BTB MM Maps

Because they are chosen by Bungie, the complete overlord of Halo.

 

Secretly, Bungie makes the votes count towards the maps they build, so it seems like they are all like, "These community maps stink, but let's put them on MM anyway, but we will make it so when someone votes for that map, it lags up and only one vote goes toward our map, making it be the chosen map!"

I've seen it all. Bungie messes with the votes. But the maps are pretty good...
(I need to turn off my halo 3 flames before anyone knows... THE TRUTH!)

 

The noobier the map/gametype the more it will get voted is how I see it.

 

Actually IMO hemorrhage is basically the default BTB map.

It's a simple design with a lot of vehicles, symmetric teams, good sniper map, everyone can play it, a good coordinated team can dominate etc.
Almost every reason a person would want to play BTB can be found in Hemorrhage but it's a simple map so it's a fallback map when you don't get a map you want.(and 16 people all wanting different maps but all having the same fallback map ends up with the fallback been played more)

Other maps like spire seem to be on par with community maps.

 

The community maps aren't very good either, save Trident and Wayont. I don't think Paradiso was ever able to be saved; Utopie still sucks IMO, just not as badly. Renegade is sloppily built in several places...what other ones are there? I don't get on BTB too much, but I honestly find the simplicity of Hemorrhage to be the most fun. Wayont is my favorite of the community maps.

 

There is an unlimited amount of reasons why someone can like something I don't know why people like hemorrhage I personally like it because Vehicles!,Nostalgia,Large simple map.

But IMO it is picked more often then other maps because lets assume that hemorrhage is liked as much as any other map but it is also everyone's fallback map (and it's a famous Halo map).

 

Blood Gulch has been in three iterations of Halo (plus was basically re-created as Valhalla in the other one) for a reason. Personally I think it's a little overrated - Valhalla was a much better design, and Avalanche also was a superior BTB map to me - but I understand why people like it: it's big, it's simple, it's fun for vehicles and somehow not totally horrible for infantry. So there you go. The other Bungie big team maps are not nearly as popular from what I can tell - Boneyard usually gets voted against; The Spire depends entirely on the gametype, with people seeming to only like slayer on it.

As for the community maps, I think they are unpopular due to a combination of being less than good and the way they appear in the playlist, which is as an interchangeable blob. It took me a number of sessions in BTB before I could remember which one was Mt Lam Lam, which one was Trident, etc. Bungie would have done well to let you associate an in-game screenshot with a custom map to serve as the thumbnail. Maybe in Halo 4. Aside from that, let's get back to the quality issue:

- Mt. Lam Lam is complete crap. It looks sloppy, uses a lot of pre-fab buildings, has a very boring and unimaginative design, has borderline-impenetrable bases that pretty much require you to slaughter the entire defense to run objectives, and worst of all, is somewhat similar to (but much worse than) Abridged. Should have been left out of the playlist entirely.

- Utopie is just Paradiso. Both maps are less than great (I don't totally hate either but they'll never be well-remembered Halo classics). The big problems in Paradiso - mountain is too dominant, ground level is too rocky and hazardous for good vehicle usage, banshee is a terror from above, and endless spawn killing - are also present in Utopie.

- Renegade has the same problem as a lot of canyon maps - it's just a different take on Hemorrhage, and people are more comfortable with Hemorrhage. Besides that, the changes they made were for the worse. That middle structure is more easily team-dominated than the middle part of Hemorrhage, and the banshees combined with the neutral laser inevitably result in one team destroying the other's banshee and then going on a prolonged spawn massacre. I've seldom enjoyed a game on this map; it seems to always turn into a beatdown for one team or the other.

- Wayont is... actually a good map. Better for objective games though, it's a little dull for slayer.

- Trident is possibly the best all-around map of the bunch. The only thing I don't like about it is the needless lower level on one side of the map - nobody ever goes down there, it's just a waste of objects.

- Abridged is a map that plays pretty well but looks very awkward and complicated. And in some aspects, it is actually awkward and complicated, like the nest of buildings and ramps on the ocean side of the map. It's also got some sloppy forging, like areas in the base that are bumpy and can get you stuck. I've had a lot of good games on this map but I could understand why someone would take one look at it and say "No, that thing is a mess."

So out of the six community maps, you have two that are bad, one that is just a tweaked version of a Bungie map that was unpopular anyway, one that is decent but kind of a hard sell, and two that are actually enjoyable most of the time. And to someone who doesn't play a whole lot of BTB, they probably all look like the same map when you're voting for one. It's no surprise that people would think, "Ah heck with this, gimme Hemorrhage again."

