Splitscreen and small competitive online matches (2-6 Players)

As a heads up, making a discussion thread where the OP does little but mention your own map in light of it's good points is closely boardering on advertising.

Though I do actually like this discussion, and imo it's more complex than just size as well.

If you're simply out for smaller competitive maps then there are in fact plenty about. Sure they're not as common as standard 4v4 size maps, but enough people put time in to good ones to bring lots of variety if this is your main type of custom game. Check out the Featured maps section, there are 2 tournaments worth of 1v1 maps in there (the recent 1v1 Conflict, and the the original FH 1v1 from days or yore, check out this post I made about the original 1v1 tourney maps for easy links) and a full compliment of maps from our 2v2 tourney (which came in between the two 1v1's).

Aside from those, I always like to plug probably my favourite small map, squidhands and HITtheLIGHTZ's Harmony. It's particularly good for what you're talking about, playing great for 2-6 players (though 3v3 is noticeably faster and action packed than 1v1/2v2, it still plays great imo). Be sure to check it out.

But, what I was talking about with this being a complex discussion is because of what you said about splitscreen. Splitscreen 1v1's are something I've spent a lot of time playing on H3, since I mostly play with at least one friend guesting/on their own account when going in to MM and we often do customs to warm up/just have fun. Splitscreen 1v1's are what I grew up on Halo-wise, and I've spent soooooo many hours playing them on Hang 'em High that it'd be impossible to count. This transitioned over to H3 and it's made me realise how differently splitscreen competitive play is due to screen watching, most notably with 1v1.

People talk about how radar/no radar 1v1 makes such a difference, splitscreen is that plus a million. You can see exactly where your opponent is and what they're doing at any given time, which results in many a run around until one player has the man baubles to push out, generally straight in to an expecting enemy reticle. It's still a lot of fun in its own way, but not what you'd want for competitive 1v1 as it's so much of a stalemate. Guardian is a favourite 1v1 map of mine, try playing a splitscreen 1v1 (with players of roughly even skill anyway) on Guardian and note the endless run arounds on Sniper tower.

Basically, there are plenty of smaller maps out there if you know where to look etc. But as for splitscreen specifically? Few maps play well for it simply due to the extreme nature of screen watching possible and the stalemates that results (unless only players on the same team are on the same box, which somewhat negates the fact that it's splitscreen in the first place, apart from having an extra pair of eyes which I always like), and if someone could build one dedicated to playing splitscreen 1v1's well then I'd be very interested to see it. I personally think it'd be near impossible, and the best solution is Octagon 1v1, no stalemates there .

 

In my experience the best 4-player splitscreen maps are Guardian and Heretic. Other map, like the The Pit, are good but most games get timed out. I tend to stay away from forged maps when splitscreening because with some (most) maps you get screenlag.

Some good pre-sandbox 2v2 maps were made for ForgeHub's 2v2 competition. Search '2v2 Faceoff' and you should find all of them. My personal favourite was Electric Slide by Cosmick Rick