I've seen this argument made across the internet a couple of times now: Newer Forge modes are worse than old forge modes because they have more features than the older ones. Let me explain what they mean: In games like Halo 3, Reach, 4 and even H2:A, features such as object phase, fixed objects, terrain creation, natural objects, scripting zones, gravity volumes and custom gamemodes where only possible either through many different objects added together or through exploits in the physics engine/glitches in the settings. Doing these sometimes trivial to outright difficult procedures created a sense of accomplishment, and made it feel special that it was accomplished. Now, with all these features available for anyone to use, there is no sense of accomplishment. To people making this argument, even fantastic maps using all these features and more are lesser to the maps that accomplished less, simply because you had to try more to do it in older games. My question to you all is: can such an argument be made and be justified, and do you agree with it? I personally can understand the 'effort required' point, but I don't agree with the rest. Just because these features are now available, it does not mean that skill required to make a good map is inherit to the features themselves. Just because you once had a hammer, and you now have a chisel. does it mean you can now carve marble as good as Michelangelo. There is an argument to be made about complexity limiting people but that's not the argument these people make here.
Here is my schpiel, (forgive me). I am fine with Forge becoming more enhanced, in fact i welcome it. But Forge is about taking smaller (or larger) objects and combining them to create something. I am afraid for the future. What makes Forge special is that anyone can make anything, but they need to be imaginative and use the tools they have. People want terrain morphing, custom textures, fully functional AI. And that is fantastic for the first few months. But at the end of the day the amazing things created from these things become normal. Forge is like a type of drug, and with every iteration is a higher dose. Eventually the same amount doesn't give you the same high, and if you keep taking the same amount it becomes numb. If they push Forge too far, special contraptions and mechanics/aesthetics will no longer be special. They will just be normal. An example i want to bring up is A.I. if we had fully functional AI every man and his family will try to make their own versions of Firefight, Zombies, etc. The ones that are featured will bubble up to the top, this is great in the beginning. But after a year, it becomes so normal people aren't impressed anymore. For Forge to be successful in the communities eye, it needs to be hard to come up with the next big thing, and that next big thing should always be there. This is why Halo 5 Forge survived as long as it did, there's always something new to build that hasn't been done yet, you just need to create the means to see it through. Sort of a rant, but yeah TLDR: Forge should be difficult and special and the tools we are given make such special things normal and unimpressive.
The people who are capable of putting up with the limitations of something like Halo 3's Forge are not necessarily the same people capable of creating a good layout. It's impressive if you're capable of doing both, but you're really only gimping yourself. At the same time, limitations breed creativity.
I don't like this argument much, tbh - It's sort of like, if every Forger is super, no one is? Look, the quality bar going higher is only a good thing, for everyone involved. Players will get vastly higher quality maps. Forgers will spend less time fighting the engine, and more time creating an experience. Everyone and their grandma wants to make a Firefight map with fully-featured AI? Awseome. Now I can play Firefight with endless variety, for free. Or some entirely new gametype I haven't even imagined. Ever seen this little guy? The Warcraft III editor was insanely powerful, and it freed up people to create their own unique experiences. Removing as many limitations as possible led to the development of things like this. There's a reason a bunch of game developers are using tools like Unity to create best-selling titles. Fighting game engines isn't ultimately valuable to us as designers or to the people who enjoy our content - creating great experiences is. Like @Sitri said, being good at Forge (getting around the constraints of the engine) isn't the same as being a good designer. Removing limitations of the tool brings those two things closer, and I think that's is only positive. Now, it's important that Forge keeps a low barrier to entry. I agree that it offers a lot of value because you don't have to spend hours with it to be productive. There's definitely something to be said for having easy, snap-together aesthetics that lets new designers make something pretty. And 343 has been getting better at this... just compare the snap-together Breakout aesthetic to the later Covenant and Sanghelios pieces! But ease of use for new players doesn't need to come at the expense of deep systems like light baking/coloring options, scripting systems, AI... It's like a beautiful, gpu-hungry onion, yo. If I could try to rephrase the concern here... I'm feeling that the main issue isn't that Forge gets better - it's that the rising quality bar will leave some of us Forgers in obscurity - it's already hard to get noticed for content, and a larger stream of high-quality content will make it only more difficult to get noticed. I think that concern is justified, in a way. Heard of the "Indiepocalypse?" The market for people's attention is saturated, and it is becoming harder and harder to get noticed. But refusing advancements to our editing engine isn't the right way to solve this problem. That saturation of great content is an amazing thing, because it pushes us all to get better and grows the Halo fan base, ultimately making more people who want to play our content. Instead of trying to put the brakes on Forge updates, I'd rather see people advocate for new ways to spotlighting UGC makers. Maybe it's extensions to the API that let people aggregate content easier - maybe it's a Forge-spot in the Waypoint weekly update. Maybe it's creating tools in Forge that make generating Youtube/social media material to allow for non-343 promotion. (Imagine putting down a few fixed cameras that would automatically record video to your Live/OneDrive profile, so you didn't have to run through multiple iterations of the same custom map with GameDVR/capture cards!) In short, I'm 100% for improvements to Forge - it's what's keeps me coming back to Halo. And worrying that we won't get enough individual attention isn't a good reason not to ask for a better lighting system.
