We're disappointed with forge, now let's get 343 to hear us!

Not sure if covered already due to me not wanting to read through prior discussion, but the overall customization options for game types alone is enough to fuss over (mainly flood being the most obvious). 343 made splattering with vehicles be affected by the overall damage modifier in player traits, therefore it becomes uncomfortably hard to create games that revolve around splattering since vehicle projectiles do damage (IE: Tremors, Cat & Mouse, etc.). Turn off damage and you turn off splattering.

 

I don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but the ridiculous number of projections on the Brace Large as well as tapered edges on many forge pieces (I'm looking at you, 2x2 tall block) are annoying as heck.

 

All things pointed out!!!!

Halo 4 Forge Review, Glitches & Bugs - YouTube
this should give you an overview on all the annoying stuuf there is!!!

 

You are doing great work. I really have hope now we have a shot at this, thanks for all of this. Will help to assist too eventually.

 

Okay i signed up for this site just to say this, 343 made a modification to the game code that allows them to add content to the game freely, that means that all of your request, even new vehicles can be later added via a title update i 343 listens to you.

 

It's not very difficult to manipulate the lighting system to have whatever effect you desire. But yes, this is forge. it's about adaptability and achieving more with less. But you cannot deny the fact that dynamic lighting is a HUGE (and tremendously useful) leap forward. Even if the removal of precision editing is a baffling move.

People who are disappointed with the canvases have very unrealistic expectations. The sheer amount of time/effort it would take to craft entirely unique pieces for each canvases would be ridiculous. Instead, I think 343 wisely decided to focus on having the "main" forge pieces have a sense on continuity between canvases. While the "secondary" pieces can be used to help solidify the sorts of aesthetics you can choose to pursue with each canvas. The pipes on Erosion are a perfect example of this. They fit the "feel" of the map, but would feel out of place on Impact or Ravine without a complete reskin. Oh, but I expect the community to expect that as well. All without realizing that those sorts of things cost time and money. Two very finite realities game developers must deal with.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that 343 did a fantastic job focusing their resources to give us a very much improved forge. Would it have been nice to get everything i've ever wanted EVER out of forge? Of course. But I also understand that their is simply no way 343 could have crammed every feature my heart desires into the game. In the wake of that fact, I choose to focus my energy on finding ways to get the most out of what we've all been given.

 

This interests me, but I'd certainly like to know your source of this info.

Also, Steve/Nondual - shoot me a message on here or Live next time you might be able to get a customs night going. I'm in college now and pretty busy, but I'm always down for customs nights like old times if my schedule permits. Hard to believe I haven't played with you guys since Halo 3, damn.

 

Why do people do this? Why do you act like it is either minor improvements to forge, or a complete overhaul?

My expectations for Halo 4 were very realistic, and would have be satisfied had Bungie been in charge. But no, forge is an afterthought to 343, who decided to leave it in the hands of the proven incompetent Certain Affinity.

While dynamic lighting is an improvement, it only put more stress on the rendering system. In my opinion, not worth it.

Asking for canvases that aren't composed of specific, limiting geometry is not unrealistic.

Asking for new structural pieces in forge is not unrealistic.

Asking for texture options is not unrealistic.

They have been working on Halo 4 for a number of years, and they had a very comfortable budget to work with.

As I said: A step backward.

 

Nothing about the code infastructure, just that the multiplayer is DL'd to your xbox, allowing for modification by title update. Don't need a source for that info.

 

I dont have it right now but it was either a bulletin or a post from certain affinity where they said they would be using this to add aditional gametypes to the game post launch.

 

In the spirit of wishful thinking, I hope that such changes can be applied to existing maps (for what we all know suffer from game breaking glitches/holes in the geometry). The point being, I want to get closer to the water. Hell, let me go underwater to a degree please. The degree of soft kill boundaries are excessive and significantly disrupt potential creative spaces.

 

I like where this thread is going. It's nice seeing people optimistic about problems. Really if precision movement + zoom was still a part of our toolbox I'd be pretty content.

The canvases are a problem, as some people say. Impact is my favourite canvas for many reasons. But even so, they all suffer from hard structures set at awkward angles (with a lack of tools). The lone tower on Erosion, the doors around the structure on Impact, even the out of place walls in the divot on Ravine. Why are there forerunner structures on Ravine and we get UNSC blocks? It looks very invasive without some "UNSC research" theme.

That said, I agree with focusing on solutions. After thinking about it for a while now, I would ask 343 to be vocal about the direction forge can take in DLC and on next gen console. I would also like 343 to be vocal about improvements they are going to make. Just be vocal about forge I guess is what I'm saying. I really wish it wasn't so hard to start a conversation with some people.

I'll browse around the links you've posted Nondual and offer whatever assistance I can. I'll also be back here to see if you have any updates.

 

There are many things i would have liked to be changed in Halo 4's forge, but we should try to be reasonable with what we really need to be fixed or changed.

What i would like to see most is all or some of the old gametypes back, mainly one sided CTF, Assault, VIP and race. Removing one sided objective is plain stupid, because they end up with asymmetrical maps supporting symmetrical gametypes (2 flag) which is incredibly hard to balance. My other main concern is how they limited infection. I hope they can change infection to allow for greater customisation such as weapon usage for the flood.

