downloads and a feature, and only credited me when i threatened to get mods involved (mods cant do anything lol, i just tried to scare the creator and it worked)
People who are desperate for creator points are going to do anything, and i mean ANYTHING to get them. Even going as far as sacrificing the entirety of creativity in a level and shamelessly ripping off. The only fix for this in my eyes is for mods and robtop to encourage originality by stopping the ratings of factory produced garbage that serve no purpose or have no creative value. Obviously meaningless levels are fine, but they should have creative value and creative ideas, whether it be through gameplay gimmicks or decoration
please tell me your original level at least got rated cause if not I'm gonna be mad
@@Lunaticboi956 its featured but with only 17k downloads, the ripoff has 60k
@@robianny well at least you got the feature, mind pointing me in the direction of your level?
@@Lunaticboi956 Novely Lights by Robianny
I don't think anyone could have said it better, you did a great job with the video, and now that a well known person said it, the topic and subject will be more heard of. I also feel like you should have maybe touched on the topic of that if a person were to bring up the toxicity of the rating system (mod wise) that they would be punished, as it does seem to be the case of that. The subject was brought upon perfectly, and I've been fighting over this for a long time, its really not that hard to make a decent system in this case, as multiple people mod or not could give a suggestion of the topic and could make it non toxic. I mean the level type "generic, or glowy" levels were made because of this toxicity rating system. Not only is the system a horrible rating system, but if your level hasn't already been check upon, the use of level rating streams, or forms is even stupider, you're having hundreds maybe even thousands of people sending in levels, that could be good or bad, but like you touched on that there is a "favorite style" when actual good levels are only brushed upon and are left in the dust, to rot. A good creators motivation crushed because the style that they did wasn't favorited by robtop or any of the mods. The rating system sucks and no one seems to notice it unless its the ones who don't have their head up their ass, or have been affected by it. Its not that hard to change the system, it really isn't, robtop just doesn't want to do it. Now imagine how 2.2 is gonna look with this rating system, with the levels that we have now, I really really do doubt that the levels design are gonna change. We've went through multiple phases of level ideas, if it be remakes, top ones, etc etc, its still going to stay the same, unless robtop or any mod gets their head out of their asses and fix it, as its hurting their own community.
I've got a couple of thoughts about some stuff you mentioned in the video, I don't have much to say about changing the rating system to something more like osu, as I still don't know too much about that game, and how the rating system works, but I wouldn't be opposed to a drastic change. Especially if change could come in a way that doesn't make moderators seem like the center of the universe, as way too many players/creators do things with the goal of becoming mod, and since there is no standards, application, or set requirements, this means they do everything to get mods to notice/ friend them, whether it's donating on their stream, or trying to get mod on their discord server. Imo, all the attention to the mod team really distorts the opinion of what being a mod should be about. It's sort of become a status symbol, rather than a way of giving back to the community. From what I saw in your video though, that does seem to be more of the case with osu, where there is a genuine application process, much more transparency, and much less about what friend group you are in.
Also, this was a very small part of your video, but I see the whole too many people "create for cp" argument tossed around a lot as a reason to remove the cp statistic, and I pretty strongly disagree with it. While I do think it's a part of the incentive for a lot of the top creators, the fact of the matter is that most people just want their levels (and themselves) to get attention, and getting them rated is the best way to do that. There is nothing inherently wrong with this imo, it's how everything works on the internet. I just don't think removing the cp statistic would do anything to disincentivize making generic careless levels, as people would still do it to get the attention rather than the cp.
Also I would like to mention that I don't think the attention the mod team gets is entirely undeserved. Most of the mods in the game are extremely talented at the game in some way or another, and obviously they get attention because of that, but it's still hard to deny the fact that the general community sees being a mod too much as a status symbol or form validation, which really just negatively impacts the whole system imo.
I actually think the rating system could be revamped in a more simpler way than osu! AND with existing code, only changing a little.
So first thing that I would change is to actually change the creator leaderboard and the way you gain creator points.
