PREPARE FOR BIG TEAM BATTLE

This week, the first of many free, regular Halo 5 updates will drop. The Battle of Shadow and Light update is nearly upon us, and today, we’ll talk about new goodness, some gameplay tweaks, and more, as well as recent playlist updates and some amazing anti-vehicle antics. Shall we?

Friday’s weekend playlist update brought with it a top community requested playlist: Doubles. The playlist poll proved Doubles was the clear favorite over the previous winner, Shotty Snipers, which - as it had been the new option the prior week - had been present in the polls once again. Unsurprisingly, Doubles came in at an overwhelming 64% of total votes, which means it was available this past weekend with increased XP rewards.

Some minor but important changes are also on the way for the SWAT playlist. To start, we’ll be bumping the SWAT respawn time from 1 second to 3 seconds, which should improve overall game flow while still maintaining the fast-paced action the playlist is known for. Additionally, we’ll be removing friendly fire, which will both upset trolls and prevent you from accidentally betraying your friend who jumped into your sights at the last moment.

Speaking of trolls, it’s worth mentioning that we’ve been keeping a very close eye on REQ point and XP boosting, and the exploits some players are using to idle in matches in an attempt to fill their very own Money Bin with a ton of REQ points and XP. Our data team at the studio has not only caught this behavior, but we’ve also started taking action against offending accounts, including bans and removal of all REQ points. Most of you need not worry about this, as you’re aware that REQ points and XP are only awarded for honor and bravery on the battlefield.

Teams across the studio have continued to dig through your feedback across a variety of forums, boards, and more on the greater ChatterNet, including items such as CSR, in-game and menu UI, and much more. We’ll continue talking about these and more over the next few weeks as we prepare future updates. On that topic, the first Halo 5: Guardians update, Battle of Shadow and Light, is set to drop within the next few days. Let’s talk about the content, tuning tweaks, and more that’s on the way.

BATTLE OF SHADOW AND LIGHT


The Battle of Shadow and Light update brings with it a variety of new goodness, including Big Team Battle, new REQ content, and a number of tuning and polish tweaks. First up, let’s dig deeper into the BTB maps we first introduced last week. To do so, we’ll hear from the community members who first started work on Deadlock, Recurve, and Guillotine, and the 343’ers who spent months bringing these maps to their final version.

DEADLOCK


Nokyard, Community Forger

The long flight from Toronto to Seattle gave me time for two things: the chance to catch up on Hunt the Truth for the first time, and also to think about which map I would construct while visiting 343 Industries. It boiled down to either Sidewinder, Standoff, or Waterworks. Standoff took precedence since I had already remade Sidewinder in Halo 4, and Waterworks in Halo 2: Anniversary. Standoff is considered a difficult map to recreate due to limited terrain pieces and serious performance issues which are hampered by the complexity of the bases. Underclass ICON managed a decent remake in Halo Reach, and Pa1nts gave it his best shot in H2A, but my intention was to further blur the line between a dev map and a Forge map, and push the limits of if this new Forge with an extremely ambitious build.

I was more than delighted when Standoff was revealed as one of our options, so I grabbed it up and requested another Xbox One with Halo 3 on a second monitor so the original Standoff map was in view at all times. My objective was to remain as faithful to the original as possible, while transposing the angled surfaces with these wonderful new chunky round blocks. The bases were intended to feature a more organic flow which is apparent the first time you experience the right side entrance which features smooth flowing lines and (hopefully) an electrified ambiance. Where this map really shines is the way it showcases the new terrain pieces and how they seamlessly meld with adjoining pieces. In fact, the entire map is floating high above the natural surface of Alpine in order to recreate the cliff on the open end of the map. I am just as excited as any other BTB fan to see how the map looks and plays since the 343i's Forge and multiplayer teams took over construction.

Jeremy Raymond, 343 Multiplayer Designer

Standoff is a favorite of mine, so I was happy to hear Nokyard was going to tackle building it. He spent a lot of time and care with the base build outs during his visit. He did such a fantastic job that I hardly had to touch the bases while finalizing the level. I spent most of the time building out the rest of the level, and the new terrain objects in Forge made that easy. For the most part, I stuck to the classic layout, but removed the highest areas above the bases to simplify a bit. I meticulously tweaked the terrain with a fine tooth comb to make driving smooth and enjoyable to play on. The rest of the development time was spent adding details and beautifying the level before adding one last finishing touch – the inclusion of some center satellite platforms as an homage to the classic theme. Lastly, I've been keeping the name Deadlock in my back pocket to use as a map name for some time now. Given that we’ve got a map inspired by Standoff coming to Halo 5, I figured it was the right time to pull the trigger.

RECURVE
The Fated Fire, Community Forger

With Recurve, I took the original Longbow design back to the drawing board and vastly reimagined the map—literally recurving the bow-shaped design in the other direction. My aim was reimagination through implementation of arena-based design philosophies, ultimately resulting in a much smaller scaled, faster paced, and more CTF-focused level design than the original. I focused on designing heroism and big-play opportunities through movement, verticality, overlap, and the simultaneous empowerment of both the individual and the team—thus allowing players to make huge plays very quickly off spawn. I love creating huge skill gaps on maps by rewarding players who possess extensive gun game mastery, movement mechanic mastery, and map knowledge, and it was an awesome challenge to develop a Big Team Battle map like Recurve with that philosophy as a core design pillar.

I developed a modular design mass-out that allowed for rapid iteration and evolution by the 343 Multiplayer Team once I left. It has been a great pleasure collaborating with Multiplayer Level Designer Adrian Bedoya throughout the continued design and development process of the map over the past few months. The design process is flexible like a bow and, although the reimagination has significantly changed since I passed the design off, I have high hopes Recurve will evolve into a super memorable, competitive, and iconic Big Team Battle CTF experience. I hope this recurved bow shoots a fiery arrow through your heart when you get to play the map this week!

