Playtesting Tips, Tricks and Strategies

[Smoothandz]

Good day everyone, Smoothandz here to open up a discussion on playtesting. As someone who tried my hand at map making (and found out I'm not very good) I've been interested in trying my hand at playtesting. However, I don't want to be "that guy" that just tests a map and says "Good map" or something simlar with little to no feedback. My hope is to open a conversation between map makers and seasoned playtesters. I thought of some questions to get the ball rolling, but please be sure to add anything to the thread that you deem helpful. 

 

Map Makers

• Is there specific information you are looking for?
• how important are videos? Demos?
• what type of criticism is welcomed?
• what type of criticism doesn't improve the design process?
• Do you have an example of a very helpful review that greatly improve you map?

 

Playtesters

• During the playtest, do you have a prefered method of retaining your observations? Notepad? Pen and Paper? 
• Before playtesting, what information do you look for? 
• If video recording, what software do you use? Any helpful tips for new users?
• Screen shots, what is too little? Too many? Do you have an example of a screen shot that grabbed your attention right away?
• Advice on constructive criticism. Any tips on how to be more helpful than obnoxious?

 

Hopefully, we can get some insight from both parties. I would love to see some useful discussion to help, not only me but current and future playtesters alike. 

[RataUnderground]

I think that as a playtester, the most useful thing you can do is to send a video (or demo) with your gameplay. In the video you should explore the map, not just play it, and you should stop to look for places where the mapper has made errors, possible softlocks, misaligned textures, etc..

The next most useful thing you can do is to indicate exactly which qualities of the map you liked and which you didn't like.

[DNSKILL5]

As someone who mostly plays Duke Nukem 3D maps after they’ve been released, the general reception I get from the map author is usually surprise over strategies and tactics used that they hadn’t ever anticipated when designing the level. So for playtesters, I’d say recording your gameplay as Rata suggested, is a great way of letting the gameplay and map speak for itself. 
 

What I do is pistol starts, saveless, and deathless recordings. This shows that A) a it is possible for the map to be completed on a pistol start, B) it does not require saves to complete and C) it can be completed in one run with all three conditions applied. While I don’t think it’s necessary to meet these conditions for playtesting purposes, it does at least help the mapper see how well the may or may not have balanced their level, and it is a better viewing experience for everyone else (in my opinion anyways, as it saves the viewer from having to see constant reloading). 
 

As I said, I like to let the video do the talking as much as possible. This keeps me from having to give written criticism over one’s work, the commenters will do that, or, people will be enticed enough to download the map and play for themselves if they liked what they saw. 
 

While I do focus on DN3D, if I were doing this sort of thing for Doom I’d follow the same approach. 

[Smoothandz]

27 minutes ago, CAM-7EA said:

What I do is pistol starts, saveless, and deathless recordings. This shows that A) a it is possible for the map to be completed on a pistol start, B) it does not require saves to complete and C) it can be completed in one run with all three conditions applied. While I don’t think it’s necessary to meet these conditions for playtesting purposes, it does at least help the mapper see how well the may or may not have balanced their level, and it is a better viewing experience for everyone else (in my opinion anyways, as it saves the viewer from having to see constant reloading). 

 

Great piece of advice. I had not though about the idea to self impose certain restrictions to understand the map from different aspects. And just like you and @RataUnderground said, video recording sounds like one of the best ways to playtest. I have a feeling it will be coming up quite a lot.

[Fonze]

This is a great subject for a discussion and it'll be interesting to see what ppl think. My 2 cents of word salad, and I'm willing to be wrong on these:

 

Recording oneself playing is of course going to be one of the best things you can do as a playtester. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then how many do 60/sec×however long a play session is? Bonus points for the 1st play session being recorded to be able to see a player's reactions in real time, as opposed to what they've learned over the course of studying the map, as most players won't study a map beforehand; they'll just pick UV and start playing.

