Envy

Well i tested this map a few time with you and its good to finally see it up and ready for a download , so ill download it now and see what the final piece is like (Y)

 

EEP, YOU FINISHED IT!

I'm downloading this straight away. I loved testing, and I'm anxious to see what you've done with Envy. I would have easily recommended the map to anybody even at the maps testing stage. The three floors are all very unique and flow very well. The sword at the bottom was especially brilliant, as it never felt overpowered, and it was a perfect risk vs. reward in reaching it.

Oh, and Stockpile was brilliant on this map, so that's the gametype i'd recommend trying out.


Expect a full review very shortly, dude.

 

Nice to see this finally being released after being at all those test sessions! I really like the way you worked the colour green into everything, and how each floor looked unique. It was also really easy to move from one tier to the other, thanks to all the lifts, stairs and falls. The windows protecting the grenade laucnher spawn were also a great touch, imo.

 

Aww damn doesn't that video just look awesome!
It's good to see this released steve. I think I only ended up getting 1 game of 4v4 slayer when we played and it did play quite well... despite a lack of spawn areas. The aesthetics are amazing. Probably the best I've seen on any map so far.
Again, it's good to see this released. The community definitely lacks some solid FFA maps and what we have both done is produced some awesome maps with FFA in mind.

 

i helped test this I'm a big swat player, ok, and honestly the small square layout was not to my taste. Swat generally takes place over a medium to long range with line of lien of sites going acrossed all axes normally, also i did not know if u fixed the spawns because during testing there would be numerous times where an opposing team member would spawn in the same hallway as you and either get spawn killed or get a kill right off the bat. I do like he idea though, reminds me of that map on forgehubs favorites (whos name escapes me at this time )
i should try headhunter though, that would be different ^^

 

Well its not the best swat map ever but... Its great for headhunter, slayer, team slayer, and multi flag. Definitely enjoyed testing this. Nice work Stevo.

 

Ok just a few quick thoughts on improvements here. But since they are so minor it makes the map look pretty good from a critical point of view.



These pieces of cover, on both red and blue side. The bottom ones I can somewhat crouch jump onto them, but the top side cover is almost impossible to scale. You should seriously consider either lowering them or swapping out for something shorter. The ability to jump onto them would add greatly to the combat dynamic of the area. Think of the cover on the bridge in Halo 3's Narrows. It they were too tall to jump, then they might as well be 20 foot tall walls.





These walls and walkways look really naked, both from an aesthetic and combat stand point. I would add something, even a little something just to break up the visuals if nothing else. Whether what you add can be used as cover is entirely up to you, but this part just screams "I would never see this on a Bungie made map". Also the point I am standing on there has some texture overlap, just FYI.


Lastly my screenshot of it didn't upload for some reason, but the gravity lifts. They are tucked into a pair of angled geometry for a nice effect, but why are the two sides not flush with each other? I swear I spent more time looking at those trying to deduce a reason for the asymmetry then anything else on the map.

 

After viewing the pictures and watching the video, I will be downloading this for sure. It looks great. Just from the pics and vid, I already love the sword room and the room with the glass windows. Looks great. I am looking forward to downloading this map over the weekend and playing some games on it with my friends.

 

This map has some nice aesthetic touches, mainly I am curious about how you made your pool... its well cool, i'm envious lol. Some parts of the map seem really open with long open stretches, making for easy kills. I'm going to check it out more. downloading...!

 

Yes, the ap has a nice mix of close to medium range combat.

The pool was made by objects being submerged in water, not sure what you meant. And yes, the map does look quite perty. I am green with envy.

 

But your two top cover points are different heights, see:





But my real point isn't that you CAN'T jump them, just that jumping them requires too precise of timing. Going back to my Narrows comparison, if the bridge barriers required you to crouch jump to get over them, people would do so considerably less.

So if you want the dynamic of people jumping over the barriers in combat, my suggestion would be to have them at least a little easier to jump onto. If you do not want that to come into play, make it impossible to scale with standard jumping.


As for the gravity lift, I get now that you "sunk" one side to draw attention to it, and it works. And putting the drop down portion at a different elevation is smart too. But you may want to consider switching them, so the drop down area is sunken.

The reasoning being that during one of my test jumps down, I hit the lip separating the two sides. Since the lift side is the sunken side though, that was the direction I slipped off into. If you reverse them, and you hit the space between the two sides dead on, it should theoretically never shunt you off into the lift side. But as you said, the sunken part is what draws your attention, and a new player may assume that is the lift side. Just something to consider.

 

Also, a thought I just had:

Have you considered putting anything on the walls leading to the lifts? A little bit of geometry to draw the eyes and give that much better orientation? Just as an example if you put a diamond on the south wall, a savy player will learn "Hey, I am looking at the southern bottom wall, and the western gravity lift is directly to my right".

Little things like that are, in my opinion, what make really good maps like this, into really great maps. From just a competitive standpoint. I can't really critique the art direction of the level, which something like that may go against.

 

You're right, the aesthetics are unmistakably original. All of these great maps make my current endeavor feel like a piece of junk. Nice job anyways!

 

So, like I said I would, I gave this a run-through. Don't have people to test maps with so I can only tell you how I like the looks, rather than gameplay.

In a word - stunning. It's a small space so it's easy to take in the visual appeal right off. Also, being small, I'm sure the gameplay will be quite fast-paced. On your bridge up top, your jumping is limited ever so slightly but that's not a big issue.

 

Nice little touch with the water area with the sword. It looks very cool! Like a fountain containing a lethal blade in the middle