Halo 5 Design: New Things to Consider

Halo 5 Design: New Things to Consider​

So I decided to do another design write up to address some new things that need to be taken into consideration when designing maps in halo 5 that where not issues in previous halo games.

As I have been going around and looking at forge maps, I have seen a lot of these mistakes made by both new and experienced forgers alike. Some of these things are obvious to experienced forgers, though I think this is still worth a read.


This is my approach to map design, it is not the ultimate view of halo map design, there are many different approaches to take, and this is one of the many that has been shown to work.



Section 1: New Mechanics


Spartan charge

The most common mistake I see both new and experience forgers alike is not taking into account spartan charge. Spartan charge is the worst new mechanic in halo 5, it is the cancer of the game. It is a easily done, highly rewarding, and not easily punishable mechanic that creates very frustrating experiences for players. I am sure anyone who has played H5 has had the experience where someone randomly runs around the corner and thrusters you then follows up by instantly downing you with an AR. Now luckily we can design our maps so players have this frustrating experience much less often. In my opinion you should design your map so that spartan charge is not over powered.


The best way to avoid this is to pay attention to your sight lines and 90 degree corners. Short sight lines and tight corners promote shoulder charging. Room maps, both asymmetrical and symmetrical are more prone to this issue than other maps. This is due to the amount of segmentation that room maps have. By segmenting rooms short sight lines are created allowing players to abuse the short distance sprints into an easy spartan charge. Combine that with sprinting through doorways from room to room, it would be pretty easy for someone to sprint in and just thruster punch you while you in a room camping or not. The short sight lines in each room, also makes it easy for the now buffed automatics to thrive. A lot of experienced designers have created room maps that suffer from this exact problem in the first 4 months of forge. I am sure we will see less of this in the future once everyone picks up on this.


Spartan charge is something you need to take into account if you do not want players to have frustrating experiences on your map. You can use Spartan charge to your advantage though. By creating tight corners and short sight lines in campable areas, you will actually depower it. This will help prevent camping on your maps. Note, that this is not something that should be used a lot on your map, because then you just have a bunch of Spartan charge prone areas on your map.



Clambering

This is the best new mechanic in my opinion. It really makes vertical gameplay easer to design and can create some really interesting vertical interactions on your map. Just make sure to be aware of where people can and cannot clamber on your map. You do not want people breaking your map or getting to area’s you never intending to be used in the first place.



Stabilizer jump

Pretty much the same things to take into account as clamber, just make sure people are not able to break your map or abuse the jump distance enough to hurt the flow of your map.




Everyone has Thruster Pack

Now that everyone has thruster pack some major things have changed. The biggest thing is that grenades are much easier to avoid. If you are trying depower an area on your map by making it more grenade friendly make sure it is a tight space so you cannot easily thruster out of it. Another thing is that it is much easier to quickly thruster into cover for quick protection. If an area is already very strong it probably doesn’t need that much cover if any because of how easy it is to get behind it quickly. In the same light as clamber and stabilizer jump, thrust can be used to extend the horizontal length of your jump, so take that into account.



Section 2: weapon changes


Automatic Weapons Buffed

So all the automatics have received a significant buff, especially your starting weapon the AR. Once useless is now a reliable killing weapon. Though still less reliable than is counterpart the pistol, dangerous none the less.


Now personally I believe that skill should be rewarded. It takes skill and practice to precisely hit your shoots with a precision weapon like the pistol/BR/DMR ect. It does not take skill to aim in the generally direction of the player hold down the trigger and get a kill. If you are making a map that rewards skilled players and does not promote Automatic weapon fiestas then you need to take into account the buff that all the automatics have received.


Short sight lines and tight corners make it easy to abuse automatic weapons like the AR and SMG. Once again for the same reasons mentioned in the spartan charge section, room maps are more prone to suffer from this due to the amount of segmentation they have. This is the second most common mistake I have seen experienced forgers make in there halo 5 designs. Not taking into the power of automatic weapons can create very frustrating and newb friendly experiences on your map. Basically AVOID SHORT SIGHT LINES AND TIGHT CORNERS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!


Pistol Buff and Overall Usage


The pistol has received a significant buff and is now a reliable precision weapon kill in 1.5 seconds with a perfect. As the default starting weapon in most game types, it is one of if not the most used weapon in the game. Taking into account the pistol range when making a map is very important. Making sure your sightlines are not too long, is important. You want to try to keep your sight lines balanced so that they are not so short that spartan charge and automatic weapons dominate your map, but not too long either so that players feel like they cannot hit anything off of spawn rendering them useless.