First, the three main rates - make them apply to what they are supposed to be
Star rate - mass produced levels - No creator points, meant for star grinding
Featured - a bit better levels, todays Epic levels, dailies, weeklies - Also no creator points, which is fine because you still get a sh*t-ton of downloads for being daily
Epic - Actually good, creative and experimental but fun levels - 1 creator point
The "mass produced" levels still deserve a place in the game, it's just that creators are rewarded too much for it. Removing the creator point reward will incentivize making epic-worthy levels.
osu! proves that not gaining stats on creating levels doesn't mean that suddenly everyone will stop creating. The only ones who will stop were the ones who can't improve in the first place. I can bet that a lot of mass producers today can make actually good levels, it's just that they don't see a point, or find it less fun (because the payoff isn't better than getting featured).
And then 2.2...
Godlike and legendary - seems redundant, but if they are once in a blue moon and reserved for White Space like levels (good levels i mean, not the copies) then 2 or 3 creator points. (because it's really rare)
This means that the creator leaderboards will suddenly only show people with epic rated levels (and above in 2.2), which is way better than ditching the leaderboard.
Why? The motivation to create better levels. Suddenly, the "top" creator will actually BE a "top" creator because they will make a lot of levels that are epic worthy. Still not the best way, but MUCH better than the current system.
With a simple change the focus will shift from mass producing levels to making actually good levels.
Now, the way levels should be rated must also be changed, but that way already exists:
Just apply the current demon rating system to levels that Robtop thinks that deserve epic and moderators will vote, meaning that they will be much rarer and playing epic rated levels would be actually fulfilling.
The only problem with this is that the mods (or Rob) could just mass click yes on voting for epic, flooding the rating system with bad levels, or just generally having low standards. Imo, if they do that then they didn't even care for the game in the first place. These standards should be made ahead of time and should be transparent like osu! to at least minimize bias.
Of course, this isn't perfect, but at least it's easy to code in game. The hardest part of this is applying the rules that were made to everyone, equally, but that problem will be present for ANY rating system that can ever be made.
For those that think this will be "weird" to see, trust me, after a year with a changed system nobody would even remember the old one, and the ones that still somehow do will most likely be the ones who are littering the game with garbage levels today for some imaginary points and don't care for the quality of their levels.
Also, for anyone that says that retroactively changing rates for old levels is hard - this is a problem for any new system no matter how much or little you change.
I'm totally with you, but, for fully work, there should be a system to Kick mods in case they basicly are rating levels that doesn't deserve stars or spaming yes to Epic for a lot of bad Demons levels, which would be basicly come back to the issues that the system has
saying that "nobody would remember the old one" is kinda a bold claim cause people STILL remember stuff from how it was in 2.0 and 1.9, but I kinda get what you're getting at
I think levels should automatically be rated once enough people play and rate them. This could then leave the moderators with only sending the best levels to get featured and even if a good level get skipped, its no THAT bad.
I'd put some more barriers on it. You need a certain like and playcount, aswell as a certain time spent in the editor and objects. If a level as a really high like to download ratio it can bypass some of these borders
@@DaShadow Actually that’s basically the magic tab besides the like/play count requirement
This is a great video, man. Thank you for talking about this problem.
your rants are what keep me going. never change stormy
An idea for a better rating system: there are four levels. One is the basic player, (the default) helper, level 2 helper, and the star raters. Basic players can send levels to helpers, who filter out levels sent to them by new players that don’t know what the star rate standards are. If one thinks that a level is good, they’ll send it to the level 2 helpers. They would also fix this problem: imagine that in one timeline, a known creator uploads a certain level. It will get star rated very quickly because of how well known the creator is. In the second timeline, a random player that nobody really knows about uploads it. It will likely never get star rated because it would need to get noticed by a moderator who just happens to be browsing through the recent tab. It’s an inevitability that a level uploaded by a well known creator will get noticed and rated first, but adding these would greatly lessen the problem. In fact, this problem is big enough that some people assume that a normal player using the suggest rating button on an unrated level will send it to a moderator, when it, in fact, does not. it’s likely that people think that it does because they assume that the aforementioned problem would have already been noticed and solved. Next is the level 2 helper, which is just a renaming of what moderators are now, because the people that are currently called moderators don’t actually do any moderating. Currently, only elder moderators moderate anything. There will also be an equivalent to the nomination assessment team from osu. The star raters, hence the name, give levels star rates. Every time a level is sent to them by a level 2 helper, they will discuss what rating it should get, based on various aspects such as gameplay, decoration, how well it fits with the song, and so forth. There will also be moderators, (not to be confused with level 2 helpers, which what are currently called moderators will be renamed to) that are what elder moderators will be renamed to. (The new moderator status and level 2 helper status are separated, so everyone that’s an elder moderators will simply become a level 2 helper and moderator when this system would be added) Also, other additions are demons with no star rate. It shouldn’t be capped at insane. If a level is community voted as a certain type of demon, a moderator can confirm it so that if you beat it, the demons beaten statistic on your account will go up if you beat it. Each demon difficulty will also be separate star count ratings, so they’ll actually be considered different difficulties, also making it so that when a demon is set as a very star count, it will stay that way, just like how levels rated normal won’t change because basic players voted so that it would.
