Why are most popular Portal 2 maps so bad?

When looking at the Portal 2 workshop, most maps are terrible.
Interestingly, most of the popular Portal 2 maps are also terrible.
Why is this the case? Why don't the good maps get popular?
I explore the reasons for this in this short documentary.
Discord server: / discord
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Are you a new player looking to finally start playing and making some good maps?
Consider checking out the following links.
Fumbly Bumbly's workshop: steamcommunity.com/id/fumbly_...
Fumbly Bumbly's design guide: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Demon Arisen's workshop: steamcommunity.com/id/demonar...
Demon Arisen's ''How to Make Great Test Chambers'': • Portal 2 - How to Make...
RedSilencer's ''Introduction to the Workshop'' collection:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
My ''Reliquiae'' collection:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
''No elements'' connection to learn about momentum and portal preservation:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Looking for more help and info?
Here I explain the process of making a very challenging map: • We designed a complex ... .
And here I explain (in real time) the process of making a simple yet good map: • I design a simple Port...
Thumbnail made by theCCguy. Huge thanks to them!
Their workshop: steamcommunity.com/id/theccguy
Music: made by me.
I often upload my music on my second channel.
There's also / mike-daas-1 and mikeastro.bandcamp.com/.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
07:50 - Reason 1
12:10 - Reason 2
15:05 - Reason 3 part 1
18:50 - Reason 3 part 2
24:15 - Outro

[@Mikeastro]

A new Portal 2 video essay has been released! You can find it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6G9gnqQlM50ppo

[@maniacobra8103]

Reason 4 : Players who have experienced quality maps don't go play maps on the front page anymore, and so there are not enough downvotes on bad maps

[@Mikeastro]

Interesting perspective. I personally think that it would be more beneficial to leave a comment with constructive criticism on a bad map than to just downvote it anonymously without an explanation

[@KeinNiemand]

@@Mikeastro do both downvote to push the map down the rankings and leave comments so the map makers can improve or people know its bad

[@VeryPeeved]

@@Mikeastro sure, but downvoting is much easier, so more people would be willing to do it.

[@cyastis]

@@Mikeastro Downvoting and leaving valid criticism is the only way to get high quality maps on the front page of popularity sorted maps. If there are many more unexperienced players than experienced ones, and most most unexperienced players will only upvote completed maps, then simple maps will almost necessarily become more popular than challenging maps if experienced players do not downvote them and critique them.

[@dylanschmidt9056]

Eh, back when I still played custom Portal 2 maps I'd visit the front page sometimes. Sometimes, by freak accident, an actually well-made map would find its way there and I'd have a new creator to subscribe to. Sometimes the garbage maps are fun to break. How many of the puzzle elements can be skipped? Is it possible to smuggle all the cubes to the exit? The intended solution may be brainless but bypassing it may require some thought. Most of the time though, it's just crap.

[@LB_]

I always thought the main reason was just because most people are naturally inclined to upvote maps when they get to the end due to how social media has trained us to act towards content. The game only makes it easy to find the vote options when you complete the map, so the maps that are completed the most are the ones that get upvoted the most. It's a UX issue. Removing the vote screen at the end of the map would likely drastically change the front page. Either way, I appreciate the effort you put into this video.

[@Mikeastro]

Exactly, people upvoting anything they see when a pair of thumbs appears on the screen is indeed the main reason put forward in the video. Interesting perspective relating it to social media, I hadn't made that connection yet. Thanks a lot for watching :D

[@totesamazeballs]

I agree, a super huge point

[@ostya39]

hey LB :) love your portal content back then! I hope you're doing well!

[@friedrichhayek4862]

Hallo LB, Are you lying to GLaDOS?

[@throatychunk]

I didn't expect to find you here!

[@ldidok]

After recently posting what might be my most well thought map to date, and getting a fairly big amount of downvotes for it, I really felt this video. I do agree that there's a very noticeable skill gap between veterans and casual players, but casual players will downvote maps they can't get through even if the solution doesn't involve tricky no-portal / cube stack / ghost cube moves, but just portal management. It's a pitty, but it is what it is. Thanks for this awesome video.

[@tristenarctician6910]

what was the map?

[@ldidok]

@@tristenarctician6910 it's called "(Co-op) Demise". A medium-hard coop map.

[@raandomplayer8589]

Bookmark, by commenting

[@helohel5915]

@@ldidok oof co-op. Pretty sure most players cant even find someone to play that with

[@user-vj8dz8ht2c]

@@raandomplayer8589 same

[@UpsideDownCycle]

I always tend to sort by "Custom Visuals" and/or "Custom Story" maps to get to some of ones made with Hammer Editor

[@pumpkinsoda9017]

I have a bad habit of downloading weird maps or sandboxes rather than actual tests. Portal 2 on my dad's account has over a thousand workshop chambers downloaded because I've been playing the game since I was 5 and didn't know how to play the actual game until I was 10.

[@UpsideDownCycle]

@@pumpkinsoda9017 I wouldn't say it's a bad habit tbh. I do the same. I absolutely love finding hidden gems in the workshop every now and then that just look like strange hammer maps.

[@rosem325]

Sammme. I realized very quickly that the base editor levels were largely terrible. Not to mention how much more interesting I find less confined maps where you have to be a little creative looking around like what you get in old aperture. Especially with gels

[@fourtrifiveo4350]

i have not learned how to do this yet and i will try this soon

[@smells109]

Base editor also has some pretty big limits without the mod adding in new shit too, pneumatic tubes for example. But hammer editor mods are pretty much always gonna be good because they have actual effort and work put into them. The really good ones are the unique ones that completely flip the game over imo There was one about a bunch of mannequins trying to murder you that was pretty good. (scary a bit too) I'm certain there was a large amount of coding that had to be put in or something for that.

[@guphord]

if I find a level thats well crafted and I can't beat it, I still upvote it anyways (if i can tell its good)

[@Delfite]

Same here, visuals are more than enough to get an upvote from me and I'm sure that rings true for a large majority of people. Even if you couldn't solve it, you at least got to look at something really good and well-crafted (most of the time anyways).

[@D_YellowMadness]

The only reason I don't do that is because I can't be sure the solution is good if I never figured out what it is. It could be total bullshit that requires you to do a glitch & spend multiple minutes riding through the same funnels repeatedly.

[@silversonic99]

@@D_YellowMadness yeah that's the thing, a good map should never be left unbeated especially since these people already played 2 portal games, they aren't exactly newbs. If you give up on a map, I consider that a design flaw. A portal map should never make you give up

[@derpybubblez7746]

@@silversonic99 I wish Aperture Tag understood that

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Oh, if I can't beat a map, there is even more reason for me to try it again and again. When it finally clicks, that is the most rewarding about the game. Because I finally found the solution. Almost as if I became smarter while challenging myself.

[@0sac]

This explains why my mediocre puzzle map was so well recieved, I basically just ripped off the first hard-light bridge puzzle from the campaign, very easy but still gives you an "ah-ha" moment once you solve it.

[@gammaboy4568]

"Here's an idea: since making tests is difficult, why don't you just keep solving *THIS* test."

[@MegaZeta]

I imagine that rip-offs of Valve's maps compose a fair share of the popular maps, as if people were still playing _Portal 2_ workshop content avidly when this video came out, a lot of the players probably don't even remember the original maps.

[@marshroverv5632]

Over a large portion of this video, I was thinking about Mario Maker, and how despite having a lot of the same things that cause the issues with portal maps (large volume of easy bad maps, vote screen upon completing the level) it doesn't have the problem of it being hard to find good maps, but after some thinking I realized that what allows good maps to be found in mario maker is that maps are categorized by difficulty. While the crowd of easy-to-please players who don't care what they're playing can be satisfied with the easier maps, the veterans who want to find challenging maps can look into the higher difficulty categories, where inexperienced players likely won't bother to look for long, and the top maps from the different difficulty categories can all be viewed.

