Archive of Test Night Recaps

I made a new thing attempting to fill the Hulk-shaped void somewhat. I'll just say this: it uses the maximum number of mancannons, and a handful of teleporters as well. And if that scares you, TOO DAMN BAD.

 

Five hours til showtime, you sluts! Get your maps all polished up...

 

The map save glitch strikes again. Click that link and read up on it if you're not familiar with the issue and recommended methods to avoid it. Personally I have had good success with re-selecting the map each and every time I start a forge session, and also saving backup copies of every single thing I ever work on.

Also, if you haven't played a lot of Halo since the last time you worked on the new map, check your Temporary History under the file browser. It might still be in there from your last forge session on it.

 

Overdoziz raped with everything. I only rape with power weapons. That's the main difference between us.

 

Recap for Tuesday Feb. 5th

You played 'em, you talk about 'em.

I'll be back with my feedback a little later on.

 

This is a placeholder post for my feedback. Sorry it's later than usual, I have a lot of balls in the air today (that's what she said).

OK then:

Radiant by Juanez Sanchez - You were right that this map looked pretty different, but it is still a nice solid design and plays very well in my opinion. The extraction game was marred by some extraction areas that were near impossible to get; we actually let the other team extract one area just to keep the game moving at one point. One-flag with multiple caps per round, on the other hand, when just like I would hope when we talked about it beforehand. Defending was hard but not totally impossible; getting a shutout would take a monumental effort, but both teams held each other to less than the max 5 caps and had some good, long stands. The only issue we noticed is that the flag tends to go the same way every time since the paths to the side are longer. Often this is balanced on a map by having the most direct route be the most dangerous (like trying to take the flag right down the middle of Ragnarok using the first available mancannon). But if you don't want to re-think your bottom mid and open it up, making the side routes faster - maybe with a strategically-placed lift - may work. The benefit of side paths is usually that they're more protected, but your bottom mid is fairly well protected so you need to find another way to achieve that balance.

Interchange by Lee C G - If I were you, I'd keep testing the gauss hogs. They do need a long respawn timer - it felt like they might be set to 60 seconds (it was certainly no more than 120) which was crazy fast. If you keep them, I'd recommend 180 seconds; they're just too deadly to be on the map all the time like that. But for me the turret was, as I hoped, ALMOST counter-balanced by the many infantry paths and huge amount of cover. Still, a good gunner can really destroy the other team on any map, so the rocket hog suggestion may be worth testing as well. Personally I like the gauss - I thought our teams were a little imbalanced for these games, but with teams that are more equal, those things won't last so long. They'll burn bright like a comet before crashing down into the ocean. // Structural changes were all great, by the way. New bridge is far superior to the old design for driveability and functionality while keeping the same concept.

Salvage - I have high hopes for this map. For first tests of a very crazy design I thought these two games went pretty well. I want to test CTF again with more strategy involved - I don't think our team did much as far as defending our base or trying to hold the middle, so our flag was just moving around far too often. The flag routes are one of the main considerations I had when designing the map so I'm hoping to get more games in to see how people do with it once they understand the layout completely. // Adjustments I'm working on or have made already: 1. Binary rifles respawn at 3 minutes now, not two. 2. The big lift to the ship is going to be overhauled, again. I just can't seem to get that thing to work perfectly - it always works for me when I fiddle with it, but as soon as it's a game situation one out of four people does something weird and ends up splattered on the ground. I have an idea though that I can double the length of the opening into the ship; that should help quite a bit since it seemed like a lot of the lift failures involved people going at a slight forward angle and hitting their heads on the bottom of the ship a unit or so past where you're supposed to go. 3. I may see if I can somehow make more difficult, or prevent entirely, jetpacking from base to base. The more I think about that, the less I like the implications of it.

Painted by Audience - I thought this played pretty well, if a bit frantically. A 2v2 or 3v3 game might be more appopriate for what you have in mind, but admittedly, this again ended up kind of small and open for a 4v4 map. I also noticed something with the gameplay this time out - a lot of standoffs occurred involved corners, i.e. I was against a wall, and around the corner was an enemy against the other wall, and we were throwing 'nades at each other because there was no other way to approach or quick flanking route. That especially happened on the sides between the bases because of those turnaround paths with just two or three points of entry. If you do keep working on the map, I may have suggestions on ways to open that up.

