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[WonderPup]

Some portion of poor level design is due to who the creators are. I'm building levels alongside my sons and nephews. They're all used to 3D environments, for the most part, so they don't have a good appreciation for solid 2D platformer design.

They're getting it, though. Quickly.

 

[tirkaroKujo]

What? No.
For a sixty dollar level editor, the game is barebones as shit as-is. Last thing it needed is to arbitrarily limit what little content there is because you have way too much faith in sucker designers. If you won't let them have a poorly thought out room full of every asset in the game, they'll instead just make a poorly thought out room with random scribbles for block patterns and filled with goombas and koopas with no rhyme or reason.

 

[oxacillin]

This. I'm tired of all this gimmicks, auto run, press left, don't move, etc. on't want to offend anyone, it's just not my type.

Give me classic Mario levels any day. We need some tagging.

After seeing some truly awful levels that are borderline unbeatable and really just unfun. I just want to put out levels that anyone can beat and are fun even if they are easy. I take more joy in seeing if a person beat my level rather than seeing a completion ratio of <1%.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

I think the algorithm would do its job but something I'm noticing with my levels is that more than half the people that play them are skipping them.

I'm not really trying to flex my own ego too much, but I at least understand how levels are made. I've been fiddling around with game development in some form since 1999 or 2000, and I even made a Mario fangame once that was shown on Attack of the Show.

I'm not going to claim to be an expert, but I have at least a couple fans of my work. I know what I am doing, at least a little bit.

All of this being said, the clear percentage for most of my levels is 50% or less. I very intentionally try to make my levels accessible with a balanced level of difficulty and over half the people who play them still skip past them.

I'd assume users having ADD is probably throwing a lot of different metrics out of whack and isn't classifying my levels in the proper difficulty categories, etc.

I am shocked though how some people need a course on level design. We've been playing this platformer for 30 years, it should be natural by now.

It's never that easy. I don't expect too many users pay attention to why levels are good. Hell, it's often difficult for me to nail down exactly why something about a game is good, and as I previously stated, I've been making games in some form for something like 15 years.

If everyone could immediately identify what made a thing "good" and replicate it, how we view creators, and how we respond to quality would be very, very different.

 

[TheSlySoul]

Honestly the number of crap levels I do not think can really be fixed.
Most people do not understand what good level design is and want to make things either super easy or super cheap.

This is the first AAA level editor in the market, so people are now just experiencing this when I had the same issues for years. Look at SMW Hacks, 90% of them are crap.

 

[Vital Tundra]

Give it time. The casuals will stop playing the game at some point and level quality will rise.

 

[MrPanic]

Pretty sure even if the lock was there, 90% of the levels would still be awful. Some players just want to watch the world burn, and even more aren't realizing they're leaving fires everywhere they go. No restriction can stop their destruction.

 

[kinggroin]

I think the reason you see all of these auto levels is that the top level is that don't touch anything level. So, what's everyone going to do to try and get everyone to star their level? Try to copy the #1 level. People are always fishing for likes, yeahs, up votes, favorites, and retweets.

Agreed.

The popularity contest mentality is bullshit.

 

[TheSlySoul]

What a bizarre thread to wake up to.

9 days wait would have made zero difference.

Bingo.

The only help might have been more tutorials. The game doesn't really explain what each object does.

Also I agree unlocking things behind stars is dumb. The most stared levels are automatic levels.

For every awesome level there's likely 100 crappy ones, but that's just fine.

That is why the 10 and 100 Mario modes are trash, because the level quality is pretty bad overall.

 

[AndyD]

You are literally complaining about too much freedom in Mario Maker.

This. Same complaints came about when Little Big Planet came out with everyone wanting every level to be perfect and comparing it to Mario games and saying they would never play LBP randomness of levels. For every awesome level there's likely 100 crappy ones, but that's just fine.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

Give it time. The casuals will stop playing the game at some point and level quality will rise.

I think this is why there's a limit of ten levels, actually. I think it says in the manual that as you get more stars and more medals, your level upload limit gets raised.

