I've noticed a few people giving advice on weapon placement completely against the way bungie does it. I was originally gonna post this as a reply to another thread but decided to make this post it's own thread. Fan favorite competitive maps are very asymetric and so are a few official MLG maps. Bungie usually puts power weapons in their ideal spots. The way to make up for this is to give the players that spawn away from power weapons something designed to stop those teams that keep areas locked down. Basically anti-powerweapons. I would consider these anti power weapons/vehicles: -Rockets: usually give 2-5 easy kills and wont get you far enough to actually dominate. Pretty much for cleaning out campers. -Plasma pistol: anti vehicle. Not really effective for anything else in open BTB maps but becomes extremely underrated closequaters. Still only allows about 1-3 kills. -Needle Rifle/DMR: Screws up scoping snipers and allows players to easily clean up already wounded with headshots. Needle rifles are for players who prefer body shots. try to put both in a map if you are putting one of them in. -Plasma rifle/Repeater/Spiker: Deadly in the hands of coordinated rush assisters. -Plasma grenade: That lucky stick can take out that shotgunner that's been giving your team so much grief at the potential expense of your life. -Focus Rifle: Your enemy basically cannot scope while you are using this. only reccomended for close enemies or those far from cover. -Shade turret: easily dodgeable for people who are paying attention but are great anti vehicle since they follow a predictable path. -Active camo: you can't go all out with this, you have to know what you plan to do with it and be surgical focusing on major threats to the game as a whole. -Fusion coil: If a camping spot was unintentional it might save you reworking or scrapping your map if you just put one or two of these in the area. -Spartan Laser: designed from the ground up to be useless at everything except taking out vehicles. -grenade launcher: awkward to use in the open. EMP effect on vehicles. Great in any situation where a grenade would work. You can pretty much figure out how the others work yourself if you study how the best players and teams use them and observe Bungie's maps. You'd be surprised at how similar weapons placement is on maps like Guardian, Lockout/Blackout, and Pinnacle/Ascension. Always keep these weapons away from true power weapon spawns to give campers a hard time protecting their post and denying offensive weaponry. Notice how the rockets and sniper are usually never found nearby? It's because the Sniper/camper could just keep picking it up to prevent the other team from using it to clear out his tent. The extremely typical initial starts or 4v4 Bungie maps have one team spawn near a power weapon, and the other spawn by multiple anti power weapons for example on Pinnacle/Ascension one team spawns above the rockets and the other near the sniper. Any other tips from you guys would be appreciated.
One thing I've noticed that works well is surround the area that a particular weapon (works most effectively with power and semi-power weapons) does well in with an area that it does extremely poorly in (bar those random, extreme cases). A good example would be the shotgun spawns in Hemorrhage.
Nobody uses the shotgun in hemorrhage just like nobody used it in Valhalla. There is VERY little traffc in it's spawn location and it's useless almost everywhere else. To make matters worst not many people knew where it was and few walked so far out of the way for just a shotgun in an open map.
What version of Halo have you been playing? I've seen plenty of people use the shotgun from that location since the days of Blood Gultch. You apparently don't have much strategy in mind either. Not every map is only for slayer. The shotgun on Hemorrhage has a very strategic role in more objective gametypes. Also keep in mind that it was purely an example to provide evidence for my point. Try looking at thinks a bit more than just superficially.
Both of you are right. I assure you that there is no possible way to cover every scenario and situation that a weapon should or shouldnt be included, or all of the factors that go into that. It took me personally over 50 hours on consistent writing, and huge amounts of editing and adding things to make it all work out. EDIT: my point is, these quick fixes are good in most places but always have one or two times when they are wrong and that it is impossible to cover it all in a humanely sized post lol.