Oversight has been a pleasure to forge. Just the map itself is a piece of art, but it was a very hard process to build. When I first started off, I thought to myself, I can just forge a forerunner structure! Just a simple competitive map built off of a structure. But this wasn't how it turned out at first. I had built a map that was small for even 1v1. Yes, very sad and dreadful, but I did not give up! I looked into the past and decided to take the fine classics and rebuild them into a work of art, and that was EXACTLY what I did. I had searched through the forge maps of Halo: Reach and decided, this is not where to get inspiration, so I moved to the Halo 3 forums. Through what seemed as endless searching, I came across a holy map. A map almost everyone had heard here: Frailty. Yes. That was what to be used. I gained inspiration from Frailty's magnificent gameplay. I took the map,crammed it all together so the middle structure was gone, and the side bases were combined into one on each side. The main bases were tweaked to my liking. Finally, there came the aesthetics. I played countless hours of Halo 3 finding the key forerunner techniques for the achieved aesthetics. The 3 barrier towers and citadel provided all there needed for the final touches. Once the mess was cleared up, the work of art known as oversight had been finished. This hopeful and desirable 4v4 competitive map had reached its final point of forging.
Finally, a BTB map that doesn't look like it's been made many times over, and it's built in the Canyon, a spot where you'd least expect to find something different in. If you're looking to test the map or just get some games on it, hit me up. GT: Blood Gulch 7
Nice you released it, and I like the name better than its previous makes it seem more serious as a forerunner installation. Playing the beta was a blast and was refreshing, getting to play on something that actually feels halo once again was a great experience. And im hopeful you'll make another excellent project with a similiar design style would actually love to see that. Looks like you added a few changes as well and a few more pieces of cover this should help out greatly cant wait to try this new version, are you planning any games on it yourself soon? The best part of this map is definately the rush that occurs between teams to infiltrate eachothers bases for the advantages both offer being drastically different for the most part. Hit me up if you want to test some .
Thanks. It does mean a lot to me to have someone want to test it out with me. The canyon seemed to be the best place to build it. It had a very life-like feel to it, and the grass and trees surrounding the structures achieved that perfectly. The hills added flavor to the ground so there would be more varied height levels, making gameplay more interesting. I agree. The beta always felt like a new, yet classic experience from Halo: Combat Evolved. One of the things I changed from the beta was the underside of the base. Believe it or not, you inspired me to add another way to the top of the base. You claimed in the map preview that it was too bad there was no form of inside of the base. In fact, it was really weird how I filled a space with such potential. After doing a run through, I decided to add a 3rd proper entrance to the base and add a gravity lift under the base so that the bases would be more even. I hope I can get a couple games on this, but I've been busy and usually on only during the weekends.
This reminds me of a unique blend of Blood Gulch and Tempest, but not too much and with it's own style. The map looks really good, visually and for gameplay. I hope to get a game here one day, if you are ever playing this feel free to invite me. GT: xAudienceofone
I much prefer the new no-greeny pictures. I only have one issue with this map and that is that it is very easy to take the sniper to a very defendable point with a good view of most of the map. This means that a competent sniper can pin down the other team with reasonable ease and I dread to think what would happen if one team got both snipers...
I have always loved maps that have a great blend of natural terrain and forerunner structures this map is no exception. The forerunner structures are extremely pleasing to the eye. When doing a quick look at the map in forge I felt like I was on sandbox now knowing that the map is based of Frailty that makes sense. I definitely look forward to getting a game on this map if you ever need a tester feel free to invite me GT: X2Sora.
Thanks so much to you all for the criticism and compliments. Just to let everyone know, the snipers are in very difficult to reach places if you're on the other team. They are deep in team-controlled areas. The red sniper is behind the base, and the blue sniper is on the first floor of the base in the open part. If you don't get you're team's sniper and the other team uses it against you, that's your own team's fault. You may think one extra clip is overpowering, but it runs out very fast. I am very glad to see that people like the map being based off of Frailty, but unlike Frailty, this map plays better with 4v4. The weaknesses I've seen of the ghosts mainly are the sniper and concussion rifle. I may try to hit some of you up with a game of this. I'm glad to see the community likes this. Hell, pyro was silent on the discussion thread with amazement... I hope.
Im very glad to hear that you did add a way up to that point, I really respected that you went with the classic forerunner style bases those are at times hard to pull off without going overboard on aesthetic's. This map however has kept a good balance of both, making us feel at home while presenting a very different style of gameplay, the different base designs definately add intensity to the experience. The map has never had a bad quality and perhaps the only thing ive ever felt could be improved was the size if you ever go for full scale btb, and I'd gladly help with a project like that if you ever decided to. And thats understandable I play mostly on weekends lately myself seems to be my only free time here lately lol. And it would be nice to get a game of this on with you as your the creator you would be able to express what you truly want out of the map, great job on this and im glad the community is enjoying it.
