are solvable puzzles necessary?
I don't even see any fun or difficulty in non-glitchy but "bizarre" maneuvers, like based in timers, quick sequences in a short time, or very accurate angles of a rotating reflector cube while it is coming out and getting into 2 floor portals!
I mean difficulty in the sense of squeezing your brain to find the unique logical sequence of steps that will allow you to get to the exit... have you played Mevious PTI maps? damn, those are really puzzles!! They are so challenging because each takes you quite a while to find out what to do, the solution is not easy to find at a first sight, indeed, even when those maps are ridiculously small, you have to explore around even hours in some of them to figure out what to do and in which order.
Or Chander's maps... everything there is FAIR, it's only that he likes to find awesome new ways of playing with the puzzle elements...
Come on! let's try all to make good puzzles!
Personally I wouldn't play such a map, but as long as it's clearly labelled as such I don't see a problem with its existence; I'm sure there would be a market for it, albeit a limited one. Your map's description says 'This map is for people who can reportal, exfu glitch, and cube hop', which I think is fine. It's hardly your fault if I download it anyway then get pissed off about needing to do those things....
My maps: Double Bill / Jam / Oval Window / Gymnasium / Gymnasium Part 2 / Minimalism (collection) / Resolution
All feedback welcome!
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Thank you for that insight. I'm glad everyone here on TWP is so polite and understanding... and junk.
I don't even see any fun or difficulty in non-glitchy but "bizarre" maneuvers, like based in timers, quick sequences in a short time, or very accurate angles of a rotating reflector cube while it is coming out and getting into 2 floor portals!
I mean difficulty in the sense of squeezing your brain to find the unique logical sequence of steps that will allow you to get to the exit... have you played Mevious PTI maps? damn, those are really puzzles!! They are so challenging because each takes you quite a while to find out what to do, the solution is not easy to find at a first sight, indeed, even when those maps are ridiculously small, you have to explore around even hours in some of them to figure out what to do and in which order.
Or Chander's maps... everything there is FAIR, it's only that he likes to find awesome new ways of playing with the puzzle elements...
Come on! let's try all to make good puzzles!
Ah yes of course. I wasn't arguing in favor of maps requiring ninja tricks. I'm completely in favor of presenting everything to the player and let him/her figure it out - a "fair-play" puzzle.
But there will still be people who won't like and will be frustrated by fair-play puzzles with high (logical) difficulty, maybe because they don't like over-working their brains (I'm not implying anything as to intelligence here, just that some people play for fun and may not enjoy overthinking)
So my question : would it be fair for those who don't enjoy such maps to downrate them, even if the nature of the maps is clearly mentioned in the description, just because it's not their idea of fun?
I really don't think so...
Well:
1/5 why was this even uploaded
2/5 cute you tried to map
3/5 good but needs improvements.
4/5 great
5/5 excellent.
Because I think portal 2 is a puzzle game. A map that's based around glitches could be a 1/5 "why was this even uploaded? It's not a puzzle, that's what the game is about."
3/5 is also a possible rating, "good but it needs improvements (it should be fixed so it can be solved without bugs)".
If I don't like a game I can still rate it. For example I could write a review about call of duty and conclude that I don't like the game because I don't like gameplay mechanics. Would a 5/10 rating from me be worse then someone who really likes the gameplay mechanics and give it an 9/10? I don't think so 
Fair point. But again, I'm not at all talking about maps that use glitches, only the ones that are difficult puzzles and require various portal mechanics to solve.
I'm just curious as to what position would those people take who don't particularly enjoy the latter type of puzzles...
I'm not contesting for maps that exclusively require players to exploit certain properties of the source-engine, since then in essence they're no longer Portal 2 maps, merely maps made to run in the source engine.
I'm just curious as to what position would those people take who don't particularly enjoy the latter type of puzzles...
I'm not contesting for maps that exclusively require players to exploit certain properties of the source-engine, since then in essence they're no longer Portal 2 maps, merely maps made to run in the source engine.
Difficult maps that require you to think are my favorite kind.
Difficult maps that require bugs or annoying angles for lasers are my least favorite kind.
If you're talking about mechanics like flings, funnel replacement and those kind of things: yea, I love diversity in test elements and puzzles!
I'm just curious as to what position would those people take who don't particularly enjoy the latter type of puzzles...
I'm not contesting for maps that exclusively require players to exploit certain properties of the source-engine, since then in essence they're no longer Portal 2 maps, merely maps made to run in the source engine.
Difficult maps that require you to think are my favorite kind.
Difficult maps that require bugs or annoying angles for lasers are my least favorite kind.
If you're talking about mechanics like flings, funnel replacement and those kind of things: yea, I love diversity in test elements and puzzles!
I think laser puzzles with angles depend on how it's presented. The first test in space gardens used this in a very nice way, if I do say so myself.
I personally would never downrate a map simply for being too difficult for me, although I would do so for being obscure (i.e. using hidden, hard-to-see portal surfaces, really precise laser angles or anything that relies purely on trial-and-error until you get lucky). I'm not a huge laser puzzle fan in general; they can be good if done right, but a room with 4 redirection cubes and 20 laser relays all over the place is a sure fire way to get me to quit your map.
This whole discussion does bring up a major beef I have with the way the Workshop rating system works - most people don't rate a map unless they finish it, meaning that the more difficult a map is the less ratings it's likely to get. Now, from what I can tell, your rating out of 5 on the Workshop is as much based on the amount of upvotes you get as it is on the up/down ratio. I can see the reasoning behind this, in a sense, but it means that most of my favourite maps never seem to get off 3 stars...
Back on topic, I guess it's a matter of explaining to your audience what kind of map you're making. I loved grayarea's Ignition, for example, but if the description had read 'a short map of medium difficulty' I would have probably downvoted it anyway for making me feel like an idiot. Likewise the OP's glitch-based map - if he labels it as such then I know not to play it, and therefore have no problem with it.
Fair point, but then, that's different from saying 'therefore COD games should stop getting published'. For my own part, the fact that I didn't like MW2 at all was enough to dissuade me from buying MW3, but I'm not about to rag on anyone who enjoyed both games.
My maps: Double Bill / Jam / Oval Window / Gymnasium / Gymnasium Part 2 / Minimalism (collection) / Resolution
All feedback welcome!
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