comftable

 

I can't tell much from the pictures, but I'll let you know what I think of when I walk around on it

 

Hello, I walked around on this and I do like the upscaled version you got going here. Though I am not really a fan of using REQ weapons on most maps, especially a remake, they create imbalance. I do like the overgrown theme you have as well. Here are the issues I noticed:

1. The glass above the room hosting the grav lift should be gray xx% in order to tell that it is even there. It just looks and feels like you are floating in the air with glass that is more or less invisible. Even if it is at 70-80% it is still easy to see through, but gets a bit of glare and seems more like glass. The stronghold should be pushed down in that room even if it goes through the floor, you should keep your strongholds uniform. The grav lift also deserves more attention, it should be more obvious that it is a grav lift, right now it just looks like fancy lighting. Those visual queues are important, you and me might of played this original many many times and just have a good assumption about where everything is at, however that means we are older and a younger generation doesn't grasp that on this map and would need to be introduced to it properly.

2. Accessibility to the top and side areas might be an interesting idea, but even without playing on the map, I can tell that it would break game play and slow it down. Guardian is loved for its fast game play elements, level design, and theme. You changed the theme somewhat (which is fine, looks good), but you changed a lot of the level design by adding this accessibility which in turn change the game play elements as well (also the REQ weapons do that too). So as neat as an idea that this might be, these areas don't have balanced counters and make a scaled up version of this map even bigger. These areas encourage camping with a strong weapon, which in turn will slow down game play on a map made for fast and competitive game play. If you are really attached to these additions, then I would change the map quite a bit by making a map inspired by Guardian rather than a very close remake. For this map, in its true form, you can change a few things here and there, but I would remove the ability to access these areas entirely (other than the few rocks that you can jump on from mid to red spawn, that is a subtle addition that can be fun and can keep familiar flow and game play).

3. REQ weapons are very powerful and the ttk (time to kill) on these weapons are usually above the standard. This is fine if you decide to use 1 or a weapon pad with 1 if it makes sense for the map, but on such an iconic map, I would host standard weapons and stay more true to weapons that made this map great. With a little bit of your own Halo 5 flavor of course!

4. The middle deserves a little more attention and could host a cleaner look. What I mean by that is, you could put a design on the floor in the middle or something. The blocks don't quite line up that well, but with a little time and creativity, you could really have something great there. Most of the game is spent looking out toward the center, it should have something cool that players would enjoy seeing a lot. I would bring the covenant FX energy down a bit so it looks more connected to the cylinders, eliminating the obvious gap between the two. You could also afford a little more lightmap to help with whatever you would want to create for the middle or use it to blend a few pieces better.

5. The garden area, the rock that hosted the bubble shield in the H3 version, should be easier to jump to and off of. That should be a cleaner connect, half of the time you use this route it is escaping from the hammer below or something. That area should really connect easier and have less of a sight line blocker on the sides of it.

6. Play around with textures! So many good options for a map like this! An example I played around with was to make the floor the covenant texture. I changed your tertiary on most floor pieces to match the Olive Drab you were using and changed the matte/metallic to be all the same (5). This made the pieces blend better on the floor and all but eliminated the tertiary lines creating a cleaner look.

7. Spawning. The spawning felt like you were rushing to finish the map. All of your respawns are grouped into a set of 4 and placed around the map like that. I would ungroup them and place them appropriately around the map, giving them the same kind of care you gave the rest of the map. Remember not to have any spawns that face you towards a wall or block the initial runway of your player.

I know that was a lot of changes being requested, but I really feel most if not all of those would bring a lot of comfort to your map. I will remind you that I give this kind of feedback because I care about the map's success. If you cleaned this up some, you would have a great remake. I do love the theme, I feel like I am high up in some kind of temple! Your forging does feel mostly clean and well thought out. I hope this helps you out!

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 16, 2016 ---

I forgot to mention the sniper perch where the needler spawns in the original. The railing could be brought down a bit, that perch always made you back down the ramp if you were getting pressured, it is too good of a spot if you can just simply duck there.

 

I'll look at it at some point, but it's a 4v4 for sure.

 

I'm not sure if you are aware but you can edit the original post with the pictures and description changes. It makes it a lot easier for people coming here for the first time, rather than having to look about in multiple places for map info.