Wayont was specifically modeled after Standoff, and it feels like it to me - basically it's a map that could work for squad or big team, but in the latter it ends up being just a bit more action-packed than most BTB maps. I'm sure that was probably done on purpose due to sprint and evade. I don't really have a problem with the size for the most part except when I spawn out at blue team's teleporter in the rocks - that is a TERRIBLE place to spawn since it's such a long trek back to civilization if you want to vehicle up. They would do well to put an anti zone over that area and leave it for emergency spawning only. Instead I spawned there like five times in a row yesterday in one game and wanted to shoot myself (or the teammates who kept hanging out there and making the game do that). I agree that Renegade has this problem, but Valhalla? The snipers were in there (like Blood Gulch) and the banshees in the gametypes they even appeared in, which was probably necessary. The shotguns and the laser spawned outside. I never thought of this as a problem on Valhalla, but it certainly is on Renegade.
The map is too big and too open which results and no good places to actually spawn in. You can either spawn in the open near the edge of the map near (but not close enough to) your base or you spawn near the cave (for blue team in the rocks) where you're a mile away from your base and STILL don't have a lot of cover. You can't fix the map by changing the spawnzones or whatever. You said earlier that Valhalla was in practice just a better designed version of Blood Gulch and I agree. Valhalla has tons of places where you can spawn and all with a good amount of cover and close enough to your base. Unlike Hemorrhage Valhalla actually has a lot of LoS blockers which allow for better movement and flanking.
Well I can't disagree with any of that, but I don't think those problems originate with Hemorrhage. If anything, Blood Gulch was worse - you only ever spawned in a few clusters around and outside the base, or occasionally on top of it, so you were just as much in the open and spawn killing was far easier. That's a big reason why I've never quite gotten the Halo community's love affair with that map from the start. I've played a lot of fun games on it but it has always had significant design problems. Valhalla was Gulch 2.0 as far as I'm concerned, and they should have remade it instead. Another thing not discussed enough is that Hemorrhage/Gulch's bases suck out loud. They're too small and too simple. A bigger and more complex base would give you more safe places to spawn, and would be easier to infiltrate in objective games (I can't stand trying to get flags out in Hemorrhage - killing an entire nest of campers first is as annoying as it is inevitable). Valhalla had better bases easily, and the ones on Avalanche were to me the model of what a BTB base should be, except for the ease of setting up in there with a rocket launcher (but that was the weapon location's fault, not the base).
Thing with Blood Gulch and Coagulation was that the netcode wasn't very good and therefor it was harder to hit people from a great distance. In Reach, however people can easily hit someone from the rock teleporter area while being at the opposite side of the map (near red teleporter). In Halo 1, 2 and 3 you could never get kills (unless you had a sniper) at such an extreme range as you can in Reach. The fact that the DMR has a 3x zoom rather than the 2x zoom that the BR had also helps making it easier.
Very well said... [br][/br]Edited by merge: Your view is EXACTLY why I ask the question, why is Hemorrhage so popular? [br][/br]Edited by merge: I had very similar views for months. Then after playing SWAT for a while (I got tired of infection, though my daughter and I love to play it together), I tried BTB, only to rediscover the joy of camping and waiting for the flag carrier to come knocking... [br][/br]Edited by merge: I have always thought that people like the early maps because they remember the fun they had, not knowing what a good map really should have in it. I am not saying that blood gultch was bad, I never played on it. But I know from my own experience in Halo 3 that there were some maps that when I analyze them I don't think they were done well, but I love them because my son and I played on them and had a great time together. Same thing with Jack Johnson. My son would play all sorts of heavy metal and stuff when we were playing Halo 3 together. And I told him I really didn't like heavy metal. So he tried different things until he came across Jack Johnson. I love Jack Johnson because his music reminds me of my driving the hog with my son gunning and our hog spinning after a rocket hits us and stuff like that... [br][/br]Edited by merge: What limited experience I have on Renegade is this exactly. there is very little action unless you trek across the map to the other base. There is simply too much on the map at the two ends to keep people apart. [br][/br]Edited by merge: IMHO, if I want to play Valhalla, I play Halo 3. I dont want Valhalla on Reach. I don't want any previous maps on Reach. I want fresh mana in the morning. I want everything newer and better. The problem is that Reach represents a step down from some really good maps.
People also vote for Uncaged, SWAT Magnums, Elite Slayer and play tons of Living Dead. People will play the shittiest things to get easy kills.
The problem with Living Dead is not the maps, but the game type. Living Dead/Zombie games should only allow two types of scoring: a point for each human infected, and last man standing. That is it. But the game type rewards killing zombies, which makes it an asymmetrical slayer fest. It has NEVER been anything else. Even Halo 3 was like that. But I digress...
1 point for killing a human and 5 points for being last man standing sounds about right. Maybe even more for last man standing. And Living Dead specific maps wouldn't hurt. Standard maps aren't really suited for the gametype most of the time.
So from all the feedback, I am guessing that the reasons Hemorrhage is so popular is due to the following. I am guessing only, but these seem to make sense. And the reason they are important is when building a BTB map, these are things I will emphasize. 1. Teams don't have to compete for vehicles, they each have the same equipment. 2. The map is more engaging in battles due to less things to explore. 3. The map is more engaging in battles due to less cover. 4. It is a vehicular paradise. 5. People like to exploit spawning in the open.
More like.. 1. People like abusing the lack of cover when they over run the other team and steal their wraith. 2. People like being sniper whores and having a wide view for easy targets 3. Who ever shoots first at long long range is a winner because the other person cant zoom in whilst being shot at or get to any cover. 4. ghosts and revenants dominate in objective games with splatters due to lack of armor lock