So @taralynn117 read goat's little piece on page 874 for very good advice, but as far as your map specifically is concerned I'll break it down into 3 categories - ART, FLOW/ENCOUNTERS, and APPROACH/SHAPE/GEOMETRY ART: environmentally, you have moments of brilliance as far as natural formations or rock and vegetation are concerned, which is really only hindered by the item count, the lighting quality, and most importantly the build quality, so I'll go over those in subcategories -item count- way too many, but somehow there is no framedrop, likely because you did not use any artificial lighting sources that are long/bright enough to reach the map proper if you were to delete half of the natural pieces (grass/plants, not rocks) you'd have a lot more wiggle room to actually sew some of the awkward holes together, something simple to do using rock chunks under the terrain pieces please consider limiting your naturalistic tendencies to little pockets around the map, or even just one area that is very natural, otherwise you will find yourself gimped by your -lighting- because the more items you have, the more shadows you create and the more reflective surfaces there are to bounce light off, which lowers performance drastically for the whole map, especially when every item has light bake turned 'on' - each one of those little blades of grass is a surface, and each one's reflections have to be calculated; as your map stands right now, you have 0 artistic lighting, which looks great in the screens and from more aesthetic angles, but it seriously hinders any ability to know where you are on the map. You seem to have addressed this issue by making unique little coral/kelp formations, but when everything is a muted blue and the walls are that high, it can get very confusing (this is generally bad for any gametype, but can be used to your advantage if it is implemented smartly/sparingly). But again, because you have used so many things not sparingly, and your item count is almost at budget without more than like 5 spawn points for an infection or slayer map with hardly any readability, your -build quality- suffers greatly. I take it you are aware of the floating terrain pieces you have around the map, and how they're all at flat angles (as is the ground) - these make me cry, because they could look really good if there was something to hide the gaping holes underneath them (think terraced gardens, rice paddies, muddy staircases - all solid). And there are a ton of these gaps and mismatches, the pipes, the vertical paths... best tip you'll ever get: USE YOUR PRECISION and Z-FIGHTING movement options. Which reminds me: as good as the natural stuff looks from afar, when you're down in it, you can tell that some of the pieces are just floating above the ground. Please don't do this, grass does not float. Make sure things are set to 'phased' and double check when you've placed something to make sure it's connected (unless you want it floating - just please not grass). APPROACH/GEOMETRY: You have boxed yourself in, my friend. I know it's your first map, and it's quite impressive artistically/naturalistically for your level of experience, but it's literally a square. And some of the boundaries are visible/look like they can be clambered. Not good. That's not to say square maps aren't good, they are great to practice out themes and encounters/pathing, but actually, literally boxing yourself in like that for any 1v1,2v2,4v4 map is eventually going to be like you've sawed off your knees to spite your feet - it hinders your ability to think outside the box. Literally. Square is good, because it is the shape that holds up literally everything (at the relevant level of interaction, don't get all quantum mechanics on me), including culture, but squaring off your maps at the outset, in general, will ensure that you never go beyond the boundaries that you have imposed on yourself. I have now said the same thing 3 times, slightly differently. It is important. Your macro (main) pathing is interesting, kinda triangular, but suffers from it's very obvious role as the macro pathing; it is flat and on the floor, and obviously circular. See above, re. the floor (don't make it flat all the time!). Unless you've got really cool micro pathing to make things interesting, which I think there is potential for if your build is tighter and less floaty, it's just going to get boring for the player. Only so many strategies you can try if you're bound to the floor because of unreadable micro pathing upwards and around the map. And your micro pathing is, in general, unreadable, or difficult to understand because of how much emphasis you put on placing plant pieces everywhere. Consider using terrain ramps, or lighting to make clambers/pathing more visible/enticing for players, and don't clutter the visuals with the grass everywhere. See 'item count' and 'lighting' for these. But, like I said, your micro pathing has potential - if I were you, I'd actually scrap 2/3 of the map and use the remainder as a building block foundation to build out of/on top of. Keep the little nooks and crannies you have, smooth out those terraces (keep the rock flats that jut out, those are cool and reefy) and you'll have the beginnings of something solid. Also, please consider breaking up the macro path with jumps or something, branch outward/upward. FLOW/ENCOUNTERS: If you don't know where you are on the map, then you probably won't be able to prepare to fight the other players, wherever they might be. This all comes down to the synthesis of the last two major sections: if your art is solid and readable, your pathing approach is not hindered by a square, and you've managed to incorporate the neat little crouch areas and that area in the center of the map where you can jump to and see the other lane, then you'll be well on the way to creating something pretty neat with good potential for cool encounters, and gameplay that doesn't get stale. You may actually want to consider the style of gameplay you want on the map before you even settle on the geometry, that way you can sort of get a feel for the way people will be interpreting the geometry and how it might translate to the encounters that creates. HOWEVER On my latest published map, 'Sketched', I had everything down pretty good, but one single thing killed it - understanding how average players actually play. Because I built this map to my playstyle, I didn't even notice that I'd left in a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR error in the geometry/path department. There's a massive stone pillar that comes down in the center of the map, and in an attempt to keep my macro pathing unchanged, I added a couple little crow's nests that face away from the main spawning zones and the rest of the map up at the very top where the damage boost spawns. To my surprise, in