[@Lumberjack_king]

Exactly

[@elucinadoboy4967]

excellent point. I was trying to think of something we could learn from this, but I feel it would be hard to categorize the difficulty of puzzle maps in a similar way. how can you objectively and automatically rate the difficultly of a puzzle? deaths don't work as death giving obstacles are used as a way to create more steps in the puzzle, in fact, not even every map has a way to die. completion time might work if you only use the times of people who finish and/or use some math to treat dnf's as higher than the average already on the map. complexity might be able to work if you do it based on the number of interactions a player does within the map (using buttons, picking up cubes, shooting portals); this would sort for maps that take more steps or are nonintuitive and thus have interactions from players testing different solutions. this would also reward creators for spending more time in the editor, possiblely leading to improving their skill at level design of course, if this was implemented, they should also add the ability to choose difficulty options in quick play (and probably an easy way to skip as well) edit: complexity being the basis could be hacked, but creators making long levels just for more interactions might even get sussed out as bad by the average player

[@cinnamoncat8950]

@@elucinadoboy4967 what if it compared the world record time (or top few) to average first completion time, so if the top times are long due to the map just being long, then it can tell it's easy, but if the top times are really fast, and it normally takes a long time on first completion, then it'll know it's hard. Realistically a bunch of difficulty indicators would probably be used, like the performance point system in Osu!.

[@technetium9653]

@@elucinadoboy4967 it seems the best way is to just make the creator rate the difficulty, a map in the wrong difficulty would get downvoted

[@KirikkSiSq]

@@technetium9653 if you add some mods who can "feature" good maps, you basically get Geometry Dash

[@redaipo]

I usually sort my maps by "custom story/visuals" because that usually filters it to only hammer maps. Hammer maps tend to have the most quality or at least something to look at.

[@destinedpotato1577]

I do the same, or only chose maps with custom thumbnails. If someone has made either a Hammer map or a custom thumbnail there's a higher chance of it being "better" than the average map

[@solutionchanneliguess2899]

Very nice video; I agree with most of what you've said here. I think that the point that you made in your outro about difficulty is _really_ important and might deserve some more time. Almost all puzzle games contain an ordering/partial ordering of their puzzles; designers intentionally provide simpler levels and build upwards, guaranteeing that their players will have developed a 'toolbox' or 'language' for the game by the time they reach more complex structure. The workshop, of course, has no such ordering; an inexperienced player may struggle with "easier" puzzles if only because they haven't been given the opportunity to develop the _language_ with which to approach them. This type of toolbox shouldn't be considered to be a set of mechanically odd or niche moves, like ghost cubes and null portals (though these are also difficult to find good tutorials for); even "basic" moves, such as preserving portals across the map, pre-placing redirection cubes to be used later, storing cubes in funnels, leaving portals on the ceiling to later gain momentum, etc. can be difficult to grasp for a player who just hasn't seen that structure elsewhere. (certainly not or rarely within the campaign) Even the 'meta-structure' of puzzles starts to become more visible with experience; I found that as I played more puzzles I started to occasionally recognize what types of moves would be present in a chamber when elements were positioned relative to each other familiarly without actually thinking too rigidly about their usage. There's also a notion of what types of moves are 'taboo' and which are 'acceptable'; with many hours I know that most creators will acknowledge cube stacking but frown upon quicker mid-air portal shots, but an inexperienced player isn't going to have witnessed that culture. Playing a good map as an inexperienced player can be a gamble; you better hope you've played some good prerequisites, as it's never easy to learn fundamental tricks in a complex environment! I remember feeling like I had to 'self-teach' myself Portal 2 from the workshop; I'd leave plenty of maps unfinished, and sometimes use clips of an attached intended solution to guide myself through harder ones. Unfortunately, I was never able to encounter good intro collections until perhaps too late; they're even harder to find than individual puzzles. Even these collections, though quite helpful, are a bit limited; Portal 2 has a _lot_ of depth, and without a broad partial ordering it can be difficult to decide where to go next after finishing a good intro collection. I imagine it would take a tremendous, collective effort to partially order even a small chunk of the hundreds of good puzzles on the workshop, and then even more to make that ordering publicly and easily available. (perhaps something akin to what Mâché mentions in their comment) It's this hurdle that makes me think that the workshop will never really gain a strong puzzle-focused identity; players shouldn't be expected to rate up puzzles they haven't been given the tools to solve, (though they shouldn't be so hasty to rate them down either, haha) and how can I blame someone for rating up a map which gave them a good time? Maybe as a final note, I'd recommend adding the old 'No Elements' collection to your list; its content is a little restricted but it nicely teaches important lessons about flinging and portal preservation, which can show up in all kinds of puzzles. (steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=129519365)

[@Mikeastro]

Very insightful comment, I think you raise a ton of good points. Perhaps I did go over that bit somewhat too quickly. Man, so many things go into this; it's quite insane how complex the situation is once you start thinking about it. I've added the collection to the description. Thanks a lot for watching!

[@Kiwi-fl8te]

I know personally that when I was done with the main campaign and wanting more I was mainly drawn to "cinematic" maps, those made in hammer that felt like they either had a narrative or really elaborate visual elements. The kind of stuff I'd look for was stuff that seemed like it had a lot of work put into it. But not necessarily the kind of stuff with really complicated puzzles, those were indeed often secondary to me.

[@MacheTheFerret]

This won't sound at all related at first, but hear me out: Cracking the Cryptic has a dedicated community for Sudoku. A (relatively) massive Discord, and a KZbin channel featuring hundreds of fantastic Sudokus. Through the channel runners' wholesome personalities and amazing puzzle-solving mindsets, they are not only able to really showcase what Sudokus and their variants have to offer, but also thoroughly explain their thought processes, how the puzzles work, and why the puzzles are genius. Through a combination of these factors and others, people in that community are incentivized both to challenge themselves with more difficult Sudokus, and to try their hand at making their own brilliant puzzles. I think something like this would greatly benefit the Portal 2 workshop community as well. Several people have managed to build little communities around playing puzzles (you know who I mean), but I don't think we've ever really had a community truly dedicated to incentivizing creating good _puzzles._ Good _maps,_ definitely, TWP being the prime example, but not puzzles _specifically._ Unless a community like this already exists that I'm not aware of, I think something like this would be amazing for the Portal community. Some might wonder why we need such a community for what is now a _decade-old game_, but to tie things back to Sudoku, Sudoku was invented in __*_1783_*__, and is still going strong as a puzzle medium (and arguably as an _art form_ at this point) today. I could even argue that Sudoku is more popular _now_ than it ever has been. I think, with the right people, and the right community, and the right attitudes and mindset, the same thing can happen to Portal 2, even if it would probably still remain somewhat of a niche. I don't know who's gonna be the one to make it happen, but I think it could be a great success.

[@MichaelMoore99]

Glad to see another CTC fan in the wild. :-)

[@vioninjadogdb8428]

I can agree to this. CTC reignited my love for sudoku to the point I can’t stop solving them now and I honestly find more enjoyment from solving sudoku in general now than when I first learned how and made me want to make my own sudoku puzzles. Something like that would really help educate players and encourage people to make more interesting and good maps.

[@Eggscargot]

This is basically what I want to try to do! I'm no Portal 2 expert at this point so I'm going to start by going through the whole "Introduction to the Workshop" collection on KZbin and then figure out where to go from there. At risk of being self-promoting, I'm releasing my first video in the series tomorrow and I'd really appreciate getting some feedback.

[@whynotanyting]

Some of the best puzzles are ones that look simple, but are difficult to solve. When you start adding a whole bunch of elements to the puzzle you're making it harder on yourself since now there may be multiple ways to cheese the level and it puts off newer players who see the visual mess you've just created and assume it's too difficult.

[@jaksantio1441]

I feel like the people who play enough portal to go for community maps can be divided into 2 groups. The GlaDos's and the Wheatleys; there are those who want a good test and a decent puzzle, and then there are those who are just scratching "The Itch".

[@steamstories1279]

Good maps are hard. Frustration kicks in very quick when spending more than 10 minutes and not finding the next clue. It requires brain and brain is not present on majority of the players. I like Portal 2 quite a lot but the first thing when launching Portal 2 I feel uneasy, like I'm afraid of something, like someone is watching me, I'm just afraid of starting a good map and then getting stuck, just to lose interest and then all I want is to see the solution. I watch NOCK from time to time and he is so fast at doing things, I'm not that fast at finding clues. He is playing frequently so he learned many tricks. Portal 2 not a good game for those who play 1-2 times a month. Haven't played for 6 months or so, if I jump in, I would think too much even on basic moves.

