Arca

When I look at this map all I see is a sea of dark walls covered in orange. There is little to no color contrast whatsoever. How am I suppose to pick out landmarks when the scene blends together? The only REAL exception to this is the sandbar area. Your "huge" differences are actually rather subtle, given that. Players use color contrast/coding to help understand and navigate the environment. Its the difference between "gold room" and "angled brace room." The former is just more memorable, whether you admit that or not.

 

Ya know... I don't have to exaggerate to make my point. I'm starring at the map right now, and count three such large rooms. In the thick of battle, these spaces looked almost identical. Players new to this map (such as myself and the guy I played this with) were left hanging by the lack of navigational tools you gave us. And i'm not saying that adding variety to the color would miraculously solve every problem. But it would help, and if you are not willing to even explore such possibilities, then this conversation is pointless.

This does make me wonder, though. If you only post these maps for yourself, and a select group of friends, why even bother posting them in a public forum? Its obvious that you won't consider criticism from anyone who doesn't share your maps vision. Just seems like a waste of page space to me.

 

Treat it like a map from any other game, and "learn the layout"! The best maps are the ones that reward players with more knowledge of the layout.

The map's designed with inspiration from Quake styled levels, and if you ever played Quake, most maps consist of atriums, rooms, and hallways, which can be confusing at first, but you "learn the layout" with experience.

 

I guess we just have different forging styles then. I prefer making/playing maps that don't leave first timers feeling lost. I've always felt that the player should never have to do an extensive forge through to fully comprehend the layout. Their understanding should be IMMEDIATE. Of course, that doesn't mean not adding things in to reward the vets. It just means making sure you don't have to play it ten times in order to grasp where all those DMR shots are coming from.

But hey, maybe some day Hutler will have the time to go back and revisit this idea, and come up with something else entirely that resolves the issue. Until then, this will remain an "almost not quite" map to me.

 

Bold: Ideally, that should be the standard for most map designs as the majority of players are casual in nature.

Actually, I agree with the whole post. Psssh.

 

I don't think it has much to do with being "casual", or "hardcore" at all. It's about accessibility, and to do that sometimes you have to meet in the middle. It has been stated that this map was learning towards that hardcore audience, and that leaves the rest of us feeling dissatisfied.

IMO, allowing players to learn the layout quickly leads to a more enjoyable experience. Make the map FUN to learn, not frustrating. The sooner someone gets the grasp of how it all comes together, the sooner they can begin formulating their own strategies and playstyle. This keeps them invested in a map for much longer.

Think of Bungie's maps. Classics like Beaver creek have simple layouts, and are easy to learn. But it still contains enough depth to keep players coming back ten years later.

I can't say the same for Arca, though. I had one "iffy" game on it that discouraged me from coming back. I should WANT to play this again, to test what I had learned from the previous session. But I just don't feel like I really gained enough to want to give it another go to.

 

That may be how you feel, but it is not a universal rule. Look at the Bungie maps: Chiron, Chill Out, Damnation, Lockout, etc. There are different theories in map design, and all of them are conditional. I may agree with you on orientation, if the layout wasn't so simplistic. But it is. It is a high atrium, a low atrium, and two opposite teleporter rooms. Four rooms should not be too difficult for anyone to learn.

 

That's the thing, though. Because of the way the aesthetics are in this map, IT IS DIFFICULT TO LEARN. As for the maps you mentioned, with lockout being the obvious exception, the others were never really all that popular. Probably for the reasons I find it hard to fully enjoy this map. But guess that is just a matter of opinion.

 

Damnation, chillout, not popular? what is this, I don't even. I agree that maps should be easy to learn but not all maps pertain to all players. Arca has a proven layout; I've played it myself. And exactly how hard is this map to learn? Hulter even added an extra opening to improve flow. Personally I don't like it when forgers add too much textures to their map, it looks inconsistant. This is a great map designed by one of my all-time favorite forger. Thank you Hulter for bringing back a classic.

 

Hulter, I think you're missing FFS's point. He's not talking about dumbing down your map at all.

The problem isn't that the layout is too complicated, or that the rooms aren't distinguishable from one another, or anything like that... the problem is that there isn't a "landmark compass", so to speak, that players can use to help orient themselves. If you look at all developer-made maps from halo 2 onward (halo 1 being an exception), you'll find that every single one incorporates some kind of visual or geometric way to distinguish the cardinal directions from nearly anywhere on the map.