taking it for a 1v1 spin, the other players would always go up there and camp until the damage boost came back, kill me in 3 shots, and run back up before I could respawn, ensuring that they now had a vantage point over both 'halves' of the map and were impossible to kill without putting myself at a direct disadvantage and challenging them up close, because there were no ranged weapons on the map (thanks @MultiLockOn, it's all your fault ). So just because the flow is good when you're running around alone and pulling off cool jumps and ****, does not mean that other players are going to do that in a competitive setting. They will break everything, unless you test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test. MISC. : As far as spawning goes, always have initial spawns, and team spawns if you're going to have a team gametype. Try incorporating spawn volumes as well. Use these to compliment the geometry (if you have bases, make them team-specific, basic entry level stuff that is a good foundation - if you have no bases, find relatively safe areas, and do the same). Weapons.... really depends on the kind of gameplay you want. Hi-energy fiesta style lets you place literally anything, hi-energy competitive really really really limits you - I've been through 13 different weapon sets on my 1v1 map because literally everything except the magnum is ridiculous and bullshit, and every time I try to rebalance with some other automatic or precision weapon, NO MATTER HOW MUCH ENERGY/AMMO IT STARTS WITH, it breaks encounters. The only thing that seems to work is the lightrifle with 0 extra clips and on a 1.5 minute timer, and maybe the plasma pistol with 35% energy. Play around, and test test test test test test test test test test test test test. Otherwise, for a base settings underwater-themed Depths aesthetic studio set, it's great! Beautiful! I just don't think the artistic nature will translate to great gameplay, at the moment. Take a walkthrough of some other maps from the regulars on here, look thru them, see what their little tricks are, and look carefully at how they incorporate pieces/art into making the map flow properly. Then, I'd suggest you pull apart half of your map (at least), and build something back up, with a clear idea of what gameplay you want it to incentivize. And please, delete all the natural pieces first, those are easy to put back and should come later as visual flair, rather than the main driving force of a 1s, 2s, or especially 4s map - infection, on the other hand, ehhhh, do what you want, but you'll have to think about a different style of gameplay and potential encounters/pathing anyway. Oh, one last tip - never use the destructible rock stalactites, they never work for pathing unless there is only one in the map or you manage to destroy them before the match starts so that they are visual only. Or if they're used as floors, that works too.
User Manual for Gravitas - very basic stuff http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/icyhotspartin/video/35458949 http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/icyhotspartin/video/35459003 http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/icyhotspartin/video/35459021 http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/icyhotspar...895895d7/d1adc8aa-0a31-4407-90f2-7e9b54b0347c http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/icyhotspar...b8fc9169/d1adc8aa-0a31-4407-90f2-7e9b54b0347c don't be like the last one - you must enter the stream and move forward these are NOT launchers, just jerry-rigged gravslides and volumes
I ran around that two nights ago, and it was really cool! It took me a sec to realize what was up with the flurry star thingies, but then it was all good! There is a lot of opportunity to pick unique jumps and ledges around. Love it.
i'm bipolar in case it wasn't obvious and my manic/depressive cycles last the average duration of 3 waywo pages.
good! i do think there may be a few too many options in some areas, which might need some tweaking, but that's secondary to what kills me, its the aesthetics, it feels a lot less lived in than sketchy, it's tough to do warm coldness
I'm glad he brought up Halo Wars 2. There's good in that game, but it is far from ideal and hardly an overall match to Wars 1.
Well I finished the vid. Some pretty good points in there about the extended stuff, which I've never been able to contribute to since I don't bother with Halo's EU, and he did touch on some of the major issues with the games. But the colorful jokes and otherwise strongly opinionated rants without much footage or articulated arguments to support them will ensure it lands on deaf ears. Like, I can't post that on NeoGAF and get a discussion with actual 343 employees because it continues to insult them. Now don't get me wrong, I think their leadership is incompetent as all hell at this point, but if the goal is to get them to actually listen, that's not the way to go about it. Furthermore, it looks like he is a Halo 3 kid, and saying things like "Halo 5 has a faster TTK and the TTK should be slowed down" and "Halo 3 was the best Halo" show that he's just representing the later era of the original Halo trilogy. And that's fine honestly because the original trilogy as a whole is still eons ahead of the 343 era. But when I make a case for Halo to return to its roots, it's more firmly grounded in the original game, and not Halo 2 (which had terrible level design and the most bullet magnetism) or Halo 3 (which was unnecessarily slow). Nevertheless, as a former Halo fan I would rather see the series return to the tail end of the OT than continue along this brainless path. The art is **** (deal with it Portaleer), the maps are ****, the enemies are ****, the sounds are ****, the weapon balance is ****, the storytelling is dogshit, and the way they treat the community would be borderline abuse if such a thing existed. I think the sun will freeze over before 343 makes a good Halo game, but here's to hoping they at least try in Halo 6. Or you know, ram a planet sized frigate into the sun instead, because 343 likes to be as loud and obnoxious as possible! I am glad that the video mentions how bad Plaza is. How anyone considers that mess of ledges and details the best map in Halo 5 (which is an oxymoron in itself) is completely beyond me. 343 hasn't made a single good map, period.
Halo 2 with projectiles and less magnetism at CE's movement speed with Halo 3 weapons and vehicles would be glorious. Throw in optional health packs for extra fun. I'd take equipment too, if they can make them non-OP. The maps would be ours, if we could have an awesome editor.
@S0UL FLAME @SaltyKoala @Xandrith @The Muppet King @Spranklz all you nerds who played on my map feel free to roast it, minus the fact that it had gonorrhea framedrops and was not a 3v3 map.