[@Mikeastro]

It does indeed take a lot of patience to really get properly settled into a Portal 2 puzzle solving mindset. If you haven't checked out the collections yet that I linked in the description, you could consider checking them out :]

[@Graknorke]

I'm not sure I buy that good ones are necessarily hard. if it takes more than ten minutes to solve that implies to me there's something wrong with the puzzle, even

[@Mikeastro]

@@Graknorke I agree that good maps need not necessarily be hard. I strongly disagree that there must be something wrong with a puzzle if you haven't solved it after 10 minutes. In fact, I'd argue the opposite

[@Graknorke]

maybe it's irrational but I feel like a portal map, by virtue of being a first person shooter video game, should be shorter than something more abstract like a sudoku or chess puzzle or something. I think because it's more let's say active or mentally taxing to keep track of a 3D space than it is something you can keep written down a piece of paper, and I'm quite sensitive to that sort of thing. there's often a lot of ways a puzzle can be made shorter without necessarily being made either easier or less interesting if there's excess on it, red herrings or dead ends that don't contribute to the "proper" solution

[@Mikeastro]

@@Graknorke Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by 'short'. I was talking about solving time, not the time it takes to execute the solution. I agree that a puzzle with a 10min+ solution is excessive. Thinking for 10 minutes to find a clever 1-minute solution doesn't sound that bad to me, but of course that's personal taste in the end

[@catiseith]

I remember playing a series of community chambers called No Elements. They are puzzles that don’t have buttons, cubes, lasers, light bridges, goo, tunnels, turrets or any other mechanical component. They aren’t too hard, but for a new player, they can be challenging, because they involve thinking a bit outside of the box and getting creative with the flinging mechanic. Maybe the workshop needs more chambers like that to help reduce the gap?

[@Mikeastro]

Definitely! A great recommendation. I actually link to it in the description :]

[@guphord]

a lot of 'bad' levels don't work too well because you can't always see an exit door which can make you feel lost on a goal

[@Axolotl720]

I disagree, in many of portal 1 and 2’s levels you can’t see the goal for a good while through out the level and you don’t feel lost. It’s not about seeing the end goal it’s about seeing how to get closer to the end goal

[@Bestgameplayer10]

@@Axolotl720 That’s not really true. There’s always some type of direction into where you need to be headed in Portal 1 and 2. And the parts of the maps that actually are test chambers usually contain the exit somewhere in view, if not then level decorated directions for where you need to go.

[@vintprox]

13:56 Funny thing is that we get this analogy in the scene where Wheatley gets you to solve the same puzzle over and over again to get his portion of satisfaction drug, even though the design is poor. 19:45 Ah, the discoverability issues strike yet again. The most useless "Top Rated" and "Most Popular" algorythms that don't make sense at all. Stop believing in these algorythms, people.

[@VestedUTuber]

Just to note, maps that are really small are often made as part of a limited space design challenge of some sort. A couple months after the Perpetual Testing Initiative was first released, there was a map design challenge specifically for 3x3x3 maps, so that's why there's probably a ton of old tiny maps.

[@DuoVersal]

I noticed something, at least from the levels you showed us and a level which my brother (which is way better at the game than me) thinks is bad: the reviews may be MORE positive, but they have LESS favorites overall than the good levels

[@Mikeastro]

Great observation! You are absolutely correct that the number of favourites is a much better indicator of quality than the number of likes. I should have mentioned that in the video

[@SilverScroll]

@@Mikeastro I've actually found this to be true even for other systems with faves, upvotes and downvotes, not just the workshop - the latter two tend to be indicators of quick gut reactions, but it's the faves that you only go out of your way to do when something really impresses you that are a somewhat reliable indicator of quality.

[@stitchfinger7678]

@@SilverScroll Its the difference between "that was alright" to "I NEED to be able to come back to this level"

[@1ups_15]

I can now comfort myself by saying that my maps have so few downloads because they're just too good

[@MegaZeta]

a lot of comedy is just intentional errors in Aristotlean logic

[@cerulity32k]

@@MegaZeta i only know mashyspikeplatean logic

[@higgsquasar1819]

Unlike most of those community creations, this video is of the highest quality. It really opened my eyes to the quality (or lack there of) in the PTI. I don’t think the ease of map creation can be overstated in light of quick play. Many times, it is a miracle to just find a test chamber that isn’t a room with an open exit. Considering that only 40% of players finish the game in it’s entirety, It isn’t hard to see why those chambers exist. Credit where it’s due, I think PTI is good at sorting out really bad chambers. But I always thought a 1-5 star rating would be better. The test chamber that meets the minimum qualify for a player to give a thumbs up is given the same weight as the test chamber which far exceeds that quality.

[@SunnyOst]

But don't you think the same players that blindly click thumbs up, would blindly click 5 stars? We need to multiply the rating by the number of hours played, now that might actually have some effect 😛

[@chronos7554]

@@SunnyOst weighing the votes of those with higher hour counts seems like a really interesting idea that id honestly like to see in a lot of games but i feel like it would be very easy to exploit the system

[@keithberjeron763]

I've had similar ideas about the rating system. Maybe, one could play it as either a player or a reviewer. The reviewers would have a list of elements on which to vote 1-5 stars. Perhaps "map design" "puzzle difficulty" and "originality" just a few thoughts on the matter.

[@MichaelMoore99]

The Portal 2 workshop is like TikTok while The Talos Principle workshop is like an in-depth documentary on KZbin, like this one.

[@notadog5734]

Awesome video, and i agree! I figured the same thing out recently. I trying to fight this by give the player a option to set the map difficulty, so firstly the new players complete easy mode, than when its gets popular the more advanced players can play the ACTUAL hard mode.

[@AmaroqStarwind]

I bought this game on launch and I was still very young, but when PTI launched I ended up getting exposed to a mix of both really good and really bad maps, and I very quickly started being able to tell the difference. Some of the best maps I played were actually made in a combination of both Hammer and the In-Game Editor. Sometimes even prototyped using the old “Portal Editor” mod for the original Portal. One of my favorite maps of all time, I still haven’t solved to this day, but the atmosphere in it is just so good. And it uses music from another one of my all-time favorite games.

[@HugoBDesigner]

I'd argue that the ease of use of the editor is far more relevant than the ease of voting. Removing the vote screen would surely affect ratings, but not the rate at which bad maps are made. I believe those would still be popular through the fact that they would get played often and be more likely to be voted up than down. Good maps that stump beginners would have a lower chance of getting upvoted too, unless the player really liked it enough to visit the workshop page. However, I also wonder if Portal 2's campaign set a precedent. It had easy puzzles for the most part, and quirky maps in-between the logic ones. Meanwhile, a game like Talos gets significantly challenging the more you progress, with very little "playground" in-between puzzles (unless you _really_ like reading). In that sense, Talos set itself apart as a more logic-focused, methodical game, whereas Portal 2 plays as a more casual, fun-for-all type of experience. Unrelated, but I really wanted to see your perspective on what makes a good map. You mentioned "good map" and "bad map" quite a lot throughout the video, and even hinted at what defines each, but without providing a more thorough explanation. Perhaps a followup video would be nice! Nice work, there's quite a lot of effort put into this video and the topics are very fun!

[@Mikeastro]

Thanks for watching! You raise some interesting points. I agree that Talos and Portal had a different approach in their emphasis on the puzzle aspect of the game and it shows in the state of their workshops. Perhaps it is also that the ''rules'' in The Talos Principal are a bit more strict; Portal 2 has a lot of quirks due to physics and momentum playing an important role. You could design and solve many TTP maps on a sheet of paper. I purposely refrained from dwelling on what precisely good vs bad entailed and let the examples given in the video speak for themselves. I gave a few very general criteria but of course a much more in depth analysis is possible and sometimes even necessary. Since the video was already fairly long, I felt that going into a very long tangent on what makes a map good would ultimately distract from the focus of the video, which was just exploring the reasons for the deplorable state of the front page

[@medicindisquise4271]

I personally think the biggest curse that Portal 2 has is legitimately having to introduce new elements damn near every chapter. Courtesy Call - Portals Cold Boot - Laser, Faithplate, Fizzler Return - HardLight, Turrets Surprise, Escape - N/A Fall - Repulsion Reunion - Propulsion, Conversion Itch - Funnels PWHKY - Crushers, Bombs That's a LOT of things to teach over the campaign, and the result is that the campaign only really challenges the average player a few times, mostly near the end of the Itch and the end of Reunion. And they don't even use everything to it's biggest extent! For example, Conversion Gel and Hardlight Bridges basically outright dissapear outside of a few puzzles/setpieces after their introductory chapters. The Co-Op campaign is a lot better in this regard, mostly because they can focus on one element for each testing course while being able to reasonably assume most players have played through the singleplayer campaign. I do second the follow-up video, that would be very interesting to see.

