I havent played arcanum. Its something I would check out if it was in matchmaking. your right about people hating stuff if they cant be good at something right away. I just played rocket league and i thought it was gonna be easy to play from watching other people. I sucked so bad, I thought the game was crap . It's a great game though that takes ALOT of time to learn. The skill ceiling is crazy high but people love it because its a team based game that rewards individual skill just as much as teamwork.
Same thing happened to me with Smite, I used to force myself to play with Generai Pug and hated playing it for the most part. It took nearly a whole half a year of playing a bit but I actually like the game now, MOBA's in general are a great example of something you will probably hate until you understand it.
I didn't care for them until after playing Overwatch then I realized that DOTA 2 was an amazing game. I still dislike watching them though. Besides DOTA 2.
So just dropping my 2 cents. I don't intend to start this arguement again but we'll see how everyone reacts. Firstly, I immediately just read purely's comment that "key maps suck" as a joke. I don't think it was meant with any harm or offence though I can understand it being taken that way and I may be wrong. As far as im concerned I've never got an asshole vibe from purely. More so from Xandrith, Soldat or Multi tbh (no offence. Its just how you guys seem to be to everyone). You all seem to be very elitist and don't take critism well. I understand you all put loads of work into your maps and your maps are great but no map is ever perfect and just because you have a good reason for everything on your map doesn't mean people can't disagree with you and not like the stuff (I'm referring specifically to the Arcanum arguement here). Everyone is entitled to their own opinion is all I'm saying and whether you agree with people or not you don't have to insult them about it. At least that's my opinion, if I am entitled to it. If only I was a forge critic, then my opinion would mean 5x as much.
Maybe just have the boat be the smooth one then? You could probably visually get away with having the re/unbuilding look a little jagged. Another possible workaround would be to have safe zones that interacted with the entire map going dark in order to hide the geometry change.
In the first example, sure you have to jump on the lanterns if you don't have key, but the question I have is, why are you in red hall? So that screenshot is taken from red hall, looking into "chain gang". If your goal is to get to chain gang, then why would you jump into red hall? To get to the spot WITHOUT KEY, you literally have to pass a teleporter that takes you from one side of the map all the way to chain gang, or you have to jump from lanterns. You've intentionally gone out of your way to put the player in a spot where the non-key path is especially convoluted through a series of movement choices that would be asinine assuming the player want to get to chain gang. In any case, no you can't get everywhere from everywhere quickly. If you could, the design of the map would have little to do with how you play it. With or without key. As far as the dead end, it's one of the fastest and most effective ways to cross the map from chain gang. If you drop down and cross, it's just as fast having key, only you're forced through the lowest part of the map. As someone who's played probably 250 games of Arcanum, I can promise you that this path, while only 1 way, provides plenty of utility outside of a badass fight over the key.
If I had a nickle for every time someone said "just my opinion" then I'd have a lot of nickels. Like at least 10 nickels seriously I'm just going to post "everyone is entitled to their opinion" once a day and soon I'll have more likes than anyone
But.... But, everyone is entitled to their opinion. And its not like we have an ignore button for real life, so..... Let's just say one of the things I miss most now that I'm a mod is that button. I GET TO LIKE EVERYONEEEEEEEeE
I don't recognize half of you. Hi, I'm Goat. Former previously once retired professional map scrapper.
While I don't think Arcanum has a revolutionary design, I do think it was created very carefully I love that you added pictures to explain better. As for that lower dead end, you're right... if the key isn't there, you shouldn't run that direction from below, but it is incredibly important as a drop down from chain gang. Think of it as a one-way street. Although you can technically nerd hop UP that hole.
I don't think key maps are hard to design. However I do believe they are extremely hard to design for "Halo kids". Everytime you take a concept/fundamentals from one fps and try to inject it into another fps, the likelihood of it being rejected by the player base is very high. Why? Because players play certian FPS's for very specific reasons that cater to there interests/preferences. When these preferences are challenged, many players flat out reject them. I'd go as far as saying key maps are not very "Halo" and most of people's dislike of them doesn't come from the execution of them, but rather what they promote on a basic level and this won't ever be avoidable as they are what they are. Arcanum is fundamentally sound, but that doesn't mean "Halo kids" will or should enjoy/respect it. That being said, why the fck are you playing H5 if your a "Halo kid" lol