Contained is a arena-style symmetrical map best played with objective gametypes such as CTF and Assault or just plain old Team Slayer. It offers intense and fast-paced fights in the middle area while you can use the lower and side areas to sneak up on the enemy's base. Inspiration for this map were mainly Midship and the Halo 3 Forged MLG maps. The focus right at the beginning was competitive gameplay. I think MLG-gametypes would work decently well on this map as a result too. Over the past couple of months I've made loads of changes to this map, ranging from small details to big chances which changed the entire flow of the map. For example; in the beginning only the top floor existed along with the small bottom level areas at the back of each base. This made the map way to small for 4vs4 matches and made objective gametypes nigh impossible since everyone spawned so close to the enemies. Along the way I've added a lot to the map in order to make it bigger and better fit for objective gametypes. First thing I added was the bottom middle floor. It added another route to get to the other base fast, but relatively dangerous. In the mean time I added small stuff to make the map bigger bit by small bit. A result of this is for example the invis area, or the tunnel going to the main lift which elads to the center of the map. The last really big addition to the map were the two tunnel leading from the bottom of the main ligt to the back of either base. This was a slow, but safe way to get from one base to the other. At that moment I knew I had enough ways to get into each base and back out again. I'm pleased with how the maps feels, plays and looks right now and that's why I've made this thread. I could go on for months making small changed here and there, but I'm done with the map and I want to start on something new. I'll stop talking now and I'll get to business. Picture business. First the weapon list: 1x Sniper Rifle 1x Grenade Launcher 8x DMR 2x Needle Rifle 1x Needler 2x Plasma Pistol 2x Pistol 2x Frag Grenade 2x Plasma Grenade 1x Invisible 5x Health-Pack Here are a few pictures so you can get an idea of the lay-out. Overview: Center: Blue Base: Red Base: Invis area: Sniper spawn: Green tunnel going from bottom middle to main middle grav-lift: Middle grav-lift leading to top floor: Grav-lift at the back of the base leading to the top of the base: Action shots: And that about wraps it up for this post. I'd like to thank everybody who helped testing this map, especially the CGN group and people over at HaloGAF who gave lots of good feedback. So.... yeah... that's it!
I remember playing on this a couple of times for the TG. I found there was quite a bit of camping when playing CTF. This might be because the hallways in the bases are very narrow.
I played this map a few times too. I thought it played very much like Onslaught, but not so much to where it could be called an Onslaught clone. I think the majority of the map is too cramped and there is too much cover in the bases. There's no reason to go to the bottom level either. You can do a lot of damage just by sitting in your base putting long-range shots into your enemies. I didn't like this one bit. It encouraged camping, but in the few games I got on here, camping was slightly less common than I expected. It may have been because all games were FFA, but still. And I just thought I'd say this, but Soul Slasher X is a noob for picking Elite.
I tested this map in for the tg but unfortunately never had time to write the feedback The map is pretty well made, not the most original of layouts but it has the perfect amount of cover to make for great dmr battles. It's perfect for a straight up balanced competitive game if you just want to see who is better out of your friends.
You mean the bottom hallways or top? Because I've changed the back area so it wouldn't be as claustrophobic as it was before. Some goes for the small ramp area in front of each base. It made it a bit more streamlined and open. I haven't really encountered any camping except while playing Oddball. It's one of the reason why I didn't put a CQC power weapon on the map. Did you guys play CTF with Flag at Home to Score on? Because that can ruin the map combined with a too long recovery time. Or maybe you just play with camp-happy players.
Yeee man good map! I loved this everytime we played. (although i thought it was broccolli's map) But i love the additions you've made (widening the bottom by creating the side paths) and i really like this map. I dont think it's too cramped, and it hosts really intense CTF and oddball games. Great map bro, keep it up!
It most certainly is not Broccollipie's map. I'm happy to see that you've enjoyed playing on the map, even though I don't like Oddball games on it very much. It usually just ends up with one team camping and the bottom back of either base.
Haha brocolli doesn't make maps, he's to busy testing everyone elses map! Haha But seriously this map is great! I have enjoyed every game i've played on it. The only thing I feel that it could benefit from is a short range weapon due to the maps relatively small size.
I think a Sword or Shotgun (I assume you mean these weapons) would only encourage camping. I purposely put a Sniper on the map because it can't be abused too much. Only the people who have enough skill can do some real damage with it. Everyone can camp (near the objective for example) and kill someone with the Shotgun around the corner. It just ruins the experience for the opposing team. An example of CQC weapon abusing is Countdown. In itself a great map (one of my favorites), but the Sword and Shotgun are abused to no end. Especially when multiple Swords or Shotguns come into play. Every match ends up in Sword/Shotgun camping near the lifts. That's why I like MLG's version better. It has a Sniper and Rocket on it (although this may different depending on gametype). Although the Rocket can be a bit overwhelming at times, at least it can only be used for a few kills unlike the Sword and Shotgun. And the Sniper has some nice sight-lines throughout the map, but is also often at an disadvantage at most places in the map. This is what I planned with my map. There are some nice sight-lines for the Sniper to make it usable, but not too much to make it overpowered. And the Grenade Launcher is on the map because it's awesome and a very balanced weapon. That ended up being a longer story than I planned on typing, but there you go.