[@kip258]

I'm glad to see someone finally discuss this. I'm glad Portal 2 map making is still very much alive, though! Thankfully, due to in-game editor mods like BEEmod, people are investing more time into design of their puzzles and community maps are slowly getting better. I think that if everyone should playtest their levels with friends before publishing them publicly, the average quality would go up as well.

[@cmtcomet]

I agree with this. While there is still a LOT of trash on the front page, it isn’t uncommon to see something with at least a decent design

[@vendingxd]

As a person who used to spend hundred of hours on speedrunning workshop maps and finding cheese like jumping over huge gap with some bunnyhops, made me question why most of the maps are badly designed or mostly made in 10 sec by some child. I had decided to go to workshop and find maps on my own, because this is an actual issue. Its nice that somebody made a video about that topic and explained the infastation of bad designed maps.

[@tinycatfriend]

i'm really glad this ended up in my recommended! i am, by all accounts, your profile of a casual player. portal 2 is one of my favourite games of all time due to its storytelling and fantastic design, but i'm actually quite bad at puzzles. i never ventured into the workshop or community maps, but i would've fallen into the loop you described. my primary motivation for soldiering through the campaign on my first playthrough was to continue the story, and to get a sarcastic quip from GLaDOS. i have a deep appreciation for art, though. i admire the brilliant design portal has, and how meticulous every puzzle setup really is. even though the gameplay was difficult for me, i still loved it! its difficulty made that playthrough memorable and i look back on it fondly (even though the puzzles probably weren't that hard for most people lol) bad community maps have their place, and they're a great outlet for budding game designers and just kids having fun, but you're right that the rating system fails folks with actually good maps. i'll have to check out your recommendations, as the only way to improve my puzzle-solving skills is to put them to work. great video!

[@Rubycario-yt]

I've recently gotten back into making maps for this game, and this video perfectly describes why I left the map making scene several years ago. When I used to go to sites like MyApertureLabs, MyApertureInnovations, or ThinkingWithPortals, not all the maps were good, but you could always tell that a good amount of effort and creativity went into each level. Or most of them, anyway. Even if the map wasn't visually the best, the creator took the time to learn Hammer and try their hand at it anyway, and from what I remember the community was always extremely helpful in helping creators become the best they could be with valid feedback and criticism. As intuitive as PeTI is, it offers the opposite effect. The workshop is a good idea in theory, but due to how moron proof the PeTI editor is, you have a ton of test chambers that don't really allow you to stop and think, have extra items at the end of the chamber, and visually look terrible. I'm not saying every map needs to be made in Hammer, or that every map needs to be hard, even the simplest maps can leave me with a smile if they have a clever solution somewhere in there. We all have to start somewhere, after all. I'm not the best at making levels, I won't pretend like I am, but I treat every level I make with some ounce of care, and my main goal with those puzzles is to stump the player for a minute, then wrap it all up in a nice package. Getting updoots is cool, but I love it when people take the time to comment about my maps, even if it's something like, "The timing is too tight in this area, that's not fun". That's negative feedback, sure, but it allows me to become a better level designer at the end of the day, and allows me to look at an area that I may need to show a little more leniency for less experienced players. However, because the player is presented with a thumb option at the end and not a comment box, they give it a vote and move on without saying anything. Nowadays I'm lucky to get anyone playing my maps, let alone commenting on them because they get buried away. It sucks, but at the end of the day, what can you do? Sorry for the rant. This exact topic has been nagging at me in the back of my mind for years and it's nice to see someone talk about it in a way that makes sense, so thank you. It puts things into perspective and gives me something to think about moving forward with level creation.

[@XxSteamStreamxX]

I agree, over the past nearly 3 years rather than trying to focus on making maps popular, I've instead reached out to a community that is basically dedicated to make intriguing and clever logical puzzles and they are some of the most interactive people in the workshop. They take their time to offer up their thoughts and write something unique to the puzzle, rather than always doing generic messages such as 'nice puzzle, thanks for making'. And at the end of the day, I make puzzle for my own self satisfaction, its cool to get attention for it and all, but I create puzzle because I enjoy creating a logical and clever set of steps required for my puzzles, its something I can be excited about and that's what matters the most for something like this.

[@kittywar123]

so what you're telling me, is portal two is just steam's mario maker

[@MustacheOnMars9]

This question has had free real estate in my mind ever since I first got into Portal Mapmaking (about two, closing into three years now) and I haven't found an answer. This video is amazing, well edited and in-depth and I love it! This video has finally somewhat answered the enigma that has boggled my mind for the longest time. I just get so disappointed whenever I see the Portal 2 Workshop Front Page, because even though I spend a long time (not nearly as long as other people, but still put in my best effort) making my test chambers, Little Timmy who accidentally got his hands on his step-dad's plastic zip-lock bag of funny sugar spent 10 minutes making a mess and uploading it, and it gets thousands of more plays, likes and upvotes than I can dream for. Even the most high-quality stuff on the Front Page like the Sector 5 Series (that somehow manages to get nearly all their maps on the Front Page. I don't know how the publisher does it, that's another question I'm trying to find his answer, but holy shit does his maps attract players like a moth to a flame) feel mediocre most of the time and new maps get pumped out so often that they feel factory made. All the chambers look exactly the same aesthetically, and none of them stand out other than maybe the layout and the elements used. Usually whenever I want to play good maps (that are not made by Demon Arisen or made by some other crazy popular map maker), I either browse r/PortalMaps and see if anything catches my eye, or I contribute and check out r/Portal's monthly map sharing thing. There you will find good to amazing test chambers made by creators who's names aren't nearly as popular as big map creators like Demon Arisen. If you want to play amazing maps that aren't just made by the same few map creators or part of a popular series of maps like 12 Angry Tests or The Unreal Chambers, there is the place to go. You can find some awesome stuff there!

[@PrismaPog_17]

Luckily, When I first completed the campaign, I looked for more Portal 2, and I accidently found the community maps. The first community map I played was a good map with proper use of elements and good design, So I instantly developed an instinct telling me what is a good map, and what is a bad map. I thank god for that.

[@UnsealedWings]

If you set most popular sort by "All time" and you get much different front page results... Also, I get why some would like easier test chambers, Not only as a kid. Some adults work jobs that are demanding and can't spend 3 hours trying to work out 1 puzzle. Not saying to just hand the win over to them maybe they would like to go to work later feeling a small sense of accomplishment that they finish a few community levels on their favorite game. A chamber that can be beaten in like 45 minutes or less, and doesn't frustrate you to play is fine, But ultimately, every game has bad mods, You just have to search through them and sort in different ways left a like though, great job!

[@TheNextDecade244]

I will admit that I am someone who is mostly into portal for the story and the characters rather than the puzzle, however, I certainly agree with the ideas behind the video, even though I think the delivery ended up accidentally a bit... unintentionally frustrated, which can be read as combative, I guess? I do want to respond to one thing, though: the argument that you mentioned and others concurred, the fact that most people are into Portal for the characters and the story, well... all of the bad maps of Workshop do not actually have any of that either? Like, there is no scenery, no character *or* characters, it's just a tasklist. Simple maps with awesome scenery are an entirely different animal, of course, and they can be appreciated as art, however we are not talking about these. We are talking about all the top maps on the list that are quite literally just "a slightly indirect tunnel with a variety of buttons" with nothing beautiful or interesting about them. So... the vast majority of the popular maps on the worshop? They ought to satisfy *neither* those that liked Portal for the story, *nor* those that like it for the puzzles. So there's certainly something screwy about it.

[@Mikeastro]

It was not my intention to come off as combative, though it is fair to say that my frustration does show in this video. I'm new to making this style of videos, so I will take your interpretation of my words and tone into consideration for future projects :] To clarify the point you raised, my argument about people being into Portal 2 for the story and characters mainly served to explain why many will never care about the quality of the puzzles and designs in the first place, since these things are secondary to what they saw as the focus of the game. This is also why many of these players will not play all that many workshops maps at all; they will often quickly move on. However, the popularity of Portal 2 as a game still causes this group of players to always be a significant portion of the people playing workshop maps at any given time and thus they control the front page in a sense

[@Romanticoutlaw]

tbh some people really do enjoy a scenario where they press a button and get rewarded, with no care for either challenge or art. It's why skinner boxes work, after all

[@venny5417]

really good video there's one more angle that may be worth considering not everyone plays workshop maps looking for "more portal 2" a lot of times, people are looking to experience different things from the base game, be it playing a sequence of easy but relatively fast puzzles or playing something completely different like gelgun puzzles or gelocity. There's also a matter of merit. To a lot of people, a puzzle that takes them 40+ minutes to figure out can give out a feeling of "this map doesn't deserve this much of my time" and they just give up and possibly dislike. And I believe that usually happens because community creators are put in much lower esteem than the original game designers. Players respect the base content much more than the community creations even if the quality is the same.