They have taken away some forging features, but these features don't impact the possibility to create maps, rather the time taken. As such i think we can deal without precise movement and just have to find work arounds or spend more time. As for completely removing the ability to create amazing gametypes like we have in the past just doesn't make sense to me.

The only other thing i know they won't change, but i think they may have overlooked, is how dynamic lighting renders every time you go out of monitor mode. Yea it's a great feature, but i think it could have been implemented much better. For example: A toggle option in the start menu, or it gets rendered once you save your map. That way you could still view what the lighting looks like, but not have it interfere while you forge.

 

Whether people agree or disagree, it is a fact that taking out the precision movement + zoom was a mistake. Obviously, they tried catering to the casual player. However, as I read in another post on waypoint forum, if you move the camera to a "birds eye view" while holding a piece, this may be the same or very similar to precision movement. Only downside is it can only be moved that slow while in that camera view.

There is only 2 other issues for me that makes forge nowhere near as good as it could be. The first one is the maps. 343/Certain Affinity, was never good at making forge maps. Take a look at their previous attempts in Halo: Reach with the maps TEMPEST, HIGH NOON, RIDGELAND/TIMBERLAND. All 3 of these maps were suppose to be Forge maps, yet nobody could make a good creative map any of them, out of all the people who play Halo on this planet! The problem was the maps themselves and the terrain. Tempest was all hills and even if you took everything out of the map using a blank canvas... the map had too much in it to make anything...Hills are a major issue when making a map, it leaves very little options for building anything unless you make a whole new ground terrain above the map with coliseum walls, wiping out the rest of the map below. Then what is the point of the map? High Noon (or whatever it's called) had the same issue. The only way to build something different on that map was to create a whole new ground level terrain above the platforms, which essentially is blocking off the whole map (leaving little height to work with and wasting all your budget on flooring). Lastly we have Timberland (or whatever)... the whole map was all forest and hills...nowhere to build anything...and you could not even replace the terrain on this one due to the map not having any height above trees and being too big to cover the area. Obviously 343 likes to make forging as basic as possible, just throw down some buildings or blocks and call it a day. Their forge maps are no different than regular maps to forge on.

So, knowing how 343/Ci makes their forge maps...I had no expectations for Halo 4 to have anything cool like Halo: Reach's ForgeWorld. This is why Bungie is better at Forge maps. Anyway, the third thing that would make Halo Forge as good as it can be is the textures of the pieces themselves. We got tired of the GREY METAL forge palette in Halo: Reach with every single map on ForgeWorld having the same exact look. What did 343 do to remedy this issue....they made the pieces white with some detailing. Ok, cool. Not good enough. We need options for textures to make maps that look different. This is why people map edit on PC with games that are not as good like Unreal Tournament III and Left 4 Dead 2. You can make anything you want on those games...but this is a console where everything is basic and simplified. But, they could have at least made options to choose between a few different textures for the forge pieces. Whoever thinks that is unrealistic doesn't know anything.

I will say the white pieces fit the map nice on Impact to make some cool Moon base-like maps... I just think we are all going to get tired of seeing these white pieces in every single map. Map editing needs to be more diverse.

 

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. I've said this before, but it seems like people are ignoring me. 343 has had years to make Halo 4, longer so than ODST and Reach. For that matter, combined.

It seems to me like the majority of things that they did to fix textures actually made them worse as well.. For instance, take the stupid holes at the edges of wall coliseums and the extreme tapering of some edges, even more so than Reach (ahem 2x2 tall). Adding to the "afterthought" idea. How could anyone who actually forged in Reach not find the tapered edges annoying?

Also, I now hate the brace, large. WTF with the retarded bumps on the edges..

Has anyone directly asked 343 why precision editing + zoom were removed from the game?

 

I just tested for a minute and you can precision edit if you hold the piece and move the camera to a bird's eye view...it moves really slow. Only issue is you can only do this looking down on the objects from birds eye...but it will help and is certainly better than nothing.

Another issue I forgot to mention with my rant was that it seems like these 3 forge maps are not big enough to make a Big Team Infinity Slayer map. I could be wrong it may be possible but they don't look like it from jumping in there. This is ridiculous because I, along with many others, think Big Team slayer as their favorite gametype. Anyway, I could see making a big team map on Impact if you could somehow link the 2 asteroids together... but if that can be done with the budget I do not know.

I also would have preferred some type of collision (bullet markings) on forge pieces rather than nothing. Seems like a lot of the surfaces have no collision in halo 4...some do, a lot do not. I guess they had to remove that and tone down particle effects from xbox technology limitations.

 

The bird's eye view thing works for side-to-side movement but not for up and down, which is what I tend to use precision movement for the most (since the bumpers are much less sensitive for fine tuning than the analog stick). The other obnoxious thing is that a lot of times I need precision movement because I'm trying to make a very small adjustment, which requires being very close to the object's edge to see; by having to be way above it, I'm forced to make an adjustment, go down and look if I got it right, then fly up and adjust again, etc. It's annoying and time-consuming.

 

Another thing.. We can place weapons down in forge (Normal ones) but they apperently dont appear in a few gametypes, if this is true, then this is also one of my complaints.