Extra unrelated ideas: getting a verifier for your level. You can give your level to a verifier, who can’t change anything in the level except for placing start positions. Another idea similar to game jams is having a weekly build (or, it could just be named a creator contest) where every week or month (depending on what it is) a build is announced where people build a level, like a challenge, layout, or full level. For layouts, there could be a thing where it specifies what song it needs to be. As long as your level fits the specifications, you can enter it into the weekly build. If it’s still good but doesn’t exactly fit the specifications, it will become an honourable mention. There will be archives for all of them. I think that this could help good creators and layout makers become more known. speaking of which, every time I see the "to get this icon you must have a level with 100 likes", I always think "as if that many people will even see my level". Levels with stars but give no creator points would also be good, mostly for challenge levels. Robtop’s rating standards also seem to be extremely inconsistent. If you mostly consider decoration, you get an unfortunately large number of levels. If you mostly consider gameplay, you get dear nostalgists, xo, and with a little bit of decoration considered, walk through. If you consider neither, you get conical depression and sort of invisible deadlocked. Also, decoration and gameplay rates could be separate in some way. It’s a bad idea to treat all levels equally even if the point of the level is different. The current rating system gives awesome layouts no award at all because it has no decoration, even though that isn’t the point. I think that it’s a bad idea to try to mash together a bunch of different factors of a level’s quality into one, then try to put a level on a scale of just good enough to quite good to awesome, with the standards for each of those not even being consistent. The star rate UFO is also just bad; it motivates people to make soulless and generic levels to get every achievement. If you get it is also out of your control; you can’t be absolutely certain that your level will get rated. This problem applies to the 50 and 100 likes icons, too. A (bad) way to fix would it be to raise the star rate standards, which is, of course, bad, so it the requirement to get the icon should be changed. Conclusion: 1: helpers added. 2: moderators renamed to level 2 helpers. 3: elder moderators renamed to moderators. 4: star rating team added. 5: equivalents of several things from osu added, like a test to start becoming a star rater and a probationary stage to becoming a star rater before fully becoming one.
I cab feel the emotional pain you were going through while makeing this, I get every single point you make and I hope that people WILL ACTUALLY NOTICE the things your saying. This needs to stop. Let's ACTUALLY BREAK THIS CYCLE ONCE AND FOR ALL.
Man, thank you so much for bringing up this topic. You have flawlessly explained everything, and your suggestion to fix it is magnificent. Instantly subbed.
We should make a community hosted rating system like the demon or impossible list, where epic ratings for example actually get given out to memorable and unique levels like for example Cold Sweat or XO.
(I wouldve listed some harder rated levels but I literally can't think of any, so what Storm said was right)
No way this man just said xo could be up for epic rating haha. Other than that, this would be really cool i like this (:
@@scubasteve6175but shes in love with the concept
As if were all just saw she imagined
@@scubasteve6175it's krmal so of course his gameplay is strange but epic? yeah that's just bias because he's popular
@@AkiDasherri memorized the whole song and still don't think the lvl should be epic.
