Nah Haunted and I actually have a good relationship. Very openly critical and honest with each other. It's a good thing. @A Haunted Army My writing only appears fluffy if you perceive it that way Just sharing some level/gameplay design concepts that I am passionate about. Again--in regards to your gameplay concerns, the video is not representative. I intentionally selected Shifty's gameplay as it highlighted some of the cool vertical movement options designed within the map. He chose to play as vertically as possible, flying across the map as often as possible. This is just one type of movement available for player use on the map however, and there are many flanking routes though mid that were not highlighted in this particular gameplay. You will observe a different experience in playtests.
I understand what @The Fated Fire is saying about heroism. After playing Destiny, I found the old Halo games boring due in large part to their inability to make me feel, to parrot what he said, "like a Hero". Halo CE has those moments where you can clutch through several 1v1 encounters, grab power weapons, and continue being a one man killing machine. It's one reason Damnation crept into one of my favorite maps - a good player can dominate a team just by playing smart on it and that's something I really appreciate, both in the gameplay mechanics and level design. After that game however, and up until Halo 5, I felt that was missing from the game due to the slower kill times and flatter maps, as well as no punishment for instantly leaving high ground. I love the Ground Pound for example because of how it encourages vertical gameplay and makes for those memorable experiences, but it's pretty hard to pull off in actual combat. I see the potential for that style of gameplay in the map and I appreciate it being the focus. But I think what @A Haunted Army and perhaps others see upon viewing the video is the antithesis of what we'd expect out of a map from a designer who traditionally created competitive layouts. One of the main complaints about the way Halo 5 plays is that players are able to fly across the maps and evade encounters. It makes the gameplay hard to read and predict. Even though kill times are faster than most of the past titles, they still aren't fast enough to support a map with the level of movement seen in that video. If it's experimental in the sense that you haven't found a layout that works with the gameplay you want yet, I'd agree, because I don't think the current iteration is going to play well, especially with the Sword on it. (If you told me you were playtesting Infection in that video, I would have believed you.) However, if it's experimental in the sense that it's never been done before, all you'd have to do is look towards old shooter design and to a lesser extent the original Halo to see maps that feature these themes, and in many cases play well at a high level. The Unreal Tournament style of gameplay is an inspiration for one of my own maps, but there's a very careful balance between empowering players with movement opportunities and making the gameplay readable. I'd like to see it pulled off well.
Amazing post, Goat. I completely agree with your concern about kill times in relation to the level of movement seen in the video, but it is worth noting that the danger of moving through mid is not properly communicated in this initial gameplay capture. 6/8 players were just seeing and exploring the map for the first time last night, hence the total lack of positioning and counter to mid movement shown in the video. Shifty and I were the only players who had mastered movement on the map previously, so everyone else just suffered at our expense Much of mid hangs over a massive death pit, which will come into play much more often as teams learn positioning over time. My use of the term "experimental" was also in reference to the initial test weapon set. The map currently revolves around the energy sword power weapon, with each spacecraft providing a boost that modifies both how players use that sword and how they interact with the level at large. Was super fun chaining together these 3 boosts with the sword, but also quite ridiculous and troll (as clearly seen in the video). Made for some exciting footage though As I stated, the weapon set is placeholder and will change soon. Just experimenting, and the energy sword will likely not be featured on the map in the long run.
You do realize height variation and verticality are the exact same thing right? Verticality refers to one point being higher than another. It has nothing to do with how those levels are connected. Honestly, you are thinking of the "flow" of the map, not verticality, and especially not "true" verticality... The term heroism is already a dead horse that is getting a SPNKr shoved up its ass. You are throwing it around entirely too much and over saturating the term. I think a good example of "heroism" is the leap of faith on Orbital from H3. Even then, I don't consider that a heroic moment, rather than just a tactical jump down to bottom. If you are going to brand aspects of a map as heroic, it should be hard to do, with great reward, failure means death. Having three floating meatballs as a triple jump up is not heroic, because it isn't hard to do, and has no great reward in doing so. I know you can do better in that aspect, Fated. I 100% agree with you on running around the map for hours imagining scenarios, jumps, slides, nade bounces, etc. I do this myself (it has become sort of a problem as I tend to not get things done ) but ultimately helps craft the map to play better. The only problem is that I feel like no matter how much time we put into that, not every thing we account for will be noticed or played. Which is bitter sweet. It gives our maps longevity, but could go unnoticed. Glad to see you think about things like that, it is commendable.
