I’m just throwing this map out for early analysis. Currently the map is only the physical build out with attacker and defender spawn points. There are no weapon drops, objective points, etc. I'm putting it in the Aesthetic group because it's not fully fleshed out and because it was inspired by a two pieces of Halo 4 concept art published by Sparth (Nicolas Bouvier). I was fascinated by the idea of making this space in Forge as soon as I saw these drawings. I immediately started doing paper sketches of how to realize the drawings in a three dimensional space. This is one of the original images. I have also prepared a very rough cut YouTube video of the map to demonstrate the flow of the space. I’ve added elements to the map in order to accommodate gameplay, such as ramps, gravlifts, teleporters and man cannons to navigate between the various tiers and rings. I think the concept of the map is pretty simple, large circular space with interesting things in the middle. The interesting things in the middle and to the outside act to orient the player after spawning. The inner ring and dish are accessed by a pair of gravlifts in the tower which supports them. The player takes a grav lift to the ring, then enters a second to get to the central dish. Players can also get to the central ring via man canons on the uppermost tier. The outside dish is accessed by via two teleporter sending stations. One is located directly under the dish, the other is in the base of the central tower. It is also possible to navigate from the inner dish to the outer dish w/o using armor abilities. Navigation is one point where I think the map might have problems and where I’m looking for input. The placement of steps admittedly inconsistent and could lead to to confusion for players. I think there’s enough ways to get between tiers. My concern is whether players will be able to easily know where the “best” way is. So, I am thinking about moving some of these ramps around so things are more consistent. It possible to move up the outer tiers using jet packs, but I don’t want rely on an armor ability to solve my design problems. There are a number of places I expected to be hotspots: the bases the dishes the gravlift tower One other concern I have is the fact that nearly every spot on the map is visible from any other spot on the map. The only the vertical difference introduce any kind of protection. I have introduced some elements of cover on the outer tiers, but I still have to wonder if it’s enough. Finally, trying to approximate a circular spaces using orthogonal objects means a lot of intersections of the forge elements. I’ve tried to reduce this, but it can still occasionally pop up as an ugly artifact. What I see the map being used for: 10 to 16 players slayer, especially for game types featuring long range weapons like SWAT. possibly objective games like CTF, oddball and king of the hill What I don’t see the map being used for: I don’t see vehicles being used in the map. It’s large enough to drive small and medium vehicles on the outer surfaces, but they usually end up adding chaos to the game play. You can actually fly a banshee within the space, but it’s not really enough space to useful Dominion - the base structures are too simple to support these kinds of Extraction - don’t know enough about the game type to know if it will work or not. I would be curious what other player think about the map. I think it has potential for "real" game play, but I do so little multiplayer, I don't know what works and what doesn't . Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Aesthetically this is pretty freakin cool, good job on that, but I was thinking that maybe you could make the middle dish inaccessible and get rid of the ring of bridges in the middle too, I think that might(maybe) make it play better. Also, I found(probably not the first person to do so) a cool technique for making fire/lightning using base shields, by putting them in the same spot but twisting them to make a round-ish shape*. Maybe you could do that rather than use the killball, that way you could get the correct colour. *Note that this causes quite a bit of FRL when looked at, but I still think it's worth a try.
Crimson, I would have sworn I replied to this the same day you posted it. Sorry about that. Thanks for the feedback. I'll experiment with the base shields. Sounds like a neat idea. BTW, what is "FRL".. I'm totally a "self taught" forger, so I'm in the dark on this. I'm kinda of curious why you think the changes to the center features on the map would improve the game play. Seems to me that it make the lines of sight even more open. I'm already afraid sticking your head out of any door way would be a death wish. Thanks again.
suggestion, it might look better w/ dynamic lighting enabled... not saying for sure, but maybe. if you use something other than the Struts in so many places, it may restore it for you. Just a thought. I like what i see so far, and there is a chance this could play well if/when completed.
FRL- Frame Rate Lag Sorry I took so long, I might actually play around with this in forge and see if an ideas come to me. EDIT: Entirely off topic but CA/343 should totally add a way to change the colour of killballs. That would be so useful.