@@AkiDasherrWe're in love we just don't yet
I am so glad somebody finally said this. I stopped playing the game for like a year or so because so few levels were actually fun. Especially for somebody who can only beat easier easy demons as their hardest, there are so few good easy demons or good insanes. In fact, nobody makes insanes anyways and harder levels are so easy. The same levels do the same things over and over and over again and are so formulaic to the click.
Insanes are just usually levels that feels as hard as easy Demons, specially the 9* stars ones
@@jajasking9652 and are extremely unbalanced and unfun
shiver, retro circles, crescendo, and xstep v2 are some of my favorite easy demons, but crescendo and xstep v2 are thrown under the radar and seen as bad because they are old and have strange gameplay. shiver is seen as too easy, but it's gameplay has no moving objects or intense foreground visuals, which keeps it fun. retro circles is just another nine circles level, except it actually does smth unique with the style. there are so many fun easy demons, but people just quit on them or hate on them or just don't see them because of the pure biased comparison that comes with modern features tab and then levels made for people to enjoy with good deco but not in the way of gameplay. i wish these types of levels were made more often :(
Dang I was literally gonna talk abt this for a vid but you topped it off, nice vid ^
You’ve highlighted some major problems. As someone who enjoy/ to run through a shit ton of easy levels from time to time, and I’ve noticed a lot of generic levels following these tropes, and whenever I see something that stands out I really appreciate it. I feel Hards and Harders deserve to be scrutinised, not just written off because ‘they’re easy no-one will care’. I’ve seen a lot more demons rated lately, I don’t know if they’re being less scrutinised or if others are being judged more harshly
Honest question: how do you tell the difference between an objective standard and an individual’s subjective opinion?
Easy, it is widely known (among experienced artists) which standards are objective, the rest are subjective
@@agenty_gd "how do you tell the difference between opinion and fact?"
"skill issue"
The thing is, mods will often rate levels that they enjoy. Levels that you like are different from levels that are well made. Levels with polish, creativity, enjoyability and overall high-effort/quality should be rated, not just levels that I like.
@BinaryThePsycho none of those are objectively measurable tho
@@nayR5 I disagree, an innovative and creative level is not subjective, nor is the amount of effort put into a level or a sightreadable, enjoyable one. If you take a level from, say, 1.5, the lack of polish and attention to detail will be evident compared to a level released today. Although they can be slightly opinionated, moderators should be able to determine the rateability of a level by seeing its flaws (lack of polish, empty decoration) aside from a level that they specifically find cool
i think the reason demons are put through a vote is because bad demons get so much shit, eg. buff this. also if 5 star gameplay is bad it takes 3 attempts, but if demons have bad gameplay it can be actual torture. the mod team are probably sick of being abused for rating X level that some random doesnt like
I think he wants a system where either all levels get voted on, or none do
Totally agree dude
from very long time ago i had a very controversial idea that level should receive rate if they have some form of decoration, no errors and like basically not trash, and featured levels to actually good. Because the feature tab is right on the front page of creator menu and to find not featured rated levels you need to go to search tab and select star rated which is not what people usually do
my response to this is the entire legacy situation which I still dont know whats gonna happen with it cuz we arent allowed to know mod team shit so idk anymore
Hey you're here! I was wondering what happened to legacy and why it didn't get rated despite clearly being feature worthy
the last 3 videos of yours are just gd community slanders at this point and i am loving it
Creator Points used to be made for levels, now levels are made for Creator Points
I didn't think that much of it before. Thank you for this video. It really clears up issues within the community etc
Finally someone makes a video on this who actually knows what they’re talking about. I’ve seen so many people criticize the rating system, rightfully so, but they all had personal bias and it was so painfully obvious in the way they spoke, and it was also pretty clear they didn’t really understand it either. Thanks for making this, I honestly agree with pretty much everything that was said
Wolarion
Love u stormfly, you’re the biggest voice of rationale in this community and I hope this trilogy of videos will cause some change in this game
As much as I would like to see the rating system get changed, I am doubtful it will happen. So many people have gotten used to the current system (including RobTop himself) that I feel it will be hard to convince them. I am not completely hopeless though; there are definitely a decent amount of people who want to see this change.
I think that with the rating system we have now, the best thing for creators is to NOT build for creator points. There are still some good standards to follow when creating, but you wouldn't feel like you need to make your level a certain way if you build for fun.
