Haven't been on PC been doing some drunk forging on Xbox, but will add u tonight. My current BTB is my most masochist yet. This morning I made it even more so. Multi I hope you don't hate the changes as you were digging it's current state. But lets just put it this way, the map REALLY forces the bridge issue now! I have way more budget, feels way more foresty overall and people, even in slayer, will get pushed back to that far bunker base on the green side. (Where the flamethrower kit will be) .
When I say I can't see how a map plays at a high level, I mean that I literally can't experience that level of gameplay. I can watch it, but can't experience it myself. It's certainly possible for me to speculate about how a map plays at a high level. And yes, as a designer it's my job to build my maps in a way that I think will play well at all levels. As a judge though, I can't rely on speculation. As a judge, I'm relying on first hand experience, not on speculation. If I was putting maps in matchmaking, I would use my ability to speculate about how maps will play at higher levels to determine which maps would go in. But that's not what I was doing. A 'matchmaking environment' doesn't only include high level players. I have enough experience playing matchmaking at an average level to know that a map can play great at that level and terribly at higher levels, but everything most certainly doesn't play good at low/mid levels of play. There are actually many scenarios in which something that's bad for gameplay has a greater impact at lower levels than it does at a higher level. But again, I wasn't tasked with choosing the best maps for matchmaking, and most certainly wasn't tasked with choosing the best maps for high level matchmaking. On another note...I just realized that you couldn't pay me to play Halo 5. I don't have anything new to say about Hazard and Hangar. The pacing was fine on both maps in our playtests, which is what I judged them on. Regarding Purple Reign, there was a lot of discussion about the imbalance of the design. I felt again that it was unfair of me to judge a map based upon how I thought it would play out. In our playtests there was an obvious power position, but never to the degree that it even came close to breaking gameplay. Regardless, power positions (even over-powered power positions) are perfectly okay with me. I would call P2/P3 on Midship an extremely powerful position. Gameplay, particularly in Slayer, revolved almost entirely around controlling that position. And yet, it's not anywhere near what I would consider 'broken'. In fact, it's probably the defining characteristic of the map. I think a lot of times there's this fear of 'overpowered' positions that makes people scared to even implement power positions on their maps. I know you know this already, so this isn't directed at you even though I'm responding to you, but balance isn't about eliminating power positions. It's about making power relative. I don't consider Purple Reign to be unbalanced. The power position is the one aspect of the map that keeps it from being too generic. In my opinion, it gives it character without breaking the gameplay.
I just realized I never addressed this part of your post. First, the top 10 and top 5 were a result of the combination of the judges choices. If it's being assumed that ANY of us had the maps ranked the same as what the final ranking were, that would be incorrect. There are maps in the Top 5 that I didn't have as top 5 maps. There were maps outside of the top 5 that I did have as top 5 maps. The same goes for the top 10. This is true for all of the judges. So you don't know how I personally ranked the maps (and I'm not going to divulge because it's unimportant). I can only say that I disagree with you for the most part. I can't say that there aren't maps outside of the top 10 that I thought were better than maps inside the top 10, or that there weren't maps outside the top 5 that were better than maps inside the top 5. Collectively though, I'm reasonably happy with the results, based upon my experience in the tests. 'Better' is always a relative term, and depends on a lot of factors. From my perspective, there were not more creative maps that played better in our tests.
Nothing wrong with power positions if they're balanced. Trinity is nothing but power positions. P3 is a power position, but they're dangerous. There's nothing interesting about everyone running back to the same tower after they spawn every time, and you couldn't nade someone off that high tower in purple reign if you tried. That's an actual balance issue. And honestly I just don't agree. If I see a part of a map I think will be a problem, I make it a mission to find out if that's really the case. If you can't see an issue, you have to ask if it's just a matter of user error or is it actually balanced. I honestly feel you should've been able to see the smg room on Hazard or the tower on Purple or the entire design of Hangar and known there was going to be an issue. And I don't want you to take that offensively but those kind of things are really important as a judge or designer regardless. Because every time I play Hazard it's toggle crouching in smg room. How is that fair to me because you felt that your level of play determined the map was fine? Do you see the problem here? If a map plays fine at every level of play except the highest, I believe it's broken. You're welcome to feel otherwise and I'm sure you do but at that point you're willingly ignoring the true way a map will play under pressures. To me, that's The Pit. Every game is a blast until you hit 50 in MLG and all of a sudden Team Slayer matches are ending 5 to 7. Do you think that's okay? Because by your reasoning that's what I'm hearing right now. "As a judge though, I can't rely on speculation. As a judge, I'm relying on first hand experience, not on speculation. If I was putting maps in matchmaking, Iwould use my ability to speculate about how maps will play at higher levels to determine which maps would go in. But that's not what I was doing." If you're not skilled enough to play at a high level that's okay, but then you NEED to be able to visualize potential problems. I know I can't compete with a lot of players but I can look at a design and see what will happen. Because there's no difference between deciding if a map is good, and if a map deserves to be in matchmaking. Mm maps need to be good and good maps need to be in mm. And a good map is one that holds up at all levels. Most the maps you chose completely fall apart even at relatively low ranked games. Would you still say they are good just because they played fine in your sessions? I hope that all makes sense
We're talking in circles now, lol, so I'll just let this be my last post on the subject. It wasn't my job to determine which maps would play best at the highest or lowest levels. It wasn't my job to speculate about how maps would play at any level. It wasn't my job to select maps for matchmaking. I was there to playtest the maps that were submitted to the contest, and judge them based upon how they played in our playtests. Whether or not I can visualize potential problems was irrelevant to the job I was performing.
