Frustrated with difficulty levels set by level makers | Forums

[IImayneII]

Well I think I said it before, but because of so many bad tracks most people probably think they can't get that much better so they rate it 4. Or they just don't know what a good dl is and find about anything good (don't get me wrong, I didn't knew it when I first started too, a way to prevent this should be unlocking sharing in the editor when you have like 80 or 100% gold on the tracks or when you have a few platinum medals). I never manually search tracks just because the function is ridiculous to work with: too long loading time, filtering doesn't even work most of the time, crashes, opening other tracks than I had selected. So I had to resort to downloading tracks of builders I know are good, 5 star tracks (altough some don't even deserve 5 stars). Occasionally I download a 4* track if I think it has potential. But yeah, still alot of crap out there, like there always will be

[Just_Shogun]

This is a topic I'm pretty passionate about because I also get frustrated to no end by tracks rated beginner to medium but are actually extreme or even ninja. Before I jump into a long rambling post on ratings let me just note that this is my personal opinion and not necessarly that of RedLynx.

The difficulty setting is not an iconsequential part of level design, in my opinion it is just as important as decoration and drive line. The difficulty rating is the best indicator for players to decide which tracks they want to play. Like the OP noted if I download a medium track I'm not looking for a big challenge I'm looking for a fun ride which makes the overly difficult obstacles even more frustrating. Real articulated feedback is good but not many players will do that. The star rating is not only a legit (albeit not very informative) form of feedback but also a way to let other players know if they should download a track. In my opinion tracks with a bad difficulty rating should be avoided so a lower rating is absolutely approriate. I try to avoid giving 5 stars to a track that has flaws just as I avoid giving one star to a track that does something really well. But to me difficulty is a very important aspect of my ratings and I will always dock a track at least one star for mislabeled difficulty unless some other aspect is so amazing that it makes up for it. Just because it takes less time to do doesn't make it less important. In fact because it's so easy and quick to alter all the track settings I think neglecting this aspect is actually worse than other areas. In my mind spending 20+ hours on a track then not taking the few minutes to properly set track settings is one of the worst things a builder can do and I have no problem rating them down for it. They've basically skipped one of the easiest and most basic steps, that's lazy on the part of the builder, the player who judges the track based on that is doing the right thing by themselves and other players.

As for the only 1 or 5 star rating, I've spoken on this before. What's the point of of a 5 star system if these are the only ratings you give? If a track can only be crap or great you're basically cramming the majority of mid range tracks into one of these catagories that they do not belong in. The most common rating I give is 3, most good tracks get 4s and only the tracks that really impress me get 5s ( I've not given out many 5 star ratings at all).

Finally there are clear guidelines to what skills are needed for each difficulty in the license tests. I state it in the video linked above but it can't be stated enough; If your track requires tricks learned in the A license test (or the Phoenix bike) it is hard or extreme no matter how easy it is for you (and don't even get me started on ninja). As a builder the absolute worst thing you can do is rate a track you created based on your own riding skills, 99 times out of 100 this will result in a track that is actually much harder than the rating. As smeg pointed out, in the process of creating and testing the track you get so good at it that your own perception of it's difficulty is horribly skewed. The main thing to remember is that the rating is not for you or a measure of your skill, the difficulty rating is there as a guide for other players who are searching for tracks to play. Those players range in skill from very beginner to pro so this setting needs to be accurate and consistent for players to get a fair idea of what they are getting into when they download a track.

[Just_Shogun]

This is a topic I'm pretty passionate about because I also get frustrated to no end by tracks rated beginner to medium but are actually extreme or even ninja. Before I jump into a long rambling post on ratings let me just note that this is my personal opinion and not necessarly that of RedLynx.

The difficulty setting is not an iconsequential part of level design, in my opinion it is just as important as decoration and drive line. The difficulty rating is the best indicator for players to decide which tracks they want to play. Like the OP noted if I download a medium track I'm not looking for a big challenge I'm looking for a fun ride which makes the overly difficult obstacles even more frustrating. Real articulated feedback is good but not many players will do that. The star rating is not only a legit (albeit not very informative) form of feedback but also a way to let other players know if they should download a track. In my opinion tracks with a bad difficulty rating should be avoided so a lower rating is absolutely approriate. I try to avoid giving 5 stars to a track that has flaws just as I avoid giving one star to a track that does something really well. But to me difficulty is a very important aspect of my ratings and I will always dock a track at least one star for mislabeled difficulty unless some other aspect is so amazing that it makes up for it. Just because it takes less time to do doesn't make it less important. In fact because it's so easy and quick to alter all the track settings I think neglecting this aspect is actually worse than other areas. In my mind spending 20+ hours on a track then not taking the few minutes to properly set track settings is one of the worst things a builder can do and I have no problem rating them down for it. They've basically skipped one of the easiest and most basic steps, that's lazy on the part of the builder, the player who judges the track based on that is doing the right thing by themselves and other players.

As for the only 1 or 5 star rating, I've spoken on this before. What's the point of of a 5 star system if these are the only ratings you give? If a track can only be crap or great you're basically cramming the majority of mid range tracks into one of these catagories that they do not belong in. The most common rating I give is 3, most good tracks get 4s and only the tracks that really impress me get 5s ( I've not given out many 5 star ratings at all).

Finally there are clear guidelines to what skills are needed for each difficulty in the license tests. I state it in the video linked above but it can't be stated enough; If your track requires tricks learned in the A license test (or the Phoenix bike) it is hard or extreme no matter how easy it is for you (and don't even get me started on ninja). As a builder the absolute worst thing you can do is rate a track you created based on your own riding skills, 99 times out of 100 this will result in a track that is actually much harder than the rating. As smeg pointed out, in the process of creating and testing the track you get so good at it that your own perception of it's difficulty is horribly skewed. The main thing to remember is that the rating is not for you or a measure of your skill, the difficulty rating is there as a guide for other players who are searching for tracks to play. Those players range in skill from very beginner to pro so this setting needs to be accurate and consistent for players to get a fair idea of what they are getting into when they download a track.

[Smeghead89]

you covered a lot of important points there and i have to agree with every word, i wish more thought this way. I have posted before about people rating everything 1 or 5 stars because this is 1 of the main things i feel has thrown TC right out of wack imo, if there is no in between then there is only 2 categories for tracks to be in which makes for very inconsistent ratings. I always rate as honest as i can and sometimes a little strict also like you said about wrong difficulty settings i often mark down for that, i have even seen redlynx picks where i felt the track was very hard and not medium so it got marked down to 4 stars (even tho it was a nice track) because i was disappointed and thats not something you are looking for when giving out 5 stars.

[ConfusedMuscles]

I am more lenient with my ratings on trials gold as there is very few tracks that are worthy of a play. If I like a track alot and it has good replay value it gets 5. If the track is rather bland but really doesn't annoy me, I give a 3. I will sometimes not rate a track because a 4 star will actually hurt a tracks rating. But I don't give it 5 because it doesn't deserve it. I do give out a lot of 1* though. To tracks with mislabled difficulty or tracks that have obstacles that have obviously not been tested at all.

[rlmergeuser]

Meyel...