Alright, here is a Walkthrough of what I'm working on: http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/cluckinho10/video/13725981 It's a 2v2, symmetrical forerunner map aesthetically inspired by Haven and Epitaph. Design wise it's inspired by Haven and Powerhouse. I've never been much of a competitive map maker tbh; I know I'm better at mini games, and my portfolio only proves that. I do, however, want to be better at making core maps, so the only way to do that is of course practice! I've been watching map design videos, looking at classic maps etc, and I think I'm finally getting it. In the past my competitive maps were always too free-flowing. Too many routes everywhere. Too many random places. My goal with this untitled map was to restrict movement more and have places players actually want to go. Also, I wanted the map to be open. IMO, cqc in Halo 5 isn't fun. Think hallways on the Rig. Ugh. Just not fun at all. Anyway, I know I have a long way to go, but I'm proud of what I've created so far.
Your map concept is very interesting and can be a fun map through iteration. I think the theme is very nice. I like the Forerunner look and the color scheme you've chosen. I also like how you've made the walls visually appealing. However, this current iteration has several issues that will hold it back from being a competitive map. 1. You don't have much substantial height varitation on the map. You have three levels, however the height between level 1 and level 2 is negligible. This means that players on these levels are essentially on the same plane. When you have long sightlines that are on the same plane, players can't get very creative in the encounters. Rocket Spawn is the most egregious instance of this; it's too flat and too open. 2. The majority of the rest of the map are hallways. Hallways are almost never interesting playspaces for the same reason above; they're linear, and the only way to move through a hallway is forward. The hallways in this iteration may prove to be especially problematic because of how long they are. There's no geometric way to break up those sightlines while adding interesting playspace. You either throw pillars in the middle like the wings on Haven, or you put a Narrows Mohawk, or you angle the walls to give players cover on the sides. You could attempt to curve the middle of the hallway to break up sightlines that way, but none of those would make a hallway more interesting to fight in; it just covers the sightlines. The second problem with hallways is that they are closed circuits. The majority of the time you spend travelling your hallways, you are not interacting with the rest of the map. This is good for safe spawning and segmentation, but bad for gameplay flow and sightlines because it allows players to play cat and mouse. I'd argue the biggest issue with Haven is that the top level had next to no interaction with the bottom level. They were both closed circuits except for the player's ability to drop down into it. If that were the only change made to the map, it would have played a lot better in my opinion. Last thing i'll mention about the hallways is to avoid making "head-high" walls. It's a WIP so i'm not going to be picky about that; nevertheless, the advantage of the Forerunner theme is that you're able to anchor any wall you have to any point on the map through the use of towers, angled walls, etc. I'd definitely explore some more of that. 3. Again I'm not going to spend too much time on piece usage since it's a WIP, but I will caution you that you're overloading your map with redundant objects for the sake of your theme. The theme looks good no doubt, but it comes at the cost of both your budget and spacial orientation. Paths and walls blend into each other in your sea of white. 4. This doesn't really deserve its own section, but i'm personally not a fan of the Overshield's location. It's cool that it's in a pit next to the Forerunner structure, but all of the space surrounding it is no man's land and you have to jump back out once you get there. Using that idea, I would at least contextualize it in the structure by having the terrain channel towards it from the one side to draw the player's attention to it. All of the solutions to these issues are relatively easy, however they will require some work on your part. 1. Height variation on Rockets can be achieved either by lowering the terrain or raising the platforms 2. You can fix the hallway problem by raising them up, doubling the depth of the floors themselves, and blowing a hole in every floor in select locations so that it interacts with the bottom. I would then convert the majority of your walls to towers or structures so that you can open up your sightlines. If you wanted to get more creative, all of the hallways can angle up towards Rockets, so the hallways almost become bridges instead. I would also go a step further and shrink the entire map by at least 16 feet, bringing all the structures closer to one another. I think the map is too big, and it makes it feel flatter than it may appear. Making it cozier and more vertical will actually add more playspace because there will be less "dead" sightlines - areas nobody wants to go because they're too open. (Adding some variation to the terrain elevations will make it feel less flat too. Terrain can function as ramps now, so you can make use of that to create hills into your Forerunner structures.) As for your piece usage, you'll have to simplify at some point. Some places where you're using 4 stacked walls, you can remove the two in the center and use a single piece with a darker color - a gray 30% or something. This frames the wall and gives it some contrast so you can discern corners and walls from the flooring. Here are two examples Think that's all I got for now. If you post 3 quarter overhead screenshots of the map in a few places I can sketch up some ideas for you. Could work if it was smaller and more vertical.
