Flying-Soul-Duck-Knizzle BTB map pack

Nah it's ok.

I feel like you got the overall theme better than I did anyway lol, it was just a curious coincidence, of all the maps Stone looks to be my favorite so far - good luck on your map!

 

To be honest, Stone looks a little too open for my liking. Either way, I'd love to get a game on all of these some time. Feel free to invite me if I'm ever online when these are being tested.

 

We're running a test of all of them plus another map tomorrow night (Thursday) from about 7-10 Eastern. Feel free to join us!

 

I will get shots from the next test, I wish I could have been there. I haven't gotten an Embarcadero test all week now, bad luck + school = no time.

 

Such a fun game night! Sorry for all the KSI guys I brought in there... We're like AIDS. One spawns two spawns four. Terrible, terrible. Thank you guys again for inviting me!

 

Thanks for attending, and honestly we were happy to have you guys - it would have been difficult or impossible to fill out our ranks otherwise (I have a lot of deadbeat non-testers on my friends list, it turns out). And for the most part you guys were no problem at all - very low levels of griefing, betraying, AFKing, rage quitting, etc. You all hung in there for almost three hours as well.

If you or any of your clan members has map feedback, you can post it here: http://www.forgehub.com/forum/customs-lobby/131451-btb-thursday-8-18-recap-thread.html

Or in the appropriate map thread. This one is for three of the maps we played, and there's a separate thread for Hivemind: http://www.forgehub.com/forum/halo-reach-forge-discussion/130706-hivemind.html

Any thoughts you have are very welcome!

 

My experienced opinion, based entirely on forge and what I have heard from friends.

I would like to play these maps once or twice, simply because I see S ending up having sixish game-ending flaws. Its a great idea, but the solutions to the obvious problems with an S-shaped design are solved by creating bigger problems in the opposite spectrum. For example, the walkway connecting the base to the middle that vehicles cannot enter seems like "Oh hey we got the flag in, we win." However I am absolutely pissed that creative designs like this died with Halo: 3, and want to see it succeed beyond all recognition to get the style back into popularity.

I have heard that metropolis is supposedly the best BTB map that has been built, which leaves me very, very excited. I did hear it from Kuroda, who has a history of overhyping maps, but then I heard shad0w say something along the lines of "BTB is broken in Reach, it can't be good," without denying the fact that it could be good relative to BTB. Regardless, I heard it was great and I want to play it.

The picture you provided of Stone with the the random causeway made of 5x1's looked quite out of place because of texture. I would love the chance to go in and help you make a uniform theme, because that is a huge part of aesthetics.

I know jack **** about the last map, so there!

 

All of these maps are simply outstanding and deserve more attention, but I think Stone could use a bit more cover. My favorite would probably be Metropolis since I LOVE that sort of human-type design.

 

Alright, so I'm going to try and break this down bit by bit. The following would be basically a compilation of my own concerns and the concerns I've heard voiced by others.

1. Elevation Changes.

One of the base-line postulates for forge, is that a map (of any competitive sort) should not be mainly comprised of a single height. This rule is most applicable to BTB maps. Rats Nest, the closest Bungie-made comparison to S, used its elevation changes to block line of sight, and also to create a more interesting battleground for vehicles. S tries to use curved walls to separate the map's LoS, which it accomplishes, but without any sort of real elevation changes, the amount of cover needed to block LoS escalates, and vehicular combat becomes congested.

This, coupled with S’s lack of circuitous vehicle flow, makes warthogs pretty awkward to use in comparison to most other BTB maps. It doesn’t matter how skilled of a driver you are, traversing S’s tight corridors is just a pain. You’re forced to slow down constantly in order to turn around, and turning around usually results in death or hijacking. So sure, warthogs might get a kill or two, but it’s impossible for a warthog to ever be long-lived, which really just makes vehicular combat bland and repetitive. Drive in, get a kill, explode. Drive in, get two kills, explode. Drive into the enemy’s spawn, explode without getting a kill. There really aren’t any scenarios other than that. And that brings me to my next point;

2. Spawn Issues.

This is one thing you’re going to have to face with the design; it sucks for spawning. It absolutely sucks for spawning. For a BTB map, there are about 5 spawn locations. Each base, the middle, and each GL spawn. One spawn zone issue I encountered was around the Base/GL area. I would constantly spawn in the GL tunnel while the enemy team was all over the base right next to me. Those situations would either involve me getting raped instantly, since I’m basically stuck in a hole with only two ways out down there, or catching the enemy team with their pants down, resulting in their frustration. Both situations aren’t good. I know that people have brought up the issue before, if not directly then insinuated, and you’ve dismissed it because rectifying the spawn system would require a total redesign.