Something I'm curious about is if 2.2 will fix the repetitive nature of featured levels now. There will be many more ways to get creative in 2.2, but I worry that everyone will start doing the same thing to get rate again.
Another thing that pains me is that hundreds of old well made 1.9 and 2.0 levels are entirely neglected from being rated due to robtop just straight up denying them rates and half the mod team thinks they arent rateworthy and refuses them sends, even though many of them are far more unique and experimental/impressive for their time compared to the shit they do send.
Making a 4 star modern or neodesign level is probably the easiest way to get cp this game is ever seen
Hi tundra
@@lexycat wsg
Two solutions:
-Change the Requirement for the Rating UFO so less people have stress about CP and instead get creative
-Make The communal difficulty count as a rate, but only be Featured by robtop
I always thought that it would be great to get an algorithm where levels will get chosen Based on the requested difficulty and the likes the players gave them.
The More likes the level gets the more likely it becomes to be caught in the algorithm and get Shown to more players.
This would make rating the levels easier because robtop and the mods
Can see which levels are liked by the comunity and it would help the creators because the level would get attention way easier. That would also allow levels to gather likes dependant on how good the level is and not how many people actually see it.
I know that this will mostlikely never happen but I just want to put it out here because that is something that i think could really help this game.
Im sorry for my bad grammar and possible mistakes im not a native English speaker..
I absolutely agree. You'd think that after 5 years of the community having time to figure out how 2.1 works, we'd have figured out that people want good levels that are visually appealing and fun to play, but everything encourages the opposite. I still think that the standard style is a great way for aspiring creators (such as myself) to learn how the editor works, and then try new things from there. Try some different styles or weird gameplay quirks, but no, not much happens.
Now granted, I can't say too much as I myself haven't played the game a whole lot, but the fact still stands that I don't enjoy featured levels. I remember one time I decided to try a few featured levels to see how they were and get some inspiration for gameplay, and they were rather hard to read and not very enjoyable. I may not be very good at the game, but dying to things you can't see isn't enjoyable in the slightest. They feel like the original gauntlet levels with prettier deco, and some minor adjustments. It just feels like copy paste.
I want to make levels that break the mold myself, make things of interest. But life and adulting has come upon me, and I still need to learn how to properly use the editor.
In fact, I'd say that's a part of the garbage factory levels. The editor is very confusing. The best uses of some blocks and options aren't made clear, even in the editor manual. It's hard to make something unique and different if you can't even figure out how how to make a simple effect happen on repeat. I feel I've learned more from random youtube videos than the "official guide" to the editor itself.
Maybe at some point everyone will clamor for change, and change will come. But I feel that's a long ways away, and who knows what'll happen when the game eventually updates. Here's to hoping!
Fantastic video, absolutely nailed all of the points, have been thinking the same over the years.... personally have been creating for 7 years, felt like I've made some pretty fun and creative levels in my time, while also creating a lot. Tried so much to get my levels rated and only got my first rated level recently when I made a "factory produced level" which by the way is Harder difficulty. I don't create for creator points, but it would sure as hell be nice to get some more recognition on my levels that people think are good as well but aren't rated so only some people see it. On top of that, I love making hard levels, so when I create a bunch of demons, some of which have gotten a lot of attention and also have been sent but just don't get rated. No clue what goes on behind the curtains of the demon voting and I don't want to create something generic to get a thumbs up from a majority of people. I still try to make levels from time to time but after my recent level I made which isn't a demon and fits more of a standard got rated, it kind of demotivated me honestly.
Started creating in 2015 and have gotten 1 feature in all those years.
I used to actively seek out mods to get them to send my levels and give me feedback if anything bothered them, just so I could get more creator points.
You can imagine how fucking frustrating that was, having to listen to people that sometimes you didnt even like the levels of, tell you that your level isnt good enough when garbage levels get rated left and right.
Luckily my days of distorting the original idea for a level into something "acceptable for robtop" are long gone and I now only build for myself, I dont seek out any mods, nor do I care about creator points.
