I've said multiple times across threads like these that the main issues with mapping and modding right now are threefold. They all interact with one another and they all influence eachother, and as of right now there are things being done to alleviate this so I'm actually pretty happy so I don't know why I'm ranting someone please stop me:
[Qualification]
The qualification system, as it stands, is overly punishing and discourages creativity by causing frustration and distress to mappers and modders in the name of subjective quality standards.
Everyone is aware of "the bullshit shuffle" - that desperate clambering a mapper does during qualification to deny any and all changes because even the slightest applied change would require a complete reset of at least 8 days of progress (7 qualification days and 24 hours for bubble->qualify), as well as at minimum calling back the initial qualifying BNs, or needing to replace them in the worst case.
This kind of thing isn't really bad when someone can just say "Don't make mistakes, then!" but then the subjective nature of quality and what constitutes it kicks in - people can and will argue about anything, so over time people will find the "least arguable" way to map just to avoid any potential backlash - so to do so, it needs to be simple (so it cannot be misunderstood), it needs to have a clean aesthetic (so people don't have 'omg trigger' mod comments), and it needs to be comfortable to play (so players cannot point out something as "bad for play"). By not-so-sheer coincidence, this style also allows for abnormally high PP results.
How do we fix this?
A system in which a qualified map could be modified during qualification without resetting the duration or requiring a refresh on the icon would do a lot to help this - it would be up to the QAT to determine whether a map's changes were significant enough to warrant a DQ to reset the map's progress. Mappers want to be special, they want to be more interesting, but it's just not worth the added stress and frustration.
[Modding Styles]
This entire point is easily thrown away by people who disagree with me by saying "Shiirn just salty he doesn't pass BN tests", but hear me out here.
Every single BN in the past two years has become so by passing a test designed to test their ability to mod a map. Sounds simple, right? But what constitutes modding? Are we supposed to look at the consistency of a map? At how it's made? At how clean it is? This ties in heavily with the "Golden Three" outlined in point #1 - "Simple, Clean, Comfortable". Modding focuses on these points because they're the most obvious things to look for.
The BN test and other styles of modding came into being because of a handful of deceptively tantalizing thoughts - "If a change makes a map more comfortable to play, it must be a good change" - "If a change makes a map look better, it must be a positive change" - "If a change makes a map more easy to understand, it must be a smart change" - all of these statements are very seductive, but as explained above, they are far too limiting and dampen people's creative potential by shackling their experimentation.
Simply put, it caused people to overspecialize in a specific mapping mindset that, when summarized or not looked at too deeply, "Could Not Possibly Be Bad". And therein lies the failure of this game's community process: Someone took a very short-sighted approach and assumed that short-term benefits must equate into long-term prosperity, that they thought that "Making things better by force will help everyone become smarter", without realizing that people improve by making mistakes, by fucking up and learning from it, by doing weird shit until they figure out something that works, instead of being told and smacked down early on in their modding/mapping career that "That's Just Not How Things Are Done"
How do we fix this?
Kind of already being done. People are realizing that maybe not all is at peace and that maybe Soylent Green Tastes Funnily Like People, and the BN test has been abolished so with those two factors this will likely fix itself on its own given time.
[Performance Points]
Probox did a nice boxy rant on this that covers pretty much everything so ima just leave that there.
The qualification system, as it stands, is overly punishing and discourages creativity by causing frustration and distress to mappers and modders in the name of subjective quality standards.
Everyone is aware of "the bullshit shuffle" - that desperate clambering a mapper does during qualification to deny any and all changes because even the slightest applied change would require a complete reset of at least 8 days of progress (7 qualification days and 24 hours for bubble->qualify), as well as at minimum calling back the initial qualifying BNs, or needing to replace them in the worst case.
This kind of thing isn't really bad when someone can just say "Don't make mistakes, then!" but then the subjective nature of quality and what constitutes it kicks in - people can and will argue about anything, so over time people will find the "least arguable" way to map just to avoid any potential backlash - so to do so, it needs to be simple (so it cannot be misunderstood), it needs to have a clean aesthetic (so people don't have 'omg trigger' mod comments), and it needs to be comfortable to play (so players cannot point out something as "bad for play"). By not-so-sheer coincidence, this style also allows for abnormally high PP results.
How do we fix this?
A system in which a qualified map could be modified during qualification without resetting the duration or requiring a refresh on the icon would do a lot to help this - it would be up to the QAT to determine whether a map's changes were significant enough to warrant a DQ to reset the map's progress. Mappers want to be special, they want to be more interesting, but it's just not worth the added stress and frustration.
This entire point is easily thrown away by people who disagree with me by saying "Shiirn just salty he doesn't pass BN tests", but hear me out here.
Every single BN in the past two years has become so by passing a test designed to test their ability to mod a map. Sounds simple, right? But what constitutes modding? Are we supposed to look at the consistency of a map? At how it's made? At how clean it is? This ties in heavily with the "Golden Three" outlined in point #1 - "Simple, Clean, Comfortable". Modding focuses on these points because they're the most obvious things to look for.
The BN test and other styles of modding came into being because of a handful of deceptively tantalizing thoughts - "If a change makes a map more comfortable to play, it must be a good change" - "If a change makes a map look better, it must be a positive change" - "If a change makes a map more easy to understand, it must be a smart change" - all of these statements are very seductive, but as explained above, they are far too limiting and dampen people's creative potential by shackling their experimentation.
Simply put, it caused people to overspecialize in a specific mapping mindset that, when summarized or not looked at too deeply, "Could Not Possibly Be Bad". And therein lies the failure of this game's community process: Someone took a very short-sighted approach and assumed that short-term benefits must equate into long-term prosperity, that they thought that "Making things better by force will help everyone become smarter", without realizing that people improve by making mistakes, by fucking up and learning from it, by doing weird shit until they figure out something that works, instead of being told and smacked down early on in their modding/mapping career that "That's Just Not How Things Are Done"
How do we fix this?
Kind of already being done. People are realizing that maybe not all is at peace and that maybe Soylent Green Tastes Funnily Like People, and the BN test has been abolished so with those two factors this will likely fix itself on its own given time.
Probox did a nice boxy rant on this that covers pretty much everything so ima just leave that there.