Slow map = strategy these days I guess.

Instantly getting into action after spawn = properly scaled 2v2 map I guess.

Ehm, I like my matches to end before the score limit is reached, thank you sir.

That doesn't really have anything to do with it. A lot of these 2v2 maps don't play fast on the merit of quickly spawning power weapons and decision making, they play fast because the maps are so small you don't have a choice. Shurima is tiny, it might as well be an octagon for 2s.

After playing several matches and playing these all multiple times I feel I can give some constructive feedback.

Playlist and general improvement suggestions:

- No radar
- Br starts
- Removal of spartan bash
- Perminant ranked playlist (When maps are updated)
- Removal of camo entirely as it is far too powerful for 2v2 in it's current state
- No join in progress
- Vote/Veto system, either will do
- Addition of larger, more long ranged, vertical heavy maps that the playlist currently lacks entirely

Map specific feedback: (Trying to keep any personal playstyle preferences from my post, sp no major design changes)

Malta -

- Pillar above OS needs to be elevated to lessen awkward interactions across the top floor
- Elevator should be a lift and drop down to eliminate a random factor, or at least a dedicated drop down beside it

Optic -

- 2 hydras, speed boost, damage boost, OS, camo...... Need I say more?
- The windows lead to a lot of cat and mouse chances with no end where you were stuck until your teammate picked them off

Purple reign -

- The bumpy stairs look cool but they are so annoying. Gameplay > Aesthetics. Nades get caught, it's hard to aim, and it could free up my budget for my second point
- Addition of dynamic cover. This would make engagements less boring, especially in the dead ends of the maps.

Cobalt -

- Visual differentiation between room and in transitions would help for callouts
- Differentiate tele porters (Not sure why I have such a hard time with this personally)

Hazard and Hanger both only suffer from the general feedback and I haven't played any others that are in.

Don't forget you're super aggressive too, so that plays into it somewhat. Playing Spellbound with you was way faster than some of the other matches I played on it and I thought my map was too small at some point.

Once people learn how to exploit the spawns, I imagine that playstyle will take over though.

People really need to be uploading gameplay

I'm going to give some thoughts on the maps right now so we can dispel some bad opinions.

Cobalt:

I understand the visual complaints from a lot of people, there's effectively zero identifiable landmarks in this entire map outside of the ice ceiling in sniper room, which makes it extremely hard to learn the map for a newcomer. Unfortunately I was heavily involved with input during this map's creation so I've always had the luxury of understanding the layout as it was built. @no god anywhere I've never seen any doubles match on Cobalt play out the way you've described it. I've probably played around 30 matches or so between @Kurismic and @SoloXIII and I'm pretty sure my MMR would be floating in Onyx by now because I've matched some really high ranked Arena players in this playlist and camping the center room has never been a winning strategy for us or the enemy team. At best you could say holding Snipe room but even then, it's porous enough between the 4 entrances, slit window, and tele to be easily breached. I don't think Cobalt has any actual imbalances so much as lack of power weapon influence to promote "cycling", not that the map needs to rely on power weapons for movement. Because it doesn't, I think on a room-to-room basis the map balance is fine. It just gets stale between the 2 minute sniper and camo. I've heard complaints on scaling which I have no clue on how to address (I think the scaling is fine), and others about awkward pathing but those are more artistic choices than anything. The sender node to broken bridge might have more utility if it were relocated, and I wish Xandrith had remained stern on keeping more power weapons on the map akin to the initial version with PC/Rockets & OS for the sake of just having more power weapons, but I don't really have any other critique on the map. I think Cobalt held up to matchmaking standards better than any other map in the playlist. I imagine on a game to game basis any person's gameplan will change accordingly.

Hangar:

I really hated this map until Solo pointed out that it was a Rat Race inspiration. Then all the encounters made a lot more sense to me. All the doorways and harsh angles and subtle inclines create the same gameplay you'll find on RR and I can appreciate that. I'm not going to pretend like I think this map has any sort of quick decision making attributes or deep strategic depth because it doesn't. It's horrifyingly simple, which is essentially the charm of RR. I suppose if you're a fan of that type of more covert doubles style pinch-and-push gameplay you'll love this, the map if nothing else doesn't have any imbalances which is a lot to ask for in MM apparently, I'll give it major bonus points for that. Changing the timers according to 343 standards has definitely hurt it and there's periods of stagnation on the map, not the biggest issue but I understand it's out of our control. Overall, balanced but horrifyingly simple. I would have no issue with this experience being one of a variety in doubles if the timers were sped up.

