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[LBP2] Suggestions

Better "cool level" system

Archive: 45 posts

Ok first please excuse my bad english but i have a few suggestion on the cool level system, since this was the main reason that most people lost interest in lbp1. At first ill write the principal problems of LBP1 then the possible solutions.

I: The problems of the "cool levels" in LBP1 (

(you can skip this if you want but it took me an hour to write)

1) In LBP1, whatever the genre of your level is, it will always get in the same place in the game and therefore targeting the same audience.
Now let's consider that this is a 7+ game and the average maturity level is generally low ,i would say kids under 9 represent about 70% of the community, ( for proof just go search ab it in "newest levels" to get an idea of the average quality of the published levels) , they generally enjoy the most easy and obvious levels (that means obvious hints and clues everywhere that in my opinion ruin the level) and those sort of levels are garanteed to get a great rating.
They will get an even better rating, very probably 5 stars, if they also include great visuals, originality and fun in the gameplay wich will appeal the more mature audience aswell and recieve good ratings from about every audience (example: The Bunker)
However for myself personally these sort of levels are extremely boring to build and i can't feel proud at all of them since they have no story, no real originality since it doesn't introduce something new and revolutionnary, and they are not my dreams of what i always wanted to create, and you really have to build them for the only purpose of getting a great average rating of the community, and therefore change them, appropriate them, etc.
I think any creator should be able to build whatever he wants to since LBP is an expression of your art and your dreams.

If for example you made a a ultra complex RPG level with over 1 hour of gameplay and 300 speech bubbles and a complex story, etc.. because it was the creators dream to ever build something like that, it will be played by all the people in LBP, the most of the kids will leave the level after 3 minutes, then insult the creator judge the level "Borring!!1!11!!", because they were unable to finish the level due to difficulty, and then give it a rating that situates around 1-2 stars, having an extreme impact on the rating of the level, and therefore prevent it from succeding.

Anyways i have more to say about this problem but ill keep it short any ways. I just maybe wanted to add that all bomb/shark/train/whatever crap survivals have always 4 stars, and patheticly high ammount of plays (even though the heart/play ratio is horrible but i guess those creators don't care since they put no effort into their levels anyways).

2)The cool pages in LBP1 were good at first (from about 2008- mid 2009) but as soon as a few users found out it's weaknesses, they started to exploit it to the maximum, wich principally are:
-Restarts count as plays:
If you restart a level for whatever reason, it will automaticly count as another play on the level. This weakness was especially abused by the user named russelmuscels, who made "scam levels", that unexperienced players will be tended to restart alot of times, wich has inspirated an entire generation of creators (as you can see the result in the cool pages of nowedays).
Anyways he created for example a level called something like "OMFG FINISH THIS LEVELZ AND YOU WILL GET 500 000 $ Dollar !!!!!!!!!11!1!!!!!" (wich many noobs believed btw), and wich consisted of a (horribly designed) level made in 5 minutes in wich you have 1 life, and if you die you spawn at the scoreboard having to restart the level.
-Republishing:
You probably know that editing and re-publishing your level will give it a spot on the cool levels for about 2 minutes. I have nothing against it if a great creator republishes a great level to get more deserved plays but if a noob does it 55000 times a day to advertise a horrible bomb survival made in 3 minutes, it's extremely annoying. They should get rid of this feature and introduce better ways to get good levels recognized (see below)
- Keys that redirect to other levels:
I know this isn't bad because if a crappy bomb survival redirects you to 19 indentical crappy bomb levels, you could just ignore it, but the problem is that some kids are actually to stupid (very young players tough) to know how to leave the redirections and start playing the other levels aswell. Most "OMGG SHARC SOURVAIVALZZ1!!!!!!" levels actually redirect you to similair levels.

Overall the result being that the front page is 99% full with the most crappiest and desturbing levels EVER and they are created by random people who just want to have fun getting popular, but they are destroying the game.

