Hello Everyone! I'm new to this site and trying to get back into Reach. I have a couple maps I'm trying to finish but am not good with spawn placements. The maps are for team slayer. If you are willing to help add or send a message to my Gt: iLyReX. Thanks!
Message a man named Stevo <- he may be able to help you if hes not off being an english drunk derp. As for my 2 cents. Place collections of spawns in lots of little areas, test the map and if sometimes it wont need any spawn zones. If it doesn't end up playing well, then I cant help you there.
Haha I lol'd so hard at this. As to the OP, try to settle down to the bases, put the team spawns in the base or whatever and from there expand it. Also use plenty of neutral spawns, they're good and when used right, it's like you're all in one fire team from Invasion.
If you look at countdown you see spawn points everywhere - EVERYWHERE. That says something right there. There is a reason the palette gives you 250 spawn points to lay down on the map.
Place shitloads of spawnpoints according the the following rules. Somewhat protected such as having your back or sides to a wall. Facing where the player would want to go from that point. Most spawning issues stem from more general problems with map openness, not enough spawn points, or one of the aforementioned issues. With enough spawn points, the built in system does an excellent job of selecting spawns at the scale of most maps. If its a btb map you'll need some respawn areas to control the spawns on a large scale.
As I think about the title of this thread, one only need to study the bungie maps. They are "professionally made" in the literal sense...
Bungie maps are garbage, or to not start a flame war, they are set up in ways that just push my buttons. Dynamic spawns my ass. In general, I'd say that spawn zones aren't 100 percent necessary unless you have an actual base-like structure for each team (say Sanctuary/Asylum). In which case, you should in the least, keep the other team from being able to spawn in the opposing teams base, if nothing else. I think everyone else covered most of what you should do in general. Backs to walls, safe areas, etc. A good way to do it, I think, is to place a spawn and stand where you put it. Ask yourself if you'd be relatively at ease spawning in that particular spot. If the spawn you placed can basically be seen from everywhere on the map, it probably isn't a "safe" area. Try to keep the spawning sight lines low. Another thing to take into consideration is how you want your map to be played. I myself prefer maps to be played MLG style- however that may be described. This generally calls for the opposing team being unable to spawn in the opponent's base when it's a base designed map like Sanctuary. Other maps call for dynamic spawning such as Zealot where the bases seem to be melded into the rest of the map instead of two completely separate structures. To plop spawn points "everywhere" as MrGreenWithAGun said about Countdown probably would not be best for this type of game play. If you're into how the MM maps play, though, then I guess you might as well put bunches of them... Though I hope you do a neater job than Bungie. When spawn points are everywhere, I feel like that'd just increase the likely hood of getting spawn killed. Just my opinion.
Having so many spawns is a debatable subject, just like map design in general. If the designer wants players to have the safest spawning possible, use more at the cost of adding a more random influence. If the designer wants players to be able to predict and force spawns to control the map, use less. Additionally, there being 250 spawn points could also be because you can set them up for specific gametypes and such. My rule of thumb, have at least 30 to 40 spawn points and distribute them evenly through out the map.