Ascenscion Created by WADE W1LS0N Map Description With this map I've attempted to avoid my usual desire to over-complicate things whilst Forging and purposefully tried to keep everything as simple and straightforward as possible, so, after deciding upon a key focal point (the Sword Shrine I constructed from the Forerunner structure), I was left with a very simple symmetric 2 Bases separated by a courtyard layout. Then I attempted to add some points of interest, again without over-complicating things, which resulted in some light bridges, elevators (of a sort), height variations, and man cannon access to the Sword and Bases. This map also supports Flood. Weapons (all weapons on map with the exception of the Energy Sword are regular classic Halo style spawning weapons) Mounted Machine Gun x2 (120 respawn) Energy Sword x1 (Ordinance Drop - 180 respawn) Rocket Launcher x1 (180 respawn) Sniper Rifle x1 (180 respawn) Shotgun x2 (150 respawn) SAW x2 (150 respawn) DMR x4 (90 respawn) Battle Rifle x2 (90 respawn) Assault Rifle x2 (60 respawn) Magnum x2 (30 respawn) Plasma Pistol x2 (30 respawn) Plasma Grenade x 4 (30 respawn) Frag Grenade x6 (30 respawn) Full level - side view Blue Base (both bases are all but identical) Blue Base - lower front view Blue Base Ground Floor - interior Blue Base 1st Floor - interior Blue Base 2nd Floor - exterior Blue Base 2nd Floor - front interior Blue Base 2nd Floor - rear interior Blue Base - Turret view Rocket Launcher Bridge Blue Base view from Rocket Launcher Blue side Teleporter Base Teleporter Base - overhead view Sword Shrine Sword Shrine - front view
I downloaded this, and it seems to be have some potential. However, I do believe there are some visual issues and presumed gameplay issues (take it with a grain of salt), as there is with every map. Aesthetically: The bases were absolutely pulchritudinous. The central structure seems to fit perfectly with the map. Kill Balls are unwanted in competitive maps. The Artifact Bases seem out of place and unnecessary. The light bridges, while looking very pretty, consume much of the budget, and they can be easily replaced with Brace, Larges. The Turret Monitor, Smalls on the bridges seem out of place and unnecessary. The Brace, Tunnels are a bit overused. The two Rock 4s in the side locations seem out of place. Gameplay-wise: The budget is 10,000/10,000, and combined with up to 16 players, heavy frame rate lag is inevitable. However, my suggested changes bring down the budget to just over 6,000/10,000. The Window, Coliseums provide too much protection for the bases, increasing linearity. The Sniper Rifles in the top of each base are in close reach of cover, have 2 spare clips, have a view of the entire map, and increase linearity immensely. The side locations provide little cover and increase linearity immensely. The Red Team has advantages over the Blue Team that are not compensated. It has a height advantage, more ground, and more cover (the Dish, Opens). Many of the spawns are facing walls. The Rocket Launchers on the bridge are very powerful, and they both have one spare clip. Overall, Ascension has potential, but it needs many changes and tests.
Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for the prompt critique and commentary and let you know that I've spent the past few hours working on everything you mentioned as a potential problem, or at least everything I agreed with (which was pretty much every word you said asides from the base window ...and that one is only because I have no better ideas for it lol), I'm currently trying to balance out the 2 bases, height wise and everything, and have replaced the light bridges with the suggested braces and dropped the spare sniper clip to 1 and the spare rocket clips to 0. and I had to break out a dictionary for 'pulchritudinous' ...never seen that word before in my life lol
That's good. I had some extra changes brought forth in my "version" of the map, but it did not download. Anyway, here are some more suggestions: The Sniper Rifles are in the perfect locations, and that is not good. The locations where they are placed have a view over nearly the entire map. This makes the snipers do a skill-less battle hiding behind cover and shooting at each other. The victor gets multiple easy kills on defenseless victims from above. Altogether, this encourages people to camp at their bases (for reasons of immense power for the victor sniper's team and protection for the loser sniper's team), and this is extremely frowned upon by competitive players for obvious reasons. Also, the top locations provides a sniping tower for all long-range starting weapons *cough cough* DMR *cough cough*, so I would suggest you block it off entirely and limit the bases to two stories, adding more depth and cover (outside of the Coliseum, Windows) to the base later. The mounted turrets have 160 degrees field of view, which is a little less than your head can turn. I would prefer that they be removed, their FOV is limited to only the center, or they are kept exactly the same (if you use my next pointer to block its lines of sight). Because you took some of my earlier suggestions, the budget is probably open to some new structures and LOS blockers. Use your own originality to spice up the sides of the map into something that blocks cross-map LOS, adds more pathways across the map, offers more segmentation, and looks aesthetically pleasing. This is a major change that requires deeper thinking, so please plan what you shall do beforehand. Get some testing on this; I may be completely wrong. There are still some slots left for the TCOJ lobby. If you want, you could add these extra suggestions into one version of the map and keep your second version of the map, so both could be played, and you could get the tester's opinions. Vacating the third story (keep it there but inaccessible if you think it has enough aesthetic value), placing depth and different cover to the bases, increasing the amount of pathways across the center, and adding map segmentation will generally remove linearity and give Ascension a new, clean, competitive shine in my opinion. lol
Okay, the updated file is on my fileshare and the download link has been updated, and I've also updated the screenshots. I've worked my butt off to try and address all the issues raised with the level design to the best of my abilities and hopefully I've answered most of those problems, but any and all feedback would be very much appreciated, thanks. ps since I didn't achieve in dropping my budget by much I lowered the max player count from 16 to 12 to try and address that issue too and I've also changed the weapon layout as you will see in the weapons listing on the map description.
i just would like to say that i think you have integrated your map with the forerunner structure on ravine very well , which is impressive as some people find it hard to work with a structure like that . it seems to have come out nicely , but there are some visual issues .