[@mika_tastrophe]

> my first community chamber > sign shows 66 something's not right here... In all seriousness though, this was a really good video. You managed to break the subject down for someone who might have little to no experience with the Portal 2 workshop and its issues while still keeping it interesting for someone like me who has played around 7000 community chambers. Great work! The reasons you give make a lot of sense to me. I never really thought about the voting screen popping up at the end contributing directly to pushing easy and bad maps to the front page. Also, I myself am sometimes guilty of not wanting to play good maps... Sometimes, when I'm stuck in a genuinely good and semi-hard chamber, I catch myself going to Quick Play -> Most Recent to get a feeling of actually solving something. At least I never upvote these maps though. The music was also pretty cool! One thing I'll say though, I feel like adding either a black border or a shadow around the text would have been good because it was a bit unreadable at certain points in the video. It was still clear enough because it basically just said what you were saying in the video anyways, but maybe that's a suggestion to keep in mind for the future at least. Thanks a lot for making this and I hope this will help at least someone out of the front page confirmation bias/feedback loop/whatever you wanna call it.

[@Mikeastro]

Thanks a lot for watching! I'm very happy to hear that you enjoyed it. I agree with you about the text, but I didn't really know how to quickly improve it. I will definitely keep your solution in mind for future videos :D

[@zarrg5611]

The thing about this issue is that we have a perfect example of a more (but not completely) successful map/level making community - Mario maker 2. It is eerily similar on the surface, easy to use interface, thumbs up/down system, quick play mode and a prominent 'most popular' section, and it does still suffer from the problem of a large amount of easy poorly crafted levels, however since it has much more coverage, and thus a much clearer idea of proper level making the good levels are much easier to access. This also helps to avoid the underground aspect that seems to be a major factor in isolating the portal 2 mapping community. I do feel this video takes too cynical a perspective on the 'bad level community' but you do try to avoid that sentiment, and I guess it is inevitable if it is a subject that you feel passionate about.

[@aydinmakesthings]

2 small things I think can very much help a map feel like its good, mentally, not the real map. 1 - Lighting So many maps don't seem to use light strips. Leading to some places being very hard to go through and critical parts of the puzzle hard to find. It seems some people think observation rooms are the only good light source. But a small row of light strips can be very useful. Lights at the bottom of a black wall, lights in a corner, and pretty much anywhere! 2 - Extra White Tiles When I play a map, and see a room that's got 2 or 3 white panels, I know that it'll be probably easy. But adding extra white tiles makes you think you're guessing the answer and gives that "Ah-ha!" Moment. example - A wall of white tiles while needing to line up laser receivers. Makes you feel like YOU picked the right tile, not the one single one needed. - Lots of white tiles in a gel-ramp puzzle. Better then a small row. telling you where the portal goes. - Extra white tiles when needing to funnel some where. Once again, makes feel like YOU picked the right tile, not the one single one needed.

[@Mikeastro]

I agree that improved lighting would already make many maps a lot more playable. Adding more white surfaces is a mixed bag; on the one hand it can indeed help make the puzzle less trivial, but on the other you want to avoid just adding white surfaces as red herrings or make some setups a guessing game as to precisely where to place the portal, if precision is required

[@amnogsu8520]

Hey Mike Daas, I would just like to say thank you - Not only is it because this video made me start wanting to play portal again, but its the fact that ever since you've mad this video, I have started to see some pretty good puzzles pop up on the front page. It really has restored my faith in the portal playerbase.

[@javidappledehli2359]

I think what I’m hearing is that portal 2 workshop could really do with a rating system similar to Mario maker or geometry dash. That way the stages could be sorted by difficulty as well as popularity. Granted implementing that would be a whole other challenge as well. While I’m relatively new to portal in general it would be nice to know what maps are beginner friendly and what kind of skill level is needed to competently move around a puzzle

[@TChapman500Gaming]

I've decided to use Puzzle Maker to merely prototype my test chambers. Once I'm satisfied with the puzzle, I remake the entire thing in hammer (using a screenshot of the Puzzle Maker version as a reference) and add a few details that I can't do in Puzzle Maker (like trap detectors). Currently, I only have one puzzle in the workshop because I deleted the others (which were all pretty bad). I think you will agree that the one I have left up is a good puzzle. I'll try to leave a link to my workshop item in a reply to this comment. Please check spam.

[@billybobjoephilcorncobtiptopge]

I'll comment to get the map

[@gold571]

Hello

[@NoGoodNamesToday]

I've never thought about it, but that's what I instinctively did to filter out the bad levels. I wonder how you could set up such a difficulty system for Portal. One idea is simply a rating system. Another is that the level is implicitly rated difficult based on the amount of play time it has, where higher play time = more difficult

[@nmarting]

Personally, I am guilty of being the general type of player who only played the story mode a few times and played a few maps searching by most popular. This was a very interesting and educational video and brought up some good points I didn't even think about, like how the editor is so easy to use that making bad levels are just child's play. I am also surprised this channel has so few subscribers, this was a really well-put-together video. Will be sure to check out some of those better maps linked in the description.

[@ikehoofficial]

really entertaining and well put together, i'm baffled that you dont have more subs yet. keep it up pal!

[@LUVVEOUS]

Waiting for a video "What makes a really GOOD map?"

[@spki4524]

Really nicely done on this, the section regarding the voting screen is especially interesting to me - I thought that that was one of the better aspects of the P2 workshop, as it actually encourages player interaction with the map they're playing, but you explained well how that could work in favor of bad maps instead. You finish a map, you feel like you achieved something, and RIGHT then the voting screen comes up, so you're just more inclined to upvote said map, no matter the quality. I feel like when players actually appreciate how well a good puzzle is put together, they'll just go to the workshop page to show their support by themselves, opposed to just mindlessly going through maps and upvoting them because you were able to complete them. Thanks for making this, nice to hear that you finally played your first community map after 1500 hours of ingame time.

[@yfnratchet]

Might be playing Captain Obvious here but your Steam profile is featured in the video!

[@spki4524]

@@yfnratchet Mike has been a friend of mine for quite some time now, so yes, I am indeed aware :p Though I'm more proud that my map somehow made it into the list at 6:21, haha.

[@chillwithwill2236]

I don't really get what's so bad about completing, and rushing through tons of maps. The main goal is to complete them, so I'm GONNA COMPLETE THEM. I rush through the maps because I love that nonstop puzzle action, after beating both portal 1 and 2 I just had to have more. I love the feeling of rushing through test chambers, makes me feel like an unstoppable scientist. Sure, you could call me mindless for rushing, but it's simply how I have fun, and I'm allowed to think it's fun. Apologies if this comment angers you, I really mean no harm, just confused.

[@spki4524]

That is ok of course, if you have fun with the game in that way then that's perfectly fine. I just don't really like that sort of playstyle personally, since I think it's really interesting to take a close look at how different "logic sequences" are put together in puzzles. People have come up with some awesome, really elegant sequences, where many unique moves are built into them using very few elements, and I find that impressive. Sorry if the word "mindlessly" came across as a bit harsh in my original comment :p

[@chillwithwill2236]

@@spki4524 it's alright. I myself get stumped sometimes on puzzles. Sometimes I find really nice ones. And in my opinion. If you scrounge around enough you can find maps that are AMAZING. Not all of them are bad. I'm not saying you said they were. But in my opinion it feels quite pointless to make a video on this. All you really need to do is scrounge around a bit to find a diamond In the rough

[@robertdesmond2777]

Mike, I've enjoyed playing your maps and only recently found your videos. You have an engaging manner and interesting voice, which suits the subject matter beautifully. You articulate what I've long suspected far better than I ever could. I have a core amount of favourite authors and tend to use their recommendations and favourites to avoid the junk on the default "top rated", "most popular" and "most recent" options. Thank you for making these entertaining and thoughful videos.