II: The suggestions

1) Ok i think the most important thing is that you should have multiple categories, you will be able to select a genre for your level and maybe even tags, difficulty, etc.
For example if you are looking to play a level and you like platformers, you will be able to find the most recent good platforming levels. Each genre should have its own category in the cool levels system that you can acces easily. The diiferent categorys should be something like:
-Action games
- Shooting games (not sure if you can make FPS's but they should be in here too)
- Platforming games
- Role-play-games (there will probably be not alot of them as they are the ones generally demanding the most creating skills, but there should at least be a considerable number of them due to the new features)
- Survival levels (there will be good and probably bad ones aswell, but restarts/replays wont count as plays anymore so you you can clearly see wich levels are most played and the heart/play ratio will be correct aswell)
- Puzzle games
-Arcade games
-Fighting games
- Other (this is where all levels fit in that don't fit in the other categories, also i may have forgotten a few categories)

2) There should be no trophy like: "Obtain 50 hearts to unlock this trophy" as they are forcing bad creators to use "heart for heart" ( a very low activity exercised by noobs in LBP) in order to get platinum trophy (no idea why they want this trophy so badly anyways). Anyways this should reduce the H4H levels by about 80%.

But just to reduce it even defenitely, the word H4H and "heart for heart" and all similar words should be censored and levels containing this words in the level title should be getting a error message when they are trying to be published.

Anyways i know that MM is trying to improve this as they are creating new features like a stream in lbp or each level has its own website (not sure how this will work though)
So im definitely looking forward to the new organisation as the horrible organisation of the cool level sytem in LBP 1 ruined the game and made alot of players quit (i know because many people on my friend list did quit LBP or just abandonded on playing community levels)

So anyways tell me your opinions about this or if my suggestions are good/bad

2010-05-20 18:18:00

Author:
thi766

Posts: 135

All good points thi. I couldn't agree more.

Infact I've recently stopped playing LBP altogether for this very reason. I had 2 levels in production but the recent assault on the cool levels pages by vermin such as S.Ravens,kaskaroto,x3power,clay november etc have totally ruined the whole LBP experience for me and I just don't have the will to finish them now. It's not just the game though, it's a very sad indictment of the lengths that the lowlife scum will go to nowadays just to get notoriety or in some cases just to annoy people because they can. They make the world, particularly the LBP world, a very sad place to be for decent people.

We desperately need a system whereby these people can be put on a blacklist, at the very least we need to be able to block their levels from appearing on our screens in the same way we can block messages from people.

2010-05-20 18:32:00

Author:
mistervista

Posts: 2210

Yeps, I've moaned about it and presented filters for Your Custimisable Cool Levels Page.

Many people (the youth of LBPC) will probably say you can't blame one group of players from the vast spammage and low quality levels, but I totally agree.

Now for some shameless advertising: almost everyone of my friends (one most vocal) have been saying that my levels are way too hard (they likes cake walks with lots sugar) and un-obvious, so you may like them. I make every one of my levels for the joy of creating, not to clot the Cool Levels with levels made obv?ously to hoard hearts from the player group prementioned.

Cooperation Caves (x2)
The Temple of Changing Day and Night
Plain Platformer //pure gameplay and frustration (things in //// not in the name)//
The Drum of Dread //a challenging survival that takes a few tries before getting the method//
//O.Oh, a wall of text!

2010-05-20 18:51:00

Author:
Unknown User

About the concept that H4H should be banned, and especially the idea that the term h4h should be banned, that's never gonna work. People will think of different ways to do exactly the same thing. Just make a H4H as a genre tag and allow searching to discount any levels with specific tags. You and I can do searches that mask out h4h levels and the H4Hers will be able to find each other. Everyone wins. Trying to ban it or block it is a futile exercise and TBH, h4h isn't even that big of an issue, it's the constant spamming etc that goes with it that is the problem, so being able to mask that away by pointing h4hers at each other and keeping them away from the rest of us is, as far as I'm concerned, the most practical and most effective "solution".

2010-05-20 19:00:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

Thanks thi for taking your time on writing your post!

