I know.

I don't understand why actually paying people for having the best map is called "rewarding" them, and "rewarding" people for participating in a lobby is called "paying" them. You have $1,000 in the prize pool. You can either split that up into three parts or you could split that up into 100 parts. Supposedly, no one is doing this for the money anyway, right?

Artists rarely, if ever, enter contests. Famous artists didn't get famous because their art won contests.

That hasn't been my experience, and I have a lot more experience than you. You never need to lose. In order to win you need everyone else to lose. With the contests that are run here, winning becomes statistically unlikely if the "regulars" are entered. If a new person enters they will probably lose, but not necessarily because their map isn't "the best". If they enter a lot, they will probably lose a lot. Is this a requirement for winning that wasn't mentioned in the criteria?

I'll take your word for that.

When I participated in sports no coach ever told me to study the best of the best. They made me work on my strengths and recognize my weaknesses. Do not presume that I am a stranger to winning.

The challenge was a "Ghost in the Shell" theme using Halo Forge assets. Doing a movie set for something not related to Halo using Halo parts. That's a challenge. It's hard enough to do Halo stuff in Forge

Alex did that. You folks just make fun of it because it's not a contest.

Again, all the good stuff you folks say you want happens in the testing lobbies. You say you have the contests to get people to jump in and submit maps, talk to each other about their maps, and have them scrutinized by staff. Picking three "winners" adds nothing to what has already happened.

I'd like to draw your attention to this map, and this map, which were done by people that love Halo. There was no contest involved. There was no prize to win. The people that did it have less experience using the game (Space Engineers) than most people that post their "worlds". Yet today they're two of the most popular SE downloads on Steam. The maps and all the vehicles seen in the videos and pictures were made, block by block (vehicles available separately) by players, so that you don't have to. As good as this stuff is, it wouldn't win your contests. By your standards, the maps are too big to play Halo on, even though that's what people do with them. Space Engineers is chock full of Halo fans, and it shows in the Steam workshop. Pillar of Autumn is probably one of the most remade ships in SE. Infinity has been done, but not to scale. Yet. It's not contests that get people to try these things, it's the possibility of success. If people perceive that there is even a remote possibility that they might succeed at making something cool, they'll try it. Help is not hard to get. Even the developers will help if you know how to ask. When people see great stuff then they know it can be done and they'll try it themselves, and usually try to go one better. Compared to that, "Make a 4v4 Slayer Map" doesn't really sound like a challenge to me. "Make a 4v4 Slayer Map That is Better Than The Usual Winners" sounds impossible, and probably is. "Make a 4v4 Slayer Map That We Will Like" doesn't seem to be worth the effort.

I remember years ago Pete the Duck made a Halo 3 map that had a train running through it. Back then most people thought it couldn't be done. After he did it, more people tried it, and things similar to that. Even though Halo 3 Forge sucks compared to Halo 5 Forge, more interesting things happened in Halo 3 Forge. Today it appears we are only looking for good looking 1v1 maps, and if (heaven forbid) there's a script in there it sucks for being "gimmicky". Better get that lighting right, though

You want to get the best out of people? Ask them to do something never done before. Ask them to push Forge's limits. Ask them to make their idea of a good map instead of yours.

Your contention is that a contest is the only way to get people to even try Forging. People don't Forge because they've been convinced that a 2v2 map is the only kind of map worth making and anything else will never be praised, featured, noticed or encouraged. That's not the community's fault. Fortunately, the community has found other ways to express their creativity that are much more rewarding. We definitely do NOT need a small chance at a giant cash prize to get us to Forge.

The only thing I ever wanted was for people to download my maps and have fun on them. That was pretty darn hard in Halo 4. My (brand new) Xbox was stolen about three months after the release of Halo 5, otherwise I'd be redoing all my maps. Since they're all BTB maps I don't worry about winning any contests I still believe people would like them.

The "competitive community" used to share strategies and teach other players how to play the game, and those were often ignored or debated by people who said "that's subjective" - likely the ones who had no experience playing the game at a high level just wandering into a discussion and disagreeing because of an emotional reaction. This is why those communities invest less time into it these days, especially with Halo. I mean, how many years are we going to argue that Sprint is bad for the game - which has been proven dozens of times - only for someone who knows jack to say "but I like Sprint! You guys should adapt!" Nobody has the patience for it anymore.

I am going to submit a grey square....

Adaptation works every time. If it doesn't work, then it isn't an adaptation. That is what these people were trying to tell you when you lost patience with them.
For me, the most frustrating part is that you actually ARE adapting. You have been adapting the whole time. Just, not very well.

Would it be possible to share the Team Arena settings or a link to an official description? Thanks.