I'll say this. Back in the day staff just picked a few forgers who had proven and established themselves with quality maps to build for tournaments. While there was some bitching, in never lasted a year. It also never took up this many pages in all the threads it was discussed in combined. Just sayin... Lol
I don't see that as irrelevant. Your job was to judge which maps play the best, correct? Assuming you agree with me that Hangar Hazard and Purple Reign all show balance and pacing issues at a relatively low level of play, do you not agree that those maps do not play well and they were poor choices now? Whether or not you or Warholic or whoever were personally able to bring out those issues, if they surface...then there's a problem. And if you went on Waypoint at all during the doubles playlist's life you would've seen how poorly those maps were received. You keep saying it wasn't your job to choose maps for matchmaking but there's literally no difference between choosing maps for MM and choosing the maps that play the best.
How about we talk about something else: works in progress. I have modeled 4 weapons for my game, the most recent of which is this stealth carbine(see below), but, while finishing that one's geometry, I realized something: most of the models were overscaled. Now I have to remodel the Scout Rifle and Railgun I made. Oh, boy, do I need to be more thorough! Also, this is a remade version of the first model I posted on here, oh, about 50 pages ago. Edit: You guys made me turn off email notifications on this thread
The problem is that 343's matchmaking interefered with the judging. Like i said, Smokestack was not Top 3 material and it might not even have been Top 10, but there was no reason it shouldn't have gone in matchmaking. The two of them clash and it should never happen again. We don't owe them maps.
Holy **** I stopped checking waywo for 12 hours and came back like 6 pages behind --- Double Post Merged, Mar 25, 2017 --- #FreeMySchnitzel
No. It was my job to rank them based upon how they played in our playtests. Is that distinction not clear? I was judging them based upon my direct experience of playing a handful of games on them. What you're inferring I should have done is judge them based upon how I thought they would play as the meta evolved on them, or at a higher level of play, or in some other situation. That's not the case, so the answer is no, it wasn't my job to judge which maps would play best in any of those scenario's. No, I don't agree that they were poor choices. They were the correct choices based upon our collective experience during the playtests. They didn't show any major balance or pacing issues in our playtests. They didn't surface during the playtests. How they were received on Waypoint is irrelevant, because I wasn't judging them for matchmaking. No. You're talking about 'the maps that play the best' in the grand scheme of things, on a large scale, over a lengthier period of time. I'm talking about 'the maps that played the best' in our playtests. There's an enormous difference between the two. I keep saying it because you keep disregarding it like it's irrelevant, which is why I've obnoxiously bolded everything in this post.
I think xzamples has reverted to ignoring posts that he can't answer without looking stupid. Fine with me.
I can't exactly pin-point where all varying opinions spawned, but I can say Halo 5 has definitely caused atleast 25% of the distaste. I can't REALLY say this because I only know a few of you, but can someone confirm that'd I'd be a tiny bit less toxic if we were playing a good Halo? Idk feels like it's just me.
I was about to say it was worse in Halo 4. Then I remembered it was only like me and 3 other people on the site, lol. I'll take toxic over silent any day when it comes to forums.
Ya'll forgot Halo 4 killed the Forge communities and MCC nearly buried it. The problem with Forge right now is that some people treat it like a hobby, others treat it seriously, and both get pooped on because 343 don't care to talk to either one. And Forgers are inherently stuck up their asses because everyone interprets Halo differently and most people only enjoy their own flavor. I've seen literally everything been disagreed with at some point, so the toxicity will never truly dissipate unless some god among men rises from the ashes and **** all over everyone.
It's because I do think it's irrelevant? It's not even about the long term, it's just how the map plays flat out. If I was absurdly awful at this game and I played an absolutely abysmal map casually so that it played fine, does that map deserve to win anything? Is there even such thing as a bad playing map if you're not going to judge it how it actually plays but rather just a casual session? If you knew you were just going to accept the results of surface level gameplay tests then why wouldn't you at least have better people play the maps? That all sounds horrible to me.