You said some really good things. I am pretty sick of the "cool" pages, it's just a bunch of crappy levels not letting the good levels get noticed. I've played some pretty good levels not getting noticed because of these spammers (x3-power, stephanie_ravens, kaskarato, Clay big guns, clay_20_november and many more). I hope they fix this in LBP 2 so I can actually enjoy playing LBP. I would also know why the spammers are spamming, do they want us to leave LBP?, but the most truly reason is hearts. They get usually from 100 to 200 author hearts a in 12 hours for copying or making a level in 5 minutes when some people work for weeks for a good level that barely get noticed. And the spam levels get thousands of plays in some hours. And that level that took weeks to make will get 1000 of plays in 1 week.
So yeah, you see my opinion on this... I don't want to get mad or so but, Can you just leave the cool pages, we can fix this if you (the spammers) stop spamming the cool pages for once and let it be as it was back in early 2009 when I got LBP. When I enjoyed the game and played it because it was fun....
And that "blocklist" that mistervista mentioned would be great for LBP2!

2010-05-20 19:04:00

Author:
Alec

Posts: 3871

I still think the best way to improve the cool pages is to limit the number of times a level can be bumped to the top. 5 per day. That way publish spamming means nothing. Spammed levels stick because they have so much visibility and thus get increased plays. Reducing the visibility of the spammers stops them actually being there through spam alone and stops them from sticking. AFter that, a reduction in the weighting of repeat plays by individuals would reduce the emphasis on simple, quick-fix survivals and level out the field.

Also, is there any need to mention people by name, especially when some of them are members of this forum. The names of the people you consider to be prime culprits have absolutely zero bearing on the actual concept of what is wrong with cool pages. Play nicely children

2010-05-20 19:16:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

Filters, filters. It's harder to stop them making their fodder than just not to look at it, sweep it under the carpet or not.

2010-05-20 19:24:00

Author:
Unknown User

Hey thank you all for your interesting answers im glad you appreciate my thread

@crazealec. wow now that you say it i completely forgot about level copying too, it's also a huge problem in LBP, i mean how many times have i seen the levels "Level that plays itself" by centurion24 and others on page 1 by different creators and all getting thousands of plays? Maybe MM should take away the "copy fonction" since great levels will be stolen and replace it with some sort of a new function that allows you to see how the level is made but you shouldn't be able to publish it, neither be able to edit it or capture stuff in it.

@rtm: Yeah i know that h4h will never be completely banned since they will come up with something else. But i think they could reduce the motivation for them actually even doing H4H by taking away the "share" trophy wich requieres a certain ammount of hearts. That will not eliminate h4h but it will reduce it alot. The ones left are the ones that just want hearts to get famous, but they will probably stop because when have you ever seen someone getting famous because of h4h? And even if they dont stop h4h wont really be a problem anymore.

But i dont think that MM will support and advertise H4H by making a "h4h" search function were h4hers will find each other, they may probably just make h4h even more famous lol

And yeah i completely agree. The ideal solution in my opinion is that if they'd reduce spamming by limiting "bumping", plus not allowing restarts to count as plays anymore, publish spamming means nothing anymore and we will see only deserving levels on the cool levels.

btw @mistervista: good idea about the blacklist

2010-05-20 19:46:00

Author:
thi766

Posts: 135

Maybe MM should take away the "copy fonction" since great levels will be stolen and replace it with some sort of a new function that allows you to see how the level is made but you shouldn't be able to publish it, neither be able to edit it or capture stuff in it.
Yeah that would be great, comphermc suggested something like a "watchable" function that you can copy the level but not publish or capture stuff. But still capture things in levels is good if someone, maybe, have made some new sort of logic and he makes a level for the community to copy and capture the logic..(like the logicpack)

Still if there was some way to stop the spammers. Maybe if you could only have 1 level at once on for every author on the cool pages at the same time. :tophat:

2010-05-20 19:54:00

Author:
Alec

Posts: 3871

Have a " edditors choice " were quality gives the levels a spot there. And populair levels are not on the mainpage ?