 

Imo, Hem is popular because it can cater to all play styles. mid-range and long-range especially, but even a player who favors CQC can still have some fun on it, although they may be a little bored guarding that flag with the shotty for a while, it will pay off once the other team blindly charges into the base.

its a blast for people who love vehicular play, and frequently moments of insane and funny vehicular chaos will happen on all parts of the map. imo it is basically the essence of btb, open spaces, enough cover, room for vehicles to have fun, etc...

and additionally, when a full team of 8 seeks to spawn trap and dominate the map, they can easily do so, which i believe above all the other reasons i mentioned, is the main reason that it gets voted so much. people just want to farm kills on it.

 

I have no idea, i dislike hemmorhage so much.
Can't do much without a vehicle, can't do much against a vehicle on foot and can't counter snipers without a sniper of your own.

Wayont, Utopie, Trident and The valhalla remake (its name eludes me atm) are the better BTB maps imo.
Even boneyard and the spire are ok maps depending on the game types.

Idk what people think when they massively vote for hemmorhage.
My best guess is "objective game type, no cover, many vehicles, no armor lockers, free splatters!!!!"

 

I like Trident.

 

Remove all BTB maps from the playlist. Add in the recent FHF winner Zanzibar remake, Jambo's remakes of Containment and Headlong, The Trivial Prodigy's Timberland remake, that one awesome Coagulation remake that everyone has played, and more maps that I totally forgot about.

Also, give the guys over at the Forgehub Tester's Guild complete control over what goes into the Social playlists. This way the slackers over at Bungie won't put something stupid in. Examples include Uncaged, Reflection, Enclosed, Powerhouse, Affinity, Countdown, Zealot, pretty much every map in the playlist. Fire those idiots and get some real map designers to make maps specifically for the playlist. The ones they have available don't do a very good job at all, especially when it comes to BTB.

With those changes and the soon-to-come Title Update, I might actually start playing BTB competitively, or at least casually, again. Bring back the Halo 2 BTB.

To answer your question instead of ranting on, Bungie's maps are voted for more often than real maps because all these Halo fanboys like to d-ride Bungie, despite their huge mistakes. It's okay to be a fan, but when it gets to the point of just being plain ignorant, it's a problem. When will the community open their eyes so that we can get somewhere? The only reason we haven't gotten this Title Update already is because of all these "adapt" kids and their illogical arguments. Will we ever go back to being a mature community?

 

Wow, same here.

I still think that these community maps (Wayont, Trident, Abridged) maps could be easily improved (excluding Hemmorrhage), such as adding more decent cover to the community maps, and less power weapons and vehicles, and also add more railings (except for Wayont). Adding more teleporters would also make some of those maps better (Mainly for Abridged).

Oh yeah, and Mt Lam Lam was the worst piece of crap of a map I've ever played. It should really be taken of MM.

 

By far, the most annoying BTB maps are vehicle based ones. BFBC2 is a bad example of this (e.g. Arica Harbour)

Nearly all vehicle based maps have giant expanses to allow vehicles through, neglecting the fact that not every player is able to fit into a vehicle. This leaves those who didn't make it to a vehicle to be constantly spawnkilled over, and over, and over again, and be generally useless for their team as they cannot make it out of the base. Take Arica Harbour here. If you are one of the 6 on the attackers who don't get a vehicle, you have to run a 5 minute run through flat, unguarded terrain just to reach the action, and be insta killed once there.

Haemorrage is just alright though, as individual players can gain ground, and be of use. Abridged does this very well. Some maps are awful at it though, and unfortunatly many of those make it to MM.

Ones that support vehicles instead of troops, making it boring for everybody!

 

This. I don't think I've ever disliked any map as much as I dislike Hemmorhage. It's just awful. One big vehicle and sniper spam on a map that looks like a paintball setup. It ignores everything that has happened in the last decade of map design. And this coming from someone who can only remember BG from the original, out of all the maps they had.

 

Hemorhage was a shame. I'd rather they kept Valhalla in. What a great map that was Good vehicle gameplay and 8v8 games. Or just kept the original blood gulch

 

Valhalla was the superior map no doubt, and it would have worked well in Reach I think. No idea why they fell back on its more boring, flat, open predecessor. Have to admit though, I barely see the difference between the original Gulch and Hemorrhage. I know there ARE differences of course, but I don't think the original Blood Gulch would play any better in Reach than Hemorrhage does.