Introducing Bridge Over (I intend on giving it a more Halo-ey name like Suspension or Expansion, but i really don't know what to call it. Any ideas?). This is the first forge map I've made that I feel has the potential to achieve my dream of creating a map that would one day be cycled into roataion in Bungie's playlists. Here's hopin'... This is a wideshot that encompases the entirety of the map. The Bridge is made up of a base at each end, two towers at each end, a pair of towers in the middle, a walkway underneath and a ramp over the top. There are also 2 man cannons on either side to facilitate quick transport to the middle towers. This map is suited to team based slayer and objective games. This is what the bridge looks like from the red base end. The Bridge itself is symetrical but the map isn't quite. each end of the bridge has a pair of towers like this; one housing DMR the other housing needle rifle. The shotgun can be found on the platform between, which also doubles as a tier 2 capture point for invasion (red end only). From these towers you can access the man cannons, as well as the ramp leading over the bridge. Expect high traffic here head hunters! Speaking of Red Base; here it is. All the initial spawns for each team are found in their bases. Regular spawns are found fairly close by. This shot shows you the vehicles that spawn for each team. Rocket Hogs are provided for anti-air and bomb/flag transport and Banshees provided for air support, but beware pilots there's a whole lotta hate waiting for you from the ground other than hogs; ie laser, snipes and rockets. Make sure you have a skilled pilot on your team if you wish to dominate the air. Here are the controversial man cannons. Each end has a cannon on each side that will catapault you to the middle towers where you will find a focus rifle on the top level and a tier 1 capture point for invasion on the bottom level. Initial playtesting has revealed a 1 in 5 chance of taking damage when using these. This creates a risk/reward scenario; do you risk taking damage to circumvent half the map or do you take your chances running the gauntlet on foot. If it makes the decision easier, 2 health kits have kindly been provided at each tower for your convenience. I will be interested to see how the community reacts to the man cannons... So you've made it to the middle tower (a feat that takes strong teamwork) and you discover a staircase out the back that leads underneath the bridge. Take this walkway and it will lead you to the other middle tower and who knows, you might even pick up a rocket launcher along the way. Bonus! Be wary though there's only a certain amount of cover here before the snipers can see you. If the thought of crossing an open bridge seems entirely daunting, never fear! The long walkway covers that have been angled vertically provide you with ample and interesting looking cover to hide behind, just watch out for nades. Ah, Blue Base. This base has two notable differences to Red Base. 1, its on flatter ground, so no need for a ramp out the front door and 2, it doesn't have a back door. Mainly because of the long drop off a cliff and into the ocean below that awaits you back there, safety first! Blue Base's vehicle selection is identical to red's (its only fair) but it takes longer to walk there. This is because the ground is much easier to traverse on this side so armour abilities like sprint are much more effective here. Plus the landlord hates it when tennants park on his grass! This is the very top of the bridge complete with Spartan Laser and incomplete with only two blinking lights. A request to change the light bulbs has been put through to maintainance, but they're still trying to figure out how many spartans it would take. The ledges up here have been favoured by snipers wanting to get a bird's eye view of the bridge and a vantage point to take out the banshee. So pilots beware! It's a long way to the top... This is another aspect of the map I'll be interested to read the feedback on. The first image is the Rock Ledge on Blue base's end, the second image is the Rock Tongue on Red Base's end. Blue base has the advantage of a nice vast space that is slightly higher than the rock tongue and has a lovely vantage point of the bridge's flank. Problem is its very bare and provides you with little protection from snipes or banshees. Red's rock ledge however is not as high and doesn't protrude out as far, but its rockier and povides lots of cover. Also you don't have as far to backtrack if you are needed elsewhere. I don't feel the balance of the map has been compromised here because no one hardly went out here during initial playtesting to be honest, but to not have the rock tongue at all gave blue team a massive advantage that couldn't be ignored. Underneath each end of the bridge is a ledge. This is where sniper spawns. The original weapon layout had sniper spawning in the middle towers but that proved too easy for a sniper hog to man cannon it to one tower, collect snipe, mosey on over to the other tower, collect the other snipe's ammo and dominate the map with the only sniper rifle left. Waaaaay too unfair! So sniper spawns here now where only the nearest team can easily access it. Also here is a teleporter that leads to... ...this little nook! Here you can grab a grav hammer which is handy for base defence if you can get it there; watch out for snipers. I had to include a glass barrier here because in initial playtesting I didn't like how one player could cross the bridge's span in seconds by using both pairs of teleporters. But I still wanted to utilise this cool little nook that was created almost by accident when I was experimenting with using large brace pieces as walkways. Anyway that's my map. I know it's a lot of information but I hope this was ok for my first attempt at presenting a map here. Please give it a go and please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading. Peace -Marcus aka aussiecossie-
This map is really good, instant dl! The bidge is awesome and the rock formation next to the bridge. I like how you can jump from pillar to pillar from the top down. one cannon worked perfectly, but I died few times on the other one. just needs minor adjustment i think. Also went over on 3rd cannon. And had some damage from 4th. The teleport takes you to 2 of the best weapons, sniper and hammer which might play unfairly. And I feel the bridge hasn't got much cover. I can see lots going on the top of the bridge with the sniper. As the lower part of bridge doesn't offer cover or any good weapons, except the rocket of course. But the lack of cover would mean who ever got the rocket would probably be snipered long before he got anyone.(from dish next to ssniper on either bottom end) But I do like the map and the symetrical lay out!