2010-05-20 20:57:00

Author:
Unknown User

Yeah a few months after lbp released MM actually featured the MM picks on the info moon, i never understood why they stopped this since it would always give at least a few playable levels that can be easily accessed from the pod. That and it also gave the MM picks more prestige since they are garanteed to get alot of recognision... hope they make something like that again in lbp2 but probably not

2010-05-21 16:52:00

Author:
thi766

Posts: 135

As a 15 year old adolescent creator with a mental age of about...20, I am embarassed by creators like these. I put work into my levels, and I am striving to improve my levels, yet in one year, my average play count on my levels is around 30-50. Way to step away from the crowd here but, like anyone over the age of 10, I am sick to the teeth of the abundance of Shark survival levels on the "cool" pages. I remain resolute in my creating, I live in hope that MM stick theirselves out to help the better creators out there.

2010-05-21 18:10:00

Author:
The Gentleman

Posts: 360

2010-05-21 18:17:00

Author:
mistervista

Posts: 2210

Also, is there any need to mention people by name, especially when some of them are members of this forum. The names of the people you consider to be prime culprits have absolutely zero bearing on the actual concept of what is wrong with cool pages. Play nicely children

I don't know which are members of this forum - but I have one big question about these spammers.

Why? Why keep doing it?

I can only assume they are trying to ruin LBP. It can't be for plays, or hearts, or a trophy - they have enough - so why?

I went to the Cool pages last night to look around - and these people each had several levels through the Cool pages. I just don't get it. They've been doing it for months.

I got no enjoyment sifting through the Cool pages - only annoyed and bummed out. I can only assume this was their intent - to that end, I say, "Job well done". You won.

2010-05-22 19:52:00

Author:
CYMBOL

Posts: 1230

What an excellent thread. I very much agree with this issues. I am one of those creators that made an RPG level with little over 200 speech boxes that takes about half an hr to beat if you read everything and i've gotten comments about it being too much talking. Fortunately those comments are in the minority and i've received mostly praise and still have 4 star rating, but it could drop if it's kids that stumble upon the level instead of the more serious players. Then the rating will drop and not even the serious players will give it a chance.

If we had a good genre search engine then those that are interested in a lot of dialog will be the ones playing the level and hopefully will give it a deserving rating. I really hope they do that.

I also hope they don't have a Hearts trophy but i'm sure MM is aware of the issue and won't do it since even the MGS levels made fun of the issue of spamming levels to receive hearts.

2010-05-22 23:43:00

Author:
Senkoy

Posts: 9

I don't know which are members of this forum - but I have one big question about these spammers.

Why? Why keep doing it?

I can only assume they are trying to ruin LBP. It can't be for plays, or hearts, or a trophy - they have enough - so why?

They probably think that they don't have enough. They want more hearts and plays because, to their mind, more is more. Now for the people who are actually trolling and just running around abusing other people, they are just trying to hurt others, but I don't think that simple level spamming is based upon anything malicious. Selfish maybe, inconsiderate certainly, but not particularly malicious.

2010-05-23 14:00:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

But just to reduce it even defenitely, the word H4H and "heart for heart" and all similar words should be censored and levels containing this words in the level title should be getting a error message when they are trying to be published.

I don't think that would work. They would probably just rename it loveforlove or h-4-h or something.

2010-05-23 14:17:00

Author:
lifeiscrapislife

Posts: 396

I totally agree with u. the cool levels page is just full of junk like bomb survivals and shark survivals. i personally have made a very cool and original jet fighter mini game but the amount of people that have played it is only 150, even though it is really good and has a good heart to play ratio. i definitely agree that in lbp 2 there should be a better organization of the levels as the cool levels page is a complete failure. also maybe they should have a more accurate star rating system with more stars and it also takes a perfect average and does not just round it to the nearest star.

Akaash1 - plz try out my fighter jet challenge level

2010-05-23 14:20:00

Author:
Unknown User

Well, Mm is kinda getting rid of the cool page problem. Well, not really there kinda just masking it from view. They have the feature, kinda like youtube in LBP2, the lvls shown on the cool page are lvls recommended for you by the game, based on what you have played before. Ex. You play action/adventure lvls, If you go to cool pages, you'll find all types of action/adventure lvls in LBP2

2010-05-23 15:21:00

Author:
Maxi

Posts: 1176

The opening post is exactly what my and CCubagge are vouching for since forever...