 

Beyond that, I would say trying to break the map and approaching things in a way the mapper doesn't expect would be the next most important thing.  If a mapper is planning on pistol starts, well, they can already test that. If they're planning on continuous play, they might not care about supporting pistol starts. The onus of playtesting one's own map is ultimately on the mapper, so basic stuff like that shouldn't be the focus of a playtester; there are many more important things to focus on. As a mapper, we understand everything about the intentions of our own map, the encounters we add to it and how to best work them out, the solutions to our puzzles, etc. and it's easy to get caught in a rut of playtesting our maps in the same way each time, or in a way that isn't fundamentally different enough to see things go wrong. Use your different perspective and lack of knowledge about the map to do things differently than the mapper would. Does this encounter or puzzle break if you do this particular thing? Softlock? Do visuals maintain consistency throughout the map? Does difficulty/combat consistent? Did you feel things were communicated well or were you in the dark of what to do the whole time? On top of that, creating unreasonable restrictions on oneself can create unrealistic situations for the mapper to cater towards or can take one's feedback into a less helpful direction.

 

In a similar vein, as a playtester it's good to try to think about (or just ask) what the mapper's intentions for their map are, and how your feedback can help them achieve that goal. Catering your feedback to that can help them take their map from perhaps a clunky example of their style to a more refined one. Everybody has different goals in mind for their maps, how they want them to play and no singular set of rules or list of questions/points will encompass everything, but certainly viewing maps with empathy and catering your feedback to their perspective is a good way to go.

 

Along these same lines and touched on earlier, a large part of mapping is learning to communicate intentions to players. So a good playtesting thing would be to note how well you understood what you were supposed to do as the map progressed. Were there secrets maybe you found but didn't understand how you were supposed to find them, or missed the clue? Were the combat encounters too surprising, too trappy, or felt like more rng than strategy? That could also be down to communication or lack there-of from the mapper, or it's one of their goals in which case then catering feedback to that would be helpful. All other short and long term goals of the map you were able to pick up on, even something as simple as seeing a key door before finding a key and then knowing where to go all fall under some sort of communication umbrella and can be super helpful to note for a mapper.

 

As a smaller thing, keeping an eye out for texture alignments, slime trails, stuck monsters, and other easy-to-miss things can be helpful too.

 

But all of that said and all of it aside, the most important thing is to provide any feedback at all. I've listed a bunch of things, and others will as well, but don't put so much emphasis on your own feedback as to wind up not providing any at all. I've certainly been guilty of this. Feedback doesn't have to be the best, or amazingly worded for that matter; sometimes anything will do. A lot of mappers are starved for feedback on their wads and even something like stating "this map isn't for me" (though hopefully with something constructive added to it) can be helpful to mappers who just don't know how their work is received. And on that note: ppl who stream a ton of essentially fda's of people's maps provide some of the best natural feedback mappers can receive.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Fonze

[Biodegradable]

21 hours ago, Smoothandz said:

Advice on constructive criticism. Any tips on how to be more helpful than obnoxious?

 

Yeah, I wrote a beefy post about that previously that you can read here.

[GarrettChan]

21 hours ago, Smoothandz said:

• Advice on constructive criticism. Any tips on how to be more helpful than obnoxious?

 

Communication with the mappers is the most important thing IMO.

 

I think most mappers, if they asked for the playtesting, they would open to ideas, and have a line about what they are going to change or not. It's common a design that doesn't click with both parties. As I tested quite a bit of stuff, this happens regularly. The best way to solve this is to ask the intention from the mappers. Then you can adjust your expectation / way to look at the "problem" differently.

[Smoothandz]

Excellent responses. Posting from mobile right now. I'll be sure to give a full response once I get back from my trip.

 

EDIT - Finally made it home to post proper response. 

Thank you everyone for all the great insight. 

@Fonze - The detail in your response says it all. That's exactly the kind of questions I was looking for. Softlocks, combat flow, texture consistency, that's the thought process I would like to add to my own. Wonderful advice.

@Biodegradable - Excellent post. Your link really hits the nail on the head for how to be more helpful. Given how your hard work has made yourself a household name, I think more people could benefit from this. 

@GarrettChan - Open communication is always a good start. At the end of the day, just starting a line of dialogue is a simple yet effective way of improving both playtesters and map makers both.

 

Also, for any seasoned playtesters out there, do you have any recommendations on video recording software? I dont required the software to be free, I'm willing to spend some money for a good program.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Smoothandz