Dat Ravine. I hope H3 style Territories comes back because that'd make a helluva Conquest map location.
I'm veeeeeeery excited about the player trait zones. It's an ultimate way to pull of Journey Infection maps and forcing players to go where you want them to go. (Say, using the trait zones to slow down speed so it's not appealing to go over there, or actually making the humans a little bit stronger in a trait zone, so it's more appealing to go over there.) EDIT: Hm... maybe it wasn't so smart of me to comment that here. Don't steal my ideas guys!
The new forge details, mainly player trait zones and magnetism (so far) will be great for all new kinds of maps. I've always found the problem with Forge 2.0 is that they didn't actually add anything that changes what you can do with map, sure they added lots of cool features like co-ordinates and phasing, but those only make it easier to make maps, it was basically exactly like halo: 3 but more accessible. Didn't you notice that we never found another game mode like grifball in reach? That's because all the ideas had been produced already in halo: 3 and there was no more possibilities left without modding. Magnetism is similar in that it makes it more accessible, but it is definitely much better than co-ordinates anyway and will really speed up map creation and reduce sloppy forging, making the standard of the average map created much better. But player trait changes, now thats a game changer. There is all kinds of new possiblities now that things can change from one area to another, and I have a great feeling that the most adept forgers will work out ways to make entirely new effects and games just from small changes and mixed traits. Take something simple like king of the hill, you could now combine king of the hill with juggernaut, as in where you're in the hill you become stronger. And of course the gravity effects will make im sure for some amazing space battle maps. The most amazing thing I can think of is player traits can completely eliminate spawn trapping in objective game modes, those in spawn are stronger making spawn trapping almost impossible and giving all players a chance. Basically just these changes are going to make a real difference to map flow and possibilities. If someones good enough they could make something to rival grifball in popularity. It is amazing. Suddenly my respect for 343 has changed dramatically. EDIT: oh and remember those pesky spots that can appear in some maps where a player forces their way through to an out of bounds area and camps, making it almost impossible to get to them in games such as infection? That won't be a problem anymore, if they try to get their, limit them dramatically. Creating invisible and best of all non-kill boundaries. (If someone falls off the map this could be useful for getting them back up too.)
I already drew about 2 designs of slayer maps I would like to build in Halo 4, but we still don't know what to expect for the Halo 4 forge.
I'm a bit skeptical about the magnetism thing. While as an idea its great, what if I have it on, am trying to place an object next to a specific object in an area that I already have a crap ton of objects. Will it snap to the wrong ones? Who knows. Ultimately, not that huge of a complaint, and it is definitely a change that (should be) more beneficial than detrimental.
I plan on remaking some of the maps from reach that i never posted (there's about 10 of them)... they had major framerate issues that i hope will be fixed in halo 4... also i think that the new pieces and new designs on pieces will allow me to make them look even better. A new idea, (If invasion returns) is to have a battle on a spaceship, and part of it blows up and the artificial gravity fails and the entire thing becomes really low gravity.. feel free to take that idea though.. odds are i wont actually make it Also, is there still going to be coordinate editing?.. or did magnets replace that?.. If Coordinates are still in forge, magnetism seems pointless. i know there were a few objects that didnt line up exacly right, but any good forger can tap the bumper to get it right..
I think they mainly included it for your average Forger who isn't so good at hand-nudging. I think they also included it as an overall time-saver. Even for seasoned Forgers magnetism should still be a timesaver. Personally, I hate hand-nudging. It's just plain too clumsy, even with slow nudging (which by the way is awkward, since you have to hold the left stick the entire time). Handing nudging height with the bumper is especially annoying, because you lose the analogue pressure sensitivity that you have when using the sticks to nudge width & depth. Personally, I fail to see how magnetism could be pointless to anybody. Why bother constantly going into the coordinate menu, or slowing tapping the sticks and/or bumper just to get perfect alignment? Even pieces that already lock together perfectly via coordinate nudging can still benefit from this, as all it does is save time. I seriously doubt you could achieve perfect alignment with either coordinate or hand-nudging as fast as the magnet feature would allow. Personally, I think both systems are needed. If magnetism replaces coordinates entirely, we loose a degree of freedom. It would be as if Reach had forced rotation snaps on us, without giving us the option to turn them on and off. Rotation snaps save a ton of time in certain cases, while being a hindrance in others. I suspect that the magnet feature will be much the same.
I think remaking reach maps with changes to make up for the differences in gameplay will be a good starter.
Right now, the way forging works is somewhat of a skill to even properly place objects - well, in a decent amount of time anyways. Once we have some forging players who test out the map, then I will lay my judgement.
I foresee Anchor 9 being remade many times over. Just because of player trait zones. Heck I might do it first. With my own twist of course.
I'm gonna make an entire low-grav map just for you! But seriously, I tend to agree with you. They are terrible.
They've never been used in effective ways before. Every time, they cover huge areas that are exposed from multiple locations and you picked out of the sky. I could see them being used as cool alternatives to silent lifts, without having to use retarded one-way shields.
I hope you can set player trait zones to leech shields and health, so you could create a sort of radiation zone or other dangerous area for infection or other casual game.