So I guess I agree.
I would also had that the game would need an interface overhaul. There should be level suggestions everywhere when you play. I mean, you need easy access and suggestion everywhere like on Youtube. And the game should focus more the player's profiles. It's the people that need to connect together, write themselves messages, etc. The game should be a "little big facebook" if you get what I mean. Trying to create a real sub-society of game making and sharing.

... Hopefully LBP.me will be good at that for LBP2. Sad that it's probably not accessing in-game though. Kinda destroy the point.

2010-05-23 16:36:00

Author:
RangerZero

Posts: 3901

I don't know which are members of this forum - but I have one big question about these spammers.

Why? Why keep doing it?

I can only assume they are trying to ruin LBP. It can't be for plays, or hearts, or a trophy - they have enough - so why

One on here is Stephanie Ravens and I asked her that very question. Her reply on my profile page was " It's a hobby ".

2010-05-23 19:49:00

Author:
mistervista

Posts: 2210

2010-05-23 20:10:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

My point to EASE the problem since it doesn't have a solution and it's wretched to put people in ghettos and blacklist them is this.
You can't rate a level if you don't accomplish some tasks.
First, having at least a level published.
Secondly and most important, you must complete the level.
If you are forced to play a level till the end, if you have to put time in playing the levels, you won't spam ad votes just for the bad sake of doing it.

Yeah i agree, people should only be able to rate after they finished the level, that way they will rate the quality of the overall level and not just the part until they may have left/given up. Many underrated levels will get up in ratings i believe.
However think i can see some creators exploiting this system by placing no scoreboard in the level, so i don't know if that's right

2010-05-23 20:24:00

Author:
thi766

Posts: 135

I need arrived for a 8000 hearts because is my dream, ok but wait please and I stop for published my lvls.

CUT AND PASTE MY MENSSAGE

2010-05-23 22:36:00

Author:
kaskaroto

Posts: 1

Okay, quick question, what about the re-publishing technique people use to get their levels on the cool pages? that should still be there so other creators that's serious about their lvl could get their lvl on the cool pages, as opposed to other creators that made just some thrown together in 5 minutes "platformer" with falling bombs out of the sky...

2010-05-24 00:14:00

Author:
wolverine_2008

Posts: 304

I thought about only rating a level if you completed thing but i don't know if that could work. What if you play an awful level that "breaks" and you can't complete it? You want to let the world know what an awful level it is but you can't beat it, which is part of the reason it's so bad. It could also be exploited. Someone makes a level with a scoreboard as soon as you start. Has a friend play it and give it a 5* rating. Then republishes by making it impossible to beat. No one will be able to rate it and will have a perfect rating, keeping it in the highest rated page forever or until it's removed by MM themselves. Not sure this could work.

2010-05-24 00:35:00

Author:
Senkoy

Posts: 9

Mm-hm. Though there are some brilliant kid creators out there, many have tainted the cool pages (Though I find some good levels every now and then).
Of course, many would leave the game if some things were filtered, lowering Mm funds. I've been thinking of a way to filter levels for individual creators- for example, a way to filter levels with specific words in their names. This way, each player can play the levels they want to play and see the boring c*** out of the way.

2010-05-24 00:37:00

Author:
JspOt

Posts: 3607

Something should be done about one author having so many levels on cool pages at once too... Like maybe you can only have 1 level on cool pages at a time? Once the level spammers have got one level up there they just use that levels publicity to promote their other levels, and by republishing old levels as new again they can basically get multiple levels on cool pages 1 indefinitely... It's such a broken system

2010-05-24 02:55:00

Author:
Duffluc

Posts: 402

A level that can't be rated won't climb the leaderboard.
If the quality of the level will be counted in a heart/completed walkthroughs ratio, we will have a good system.

2010-05-24 06:51:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

2010-05-24 17:10:00

Author:
RangerZero

Posts: 3901

Well said young man. I wish more young creators thought like you.

