Map development is hard. Map design...well not really - certainly not if you know what you want, or you're doing something unambitious. Torque took a year to make and we don't need to guess where most of the work on that map went, because it definitely wasn't the layout. This is the last playable map I made and I'm happy with this design. That is the original (outdated) macro sketch that I did in 10 minutes and my peers helped me throw micro geometry at it until it made sense. Most people who have seen or played it have said it's one of the best 2v2 maps in the game. I didn't release it because the list of compromises began to add up. We really only have 1100 pieces to work with before performance drops, and 100 of mine were going into skybox to hide the ugly canvas and cast shadows on the map. I rebuilt it over a dozen times to budget it - two of them were to change the shade of orange on the vines, and two of them were because the resolution of the fog changes depending on where you build on Glacier. Like, really? Most people don't even care about that, but I do. It's not enough to build a map and play on it to me; it has to feel like I have been transported to another world, and pixelated fog takes me out of that. Unfortunately for me, most of my maps ran into those development problems. So when 343 comes out and says they are going to nerf the utility weapon because people don't want to use the other weapons they made, it's a big turnoff. That is a problem with their sandbox design that they still haven't figured out how to fix because they don't want to admit that Halo doesn't need 4 primary rifles. Playing on maps was always satisfying, but Halo hasn't been worth taking seriously since 2011 for reasons like that, so it was never a priority for me. Forge has been a great artistic outlet - which was only possible thanks to the good work a very small team did on it - but it just doesn't make sense to wait for the rest of the developers to figure out what they're doing with their game when I already know what I'm doing with my maps.
why even play video games when you hate 90% of everything that releases? imagine how much money you could save.
might as well throw my two cents in forge is the only reason i bought this game (a few weeks ago, at that). multiplayer is what i play occasionally, and only then i play forged maps, because those are infinitely better looking and better designed then all the dev maps combined.
also im thinking about making a team/ffa minigame called Laser Tag, set inside a generic neon laser tag arena. Everyone has beam rifles, any hit kills, 50 pts for body shots and 75 for head shots. if that doesn't already exist
Not criticizing, just curious for your thoughts Goat - isn't a big part of design solving problems within constraints? And within game design especially, solving problems within performance constraints is a constant reality. For example, people who make their maps so pretty that it's not performant - their players can't even experience the art unless it's in a screenshot. But if they never make that map, then the players can't experience the art at all. I guess I'm saying that I view level design, including art, as a sliding scale between artistic vision and performance - and our job as designers is to pick the spot in the middle that maximizes player experience. Up above though, you gave the example of "1100 pieces isn't enough to implement my vision" - the way I framed that, you're saying "there's no spot on this sliding scale that I'd be happy with as a designer." I think there's definitely a place for saying "this isn't good enough for my vision" (extreme example) - but you made maps in Halo Reach. H5's Forge objectively allows you to give a better experience than Reach's Forge even with all the lighting hoops we have to jump through, but you're saying there's still too much of constraint. How come? Also curious around the same kind of theme around the sandbox as a constraint - Obviously, you really don't like Halo's sandbox - but you can't really separate a game's mechanics/elements from its levels - levels are where the sandbox gets implemented. And in the industry, it's gotta be a small studio to have the level designers be the same people as the sandbox designers. If, as you say, you're viewing Forge primarily as an artistic outlet and don't actually ever want to make maps playable because the sandbox is so distasteful, I get that. But I know you spend a lot of time tweaking sightlines and taking into account... well, quality level design which includes the sandbox. tl;dr - Don't you feel like you're bypassing key design challenges by selectively ignoring constraints, or is it more important to just get what you want out of Forge/Halo as a creative outlet? I respect the hell out of having high standards and sticking to them. I just tend to view Forging as practicing end-to-end level design, so I think I'm coming at it from another paradigm. Curious as to your thoughts.
is there a way to change scoring for head vs body shots? Hpoefully thee is a setting in game settings, cuz scripting it would probably not be possible.
i dont know about anyone else, but i actually dont buy 90% of what releases. with the exception of forge and horizon, i havent “played video games” since october, and i havent even forged since january.
I remember in MCC, one could change the scoring for headshot kills over bodyshot kills. I would assume it's still possible, but if it's not... it would kind of ruin it.
mainly directed at people who still purchase games just to ***** about them, i dont mind people having high expectations for a game, but if you know you wont like it, dont buy it and spare everyone else the circle jerking
The way I see it, game design is how you want it to look, to play. The layout, the concept, the idea. But the game development is making that real, possible. And from Goat's story about how they met problems again and again, it wasn't his fault. The map played great, the layout, the idea, was intact. But the system itself made it impossible to reach the point that Goat was happy with.