Taking the pistols red reticule range into account when doing your sight lines is very important. Making an in-forge ruler with blocks is a great way to do this. Sethiroth gave me the idea suggesting to use 2 blocks 96 in length coloring one blue and the other red. Blue signifies the approximate length of the pistol unscopped, while the red signifies the pistol scoped in. I did some playing around with this and found a combination of 3 blocks that gives you exact red reticule range of the pistol both scoped and unscopped using sethiroths idea.

How to make darkling’s ruler

-1 blue 96 length block

-1 blue 24 length block

-1 red 72 length block


Magnet snap the 2 blue blocks together to get unscopped red reticule pistol range, then add the red block on for the scoped range, then group the three objects together for your new ruler : D. Here is a picture of what it should look like



You can use the ruler to measure out your sight lines and make sure they are just right. I do think it is fine to have sight lines that are longer than the pistol red reticule range, just be aware of how you use them. Having a sight line that long can help protect low areas from higher up areas, but it also makes it harder for those areas to interact with each other completely. Having too many long sight lines can create disconnect and stalemates on your map.



Section 3: Aesthetics


So this is the most obvious one that I think everyone has noticed, but if I am doing a write up on new things to consider in Halo 5 it would be absurd not to include this one. For people who are just jumping into this thing called forge and creativity Aesthetics refer to visual appeal and the overall look of things. The fact is we can finally make things look like on-disc developer made maps. There are plenty of forge maps out there that if you didn’t know about forge you would not be able to tell that the map was made by a forger and not 343. Now there are still limitations we have visually, and we cannot do anything/everything yet. Still we can accomplish things we have never been able to, and finally make our maps look professional.


Now I am not going to turn this into an Aesthetics guide thread, there are so many out there. This link has a nice collection of Aesthetic guides under the Aestheitc section. http://halocustoms.com/threads/halo-5-forge-guides.22023/


Now different forgers are going to have different opinions on how important Aesthetics are on a map. A purest might think Aesthetics are completely irrelevant and as long as the visuals do not hinder gameplay, they are fine. Others may say if you map isn’t beautiful and visually cohesive it is a sloppy design. I am not going to say who is wrong is who is right, I respect everyone’s opinion. (Anti-flame disclaimer) My personal opinion is that it is 75% design and 25% Aesthetics. The fact is the design of you map is what people are going to play on, if the map isn’t fun and/or doesn’t play well then no matter how good it looks the map is bad. At the same time, if you have two maps that play just as well, one looks like garbage and the other one looks immaculate it’s obvious which one will have a greater impact on player. In the same light I do feel that one should not sacrifice design for aesthetic appeal.





Section 4: Conclusion


As of right now that is all I have. I might update this in the future as I think of things I left out or find new ones. Hope you all enjoyed the read.


By, John “Darkling Ninja”

 

lol its no problem, I did say this is my style of map design in the opening and some of this stuff is my personal opinion so it is fine that you like it. Heck feel free to design your own map with lots of shoulder charge corners if you like it design what you enjoy

 

I understand what you are saying, I want to make sure this thread is kept on topic though. Lets just not turn this into a "is shoulder charge broken?" thread. Not to say we cannot talk about shoulder charge, but lets try to talk about it in relation to map design.

Your right people might be making it into a bigger issue than it is, but still shoulder charge is a part of the game. When designing a map you still need to take it into account I believe. As a now core game mechanic, I believe as a good designer you should take it into account when making your map. This could mean making your map support it or not support it or even somewhere inbetween. Regardless, being aware of where and how it will be used on yor map is still important.

 

I agree with you on Spartan charge, yeah everyone is going to rate the imports between Aesthetics and design differently. I actually don't think it is a bad thing, differences in style and opinion make for a more diverse selection of maps for the community. So I am happy to hear more about other people’s opinions on Aesthetics and map design in H5.

Well I don't think room maps have that problem by default, I just think they are more vulnerable to it because of the style itself. I think area maps are fine, they may be small but that doesn't mean short sight lines. In a matter of fact I think area maps are able to deal with this problem very well.

I also avoid using Spartan charge as well, sadly we are not the majority on that though Yeah I wish it was off by default myself, sadly all the default game types keep it on so if you’re making a map for the general population you have to think about it.