haha find me people that are actually willing to mod a shitload of maps consistently for more than a month without either doing a bunch of shit mods or giving up
or without getting silenced every week Anyways, back to the real story. . .
Don't we already have some shit like this planned? You know, the new modding system? The one where you're supposed to like be able to get a randomly assigned map and if three skilled enough people say it's good then it goes to like some place and then it sits there for a week and then like oh yay its ranked woohoo yay huehue.
But speaking in the context of the current modding system.
This is going to be jumbled as I think of points. Sorry about that
First, tell me 100 people that would be fit for BAT. These are people that have unbiased opinions of mapping, whom are dedicated to modding maps and have a high enough skill of modding to distinguish issues that many normal player modders cannot, and whom also have the leadership ability to act as a moderator. Hell, not even everyone in the BAT is fit to be a BAT, haha. And I'm not just trying to be some liberalistic "haha bats are the very stupid haha wow id do better hehe :-)), like, it's notable.
Secondly, 2007 mapping/modding is completely different than 2014. The emphasis of 2007 modding was very much "Is there any major gamebreaking problems, or big things that need to be changed." while in 2014, it's "Are there any small details that could be fixed" Having a shitload of BAT mods would be super fun, but most mods would be huge and end up wasting the time of BATs when they could be looking at maps that, instead of having a high star priority, have a high number of quality mods that ensure the map is top quality.
Thirdly, the biggest problem I have with this statement is that modding will be based off star priority. Yeah, cool, I get it, Star Priority is important, but then you'll run into a lot of maps that still need player modding (Mostly newer mappers), or maps that are star spammed to getting free BAT mods. Star Priority can be a somewhat accurate representation of the amount of viewers a mapper has had for his/her map, but not so much for the quality and qualifications for a BAT, whom in the 2014 modding criteria, acts as an approver and a final judgement.
Fourth, why does a nuke really matter? If a map is bad, why bother a BAT with it? Just let the player modders deal with it. If it still sucks after forever, they don't get a BAT mod. Like, yeah, the nuke was used a lot more in the past, but it's sort of a really pointless thing. Especially if you want to build a model of efficiency, it's silly to implement the nuke as something that should be used more often. It's also really against the sort of liberalistic ideals that are prevelant in modding, where it's like "everyone gets a mod everyone gets a chance everyone gets things ranked ;wwww;!!!!" when you have things that tell people their map sucks.
Fifth, something I've learned from modding as much as I have is that not everyone really has the motivation to care about their map. They'll just make a map because "Oh yeah it'll be cool to be a mapper", and then drop the map after getting a few mods (It mostly happens with mappers who need to apply a lot of changes to their map). Similar to point 4, it really hurts the efficiency to have a system where "everyone gets a BAT mod" when you have a LOT of people like this.
Sixth, why do bad quality maps deserve BAT mods? I know it sounds dickish, but you have to look at the function the BAT team has. If the BAT team functioned more like the MAT did (and when I mean did, I mean like, when it first started), then yeah, there should be an availibility of modders labeled as skilled enough to help you with your map. But the BAT team doesn't function like that, nor will it ever function like that in the current system. Instead, they are approvers. A final destination, if you will.
Think of it like this. In my child development class, we reviewed the concept of "Screens". This is a concept that people of high status have a number of people in which can filter out everyone who wants to see them, so only the most important are able to talk to them. That's sort of how the BAT works. All of the pending maps come in wanting to be seen by a BAT, they get screened out by the secretary, and the best move on. Then the assistant screens out some more, and the best goes through. it goes on for however long until the best get to see the head honcho, or BAT. This system works best mostly because BATs simply don't have enough time to deal with everything, and they need to get the best work done possible to fufill their job as an approver.
plus efficiency and yadda yadda yadda.
Congratulations. You unlocked the CDFA Soapbox. If I can speak for a bit.
A better modding system isn't so much by having more and more BATs, but by having a few things
1) Actually active BATs
2) More player modders to filter through maps and suggest maps to BATs
3) Direction onto what to mod and what not to mod for BATs
There's a good half of the BATs on the team usually that I know I can't ask for mods, because they won't mod anything, nor do they really have any intentions of doing it. Quanitity of BATS doesn't help when there's no quantity of mods. I'm not even talking about those who don't take requests, just those who mod like maybe once a month. Sure, there's a lot, but how many of them are actually taking the initiative to mod? I understand there's life to deal with, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices to make things works, and sometimes, you'll have to step down to deal with life, and then pick up when things get better.
Secondly, how many players actively mod? When I mean actively, I mean like, not just for a month while the subject of a queue is super cool, but like, consistently for months and years, at a high quality? I can count the number on my hands. A lot of player modders will only mod for a little bit, mod just for some kudosu so they can boost up their map, or they just bitch about modding in irc without ever actually modding. I've always found it silly how people can expect modders to jump on their maps, when they aren't even modding themselves. It's silly. That's why I stopped asking for mods on my maps, because I stopped modding. I find it completely wrong to expect people to do something for you and give you nothing in return. Nobody is required to look at your map, and a mod is an earned priviledge, not a right. You are not required to have a mod, you have to earn it. If mappers could spend more time modding, we'd have higher quality maps, which can be sent to BATs to look at, instead of just complaining that BATs aren't looking at my map that got about 2 mods from xxXxxPusieronSlayerxxXx and xHinata-Chan23222 and a shitload of kudosu stars. Player mods are just as important as BAT mods.
Thirdly, a pointing out of what BATs should mod is super important. I used a system like this with a few BATs, and I noticed a significant increase in the quality of maps that came out, just because I modded some maps and pointed it to the direction of a BAT.
I'm too lazy to write more, lol. There's a lot more points I wanna say but honestly I'm not gonna write a giant ass essay about this shit. Just remember that BATs aren't everything. This is coming from the guy who can barely get mods at all, if there's any accusation of bias. My 20 ranked maps have been paired with a shitload of graved maps and maps that I'm still trying to get ranked, getting maybe 1 player mod a month because that's all I can manage to get.
Im fucking baked.