Battlefront

While spreading a map out over a MASSIVE space SEEMS like an epic and amazing batter scenario, when played out it turns out to be less than impressive. No offense to you, but trust me on this. My friend Child7of7Christ made the first version of our co-forged invasion map and it followed basically the same pattern your map did, but in reverse (from gulch to island). It turned out that everything was MUCH to spread out, and there was little action at all when the fastest vehicles were destroyed and being waited on to spawn. Upon dying from a sniper round, players would have to trek the entirety of Forge World again (even with phased spawns) in order to reach the objectives.

While your map is stated to be a Team Slayer map, this provides even more problems for spawning. In an Invasion game, a player can at least chose to spawn closer to where he wants to be. In a Slayer game, a player will typically spawn in his 'base' or near teammates. In a map the size of yours, this will disorientate players spawning in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go without vehicles. Sure, there are weapons and vehicles at ever major 'area' of forgeworld, but on foot (and even on a vehicle) those are pretty far away.

What I feel like I'm seeing in this map is a whole lot of empty space, with sniper towers and defenses strictly close to objectives (bases) and teleporters (which are the seemingly-fastest modes of transport on the map). I feel like if I were to play this, as soon as I died, I'd have to make a LONG walk back to anywhere on the map. Sure there are flying vehicles, but what do I do while those aren't available? Or ground vehicles for that matter?

THE SOLUTION

As in the Invasion map I mentioned earlier, the solution to remedy the problem of too much space, is to shorten it up. Try to compact your map either into the canyon, either side of the cave, or either side of the sandbar on the beach. Each offer plenty of vehicle room (the most viable of which being the Canyon). Try the Canyon out, it's MASSIVE for just one area. You can easily fit all of the action you need into it, while giving players a sense of where the map actually is.

Again, this isn't to say your map is bad, just much to spread out in one mapper's opinion. The sniper towers are a very nice concept though, I was actually talking about them the other day on LIVE and how it would be cool to forge them.

 

SigSuar's comment seems reasonable, but there are more problems. From what you said, there are only four weapons. Aren't there any DMR's or plasma pistols anywhere? try addind in some weaker weapons, because it is very easy to run out of ammo. And there should be some more objects throughout the map to prevent Total-wonage-of-the-vehicles. And the bases seem wayyyyy to small and do not seem to be built with spawnkilling in mind. Try to make an inside area that is safe from vehicles. Maybe a grenade launcher to help that? And on the Montana-Alaska region where you exit the teleporters, put only on mongoose there, and have the teleporters reach eacother on the far edges of that area, with a small outpost for each side. Buuuttttttt, the main thing is that you need more weapons on the map. well, cover too. Oh well, there is no 1 main point. Most of this (IMO) needs to be incorperated somehow into this map.

 

'Don't need to play it to see that it's too open. Unless we spawn with a plasma pistol (for anti-vehicle situations) and a DMR with infinite ammo and bottomless clips, I'm gonna run out of ammo VERY quickly. Just because the map is meant for vehicles, doesn't mean a player is going to want to BE in one. Vehicles are large targets, easily taken out with weapons such as the plasma pistol or plasma launcher. Deathtraps if there's a bad driver onboard. I prefer being on foot, sniping or using a DMR at a distance than being in a vehicle.

What happens to players who like vehicles when the vehicles aren't THERE though? They will have to run around foot, basically weaponless. I'm looking through a Reach:Maps section of this site right now, not the Reach:Gametypes/Maps section, so for now I'm judging it purely based on how large it appears with the very very few weapons there are available.

Another problem with only 2 weapons available, is that they're extremely far away from players. I mean REALLY far. And when one team has all of the vehicles and the other has none (they were stolen or destroyed) it's going to be very hard to counter.

A tip in mapping, don't just respond to user criticism with "well did you do this?" or "did you use this with this?". As a mapper, you're out to give something to the people that they want to play on, and when people playing your map say "there aren't any weapons" or "it's too big", your response shouldn't be "did you play it on the gametype you should play it on?". Unless that gametype adds weapons everywhere and shortens the map space up, I don't think that it is a valid comeback. Instead, ask "what could I do different" instead of "why would I do anything different". If you're not willing to change the map to better suit the people who will be playing it, then you have come short on your part as the mapper.

And your reply of "why would I add a DMR?" I would reply with "A DMR is very useful against Warthog gunners, or even heavy/aerial vehicles that are close to coming apart. Plus, if I flip a vehicle with a grenade, the previous riders will most likely be very weakened."

In general, more weapons and less space if you're going to have a focus on vehicle combat. Just because a map's focus is on vehicles, does NOT mean you shouldn't have weapons anywhere. No weapons means no vehicle counters, and too much space means I'm not going to be seeing much of anything, and I don't want to play a 50-minute match because it's taking forever to find people. You want to have a better way to counter vehicles than just a Rocket Launcher. If we were playing tank battle on Halo 3's The Pit (somehow) then sure, a rocket launcher would be viable, it's a small space. But two rockets in the largest space imaginable (nearly 75% of Forgeworld, judging from your map screenshots) isn't going to be too useful.

Again, this isn't some sort of hate message, it's criticism. It's your choice as the mapper weather or not you want to please the people who play the map by making the changes that let them have a better experience.

 

Just cuz a map is meant for vehicles, doesn't mean people will want to go out in the battlefeild for a minute and then blow up from other vehicles. and eve if this is a vehicle map, two mongeese (?) per teleporter in the are that you suggest up there is a bad Idea. make people have to work for it, but cover the bridge somehow, and put some interesting architecture around the teleporters, really the whole map. you only have made one really unique item (Towers), then just put a bridge and 2 small, wide open bases in the game. put something that prevents aerial domination, maybe a small (satellite) object that is above the hemmorage area. you can make it playable as well.

About the mongeese. it would be much more useful to have two spawn every 10-25 seconds on the wraith spawn in BTB Hemmorage, and somewhre near the island, than just have them travel across a bridge to another teleporter.

No matter what map, as long it has a bas slayer setting, there needs to be weapons. Even if you put random weapon spawns ( which is a horrible idea), there should be some sort of arms around the map. They don't even need to be heavy weapons against vehciles ( some should be), there needs to be a way to sustain the need a player who is just walking around.


And btw, If your gametype is so special why don't you put it in your post what the settings are