Hey all. I'm working on an asymmetric map, currently only tailored to Slayer gametypes, though I'll be working Oddball/KotH in eventually. I haven't taken an overview picture yet, but the map is set in the U-shaped cliffs area of "The Island". My main concern is with weapon density/spacing. How many DMRs/Needler Rifles should I place in the map? Plasma repeaters? Pistols? Magnums? ARs? Needlers? I'm planning on having a Shotgun and Sniper as the available power weapons. How many grenades should I place throughout the map? Do grenade launchers have a place in competitive games? How far apart should weapons be? Also, what should weapon spawn times be? I was planning on setting the Sniper to 180s, and the shotgun 150s, but what about day-to-day weapons? Should grenades stay at the default 15s? DMR's/Needler rifles at 30s, or should I bump them up to 45-50s? I'm sure it would be easier to answer these questions with the map at your disposal, but I'm hoping to get a better grasp of weapon placement/fine tuning before I submit the map to the Tester's guild. Any help/advice is very much appreciated.
You seem to have a good handle on spawn times. I leave everything that isn't a power weapon on default. Sometimes I bump the needlers up to 60. I PERSONALLY use a lot of filler weapons. I often feel people don't utilize weapon diversity on their map because they personally don't use all of the weapons themselves. 2-4 plasma repeaters, 2-4 magnums, an occasion AR in place with 2 frag grenades. 1-2 needlers depending on placement, and I put DMRs according to population. If I have 8 people on the map, I put around 6 DMRs on the map. If I have 16 people, I put 12-14 DMRs on the map. Then I put Needle rifles for 25% of the population. (IE: 8 people, 2 Needle Rifles.) If you give me an overhead and some Decent screenshots of major areas, I'll doodle up a quick example of how I'd place weapons on the maps. Remember, I speak on behalf of the not-so-overly competitive side. I play to win, but I'm not into MLG style play. PS. I love the grenade launcher.
This is in the Halo 3 Forging 101 section, but I found it a very helpful guide to laying out weapons on maps in general: Weapon Theory. As thesilencebroker mentioned, even a simple sketch of the map with your proposed weapon placement would help us help you... Personally, I like to keep the weapon respawn times for power weapons high--as you have suggested, but modify the numbers based on the size of the map and the number of players I predict will be using it. On small maps for 2v2 I keep the respawn times lower (around 100 to 120), on larger maps I bump the respawn time up to as high as 180...
Hey guys, thanks for the tips/links. I'll try to hop on tomorrow and get some overviews/focal point for you. So far, this is what I was thinking (check this list again once pics are up): *1x Sniper, low walkway, 180s respawn, +1 clip *1x Shotgun, mid "dish-construct", 150s respawn, +2 clips *4x Plasma Repeater, one on low walkway, one on the top floor of "Lighthouse", one near red spawn, and one at the very top of the cliffs-trail, 30s respawn *1x Needler, outside of stone-arch (mid), 30s respawn, +2 clips *3x Needle Rifle, one mid-walkway, one near orange spawn, and one partially uphill from red spawn, 40s respawn, +1 clip *5x DMR, one low walkway, one near red spawn, one bottom floor of lighthouse, one under mid-stone-arch(overlooking green spawn), one near top of cliffs-trail, 40s respawn, +1 clip *3x Plasma Pistol, one on ramp low-to-dish, one near red spawn, and one on top of stone-arch-overlooking-green-spawn, 60s respawn (relative power weapon) *1x Concussion Riffle, on large walkway above green spawn, 70s respawn, +2 clips *Magnums -- ? *AR's -- ? *Plasma Grenades -- ? *Frag Grenades -- ? *Health Packs -- one in mid-level of lighthouse tower, one under large-walkway by green spawn, one on lower walkway
Most game types start the player with a magnum and AR, so placing these are more like reloading loadouts than adding more weapons to the map. This allows you to place more of these without affecting the overall balance of the map too much. I like to place a number of each around team bases, or respawn locations... I would suggest standard respawn times with no clips, as they're really just reloads. You never need to have more than 2 of these at any given location, obviously. I like to place Frag Grenades in high traffic areas where it is easy to snatch them up while on the move. Because Plasma Grenades are much more useful, I tend to place them on my "alternate" routes to create incentive to take paths that might not otherwise be taken... But I still place them in relatively high traffic areas... I would suggest low respawn times (10 to 20 seconds) and--of course--no more than two at only one location.
I was operating under the assumption that pairs of grenades was standard fare, and that "??" was more in regards to how many pairings should be on the map, and where (I like your suggestion of using plasmas as an incentive to take a less traveled route). The ARs and Magnums, I know they are spawn weapons, and so that is the main reason I am not sure how to place them--they will generally litter the map anyway as people die. Scattering a few around with no extra clips seems like a good idea, though. Anyway, pictures. The orange outline represents the boundary (In the first picture, it is a red line circling the map, whoops), with soft kill zones followed by hard kill zones on the actual map. The orange "shaded" areas are soft kill zones used to prevent camping on top of the structures. Blue and Red "shaded" areas are initial spawn areas. The yellow dashed line is a tunnel, the green lines are paths up the cliffs (aside from the obvious trails), and the purple lines are grav lift paths. Ignore any weapon placements (such as the grav hammer), they are all subject to change.