This is theoretically to prevent newbies from flooding the service with garbage, but all of a sudden in the last 24 hours it feels like the newbie percentage has exploded and even with a limit of ten levels per user there's still a huge tide of inscrutable junk washing over Mario Maker right now.

 

[Japanmanx3]

Damned if they do.. damned if they don't..

The story of Nintendo smh...

 

[Hatty]

I'd like to see more levels that look like they actually belong in a Mario game. The levels I build try to be like that but they're too hard apparently

 

[zroid]

I don't think it would have helped much. People love their ideas. They think it's the best idea ever. Yesterday someone send me a level, he thought it was clever. It wasn't.

Harsh. Lol

 

[Nanashrew]

I agree about the random chaos. Not necessarily even looking at the worst examples, some levels are almost normal levels but throw in too many features and enemy types to feel cohesive.

For my latest level City of Ruin (D8A6-0000-003A-6A98), I put in a mix of enemies. There are goombas, spinies, dry bones, rocky wrenches, boo buddies, and fire piranha plants. In retrospect I think even that much variety was too much. Originally I had red koopa troopas as well but I realized it was just one too many enemy types, and dry bones work just as well for not walking off platforms. They also fit the aesthetic better.

Yeah, Nintendo sticks to around 3 to 4 types of enemies depending on stage or difficulty. There have been very few levels to exceed this and when it is, the extra enemies are often placed in the sub level as to not clutter up the overworld level. I even brought up in the video round-up thread a while back that the first airship in SMB3 didn't even have a single enemy in it at all except for cannons and the boss at the end. Rocky Wrench didn't make an appearance until airship 2.

This goes back to what Miyamoto talked about 17 years ago which also can be seen heavily even the current indie landscape about not using too much content and difficulty as the backbone of your game. Difficulty will always be the source of contention but it can be balanced, and lots of content is not always necessary because too much can pad out a level or a game as a whole in an un-fun or boring way which can overstay its welcome.

 

[Sephzilla]

The 9 day unlock period would have done absolutely nothing to prevent people from putting out shitty levels.

 

[Platy]

Theoricaly a limit on enemies type would have helped

Something like the "receive more medals increase the limit" type of "limit on enemies"

 

[TheSpoiler]

Yeah, some of you don't remember LBP 1 and 2. Both games required you to earn your pieces of building material. So the first week, people had to actually play through the story mode to get all of the things they wanted.

Even on the first few days, guess how that went? Shitty survival levels, declarations of love to whatever popstar was popular during that time/a girl at school, awful platforming segments that attempted to mimic longstanding favorites like Green Hill Zone to a tee, and more.

Then things evened out. Despite having access to all of the content, users finally pumped out good levels. They were featured in the top ten, constantly switching in and out quality experiences. The cream rose to the top, as it were.

It happens with every UGC game. And somehow people forget every single time one of these games comes out. There is no way of sorting that out beyond letting people decide what's good and what's bad. It'll happen, be patient.

Theoricaly a limit on enemies type would have helped

Something like the "receive more medals increase the limit" type of "limit on enemies"

No, limitations won't help because people will make terrible things regardless, and at that point, you are limited people who are good at what they do as well.

 

[Nanashrew]

Yeah, some of you don't remember LBP 1 and 2. Both games required you to earn your pieces of building material. So the first week, people had to actually play through the story mode to get all of the things they wanted.

Even on the first few days, guess how that went? Shitty survival levels, declarations of love to whatever popstar was popular during that time/a girl at school, awful platforming segments that attempted to mimic longstanding favorites like Green Hill Zone to a tee, and more.

Then things evened out. Despite having access to all of the content, users finally pumped out good levels. They were featured in the top ten, constantly switching in and out quality experiences. The cream rose to the top, as it were.

It happens with every UGC game. And somehow people forget every single time one of these games comes out. There is no way of sorting that out beyond letting people decide what's good and what's bad. It'll happen, be patient.



No, limitations won't help because people will make terrible things regardless, and at that point, you are limited people who are good at what they do as well.

Pretty much. I remember playing on the Green Hill Zone level and Mario 1-1, also lots of crap stages and mimicking other games. After awhile better levels started showing up and I have no doubt it will be the same for Mario Maker.

