MrMadguy, on 16 March 2016 - 10:01 AM, said:
I don't see any arguments, except bashing me and white knighting, via saying, that me and majority of players are wrong, and you and game developers - are right, just because, well, you said so and it's some kind of axiom, that doesn't require proving.
What I am objecting to--and what I think others are objecting to--is the fact that you portray your opinion as objective fact.
You say things like "X, Y, and Z maps are objectively better maps because I believe so and a majority of players agree with me." When asked for the criteria for rating the maps, you say things like "Play the game long enough and you get an intuitive feel for what is better and what is worse."
But really the only objective statements that can be made about map preference is "Objectively more players prefer to play X map, while fewer players prefer to play on C map." Because when we are discussing something like map PREFERENCE we are discussing something that is inherently subjective.
If we were to rate maps in an objective manner, we could do so using a set of oppositional criteria such as:
Visibility: High to Low
Size: Small to Large
Terrain: Navigable to Impassable
Cover: Plentiful to Minimal
Heat: Cold to Hot
Sightlines: Long to Short
All of these are arguably objective criteria. You could assign a sliding scale of numbers so people can quickly correlate the numbers to their own preferences. For example, if I were to assign 1 to the left criterion value and 5 to the right criterion value, I would guess that you favor maps with an aggregate score of <10, where as I would prefer maps with an aggregate score of >15. We could also survey the entire playerbase and figure out which criterion values they prefer or which aggregate scores they prefer. Their opinions are subjective, but our data about those opinions becomes objective.
You might also do further analysis and say that maps with scores of 6-15 generally favor brawling whereas maps in the 25-30 range will almost always be sniping maps. Of course, these aggregate numbers obscure the fact that one map might rate 1-1-1-5-1-1. So you could do a more subjective but detailed analysis of what playstyles "work" on a map. For example, Polar Highlands: Visibility High; Size Large; Terrain Navigable; Cover Minimal; Heat Cold; Sightlines Long. If someone gave me these ratings and I had never played the map, I could guess that it would be friendly to direct-fire snipers and LRMs. If I were to go for a brawler build, I would favor something with ECM or AMS and speed, but wouldn't need to worry about running too hot.
But when we get into language about what is "better" or "worse," "good" or "bad," we slide back into preference and subjectivity. You are fond of citing rhetorical language about democracy that dates back at least to the writing of the American Constitution, so let me take an example from American democracy. Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968. We can make two declarations about this fact:
1. We can say that he was the best candidate in the 1968 election.
2. We can say is that a majority of voting Americans thought that he was the best candidate in the 1968 election.
Only #2 is an objective statement. Statement #1 is a
value judgement and is therefore
inherently subjective. Statement #2 is an observation about how many people made the value judgement from Statement #1, and as an
observation grounded in numerical data, it is objective. It gives us insight into what Americans at that time believed was "better" or "worse" (and how many believed it) but leaves room for meaningful analysis and debate.
Your arguments are formulated on the same template as Statement #1, but you present them as though they were derived like Statement #2. This is why people spend time parsing your arguments rather than addressing other aspects of the thread.
...
But back to the reason why I came back to this thread in the first place [sigh]:
It just occurred to me that what we had before wasn't really "voting" or "democracy" (in this MadGuy is correct--the current form is closer to democracy, though we retain the vote multiplier). It was essentially a miniature market, in which the currency is votes and the commodities are maps and modes. You could choose to accumulate more currency (make an intentionally losing vote), spend your currency (make an intentionally winning vote), or conserve your resources for future actions (save your multiplier by not voting).
It was a bidding process akin to an auction, a market in which prices fluctuated and any bid was essentially a gamble.
As imperfect actors we were working with imperfect information--essentially our preferences, our perceived preferences of others, and based on prior market experiences our intuition about whether or not an existing bid is "in earnest" or is intended either as misdirection or as an investment in a higher multiplier. But based on these observations and intuitions, we attempted to manipulate the market to serve our ends, abstaining when we were apathetic* about the outcome, intervening when we thought we could gain something--either a map, a mode, or a multiplier.
This was the essence of the game, and why some people liked it and some people hated it. People who played "in earnest" all the time felt like they were getting cheated, whereas the "savvy market players" derived pleasure from the game, either because it produced outcomes they preferred, or because they enjoyed the game itself.
*EDIT: Or when the outcome favored us without our intervention but making a bid for a higher multiplier was likely to give us an unfavorable outcome.
Edited by Jables McBarty, 17 March 2016 - 09:38 AM.
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