CONTAINED Contained is a symmetric map best suited to four player team objective games. The map features support for many different objective gametypes and offers balanced and enjoyable gameplay for all of them. Games on Contained usually begin with players from both teams rushing the sniper placed in the bottom area of the map in a frenzied dash. Because of this, matches on Contained feature action very early and very often. However, team spawns are a little too close and action may be a little too quick to arrive from a tactical standpoint. Tactics soon play a bigger role in the game as players must work as a team to obtain control of the grenade launcher in the middle of the map on the top. Controlling this location long enough to recover the power weapon is difficult, but the reward is a fair six grenades with the weapon. The third power weapon featured on the map is not really a weapon at all, but an active camouflage pickup. Gameplay does not usually focus around this pickup or the orange tunnel it lies in due to the long spawn timer on the pickup and its few advantages over its armor ability counterpart. Games that do not feature the active camouflage armor ability may find this pickup slightly more useful, but its tunnel still serves few purposes other than quick cover. A large portion of the gameplay on Contained takes place in the top and center of the map, but players who spawn in lower tunnels may take a long time getting there; the lower tunnel areas can sometimes feel very isolated and inescapable, especially in back corners. These corners often go unused due to their relative uselessness and distance from the center of action. Oddball games occasionally will use these chambers as choke points when a team controls the oddball, the act of which can lead to frustratingly campy gameplay for the team attempting to recover the oddball. Several small ramps can also frustrate players and make movement difficult around the bases where these small ramps are located. As an arena style map, the casual player may not enjoy Contained as much as a more competitively inclined player. While casual games such as infection can be held on Contained, the map is obviously more inclined for a competitive game. As such, casual players may find Contained does not capture their excitement. On the other hand, more competitive players often find great enjoyment out of using Contained for their battles. Aside from a few layout problems, objective and even slayer games prove to be quite enjoyable for competitive players. As a symmetric map intended for arena style matches, Contained suffers from no noticeable balance issues. No location on the map is overpowering, and no team has any advantage over the other due to its symmetric layout. The low tunnels, while not often traversed, serve as a nice backup route of attack in case the other team has dominance over the top. The closest thing to a balance issue that Contained features is the easy to camp nature of the corner rooms on the bottom, yet those rooms are near useless to camp especially during most objective games as they are not high-traffic objective pathways. The weapon set is very balanced as neither the sniper nor the grenade launcher can dominate the map, but both provide a significant advantage. Neither one dominates the other and both are equally contested. As such, Contained is one of the most balanced maps to play any competitive gametype on. Contained is an unbreakable map, thanks to the surrounding kill zones. Players that attempt to fly out of Contained are met with a soft kill barrier followed swiftly by a hard kill if players persist. Landing on the upper parts of Contained that are off limits is inadvisable as hard kills surround the top and will kill players upon touching the roof in some places. Other problems such as frame rate and spawning are close to non-existent; the only thing close to a problem being players spawning in lower tunnels having difficulty returning to the top of the map. Spawning hiccups still do occur, albeit infrequently when more players are added into the game but are very rare in a standard four player team match. The biggest problem, as mentioned before, is players spawning too far from the action. While this can be annoying at times, this issue hardly takes that much away from the map. Contained is a map focused on achieving balanced competitive gameplay, and aesthetics is therefore not a priority. Nevertheless, Contained is still a very smooth map, featuring a few nice aesthetic pieces that help the map look nicer, such as the small details above each base and by the sniper spawn. However, these pieces do not follow an obvious aesthetic theme. Separate pieces are obvious and pieces are not really used in unique ways. While orientation is still easy and aided by the aesthetics, they offer little other value. As an arena style, four player team map, Contained brings little new to the table. The tiered style of Contained is the only feature that could be considered mildly original for an arena map, with the rest being mostly arena standard. The power weapon set, layout and objective layout all fit in with most other arena maps and leave this map looking like every other. While Contained provides well in other categories, the features of the map themselves are not original. FINAL SCORES Rating Multipliers Enjoyment: 6.0x3.0 = 18/30 Balance: 10.0x3.0 = 30/30 Durability: 9.0x1.5 = 14.5/15 Aesthetics: 4.0x1.5 = 6/15 Originality: 1.0x1.0 = 1/10 TOTAL SCORE = 70/100 FINAL SCORE Understanding the Review Hub's Ratings Have a question about your review? 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Contained is really design and build with competitive play in mind so this doesn't surprise me. I can imagine it being a bit of a boring map for people with a more casual mindset, but that's not really a problem for me as it was never really intended to be played by those kind of people. Originally the initial spawns were on near the flag stand at the top of the base. I decided to move them to the bottom so some members of each team would go up the ramps to top-mid and other players would go to bottom-mid. This way, people would know right from the start that there actually is a bottom floor (with a Sniper). After I made some changes to the ramp area in front of the initial spawns it became a bit too open I'll admit. The tunnels on the side were never meant to have a lot of traffic to be honest. They were there mostly to create an extra way into the base which was a longer walk, but also a lot safer. They were also a place for a team to spawn safely. In Objective matches this can be a bit of a problem as you said because it's a bit too far away from the action. I know that Oddball can be pretty awful on Contained. In some places the corners are just too tight to make for a good Oddball match. I totally agree with that one. Like I said before, the tunnels were solely made for Objective games. So people would have more ways to get into and out of each base. So I understand that they're not really attractive to go to in Slayer matches. I'm glad you thought my map was balanced. I picked the power weapons carefully. The Sniper has some nice sight-lines, but can never really dominate the entire map from one point. The Grenade Launcher is, to me, one of the best power weapons to place on a map. It's never really overpowered, but it can be a deadly weapon in the right hands. I'm really glad that there weren't any frame-rate issues. I've had some in the older versions and I'm happy to hear that they're resolved. Regarding spawns; the only problems that may occur have to do with the neutral spawn zone in the middle which may spawn people a bit too close to each other. Expected. The focus was never really on the look of the map, but more the functionality. Bit harsh on the score, but I agree on most part Thanks for the Review, Scorch. Really appreciate it.
Glad to hear it! I'm glad the review was read and that you understood most if not all of my points. Feel free to run your maps by the RH anytime!