The Clash by Unrivaled - Carbine vs. Boltshot! GAAAHHHH!!!! That frustration out of the way, this is a great concept that just needs fine-tuning. The basic idea of it is hilarious and fun. I would make the timers just a bit longer, and find ways to make it harder for both players to live through their duels; the game will really be improved if 95% of the time, only one survivor moves on. Anyway, great idea, and for the first attempt this actually worked pretty damn well, so kudos to you. This is one of the better and more original minigames I've played in Halo 4.

Chimera by Unrivaled - The remodel may not be necessary after all, because this is starting to play pretty well. The one big change you made on the natural geo area really improved flow and opened things up from just a big push-pull down the big corridor. I did feel the opposite side was relatively unused, but overall a big improvement was made, the game was very enjoyable, and I feel like this map has some potential even after my previous polite-yet-sorta-unkind words. Good job!

Wetwork by Cyborg - This was a great design (as usual from you) and one of the better uses of Erosion objects I've seen. It felt like a real place, and played extremely well. I really don't have a lot to say, actually, but I'd like to play some objective games on it soon to get more of a feel for the whole layout and see how it does outside of slayer, which I feel is really a pretty forgiving gametype for many maps. Maybe I'll have more criticisms to offer after some hideous CTF or oddball game! (But I doubt it.)

The Estate by Cyborg - Rockets, baby. EAT MY ROCKETS. This map I don't have a whole lot to say about. I think it plays well but there isn't a lot about it that excites me for some reason - no standout features like the balconies on Windswept, or the underneath and overall design of Breezeway, etc. It's a good map because you can't make a bad one, but it's one of the few maps of yours that I kinda scratch my head and am at a loss to say much about it at all. Maybe one novel feature, either gameplay or aesthetic, would add something? Apart from this vague blob of negativity, I don't have much to say as far as criticisms. Like I mentioned, it plays well - balanced, lots of movement and conflict in different areas, no excessively campable places, and the power positions are offset by other power positions or vulnerabilities that work well. Good map, not yet a great one - to me.

Pent by Tombo - First of all, thanks for playing with us Tombo, and I hope you continue to do so. It's always nice to have fresh faces and different kinds of maps. Now I have to dole out some tough love; I hope you'll take it in the spirit it was intended in, which is to be helpful and not dickish. That out of the way, I felt this map needs a lot of work to be something I'd want to play again. The biggest problem is just the overall approach you took: everything is cramped and focused on close quarters combat. There are no open lines of sight to speak of; it's all about boltshot, shotgun, sword, etc. Cyborg found rockets somewhere or other and was just unstoppable with them because there's literally no way to get out from in front of a rocket when you're in a tiny little room, hallway or staircase with no headroom to jump, or room on the sides to strafe. Basically I always felt like I was in a tube and if I didn't kill the guy in front of me, I would BE killed; there was no evading a conflict, maneuvering and outflanking someone, or any of that.

However, I could write all that off as a stylistic preference (maybe you like close quarters play better than me; personally I like using my DMR or BR a bit!), but it led to other issues in how the map felt. I was disoriented a lot (and never really mastered the layout at all) because with everything so tight and closed in, you never see much of the map at one time. I was often pretty much literally a rat in a maze - running until I hit my head on a wall, then turning this way and that to find an opening. I couldn't really tell if the map was extremely complicated or if it just felt that way because I was lost. I think you need to open the map up more just so people can learn how it fits together, and know where they are and where they're going. A few times I even spawned facing directly into a wall, which is a big no-no for map design and really disorients players. Also, some spots seemed bumpy and hard to traverse, which a player can deal with when there's jumping room, but not when the ceiling is one foot overhead. Smooth things out as far as floors and transitions between areas.

Overall this was not a map I was crazy about, but the mistakes in it remind me very much of my earliest forged maps, so I hope you stick with it, and if so I know you'll improve.