12th Archivist wrote:
The simplest rooms made by the most average of architects stump me. I find that there is no way to solve them with any relaxation. It's a massive challenge that hurts my brain until the point of anger at the hold.
Interesting. But I think this is a clear example of how one-size-doesn't-fit-all can apply to DROD. What one person finds easy, another person will not. Some people love highly specific solution rooms, I like large (unplanned) horde rooms.
I don't think there is a problem with not being able to complete difficult holds; maybe this is actually because hold ratings are greatly skewed upwards, and an increase in difficulty from 5-6 may be twice that of 3-4. As some have suggested, increasing the number of easy holds is probably the best way to cater for the non-hardcore DRODers or those who simply just aren't good at difficult puzzles.
What about architecture? What makes people so good at finding the right spot in difficulty and enjoyability? I assume experience. The more holds you make that you learn from, the better your next hold will be.
This is an interesting point you bring up. I have wondered about the exact same thing. There are a few people who are serial architects and appear to have both natural talent and experience. But clearly, not all architects have this, and there are some very nice holds out there by people who have not built very much else.
Unfortunately, your first hold is almost always your worst, and that can get very discouraging. Take for example my first hold Vonnifa's Basement. Only a single room out of all of them got any positive feedback. Out of seven, that's not too bad, but that also means that the other seven odd rooms were considered mediocre at best.
As was already stated above, feedback is generally constructive-negative. Testers are actively looking for problems you should be fixing; positive feedback is less likely to be a good method to deliver this information to you! This is very discouraging (I definitely know the feeling), but it really says nothing abut the hold's quality.
In addition, that fact that I didn't test the hold really put a damper on the hold testing, and probably on any of my holds in the future.
I wonder how many of us have made the exact same mistake. I didn't test Bavato's Dungeon properly, either, and it ended up as one of the more important examples of why play-testing is important back in the early days. Funnily enough, I guess I was somewhat lucky, since it was the major reason for the warp room and has allowed the hold to be more accessible to players than it would otherwise be.
I think I really messed up with that fact, so much that I doubt any more of my holds will be much more than a nuisance. I'm starting to get a feeling like I won't contribute anything good to the Architecture board. I can keep trying, but it will be a long time before I get good at architecture. Many years long time.
I don't know whether that is an accurate assessment at all. I feel precisely the same way despite having published one high rated hold: I keep asking myself if the only reason why Bavato's Dungeon is so highly considered is simply because it was new, it was one of the first of its type, and it was built in the early days of Architecture. If it were published now instead of five years ago, what would people think of it? Poorly tested? Overusing puzzle ideas? Tedious? Uninteresting after a while? Above average perhaps, but nothing special?
Actually, it is and has always been considered all of these things by many who have played it; I suspect one or two people may even hold all such opinions simultaneously. However, back then, people were willing to overlook its faults for some of the better aspects of the hold, such as its variety, novelty, difficulty and reliance on basic movement concepts. The key question is: "
would this still be the case today?"
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and perhaps upset a few people (I don't mean to do it on purpose, though), but I believe that the effect we're seeing is the effect of an overdispersed population. As I mentioned before somewhere, it is revealing that the
top 20 posters account for more than 25% off the posts here. This is similar for hold-playing and testing, where only a few people have managed to play a large proportion of holds and most others have only played a few. The result is that most of the activity around here is shaped by those few people, the "
vociferous forumites"
, as Tim mentions. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not exactly a good thing either.
I think the problems holding back Architecture can be grouped into two large categories:
1. Holds aren't being tested - I think we've already established this several times, so I'll say no more for now.
2. Collective persuasion - One of the things I have noticed both now and from before I left in 2006 is that it feels like people are quicker to play or praise holds from a particular author or containing particular types of puzzles; there is a collective expectation of something and this biases opinions and responses towards that expectation. It's not to say that these holds aren't good and don't deserve praise: they definitely do. It's just that it feels like people in general are being conditioned by this consensus to believe that these holds are the best (despite their own opinions) and use them as the measuring ruler by which to rate other holds.
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×For example, lynchpin puzzles are apparently the favoured type of puzzle. There have been many posts about them stating that they are fun to play because they stump you in a way that isn't tedious (if you've solved it, they're easy). What I haven't seen are many posts criticizing them about anything. Are lynchpins as a concept really that perfect? Does the fact that having one's motions severly restricted (in some lynchpin rooms) not frustrate people? What about if you saw the solution immediately without having to think about it - is this room still a lynchpin?
Conversely, it appears there is lots of criticism towards large horde/manipulation rooms (particularly containing serpents or tar) without lynchpin tricks to solve them, for example. I have seen many posts implying that if they are long and require highly repeated use of certain movements, that they are tedious, repetitive and not fun to play. However, what about the things that make them fun in their own way? For example: teaching you to use basic skills; the satisfaction of a job well done when you do complete it; the fact that they'll always be hard even if you do know the solution; and the fact that the solution is always obvious to you from the start? Can it really be that people don't find these latter qualities at all pleasant?
Similarly, there is a huge polarisation towards difficult rooms. This is partially because the best players are those who play the most rooms, and so will inevitably equate difficulty with fun (I also fall on that side of the line), but does that really mean easy rooms aren't fun?
Of course, this could all be conjecture and I could be very wrong, in which case I apologise.
I think what we really need as a community is to be more open-minded. We all have our opinions and preferences, we all have holds we like, and holds we don't. However, I think that we should be less quick to criticise and ignore things simply because they don't conform to the accepted norm, and instead give them a second consideration. Is it really that this hold is really not worth playing? Is there really nothing good that can be said about it? Is all that criticism really proportionate to the hold's failings?
Oh well. If I'm not good at either playing or building in DROD, there's really nothing for me to do. Even playing for 8+ years doesn't help. Perhaps I'm not fit for DROD anymore. That's ok I suppose.
I thought the same thing as well. Would anyone really care about anything I might have to offer? Would my work really be worth playing? Is this all a waste of time?
The answer depends on you. Ask yourself,
"do you really like playing/building holds?", ignoring any opinions that anyone else may have on the matter. If the answer is yes, then you know what to do. We're stuck in a rut because people aren't doing things; if you give up because you feel that no-one else will appreciate your work, then you are helping to ensure that actually is the case.
And since this is such a personal sort of problem (which I suspect more of us than admit it have) here's my take on the issue:
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×Just before I returned, I grappled with that exact same problem, particularly because I was absent for two years, and I thought everyone would have forgotten about me (this was partially the reason for procrastinating). In the end, I decided to DROD again because I enjoyed it; I shouldn't let my opinion about what other people think of me be the major determinant of whether I play DROD or not.
This is now the problem I have with Architecture (I would classify myself as more an architect than exterminator). Should I continue building Golbar's Caves or not, given the current atmosphere? The answer, I am coming to believe, is yes. Despite what anyone might criticise me for, I can't see why one more decent hold out there would be a bad thing.
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Resident Medic/Mycologist