That’s just one spawn zone issue, which could (Sort of, not really) be fixed. The problem is, even if you’re only doing a 6 v 6, there are only 5 spawn locations, making spawns either ridiculously random, or annoyingly repetitive. In a traditional slayer game on S, I’ll spawn in the base 80% of the time. About half of that time, there’s no nearby vehicles to get back into combat, so I’m stuck walking around doing nothing for a bit. Now, the other 20% would be what happens when both bases are occupied by members of the same team. My options are limited to:

A) Spawn in GL tunnel and get raped.
B) Spawn in their faces in the base and get raped.
C) Spawn in the middle and get raped.

What usually ends this cycle is the poor maneuverability of the warthog (Since warthogs are responsible for a lot of the base-invasion issues). A warthog will work its way into a base, cause havoc, wreck the spawn system, then explode. A lot of people are going to confuse this hectic situation as fun, because it can be fun. But it’s not balanced, it’s not competitive, and there are much better situations that you probably want your map to create.

3. Weapon balance, and Infantry/Vehicle balance.

So I’ll start off here with the weapons. You’ve got, as power weapons, two GLs and one laser. These are around just to counter the warthogs, which they certainly do accomplish, if a bit too well. If the warthogs weren’t underpowered enough, now you’re putting weapons on the map that pretty much negate their effects completely. I’ve been in too many games where the warthogs sitting in our bases get completely ignored, and I’ve also been in games with stupid teammates who just grab warthogs and blindly charge into a Spartan laser. There’s no winning with these things unless you’re playing CTF, in which case they work too well. I’ll get to that in a minute, but basically, the only reason that the illusion of balance is occurring with warthogs is because of the crappy spawn system. The warthog will tear through all the poor saps who spawned in the middle of the map, or who just get trapped there incidentally, but those are the only situations where they become effective. (Refer back to ‘Drive in, get a kill, explode.’ That one kill was a spawn kill in the middle of the map.)
So then you have CTF, which can be both intense and frustrating. The battle for control of the middle can be pretty intense, with warthogs traversing either side, infantry barely avoiding death as a laser melts the back of their helmet, etc. The main problem with CTF is the flag-away spawns. You spawn in the base as enemies are taking your flag, making a flag pull pretty goddamn difficult. However, when a warthog gets involved, things become a bit too easy. You pull the flag, get in a hog, and drive back. Will anyone stop you on the way back? Sometimes, yes, but for the most part, no. Why? Because they’re busy spawning in the base that just got their flag stolen. You either spawn right behind the warthog as it’s leaving your base, or right in front of it as it’s leaving your base. Most CTF maps have enough locations to provide pretty good flag-away zones, so that a team has to work very strategically to cut off an enemy team to reacquire their flag. But S either screws you over, or hands you your flag back; because of the nature of the design, there is no in-between.

4. What to do?

So, I just gave you a rather vitriolic review of the map, with very little optimism involved in the writing process. However, hope is not lost on the map, or in my approval of the map. I do think that it needs to be rebuilt from the ground-up. I think you need to take the concept and make it larger, possibly into a figure-8 form, so that warthogs can have a complete circuit to work with. I also think that you need to create some interesting elevation changes and expand your hallways so that warthog driving is improved even more. S tries to compact the balance of infantry and vehicle, which just doesn’t work out. If you give the vehicles more power in the areas that should be more powerful for vehicles, then you can also add more infantry-specific areas to help with spawns, balance, and pretty much everything. You may have to incorporate natural geometry a bit, and I’d recommend experimenting with upper levels to give the map more depth, since that’s another issue that I had with it; gameplay just got stale. It got very stale, very fast, and the problems that I was seeing didn’t help either.


I could go on, I really could, but if you want me to clarify something, just let me know. Whenever you get back on Live, I’ll go through and try to extrapolate some of these concepts a bit more if you’d like. Also, I’m going to post this feedback publicly to see who else can agree/disagree with me. If you don’t agree with me on something, then defend your case the best you can, I’d like to hear the argument, and I’d be glad to rebuttal until you see what I’m trying to get at. I just want to help, that’s all I really want to do.

 

So in short; Rorak got raped.

Anyway, I think a lot of issues with the map can be solved by simply doing 2 things:
-Creating a sort of loop at each base to make room for a Warthog to turn around and go back the other way.
-A bigger area in between the S that's off-limits for vehicles. The 'sewers' are pretty much the only place where the Warthog can't go. I think those areas should be made a lot bigger and redesigned to be more interesting.

And put the 'Hogs on a quicker respawn timer. I love my 'Hogs.

 

One thing that may help is to elevate the current sewers into slightly higher platforms instead, which would break up the same LOS but not make spawning there a death trap. You could also connect it up to an even higher/or stil lower middle stretch of the S to add more height variation that the vehicles would actually have to go through (be it up or down). Finally, you could add one or two catwalks above the ground level, which could be especially flowy if you just bridge a gap over a newly lowered area. I certainly like the map, but now that these things have been brought up I guess I agree with many of them. Some games I actually thought the hogs were overpowered (maybe because I was spawning in the wrong place at the wrong time), but either way I think making the S into and 8 would help. You could even make the newly added part (that reconnects the ends of the S) into a higher road on top of the lower road, creating an overpass of sorts. I have been wanting to implement a real overpass in a map and I think this one might actually work with it. Just some ideas, take em or leave em.