 

[Zultan]

Can you sort by rating?

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Unfortunately, 90% of the current levels fall in the Random Chaos category.

My friends and I made several "random chaos" levels on Day 1 with only the first tier of items.

 

[Dreavus]

Personally, I'm enjoying the current set-up for unlocking. I could only play a couple hours yesterday, so I think I'm up to day 4 or 5 in terms of tools unlocked. I'm testing out elements as they arrive "as intended", but also going through at a much quicker pace than the original plan of "receive 1/9th of the tools each day".

I think this was a pretty great compromise. You don't get it INSTANTLY but you aren't waiting over a week in real time for everything either.

If we were to revert to the old way we would simply be delaying the inevitable thoughtless levels. The junk was always going to happen. You can't save people from themselves.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Like all games with user created content for the masses, it will take a while for the "casual" players to get bored and for the more skilled designers to rise to the top and get jobs at Nintendo.

 

[Ludist210]

I think Super Mario Maker could have used a tutorial on how items (or sets of items) work, put them in a short tutorial, and then have them unlock once you complete the tutorial. That way there's no nine-day waiting period, but you still have to do something in order to get them to work.

The problem really lies in design. Most of the levels I have played so far (which is around 200) aren't good at all. Some are decent, and around five are actually levels I would replay and have starred.

 

[Zultan]

A good level editor I thought was Stunts. Just enough flexibility to create interesting levels, but not too many options to create too much chaos. The only part I didn't like was that you had to have a track go from beginning to end, so it would reject a lot of challenge tracks. I would solve that issue by having the road split at the beginning, with the split going back around to the end, and the other way to the real challenge. It was fun getting the craziest jumps I could. Things like seeing how many buildings I could jump, how far, etc. The game had a wonky physics engine though.

Never played Mario Maker, but I plan on getting it within the next couple of days.

 

[Green Mamba]

Most of the random garbage stages I've played use only the initial unlock set, so, I dunno what you're getting at. Most people are just flat terrible at designing stages is all. That wouldn't have happened if everything was still day-locked, it would just be more limiting to the actual good level designers.

No, what the slow unlock has done is lowered variety in stage creation, as everyone who starts out making stages can only make SMB and NSMBU stages with really basic stuff (not even the Fire Flower, seriously). Not a smart decision for level variety.

In 100-Mario, skip terrible stages, don't beat them and give them the satisfaction of a completion. Fuck em.

---

"The level you just uploaded is one of the most insanely idiotic stages I have ever played. At no point in its rambling, incoherent course, were you even close to anything that could be considered rational level design. Everyone in this game is now dumber for having played it. I award you no stars, and may God have mercy on your soul."

 

[Overside]

So.... 90% of people directly emulate modern AAAAAAAA design, and... It sucks.


If only mario maker had a cutscene maker, and a qte maker.

 

[spekkeh]

It's tempting to think that it's due to the quicker unlock (not instant by the way, I've played for hours and am still missing a tonne).

But if you look at the highest starred levels, none of these show constraint with a simple twist. They're all kaizo, don't move or special mushroom spam bullshit.

The main reasons for this is not the tutorial but

1) most players are kids who don't know what's what obviously

2) you're not creating a whole world with gently escalating mechanics, but a single level. A single level that goes against a deluge of others, and so it needs to be crazy and dazzling and contain everything at once to really stand out and get a star.

This is what kills thoughtfulness at the moment and needs a solution by Nintendo.

 

[NeonBlack]

Nintendo just can't win.

MM/Splatoon don't give you all the content at start? Complain

MM decides to give you everything at the start? Complain.

I know there are always gonna be two camps but this is on the creators for making ridiculous levels.

 

[Platy]

Can you sort by rating?

Yes and it has a featured levels part.

But the best is go "wikipedia style" of finding a level you like, go to what levels the person starred and go deep the rabbit hole

And avoid Panga levels

 

[TheSlySoul]

I know there are always gonna be two camps but this is on the creators for making ridiculous levels.

I kind of wish you could have settings on 100 Mario challenge so it be less crap.
I had no issues playing levels individually because I don't bother playing bad levels.