****. You finished Queen's Veil! Or is it close enough playable? I need to actually get on my Xbox again. Edit: I should have actually read the whole thing. Playable but not "complete"
"Choose the right principles, enforce them creatively. Never compromise then. And use common sense" Yep that's sound like that's literally all there is to design. Even if it was only that, that's not as simple as it sounds is it? Haven't you got your nose up your arse acting like you know everything and everyone else is an idiot. Maybe you thinking you know everything was just as much a reason for your job offer being rescinded as all the anti 343 propaganda. To assume literally everyone that work there is an idiot is unfair. I wish you had got the job so you could experience the hate for yourself and maybe you could loosen up a little and just enjoy games for what they are.
Most of what I posted was "designed" or playable and was either being rebuilt or redesigned. But the amount of work it takes to rebuild them in Halo 5 is disproportionate to actually wanting to play them in Halo 5. I had two maps that needed to be redesigned after I discovered the art I wanted. The first one got file glitched and wouldn't save, so I would have had to prefab everything in chunks and move it to a brand new file. The second got physics glitched and it was literally unplayable because Spartans turned invisible and everything happened in slow motion. But whatever I'm not in the business of making excuses. Forge was fun, but my passion is storytelling, not level design, and it doesn't make sense to explore that through a game editor where I'm constantly "deleting scenes".
I can respect that. Regardless I've always been a fan of a lot of your levels. Obviously mostly for the art
Enjoy games for what they are, which is compromised garbage with no creativity or integrity. Maybe instead of bending over for every developers dumbass decisions you should actually use your head and realize that most things in the industry can be done much, much better. At some point you, and every other complacent gamer needs to realize what you're losing. The fact that you or anyone else finds my critique of a AAAA Developer for not doing their job offensive is mind boggling to me. How whipped does someone have to be to not just accept mediocrity, but defend it. Regardless, you'll all see soon enough what you've been missing out on.
If you have a solid and consistent vision and the talent to translate it, design is easy. Or rather, the challenges you face during design are easier to overcome because your guidelines are flexible and smart. Developing that vision will always be the challenge because that is when you work with limitations and constraints, whether they are technological, resource-based, or just your own skills. 343's sandbox design has nothing to do with their budget or their engine. Maybe it takes them a while to change the game because of the engine (like Bungie), but they are still making conscious decisions when they do. And that applies to everything. It was a conscious decision to have Master Chief appear in 3 levels of the Campaign. As a player, it doesn't matter to me what challenges they faced when building the Campaign because that story shouldn't have made it into development to begin with. When they talk about how hard Spartan Abilities were to make, I don't care because they ruin Halo's predictable gameplay. Does it matter what they had to do to get Warden Eternal working when we have to fight 7 of him? All of that is design related. I would always create extensive documents listing design goals for any map I started. I usually hit those goals in rough versions, or I at least hit a point where things needed to be redesigned and I couldn’t figure it out at the time. Back in Reach, playing on the maps in custom lobbies and getting them into matchmaking was the reason I forged, and so solving those problems was a more exciting part of the process. Those reasons changed over time, and the more ambitious those maps became, the more the engine pushed back. Naturally I stopped finishing things. I don't think I was even doing level design in Halo 5 anymore by the end of it. The last map I worked on was basically a Campaign Hub, and when I noticed I was setting aside a budget for props that were essential to the atmosphere, it dawned on me. Why am I trying to play this in Halo 5? But again, I'm not interested in making excuses anymore. I heard the scripters recently figured out how to get health pickups to work. If there was an old school gametype around last spring, it would have been cool to design maps just for the sake of playing in that gametype. But there's nowhere on that scale I would be happy releasing something in Halo 5. The future is Unreal.
At a certain point, I just accepted it was more cost efficient to do it with an actual editor. I just wish i accepted it sooner and traded in my xbox for a PC. Seriously. https://www.instagram.com/unrealengine
forge is more of a creative outlet for me then anything else. im not a real developer, but i must say that using this editor is much easier than that (i would assume). Obviously you will get a better end product from a real game developing engine. but halo 5 forge isn't a game making engine. its a map editor in a twenty dollar game for the xbox one. edit: if ur looking for a good map editor, ive heard the far cry 5 has a pretty good one
to try to bring this discussion closer to the actual topic, i'm thinking of making a minigame. LASER TAG i sketched it out edit: each square is 16x16 i might want to make the map a lot bigger