Can forge become too big or comprehensive?

it'll be like it is today, and has always been. Where, those who care most about layouts will focus on them, then grab a buddy to do art, scripting, whatever. But, it is a danger that maps are just really neat and not really playable. Same as today.

Which is an interesting point - that even today some maps are co-forged in a way where the individual tasks are broken up between experts in each area, rather than always having one person do everything. We may see more of that

 

No

 

I like how it gradually grew with objects, textures, and along with it came different expectations. With the first iteration of Halo 5 forge a house could be 2x the size of the player and it would be considered good design due to the standards but slowly people got the opportunity to make things better and better and people slowly grew with it and learned in a way that wasn't really stressful. It will probably be different come Halo 6 because people will carry over these standards but its nice to see a growth in standards across the table as new stuff is discovered.

The reason forge shines so much is because its slowly becoming an intro into actual world creation, its like a gateway to discovering a talent you never thought you had for some people, its simple enough to let people screw around in with friends and discover and learn easily, but complex enough to allow truly skilled creators to shine.

I think forge should keep growing but try to retain the simplicity it has in some form for people to grow and be better at designing whatever they like whether that be aesthetic levels, playable environments, or core maps.

As long as it stays intuitive and easily accessible to some extent I don't really think there is a "too big".

The only thing that is un-intuitive to an extent is scripting, everything else will come together if you like creating.

perhaps at one point it could have a beginner mode but I don't quite think forge is daunting enough for that to be reasonable.

 

There has been a shift in map quality, but that's a byproduct of the game, not a byproduct of forge.

People that are focused on level design will continue to advance their skills in that area. People that are interested in building cool looking **** will continue to advance their skills in that area.

I think overall that the quality of content produced will not not degrade. I think it's more likely that it continues to get better, for the reasons ExTerrestr1al mentioned.

 

All you have to do is go look at the maps being made in unreal engine. The dream is getting to the point that we are only limited by the games mechanics and weapons.

 

When I design a worthwhile map I'll be sure to chime in

 

Being able to produce more and more beautiful looking maps doesn't necessarily limit the quality of design but it can change the design process. Before Halo 5, the blockout (the core geometry) was pretty much the map done. There likely wasn't much visual difference between the first testable version to the final, however the current common practice of creating a map tends to separate initial layout design and art passes into stages of their own.

The strict budget of past Forge iterations forced you to use pieces wisely. You simply couldn't spare the pieces to art everything up. By the time the layout was down the budget would be running thin, meaning in order to make a map that performed well, both functionally and visually, design and art had to be considered inseparable. Map geometry had to serve both game play and aesthetics at once. Restrictions didn't allow a significant art pass to take place after the design stage.

Now the gap between testable and artistically finalized is far greater than it ever was. We can create a playable blockout and have plenty of budget to spare on art. Art passes can easily become a whole project of their own and in most cases, take longer to complete than designing the maps layout, possibly shifting more focus from design to art.

This does tap into the classic debate among designers of form and function. Some may value one over the other, but ideally the two should co-exist in order to create a coherent experience, and plenty of forgers still pull this off very well. I think though that the temptation to make things look good can definitely come at a cost to the substance of game play, if we become so attached to the visual appeal of something to that we overlook any design flaws.

A good design is typically the product of many reiterations. A well experienced designer can achieve the intended game play with the first version, requiring only minor changes, but usually the strongest designs are those that have undergone a series of changes and refinement. To be able to objectively criticize your work and make changes requires a degree of personal detachment. If you begin to make your maps look pretty before the layout is fully resolved, you can become set on that layout too soon and be less open to changes which might greatly benefit game play.

I suppose the growing complexity of Forge will expand the gap between what is considered a good map and a great one that maximizes all the available potential. It will be cool to see the possible quality continue to get higher with the next game!

 

No, map editors are a void filled with need and want. Until we can stand in the middle of a HALOdeck, shouting out what we want and it magically appears, there will be nothing that will be considered too much.

 

Im glad forge is becoming more. I never cared for aesthetic because it meant sacrificing gameplay back in the day, these days now we can have both and Im getting better at making aesthetic stuff. The greatest time saver are prefabs plus people make awsome stuff than what I could probably do even if I had the time. Halo should make a tool where we can merge the prefab into one object and cut out polygons and textures we dont want, then halo maps would truly become insane as people like me could get their maps to look dev quality.

 

Being able to cut unseen polygons is my single biggest wish. There is no point having all these amazing visual capabilities if you can't optimize the performance.

 

yep, i see these great forge maps in halo but the frame rate is terrible. The forge teams priority should be to make an optimization tool for advanced users.

 

They litterally cant do thatbif they keep using cloud. Everything needs to be rebuilt with forge pieces every time you load it.