There are times when I do feel cheated because I know that my levels are NOT below the quality of 80% of the featured levels nowadays, and I take months to create so when my efforts result in 600 downloads and 30 likes, it can bother me a little (especially when I see one of those rated "made in 7 hours :D" type levels that look like the remains of a Taco Bell meal gone wrong).
Still I dont want to stop creating, its become more to me than simply getting rates or even recognition, I just want to see how far I can improve and how my style is going to change over the future.
I started creating in 2017 and I have no CP o_o
I dont even make levels for creator points lmao
I made a video essay about this but you beat me to it, im glad a larger figure could convey these ideas :)
agreed. tldr all you really need to do is make mediocre designs, slap glow on it, then verify. bam, you have a star worthy... "good level."
the standards of the community today dissuades actually good, talented, but unnoticed creators that can make amazing levels, or even new creators for that matter, from making levels because people prefer glow over art. and the mods for some reason REFUSE to rate good levels, and prefer to rate stuff with G L O W.
as a creator since 1.9 it has been very frustrating in my part because most of the levels given an epic rate are levels with excessive glow, and only a fraction of that is actually really good levels (e.g: against the god, absolute garbage, ispywithmylittleeye, lightning speed, etc.) and even then most of these dont get as much traction as the glow levels. thats why i dont even bother touching the editor, knowing that the standards of the community wouldnt get my level rated even if i tried my hardest hardest to make it good; sorry if that sounds entitled.
I remember saying something about this issue a while back, where I would rather make levels for fun and NOT to manifest creator points or try to be an attention grabbing creator with no varied talent. It’s like being an NPC and building NPC levels, which means doing the same things for the same outcome. This is why I don’t even bother checking the featured page if I want some enjoyment on a daily basis.
I wish to see some more variety in the page without generic, unbalanced, or tasteless gameplay and design for once.
The worst thing about this whole thing is that this thing about repetitive and formulaic levels is that they have been around since 1.9 with those harder-hard levels with "Blast Processing style" decoration, and since then there has always been a certain style of decoration and gameplay that will spread like plague in recent levels with stars.
Another solution you could have probably missed is bringing the permanent update lock from osu! to GD to prevent manipulation. I've had a lot of experience with creators that make semi-decent levels but after some time they get updated out of spite only to lose quality. I’ve even been injured by these. The worst part of this is that the mods may not be aware before they are being told to, unless they miraculously stumble upon those levels. They may also simply ignore the quality loss and just move on.
Edit: Levels below ID 60000000 have been locked, we’re almost there
that's kinda dumb imo, most people update their levels to make it better
this doesn't happen almost at all tho, most of the time the levels only get bugfixes or maybe optimisation but if we had a system like osu! levels would go through better quality control anyway, no reason to edit them after. It wont really make a difference in the end so update lock could work but there's no real insentive
There is an update lock system in GD where elder moderators can lock levels (typically old ones) from being updated
well the idea was that all rated levels should be update locked upon being rated so an elder’s interaction isn’t required
@@RealDemonChaserSG yea so like i said an update lock could work but there's rarely a case where its relevant enough to be important, not a bad idea by any means, but still no real insentive where rob would make it the norm
Bro... I thought the same thing about the epic rates... Sometimes I cant tell the diff between epics and features, so it instead feels like the spectrum kinda blended and the epic became the new feature.
Ok, this is a rant I can get behind. I don’t understand why a level needs to look like a work of art in order to make it so that a player gets rewarded for beating it. I understand that that should be the case for featured levels, but an absolutely absurd 87% of all rated levels in the game are featured or epic. Shouldn’t the regular rates be the majority while the featured levels should be in the top 10-20% best looking ones?? And yeah, the moderators are ridiculous and very obviously biased. For example, Viprin posted a discord screenshot showing that a majority of the mods voted that Abyss of Darkness should not be rated. For what reason I have no idea, the level is perfectly fine other than being really hard, which isn’t even a reason that the level could be considered bad. Also, there’s the whole situation with krizhasalisp and the fact that well known creators can post whatever they want and it will get rated, and I could go on all day. But yeah with all this, there’s somehow even an achievement for getting a creator point, which, because of our stupid rating system, is generally considered impossible :/
I was very lucky to get a rated level but its very difficult, I spent years trying to get a rate before. The system is very bias and I have had friends who have just straight up quit the game because they couldn't get a rated level, its pretty sad. Also the only reason I clicked on this video was because I saw boris in the thumbnail lol.