[@undrew3280]

I love the point you made with the talos principle workshop, because the a hat in time workshop is in a very similar situation. Because of how much trouble it is to get into modding the game, people tend to put more time and effort into the stuff they publish. It's almost like a filter that separates those that have a clear vision of what they wanna make from those that come in without a plan, who, if given an easy to use editor, would pump out effortless content mindlessly and probably cause what happened with portal 2's workshop. This is why, whenever i browse for portal 2 maps, i always use the custom visuals tag, because the hammer editor acts as that filter. It's almost like a completely different workshop.

[@FluxLemniskat]

Great video! I can't really add much that others haven't already said. One thing I find interesting is the like button aspect you mentioned. Personally, I don't use that feature in >95% of all cases. There are 3 main reasons. 1. It takes longer to walk through the open exit door and step into the elevator than opening the worskhop page on your own. 2. I don't trust the in-game feature, especially when it comes to server connections. Rating a map on the workshop page on the other hand always worked for me. 3. While already being on the workshop page, the motivation to leave a comment is a lot higher.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The voting screen really is an issue. It tends to focus way more positive reviews onto maps. In most cases, people tend to complain when something isn't right, but don't say anything and move on, if things turn out to be fine. So negative reviews tend to be overrepresented.

[@Benethen_]

Exorbitantly high quality video that dropped on my recommendations - seriously surprised to see this video barely has any views. I hadn't played Portal 2 in a while - and mostly played bad, popular community maps when I did play.(as a rookie player, I noticed that they were quite easy but still managed to have fun with them, just turning my brain off and mindlessly doing them still gave me some enjoyment - I don't think this would be the case if I were to play them for more hours) I'm gonna be on the lookout for quality stuff now. Thanks for the awesome video, it was quite interesting.

[@NoelJasik]

As someone with a little bit expirance in game development, i think additional problem may be that the high quality maps are outside of the players skill level, difficulty ramp ups are one of the most common causes of peapole quitting a game, the difficulty curve has to be balanced and gradually introduce players to new concepts, that's a issue that most games with user generated content need to deal with, i think having a way that automatically(check for avg time to beat, completition % etc) or manually ranks the difficulty of the puzzle would already help with that, having some kind of way to make built in campaigns (so that you can introduce players to the concepts of your puzzels, easier). The ease of use of the editor is enabling this issue though as someone who grew up playing lbp2 i think it's still a positive overall, as it helps peapole get to the mapping scene, and it's not like bad maps don't often get made with hammer (orange box type of maps for tf2 and csgo are very popular and have pretty bad actual level design).

[@asakayosapro]

This can be solved easily even in the stock level builder by adding an 'introductory' prequel chamber where the player is given a simple test to show them the intended concept, theme and mechanics of the chamber that follows afterward. I've run into some of the more 'custom' stuff (sadly, these are of the custom editor variety), recent ones of note involving using lasers as 'teleporters' for cube items activated by placing them on a button-esque platform and pressing an adjacent button; this would teleport the cube to the endpoint of the laser. Was quite intuitive and fun, tbh; there were also the 'Unreal' maps, in particular one that made you stare through glass frames to 'swap' the room you were in to the one you were looking at. It was rather confusing, but it was solvable; this one also had a 'mini tutorial' room to demonstrate the effect.

[@neonkapawn]

A few personal recommendations from me would be: "After Hours", "Angry Tests", "Designed for Danger", "Moonbase Loona", "COSMOGONY", "Stasis" and "Gelocity" they are multipart stages.

[@asakayosapro]

Seen some of Angry Tests and Designed for Danger, and quite frankly, they are the sort of puzzle maps that act as a 'newbie/casual filter' because of 'increased difficulty' and 'daredevil tier dangerous' respectively. The latter had me yelling "...OH HELL NO... I HAVE TO STUNTMAN THIS LIKE THAT _AS WELL_ !?" (I solved every last one of these I encountered though, so no problems there) There was also Enigma Project, which needs more thinking and logic than usual (very appreciated) and a few other one offs, but I have also encountered my fair share of ridiculous and worse still, 'unsolvable' maps. A recent one with the broken down theme had this wonky 'bounce to exit catwalk' thing going on with a slanted panels and a wall over deadly goo, and there was no apparent solution to it that I could find despite being quite experienced; thus the only logical conclusions I could come up with is that the element needed to solve it is too obscured or hidden, the creator did not bother to play test for solvability, or a highly unreliable bounce gel stunt was what was required. (ugh, please don't do that, especially if the means to plaster gel on said surfaces is downright unreliable)

[@tycholorenzo]

I started playing a map from one of the creators in the description. It’s so simple yet takes way longer to solve than like 90% of the other community maps I’ve played. It’s so damn clever like damn😅

[@DaltonIzHere]

Something about the first point is that it’s kinda like Wheatley. They want to put in the least possible effort for the highest payoff of dopamine. Wheatley did this by making terrible tests and stealing GLaDOS’ old tests, and the people from Point 1 do this by making terrible tests and finding tons of small, very easy tests by others.

[@Fludd-Stop]

Incredible video! Even if the situation on the Workshop seems pretty dire and hopeless, this video is a fantastic way to raise awareness about the issue and reignite interests in Portal 2 community chambers, and I really appreciate all the resources you left below to explore on our own!!

[@katier9725]

This is a very good critique and can honestly be applied to a lot of things. Web Novels for example are much the same: basic plots and easy-to-digest conflicts seem to attract more of an audience because they are much easier to write and publish, while carefully crafted and unique stories often get drowned out under the deluge of utter garbage.

[@AykutEker]

I loved to share medium/ hard chambers with the possibility to walk around in the whole chamber before getting started. I had created up to 30 chambers and had a small group of friends. They playtesting my chambers and I test their chambers for avoiding unintendend gameplay and giving our opinions.. but I quit and a lot of them quit too, because we never broke the barrier between challenging maps and dump maps, thanks to the front page. Shure thumbs up for your analysis. Thx.

[@MrGermandeutsch]

0:43 - "My first community chamber" The sign then proceeds to display *_66th chamber out of 380 chambers_* .

[@rotz394]

It kinda feels like how I feel there's maybe the opposite problem of every map I've played being an overdesigned story-based multi-map collection that could never be made in the in-game editor.

[@Delfite]

I've only made 2 test chambers that I thought were actually good and were worthy of being uploaded. The part where you talked about how it takes orders of magnitude more effort to make good chambers is absolutely true! While my chambers aren't made in Hammer, BEEMOD fits my needs almost perfectly, I just wish the on-screen palette could have an increased size so I can have access to everything at once.

[@YishaiBarr]

I managed to get to the front page once. But it was slight redesign of a previously popular map with no real challenge. I have many Hammer maps with what I believe are good puzzles that I spent months on and none of them became popular. I used to think that the ease of creating the abundance of maps that blew in since the release of the PTI editor in 2012 is what made maps bad. Really, it just exponentialised what already existed. Before Portal 2's release, many highly reputable maps and mods were just as bad as the front page on the workshop. Not only, but the developers though that the harder the puzzle execution, the better it was. So you had many insanely punishing puzzles in the most popular mods. Portal Prelude it notorious for that. The correlation between taking the effort to make a good map and using Hammer is mostly a Portal 2 thing and is not entirely universal, because the PTI just made it easier to make maps that aren't worth it in Hammer anymore. Also, many people who don't know Hammer have noticed that many of the Hammer maps look good and have more stuff in them, so they use BEEMOD, which was an amazing program back when it released and still is. It's good due to the addition of custom elements or those that didn't exist in the PTI editor that actually improved stuff, especially logic gates and better lights and stuff. However, it adds stuff like triggers, autosaves, style changers (some of which are nice, some of which are ugly), chambre lock doors and stuff that don't always help the puzzle bad can create bad habits. They have their purposes, but they're rarely necessary. And even though most of the style changers are ugly, that never really bothered me. Except, some people took it as an alternative to Hammer and started treating their badly made maps as high quality due to their (no-longer) unique visuals, started demanding from the BEE2 developers more weird stuff that didn't improve their puzzle options (even premade boss fights) and in general, you probably see the result on the workshop. Weird computer generated styling in PTI puzzles that are messy due to the abuse of custom items in BEE2 when the maker tried creating their own equivalent to a "campaign", multi-chambre maps and other things that defeated the purpose of the puzzle editor.