Adrian Bedoya, MP Level Designer

Collaborating on the BTB maps with the Forgers has been a great experience. It’s incredible to see the passion that they have for Forge, Halo, and map design. Like seasoned professionals, they brought in ideas on paper, or simple roughs in Sketchup. Once at the studio, they hit the ground running, and Kyle (The Fated Fire) was started work on a spiritual successor to the Halo 4 fan favorite Longbow

His work incorporated the base design of two opposing bases with a central structure from Longbow, while also taking some of his own personal design ideas. The layout he crafted was a good base to continue play-testing and iteration on the design. After the Forgers left, we worked tirelessly to bring the maps to completion. We treated the levels as we would any regular internally developed level. We tuned and iterated on weapon, objective, spawn and respawn placements.

We hope that the massive depth, scope and speed of what users are able to achieve within the new Forge tools inspires new and old Forgers to bring their creations to life.

BASIN


Mike Byron, 343 Multiplayer Producer

Basin started out well over a year ago as a side project of mine to stress test large scale Forge map creation. Originally built in my spare moments between meetings, I quickly created a prototype I called Gulch. I loaded up all previous descendants of Blood Gulch on one screen and selectively chose from all the versions to create something that felt both familiar and new at the same time. After our first play test, it was apparent that A) Forge could handle making large scale maps filled with custom terrain and structures and B) everyone couldn’t stop having a great time and laughing during our play tests.

With a good foundation in place, and everyone wanting to see the map brought to completion, I handed it off to Jeremy who polished the experience and really took the map to the next level.

Jeremy Raymond, 343 Multiplayer Designer

Before working on BTB maps, I was finishing up on some Warzone levels and looking forward to a new challenge. When asked, I excitedly jumped at the chance and took to Forge to learn the tool to help support the Forgers’ visit. I hopped into the tool by taking over on Gulch for Mike. Firstly, I wanted to see how good a structure could look in Forge, so I spent my time creating a neutral base in the center of the map. I was psyched at what the tool could do and how the new structure looked, and even amazed our art team with how good things could look in Forge. It was a bit of deja vu, like reliving my modding days all over again where I got the chance to art out my own levels. It was a blast. Playtests went well and people loved the center structure. After sizing down a bit, fully rebuilding the terrain, and adding more infantry friendly paths, Basin was ready for the masses.

GUILLOTINE
The Psycho Duck, Community Forger

When we were given the chance to reimagine classic BTB maps, I knew I had to tackle Headlong. Bravo note: everyone thought he was crazy for trying to tackle Headlong. For one thing, the vertical nature of the map was sure to be a great fit for Halo 5's mechanics with the appropriate tweaks. Of equal importance, though, was the opportunity to really see how far this new Forge could be pushed. Headlong is one of the most complex and intricate maps in the series' history, and forgers have been trying to recreate it since Halo 3. This was the first time the map could truly be remade with a high level of detail and without suffering from any performance issues.

With Guillotine, I set out to create more of a true remake rather than a reimagining, though I absolutely took the opportunity to make a few adjustments; a 1:1 remake was not going to make sense for H5. I took an organic approach to map scaling, tuning each individual jump and line of sight to make the most sense for Halo 5's mechanics and sandbox. Thanks to multiselect and grouping features, I was able to continually readjust scaling of different areas over the course of the week until I got things just right. Studying how players like StrongSide moved around the map helped me make informed decisions about these scaling adjustments (and allowed me to add lots of new trick jumps). Another thing I wanted to improve was Headlong's vehicle circuit, which was originally somewhat convoluted. I opened up a new movement option for vehicles, allowing them to ramp up to the broken bridge landing, jump through the hanging basket, land behind Blue Building (Soda Room), and re-enter the circuit from there. This new route not only preserves the travel time balance which the original circuit created but also opens up some exciting new options as well.

It was great to work with the devs to make a few other tweaks to this classic design and to get some additional awesome visual assets in place, such as the 'Hog billboard, the cranes, and some other cool details. Hopefully, you enjoy playing Guillotine in Big Team Battle this week!

Mike Byron and Adrian Bedoya, 343 Multiplayer Team

Headlong was one of the very first maps we considered when we originally huddled around Quinn’s desk to see which maps would serve best as inspiration for Halo 5 BTB maps. Despite everyone loving the map, we quickly dismissed it as being too ambitious and complex to be done in the Forgers’ timeframe. However, the very first thing Dana (The Psycho Duck) asked when he arrived was if we had thought of making Headlong in Forge - he then informed us of his intent to recreate it. After we finished laughing out loud at him (and saying he was a crazy person), he assured us he could do it. Within a couple days Headlong was there and ready to be played in all its urban cityscape glory.

Dana did such a magnificent job faithfully recreating the level, that after he left, our work mainly concentrated on the gameplay design and overall aesthetics - perfectly placing the weapons and spawns, intro and outro cameras, as well as harvesting tons of new Forge assets. The map is populated with everything from street lamps, cranes, and soda machines to civilian vehicles and the Warthog billboard (we even demanded our concept lead, Darren Bacon, create a new billboard for us to use in the map). We love the Forge tools and the scale of creations possible with them is endlessly exciting. Mind your head as you roam through the streets of Guillotine.

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These Big Team Battle maps drop this week, and development on more is already underway. Next up, we’ll dig into some of the new REQs coming with the Battle of Shadow and Light update, and we’ll start with an introduction from designer Chris Blohm.

source: HaloWaypoint