My Original Vision for Recurve

Hey ForgeHub. As many of you know, I'm the community level designer that was tasked with reimagining Longbow (now Recurve) during my visit to 343 Industries in September. I hope you are having a mostly positive and competitive experience in Big Team Battle, and now that the forge maps are officially released, I wanted to take a moment to share my original vision for Recurve. You may recall the purple WIP two-base map (the one with all the spartan parkour and pro jumps) from episode 4 of The Sprint below:






By the end of my week-long visit at 343, the original vision for Recurve evolved into the following design mass out (recreated in Maya):







My original vision included a thoroughly designed dual sniper engagement across the lower edge of the map, which was a huge part of my counter-play + movement incentive design from base-to-base and base-to-central structure. The sniper rifles were placed in positions with limited/situational power, which created movement incentive into the highly contested central structure to earn those dominant lines of sight into the enemy base/courtyard. The dual sniper engagement deterred flag movement along the lower edge of the map as well, thus encouraging more flag movement along the curve of the central structure.

The top bases were balanced by both the constant threat of enemy sniper fire + a complex, vertical, 3-leveled central structure with connections to both the inner and outer sides of the bases via curved vehicle/infantry paths. As you may recall from the spartan parkour sequence on The Sprint, the original base design had man cannons that launched players into the central structure. This was a big part of my initial movement incentive & heroism design, as the man cannon-landing pad interaction allowed for some super fast, vertical, and multi-directional big play opportunities across the courtyards. I originally had rockets placed at the top of the map as well, and skilled players could use their momentum from the man cannon to pro jump (thrust + stabilize + crouch) up to the third level of the central structure and make a big play on the power weapon.

In regards to vehicles, the original vision was designed to only support light vehicles (ghosts and warthogs). My original vision intentionally excluded fast, direct vehicle routes across the map, and instead directed all vehicle flow along the curving arms of the central structure & through the central structure underpass, which exited via one-way drop offs into the courtyards. This design created a travel time balance between infantry and vehicles for CTF, which eliminated the common "point of no return" experience on most BTB maps where the flag is basically a guaranteed cap once you pass the half-way point on the map.

The vehicle health system is super important as well, and was another key consideration with my original design. The multi-leveled, curving and winding nature of the vehicle circuit, which cut through the bases and central structure, was designed to keep vehicles moving fast and keep the occupants alive longer by systematically cutting off lines of sight as they moved--empowering vehicles in a faster, more directional combat role while simultaneous empowering infantry to move vertically to escape those directional encounters. If the gunner gets shot down, a driver with good understanding of the circuit can return to the base with minimal harm done to the vehicle, picking the gunner back up and re-entering the circuit from there.

I passed the design off to the 343 Multiplayer Team at the conclusion of my trip, and although the bases have been mostly preserved, the entirety of the original central structure, routes, flow, movement incentive design, and weapon/objective placement was significantly changed and iterated on after I left. Anyway, just wanted to share my original vision for the map, and I plan to rebuild something closer to the original vision for competitive games/tourneys on BigTeamBattle.net later on. Please let me know your feedback on the developer release of Recurve below, and I'll be sure to pass on what I can to the design and multiplayer team at 343 Industries!

-Kyle

 

@The Bilzo, hit me up on Skype

Updated OP with a few more images of my original vision from both Halo Channel content and my Maya build. Screenshots show the original bottom mid design, courtyard-to-courtyard LoS, and the 2nd + 3rd levels of the central structure:






The original central structure had a 3-story lift as well, and players could drop back down the shoot and use the thruster mechanic to exit on different levels. Was a super nerdy way to out-maneuver opponents and move both vertically & creatively through the center of the map.

 

I am highly critical of 343's reworked vision/version, and @Psychoduck did an amazing job of expressing our shared concerns in a respectful, honest analysis of the map. Structure design, movement incentive, verticality, empowerment, heroism, big-play design, travel time balancing, weapon/objective placement, and spawning are all difficult concepts to grasp and successfully implement. Level/game design is a never ending learning process, and it is very important that we remain respectfully critical of game developers so that they can continue learning with us.



@Mr Bouncerverse: That's the plan!