The Gulch

sweet. has areas made for close combat and vehicle fights.

 

I downloaded this map and gave it a quick Forge through. Needless to say, I was unimpressed. However, that doesn't mean the map is bad.

To put it bluntly, the whole map layout feels, well, unimaginative. The whole concept behind it has been done countless times, especially in Reach. I do like what you did with the bases and the center bridge structure, which isn't really that unique of an idea either as the whole bridge between bases style of map has been done since Halo 3 but I've yet to see it done in Reach and yours looks very well made and probably plays just as nice.

My main gripe with your structures is your Shield Door Teleporters. They may look really nice but to a casual player they would be confusing as most people playing the map for their first time wouldn't know that it's a teleporter. This is something that a lot of people who create maps need to think about when they are in the building or design process of a map.

There also seems to be a lot of framerate issues and mass flicker when going behind the bases or sometimes even inside the bases themselves which is a huge turn off for me and a load of other people. I also took a look at the spawn times for your vehicles and was immediately surprised that they're really high at 3 minute respawns which is way too high for a map that is based a lot on vehicle play. The exception to this being one of the Falcons which was at the default 30 seconds and the Ghosts.

I also took a look at your powerup spawn times (personally, I loathe powerups in Reach as they're both broken and redundant in terms of going hand in hand with Armor Abilities) and noticed they were at 30 seconds which is a huge problem as most smart players with this knowledge will abuse the Overshield and Camo to hell and back.

As far as weapon layout goes, the map seems pretty solid in that regard except for too minor issues. One of them is Sniper Rifles and their spawn location. It took me a while to realize where the Sniper spawned as it blended in with it's spawn area a little too well and the Sniper being on a map as open as this in general is usually a bad idea (your wall/bridge looks to mitigate this problem slightly.) The Sniper Rifle also forces people to the edges of the map as going down the open center in front of the bases is usually a huge mistake on Gulch maps.

My other issue is the lack of a counter to the Falcons. As if currently stands, the only thing you have to take them out are a Plasma Launcher, Sniper Rifles, and your own DMR. Also keep in mind that a good Falcon driver can usually rack up his two or even one gunner a huge amount of kills and on a map as open as this, it can be a little frustrating for the receiving end.

I also took note that you used pretty much the exact same safe boundaries as Hemorrhage so any spots that can break the map on there will most definitely be used by a smarter player on this map.

Overall, the map isn't bad. However, it isn't great either. It's just average. Average weapon and vehicle layout, fairly basic design to it. In fact, the name of the map just screams average as well. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that the map probably plays well but it could be better (keep in mind I'm making assumptions based off of a hands on Forge through session.) My main suggestions would be to try and cut down the framerate lag when in the back of the maps and fill in the area between the base and bridge a little bit more with another structure so it isn't as open because as they currently stand, they're basically death pits. You might also want to tweak your vehicle spawns a bit and close off any areas that could potentially break the map with some more Kill Boundaries and modify your teleporters a bit.