Hazard / Purple Reign:

I'm listing these together because I think my feedback is applicable to both. I think both maps have potential to be perfectly flexible and grant a lot more replayability if there were small changes made to a single area. Every game on either more or less revolves around holding SMG room in Hangar / the high platform above plasma caster on Purple Reign. Everything always seem to come full circle in these maps and end up with me perching back in these areas after the power weapons cycles have come and gone, which can make things feel stale game after game. I feel like Solo knew this on Hangar because the power weapon's placements reflect this for the most part. I can't help but feel that putting camo where sniper is would help immensely as a set up breaking tool, right now it's laughably close to the strongest area to holdout in which effectively nullifies it's purpose. And unless you're intent on standing in the crossroads of the high catwalk in SMG there's not many line of sights to really allow the sniper to apply pressure from its optimal distance. PC works wonderfully. If it were up to me, I'd put SMG in camo's place, camo in sniper's place, sniper in LR's place, and LR in SMG's place. Then I'd widen the doorway into SMG room on the second floor right above plasma caster so you could apply pressure into the mid level from across map effectively. Making it much harder thrust and crouch your shields back. Purple Reign I think would be perfect for me if the opposing tower's could apply pressure to one another. I've played matches where I've consciously forced myself to differ from this strategy and bring the action elsewhere but more often than not it proves to be too difficult to maintain and I resort back to the high plat. The towers' segmentation to me means that my only threat in the highest platform really is only coming from the curved staircase behind PC, and even then; there's so much dance floor on high plat and the back ledge/hallway to hide in I can't help but feel it's effectively impossible to nade someone out. I realize that apk made the conscious decision to have Purple Reign to be a bit more spacious, which is a design choice I see consistently throughout the map. I have no issue with this, and I've heard a lot of players make favorable comments in support of how nice it feels to play on Purple Reign because of this, but I think it's hurting the balance. There's a myriad of ways to go about balancing any map, effectively infinite really, so ultimately how apk could go about this is up to him but that's just my suggestion. It also doesn't help that the PC spawns directly next to high plat and beam rifle in view, camo is the saving grace of this map. As I said earlier, I like both of these maps. But sometimes it's the small imbalances that harm gameplay rather than the painfully obvious. Both of these would benefit from very few geometrical changes that would place either map at the top of the list.

Malta:

Pretty obvious stuff. The map is essentially a singular C shaped route that you're forced to push through (either on the top floor or the bottom that bring you to the same point) and all the power weapons are easily defended from the more favorable end. It's effectively impossible to break a competent team's set up without some miraculous bait and switch teamwork or clever jumps across the central gap which comes with its own risks. Don't really need to give too much feedback here..

Optic Prison:

If you're saying you don't like 4 power ups, can you explain why? @ everyone who bitched so far in this thread. Probably not. A powerup is no different than a power weapon except *gasp* it's not ridiculous ****ing easy to use like every power weapon in Halo 5, so you'll actually have to perform under the scrutiny of your own skill. No more easy kills oh no lol. Lots of maps have 4 power weapons in Halo CE, there's nothing wrong with the count itself. And lucky for us, Purely was smart enough to split spawn them 2 and 2 so you'll always have to make a choice as to which powerup you'll go for. AND the more powerful powerups are in sync with each other (OS and Camo) which is where your decision making really comes into play. As are the weaker two powerups (Damage Boost / Speed boost) which are filling in downtime. Having the tiered powerups split like this ultimately makes the map play out as a game of preference each time they respawn, and not a dictated strategy that you must follow to win, you have some freedom as to how you want to approach each encounter and power up cycle. It's nice. It keeps things fresh. It forces you to think. It gives you opportunities to come back. It allows you to develop a play style. Think of the major powerups (OS and Camo) like the major power weapons on The Pit (Rocket / Snipe) and the minor powerups ( Speed Boost / Damage Boost) like the shotguns that spawn in the corner pockets). They don't step on each other's toes, they only serve to 1: make down time more interesting, 2: funnel combat and promote cycling, and 3: allow you to stack as you please. Speed Boost and Damage boost have the luxury of playing really complementary to a lot of different weapons in Halo 5, especially because Optic features 2 Hydras which become 1sk with a a damage boost. Speed boost is essential on a map like this which has a lot of central dead space, which makes it priceless for either soaring across the center quickly or for tele flanks, and of course closing the gap with the AR which is already devastating. It's just a single set of 2 power weapons every two minutes with minor stuff in the downtime, don't let the 4 powerups fool you. It's no different than any other map we've seen in the last 15 years in that regard. It also gives you the ability to stack powerups, which (to me) is hugely reminiscent of quake games where a single players grabs a few armors, the mega health, quad damage, rockets, and goes on a rampage. As they should for earning all the power weapons on the map, if someone can earn the stack then it's your fault for letting it happen. The only difference is that in a 2v2 you have more freedom between you and your teammate with how you want to distribute it. Maybe you want to get a quad stack on a single player, maybe you want to distribute some power ups between the two of you, it's a game of choice. Someone earlier mentioned that this is a snowballing advantage, which I disagree with. Damage/Speed/Camo all last 45 seconds and OS will decay before then (much earlier if you're actually putting shots on the OS player), all powerups are 1 minute apart which means even if the other team grabs both power ups in a set, they'll expire by the next set unless they were grabbed +15 seconds after spawn which is rare. And even if they were, is this any different than grabbing rockets a minute after they have spawned and holding onto them until the next cycle of rockets comes up? If anything powerups finite influence on the game makes it infinitely less powerup, nevermind the fact that they're still less dominating than an instakill power weapon. Not to mention Damage/Speed boost have almost no effect on the game in regards to controlling the next power which only leaves the stronger set to "dominate" the next weaker set coming up. It's not snowballing.

