I spent ages trying to politely word constructive feedback on these maps. then I decided that i could not be bothered If I force fed my dog with a bunch of forge blocks and then made her puke, the resulting foul smelling lump would still be better than some of these maps. One or two are passable. Ziggurat and enclosed were reasonably good fun IMO.
I basically agree with everything that's been said so far. It's disappointing that Bungie's first go at a community playlist has such foul specimens as Elevation included at all, because it reflects poorly on their ability to pick appropriate winners for Forgetacular, regardless of the fact that this playlist and the contest seem tangentially related at best. On the other hand, I think Aspirocity and Enclosed have some good ideas, although like the others they are rough around the edges.
It's not that Bungie thought that these maps are the best designs, it's that all of the well designed maps are very sophisticated and failed Bungie's tests. Bungie probably doesn't think these are spectacularly amazing designs, but they are probably the best of the bottom of the barrel. Framerate/perforamce problems are a plague that will stop every map you guys are rooting for from winning this contest or getting into matchmaking. You have to do simple stripped down designs, there's no way around it. Genome isn't that complex, visually, and it failed the same tests these maps passed. Somewhere between these maps that got included and Genome is the level of object density you can safely use.
So while in Optimatch forums I didnt bawk up Forge Hub, but sure did mention that Bungie has an Affiliate that focuses soley on Forge and that it would have been beneficial to have that kind of help when putting a Community Forged playlist out to the public. Lets face it, FPS gamers are competitive and angry so it doesnt pay to put out maps all willy-nilly and Bungie has Tons of help here if they wanted it...... Hopefully they learned something. And yeah, you guys make MUCH BETTER MAPS than what this playlist contains, hands down. Hooray for Forge Hub!!!!
Ladnil, sorry if there's already a link to this somewhere, but how did you find out Genome failed the performance requirements? It actually doesn't surprise me that Genome failed; I assume custom flooring is the deathblow for floating maps. Edit: Just played Reverence, I thought it was OK.
Killa KC (MLG gametype designer) sent it to Bungie and they told him it failed due largely to object density.
From what I played of this, and from the pics of the other maps in the playlist, (I gave up after three games) every map is almost impossible to navigate without use of a jetpack. Without jetpack, I seemed to be confronted with no multitude of paths around every corner, but rather just the option to jump down to the ground, after which with the advantage of height forfeited, I had no way to get back up to a walkway. Halo is built on open spaces to strafe which I think enclosed, unlike any other one of the maps, executed well. Although Enclosed lacked any sort of cover or vertical interest, it should make a perfect SWAT map.
I had the misfortune of giving this maps a fair shake and playing through the community playlist several times. Endzeit As someone mentioned, it is "essentially Atom." In fact, I would go as far as to state that they deleted parts of Atom and built atop of it as a canvas, as the rock wall is largely (if not fully) intact. The map design is extremely similar (the underside of each base is nigh identical), a center building, etc. While it is infinitely better than Atom in terms of balance and overall gameplay, it is still an incredibly horrible map. The sniper rifle spawns low on the map, which feels counter-intuitive to halo reach tradition, that is map makers have typically put the rifle somewhere on the map that feels high or out of place to get to. But that is not at all an issue here. My main concern with the sniper rifle placement is you can grab it and dash into the building RIGHT next to it, grab the shotgun and camp in there. Several players even used active camo and sat waiting for kills. The other issue is the base design. Each map has a rather arbitrary pillbox that serves to see...the other pillbox. They are admittedly neat-looking (imo) but they are useless and deathtraps should you spawn in your base while the other team is storming it, which happens constantly. Worse yet is the ability to jetpack up to the inordinately-high structure above each base and sit there comfortably without fear of a death barrier. Several times snipers went away to that safe haven and could even drop down and assassinate unwary passers-by down below. I died several times to this cheap trick, thinking my team had taken care of the twit up above. The grass area closest to the edge was the only area I didn't really take issue with, but I didn't really go over there much either in between my arbitrary deaths. Few people, on the several games I had on this map, used the middle walkway, and even fewer used the dead end over shotgun spawn that connects to the rock wall. Poor map is poor. Obsidian Good lord this map is horrible. It looks nice at first glance. The deceptively-busy center seems like it'd afford nice lines-of-sight (or breaks in it), except it's a total deathtrap that will get you killed should you have the idiotic notion to step in it. Every time I ran in, or a teammate ran in (or hell even the opponent ran in) they were dead within 5 seconds as anyone from any point on the map could see them (and if not, move two steps to either side to solve the issue). The sniper spawn in top-mid would be the saving grace, as it requires some running to get to, if not for the hulking building that lies just in front of it. Someone with a jetpack can grab the sniper-rifle, fly up to the roof of the building, and camp there safe from enemy attacks and grenades, and that's exactly what happened several times. The interior of the building is no better, I believe the shotgun spawns on the third level, and if it didn't, teams camped there frequently with it