ROFLMAOLOLOLOL I love how you insist on consistently bringing me or my maps into conversations despite not having any place of them. Your definition of verticality contrasts so much to what 99% of anyone in the forging community thinks. You know.....players on different levels interacting with one another? What does traversing and lifting and dropping from level to level have ANYTHING to do with verticality? Ever heard of construct? If anything when you have your vertical segments overlap with one another that PREVENTS players from interacting. Your video shows exactly what I'm talking about, ground pound aside how many vertical interactions happened from player to player? Or are you proud of the way you can run up ramps? It's laughable how you brought Trinity and myself into this. How much of Trinity's geometry is even on the same level? Less than 10% ? Do me a favor and post a video where even HALF your encounters on that map happen on the same plane as another player. Please, be my guest. Better yet, get on H2A and play @Kurismic and I on it, choose any partner you want I don't care. If even 1/4TH THE ENCOUNTERS DURING OUR GAME happen on the same level, I'll admit Trinity doesn't have verticality. You can go out of your way to try to get on the same level as Kurismic or I the entire game, I don't care. It won't happen. You can even record the game and post it here after if you want, or better yet. I can twitch stream it for all of FH to watch. I'm not going to even attempt to critique or give feedback to anything you make because Lord knows it's falling on deaf ears, I've never heard of anyone so unwilling and stubborn to any sort of feedback it's unbelievable. Quit acting like a child and do me a favor and leave my name (or in this case map) out of any future posts you make since you've made it very apparent that you literally do nothing but go out of your way to talk down to anyone who's not interested in your maps. I still have screenshotted and copied the messages you sent myself, @Given To Fly , and @Blaze before you deleted them, all of those make that abundantly clear. I can post those here if you'd like to continue that conversation? EDIT: Also, your map is looking pretty swiss cheesy. Maybe you should watch this. Good for beginners and masters alike.
Hey guys, dae walkR and I created a new map called Waterfort (8v8). Take a look and let us know what you think! =] http://www.forgehub.com/maps/waterfort.1106/ We still need to test the playability at some point with more than just us two players. Peace.
Why do WAYWO threads always turn into **** swinging contests? In all seriousness it's interesting to read these sort of arguments because weirdly enough, it's a learning experience lmao. Your design looks interesting Fated, but I'd have to agree and say it looks a little too swiss cheesy. Making some more defined routes and positions would probably go a long way for the map, otherwise encounters might feel too sporadic and frustrating.
here's the way i see it height variation/verticality: literally what it says - how much variation in the Z axis the map has. vertical gameplay: the degree to which the height variation influences the game, as denoted by how often players interact on the same plane. height advantages: again, speaks for itself - being in a higher position gives you an advantage over players in lower positions overlap: paths and/or sightlines crossing over and interacting with one another. you can have a map with a whole bunch of height variation and next to no vertical gameplay or height advantage. here are a few examples. The overwhelming majority of the encounters on these maps are on the same plane. I'd go as far to say Construct has no height advantage because you almost never fight anyone up top from the bottom.
The ego on these forgers is pretty insane. Why it can't be a community that just fosters growth... well, actually I know why, but the sad thing is that it could be, and it doesn't. Off topic; some idiot on my Narrows remake's feature video is trying to claim he made it... Thanks 343 can't believe they didn't see the flaw in this file share system, hopefully that gets fixed immediately. this is making me want to just post zircon now so it doesnt get ****in stolen
To elaborate a bit, i went back to the drawing board on Genesis in part because it got to a point where "running around the map for hours imagining the gameplay" showed that there wasn't enough height variation. I didn't need testing to tell me that there were some areas where the planes were too similar; that's what being proactive is for, so I decided to throw out what wasn't working and explore the aspects of the design that were. A big theme on the map that i'm trying to capture is the idea of platforming. I want players to swing between different ledges while moving around the map to get different sightlines; you might see one sightline from one ledge, but then a lower ledge gives you another sightline. So there's this weaving back and forth between positions with players interacting on various planes, and then they all converge on a central point where - while you're still shifting from high to low positioning - it's more gradual (i.e. a hill perhaps). This area of the Campaign was a big inspiration for that. This area of the map captures the feeling pretty well I think. The blue circle is an empowering position over top mid, but it has the narrowest field of view and doesn't see anything below it. The green circle (which is supposed to be lower) sees bottom tower and has angles on top mid that the blue circle cannot see. The red circle has the most sightlines because it can see beneath the blue circle, beneath the tower, and has a greater FOV into mid; it's the lowest position between the three however. So we get this pyramid effect, which is color coded to represent the visible light spectrum: That's not to say every map should give you less FOV the higher you go. Some maps give you more sightlines the higher you go while simultaneously limiting how much space you have to move up there. This however is the concept for Genesis, as I want to distribute the weight of each position evenly and give players a reason to use the entirety of the map. The base also had this concept, so I need to work it into the middle portions of the map to get them off of the same plane. That way the encounters therein will be more interesting and it'll make the map more interactive, allowing for those impromptu moments where the player can make showstopping plays. That's the plan at least.
Also, we need better rocks like the Rock 2s from Forge Island. Hell, H2A had some good flat rocks to use as well. We have dozens of them now but none of them are as versatile as Rock 2s. The new Rock 3s (there are two of them) have way too many jagged edges as well. Think 343 ought to consider that we aren't always using rocks for exterior walls or decoration. Sometimes rocks are needed to frame a structure and it's hard to accomplish that when they're so bulky and abstract.
