Refuse BETA & Simple design vs replay value question

complexity doesn't necessarily add replay value, but perhaps a little larger would be good. from the pics it seems like with sprint a few people playing together might find it hard to find a time they are not being shot at. if it were slightly larger, not necessarily more complex, but maybe a little, it could be promising.

overall it looks remeniscent of a Halo 2 map which is good

 

Replay value is a fancy way of saying if the may was enjoyable that knowledgeable people use to sound intelligent. I'm not sure why would be balancing fun and simplicity. No one is going to care if your map is too complicated if it's fun. Now on to a quick forge lesson...

When someone says a map is too complicated they can mean anything from poor weapon placement, too many jumps, illogical connections of paths, lack of open spaces, poor orientation, or any number of other things. In your case it seems they were referring to the high use of catwalks with elevation change and lack of open spaces. The sort of maps you build are based almost entirely on catwalks and platforms or in your case just on catwalks. These maps' quality is highly dependent on a good balance on catwalks and platforms because the fighting occurs primarily between a platform and catwalk. When people confront on catwalks there is generally nowhere to hide or strafe so the battles are boring and repetitive. Battles between platforms create interesting standoffs but those also become repetitive especially as people run out of grenades. The primary battles are between one team attempting to hold a platform and another attacking the platform from a catwalk. The design of catwalks needs to be centered around the platforms giving someone assaulting a platform distinct advantages and disadvantages to play against those of the platform. Players should neither be discouraged from defending a platform nor from attacking another. Since the walkways are not intended as the primary playspace, they should not have significant height variation so they can more effectively be used for traversing the map and don't put players using them at a disadvantage. If there are too few platforms it's easy to end up making these the primary playspace and people spend the game running in circles rather then strategically holding certain positions and moving between them. That gameplay becomes boring quickly and with little to distinguish one walkway from another the map can seem unnecessarily complicated. Comparing layouts of your maps to some other notable maps yours are far less complicated but seem more so because of the way they are designed.

I hope this helps you improve your forging.