Novus This is my first released map Novus, although it is the second that I have built, the first Apollo is still being tested. Novus is a symmetrical arena style map built primarily for 4v4 and 5v5 team based games, such as Slayer, Multi-flag, and Assault. It has gone through a number of changes since its early conception. Much of its original inspiration came from The Pit, but it has slowly moved away from that, but should still remind you of it in some ways. That being said this was designed to be a good competitive two team map, much like The Pit was in Halo 3. The map was designed to not allow jet pack to become overpowered, hence why there is a roof on the map. The map has been built with almost 3500 left in the budget, and I have never had performance issues. I figure you're not here to read my babel, so here is the weapons and pictures. Weapon/Equipment List: Rocket Launcher x 1 (180s) {1} Grenade Launcher x 1 (90s) {2} Shotgun x 1 (120s) {0} Sniper x 2 (120s) {1} DMR x 4 Needle Rifle x 4 Plasma Repeater x 2 Needler x2 (60s) Mounted Machinegun x 2 (150s) Sticky Grenade x 4 Health Pack x5 Pictures: Overview, without the roof Initial Spawn Area (center of the base) Red Health Pack viewed from center of the base Red Health Pack viewed from outside of the base From red health pack to Green side Red Snipe, and lift viewed from center of the base Red snipe viewed from outside of the base view in front of red base blue sniper to shotgun spawn Shotgun spawn to blue base Top Center top center to blue sniper/central base entrance From top center to top green Bottom Center Green Tunnel to bottom center Tunnel, teleporter bottom green teleporter exit, top green turrets looking across middle Blue tower looking into blue objective/initial spawn Blue tower looking into center (thumbnail) I want to thank all those that have helped me test, and given me suggestions/ideas for improving game play. Thank you to the Testers Guild for testing for me. I would list out everyone, but I will not because I do not wish to forget anyone since the list would be quiet long, but thank you. If you are looking for custom's and map testing, come join the Monday/Tuesday Custom Game Night, hosted by GrenadeGorilla, Zell Greyback, and Nutduster, the link is to this coming weeks CGN. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback I would love to hear from you. I will update the map as needed to make it the best game play experience possible. Thanks for viewing.
Enjoyed playing the map the few times i did, and i like the additions you've made to it. Plays nicely and is really fun with CTF.
Very nice map. Downloaded it and will check it out tonight. Love the sky light - I wish more people used the grid like that!
This is a very nice map, but the grid kind of takes away from it. It seems like a lazy way to block off the roof. You could add kill zones outside of the area of play. I think that would clean up the map a bit. Other than that small problem the map looks great. It has a lot of color and looks like it would play very well.
I of course always knew that the roof would be disliked by some, maybe liked by a few. I have tried a number of things before settling on the current grid roof. The first was coliseum walls which certainly gave it the gray box feel. Without a roof, jet pack's roam free, breaking the flow, and making it to where you really need overhead cover in a number of areas. 10 seconds is quiet a bit of time, and is plenty of time to gain an advantage. A roof has a few other advantages as well, such as grenade bounces, and keeping jet packs from being immune to rockets. Overall I didn't want to see it become like cliffhanger where some games all there is, is a steady wave of opponents just flying over your head coming at you. Thanks for the feedback, hope it plays well for yall, and I'd appreciate any more feedback that I can get, especially after a game on it.
forged through your map last night and liked it a lot. But so that my very short sentence of appreciation is not viewed as spam by some mods here at FH (can you believe that?), I also want to tell you that your respawn zones for CTF are useless, since they are covered by a team respawn zone. Also, you use weak zones overlapping, which is fine, but you are raising the possibility of a player spawning in the overlap area (where the two weak zones intersect) to where the spawn engine will use those spawn points even when it would otherwise think that area is too dangerous due to an enemy presence. It is fine, if that is what you want; I just would not do it. But again, nice map...
I loved playing here, my only problem was with the grid, I felt it was ugly and unnecessary. A hard kill zone where the grid is now along with a lower soft zone should send a message to jetpackers not to go up high. If this is a problem you could just hard kill zone the spots you don't want them to land and raise the big kill zone higher. Once again, great map man!
Ah, I've played on this map. Overall, the gameplay was extremely smooth and I really liked all of the different height variations. Weapons weren't overpowered and the spawning was very well done. Although I'm not a fan of using a grid in a forge map whatsoever, it seems you had to do it in order to make the map. Gameplay really made up for that. Great job man.
This is definitely one of my all time favorite arena maps. It works well with small teams and big teams as well. The bases are well designed and I love all of the small strategic platforms that make the map feel so much more refined. I cant wait to get a big group together and play it again.
Well first I wanted to say thanks to everyone for the comments, I'm glad to hear that some people are enjoying the map. @MrGreenWithAGun, Thanks for giving it a forge through, those ctf zones you found I thought that I had removed many versions ago. They were for simple testing of ctf before any other spawn zones were put down, and those will be removed in later versions. I basically made a tiered approach to the spawning, in that the back of the base is +2, the front +1, and the center +0. My goal was to give the spawning a little more back weighting. So far it appears to be working well, as I haven't had any complaints, but as always, if i find a better method, it will be used. By the way, if anyone is wanting to learn more about spawns I do suggest reading MrGreenWithAGun blog posts on the subject, they are detailed and informative. @FlyingshoeILR, we talked about that in a game the other day, I think its worth trying out, my main concern with that is that I hate just randomly dying. EigthBall, and Pstol, I'm glad you both enjoyed the map. I have enjoyed some good games on both of your maps as well.