Back when I helped test your Temple Invasion map, I noticed one thing above all else: the Forerunner aesthetic was executed very well, but the gameplay didn't live up to the looks. So when you asked me to take a look at Oversight, I kept this in mind. After flying around Oversight for a few minutes it became very clear that the aesthetics were, once again, executed very well. The spire on top of red base, and the design of the side bases caught my eye in particular. When I talk about this map's gameplay, a lot of it will be conjecture as I've not played the map yet, only given it a thorough forge-through. That said, what I discuss is based off a lot of experience, and should still be valuable. As far as the map's layout goes, it is rather simple. This won't make it stand out very well (although I think the aesthetics have that covered), but this does mean that the map should play quite well. I found it a bit strange that blue team has the higher-up, more defensible base, as blue team is on offense in asymmetrical games. Still, both bases are rather well-designed. Blue base particularly makes sense to me, with the grav-lift and rock paths leading to the flag. I do have a suspicion that the inside of red base could become a grenade trap, both due to the size of the room, and the barriers in it. There appears to be enough cover around the map, as many large pieces of cover seem to be spaced a short sprint away from each other. The side bases are rather open, but cover can be taken behind and around them. As for the weapons, the snipers spawn a bit close to the bases, given how powerful the weapons are on open maps like this. This wouldn't be an issue, if it weren't for their short respawn times. Also, blue team's sniper is placed right at the bottom of their grav-lift, allowing players to grab the weapon and head right up to what is likely the most powerful position on the map. I also try to stay away from concussion rifles on big team maps, as they are extremely obnoxious to anyone in a vehicle. However, this affects warthogs the most, and as there aren't any on the map, this shouldn't be much of a problem either. Overall, it looks like gameplay would be quite good, with a few minor issues. The biggest issue i see with the map is spawning. Given the openness of the map, the best places to spawn are the bases. the side bases are too open to consistently spawn on, but they provide enough covers for players to spawn behind them to an extent. However, with ghosts driving around the map, these areas aren't great for spawning either. Another problem with spawning is your placement of individual spawn points. Red team spawns facing away from the center of the map at the beginning of the game, which will likely disorient players. Also, there are several spawn points directly facing walls. It's always good to face spawn points so that players can immediately know where they are, and head towards the action without running right into a wall. For future projects, try to design maps with several safe spawn areas in mind. Also, while the soft killzones behind the bases are well-designated by the short walls there, the ones at the sides of the map aren't Because of this, players will not realize that the cliffs on either side of the canyon are out of bounds. Overall, Oversight is an aesthetically solid map with mostly good gameplay, which is held back by a few small issues. I look forward to actually playing this map in the future. I hope you find all of this feedback helpful.
Literally all of this feedback is immensely helpful. Thank you so much. This not only will improve this map, but my maps forged in the future.
I was able to force the blue team to spawn behind the red base in multi flag. Is that what you intended? All but the blue team initial spawns are pointing away from the center of the map. This seems disorientating, especially the green team that is pointing to the immediate border of the play area.
How did you make the blue team spawn behind the red team base? There are anti spawn zones on each side so that the other team doesn't spawn or respawn there. I'm also pretty sure the blue team spawns point toward the middle, except maybe a couple respawn points. The green team would also either spawn facing the center AND a wall or straight, nothing blocking their path, yet away from the center. I chose what I thought would be best, which would be not spawning facing the center and a blockade. I will check in forge once again to triple check and make sure nothing is wrong.
If you are trying to prevent a team from spawning on the wrong side of the map, the proper tool is the Respawn Zone. See Respawn Zone Tutorial to explain the roles and uses of each type of respawn zone in Reach. To reproduce the problem, with 4v4 or bigger party, have the red team overrun the blue team's base and kill all the blue team members somewhat evenly across the blue team's side of the map. With the death influencers covering the entire blue team's side, and with the enemy on the blue team side of the map, the red team will respawn on the other side - the red team's side. I had only 2 players, one red and one blue. To saturate the blue base with death influencers, I had to create as many as possible in as short of time as possible. So I removed the suicide penalty and minimized the respawn time to 3 seconds. I moved the red player to the blue base, then had the blue player suicide. He would respawn on the blue side, but as far from the death influencer and enemy as possible. He repeatedly suicided until the death influencers saturated the blue side and he respawned on the red side. Since the death influencers decay over time, I had to create as many as possible in the shortest time possible. Since the blue player would spawn across the blue side of the map from where he suicided, the death influencers were conveniently distributed across the blue side of the map for me. If I recall, it took about a half dozen or so suicides to produce the problem.
I'm guessing you want me to fix the minor problem since it happened after 6 attempts on purpose, even if you only had 2 players. I'll look into it, but when I played it, nothing happened as no one purposely attempted to try and spawn at the wrong area. Do you have a film clip I could see? Other than the spawning problem, how was the map in general?
So, now that I have an xbox, I would really like to get a few games on this. I can clearly see you put some thought into the aesthetics as well as the size of the map. 4v4 would seem to play well, IMO, but it seems others are having problems with spawning. Have you tried placing spawn-zones? It's an obvious question, but sometimes it gets forgotten. Also, I liked the name you had for this map before - Electron, if I'm not mistaken. Overall, it looks aesthetically pleasing, and it's a different take on a 4v4 map, which is always what I look to see in maps these days. Send me an invite so we can get a party going to play this.
Yeah. I could see sometime this weekend to get a game on this. I need to study more on spawning, no doubt. I think I nailed the aesthetics, not to brag, but the map has its shining points and its flaws, as well.
If you are on during the weekend just hit me with an invite and we can test the map out. Anyone who wants to play a few games on Oversight just send me a message on the weekend. I will be on and probably forging my next big project.