Put this in a map preview thread but I figured I'd throw it in this thread too, since I'm still looking for general thoughts and concerns on the layout.
Lol I remember playing this. I really did like the flow and its fast-pacedness. But the only issues I had was with the size as everything felt too cramped and small, and the teleporters at some points as right after I got a kill, I was quickly assassinated by the behind. Enlarging the map should effectively fix both issues.
Hi guys! I've got 2 1/2 designs here. Though I doubt anyone will fully understand them, I figured I'd just throw out some stuff I'm working on. Oh yeah, and the space between each blue line is 2 forge units. This is Raziel, my current forge project. It's about 35% done, and yeah. It's a symmetrical 1v1/2v2. I'll get pictures of this up sometime soon. The design might not be 100% accurate to the forged version. I'm making this in Murder Miners because I had this awesome vision/theme for this map. I wanted it to be a run down castle type thing, and the places I wanted there to be grass and death pits just make it impossible to create in forge. It's about 15% done in Murder Miners. This is like 5% done in Halo 4, I'm making it with someone. The idea is to have a symmetrical map with inverse height variations. For example: Imagine the middle floor of the map as '0'. One base could be '+0.5', which would make the other '-0.5', or where one ramp goes up on one side it goes down on the other. Not final on the design. Any thoughts/questions welcome. Hopefully they're somewhat understandable...
Erupt, those sketches are hella nice. You're so damn neat that I can actually understand unit size on the non-lined axis... Only issue is it looks like you used flash As for the third map, is there a way out of that seemingly lower middle area besides the lifts? Other than that seeming issue, you have a cool idea.. Dax, Goat said it all. Also triangle map? (Yours and mine)
Fixed the pictures. Dax, I really like some of the geometry of your sketch. I feel like those teleporters paired with instant respawn may make the map a bit hectic, and not the good kind. Could be wrong, I haven't played it and I don't fully understand the sketch. Anyways, looks good. And Spin, there is and was 3 ways out of bottom mid. Or 4. Or 5. Depends on how you look at it.
dax thats a solid layout, but where are the top and bottom grav lifts shooting on the second floor? But seriously it looks good, can't wait to see what you can do. and erupt, the second one really interests me, it reminds me of guardian, but with a completely different feel, and you could make death pits and grass, with ravines pallet, the rocks show grass on the sunny side
Erupt, where are the 4th and 5th? I see two lifts and a pathway right now. Are there teleporters that I'm missing?
@DC I was unaware... I might do that. Thanks! @Spin Well, the pathway, which I still consider the bottom, breaks off into two other routes, and the path leading to the middle lift breaks off into two other routes that come up in the "base" areas in the middle left and right of the sketch.
I finished my final early today, so I tried to redesign an older map today for the hundredth time. I actually managed something, hahaha. There are a couple of problems like the upper right position, so if you guys have any ideas or general feedback, I'd love to hear it. The printer isn't agreeing with me today, so I ended up taking a picture from my Iphone. Hopefully, it's visible enought, lol. Those areas that aren't filled in with black are like that to show the floor below, so if there's some place that looks like it should have walling on the upper levels, it probably does. Spoiler All of those ramps are shallows, by the way. Erm, there is some overlap, but I was too lazy to make a whole new drawing depicting that. You could probably find the paths that lead to said area though if you looked well enough. The original idea was to have several rooms outside of a single atrium, but as I couldn't design anything like that, I tried to take the quad-atrium approach. It ended up pretty good although I had planned for each room to have strong lines of sight into the other. That didn't happen, but I think I managed to add appropriate counters to every powerful position aside from the one previously mentioned. Black: solid walling on both levels Circles: power weapon positions Triangles: teleporters that lead from bottom to top Dashed Lines: death pit things Dax, it kind of resembles a 1v1 adaption of Countdown, thus 'tis beautiful. Aside from the meager size, I don't have any problems with the layout. Although I cannot say that I like the two adjacent lifts as opposed to hard routes. Also, though I cannot say for sure without playing it, I feel as though the sniper rifle would not be so effective on this map, particularly on account of the size. That said, let's play it whenever I get my xbox back and stuff. Erupt, screw Murder Miners, make the second one is forge, pls. I have probably said it a couple of times now, but I love the dead end power weapon position element that you utilized here. As far as my problems with it go, I feel as though players will be inclined to hold the outcropped position at the bottom throughout the game. At least, I would given the only viable path for my opponent is a long corridor like area of lower height variation. With that said, I also don't see much reason beyond camping up there to traverse that location. Unless of course, you were planning on including some kind of detterent there or something. Forge dat ****, man.
I implemented that route after I decided I was going to make the map in Murder Miners, because Murder Miners seems to promote constant movement more than Halo. Plus, I thought it'd be a cool one-way route aspect, and I think it would add to the castle theme I want so much. I really might forge it now. It's possible my favorite design of mine. Favorite asymmetric design for sure. I'll have to try to make that route less controllable. I kind of feel like I need it there for spawning, and maybe put a power weapon out there to make it more compelling to venture out there. We'll see... As for your map, the top left atrium seems like it would be sort of isolated from the rest of the map due to the way the other three seem to flow into each other seamlessly. It seems like all of the entrances to the top left one are choke points, and it is encompassed like walls unlike the other three. This is just from a general look over it, I have trouble understanding other people's sketches. I could be missing a lot of stuff. Higher platforms could be blocking a lot of line of sight between the other three, I dunno. Looks solid though, I like the way the other three atriums flow into each other. The minimal amount of solid walling in and around those atriums is cool. I've always wanted to make a map with no solid walls from bottom to top, just using raised platforms to act as walls or lowered ceilings.