regardless. You need to run down seemingly-long, narrow walkways to get to that level of the building if you don't want to take the broken lift that can sometimes send you straight back to the second level through a power-overshoot. Oh and the bases are bare and afford no cover. Asiprocity, Capacitor, Elevation Did not play these. Enclosed By far the only decent-to-good map in the playlist. Lines of sight, weapon spawns, player spawns and balance were all on par. I only had a few qualms with it. The center (both the top building, and the rocket spawn) really didn't see any action when I played through them, nor do I see any real point behind going down there. The building is packed with explosives, which is odd, but I did, however, like the side-ledges that allow you to walk alongside the building. The sniper rifle spawn is obscured by the rail it's on, I passed by it several times before someone pointed it out to me. Easily fixable. It was actually a fun map to play. Reverence Back to the bad. This map has spawns that are backed by nothing, thereby allowing you to fall into the abyss that is the death valley below. You can see the other team straight off of spawn (which isn't much of an issue until you realize that the primary respawns are on top of the bases as well). The base interiors are neglected and rarely see action, which would be rectified if they were more accessible, as the immediate area around them is a death trap and a temporary safe haven would be very, very nice. The central pyramid-like structure that you look through to see the other base is hardly used, and with good reason, on either side of each entrance are two deadly-explosive power cores. With only the front push to the base ahead (which, again you can see players spawn at) and the way you just came the only way out of the deathtrap, the "central" most direct route from each side is much more useless than it should be. Thus, the side-route becomes the main way to travel, and it's decent. Play here is generally balanced, but if you back up a little too far, you die. There are also dead ends for the teleporter receiver nodes from the bases, which (if I'm not mistaken) also have respawn points that place the unfortunate people that spawn there directly in the warzone. Next to this route are the two odd ramps that each house needlers. (The only good point about this map is that it is the only one I've seen that allows for the effective use of the needler.) They're not necessarily bad areas but I found it quite odd that these ramps require you to jump out of them to get to the side route I just mentioned, when a simple, uncovered ramp or (makeshift one made of blocks) would allow direct access. This map isn't nearly as bad as Endzeit or Obsidian, but it's not that good either. However, I did enjoy the multitude of assists and needler double kills I got on it. Thrust Easily the dumbest map of the lot. I say dumbest because it is a shoddy remake of MLG Onslaught (at least I think it's Onslaught, didn't play MLG much in Halo 3 but I do recognize the map design). First off. There's hardly any cover in the central area, which was fine in Halo 3 because the map was smaller if I remember correctly. The dimensions of this map are huge, too widespread. Walkways are retarded. Going up those side walkways to get to the center takes forever, you LITERALLY have to walk around the perimeter of the map. There's no way to get from the ground floor to the middle without having touched one of the bases. Actually I think that was an exaggeration, but the jump to get to the walkway is literally right next to the base. Oh and there's those little beams in the center, but nobody in the games I played used that. A shitton of Z-fighting in each base, pretty odd for a map Bungie picked considering their past stance on the issue. Also, Titmar noted there were hard kill barriers on top of each base, which is odd, soft kill would be better, and Mickraider noted the use of camo-pickups for lighting instead of the forge light objects (those were used as random-color lighting on the side walkways). The teleporters below the walkways were life-savers, and either were really well-used or are cheap. Getting shot on one side, dip into the teleporter, getting shot there, head back through the two-way. Ugh. Ziggurat *****-ible. This map is 90% walkways with one center area. Absolutely horrendous. The walkways are narrow and keep you locked in on your path, no lateral movement is afforded. The hodge-podge weapon set seems like the creator just picked weapons he liked using and assumed it'd balance itself out. The absolute WORST facet of this map, and it requires bold lettering: There are dead-ends on this map. Not only dead ends, because a few other of the maps in the playlist used them (but not as incredibly bad as here, which is why it's being noted), mancannons direct you to them. There are two mancannons near the initial spawns that propel you across the map from one corner to the next. The problem is, you land well past the only ramp out of that area, and facing the other direction toward a dead end where there's a health pack and a grenade launcher. Should you use common sense and believe "hey, this window here is open and there's a ledge over there, maybe it was meant to be a secret jump" similar to the obvious jump from outside bottom-yellow in guardian, to the blue room, you'd be dead wrong. There's a room above the center that is only accessible via teleporters, and allows you to glance down at the grav lift spawn. The map creator was blessed with foresight, as he preemptively put a one-way door facing down, either to keep people from jetpacking up (and thus only being able to use the death-trap teleporters) or just to look cool. The only part of the map that had me thinking "that's an okay idea" was the center, as you can't see who's approaching from any other angle as there's a giant hill in front of you, upon which the grav hammer spawns. Not an optimal situation at all, but there were quite lengthy fights in the center as a result. Still, horrible, horrible, nightmarishly-bad map.
