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 RU-vid 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.
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
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
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
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
@DanAppeared 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.
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)
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
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).
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 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…
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
@@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
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.
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
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!
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).
bad comment... all you're saying is that it's the creators' fault not the moderators fault. Some parts of this seem very aggressive towards users like Split72 and CrispyCroc... not that I have any constructive feedback lmao
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
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
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.
didnt robtop say himself he is a little bias towards rating? I mean he said he is more likely to rate a level of someone with creator points than someone without any points
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
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)
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?
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 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.
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 :(
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.
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.
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.
Most 1.0 styled levels I see where it's just the 1.0 blocks and no real effects have way more interesting gameplay and way more interesting uses of the editor than I see in many featured levels
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
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.
The 1.9 private server has the perfect rating system in my opinion, it's very simple and very effective. 1.) Levels are sent to mods by players directly via an in-game sending system 2.) All levels are judged by mods and every level is decided on a vote, regardless of difficulty or quality. They are all voted equally, with the exception of Extremes, which have gameplay quality taken into account 3.) Level ratings are usually taken action on within the day upon a proper finalized vote
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.
Something that has been happening as a result of the Demon rating system is that a select few of creators have been lying about how hard their level is to avoid having the mods vote on whether or not it should get rated. I have seen a fair amount of 7-9 star levels recently that are much more difficult than many Easy Demons. This is the result of creators either not wanting to wait 90 years for their level to get rated, or wanting a higher chance of getting the level rated in the first place, as RobTop has much lower standards than the mods.
And there is a bunch of *even older* 8-9 star levels, that are basically Demon difficulty in all but rating. Looking at you, Twisted Pack. So, yeah. Problem was there from the much earlier time, but it only got worse fairly recently, due to changes in how Demon difficulty levels are rated.
@@unamedzube7xb297 I am aware of physics difference, but you have to understand, that an issue of incorrect difficulty rating dates much further back than last 1-3 years.
Honestly I don't get why Elder Moderators can be able to rate levels like in a GDPS with these standards. Why does it have to be RobTop to rate these? Like he barely rates Demon levels and rates more Hard and Harder levels gets rated, and I figured out that levels that were made in the past like 2019 or even before that always never get epic rated or featured, And some 1.9 levels that are really good for its time never get the attention it deserves. And I do think that RobTop should change the "Geometry Star" Achievement to beat like 50 rated levels that have stars. I find it unfair that you have to get a lazy developer to rate your level to get a UFO. I also would wish levels before 2.11 levels would get rated like in 2.1, (Like before 2.11) 2.0, 1.9, or even before that should get rated if they look good for it's time and not just block spam. Because most of the time RobTop never rates these types of levels sadly, And I also think Moderators and Elder Moderators should be able to send levels for epic. and Creator Points should stay but should be more easy to get. I would also like levels like Perfect Storm to be a Hard/Insane Demon instead of 9 stars that would be much fair *Tell me your opinions to this!*
I agree with you about the rate system being bad, but I dont think its robtops fault, I think its the all moderators. I think they try to do a good job, but end up defining a "good level" by such a narrow stardard that it creats this problem with levels not trying to be creative. from what ive seen robtop will rate almost anything that is of decent quality that gets sent to him, but the problem is that the mods standards are way too high so nothing ever gets sent. I also think the community's critisism is a big problem here, because if rob ever rates anything outside the "norm" (which he does) he gets hate for it from the community. this may reflect itself in robtop, but I think its not going to affect robtop as he has seems to have a thick skin. I think that when this happens the mods only continue to narrow thier standard of a good level and that feeds the problem
