Whats are the most complicated maps to forge successfully? Big Team Battle Maps Why? We do not see many of these maps successfully forged and submitted here. This is one of the reasons the next forge contest should be based on a btb/squad style. Many forgers are not familiar in this realm and would force new ideas and new creativity into the minds of many. There are so many new challenges that arise with forging larger maps. You have to account for vehicles and how this brings a whole new flow to the map. Not to mention getting lobbies to test out your maps. This would almost be insanely hard, but something new and fresh. With the extra terrain pieces in the H2A's forge, it should be simple to forge an aesthetically pleasing btb map right? wrong. I haven't seen it done yet. It is really challenging for forgers to pull this off. contests should be challenging, especially with the rewards being given out. Personally, i've tried and failed many times. what are your thoughts on this. on challenging yourself to get uncomfortable to break out of the 4v4 box and do the impossible. Personally I love the creativity of this community. I look through the 4v4 and 1v1 selections all day and the different styles I see and creativity used throughout various forgers are just simply amazing. but at the end of the day, they are all 4v4 maps. I would just like to see what would happen if you brought this to an unfamiliar place to give this site a fresh smell for a brief moment. Share your opinions on this idea (or share other ideas you have for the next contest)
The reason why you don't ser many btb maps and the reason why I think this is a bad idea, is because it is pretty much impossible to create a btb map with the current pieces without having any issues with framedrops. The large terrain pieces cause a lot of framedrops when overused. It isn't hard to make a goodlooking btb map, however it is really to make one that is actually playable as well. On top of that you won't even get to play the maps in 8vs8 as the lobby would crash due to the amount of objects on the map. That of course is IF you can even manage to get that many players together to test the maps.
I completely agree with this, I even mentioned that a testing lobby would be near impossible. I know about the framedrop problem, but I also think that this would make the forger have to think that much more creatively to use certain pieces or limit themselves and avoid this problem, I know it would be quite the challenge. but i've seen small maps with more pieces than btb maps and btb maps with less pieces than an average 4v4. It isn't impossible to due. It can be pulled off if done smart and done correct. Also It really just depends on who you're friends with for the lobby thing, for me, I usually have about two-three different btb lobbies on a night. My friend Shotta O streams btb customs almost every night and some of the old btb.net players are still running customs. I just guess I'm itching to see a well done btb map and haven't yet. I was around for btb.net and during Halo Reach some of the competitive btb maps that were forged were just simply amazing. I haven't seen any maps that compare since then. I'm sure it can be done. Frame rate is all about how many objects are on your screen at a given time. So maps made in the shape of a U or an S might only allow for half the map or less to be seen at once. All depending on how creative the forger is. I know it's a difficult task. but I just hate to see so many talented forgers limit themselves and to have btb forging pushed aside. "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today." Franklin D Roosevelt. But seriously I believe it is the automatic "Can't be done" thoughts that limit ourselves. I mean I'm probably a voice in the dark on this one. Maybe halo 5 will create a better opportunity. Just food for thought.
I personally don't care for playing btb, so I don't care for forging btb maps. I also don't think that just because something is extremely hard that it would bring a fresh smell to 4chub. The 1v1 contest, while not hard to build for, was very hard to place in the top 3 for. I think that a contest that is nigh impossible to build for would put many forgers (including myself) off of even starting a map. If that happens, then there won't be many submissions, and therefore not hard to place in the top 3 for the few that made a map. Maybe thats not how it would go down, but thats just what I think would happen.
I love BTB but like everyone's said, its near impossible to achieve ambitious results without being subject to frame rate loss. We may see an update later this month that corrects the object glitch, so hopefully large maps can be tested with a full lobby. That is still unknown to us, the more likely contest will be 2v2. If this were Halo Reach or Halo 4 we would be having a different conversation. H2A is arguably the most difficult forge to work with - our lobbies get kicked when too many objects are on the map and the forge pieces are completely un-optimized for this console. #2v2
There are 2 big problems with this: 1. You are really limited with pieces and it is even harder to keep the fps at a decent amount. 2. MCC custom games are so broken that starting a forge map with 10 players or more will crash 99,9% of the time. (I have tried playing with 10+ players in MCC 15 times in a row and the game always crashed. I don't even think it was the maps since we crashed in loading screen. But who knows.)
I was honestly thinking about 3v3 as the next contest but with things as they are and the terrible optimization - I'm sticking with 2v2. Lets see if the update fixes any of the optimization but I doubt it.
I can get down with that. The name of this thread is "Next forge contest idea" it's not solely for arguing btb forge-a-bility. So if any other idea or thoughts are present please share. I'm all about extracting creativity and maximizing what sets someone (forger) apart from others. I think it would be an interesting idea for all the contestants to have to follow a certain map routine or layout, and see the different creations that come out of it. This may not be suitable for a big contest and reward. but imagine a contest or a mini community game.. thing.. idk. being something like, "Okay, everyone must forge their own version of narrows. The most original or creative, or the one that stands out wins." Something along the lines of that. Everyone has to do a re-imagination of so so map, the best flowing, most aesthetic one wins. or you go even more vague to get different results. This competition is who can forge the best two base map etc. Even what would be incredibly fun is... Pick two maps. for this example guardian and lockout. This competition would suggest that everyone mesh the two maps in what ever way they want. keeping whatever structure they would want to keep. Which ever one flows and looks the best win. You would get many variations and be able to judge and see what aesthetics is particular to whom. again i don't think this should be season 2 contest but it would make for some fun mini contest.
As a long-time BTB forger and someone who has personally hosted and judged a few forge contests in the past, I find this idea intriguing but also think it would ultimately be doomed to failure. From a forging perspective, the limitations on BTB designs in H2A go far beyond mere framerate performance. Object count in H2A is the biggest technical constraint here. As the player count increases, the object limit decreases. In order for a map designed for 16 players to even load in-game, it would be limited to approximately 200 objects. Seeing as maps need to be rather large to support that player count, this object limit is absurdly limiting. Of equal importance are the shortcomings of H2A's sandbox. Vehicle balance was very poorly executed in H2A with all vehicles dying from a single rocket and most dying from a single plasma grenade. Account for the fact that rockets track vehicles at a high velocity and have two rockets per magazine and you start to see the problem. Unfortunately, there aren't many soft counters for vehicles as the plasma pistol does not have an EMP ability, and turrets and such shred vehicles insanely quickly. Vehicle balance in H2A isn't so much difficult to acheive as it normally would be, but is rather fighting a losing battle. From a contest perspective, it's difficult to understand just how much time goes into judging these things if you've never done it yourself. Tests were done on a nightly basis for weeks to test the 1v1 submissions. For a BTB contest, that would mean getting 12+ players together every night for weeks and dealing with all of the connection and other isses that come with hosting lobbies for that player count in MCC. It's not a pretty picture. The 1v1 contest was great because it wasn't subject to these sandbx issues, these technical issues, or these logistical issues. Believe me, I would love to see a BTB forge contest sometime, but MCC is not the place to do it.
If only it was logical with limitations of getting that big of a lobby. I would be totally down. I was corrupted by big team long ago. A mini game contest would be cool though. If someone wanted to run their own contests and the site promotes it. I don't think that would be a bad idea. They need to be serious about the contest though. Not just say, "Hey, I wanna run a contest for maps that when you fall from the top to the bottom your knees crunch". Then do nothing with it. That would not be cool.
I haven't really thought about it, but what about a 4 person FFA map contest? I reckon if the maps were focused on FFA it may encourage some extra thought about structures (or maybe not, I've not really considered it nor tried to build something like it).