[@megarcher]

Can you give a link for the maps :D i'm glad to playtest them. If i won't beat it i'll still like if its quality.

[@YishaiBarr]

@@megarcher Which maps?

[@megarcher]

@@YishaiBarr your workshop

[@farrowhumes8210]

I think you missed a small point. The image of a very difficult to see what does what room shows the concept of a complex look with a simple solution giving a high response in the mind of the player. Take for example when in portal you first discover flinging yourself or double flinging it is very simple yet feels so complex as we discover it

[@Kaizir]

Excellent video essay. Assuming you are into the idea of making more, I think it'd be cool to look at other Steam Workshops and point out the patterns you've noticed with them too, like for example, a video about the common tropes and patterns of Half-Life: Alyx workshop levels. Maybe not that one specifically and again, maybe you have no interest, but this video was really fascinating and well informed and I think it'd be cool to see more like this one.

[@puppypalice]

The only way I’ve found to my own maps in portal 2 is through mods I usually only use the bee mods. It’s simply adds more test aspects but is essentially the base editor. But it allows me to make a decently complicated puzzle that is obvious to see and isn’t completely hideous. Try out the bee mod you won’t regret it.

[@Mikeastro]

I am well aware of beemod. It is a great tool without a doubt, but it can also be used wrongly and create maps even worse than plain puzzlemaker can ever produce... All of the maps I highlighted in this video as ''good'' were made using it. It's all in how you use it if the result becomes good or bad :]

[@Brightgalrs]

Feels like Valve should've known that third phenomenon would happen, they could've weighed votes (or else changed their popularity algorithm) depending on where the vote came from. I'm sure that normally happens on some level in the Workshop, or else popular things just become more popular, so maybe the integrated UI skips past that somehow.

[@DogMutilator]

@Mike Daas I mainly play coop when I do community chambers, so idk if I'm dumb or not but do you think the coop Chambers are generally better than the single player Chambers? Because to me they mostly seem pretty good when I do quick play (popular of last week)

[@XxSteamStreamxX]

Also I forgot to mention, I found it hilarious how you decided to include a sneeze at 2:13

[@XxSteamStreamxX]

beautiful video, adding your own music gave it a really nice feel to the whole thing :)

[@slizzy1433]

The saddest thing is that if you wnat to have a popular map you have to hold the hand of the player so that they can enjoy it and upvote in,i really agree with this video, most players are just casuals not veterans and they won't play iy and downvote it. I am actualy trying to make bad chqmbers just to see what will happen-tricky portals cube stacking and ghost cube shenanigants, heck i even made a map that is imposible without the funnel crouch glitch which very few players know about. Then i made almost the same maps but this time they basicly solve themselves. The reviews were as follows: The hard maps got downvoted and most players were complaing because of tge solutions, while the easy ones performed really well and most got 4 stars plus on the workshop. This is just proof that the video is right and a funny thing i tried doing

[@The_True_J]

While my first map was a huge mess of test elements all hidden from each other with no clear goal, my second map was a beautiful puzzle where you had to move a sphere to an area with a cube and the cube to the area with the Sphere. The 2 areas were separated by fizzle fields and to remove the field destroys the opposing cube. It forces you to solve the puzzle by standing on the buttons without moving at all. It constrained your movement, and forced you to really think about portal placement. No one ever played my second chamber, it hurts.

[@mushmello526]

I realized that many community maps don't have the aesthetic of a true portal 2 map. Portal 2 maps are usually in a single cubic room, while many community maps have multiple rooms connected to each other with long hallways. Also instead of a few simple testing elements and mainly portals, community chambers are often filled with many testing elements, like gels, buttons, panels, etc, but only few portal spots

[@Blazik3n99]

Great video! And the music is excellent, very well made. I'm guilty of posting bad workshop maps when I was younger, around 2012-2013. I decided to try actually making some good maps in 2018, since I'm familiar with the tools and had developed more of an appreciation for puzzle/game design. I made a handful of chambers and luckily a few of them got some comments of feedback from the mapping community, including a comment from you, which I'm still grateful for! The small but dedicated community of people playing workshop maps and giving feedback is incredibly inspirational. I followed you on steam after that, and that's how I saw this video. What you said about the difficulty spike really hits home though. Even though I have about 1100 hours in Portal/Portal 2, mostly speedrunning, I still got stumped pretty frequently on custom chambers by popular creators when I tried playing them for inspiration. It's frustrating, and when the map creator lists the map as just medium difficulty, it's pretty hard to swallow, especially when there aren't that many puzzle elements. It made me question if I could even make good puzzles when I couldn't complete them myself. I'll definitely give that collection you linked a go, and maybe have another crack at making a chamber or two.

[@DatAtDawn]

If they were to update the game and add a type of difficulty based on how many people cleared the level it could potentially solve part of the problem although they should also make it to where you have to clear your own level so there's no impossible levels while searching. kinda got the idea from mario maker but there's probably other ideas that could be useful from that game .

[@Nagasakevideo]

As someone who could never train themselves to comprehend the hammer editor, the Portal 2 map editor actually seems really restrictive, specifically in the sizes of the panels being much much larger than the player, and not having any half sizes to work with when it comes to that

[@Mikeastro]

There is a mod called BEEMod that makes that possible, among many other things

[@simpson6700]

i'm currently having a very similar issue with web searches. i have questions about how something works on a technical level and data protocols, but all the results i'm getting is stuff like "how to plug in an RGB strip", "how to set up a MIDI connection", "what's the difference between these connectors". basic consumer questions that no one needs an explanation to after they've done it the first time. nothing about the explanation to how ARGB sends signals to the LEDs, what the chips in LED strips do or what they are called, or how to read out a MIDI clock for your DIY controller, even though i specifically looked for these things.

[@michael_hraje]

What program do you use for making your music? Your music is really nice :D

[@Mikeastro]

I use Magix Music Maker; not the best but it's what I'm used to haha. Glad you like it :D

[@bennettpalmer1741]

I agreed with a lot of what you said here, but I also disagreed with a fair amount. To be fair, I don't have any real experience with Portal community maps specifically, but I have a lot of experience in other similar communities like Mario Maker, so I'm not out of the loop with how user created content works in general. Firstly, don't take this the wrong way, but something that strikes me is that your definition of "good levels" is very narrow. If a level is straightforward and accessible to unskilled new players, that's a "bad, easy level", but if a level requires glitches or speedrun strats, that's also a bad level because it's too hard. In other words, the only levels you call "good" are levels that happen to be of exactly the right level of difficulty for you specifically to enjoy. Now, I'm not saying that this invalidates your points. I agree with you that having the vast majority of all levels be very easy is a pretty terrible thing for a game, and it would definitely be good for the game to have harder levels more represented. But I think if every level that you considered "bad" were removed from the workshop, it would be pretty inaccessible for new players. As you spend the video describing, many new players will get frustrated and give up when faced with a harder level. If that's all that's available, they'll stop playing Portal 2 entirely. I actually think it's important that a majority of popular levels are fairly simple to help these new players get into the ecosystem and build them up to the better levels. Just, you know, it shouldn't be almost all of them. Maybe somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 easy levels would be good. Secondly, I don't think the ease of the creation tools have any major impact on the front page. It's a fact of reality that most things people put on the internet is shit. Even if it's something much harder than slapping together some blocks in a map editor, people will go on the internet and make shitty things. Writing a fanfiction more than a few pages long is far more work than using a map editor, but wading into the newly published categories of fanfic websites is a nightmarish hellscape of bad writing. The difference between the fanfiction community and the Portal 2 community isn't that Portal 2 gets a higher starting proportion of shit, it's that more of that shit gets shoveled to the top. For similar reason, the options of sorting by most recent, most popular, etc. aren't the issue. Basically every community has some form of this, but it isn't really a problem. I think the sole primary reason Portal 2 has this problem where no one else does is the simple fact that there's a difficulty component in being able to enjoy the harder levels. It doesn't require a genius to read a fanfiction and determine if it is worthy of a like, and it doesn't take 10,000 hours in Skyrim to see that the mod that claims it improved graphics did indeed improve graphics. Mario Maker sidesteps this problem by having levels sorted by difficulty, but even then there are some issues with newer players downvoting expert or super expert levels that were incredibly well designed because they couldn't finish them. It's less prevalent than it apparently is in Portal 2, but it does happen.