Whether you actually used the word Forgehub or not it doesn't matter. Forgehub is the most popular forging site there is. Bungie, and I'm sure many other people, know what it is. Yes we've got some good forgers on the site but that doesn't give us the right to ***** and moan when a map made by a member isn't accepted by Bungie. We've gotten into trouble with Bungie for complaining that our maps are better than everyone elses. Don't go a get the site an even worse reputation. Now onto the maps. I've played about four or five different maps in this playlist. All of them were better than I expected seeing as this whole thread killed any positive expectations I had for these maps. Reverance and Enclosed are my favorites as of now. Reverance has some spawning issues and I can't remember much of Enclosed except for the fact that it wasn't as bad as Ziggurat, which is my most hated map out of all of them.
has anyone noticed that Endzeit is supposed to be mirrored symmetry, as the bases are the same and they have the same access to neutral points, but he forgot to flip one of the base designs?
I'm actually embarrassed for Forge Hub, after reading your posts... and quite honestly appalled by your posting in Optimatch. All it does is reflect poorly on this community and makes us look like our members think they're all high and mighty. Anyone with half a brain knows exactly which affiliate you were referring to. Basically your message sounded like, "These maps sucks. Forge Hub has God-like maps." You may not have necessarily said that, but that's what it came off as to me.
So far, I've only played Aspierocity, but it was so terrible as to be offensive. Judging from what everyone's saying, the other maps are just as terribad, so I'm staying outta that playlist until next week. A map that bad, with a name like that... I'm personally offended. D:<
Well that's extremely sad. So really, aside from customs we probably won't see any non-simple maps? I want to see what else they put into this playlist before I get too nasty, but if its really just going to be platform/bridge maps...... then that's lame-ass.
im just gonna throw this out there: if i have to make a boring map to get into MM, ill stick with customs. having a map isnt that important to me that i'd be willing to sacrifice my "creative signature," so to speak, on my map.
My 2 cents: Yes the maps are ****, yes I will be staying out of that playlist until the next round of maps. And I'll probably go in to those maps with the same intentions I did these. For shits and giggles and pure laughs at how bad they are. Just like on here back in the later days of Halo 3, all the really good maps were over run and pushed back by the ungodly number of poo. I'm not a big fan of matchmaking in reach and only really venture into it when doing challenges or with a party. I've had games on ALL the maps where power weapon whoring, spawn camping, even frame rate lag cause the fun I am having playing the game to suffer immensely.. Hell I just had a game of BTB on Paradiso with Timar and Dropbounce where our team had 11 kills. 11 ****ing kills to the other teams 100. Simply because they were spawn camping with the tank and banshee. Any map that allows that kind of cuntiness is just useless. So I mostly stick to customs. Except no one, even here, seems to be doing customs just for custom games sake. It's always map testing. And to all those that say these maps are more or less the same, so are a good chunk of the ones I've been in on testing. Layouts might be different, weapons on map might be different, doesn't stop them from feeling the same. Mostly enclosed gray boxes. So no we are not better or different from any other forger in the game. We just have a stricter self imposed and ultimately unimportant set of rules for how we as a community think a map should be. Which to me is the reason most of the maps are the same.
i was ****ing HLG pro on that match, only 2 deaths!!! they were like where is he and i was like pffffft
You'll be happy to know that my first experience in the playlist equated to this: Get Slayer on Endzeit, push forward trying to learn the ground level, see a Sniper and go for it, dude pops out of said building and (you guessed it) I got a shotty to the face. He then proceeds to go inside and do exactly as you said. I have to say though, for all its problems I probably prefer it to Atom simply because it allows for a little more open movement. The ground level is a bit more useful since there are more varied and extensive lines of sight and it doesn't suffer from the over-saturation of walkways (and the fact that they are the only useable positions due to their height and lack of any useful LoS down low) to the same extent as Atom. Still, seeing as I really dislike Atom this probably shouldn't be taken as anything like an actual compliment.
I played this playlist for some time last night to see the maps and get some daily challenges out of the way. Suffice to say, I'm not happy with the maps at all. Sloppy forging. Z-fighting everywhere. Poor design on many of them and bland, uninspired design on almost all of them. Lacking kill zones where they need to be yet at least one map had a really horrible and intrusive kill zone that made it really annoying to jet pack on. Speaking of jet packs, some maps are absolutely DOMINATED by them because you can easily fly to places no one else can reach, and DMR from up there with near-impunity. Spawn points facing into walls or the sides of ramps. The fixed grenade launcher. etc. I got plenty of kills but I didn't enjoy playing on any of these. In fact I can safely say any time I've gotten into a play-testing group of three or more maps from ForgeHub or MLG members, I've played at least one map better than any of these. Hopefully this playlist will see a huge evolution going forward and these crummy maps will be ditched. On the evidence of these it seems like their main map-selecting criteria are no performance issues at all and the map must require basically zero thought to understand. Almost any of these was easy to play if you just started with a jetpack and zipped up to one of the dominant pieces of high ground.
QFT. Hopefully all that happened at Bungie was the same that happens here. All the decent/good maps get pushed back by all the poo; and that these maps were all just the last minute submissions that Bungie tossed up to keep us quiet while the rummaged through the rest.
I suppose it's also possible that Bungie threw these up to verify that these were the types of maps that the community did not want to see in playlists. They may have already said "no" to these maps, but just wanted to back up their decision by seeing what the community thought.