Ooh, I'm 14 (15 soon) and I also hate half of the LBP community for levels beyond banning for. I hope my levels aren't considered as spam (shameless adverting

)

Cooperation Caves (x2) is the most worth trying

2010-05-24 17:48:00

Author:
Unknown User

I need arrived for a 8000 hearts because is my dream, ok but wait please and I stop for published my lvls.

CUT AND PASTE MY MENSSAGE

...look at those "words"...
HOW DID HE FIND HIS WAY HERE?
Poor LBPC logo... if he dares to have them in... the value will be lost forever.
And please... create for YOURSELF instead of 8000 hearts you need arrived to... whatever that means... we dont mind you stop for published your levels, now do we?

2010-05-24 17:51:00

Author:
Unknown User

They probably think that they don't have enough. They want more hearts and plays because, to their mind, more is more. Now for the people who are actually trolling and just running around abusing other people, they are just trying to hurt others, but I don't think that simple level spamming is based upon anything malicious. Selfish maybe, inconsiderate certainly, but not particularly malicious.

One on here is Stephanie Ravens and I asked her that very question. Her reply on my profile page was " It's a hobby ".

Well, at this point, I see them all as simply being malicious. A few months ago, when this all started, I could them simply wanting to have their names known, etc.

But if you read the comments on their levels, people are all over them saying to stop copying, that they are ruining the cool pages, stop spamming, etc. etc. They delete some comments.

So, when you know you are upsetting people (the LBP community) and frustrating people - why continue?

At this point, I consider their action malicious, and really, these people sicken me and really suck out the enjoyment of the game. It's very sad.

2010-05-24 18:38:00

Author:
CYMBOL

Posts: 1230

Have the cools page as somethign secondary, and then have the first level menue you come to being based on quality as opposed of popularity, And only update it every 2 weeks. This means thoose levesl will get alot of plays/hearts. And other people that want to get alot of plays has to make an extremly good level to get there. Of course cool levels should still be there but as something secondary.

In this case you would promote levels that has alot of work in them, and that are original. It will be alot harder to spend 5 minutes on a level and get it populair. Allso divide the levels into genras so that however wants a bomb survival, well they bought the game to so they can have it. But if you want a RPG or a minigame or a plattformer or a boss level then you can get them quickly...

2010-05-24 18:49:00

Author:
Unknown User

But if you read the comments on their levels, people are all over them saying to stop copying, that they are ruining the cool pages, stop spamming, etc. etc. They delete some comments.

So, when you know you are upsetting people (the LBP community) and frustrating people - why continue?

I'm sure the same could be said about the people effectively trolling them through level comments... I got abuse for my level after it got a little bit of publicity, should I take it down because someone told me it was unworthy? That it upset them and they were annoyed at having played it? Nah. Everyone has the right to publish whatever they want (assuming it's within the EULA, and I'm pretty lenient on that as well). The issue is systemic, and attempting to make pariahs out of specific individuals (out of thousands who also follow such behaviour), because they don't agree with you, is a far more malicious action than a bit of spam as far as I'm concerned.

have the first level menue you come to being based on quality as opposed of popularity

Now where did I put the quality-ometer that can detect all these levels of quality that are being published

2010-05-24 19:02:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

I'm sure the same could be said about the people effectively trolling them through level comments...

When you have a "community" asking you to stop the behavior - I don't see it as "trolling". People are upset, not sure what else you would expect them to do, except what they are doing now - leaving the game. Very sad.

I got abuse for my level after it got a little bit of publicity, should I take it down because someone told me it was unworthy? That it upset them and they were annoyed at having played it? Nah.

I'm really not sure what abuse you got - did you abuse the system? I'm not sure how people posting that you didn't deserve praise for your level fits the topic of people spamming the Cool Pages. I know some folks here want only "quality" levels on Cool Pages - but I agree with you - quality is subjective. Besides, that is what the ratings system is for (whether that system does what it's intended to do is a different discussion).

Everyone has the right to publish whatever they want (assuming it's within the EULA, and I'm pretty lenient on that as well).

They do and I agree - I think what most people are complaining about is the massive Spam campaign these folks have orchestrated on the Cool Pages.

