Camber is a medium/large sized map featuring a central domed structure and a ramp-walled bunker at the map's center with the red and blue bases located at their respective ends of the map. I attempted to add a lot of visual interest to the structures. The ramp-walled structure at the center is perfect for full throttle vehicle jumps, while the dome is simply a pretty place to attain a rocket launcher from. The map seems a bit too small to call it a true BTB map, but I can see it playing ok as one. Weapons: (2) Sniper Rifle (one at red base, one at blue base) (1) SAW (Gold Base) (1) Shotgun (Green Base) (1) Rocket Launcher (inside dome) (2) x2 Frag Grenade (one near red base, one near blue base) (1) Energy Sword/Railgun (random ordnance drop on topside of ramped bunker) (4) Needler/Sticky Detonator/Scattershot (random ordnance drop, two on red side, two on blue) Vehicles (at each base): (1) Standard Warthog (1) Mongoose (1) Ghost (not pictured) I'd like to thank the great group from TCOJ who have helped me test out the map. It's been fun. Sorry, I haven't drawn up a CAD plan of it yet. This'll have to do. Red Base at far left, Blue Base at far right, Gold Base at top, Green Base at bottom Red Base: Blue Base: Gold Base (Sniper nests have been removed): Green Base: The Dome: Dome Bunker: Ramp Structure: Ramp Bunker: Hog Jumpin': Download Camber
Lighter text please. I like your use of curves. I'm tempted to judge this as too open because it's in the same spot as Settler.. but at the same time I feel like it's legitimately too open.. Not sure what to think yet.
Wow. Very impressive use of curved walls. I like the looks of the bases, I'm glad you didn't just use "bunker, rounds" for red and blue base. Gold base looks great for filling in that gap in the landscape. Green base is, of course, the centerpiece with that fancy dome. Let me emphasis again how nice this map looks; it's clear you spent a lot of effort making everything look put-together. I went and wrote a little critique before I realized you probably aren't looking for a third-party analysis at this point. Here it is anyways, in case you find anything useful. Spoiler The potential problems I can spot are not really your fault (vehicle characteristics and canvas map size/limitations), but are potential problems nonetheless. Vehicles - From the looks of things, vehicles have little space to maneuver. The strip of land that goes by green base appears to be the only reliable alternative to taking the ramps, making vehicle usage overall predictable. Vehicles, part II - Vehicles are at an all time low in Halo 4 -- at their weakest (vehicle health and warthog turret accuracy/overheat) in a time when players spawn in at their strongest (plasma pistol and grenades out of spawn, DMR, personal ordnance). Coupled with the low amount of maneuvering options making vehicle usage predictable, I see vehicles being impotent on this map. If vehicles are recognized as having little worth, players will move to on-foot approaches, where the open nature of the map may make for poor flow. Ramp - The ramp appears risky. If players end up discombobulated too often, they may eschew its usage. Given the lack of many alternatives (the path by green base is all I see, maybe the one between green and gold base if in a Ghost of Mongoose), players may even abandon vehicle play, as above. Suggestions: Remove the Green base upper structure and redesign to permit more vehicle traffic. The Standard Hogs are nigh useless nowadays (observe their forsaken state on many an Exile match). Replace them with Gauss or Rocket Hogs. These are just suggestions. There may be alternatives that allow the green base to remain as-is. Maybe transplant the structure for use in a different map (it does, in my opinion, compete for attention with the ramps). Or leave it. You've playtested the map. I just looked at pictures (very good ones though). Inspiring design, again. I will have to expand on my use of curved walls to make unique structures. (You must be using one of the dark skins; the light text in your post needs to be highlighted in order to be read easily on the light skin. Suggest you edit that.)
Sorry about the text having been too light. I specifically went in and set it to the default color so it would appear light gray on the dark skin and black on the light skin. Something must've messed up and I didn't set my skin to light in order to ensure it was correct. Thanks for the helpful feedback. I did consider the issues you brought up, and kind of settled where the map currently is. I've revised the Green base since I made the screenshots to allow a warthog to just barely squeeze through the upper path. It is a bit risky to use the vehicles over the ramp, mostly because the hog usually almost comes to a stop when landing on the other side. I've done it enough myself that I can keep it moving upon landing, but it does take practice. There seemed to be a good mix of on-foot and vehicle usage in the tests, but your critique seems valid. The rocket hog may be a good fit. I can't remember if we ever tested it out, but In my other map, we found the rocket hog to be more useful than the basic hog and not too overpowered as the gauss hog was.
I figured most of that stuff had already occurred to you, since it's all pretty obvious. I imagine this map playing much better in regular Slayer or CTF, with forced loadouts. I just now noticed in your sig. that you're responsible for Arcusphere as well (another map that surprised me with what can be accomplished with forge's pallet). That was the first thing this map reminded me of, with that curved dome building. Was this map built so that you could use a structure similar to Arcusphere's in a BTB setting, or did you just want to make a BTB map on Ravine and decided the dome made a good fit there? Anyways, I'll definitely download this one once I have access to my 360 again.
When I made Arcusphere for Halo Reach, I did a pretty extensive study of domed and arched structures. I had begun a map with a very similar dome in Reach, but the rest of it never came together. I had wanted to incorporate this smaller dome into a 4v4 to BTB size map for some time, and this just felt like it worked out for Camber. I may try to integrate something similar into a future map if I think it will fit better. We'll see.
I'm glad to see this is finally published. Downloaded a fresh copy to make sure mine is up to date! I suggest others do the same. This is probably the best mostly open-space map on Ravine!!
The use of the ramps and the Round Rocket launcher spawn are aesthetically pleasing. Not too sure if the ramps would be good gameplay wise as you would have to land it but it sure looks awesome. As mentioned above it is pretty wide open for parts so maybe the addition of crates/rocks/another base would fix this problem as getting to the middle area through no-mans-land wuld be hard when warthogs and such are shooting at you.