Thanks for your feedback man! Yeah snipes have always been a powerful weapon but now they're uber since they can waste vehicles. With only one sniper per team it limits the ability for one team to control the map. And i like that the sniper has so many useful applications but can only be in one place at a time. Does snipe cover rocket spawn? Does snipe stay up top and cover laser? or does snipe try and hide in the superstructure and pick off would be travellers? or does snipe head to the vantage point of the rock ledges? I also like how no one team has successfully crossed the bridge yet without strong teamwork. This is a map that will punish the lone wolves and no mikers lol. If you end up having a game, could you post the replay here?
Reminds me of Day of Defeat's Snow Bridge map. FPSBANANA > Maps > Day of Defeat: Source > Standard > snow bridge explode I like that you've brought bridge combat in to Halo. You might want to consider putting in more ways to get to either side and think very carefully about how the sniper is going to be used on this map. Seems well put together, II will take a look!
Yes of course, it isn't often that I get 8 x 8 matches would more likely be 4 x 4 but I will test this out and see just how hard it is to cross, as I have to say I do play the loan wolf, 1man army aproach on halo usually, so it will be interesting to see just how difficult it would be. I would go over the top personally ha! Good map and well thought out!
@timmypanic: awesome man can't wait to see how it goes @mich: thanks mate! Yeah i was inspired by Narrows when putting in the ledges underneath and the man cannons. Some of my friends even likened the design of the bridge to the Sydney Harbour Bridge which i thought was a flattering complement.
@Invisible Poles: I never claimed to be an expert by any means mate, thats why i came here for expert opinions. As for the bases they aren't really the focus of the map. The bases are only there for a place to keep the flag/bomb. If you're fighting in your own base you've already lost. If more of a focus was required for the bases i would most certainly have spent more time on them. If you read my post more closely (or bothered to look at the map) you would see that there is no back entrance to Blue Base Because of the cliff. Simply no room there because of the natural layout of forgeworld not that it makes the slightest difference to the way the map plays. I value all opinions i receive here but gee its hard to take one seriously when they don't even look at the map before they form one. Judging a book by its cover on a site like this i'd imagine would not earn you any credibility here mate, especially if i "MUST see" your map. [br][/br]Edited by merge: One of the key issues i would like to address on this map though is weapon balance. I've already had some good feedback about snipe/hammer that i will take into consideration but i have some questions for folks to consider; Are there enough weapons on the map or is it a case of less is more? Should i include Needler in the first long walkway cover spot on each end of the map to help facilitate crossing the bridge? Should BTB gametypes spawn a tank (probably wraith) instead of the rocket hog? Should the rock ledge/tongue have a weapon spawn? If so what?
Downloading now It's a great map with a cool idea. it's very reminiscent of narrows. first impressions would be that the bases need work. i'd say especially the red one, that ramp up to it just seem very awkward. I'd also like to see maybe some wires that run along the side of the bridge (you could possibly maybe use the top of the small antennas, or something, i'm not sure, lol. But the edges of the bridge feel like they need something.
@Brokeneye: Hadn't thought of that, hmmmm....? @Guiness: Yeah you're right red's ramp is a bit ugly. I was considering putting a rock or boulder over the railing piece that juts out but ive used all of my rock pieces on the rock tongue. I can't make the ramp any steeper coz the gradient will be too high and will make flag/bomb carriers too slow. I cant lower the base because the ground inside will block off the entire left side. I can't move the base too far away because then Blue base gets a sneaky advantage. I suppose i could take a rock piece that i have used to block off a pathway behind the right side of blue base conidering i already have a soft kill zone there... Any suggestions? As for railings, i am deadset terrible at vertical alignment. The bumpers are so touchy (and i'm handicapped because the right bumper on my controller doesn't work properly which made building this map even tougher) and working with co-ordinants of .1 i find painfully inaccurate when you're trying to align things down to the pixel. Are there any sneaky techniques i can use to help with that? One thing i should point out is that so far in initial playtesting no one has fallen off of the side by accident yet. (im racking my memory trying to find a time when someone was blasted off of the side but i don't think thats happened either. Thats not to say it will never happen but the cover provided by the vertical pieces seems to be far enough in that people havn't slid off of the side dodging a grenade yet. I would be interested to see though if it does become a problem in further playtesting. Also i'm running drastically low on pieces and budget. I have $240 left! [br][/br]Edited by merge: Well, i've been listening to your feedback and i have redesigned the bases completely. I have just a couple of grenades to add to it and my remaining bedget will be $70. Pictures coming soon.