I believe that having a ton of extremely short 2-7 click gameplay sections in random game modes is called flow gameplay.
hey stormfly, just wanted to thank you for pointing out the biggest issues within the GD community. i totally agree with this video and i'd like to thank you for helping me get out of my comfort zone in creating levels. hopefully the rating system gets better in the future
This video absolutely spoke my soul out. Thank you Stormy guy, I couldn't possibly agree more. This game is plagued with favoritism, and the fact that a random half-decent 1.8 style level built in 2.1 (Bonus Round) got an epic rating just because it was made by Darwin and timeless masterpieces like literally every single HHyper level, Voidlands and others only sit with a feature is absolutely insulting.
Also, I think the Creator Point system shouldn't be completely removed and it's cool that there's a reward for making something of high quality, making players strive to unleash their creativity. _(Some Sandbox/building games like Minecraft completely don't care about rewarding you for making great stuff which I think works for them as your personal feeling of achieving something can be stronger than anything the game can give you, but for a game completely driven by the community and those specific rated levels, that would be impossible to achieve)_
But unfortunately, as of right now, the system is flawed as hell, with its biggest downfall in my opinion being encouraging creators to make stuff of just *enough* quality, instead of trying to become better and trying out new stuff. I genuinely have no idea how this system could be both kept and also made better, other than Moderators and RobTop himself changing to despise generic levels and *only* rating unique ones, to a point that uniqueness itself becomes generic: If everything's unique, nothing will be.
So thats why list cool demons and huge realistic projects made by small teams are ignored by robtop but not a plastic level with a blinking furry at the start?
The game is basically over runned by furries basically
Just to clarify, I made the level at 8:31 like a year ago, I was not good at building at all and idk how it got rated now. Still, I made that lvl for fun, not for it to be perfect or even rated, and I had no experience at all with creating at the time, I just made a mistake with a transition and didn't notice at the time, doesn't mean i'm a f*cking idiot tho.
He’s blaming the system not the creators
At least you changed
There is a lot of bias and levels are being rated on glow and object spam or if your popular or not. Levels should be rated by passion, this happens every once in a while, with levels that have 1.0 deco but cool gameplay concepts. But the thing is, if you are new to creating, even if your innovative, creative, and passionate, if its not glowed up and has 200 decos per square inch, no cp. Creator points have no value anymore, its just be popular and put out some more trash.
Edit: my levels arent good by any means, but because I actually put in my passion, i enjoy those levels as much as some rated levels that have passion and not cp grinding like whirl's levels. Even though my levels are bad, passion is what makes levels good, not gameplay or decoration, or if your popular.
i fucking hate the invisible jump pads right after a portal
I understand your point but you have to look at it from Robtop's perspective also. Given he is a developer of an initially (and still conceptually) simple platformer game, he clearly just wants the game to have lots of levels that are fun for the average player, so that his game will be marketable and fun for as many people as possible.
Simple levels without too much shit going on visually are good for that. Same for levels in the hard-harder difficulty as that is the point where most players will be at before they either become hardcore fans or quit. You look at it from a long term player and creator who wants to project ideas into the game as an art form perspective. He looks at it from the perspective of a game developer who wants the game to just be good and fun. Super Mario games don't have insane wacky ideas all the time in every new level either, but manage to be fun regardless.
I think you just have to respect his vision of the game and maybe try to get a compromised deal with him to make the system better.
You're like the ruben sim of gd and I appreciate that! Thank you so much for bring these issue to light. Also great video btw
Does he beef with elder mods too?
ikr someone random will spend 2yrs with 500k objects, 4k triggers and legit verification but because they arent known by RobTop it wont get star rated
The moderation system has always felt flawed to me as you NEED to have a level sent by a mod and featured before you get put into a special robtop tab that shows new levels by players with CP points. But the issue with it is that most of the mods do nothing and don’t accept requests so it massively limits the potential for rates of potentially well made levels