What would you say are the top three things you'll judge the maps on?

Are testing lobby times going to be announced here, or are they more unofficial? I'd like to know to be a part of them.

We will definitely announce official testing lobbies soon on here and on HaloCustoms. I'm hoping to hold one later in the week. We figured there was no sense in having one earlier as most people are bound to still be designing and building at this stage. We'll likely have plenty of informal lobbies over the course of the contest as well, but we'll certainly make you all aware of official lobbies.

We have an official testing lobby for those of you who would like some early feedback. Starting tomorrow at 10 PM Eastern time.

TESTING LOBBY
- 5V5 CTF
- 10PM EST

Signup here: halocustoms

I found out from testing someone's CTF map the other night.. nice of me to find out after everyone else

Sweet, been out of the loop a minute. Are you saying we can search players in game now?...

This is going to be tough but me thinks I'll giver ago.

Yeah, you can download maps by searching for players now. Much, much easier than before. Also, we will be hosting more ctf testing lobbies in the future. Last night was successful for the most part. I'll try to provide as much feedback as possible in the map comments for those signed up for these lobbies.

Sorry, where exactly are you guys leaving the feedback? Thanks again

There is a thread here on http://halocustoms.com/threads/contest-faq-and-feedback.20807/ but no feedback in it yet

We'll be making a lobby recap and feedback thread over on HC later today. The judges just need to sit down and talk about the maps together for a bit first.

OK, we talked at length on each map today as a group and have decided to collectively provide feedback since we're effectively operating as a cohesive whole. The judging process will be based on finding an equilibrium amongst each other, so it only makes sense to distribute feedback in the same manner to avoid conflicting messages. I can provide the feedback here in addition to HC if its more convenient for some members.

Feedback from the first official lobby can be found here.

Putting a lot of work into this. Not expecting to win because of my differing opinions on how Halo should be played but it'll be nice to throw in my submission and see if anyone likes it. Good luck to everyone.

Anyone want to play a map I made today at 8pm Chicago Time? 7.7.2015? Add me... Speedbird21

or email me: steven.robbins@me.com

TESTING LOBBY FEEDBACK

The following feedback represents the opinions of the judging panel as a whole and is based upon both gameplay experiences and a thorough dissection of each map in forge. Feel free to contact any of the judges for further details on the feedback provided below.

Riptide by @Squally DaBeanz: The exposed nature of the flag return point allowed for the defenders to contest the flag throughout its journey towards the capture point. This allowed for clutch flag saves seconds away from would-be scores and also strongly encouraged the attackers to control the map in order to score. The placement of the turret made it essential for the defenders to control and for the attackers to counter. The no-clip rockets were placed perfectly to counter the turret at the risk of having only a single rocket left with which to make a push. Vehicle gameplay was awkward due to the convoluted vehicle circuit and interaction between infantry and vehicles was not adequately achieved as a result. Much of the vehicle circuit was was very tight, with long linear stretches looping around the back of the base and through the cave. The gate was unnecessary as its only purpose was to restrict an already narrow and risky route. The placement of the switch was also favorable only to the defenders with it located in a part of the base which the attackers had no reason to occupy. Lastly, the map played somewhat lopsided with the cave side seeing most of the pushes. This is due to the tightness of the route on the other side as well as the other side being home to more defender spawn location.

Bad Blood by @The Fated Fire: The placement of the snipers and turrets combined with the long lines of sight created intense tug-of-war play, forcing teams to be creative in their offensive maneuvers. The ghosts were valuable as support vehicles and saw much interaction with infantry. The corners at the bases of the sniper towers appear unnecessary, as if they are mere extraneous space. These areas are narrow and awkwardly angled. The long ramps leading to the rockets are unnecessarily long and straight. If these were shortened and the redundant ramps flanking them on the edge of the map removed, this entire side of the map could be better scaled and extraneous open space could be removed. The landings for the mancannons create awkward tight geometry at the top of the ramps near the rockets. A three-story lift could replace the teleporter. The platform below the one where the rockets are placed is low enough that players will hit their heads while jumping beneath it. The cover used to protect the ghosts from lines of sight across the chasm as well as the cover on the sides of the ghost jumps is lazy in contrast with the otherwise structural cover on the map.

