@U42 (View Post)

 People crave approval, and if you're new to something and you're constantly being told that your work isn't appreciated via the voting system, you'd rather spend your energy on a different game with a more friendly and inviting user community. More so if you're a kid. Votes affect people, that's the reason why people vote on forums and social media in the first place; you want to let people know how you feel about the save you're voting for or against, you just don't care about how it makes the save's creator feel.

I'm not arguing that you shouldn't downvote spam saves etc., I'm just arguing that you should rather hang your kid's drawings on the fridge than throw them in the bin because they aren't as good as  a Rembrandt painting if you want your kid to have fun at drawing. Voting for newbie saves isn't that different.

@Jerehmia (View Post)

 Nobody is saying that and so forth. Rather everyone has a different taste for what is good or bad. If this was spam down voting. I'd wager that's likely trolling, however that's not the case here at all. Again, this isn't the case at all, rather people not liking something.  

If this was just trolling or spamming the down vote button, I'd be singing a different tune. Again, nobody is exempt from criticism. 

@NF (View Post)

 I think you're misunderstanding my post. I'm talking about downvoting good effort saves created by new users because they aren't the prettiest or the best saves, disregarding the fact that the user is new to the game and simply can't do better without practice.

If you're new to something and you're doing the best that you can but people still downvote your work because they have impossibbly high standards that no new user can meet, you're going to get discouraged and quit the game as a result.

Grumpy old users who downvote everything they don't like no matter if the creator put effort into it or not are doing a big disservice to the game because they're driving new users away before they have the chance to get good at the game. You don't improve the quality of saves like that, you're just reducing the number of active users overall because you're making the game NO FUN for new users.

@Jerehmia (View Post)

 Ok and? Practice makes perfect, while it's not cool to be down voted into oblivion. Take notes from old users like myself, while in my later years I took saves and mapped them out. While giving the OP credit. I'd tweak maps to make them accurate. Or pieces from a save; like The Lord of the Rings series of saves I made. Even making a collaboration with a user. 

Anyway this isn't about me. This is a point where a user wants people to stop down voting his privately made saves. Not going to happen, plus depending on what they are. People have standards, you can't simply make a save poorly and expect it to be a hit. The community on my time since April 2012, has always wanted good saves. Beginners like myself looked up to the greats, all artists strive to be better. To be better we take notes and practice.

Nobody expects you to become Rambrandt overnight. That's a unrealistic goal to be set, coming from an artist himself. I always welcomed criticism from people who looked into my sketchpads, drawing pads, and when working in Adobe Illustrator. Don't envy others on how good their art is, rather take notes. Sure there will be people that just spam the down vote button, however don't take it to heart. 

@NF (View Post)

 And? And this game needs more active users. Even 2 or 3 years ago a good save easily got 150+ upvotes, now an approximately same quality save struggles to get 70 upvotes. If this trend continues the game's userbase won't survive 5 more years, so we simply need more new users. Opensourcing the game and getting it on Steam was a once in a lifetime opportunity to revive the userbase but the "warm welcome" these people received drove most of them away with a few months time.

If new users want to "learn from the great" they study the first few pages of 1000+ upvote saves and try to make something like it, not realizing they're studying ancient saves. If they publish a save like that they'll get mass downvoted by old users who've seen these saves a 100 times before ("Smokers beware") and/or criticize the ancient technologies and build methods used.

@Jerehmia (View Post)

 There's a old saying BSTS (Better Suck Than Steal). And to be frank, people are in school, growing up or grown up. It's not old users down voting them to oblivion. You can't pander to new users. Maybe some intro tutorials can suffice, and possibly Spike Viper do a trailer? Like an introduction to TPT. Where he shows users how to create such and such? But what do I know.

However this isn't mass down voting, TPT has saw worse down voting. Pandering would make the game less fun, causing more to leave. Clarification, it's not even new users either. People just have standards on what is good and bad. 

Me: choosing not to join this argument

@jacob1 (View Post)

 I agree with this whole heartedly. The Powder Toy has been in decline, way before covid. At it's height, was around 2010 - 2012, if I'm not mistaken. But pandering would accelerate the fall. You can't blame old users for just down voting. It's a mixed bag of users. I was here for the troll raiding, were trolls just massively spammed the down vote into oblivion. For the sake of it. 

A lot of people brought this up on the forum at the the time. Causing you, @Lockheedmartin, @Catelite, and @jacksonmj to look into it if I remember correctly. This was way after BSTS, but some users still posted the logo on their saves. This gave new users inspiration to create and experiment. It was like in my opinion what drove users to strive to be better. 

If users are just going around and down voting for lols, then that's discouraging. I've said this before all saves on TPT are art, rather it be functional or not. Not everyone is a Rembrandt on TPT, and everyone has different tastes in what he or she likes. 

In closing, people will always find a way to nitpick your work. 

Leave me alone I'm tired.