There's been several articles posted on B.net where Bungie's own map designers talk about their creation process, namely here and here, and one of the big things they talk about is player orientation. In the second article especially, Rod Adams uses Breakpoint to illustrate the "cardinal directions" principle - for each direction, there's a huge, unmistakable landmark that lets the player know exactly where they're facing: the huge glowing artifact, the pretty skybox, the glacier, and the cliff face with the tunnel.

I think FFS's problem isn't that he can't tell the rooms apart, from what I see in the pictures they all look somewhat unique. I think the issue is that he's not able to form a mental picture of the map very easily because there aren't any large, easily visible landmarks to help orient players in space. You need these, or else players have no idea which way they're facing off spawn and thus no way to organize the rooms relative to anything but each other, which is difficult if they all look samey like they tend to on smaller, room-based forgeworld maps.

As an example of what you wanna strive for, look at High Noon: even though the design is pretty complex, it's literally impossible to miss the giant ****ing tornado outside, and as such there's no question as to which way a player is facing. It's either to your left, your right, smack in front of you, or you can't see it, which makes navigation easy and intuitive even for a first time player.

 

You deserve an award for this post. Probably the best laid our, well articulated argument I've seen in a long while. Completely spot on.

 

First of all, not everyone take inspiration from Bungie's maps, nor do they need to. Bungie has their fair share of successful maps, but they have also produced terrible maps over the years.

"Halo 1 being the exception". Is it a coincidence that Halo 1 is widely considered to have the most competitive maps of the Halo franchise? Since Halo 1, Bungie has acknowledge the casual community, and slowly catered their maps more and more to them over time. This map was not designed with casual gameplay in mid, so Hulter should not forge it to cater to a casual audience.

Also, keep in mind THIS IS FORGE, he isn't going to create a waterfall, or glowing statue, or tornado, because he can't.

 

Actually, a good deal of the praise of Halo 1's maps really have to do with the psychological based bias we form due to nostalgia. A lot of these maps really don't play that competitively, but we love them and praise them because of the memories we associate them with.

And yes, this is Forge... And there's still plenty a forger can do to distinguish rooms and aid player orientation. There's no excuse not to.

 

Honestly, at this point, the entire argument has degenerated to two sides putting their hands over their ears and just screaming their take on the issue. There will be no convincing here.

When a creator posts a map, posters can post feedback, and it is under the discretion of the creator(s) to decide whether or not the feedback pertains to what they want(ed) to accomplish with their creation and if they will implement the suggestions. If the creator displays an unwillingness to alter their work to accommodate what you suggest, then just move on.

Again, at this point, both sides have their take on the issue set in stone, and will not be convinced otherwise. Let it go.

As for the map Hulter, it is a quality reforge. The design has always been interesting and it plays rather well. Although it was a 1v1 design, I tend to prefer 2v2s now that no-sprint has become the norm. I will say that I am not particularly a fan of the reduction of width of the high Sniper ledges. Also, the low Healthpack isn't in a good position. It's very easy for a player to escape a battle on the higher levels by jumping down to that Healthpack and instantly begin recharging. Also, iirc, there were Magnums and Needle Rifles on the map, which are two less than desirable weapons in a competitive nature.

Other than that, great job.

 

The point i'm trying to get across is that if you mess up that first game for them(like you did for me), they won't be coming back to test the knowledge they gained. Unlike MM, we have a choice at whether or not we play these maps again. What you need to be asking yourself is "are they coming back?" and "WHY are they coming back?" You seem to be doing neither. Instead, it appears that you assume everyone is going to look at your map here on FH and say " this looks great, so i'm going to go study it now so I can actually enjoy it!" I guarantee you that's not going to happen.

I just don't understand that thought process, and I guess I never will, so i'll leave it at that.

EDIT: an overview would be fantastic, but I still hold my stance that the map should explain itself without the need for one.

 

I may be speaking for Hulter a bit, but I think he won't mind. Hulter doesn't make his maps for noobs. Noobs in this sense would be anyone unwilling to learn a map because they had a bad first experience on it. He doesn't care to cater to them. Ever tried going into Quake Live? If you never have, then you should try it. (If you have, then remember your first game of it.) It'll be thirty times as infuriating as any unfamiliarty you've experienced with this map in Halo. Just as Quake doesn't cater to the cry-babies who would rather have things be as obvious and as simple as possible, Hulter caters to players who appreciate the complexity of the layout and the clean, uniform appearance it upholds. This map was not built with aesthetic transitions in mind, to help blend differently-colored areas together. It would also ruin a part of the atmosphere by changing the colors.

Simply put, Hulter did not want to degrade the aesthetic quality of the map to cater to a slightly larger crowd, because that isn't the crowd he made the map for. He made the map for complex 1v1 enthusiasts, and he did very well in that respect.