W by @MartianMallCop: The vertical nature of the map creates exciting gameplay, particularly along the central lane. The banshee is right at home on the map. Currently, it is too easy to take the flag straight through the map's center with no other flag route comparing in ease of use or travel time. Because of this, much of the map goes unused by players on foot. Indeed, the only incentive for infantry to venture out to the far side of the map is the rocket launcher. There are several parallel routes from the bases into the map's center, namely the sewers and construction buildings. Combining these routes would allow the entire map to be shortened. If the flag could no longer move straight through the center of the map, this would then balance various flag routes much better and cause the entire map to see more action. Replacing the 90 degree corners on the roads by the away spawn platforms with a stretch of road cutting inwards at a 45 degree angle would further make these areas more appealing for infantry. If the flags were pushed further up the map and perhaps into an expanded flag area along the exterior wall, they would be situated such that taking them along the outer road towards rockets or through the map's center would be equally viable. Currently, spawning exacerbated the issue of only one swath of the map seeing action as most players spawned in or near their base in most cases. The EMP mines and normal physics beams in top mid are unnecessary, gimmicky distractions.

Nature Preserve by @Oasis Hurler: This map was over scaled in several senses. Firstly, there was a lot of underutilized space on the outer edges of the map that few people ever visited. Secondly, the map had quite a few parallel pathways that served little purpose. The routes on the map were unfocused, crossing this way and that and usually ending up at the same place. The driving paths in particular made no sense at all. There is only one discernible circle to drive at all, from there splitting off into several dead ends, roadblocks, and the central basin, which has one entry and exit point and no obvious reason to ever visit. The basin itself has little cover and no advantages, making it a death trap to be avoided. Furthermore, the gate on the map served no purpose. It blocked the only vehicle circuit until opened, doing neither team any good. The button was right next to attacker spawn, so it is almost guaranteed that the gate will be opened at the start of every single round. In the end it detracts from the rest of the map. It should also be noted that the bomb plant objective spawns in flag and that our team did not ever have a waypoint for the flag return, which caused some confusion.

Remains by @moo43 and MartianMallCop: Remains played fairly well as usual for multi flag. The blue base has definitely been outed as the better place to spawn however, which needs to be fixed. Right now when attacking red base there are high ground approaches on both the left and the right, whilst blue base has a lower platform and a somewhat awkward building on its approaches. When looking at improving the approaches for blue, I would take a look at what makes the red approaches better. The second issue is that there is some noticeable disconnect between vehicle and infantry gameplay due to the lower hog roads and the raised infantry areas. While there are some instances where Warthogs can shoot at the upper platforms, there are a lot of circumstances where there is little interaction to be found. Offering the hog ways to temporarily get up higher to get lines of sight on the top buildings would help.

Behemoth by @MultiLockOn: The first and most obvious issue on Behemoth is the frame rate. There are noticeable drops from many points all around the map. The core issue that causes these drops is that the cliffs on the map are built using far too many rocks. While this does make them look nice, it is unnecessary as players will not have time to look all of the way up them during a game. The central tower is also higher than players can see in normal field of vision. At the moment, the entire map felt greatly over scaled, with vast plains spreading out around the map that acted as no-mans-lands for infantry. The central structure was disconnected from this space by height, making for little vehicle/infantry interaction on much of the map. The vehicle routes themselves were also very simplistic, just a single loop around the central structure and one through each base as well. The banshee on the other hand played much more interestingly, but was still hurt by the lack of vertical play space to move around. The central structure itself was very cool, though also lacking in vertical overlap. The large cliff path being accessible by a hard route for blue team gave them an advantage, as it was far easier to camp the teleport exit that red was forced to use. The sniper rifle should not be placed at the top of the cliff, as this is an extremely effective place to make use of it and does not require players to move with it. The bases were a little awkward in design, especially blue base with its thin cover and lack of a safe spawn area. Red base had a better core design, but the back spawn area was a little large and had long lines of sight aiming into it.

Lost Causeway by @Chronmeister: Last night's test was brief, lopsided, and not particularly indicative of how the map plays. The map could benefit from more focus, however. Currently, there is an excess of routes (particularly through the bottom of the map) and platforms (particularly around the perimeter of the map). Many of these are somewhat redundant and could be combined to create a more focused, refined gameplay experience. There are also many paper-thin walls and small columns throughout the map which do not provide adequate cover. The warthog is currently relegated to a semi-mobile support role as the narrow vehicle routes do not give it the freedom to effectively traverse the map. Combining routes and positions should allow more room for the vehicles to move.

I've removed the gate and made that a vehicle path. removed some of the cover on the shortest infantry flag route to make it worth while to take the longer lower route. I've re done the spawns to try and fix them. Added cover on the middle of the bridge, and removed almost every crate. And finally moved the flag further back to encourage the teleporter and garage routes. Oh and set the objectives to game specific.

All of this is to attempt to make the underlying strategy more easily discernible.

