Vox Dispono

Awesome map there really beautiful with great object placement! nothing wrong with it, keep up the great work

 

I absolutely love the map. All the aesthetics shown are amazing. Except for the ones shown in the second picture from the very top. I don't know, just the combination of the struts and block 3'3 looks bad. But the last picture reveals a lot of positive factors about your map.

 

Vox Dispono ​

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Vox Dispono is a medium sized map that meets its acquaintance with intertwining ramps and confused gravity lifts that very much resemble the neurons of the players’ minds. With some fair elevation changes and pathways that often feel like they are overlapping among themselves it becomes quite a hassle determining where one is on Vox Dispono, and the equally confused opponents become an even greater hassle to tackle when they appear to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off. These are all very teeming words to emphasize the simple premise that Vox Dispono is a difficult map to grasp. Once players grab hold of the fact that a path will take them the opposite direction they expect and a gravity lift to the right will somehow send them to the left, they then have to cope with the fact that elevation in this map trumps all else. This meaning while everyone is babbling on down below, the lucky fellow who reached the higher elevations of the map will most likely succeed in stealing a few kills until the next one makes it up there to counter him. Aside from that, if there were one word that could be used to describe a confusing map that made use of pathways that did not go where they needed to go and gravity lifts that took players to the other side of the world it would be paradoxical.

Though Vox Dispono may make its faults apparent it does not go without its satisfying moments. On the few level surfaces players will find that they can enjoy some pretty good encounters that do not involve elevated advantages such as short range brawls in the rooms to the left and right and a more long range bout on the landing pads out in the open. Despite the fact that Vox Dispono has labeled bases, the map feels like it does much better as a free-for-all contention since there are certain areas that may seem closer to the player’s base when it is in fact quicker to get to the opponent’s base. The weapon set was not a bad choice either even though the presence of a Shotgun and a Sword seemed rather redundant. Also, thanks to the many intertwining pathways, line of sight is blocked to an enjoyable degree that makes long range combat among most places of the map widely undoable. All in all, despite the enjoyable moments that can be had on Vox Dispono, the confusing layout coupled with some severe height advantages lend gameplay into a chaotic direction to the top of the map where it then stagnates and loses its spark.

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Written by Zenixlio

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Vox Dispono in theory and when looked at, seems like a map that is enjoyable. But when played, it is very different. The map is bigger than the standard 4 vs 4 map. Because this map is bigger, it seems right to put more power weapons on the map. But map flow is virtually absent on this. Where you spawn in this map is pretty much where map flow stays. The only reason you wouldn’t be at the top of the map is because you spawned down lower or making a quick run for a power weapon. The map having man cannons that lead you back to the top of the map also encourage map flow to stay up at the top.

Also, even though this map is symmetrical, it doesn’t mean both teams have equal chance to win. Whichever team dominates in the beginning and keeps the top of the map has a much better chance of winning.

It is clever to put the power weapons straight down the middle, but there is a problem with this as well. They are to close together. When having map dominance, it is just a quick drop down and you have both the sword and the sniper. If you happen to be unlucky and are not in map control, it is a simple few seconds in between the shotgun, grenade launcher, and concussion rifle.

Overall, is theory and design this map seems perfect, but after a few gameplay test, it proves that this is not the case. Please consider removing a few power weapons and spacing them out and changing the map so map flow does not stay at the top of the map.

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For a map that has as many play routes in the form of gravity lifts, it is not too far outside the realm of reason to assume that there could be some issues behind those routes and whoever assumed that would be right. Four of the routes that involve gravity lifts regularly have issues. The not so demeaning two are the two the push players up into the side rooms on the map. It is not uncommon for opponents to camp those gravity lifts and drop down the gap as a player passes and perform a sly assassination in the process, and other forms of humiliation come in the form of being double-beatdown as a player comes up the lift or grenade spamming down the lift hole. Suffice it to say, people avoid those lifts. The other two had a less controllable, more frustrating result. The two, large gravity lifts that launch players through a one-way shield door on the opposite corner of the map often fail resulting in the player totally missing the door and, in all likelihood, falling to their death. This is very frustrating as it is a gimmick in the map that does not work one hundred percent of the time, and considering Reach’s physics, it is not a crime to assume that something involving a gravity lift will fail from time to time. Outside of the gravity lift systems there really are no other clear, physical durability issues players must worry about when playing Vox Dispono.

The story when it comes to spawning on Vox Dispono rivals itself with a psychological thriller. Many times a player will swear up and down that an opponent has spawned right next to them thanks to sudden motion cues on their motion tracker, but upon rounding that corner the player will find that instead of an enemy to shoot and kill there is actually a room full of nothing. Again, like the thriller, as soon as the pursuant has let their guard down, that red dot they have come to ignore ends up throwing them into a deep dirt nap with the humiliation that comes with the animation players are stuck in when they are being assassinated. The accredited director of this crazy film is actually the confusing layout that was so fervently harped on in the Enjoyment section. Just because an enemy shows up on a player’s motion tracker never means they are near. Sometimes the dot can move right over the center of the radar and the corresponding Spartan never be seen. All corny analogies aside, Vox Dispono may appear to have bad spawns at first, but the sheer lack of being spawn killed by one of these ‘bad spawns’ leads to the conclusion that they mostly happen on a different elevation, put of harm’s way.

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Little can be said about Vox Dispono’s aesthetics. The intricate design of the map made it difficult to effectively use a very ugly forge palette and therefore some of the object use looks sloppy and disorganized. This becomes apparent when players can see an array of objects thrown in to cover up gaps in larger structures that do not flow well with the rest of the design. These small details only show themselves when players are actually traversing those areas, but considering the larger picture, Vox Dispono does have its own form of novelty. When looking at the map from afar Vox Dispono resembles something of a terraced, floating temple. The downside of that is players only see the bigger picture in the loadout screen. The rest of the game is played within the structure and it is simply not quite as impressive looking due to the intrinsic details mentioned earlier.

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There are some things about Vox Dispono that make it stand out among other maps. First, at its core, Vox Dispono has a triangular layout as opposed to the cross or rectangle shaped layout that players are accustomed to seeing. Second, the crossways gravity lift system to get around the map, whilst being quirky, is an attribute seldom seen in a map. The fact that the gravity lifts are there is not what makes it an original system, but how they function in coordination with gameplay. Other than those few genuine features, the mediocre gameplay and lack of any true spark makes Vox Dispono just another map.

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Rating Multipliers
[floatleft]Enjoyment:
Balance:
Durability:
Aesthetic :
Originality:[/floatleft]5 x 3.0 = 15 out of 30
4 x 3.0 = 12 out of 30
7 x 1.5 = 10.5 out of 15
5 x 1.5 = 7.5 out of 15
5 x 1.0 = 5 out of 10

Final Score

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