@ auburn I feel like that picture was taken at a angle so it's a bit hard to see further away, overall I like it. In the bottom left area at the death pit area there is a power weapon on a platform over the pit. I like this because of risk/reward but I couldn't tell if there was another way in or out other than the bridge? @erupt I'm liking the layout of the second one. It kind of reminds me of guardian which is a map that I loved, looking forward to see how it turns out. One of mine still trying to get feedback. Symmetrical 4v4 ish maybe up to 6v6 we'll have to see how that goes. Comparable in size to construct but a bit wider walkways I'm thinking. What I'm looking for in terms of feedback. In the "level 2" area I have squares that are not filled in, those are possible spots for pillars and I'm looking for feedback on the placement and what I can do for line of sight blockers. The sniper area I was thinking of replacing the sniper with a neutral ghost I feel that could add a unique element that might not be seen too often on these kind of maps. I really want thoughts on that. General thoughts,ideas. Spoiler upper area. Bottom level
Ninja, fix spoilers please. I swear I've seen that layout before and commented on it, too. Are you sure you haven't posted that here already? EDIT: Wow, dem mods are faaast.
Ah, I agree on the isolated atrium now that I look at it. I could probably move that atrium to the right a little or add a better connection from the top of the lower atrium to the bottom of the aforementioned one. Also, all the atriums are walled off, but I didn't show that fully to give a better idea of the overlapped floor. Thanks, Erupt. Waterfall, the idea was to make it so player have to turn around after grabbing the power weapon. I figured the death pit would add some risk and help portray the theme I was going to go for. I think you should add a lift from rockets to the upper level and drop downs on either sides of that, kind of like yellow lift on Guardian. It would prevent players from having to turn around completely after grabbing rockets and also create another entrance from a different angle than the current two. I like the needler position with restricted LoS except down the center, but like the bottom, I feel as though it needs an alternative flanking route aside from the two side routes. I mean, something that will discourage players from constantly moving up there and staying put because that is currently how it looks to flow. In teh case that this was designed for one-sided gametypes, than I think the latter part of that won't be a problem, but I still think there needs to be more options in which to assualt that topmost position. It looks pretty damn sexy, man.
@goat and spin- I definitely agree. Small map + instant respawn + teleporters = 1v1 map rape. Any ideas on how I should go about enlarging it though? I'm really liking the length of the 2 orange areas and the distance between them - I think it sets up some interesting engagements - but if I keep that the same, I don't know how else I could go about scaling it up.. Any ideas? @DC, yep, those two lifts bring you to the red platforms above @Auburn- For sure we can play it soon, just after I figure out what to do with it, lol. About the adjacent lifts, those are more than likely going to be changed to hard routes like you said. The lifts are being a pain trying to get working properly. And about the snipe, there are a few good sightlines where it has proven really useful, but we shall see @Auburn's map- That's a very interesting design you have. I'm gonna look it over and come back
General idea @ dax : Add two whole new areas to the left and right of the current sketch. I only sketched a pure minimalist path (in the interests of time) for elevated area. I think you could easily multiply the lengthwise size of it by three. Could also open up the map for 2v2. Spoiler
Yesssss, fantastic idea Spin I literally wanted to just throw in the towel with this design because I just couldn't come up with any ideas on what to do with it. But you definitely opened the door to a few possible ideas. Seriously man, thanks for that. Shipping Dock will rise again
Thanks very much,man. I'm still working on lines of sight and I won't be shading them in untill they are final so that I can change them easier. In regards to what you said about the bottom I understand what you said about making it less campable but I'm wondering if that grab lift at rockets would be a great idea, I want to look into it and get more opinions on that. Currently there are 5 ways to the top from the bottom(I did bad pictures) there is the one that goes to sniper(possibly to become a ghost) there are the two lifts(inspired by countdown and construct) if you look at the top and bottom pictures the blocks line up...it is actually a lift that doubles as a pillar/LOS blocker (I thought that was pretty cool not anything I've seen on a custom map anyway.) then there are two ramps. The rockets,being a power weapon should make you lose height advantage to make them a bit more dangerous to go for right? Well if there was a lift there you could just get your height advantage in less then a second. So I'm not too sure how I feel about that but it is something I will consider/test. Again, thanks
Hey Waterfall, just saw your sketch. It's reminding me of Construct kinda. I like it I completely agree with everything Auburn said. I guess I should add a little of my own thoughts though as well, huh? To expand on this a little, adding a route from either side of the bottom rocket platform up to either side of needler spawn could work really well. I'll throw it together in paint real quick if that doesn't make sense. One sec. Edited by merge: Sorry that it's a super simple Paint edit, but you get the idea. If you can find some way to connect those two areas with a hard route, I think it could really help the flow. Spoiler
Thanks for the feedback. Haha the map was inspired by construct and a little bit of countdown(probally can't tell about countdown) If I made it a route like a tunnel it would quite a long one as the map is about the size of construct(maybe a bit bigger) also, where rockets spawn is an open area to make gong for rockets dangerous because you give up height advantage and there is not much cover. If you look at the bottom level picture there is a dashed line, that is where the top level ends. Past that is open area. I messed up while making the wall, it was supposed to end under the top level but I accidentally drew it all the way.