Thanks for the detailed feedback on Bad Blood, guys. I agree on some feedback points and disagree on others, so I will explain my design intentions in numbered format below.

1. The corners at the bases of the sniper towers may appear unnecessary, but that space is key to my designed snipe-to-snipe encounter. The snipe tower and surrounding area is designed to give snipers 3 engagement opportunities: (1) X-Y-Z movement/strafing along the snipe ramp, (2) Peek-and-shoot combat around player-width pillars at the top of the tower, and (3) lower level/hidden sniping at the base/corners of the snipe tower to provide both vertical variation to the snipe encounter and unique lines of sight into the opposing snipe tower, opposing courtyard, and bottom mid. This area is designed to be narrow and sharp angled --- risk (falling off the map) versus reward (different lines of sight). Salty provided some cool feedback to make this area more interesting last night as well, so I will show you guys that in a bit.
2. Based on conventional level design philosophy, I agree that the long ramps leading to rockets are unnecessarily long and straight. However, sometimes my design intuition and feeling about how an area interacts with surrounding areas of power/higher positioning overrides this generally accepted idea of how long and/or straight a ramp should be -- and I've found that trusting this intuition is often the best way to go. The length and straightness of the ramps is designed to provide player-height cover for just the right amount of space to provide safe passage into both top mid and the bottom lift tunnels. The bases, snipe towers, and lift towers have very powerful and clean lines of sight into the ramp stretches of the map, and shortening and/or angling the ramps inward toward the bases at any point prior to their current positioning would force players back into dangerous lines of sight too quickly.
3. The "redundant" ramps/pathways flanking the mid bridge ramps may appear superfluous at first glance, but these areas are essential to both vehicle and infantry movement through mid. The ghost ramps are designed to launch the ghost into the mid 2 y-cross, where the ghost can proceed toward the enemy lift tower along the flank routes in a continuous/flowing movement sequence. The ramps/pathways flanking mid bridge are key to my infantry movement design through mid as well, which is an X-Y-Z zigzag movement pattern where players can engage and move along multiple parallel levels as they wind their way from lift to lift. The scaling/open space at the edges of these pathways (near the lifts) is key for both emergency spawning and vehicle movement.
4. The landings for the man cannons themselves do not create the awkward/tight geometry you are referring to, as they are positioned perfectly to allow (1) a smooth landing top mid, and (2) enough space for fluid vehicle movement through the bottom mid big door below. However, the ramps providing access to mid 3 from mid 2 are responsible for creating some awkward/tight geometry at the lip of the lift platform. A necessary sacrifice to allow enough space for fluid vehicle movement through mid 2, and ultimately a minor geometry issue that will likely have little to no actual negative effect on game play experience. However, I will continue working on this area to see if I can improve the geometry a bit.
5. I agree that a three-story lift could replace the teleporter in mid. I was initially concerned that placing a mid lift would create confusing and/or repetitive call-outs due to the other sided lifts along mid, but after our discussion last night, calling out "mid lift" should be distinct enough. The three-story lift will provide a more natural/flowing vertical movement experience for infantry in mid as well.
6. The mid 2 platform below rockets is indeed low enough that players will hit their heads while jumping, but this is by design. This area is a key mid checkpoint where infantry and vehicles moving through mid are funneled through super dangerous sniper tower lines of sight for a brief time. The idea is to limit player movement in the Y and Z directions during this brief exposure, forcing players to move fast in the X direction while greatly empowering snipe towers for a brief moment as well. The conventional level design rule that all ceilings should be high enough for clean Y movement is 9 out of 10 times the best option, but creating tighter play spaces for funnel movement is acceptable for brief moments of game play. The first tier of the bases has lower ceilings as well.
7. The cover used to protect the ghost spawn from lines of sight across the chasm is definitely super lazy. I just threw those down as a temporary solution so we could test. While the cover on the sides of the ghost jumps is lazy compared to the otherwise structural cover on the map, those pieces provide the exact player-geometry interaction I wanted in that area. Cover that provides X-Y-Z engagement opportunities, plus a bit of head glitching to out-shoot players on the ramp stretch. If I can find a more structural solution that can create that same effect, I will definitely change it. Maybe you guys can help me with both solutions over the next few weeks.

MEET YOUR MAKER OFFICIAL TESTING LOBBY #2

For those of you that like to test while you build, we have a special lobby every week dedicated to bring you feedback during the design process of your submission. The next one is being held this weekend, so sign up now!

When:
Saturday, July 11th
9pm EST

RSVP your spot in our testing lobby here: halocustoms

Wait. This is the same feedback from a week ago, not last night