Balancing Factors

Anything can technically create balance/imbalance in a map. Weapon layout, respawn timers, power positions, flanking routes, respawn areas, lines of sight, and the list goes on. Were you talking about something specific?

 

dax hit most if not all of them... just think about whether you are creating an unfair advantage for one team or the other by the way you place items and the settings for them.

And much is just discovered only in testing. For instance, I ASSumed that placing an Overshield in one team spawn area and a Damage Boost in another would facilitate balance. It did not.

Try to create balance using logic, but then test and test again to see if it actually worked the way you imagined.

 

start off very simple. if you want perfect balance, you create a perfectly symetrical map, with perfectly duplicated weapon placement and spawning, just reversed. that is, team balance, not necessarily other types of balance.

then, if you want to make an asymetrical map, think about how one area might favor the defending team vs the attacking team. If the exact same pieces are not used on the opposing side, at least make sure that other pieces provide a similar experience.

I made a map that had two bases that could actually see each other and snipe. one was set lower than the other, which gave the higher base the advantage. I simply made the cover used on the lower one more extensive, and made the cover on the higher one less extensive. it seems to have worked.

if you don't want two rockets, you place your rocket in a place that is equally difficult for both teams to reach. or, you give one team a rocket and one team an i-cannon, fuel rod, or something similar.

You can take that idea further. You could give one team a rocket and the other team two medium-strength weapons. it's sort of like an equation. One team can have 1+1+1=3 and one can have 1+2=3. Either way, it needs to equal out in the end.

 

I have a useful knowledge source to share. There's a website called "Reaching Perfection", with about 51 lessons on map building specific to Halo. A lot of it has to do with balance, directly or indirectly, along with a lot of other good bits of info. You're bound to learn something. Even useful stuff outside of map building, like successfully marketing your map, is covered. Suggest you give that a look, I found it immensely helpful to have a single, condensed source of forging advice.

 

ReachingPerfection is indeed an excellent site. And of course you can also check out some tutorials by The Halo Forge Epidemic. Try the Risk vs Reward one, for instance.

 

I don't really think Redemption is looking for beginner's tips, he's been around the block when it comes to forge maps.

Having said that though, I don't think there would be a big enough clipboard for every single "balancing factor." If you really think about it, every aspect of a map can be broken down and viewed as a balancing factor in some way. This list would essentially devolve into a map elements list. We could keep throwing out the standard terms and definitions, but each has a different application depending on the map at hand, so the simple act of creating a generalized list won't do much. I find it best to discuss these things when dealing with a specific scenario.

 

I think this is an interesting question though, I'd be happy to help in compiling a list of balancing factors. Expect something from me in a bit.

 

Nice copy from THC, btw.

Balancing factors? Well, if you have lots of open, long LoS on your map that contribute to stale gameplay, you can add a Tyrant to balance that. Likewise, if you have a Tyrant on your map, you can make the map more open to give him the space required.

 

what do you mean by tyrant?

 

The best possible LoS blocker you could utilize.

 

Lots more of what though?

Apologies in advance for being all theoretical 'n ****.

I just don't see a definitive "balance structure" that works for every case. The term balance is extremely relative. There's no way you can say that, for every case, "X amount of flanking routes" + "X amount of clips in this power weapon" = balance. Balance is more than just terms like cover and lines of sight. The distance between each weapon, the size of each room, each ramp, each platform, so on and so forth all contribute to the balance of a map. Limiting yourself to certain terms is far too constricting.

I think that instead of trying to create some sort of balance structure, you're better off just creating a general guide that details important aspects to keep in mind when designing a map.