The issue is systemic, and attempting to make pariahs out of specific individuals (out of thousands who also follow such behaviour), because they don't agree with you, is a far more malicious action than a bit of spam as far as I'm concerned.

Well, I haven't mentioned anyone by name - as for making a pariah out of them, they did that to themselves as a result of their actions (greed, fame - whatever the reason is). The fact that most LBP community sites know their names and have nothing but discontent - should tell you the scale of bad feelings they are injecting.

As I said, I was merely asking the questions, "Why do they do it"? They must know by now that it is upsetting people, so why continue?

Now where did I put the quality-ometer that can detect all these levels of quality that are being published

I always wondered why MM stopped spotlighing levels. They started to do that early on - and then quickly stopped. Is there a place that Crown Winners are announced for all these contests? I think MM themselves (or a chosen team) need to do a better job of promoting the community (like they did when the game started).

2010-05-25 06:06:00

Author:
CYMBOL

Posts: 1230

Btw, MM could quickly curb this whole "spamming issue) - simply make an update that a PSN can only have one level at a time on Cool Pages. No one needs more than one at a time - that's what Key Links are for.

2010-05-25 06:09:00

Author:
CYMBOL

Posts: 1230

I think all new features of LBP2 will be worth nothing if MM will not totally rebuild their network organization, because LBP is a network game!

2010-05-25 13:02:00

Author:
Unknown User

I think what most people are complaining about is the massive Spam campaign these folks have orchestrated on the Cool Pages. And this is where I think you are wrong. Or at least wrong in where you place blame. The vast majority of creators use the system to their advantage, either by spam publishing for visibility, or by keeping it off cool pages completely to bias their ratings vs the rest of the community. Yes, some people take this to unusual extremes, but the issues here are not to do with the people in question, but to do with the system that actively rewards those who go out of their way to gain the upper hand. MM basically said to us, "the more you spam, the more attention you'll get". That is why I call this a systemic problem and no amount of hating on individuals (of which there are thousands), will improve anything. Indeed, hating on individuals is almost certainly counterproductive, because to those that really crave attention, infamy is better than nothing

I certainly don't blame them for people leaving the game. If you are too lazy to look beyond cool pages for levels to play then so be it.

Btw, MM could quickly curb this whole "spamming issue) - simply make an update that a PSN can only have one level at a time on Cool Pages. No one needs more than one at a time - that's what Key Links are for. This would fix nothing, people would use sub / alt accounts if they wanted and a hundred people could easily clog most of the cool pages with republish spam on a single level each.

I expect a complete revamp to be coming in the sequel, as it would be a massive selling point for people to move forward. There still needs to be an automated "cool levels" style system, however, hopefully MM are aware of what causes the primary issues and will be addressing them. This is why it's important to attach blame for the state of cool pages on the algorithm, not the individuals using it.

2010-05-25 13:23:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

2010-05-25 14:09:00

Author:
Unknown User

And this is where I think you are wrong. Or at least wrong in where you place blame. The vast majority of creators use the system to their advantage, either by spam publishing for visibility, or by keeping it off cool pages completely to bias their ratings vs the rest of the community. Yes, some people take this to unusual extremes, but the issues here are not to do with the people in question, but to do with the system that actively rewards those who go out of their way to gain the upper hand.

I think you are too easily brushing aside the fact that there are a few individuals who have taken it too far. How can I be certain that they have taken it "too far" compared to others in the community? - Everyone in the community know their names - and not because of their great creations.

I understand that people have to republish to get/keep their level on the Cool pages and hope it "sticks" - but I'm referring to the few folks that clog the cool pages - and who have not stopped, and despite the constant complaints - seem to have no intention of stopping anytime soon.

To me, that's just plain rude.

I certainly don't blame them for people leaving the game. If you are too lazy to look beyond cool pages for levels to play then so be it.

I think Creators are more upset then players (I was referring to Creators leaving the game - not players). And again, I think you are being too dismissive of the poor appearance this give to anyone new (players/creators) to LBP. It is a glaring wart on the LBP community.