I don't know how/if you're managing to make nice nat geo structures but hooooly **** I was raging just trying to make a cave. Looked so unnatural.
343 needs to treat rocks like blocks like how they have for terrain. Terrain is so easy to use now because they mimic blocks. I can place a 32' or 64' block down as a temporary path and then go back and fill it in with terrain later, and that's great because it means I can get everything on the map lined up before I art it up.... But that goes out the window if you need rocks within the map. The smallest rocks will put you out a depth of at least 16', compared to the 8' or so feet from Halo 4's Rock 2. That's a lot of unnecessary space you lose and it's one reason Genesis has been so difficult to build. I'm almost entirely at the mercy of the dimensions of the rock pieces. (I tried supplementing some areas with Forerunner geo and it doesn't feel the same).
Very happy to read that you follow a similar design process, Given. You and I unfortunately got off on the wrong foot, but I believe our recent conversations on BE and elsewhere have shown that we share much common ground when we can communicate effectively. I appreciate your post, and look forward to checking out what you've been working on soon. In regards to vertical gameplay, this is just another case of semantics and miscommunication--I tend to view verticality and overlap as synonymous. The term "true vertical gameplay" was poorly worded and spur of the moment, but the gameplay I am referencing is simply that which is experienced when you combine vertical combat, such as that created through the plethora of vertically offset encounters on Trinity (which is really cool), with vertical movement through overlap. When you combine both of these vertical elements you enhance the potential for spontaneous creative play, and many old school arena maps did this very successfully. To be clear, I only referenced Trinity because it's a very cool map that I find interesting in concept, and thought it provided a good point of contrast with the gameplay experience I was describing in the post. I also just generally love to reference other community member's creations when discussing map design as I believe everyone is amazing in one way or another, but at Multi's request I will no longer reference his. My intention has always purely been to pass on knowledge, as knowledge is one of the few assets in this world that grows when shared. I believe that heroism is the essence of game design, and although many of you ridicule the concept, it is knowledge worth sharing and I hope I have at least intrigued some of you with my post. We are all fallible and have all said things in our past that we are not proud of, and the best thing we can do is continue connecting with each other and helping each other be the best people possible. Life-long learning is so incredibly important, and Multi and Given helped in showing me how wrong I was with my more objective approach to map design. While certain processes like balancing are more objective in nature, map design as a whole is very subjective and both of them helped me see that. Anyway, I just captured an alternative POV of Starlight from the same game as the initial gameplay video. This player was on the same team as Shifty, but alternatively preferred a more passive, precision-based role over the more crazy, flying across the map role that Shifty took. Just wanted to show how differently the map played from this player's perspective. I agree with Multi/Karma and others that the map currently suffers from some swiss cheese gameplay effect, especially in the central building with the satellite dish. Will continue refining the design and ultimately remove that from the experience later on. Night guys.
@The Fated Fire Well Sprinting around Sword Base is different than Jetpacking The pathing makes more sense in that video, but some of the routes appear redundant, contrived or otherwise abstract. To elaborate, that skinny 30-40 degree ramp you have by the window in the beginning of the video feels like it was put there solely to get players to the top level. Of course that's what a ramp does, but where its positioned structurally feels tacked on, like you designed that window area and then decided you needed a ramp there as opposed to that ramp arising naturally through the design. Those little sneaky routes are not unusual within Halo 5 map design (I imagine you might have contextualized it as a row of pipes if the map were to take on a futuristic city theme). However, it's just one of the areas on the map that feel a bit "reactive" moreso than "proactive" to me. There's a bit of leeway when it comes to adding tac jumps and sneaky routes, but in the case of major paths I try to let the map build itself. That way everything ends up making sense and feeling like it belongs where it is. That's just one example that stuck out to me though. The good thing about a massout is you can see whichever routes are like that and simplify the map by making quick changes. Your design seems malleable enough to allow sweeping revisions wherever necessary while preserving its central themes. On that note, I think this would look pretty cool if you gave it a spaceport plaza theme once it was arted up. Some of the catwalks look like pedestrian bridges.
Does anyone want to check out my coagulation remaster so far? needs a lot of work but im liking where its going. my gt is Ripshade 41
We will be scrutinizing and cracking down on any plagiarized maps submitted to the map database. It's generally good to get in the habit of screen capping any works in progress with timestamps and an accompanying gamertag for proof of ownership should a plagiarizing case arise. I imagine remakes might be more susceptible than original designs however, but I'd start practicing this "record keeping" nonetheless. As for me, you may peak but no touching unless I kick the bucket. Then it's up for grabs.
It's very gametype dependent though, play KoTH on Construct against good players and you'll find this out very quickly. Slayer tends to play very "flat".