[@Mikeastro]

Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts! You raise some fair points, but I don't think I have a particularly narrow vision of what constitutes a good level. I never said that a level has to be hard to be good; I only made the claim that when the difficulty approaches zero, I find it difficult to find anything of value. It is not their difficulty that causes me to have a distaste for maps that rely on glitches or speedrun strats; in fact, if the creator specifies in the description that these things are required, I have no problem with them. However, requiring these without mentioning it, as is often done by the less experienced authors who employ them, I quite dislike, as many players expect that the maps they play can be solved without those strategies so they will just be wasting a lot of their time

[@rocha3036]

Thanks a lot for this video. I was looking for good puzzles to have some ideas to create my first portal map, but looking in the workshop I couldn't find any original, creative or interesting mechanic, puzzle or concept to take inspiration of. I wasn't actively aware that the maps were actually bad or mediocre at least. So thanks for the video and for the guide and maps that I was looking for without knowing it.

[@lampionmancz]

I personally have a problem. Whenever I make a map it's out of a small idea that I have which then explodes into a million ideas which I all try to put together and I think many of the people have the same problem.

[@Mikeastro]

Very understandable. It is pretty difficult to keep things simple as the temptation to add more and more to the map can be very strong

[@thomasdfghj1]

Very interesting video essay! I think most areas of content creation suffers from the "initial exposure" issue, but it's odd how portal 2's extremely user friendly mapping tool has the exact opposite effect of what was intended.

[@GEONEgaming]

17:06 is exactly why I dislike Forge in Halo Reach and newer Halo games. Prior to Reach, creating a map in Forge was an art. It took serious dedication and creativity. But after Reach trivialized Forge, the average quality of maps plummeted. Now most community maps and modes are just garbage.

[@XxSteamStreamxX]

Yeah, it appears to be a common issue. I'd saying having a convenient editor isn't a bad thing as it easily allows for new people to bring ideas in, however it now makes it to where 90% of the people who use it because its a convenient editor don't care to put much thought into anything and may publish completely unfinished work. Specifically in portal this appears to be an issue as sometimes these unfinished maps randomly gain popularity and can drown out much higher effort maps at times.

[@tTaseric]

I've forever wished for there to be a toggle for Hammer maps, there's something about those maps with custom environments and voice acting that just feel really nice to play. Great video man

[@Mikeastro]

Thanks! You can actually check two boxes when browsing the workshop on the right. Selecting ''custom visuals'' and ''custom story'' should give you mostly hammer maps. Keep in mind, though, that also hammer maps greatly vary in quality

[@maximkostindev]

Thank you for such detailed video! I am a game developer of This is Timmy, it is a puzzle platformer game, many people saying that it's like portal and mario, but without portals, we are working on a level editor and i just wanna appreciate your effort!!! Things you are saying are absolutely right, people will like only those things that they achieved to finish, I hope my game's workshop wouldn't be such messy as portal's one. Subscribed!

[@sierramilligan1081]

Genuinely brought me to tears, I love the lore and that's why I joined the community, but the puzzles where a such a joy to play through and I found myself playing the game over and over just to experience the puzzles all over again, then I found the workshop and to see such easy puzzles made me question what people where even playing the game for, THAT IS THE MAJORITY OF THE GAME, the characters are really well thought out don't get me wrong but the puzzles are what made me love it even more.

[@TestChamberJunkie]

My thougths on why the front page is filled with "FPF" ,as DW808 would put it, is as follows: "My first map" is an obvious "welcome to the community" thumbs up. We want people to learn how to map, bashing them from the start is a way of saying "GTFO our community nubzor". Not a good way to keep a community going. I don't consider myself as quality mapper. I get an idea and I just try it out. Thanks to awesome and veteran players that record their playthroughs or streams, I've learned workarounds, glitches , traps, and logic flaws, which in turn has helped me to make better maps over the years. (Sheepdog is one of them) Its only a community if we help one another in my opinion. (Edit, sorry was distracted mid comment) I agree with not rating a map over giving it a mindless thumbs up. I've down voted maps that deserved it, up voted maps that didn't. More often than voting, I give feedback to the author. I've noticed some people are apathetic to feedback others too new to understand. Can't really be mad at somebody that doesn't know any better. In the past few months, I've seen more "diamond in the rough" maps in most popular. I've even been stumped on a few. 🤯 I hope the trend continues.

[@janb.3600]

I strongy diagree on your point about "The Portal 2 editor being too good". The acessability of the level editor is one of the main reasons why I tried making my own maps in the first place, and I think that holds true for a lot of creators on the workshop, even some of the most experienced ones. If you have a bunch of players with no experience in map design build maps for the workshop, you will always end up with a lot of mediocre maps. The problem lies with what maps become popular, not what maps get made.

[@Mikeastro]

I think we actually agree on the core issue. As I explain in the video, if the level editor is not at all easy to use, there is a much greater incentive to carefully think about precisely what you want to make and to make it as well as you can. As is evidenced by the workshop for The Talos Principle, you need not necessarily ''always end up with a lot of mediocre maps''. I agree that the level editor being accessible to many is generally a good thing and I never said it wasn't (would be hypocritical, as I personally don't know how to use hammer at all). I agree that the main problem lies in the way in which poor maps get popular. Still, no matter how you view it, if the editor wasn't so good, we would not have had this problem with the workshop; at least not on this scale. So, it is a contributing factor and deserved to be addressed.

[@AdhesiveWombat]

Interesting, I haven't played any of the single-player "most popular" community maps but I have played around 100 of the most popular co-op community maps. There are still quite a few bad maps but I think the percentage of good/bad maps might be higher in the multiplayer category based on the examples you showed. I wonder if it's due to the fact that designing a multiplayer map is more difficult so the people that make them have to put more thought into them.

[@Portal2Player]

I have 3.5k hours in portal 2, and i still cant come up with a good puzzle

[@ContoniaCosmo]

This video and many other popular examples really helped me with my 2nd map and now I made a map I'm quite proud of. Thanks for the tips! :)

[@MCgranat999]

I didn't even know good maps exist… I'm gonna add everything you've added in the description and give them a try, thanks!

[@MrPointness]

A way to mitigate the 3rd problem (the automatic voting screen at the end of the level) could be to move the voting prompt to the ESC menu. That way a player can vote in-game any time AND they have to remember themselves to show appreciation, which they might be more likely to remember if the map actually made an impact for them.

[@tie004uk]

Holy shit man. I saw this video on my feed and it looks just like any other high quality video on my feed. Thumbnail is great. Video feels very well thought about. I'm honestly surprised to find someone with a similar amount of subscribers as me creating something as good as this.

[@Mikeastro]

Thank you for your kind words! I can't take any credit for the thumbnail but I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed the video :D

[@Peastable]

This is also sorta just how user generated content works. Take Super Mario Maker 2 for instance. Almost the entire front page is constantly full with the “refreshing special” sub-genre, where you just kinda ground pound through a buncha stuff and get spammed with sound effects. None of these levels have any discernible differences at all, and that’s not really even hyperbole. But they always have thousands of likes and the creators of them just keep pumping them out because it takes no effort and gives massive reward. At the end of the day not everyone really has the capacity to create and not everyone has the capacity to critique and when you hand exactly everyone the tools to do exactly both of those things it starts to show.

[@Oreoezi]

Awesome video man. Although I may only play portal 2 once in a blue moon drunk in coop with a friend nowadays I still remember getting motivated to use hammer when I was little. I think the coolest thing I did was make a physics object fall and collapse a bridge at the time :)

[@TheAssholeAspie]

I just bought Portal 2, made an Aerial Faith Plate chamber (where you just gotta get on the faith plate and get bounced around), and got the desire to try and make a "better" test chamber. Needed suggestions since I'm a dum-dum, came here. Very informative, good vid. I wish I could do better.

[@weexer5581]

WOW, i wonder how you didn't made thousands of vievs and subs because your video is made very constructive and just good, keep making videos in this way, i am sure that you will become popular in future :)

[@ukaszw5432]

2:14 bless you

[@Mikeastro]

Much appreciated

[@fiddleriddlediddlediddle]

I want to bring up a little thing you said. "People won't look for something they don't know exists." I think it's more accurate to say they won't look for something they think doesn't exist.

[@Mikeastro]

You might be right about that

[@captain_zed6852]

I have a map that has a bunch of rooms connected to 1 main room and that main room has has a sequence for completing the chamber with a different puzzle in each of the other rooms. its super cool but super complicated.