Competitive Halo ruins creative level design First of all, competitive Halo exposes all the problems with the game. The shitty weapon sandbox, the abusable spawn system, the ease of escaping, and the radar (which might be fixed soon) among others. To put it simply, when rank or money is on the line, people play Halo like absolute faggots. And this extends all the way back to Halo 2 as far as I'm aware. Therefore, this has conditioned players to expect the dullest, most sterile maps imaginable - maps that effectively play themselves or otherwise don't get in the way beyond being "balanced" for both teams - and anything outside of this stale palate completely throws them for a loop. I think we saw it first hand with H2A when the pros literally only wanted to play Midship clones because nobody wanted to learn anything new. While it makes sense for a 1v1 tournament to be played on a simple "final destination" style map, in the context of a multiplayer shooter meant to appeal to a variety of gameplay styles, the competitive mentality is the most determental for the game. I agree with @SaltyKoala in that Halo 5's maps aren't necessarily bad, but as a collective map pool meant to showcase the game, it's pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from Halo 4's. In that game, the maps were so bad that you couldn't take them seriously. But in Halo 5, the maps want you to take them seriously so bad that they don't try to do anything at all. Looking between the two, I still ended up playing and enjoying Halo 4 more, because watching a train wreck is more entertaining than watching an engineer tell you how safe his train is. Anyway, **** Halo etcetera
i'm just salty because apparently every problem with Halo 5 can be disagreed with as being a matter of 'opinion'. Like it's an opinion that abusable spawns are bad, or it's an opinion that a weak starting weapon is bad, or it's an opinion that being unable to punish players is bad, or it's an opinion that a lack of a diverse map pool is bad. The list goes on and each one has a defense force.
At first I didn't mind Forerunner maps at all especially since they used to be relatively challenging to create and impliment well along with the fact they were not posted every day, but ever since the H4 style Forerunner prefabs came out I feel like every other map is Forerunner themed and its starting to make me sick. Half the time they just spam the prefabs and coat them with colored boundaries/emmisives and it looks it ends up looking like an edgy gamer laptop that somehow impresses people. Make a UFO or something with the pieces instead a Shitheli map or another installation that looks the same as every other map. Do something different with the theme or use the pieces differently than other people do. Everyone on the customs browser is a braindead goldfish and I hate them all. Minigame forgers don't want to make games because all they play is Castle Wars and clan recruitment.
get a load of this guy^^^^^ lol. then make a castle clan recruitment map duh! with forerunner pieces.
FWIW, I share the loathing of Castle Wars in its current state, which is why I decided to remake it entirely with an eye of giving these kiddies something to play on that is actually well put together (not claiming to be an expert, but better than whoever made that POS) Just saying, sometimes the idea has merit, but poorly executed. WIP thread
Those Halo 5 pieces are spammed throughout campaign and they use them a TON in Wars 2 as well. It takes skill to use them creatively. Which is why I give props to Portaleer for successfully beating 343i and creative assembly with them.
I don't think puzzling with those pieces is creative skill at all. I prefer maps with zero pieces of that **** and still look Forerunner. Portaleer did great creating those maps sure but still looks awful to me. My 2 cents.