To me - and most Halo players - the end result is all that matters. I don't care about how skillful or challenging Forge is, it's a goddamn map editor. Sure, the stuff people made in H3 is crazy considering the hoops that had to jump through to do basic stuff, but that doesn't make the actual maps any better. Also, with every new tool we're given new challenges will arise. They added shadows and lighting; now you have to be good at executing those. They added textures; now you need to be able to implement those without repeating textures being visible everywhere. Doing basic stuff is easier than ever, but there are also more things to screw up then ever before.
To put it simple, I believe the limitations helped up until recently. The more you can do with the editor, the prettier maps can look, the more time needs poured into each map aesthetically, the more people ignore gameplay due to time restraints and in the end a lower quality of maps overall are released. In my opinion.
I think its much better, I just get annoyed when people look at maps made out of pre-built forerunner pieces that are fully detailed and think "wow how did you make that". How can anyone argue that less is more in a level creator when the benefits outweigh them so highly. Whats better, the sense of accomplishment you have for getting a stupid ass block to phase into the ground, or to get 2 pieces to match evenly after tons of attempts, or building an immersive enviorment that you can make look exactly how you imagine? Im sure as hell going to pick the immersive map over a sense of accomplishment because of poor tools, thats like saying MS paint is better than photoshop because masterpieces make you feel more accomplished. I would rather have a dev quality map over a map that looks close with tons of effort, regardless of how much more difficult it was to make. An argument could be made as to why it takes less skill, or why you are pissed off that it took you hours to make a forerunner structure for the same pieces to do your job in way less time, but its still better for everyone, especially since more advanced pieces do not have to be used in that way, color them and use them for other things, that is the best part of forge, you don't have to use sangheli pieces or whales for what they were intended for. Every new piece has the potential to create a whole new environment.
This is one of the only legitimate arguments against the increased complexity. People are spending more time on making maps look good, which reduces the number of maps that get 'completed'. It seems that people are also less willing to make changes to their maps because they've already invested a lot of time into making it look pretty. Those issues can mostly be avoided though, if a person cares enough to avoid them. Generally speaking, I've always felt that arguments in favor of limitation are really weak. I haven't changed my opinion. I prefer working with some of the older versions of forge, because they allowed me to focus on the aspects I care about the most, and mostly disregard the parts I didn't care about, but I would never believe or claim that we're better off with a more restricting version of forge.
To clarify: it will be special to have these extra features but there's a point where even the most beautiful things becomes normal. I want new features, but as i said, I just fear for the consequences in the long run. (forge being over complicated, a flood of gametypes and maps, etc.) This is my opinion and it isn't more or less valid than yours.
This is stupid. Creativity inherently thrives on overcoming challenges, but it's time Forge's challenges stopped being engine limitations. Using decals for water is not cooler or more skillful in any way than having actual water. And there is no evidence to support that maps made in more restricted engines were better than maps made in Halo 5. That notion doesn't take into account the individuals making the maps, the game the maps were being made for, or the amount of people making maps. Halo 5 has a smaller community, more difficult game mechanics to design for, and people less concerned with designing for competitive gaming in the first place because maps are not being used for matchmaking or tournaments. All of those variables are going to give the appearance of "more freedom, worse maps", but correlation does not equal causation.
As a man who has more maps in Murder Miners than Halo, I can say the argument is pointless. The more tools you have to create maps, the better off you are. Only the very best Halo 3 maps would stand up to what you guys make in Halo 5.
I do not believe forge limitations are a good thing. I think some things need to be simplified/modified such as lighting and cameras. Even if it makes the controls harder to use. I'd rather spend a few hours learning all the controls and be able to make a map in a short time over easy controls and maps taking a long time to make
I believe forge should become way more advanced, but 343i should create two user interface's. You essentially woule have your basic forge tool. This would be extremely streamlined and approachable tool and forge mode would default with this control scheme. There would then be an Advanced mode you could manually enable. Once this mode is enabled, you would have access to much more complex and in depth tools. Switching between the modes would be seamless, much like going from old graphics to new on the H1A and H2A remasters. A mergence of such would be the best thing for forge IMO.