Edit: Or even just what the difference is between Team Arena and Team Slayer? I am very unfamiliar with HCS settings as they frequently get updated each season.

@Foge @Ascend Hyperion @Sethiroth @Max Extra

Oh ****, a 4v4 contest! Color me excited.

Can I have some help from one of the judges before posting my map?

I am running 4-6 Test Lobbies a week from now until contest end.
Averaging 1-2 hours and 10 maps per stream so hit me up fellas and gals and we’ll get the maps tested as soon as we can.
Message me on XBL or submit them on the HSFN iForge Map Testing Thread On here

What?

Anyway @Alex Parsons and @Stardriver907 whatever you guys posted was too long to read but I hope this helps...

When I was new to the forge community, a rather nice chap by the name of Zandril, objectively laid it out to me why a map of mine was terrible. My initial emotional reaction went along the lines of "who does this guy think he his?... the map's fine!". It didn't take long to realize he was right however, and so I made a new map from scratch, abandoning the past version. I learnt to become less emotionally attached to what I create. Your maps aren't you, so don't take their flaws personally.

In the face of negative feedback you can take it personally, victimize yourself, and consider the community an oppressive entity that is out to tell you how bad a person you are, but you will probably find yourself struggling to improve. The only way to progress is to accept that in pretty much all areas in life, there will be people with more experience than you that you can learn from. Every great forger I know began with making shitty maps. The difference between those who become great and those who stay stuck is that great forgers don't take feedback so personally and can recognize the flaws in their work.

There is no biased corruption at work when maps from new forgers lose to maps made by experienced forgers. Lowering the contest parameters to make it 'easier to win' or 'fairer to newcomers' only hinders the chance of getting quality maps (and Halo 5 needs fresh solid 4v4 designs badly!). Newcomers will make worse maps than experienced designers, but through being open to criticism, new forgers can learn a lot more and faster than those they are learning from did.

Not 100% sure this applies to you specifically but I'd say these things are useful to bare in mind for anyone newer to forge who is considering contests.

@SgtSlaphead you seem to be under the impression that I am somehow ashamed of my maps. Let me assure you that I've never made a map I didn't like. My only problem is that I did most of my mapmaking in Halo 4 and it was difficult to get other people to experience them. I had plenty of friends because I had a high rank in H4 so people wanted to be around me, but it was difficult to get attention. For instance, I'm most proud of two different maps I made using all three islands in Forge Island. They both were Dominion maps, which were not part of the Forge Island contest. I can't really recall but it seems there was some sort of Dominion contest that my maps were somehow also ineligible for. If it were possible for me to enter those maps in some sort of contest today I would not hesitate, nor would I care if they won. I just want them to me seen and played on. Don't need any other incentive or prize than that.

Let me just say that at no time was I attempting to insinuate that this or any other ForgeHub contest was rigged. I don't believe that. More importantly, I don't care. The only point I was trying to make is that the contest itself is not what gets the community excited and spurs participation. It's the test lobbies. They could do the test lobbies with prize incentives, skip the contest, and accomplish the same thing they believe the contest does all on its own. However, this thread is about the current 4v4 forge contest and I have been warned to restrict my comments to that subject here.

I have never made a map that would meet the current criteria since I love BTB and pushing Forge's limits. I'm not a big fan of tournament play and I find making a 4v4 map to be too limiting. That makes me a square peg here. Some people live and die by what other people think about them. I learned a long time ago that people are going to think what they're going to think and nothing you do can change that so don't worry about it. That's why I fret more about having fun than "getting better". If ForgeHub continues to believe that contests are the true path then by all means they should continue to have contests, and if people believe that contests makes them "better" then by all means they should continue to enter contests. Never said contests were evil. The winners of this contest should be proud of themselves, and I mean that with all due sincerity. Don't worry about me or my self esteem, though. We're doing just fine

...so who is is charge of the results video this time?

that's subjective

It's all good. As I'd said, I hadn't quite read all of what you guys wrote, but for some reason what I did read made me want to write whatever I went on to say... who knows, I was tired at the time! I think you're right to point out that you shouldn't need money to create an incentive for all the objectives of this contest but frankly... Halo 5 plays like crap to most experienced designers so they need a little tempting to finish quality content, so far as I can tell.

Really though, played some Halo 3 yesterday... what have 343 done!?

If you're going to delete my posts and Stardriver's, then you should delete Goat's and SgtSlaphead's. They broke the same rule we did after the warning was given. We were only responding to them.

Goodness, you guys can’t complain about how the WAYWO was before it died after reading the giant heap of bullshit in this thread lol.

On topic tho, I was going to make a map for this but time just flys and unfortunately I haven’t even started and now I feel there isn’t enough time left now.