This is why I am always demotivated to decorate a level as I'm like "is this rate worthy?" "Will people like this?" I always base my motivation off of getting CP and I feel like it's reasonable. Does making an amazing level that's absolutely stunning and not wanting it to get rated make sense at all? It probably dosent if you think about it. I also feel bad for other creators as some make amazing levels with stunning visuals and gameplay with no recognition at all, while all of the other lazy creators are enjoying their tens of thousands of downloads and a star rate or feature. It's honestly just unfair to me and other creators out there, and not to mention moderators level requests streams won't change jack****** as your level won't get played as there are thousands of levels being sent in their forms and you have about a 1 in a million chance just to get one level played, and your RU-vid channel is probably dead so dont even THINK having a RU-vid channel will change anything in your career You know what else is annoying? "Moderators" if you can even call them that, they're biased as hell! If a mod even does see your level which they probably won't unless they are scrolling in the recent tab (which they're obviously not) they're so biased about some levels! They'll most likely say your level is outdated or isn't up to today's standards but the levels they do send are generic as hell! Not to mention the same problem goes for robtop too! I honestly think this rating system needs to change one way or another. It's dumb that a good level with good gameplay won't get rated, but a generic glow or modern level gets an epic or feature! The reason why "Shape of the sun" got rated epic is because god damn it's less generic than your crappy average glow level. This rating system is stupid and I honestly think robtop could do this: There could be a level up system Level 1 is the average player with barely any experience with gd. And basically just a normal level. Level 2 is the "helper" where if you get over 2000 likes total assuming your levels are really good you can send levels to robtop and of course, your levels can be recognized and pushed to the top a bit more. Sure this would cause some moderating issues, however I think it would be much more reasonable than only being able to send levels if you're a mod. Level 3 is the ACTUAL moderator gave to you by robtop himself, giving the ability to ban people for a specific amount of time and I don't know what else that moderators would do. Finally, level 4. The Elder moderator which gives you the ability to rate levels on the spot and it would be much easier for robtop as he wouldn't be doing the work all by himself. I honestly think this is a much better system than the current one and would help the game significantly. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
yeah, building levels becomes a lot harder the more you care about what people think of them. Its basically a feedback loop and it just kills creativity
@@Anxmaly666 basically what I was trying to say yes! It gets really demotivating that a mod probably won't see your level even if it's way above the rate standards. Even if they do, they're kind of just bias on what they think is a good enough level. I feel like honestly you'll get more positive feedback if you just are a lazy non-creative creator rather than a creator that wants to do something different.
Late to the party on this, but same. The one that hurts me the most is "it's outdated and not modern" is the #1 thing that kills my motivation to even commit to creating because i want to create older style levels akin to 1.8-1.9 decoration but the fact that "it's outdated" will always be the case to these moderators, like im sorry i prefer a different decoration?? Like i don't know man.
@@su-if8qw i like my decoration to be a bit more simplified. kinda like jonathangd back in like 2017, but the nitpicky moderators or just like people who give criticism in general are like "no, you need to add more deco to the blocks!" and im like sorry i dont wanna make overdecorated shit??? oh and i also get like "this block design looks too outdated" aswell so i get where youre coming from
I also have a idea you know how demons are rated right. Why not have that system for every difficulty and have a ability to let the community vote. It will be a like pole system and to keep things “fair” the value of the vote varies from people Normal players will have 1 normal mods will have 5 and elders will have 10. You can also only vote once so no dumb things occur.
Etzer's "How to get a featured level in 5 minutes" is YEARS old and still pretty much holds true. I haven't seen a featured level that is good in this entire update. The way I find levels to play nowadays is by going on RU-vid and finding a video of something. Such a shame, I don't think 2.113 is bad but I miss the charm of older levels. No, this is not yet another MUH 1.9 NOSTALGIA!!! post, but with 2.1 allowing creators to do more and more, they seem to do less and less. Most of these featured 2.1 levels can probably be recreated in 1.7 for the most part which is insane.
Calm down with the hyperbole, yes the kinda sucked rating system for years, but you and the nine people who liked your comment clearly dont understand this video, the game, or the rating system
@@MostlyJustWhipGaming It's still the same type of level over and over. And in the rare cases where it isn't, it's instead repetitive and boring gameplay, or so much decoration the level is unplayable without dropping frames. It's almost like people can't decide if they want low effort levels or overdecorated levels. To be clear, the earlier updates had a lot of crap too, such as way too much memory and stupid fakes but in any of the previous updates of the game I have never found levels so boring compared to the previous update of the game. Also I've been playing since October 2013 so I think I know a thing or two by now about the rating system and user levels.