Someone mentioned that the layout is uninteresting as it just harkens back to Sword base with the dueling sides. Boarding Action was the initial interpretation of dueling towers we witnessed in Halo, which suffered as it was exclusively about the dueling gunplay and nothing else. Sword Base attempted to remedy this and suffered the opposite fate; almost all of Sword Bases' combat happened relative to it's own tower as it was nearly impossible to cross over. This is the first time I've ever seen someone correctly design a map that has combat evenly distributed among all axises of the map, not just within its own tower, and not exclusively across facing towers. There's just great LOS on this map all the way around, enough so that even without any power weapon influence the map could cycle fine on its own. I haven't noticed any imbalances between sides, so....yeah.

Optic Prison is the only map that actually changes on a game to game basis and doesn't dictate a fixed strategy. If the doubles playlist is allowed to continue past this week, I promise one month from now that Optic will be the only map that constantly forces you to play differently than you did the game prior. If the map's powerups make you feel uncomfortable, it's probably because you're not used to actually using your brain in a map. Welcome to good level design.



Shurima:

I can't help but feel that none of the pathing on this map actually matters or dictates anything. Everything feels so tight and condensed that the route you choose rarely dictates the outcome, most combat devolves into 1: AR battles, 2: running from Overshield, 3: running from Binary. OS is ****ing terrifying on a map this small there's literally nowhere to run from it. Probably the most dominant power weapon on any map in the playlist. In my head this map is an octagon for doubles, it's brainless chaos. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't think Shurima plays fast on the merit of fast spawning weapons and forced decision making. I think it plays fast because it's so small and porous you don't have a choice. Again, @no god anywhere if you really think the plasma pistol is more dominant than the binary rifle I have to question who you've been playing on this map.

This is why right now I think Cobalt and Optic Prison are the best maps in the playlist. They're the only two without stagnation issues, pacing issues, and imbalances.

I don't get this whole "each room needs to be different" stuff. Learn the weapon placements and use that for call outs like Halo players have been doing for 10+ years.

Also, why should everything be apparent upon the first or second play through? That's just boring.

Some forums i'm reading that the maps are too small and there's no down time
Others i'm reading that the maps are too big and it takes forever to flank

WHICH IS IT?!


Also, BR starts

I wanted to stop by and just say some of you are making me shake my head and mouth "Why" with your feedback.

Stop doing that.

I understand your points Multi, but I will say the majority of MM population doesn't nor will they ever look at MM maps the way you are. These kids don't want maps that force them to play different. That's why any new maps we introduce are going to get back lash. The majority of them aren't going to learn the maps & their weapon timers because they don't want change, as sad as that is to hear.

My opinions still stand though, because I feel the way I feel & it's my own preferences. You are valid in your feedback though.

People don't like to think because the majority of them are trained to play an FPS with their brain turned off. It's our job to change that. Don't go turning your brain off too.

I say screw casuals (even though over-forgers like myself are a tier lower :/) and have really pro-arena-thingy maps the norm for the main 4v4 playlist! Counter-Strike has been a game and a community that has thrived off of making very in-depth/competitive sandbox and map design their defining trait and pride. That's what Halo should be! "Make Halo 'Git Gud' Again"

it doesnt matter assthletics or moar impartant anywayz

git gud

I agree I really liked frank. I still haven't got to play cobalt, I've played a lot of games too.

First match in Community Doubles - Perfection

Thank you for the very constructive feedback. If you want to mess with these changes yourself go for it as my interest in the game is very low. DB and carbine are very strong has anyone tried to get both because that instantly destroys os for the most part. I thought PP was to strong but now that we can adjust ammo I would definitely consider it.

For the map creators sake, are you guys copy pasting all this feedback to the map's individual threads?