The other day I ran across some old PS2 games I had, and besides the amazing game Shadow of the Colossus, there were two other games I played a lot: Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2. And I remembered one map from SWB 2 that was in a horseshoe shape, much like Avalanche and Sidewinder. In between the two opposing sides however was an area set out in space where only vehicles could cross (you could cross it on foot, but you had a limited amount of oxygen). This is easy replicable in Halo: Reach using a soft kill barrier low to the ground. So I set out to work to build this map, but I'm wondering, since this is my first slayer map, are there certain things I should know or watch out for? I know how to set up most gametypes, but are there any common mistakes you've seen beginners make, or maybe made yourself? And on another note, I know nothing about what causes framerate lag.
Framerate lag is caused by 2 main things- glass and lights. It's easy to tell what causes issues like large bridges, every decorative piece, lights; and what doesn't cause it like banks, inclines, a few blocks etc. Anyway, I feel a softkill would be annoying especially since objectives can't traverse through it. It is a great idea, but it just won't work on halo. And on the vehicle note, DO NOT use a gauss hog. A horseshoe map will work well, provided you split the pathways. For example, Avalanche has teleporters and caves for infantry. I would recommend finding a competitive map guide somewhere on here, or asking somebody with experience.
A kill zone would be annoying for objectives and if it was a large area. Imagine for a second you are driving a hog across this area, and I flip you with a revenant or some other vehicular trickery. If I do this and your vehicle is destroyed but you are left alive, you will still die even after this lucky streak because of the kill zone. I would recommend making this area difficult to survive on foot instead of using a kill zone so that people won't go that way on foot because they know they will have little chance. This will feel less like a gimmick as well. Hope this works out!
I was thinking that the sides facing the area would be filled with spots to pick off stragglers with. I have already built the part in between the horseshoe side. It's about a grid wide and is based in the area with the three rocks jutting out of the water near the pillar. I think I'll go along with you guys and get rid of the soft kill zone as well, I had forgotten about objectives and kill zones.
What map are you talking about specifically? I can't remember any maps from the second one with horseshoe- like maps. Rhen Var Harbor from SWB1 was the only horseshoe map i could remember. It had the barren horseshoe part for vehicles, and the cave system for infantry.. it was quite a fun map to play on. If you don't know how to work spawns well, ask around for help... and framerate lag can also be caused to objects partially overlapping one another (z-fighting) so watch out for that.
Glass and light? I thought it was object density (the more you overlap the more the graphics rendering effort), animation (water fall, kill ball), light (FX & objects) and glass (all kinds), in that order - more or less.