@@lulz-sb9yu and the… 4x speed portal, Wave, robot, spider gamemode, green, black, dash, and brown orbs, Dual, ALL types of glow, infinite color channels (there’s only one, and you can set it with only specific blocks), triggers, groups pulses being rudimentary, object and editor layers, don’t fade don’t enter, hsv, slopes, a bunch of saws, backgrounds and like the 300 2.1 decoration blocks… those are the ones off the top of my head. Oh and also, no preview mode allowed. The ILL has a list of every block in 1.7. Good luck :)
Finnaly, someone notices how unfair this system is, I am one of the victors to this, I try and try and try to get attention to my level, even moderators, but it hasn’t been given the amount of attention it deserves, in my opinion. My level is ok on decoration, but has good gameplay. I have art that probably would have been expected from like 4 years ago or somethin’. It’s only this way because I suck at making any kind of decoration, I have tried so many times to make “Modern day” decoration and failed it feels like I’ll never get the attention for my levels , just because I’m not good at decoration…
I like how one of the achievements in the game is to literally get one of ur levels rated which in my opinion is ridiculous. I think rated levels should stay but scrap the creator points.
this is why im recently revisiting 1.6-1.9 levels, they feel much more charming (although theyre worse most of the times) and feel like they were rated for a reason now it feels like moderation is a guessing game
Older levels are actually interesting as they usually looked different from each other in some way. Newer levels look so similar that I don't even bother playing them.
As I was watching the video, I was thinking about how much better osu!’s ranking system is, and went “YES!!!” when you brought it up As an osu! player, it’s baffling to me when I see a gd mod’s level request video where they play a level, say “oh, you could do x y and z better” and then rate the level anyways, when in osu!’s system, these would be suggested as mods that the mapper could use to improve the map (or ignore if they think they’re correct and can justify it) Edit: I will say though, I don’t think any actual osu! devs have gotten involved in any ranked maps in years, other than when peppy (lead dev of osu!) makes a comment on Twitter that has no real effect on maps. The NAT members are generally the ones who go in to solve drama over controversial maps afaik
this is way too bad, you might not see it at first, but this can get very bad if 2.2 comes out with it unchanged, you have all these new levels that may be awesome and be the first of thier kind, but they wont be even noticed in the community, even tho this was robtops old way of rating levels, like element 111 rg, we all heard of it, but it is way too bad, but what a surprise, it starts with 2.0 (i think it was 2.0) blocks thta were newly added, and this is very bad for new creators now, like me personally i have been making a level since the last 4 days, but whem i upload it, i bet it will barely get anything more than 50 downloads.
I wouldn't really mind if the creator points were removed, I have like 6 and don't care too much about them ,but in a way its a cool thing to have on your profile ,maybe if you could get a badge with letter "C" (creator) on it if you have at least one level rated, featured or epic.
About Robtop's negligence with updates, I think he should at least launch one minor update every few months. I'm not talking about crazy features, those can be stored for big updates like 2.2, but at least constant bug fixes and quality of life updates, like improving the editor, the UI, etc. As a game developer myself, I don't see why this couldn't be a thing.
Totally agree with you. But I would also point out that creators in this game had the same tools for over 7 years which doesn't help developing new and interesting ideas. If the game was updated Regularly (even once a year) things wouldn't be so stale and boring. As always great video man!
A part of the issue is that creators tend not to look outside of the game at all for any ideas. The tools themselves matter less than how they’re used, and this game has an echo chamber of a community which exacerbates the issue you’re saying
And on the other hand, if you give creators more complex tools, like camera controls and the like, the greater the chances that less skilled creators are going to struggle or create BS levels that are absolutely miserable to play. Like a lot of potential solutions, its a double-edged sword!
I honestly thought i was alone with thinking a billion portal changes is just utterly obnoxious, i thought it was just the direction the game was going. It really pisses me off because I can never find demons that dont do this nowadays. It genuinly makes the level so unfun and just feels like a spectacle more than actually making the game play fun. Having sections dedicated to a certain gamemode is just better in everway in my opinion. I can process whats happening, and also it can help me learn the gamemode more and increase my skills in it, instead of just "oh click once for the ufo and now youre a ship" its just so lame and annoying.
This is literally one of if not the biggest reason why I stopped playing the newer levels. In addition, add that with the overdecorated glow and blind transitions really turned me off from playing them.
idk if this is relevant or not, but I have a theory that maybe the general community skill level/preference sits in the hard/harder difficulty range and there may simply be more of those levels as a result, which might create an illusion of bias. if you go to the recent tab, most levels you see in there are varying levels of non-demon difficulty. I have my personal bias here too, as on my old save I grinded over 9k stars with barely 40 demons, and from what I've informed after my comeback, the skill level has risen significantly over the years, so take this with a grain of salt
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.