 

My personal experience on the map has always been positive, however, I think Rorak has a couple good points. Some more height variation along the main driving path would definitely help I think, maybe you could lower the middle (like 2u or something) so that the corners with the little mongoose alcoves become slightly more powerful... might help with the CTF flag away issues, too.

As for the linearity of the map, I rather enjoy the tug-of-war style of gameplay that it promotes. I don't think you should make it completely circuitous, but an interesting idea might be to connect the back of the bases to the middle corners near the mongoose alcoves with a smaller, one-way path out. Make it so hogs have to ramp off a sikkk jump. Epic awesome.

Infantry could come and go both ways, of course, adding an interesting flanking route when attacking and a quick way to head off an escaping hog that stole your flag.

 

Rorak, I completely agree on all points. To be honest they were evident just looking at the map preview. I had ways to fix just about everything until I found out Psycoduck only had about $100 remaining. Not nearly enough for an overhaul as serious as I was hoping.

One thing about the laser, this is one of the few maps where it is balanced. The short sight lines mean a warthog can splatter an enemy with the laser before it finishes charging as I have done multiple times.

 

I semi-agree with Mock, though I still love how this one BTB map is flatter (odd coming from the maker of First Tracks and Embarcadero, the two hilliest maps around.) A path out that base connecting to Mongoose spawn would not be bad, though I don't know how it would work out.

CTF could use some major improvements, and I think some more paths could give more routes to the middle and also improve spawning. A third route would also fit with the golden rule of objective, always having at least three ways in or out of a base. Laser is also very balanced, I have had similar experiences as pyro, and a lot of missed shots on hogs turning corners. Some of these changes would certainly help, but a full redo? I think that is a little far from what is needed, though some budget will have to be cut is new paths may be added.

 

Rorak why in the world did you pick that color for your font lol? Anyways, I think you bring up some valid points that should be at least considered.

1-Elevation change:

I'm not sure if I ever voiced this opinion to you duck, but there have been many games where I have felt that subtle elevation changes would be nice. I guess the question is how could you impliment those? So, Rorak I guess my question is what kind of elevation changes are you thinking? You mentioned rats nest as an example, but I'm not sure how Duck could impliment that. I feel that lowering the center of the map, and having the mongoose platforms higher would only make driving vehicles even that much harder. You already mentioned that vehicles were under-powered, So I think that sort of elevation change would just make vehicles worse. The only other option that I can think of is to have some sort of catwalk system, although how you would pull that off I am not sure. Could you maybe expound upon the idea of elevation change?

2- Infantry/vehicle balance

As it stands, I really have no problem with the vehicles on this map. I guess I view the vehicles as a power weapon. You get a couple of kills and then you are done, and if you are very conservative and skilled you may get a couple more. I personally HATE when games are run by vehicles, for instance hemorrhage or stand off. In maps like that, if your team screws up, you pay the price by getting raped by vehicles. With Ducks map, as infantry, I have a chance to stop that non sense with a well placed granade. I do agree though, that maybe the weapons to combat the vehicles could be toned downed; considering they are already at a slight disadvantage. Yet, I think the spartan laser is the perfect balance. So maybe Duck could re-think the GL?

3-Revisions

I believe you said that making the map into a figure 8 could combat the problem, I guess my only conern is that this would change the map completly. If Duck does this, then you might as well call this an entirly new map; because it would play nothing like S. After reading through your post a couple of times, I feel like your biggest critque of the map is that it is not competitve. I feel that most of your concerns revert back to that idea. IMO, and this is only my opinion, reach BTB maps are not competitive. Honestly, I don't feel like I have played a competive BTB game since Halo 2. Therefore, if I want to play competitively then I will play 2v2 and 4v4, but if I want to have fun and play a map that is different then S fits that bill. Furthermore, I think a map has served its purpose if the good games out weight the bad games, and I know S has done that for me.

4-closing thoughts

Overall, I think S is a soild map. Sure there are some problems. Spawns have been an issue, but they are infinitely better than what they were. The lack of elevation changes, can make for stale tactical game-play, but I feel that the sheer amount of chaos makes up for that. Furthermore, I fear that to rectify the problems you have mentioned, would alter S in such a way that it would loose some of its magic. I have played far too many games on this map to count, and I can personal vouch that a good majority of the players left satisfied, and left with some epic tales of "once upon a time I got a overkill with one laser." IMO, in a BTB map, that is all that matters. Anyways, that is my 2 cents and I hope you don't feel that I dont agree with many of the things you said, because I do. Also Duck, if you want to know more in detail what I think PM me, also I think it would be interesting if you made another map that had this similar idea, but with a figure 8 and maybe an overpass over the middle. Just food for thought.

 

Well, I know S is definitely in testing mode and will be released in not too long, but what of Stone Soul Slasher? Are you still going ahead with it or do we need a new banner?