Permafrost

Great work. Sorry to hear about your frustrated years of construction. It's irritating when engine issues keep you from you enjoying the gameplay on a map you've designed. I myself have a sorted past with one of my maps and I'm glad to say the new engine has made it possible to play without all the chop. On another one of my maps a hidden teleporter kills people during online play. It's a fraction of a second delay that causes water kills.

I hope you intend on posting a walk-through vid.

 

Swiss cheesy goodness! If you're into that sort of thing...

 

Thoughts:

• I feel like the structures are way too close together. Its very claustrophobic. I have no breathing space I guess. It could be scaled up a bit. This version right now seems made for 2 v 2 rather than 4 v 4.
• Having some of the towers (and other structures) rotated at a angle and overlapping kinda confused me as I ran around the map. I found navigating difficult because there were no clear paths. There were lots of twists and turns on the map which I found taxing.
• I like the look of the map. Structures are clean and the white and black really suits the buildings.
• In terms of gameplay...
  • There are definitely parts that will be under ultilised. I don't see myself moving around the map much. I am happy staying in one tower. Middle ground is very open and I don't see myself ever traversing through it. Although, you can say the same for Lockout and Guardian.
  • No clear paths on the map.
  • I don't know where the heck I am going.
  • Weird angles all over the map made aiming hard. Lines of sights were kinda awkward. Annoyed the heck out of me.
  • Weapons seem fine. Once you scale the map up you should consider swapping out the Plasma Caster for something else.
• I sorta like red tower and orange tower and I think they connect together nicely. However, I think you could revise the rest of the map.

Overall thoughts? I'm kinda on the fence about this map.

I do like Lockout/Guardian style maps. I hope you can make this map even better.

 

Alright Darkling, this is something I would like you to do.

I don't really know if you're still considering more changes after the last set you did, but if you are willing to invest a bit more time into making this map even better than it is now, then do it. There will be (and currently are) people who will voice their thoughts, whether it be to aid you or to dissuade you, but I think it's obvious that if you put the time in, you will focus more on the feedback of the people who genuinely want your map to succeed.

Focus on each step of the way with perseverance and determination, and you will slowly climb to making this map better and better each iteration. I gave you my rating because of the fun I had on your map despite my wins and losses, but there is much work to be done before it is truly excellent. Whatever your choice is, I hope you do it with gusto.

 

I haven't played this in Halo 5 yet, so I don't have any specific feedback. I do, however, have a general observation that may or may not apply here (I don't know your entire forging history).

I too have been around forge virtually since the beginning. I was on mlgpro.com beginning in 2004, and frequented the MLG forge forum from its inception (pretty sure I read every post that was ever made there). I was there under a different name, and primarily lurked the forge forum during the Halo 3 era, so I'm sure you'd have no idea who I am from there, but that's beside the point.

As far as I'm concerned, that forum had the best understanding of level design during its time. I learned an enormous amount from the people there. However, as a new community we were only scratching the surface. We were like new painters just learning the basics of the color wheel (though we thought we knew more than we actually did).

The 'tribal' knowledge of the forge community has grown immensely since then, and anyone that's failed to continue growing is going to be far behind the curve at this point (again, I don't know if this applies to you or not, it's just a general observation). This is part of the reason why there has been some backlash from your focus on past experience and accomplishments (to many, those things are meaningless. To some, it comes across as if you're proud of being amongst the best within a group that was just learning the basics). Of course, you may have an entirely different perspective on the level of community knowledge then compared to now, but I think the majority of people view it as I've explained here. So anyway, that's my basic explanation for the reaction you've been receiving here.

Moving on to the real point I wanted to make now...
From what I've seen, you've primarily been focusing on this one design for many years. I always admire dedication toward perfecting a design. On the other hand, I think there is something to be said for expanding horizons when it comes to level design.

To one extreme, we have the people that pump out one design after another, not really spending an enormous amount of time on any particular project. To the other extreme, there are people like yourself that seem to focus almost exclusively on one project for LONG periods of time (years). I think that both approaches have their benefits, but neither is ideal.

The people that I see producing the highest quality work (and I realize this is subjective) are those that find a happy medium. They experiment with wildly varying map styles. They discard ideas that don't work, and dive headlong into those that do. It seems to me that 'breadth' of knowledge and experience often leads to a greater 'depth' of understanding.

So I guess what I'm trying to suggest, in a very roundabout way, is that perhaps you would benefit from spending some time working on something entirely different. Perhaps time spent exploring different designs would help you improve THIS design.

 

Just gonna say this publicly so I don't have to message everyone... Keep personal comments off the thread please. Anything that crosses the line in this thread from this point forward will earn you a ban.

 

Oh lordy ahahaha

 

is it dairy free