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
It’s funny cause I figured most people already knew this, but what are we gonna do, since robtop is the only one to rate levels and he’s clearly not planning on giving up his one thing that makes him “special”
I'm a creator that has recently started creating and got my first 2 rated levels, and I agree the rate system is ass. First you need a lot of luck to get your first star rated level because in my experience there are 2 list, the one for the people without CP and the one for people with CP. I have 2 rated art levels on my account, the first one took 2 moths to get featured and the second one only took 12hours. Both levels have the same quality. There shouldn't be 2 list everyone should be on the same one and if the level is good it should be rated. Also I have spoken with some staff on the geometry dash creator school dc server and they say that sometimes in the first list some levels will be never seen by robtop. Another issue I have as a creator is the featured score. Robtop when he features or epics a level gives them a feature score (you can see this with the better info mod) Idk the specifics of the system but what I know is that robtop gives this score to a level and it affects on how high is it going to be in the feature tab, the higher the better. This score is really important because it sets how popular is your level going to be and how many people are going to play it. This score is given by robtop and is absolutely random, some trash levels will be at the top of the featured tab with and outstanding feature score and some gems will get a low score (for example outskirts by wik). As a creator I think people don't experiment because they want to get their levels featured and not more, the amount of time you need to invest to get one level epic can be 5x or 4x compared to getting featured, and is absolutely random. I think that's one of the main reasons why creators don't push themselves to make better levels. Also if you make a level that is not the norm as a horror level it probably will not get featured and will be forgotten with only 200-500 downloads Collab level is the exception to this but most horror levels never see the light of day. English is not my first lenguague so sorry for bad English. I am leo5555 in game
I think that at the very least the elder mods should be able to rate a level without RobTop’s intervention. Maybe like Osu it can just be two Mods who can put a level forward and then an Elder Mod has to approve, then it gets rated, something like that. It’ll just mean that a more diverse array of levels get rated, and more. That way quality levels don’t go under the radar as much. Now some more farfetched ideas. RobTop not being the only rater opens up an opportunity to make levels rated by him “special” in some way, maybe having its own Rated type. Makes the feeling of the RobTop being the one to rate your level all the more special. Now my weird idea is for lesser-known creators. I think there should be a rated section for levels that don’t meet modern decoration standards but still deserve a rating because of amazing gameplay or a showcase for an upcoming creator that isn’t quite on par with modern deco standards. This should be reserved for unknown names or exceptional gameplay only so it isn’t a low-effort loophole. My reasoning for this is that to get a modern rated level gameplay does not matter at all. If you have the talent for exceptional decoration, your gameplay will always be passable enough for the level to be rated. But the problem is there’s a LOT of rated levels with shit gameplay, but are rated simply for the exceptional decoration. I think that good gameplay should be awarded just as much. I hate playing rated levels because the gameplay just isn’t on point, it isn’t fun. I often find myself playing older and more understandable levels without the weird modern transitions. Exceptional gameplay and exceptional decoration should be treated the same. And that leads into my last idea, that the new “Godlike” rating should only included levels that have both exceptional gameplay and exceptional decoration (except if it’s a pure show of creative talent like those game levels). I feel like this rating should be treated like perfection in all categories to truly amplify what good deco and good gameplay looks like. Maybe make it so that this rating is SO rare, that not even a 100 levels have it. Make it truly feel like you have to go above and beyond for it, you have to craft the perfect level. That’s what a special rating should feel like, not the Epic we see in game.
8:11 I do agree, but I feel that an argument could be made that it isn’t making it appear busier than it really is, but rather just adding real business to it.
I like these rants and I agree that a significant amount of featured levels are terrible ... but telling people what I think, just ends with people telling me that I just want my "bad" levels rated ...
These community style games and websites with guidelines is also like a government: rules are established to be fair yet sometimes it ends up with racism and favoritism
This actually gives me inspiration to start creating again. Because I used to just try to get creator points now I think I would enjoy being as creative as possible!!!! Thanks a million