Thanks a bunch goat, that's exactly what I needed. I agree with your suggestions and I'll see what I can do!
Cant add too much onto what Goat said, id say just go asym so you have a bit more creative freedom in the map, symm 2 v 2 maps dont tend to play well.
I know those feels. I think some forgers have a map or two that just haven't been finished to their standard or it hasn't physically materialzed how the creator sees it in his or her head, or something just doesn't feel right or isn't working. So, they continue to revisit it, check on it, and make changes. I say if you don't have a map like that, you need to find one. There's a reason your mind refuses to let it go. My only suggestion is to have some side projects also, that "one" map can be mentally draining sometimes towork on non-stop.
Been working on this for a while, just finished the terrain today. Not going for a perfect remake, as you can probably tell by the fact that half the map is missing (not like it was really used outside of Invasion anyway). Just working on getting spawns and such down, and improving the lighting situation, and it should be ready for testing. Also, I've already replaced the ugly catwalk with a Covenant sniper tower, and I'll probably alter the terrain around there to compensate. Each team gets a Phaeton, Warthog, and Ghost from spawn. Beam Rifles and an Incineration Cannon can be found on the map, where the snipers and RL were in the original.
Goat created a map. And the path was without form, and void; and rugged terrain was upon the other half. And the Spirit of Goat (and @KoD Cyrax 51 and @Sethiroth) moved upon the face of the map And Goat said, Let there be blocks and there were blocks And Goat saw the blocks, that it was good And Goat divided the blocks from the terrain And Goat called the blocks Forerunner and the terrain he called Caves. And the middle and the bases were the first day. And on the second day he sent the Flood and rebuilt it for 40 days and 40 nights
@M0aHerder how much did Fyrewulff pay you to make a Cragmire template? It's looking really accurate from that distance. It's impressive that you can capture all those angles. Not sure about the layout liberties you've taken, but I guess as long as you have the Spire anything can be done around it and nobody would care. Can't say I'm a fan of the glacier pieces though. They look like playdoh on the sunset skybox. On another note, can we all agree that MCC had the ugliest Forge? Looking through the map page just now and some MCC maps really stick out as being exceptionally hideous. The concrete texture was just awful. There are exceptions, but very few. Seeing them alongside Halo 4's maps makes Halo 4 feel newer. Granted it had some obnoxious textures, but I think the look of 4's Forge was more visually pleasing for a greater variety of maps, and we had a lot more color to work with. RIP extraction cylinders.
It's a stiff fight between all the forges before Halo 5 honestly, but too many variables to judge. I do think MCC was the ugliest, but there are people like who lived the metal life and might have a different opinion. Extraction cylinders were great, but implementing colors otherwise on halo 4 made maps look cartoony and gay. Obviously that's just my opinion. But as someone who has remade two maps from reach to 4 and MCC, I found one to look best in Halo 4 (forge island) and another to look best in Halo Reach. I really didn't forge alot on MCC though. I do like Fated's map in halo 4 because it had meta and a boat
I didnt buy MCC but from watching vids/pics, it worse by far the worst visually. That horrible pink tint so many maps had was atrocious. Ive always said that it takes a good 6 months for the best maps in forge (mostly visually) to come out, we saw that in H4, and then another few months after forge island came out. Seems to be the threshold of when people figure out forge well enough, which is why im very excited to see maps in 4-5 months once people discover the forge #meta/the sea of shite remakes dies off.
It's funny, I was thinking this exact thing except I was thinking it about halo 4. Some of them were showing up on the front page and damn those blocks just looked dirty... I mean, at least MCC was just this uniform brown paper bag, h4 looks like you sent the white blocks through a sandstorm, and not in a neat textured way.
Side note, the guy who made the Hill gametype is currently working on a script that lets you set up a Breakout gametype where you switch sides.