This would fix nothing, people would use sub / alt accounts if they wanted and a hundred people could easily clog most of the cool pages with republish spam on a single level each.

Well, it would at least make it harder for them to clog the Cool pages. Would it stop them - perhaps not, but it would make it a hassle to keep up with.

I expect a complete revamp to be coming in the sequel, as it would be a massive selling point for people to move forward. There still needs to be an automated "cool levels" style system, however, hopefully MM are aware of what causes the primary issues and will be addressing them. This is why it's important to attach blame for the state of cool pages on the algorithm, not the individuals using it.

I agree - I'm sure MM knows - since they are revamping it - but I don't think you can blame people for listing specific names - they present themselves as the perfect examples of what is wrong with the LBP Cool pages. And if they somehow get a kick out of seeing their names listed here, that only goes to prove my point that at this point, they are most certainly only doing it to be malicious.

Thanks for the civil conversation. I think I'm done. Please feel free to leave your final thoughts if you want. But I think I won't bother posting in this thread anymore so that I don't clog it. I've given my two cents.

2010-05-25 22:39:00

Author:
CYMBOL

Posts: 1230

Rating only if you reach the scoreboard is an horrible idea...

The solution to the rating is simple:

Do not force it EVER + put it 2-3 menu pages deep. This way it would weed out most bad ratings. People would not rate in frustration as easily because they had to consciously search for the rating page. Kids wouldn't rate hazardeouly either since the main path of the menus would not pass through the rating step.
Concious gamers and peopel that care about rating WILL take the time to go rate your level.

This is an excellent idea. People shouldn't be forced to rate the levels.

Also someone mentioned a level's quality can be measured by it's hearts to plays ratio, but you can play a level many times but only heart it once. If a level has great replay value you might play it many times but can only heart it once. This will throw off the ratio even though you playing it more means it's an even better level, so we can't really judge a level on it's hearts/plays ratio.

2010-05-27 08:48:00

Author:
Senkoy

Posts: 9

Also someone mentioned a level's quality can be measured by it's hearts to plays ratio, but you can play a level many times but only heart it once. If a level has great replay value you might play it many times but can only heart it once. This will throw off the ratio even though you playing it more means it's an even better level, so we can't really judge a level on it's hearts/plays ratio.

Which is why I want to see a (hearts : unique players) value and a replays value (with diminishing returns, to prevent the survival levels dominating) taken into account along with a stars rating (assuming that the ratings system is slightly fixed in the way rangerzero promotes).

These three values are probably the most significant factors that I can think of (with replay less so over the other two I guess). Also note that none of these three values is really heavily influenced by time so could be incorporated well into all searching in game, not just the cool levels 7 days period. Obviously as we are looking at average values in those, it's much harder to abuse with spam... your averages don't go up by having more people play them. The number of players can be taken into account to solidify the confidence in the averages though (average over larger sample size is more accurate).

Obviously there are various other factors that should be brought in, including personalisation (you liked this level. Other people who liked this level also liked....) etc.

2010-05-27 10:39:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

M pretty happy that the new page is better suited to you. I hated seeing bomb survivals and shark ones.
It is a bit sad people have h4h, f4f is a much better idea. But its cause of the achievements.

One option id like to see is that you can play some rando. Old level not many people have played, you can find some real gems time forgot.

2010-05-27 11:21:00

Author:
Snappyguy

Posts: 710

This is an excellent idea. People shouldn't be forced to rate the levels.

Also someone mentioned a level's quality can be measured by it's hearts to plays ratio, but you can play a level many times but only heart it once. If a level has great replay value you might play it many times but can only heart it once. This will throw off the ratio even though you playing it more means it's an even better level, so we can't really judge a level on it's hearts/plays ratio.

I know you weren't proposing multiple hearts (and if you were, read this), but maybe it's just good.
At the moment you yourself can heart your OWN levels. Multiple hearts from one person to one level... who wouldn't have 100.000 heartz after that?
And if you couldn't heart yourself? The birth of 100.000 H 4 100.000 H. Yay. Don't make it happen!

2010-05-27 18:58:00

Author:
Unknown User

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