 

[impact]

You're blaming Nintendo for people being terrible at making levels? The 9 day lock situation would have been the exact same... just 9 days later.

 

[Ferrio]

The worst levels are the stupid impossible ones that some kid hid some blocks just so he could complete his own level and upload it.

 

[StingX2]

Gimmick levels: These are usually short levels consisting of one challenge that relies on an original idea and just focus on that, so they use few elements as well.

Too me, this is the best scenario. Go look at what Nintendo has done for all of their Mario games, then go look at Donkey Kong, Kirby, etc. Nintendo revolves every stage around a gimmick and then doesn't repeat that gimmick as the main focus of the stage again. The exception might be Kirby games usually do a test review at the end of the game featuring all the kinds of stuff that was thrown at you previously.

 

[friskykillface]

Like all games with user created content for the masses, it will take a while for the "casual" players to get bored and for the more skilled designers to rise to the top and get jobs at Nintendo.

Did the best levels from little big planet get any of those people jobs?

That'd be cool if someone got a job from a Mario maker level

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Did the best levels from little big planet get any of those people jobs?

That'd be cool if someone got a job from a Mario maker level

I was joking slightly, but then I remembered Media Molecule did hire a few creators from LBP.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

The 9 day lock would've just delayed the inevitable. Also, some of the tools available to you on later days are really important/useful and shouldn't have been held back - e.g. the ability to see Mario's jump trajectory or the ability to use pipes to access sub areas.

Disagree. Its a way to teach people how to do more with less. Sure, ghosting is useful to everyone, but most levels are bad because people have no constraints.

 

[Madao]

this was what people wanted. the only ones at blame here are people.

Nintendo was already getting backlash for locking stuff and removed the limit right before launch. they did the sensible thing.

 

[motherxwolf]

I'm digging the panga levels quite a bit, I hate playing 100 expert challenge, most levels are impossible

 

[correojon]

What would be good, is level walkthroughs, like devs showing you how to recreate 1-1 and why the enemy placement is the way it is, how spatial awareness plays into the level design of Mario and how each block is carefully chosen. Again, people may ignore it but that would be good. Doesn't really impact the 9 day period though.

That would be awesome, I would pay just for that.

Seriously. You're insane if you think that this wasn't always going to be the case.

It's time to stop defending every shitty decision that Nintendo makes.

Read the OT or just the thread title, this is all about questioning Nintendo´s final decision of unlocking everything from the start.

Another easy solution might be to have more feedback

when skipping
Why do you want to skip this level?
1 This level has unfair gameplay mechanics
2 This level is too hard for me
3 This level is boring
4 This level is offensive
5. It's a good level, but I just don't feel like playing it right now

If a level gets a lot of 2's as feedback, bring it to expert mode, levels with 1 & 3 get shown less, levels with 4 get moderated and levels with 5 get left alone.

On finishing
1. This level was too easy
2. This level was challenging
3. This level was too hard!
3. This level was boring
4. Perfect level - I enjoyed it! (stars level)

This is a great idea. It´s really frustrating to see that one of my levels is getting played a lot and getting stars while the rest aren´t and not being able to guess why.

Honestly the number of crap levels I do not think can really be fixed.
Most people do not understand what good level design is and want to make things either super easy or super cheap.

This is the first AAA level editor in the market, so people are now just experiencing this when I had the same issues for years. Look at SMW Hacks, 90% of them are crap.

I think we all agree on what´s the cause of the problem here, so why not try to do something about it? The 9 days lock could´ve helped somehow. It wouldn´t have solved the problem on it´s own, but it could have been a nice first step.

You're blaming Nintendo for people being terrible at making levels? The 9 day lock situation would have been the exact same... just 9 days later.

Nintendo is the designer of the game, in this case an editor. So in a way it´s Nintendo´s fault if players are not playing the game correctly. Of course, there are people who will just make impossible levels because they just want to, but I think most do because they really don´t know better. And that´s where Nintendo should have stepped in and provided something to help solve this issue. The 9 day lock was just an attempt at this that finally didn´t see the light.