If the current version was cleaner I'd post it for more feedback, but I don't take pleasure in sharing sloppy work.
I love the fact that I have failed to scale Dracula three times now since Halo 4. I think have solved it though. I am removing everyone's least favorite part at it. Unfortunately, I have to move a large chunk of it in still. I also love that having a proper aesthetic makes it even more vertical. It probably won't be able to support both 2v2 and 4v4 now though.
It will be done. I figured it out before I went to bed last night. I am also happy it will get a proper aesthetic finally.
Goat I'll make you a block out to art up. Just tell me what you want with the map. Then you can have it and work on it.
I haven't even talked to Salty in a week but I wake up to an angrier post from him everyday. @SaltyKoala " there are literally no good maps besides Twice Forsaken. Then after being invited to the trello board by War I notice my map is among the selections and hasnt been approved by you. I then have to come to you personally and ask what your issues with the map were when you playtested it and you give me a list of reasons. You claim there is only one strat on the map in strongholds and in slayer there is only one place to be so its a bad map/flawed design." Alright right off the bat, these words never left my mouth. Not even a little. There were a LOT of ridiculous choices on the 4v4 nominations (an aesthetic map) but I actually didn't even comment on Port because I hadn't even played it in a normal match or even looked at it carefully. And I certainly never told you it was dogshit. If I had taken a look at Port prior to playing it, I probably would've recognized the same potential issues we ended up experiencing. After playing port with a full lobby of people in game chat, we all agreed on those issues. "So I watch the film and none of your reasons are supported in the least bit by the gameplay film from your playtests or past playtests. In fact, it was quite the opposite with your tesm losing due to your one dimensonal play. So I ask you to come look at the map and explain your reasoning on there. You do, and you explain why the map is "trash" and how it will play at the highest level based on PURE CONJECTURE and then you treat that conjecture as fact." I never once said the map was trash, not privately to you during feedback, not privately to anyone else, not publicly on the forums. Because I don't believe that, so why would I say that? I do believe there are issues worth addressing however. You've repeatedly mentioned our film didn't support my claims but every person in chat agreed there was an optimal way to play the map, and after the game ended the enemy team said the same thing. We were ALL trying to practice the same strategy, just because we didn't 100-0 the enemy team doesn't mean that Port is dynamic and balanced; it just came down to user error. Lockout tower switches possession a few times a match between 2 teams but it will always be the definitive Slayer strategy - you don't need to 50-0 a team to make that true. "Your so hippocratical its astonishing, I'm glad I watched this tho because it gave me an insight into just how narrow minded you are, even tho you try to play it off as if you aren't. MULTIS way to play halo is the only way to play and the only way anyone should enjoy this game lol. Your opinions aren't fact and you need to stop treating them as such because its toxic for the people around you who lick the **** right off your azzhole." How does it make sense to link MY video that enforces different playstyles and preferences, to prove that I don't enjoy different playstyles and preferences? I feel like over the past 3 years I've been one of the biggest cards in pushing unorthodox and strange designs; not just from me but every single person around me. One of the final lines in the video I say "There's no such thing as an incorrect playstyle...you just need to make it work". And that's the big problem here. Stop acting like a child about feedback that I actually approached you about privately and respectfully about and realize the actual issue here. I LIKE the "style of your map", I like linear aggression. I like pushing down controlled hallways in Halo to a single objective at the end. I think it's fun if not brainless, and like I've already mentioned earlier I think Narrows is one of the best maps in Halo history (if not the best) and should be replicated more. The problem here is the execution. Narrows was wide, free flowing with cover and room to move. Orbital was even wider with even MORE cover. Your map doesn't play like either, it's absolutely tiny. Claustrophobic with ledges protruding everywhere so that an army can march down single file. Even this trait wouldn't be a map-killer if you didn't have single objectives located at the high end of either of these Halls. And even THAT wouldn't be unsolvable if you didn't have those locations already the most prominent spot on the entire map. You're brushing off feedback on minor execution and attributing it towards me being close minded instead of actually listening. What if every single time someone told me the top of Trinity is too strong I would go on the forums and post "This conceited prick hates verticality and is a close-minded ****!" That's what I'm seeing here. "Your opinions aren't fact and you need to stop treating them as such because its toxic for the people around you who lick the **** right off your azzhole." Yet I'm the toxic one. I have never made a post like the one you are now. "What you, seth and multi find enjoyable about halo is much different then what I find enjoyable about Halo and what a HUGE bulk of the Halo population find enjoyable about it. You don't even know what you want from halo and in the rare case that you do, your clueless on how to achieve it. Multi knows exactly what he wants and exactly how to achieve it but has almost zero understanding, or lack of want to understand, anything outside of that narrow window of opinion. Seth has given me the best feedback yet among those who oppose the map." Here's my philosophy. There are two aspects that level design can promote. Mechanical skill like shooting and raw gunplay, and mental skill that rewards out-positioning and outplaying the enemy. Keep in mind this isn't a pendulum ; you can absolutely lose one aspect and not gain anything in return. If you're going to promote linear aggression, you're voluntarily sacrificing a huge chunk of mental skill that your map could promote. Because there's not much that a team does outside of just push push push push down a path. Which isn't inherently a problem because we have games literally built around that so long as the game mechanically is complex enough. Gears LIVES off of linear aggression because the hallway funneled gameplay is its strongest suit. League of Legends and other mobas don't really use anything BUT lanes because the mechanical skill and mental skill between characters is already incredible deep as is. This isn't going to be Halo's strong suit and it never will be as long as we have recharging shields and slow killing weapons without cover based shooting. But we've seen it work when maps like Narrows throw on Flag with symmetry and bleeding line of sights. Orbital takes even less mental skill than Narrows because it's enclosed and even MORE linear; no mancannons to shoot you around the map here. Fine, whatever. Let's compare this to the fabled Lockout, infamous for it's bunker bullshit. Lockout is just as linear as either Narrows or Orbital (in pathing) the difference being there's a clear destination to be in with snipe tower (for Slayer). Narrows has symmetry with a strong central point, that's great because you want to push. Orbital is self contained enough that you can't influence any other part of the map because you're in a hallway. Might as well push the other team into their spawn. That's fine. Lockout doesn't mimic either of these, because if you're playing the map correctly you're not pushing. You're sitting in snipe tower and not moving an inch waiting for the other team to come to you. So the map isn't rewarding you for actual linear aggression, it rewards you for not moving. It punishes you BY linear aggression. So not only is Lockout brainlessly simple by linear pathing, but furthermore so by having a clear destination. Something either of the prior linear maps didn't. That's a great example of an unbalanced linear map with no mental game. Then we can look at mechanical play, how much does the map reward Halo's most skillful techniques. Strafing, pistol play, etc. Look at the size of port and how claustrophobic the hallways and corners are. Is nade spam and auto crouching Halo's strongest assets? Absolutely not, so any map in Halo 5 that rewards that CQC nonsense is inherently going to be less mechanically rewarding. Port mimics so many of these issues. It's linear and sacrifices a lot of mental play but doesn't even have the proper sizing and scaling that rewards mechanical play. It's inherently unbalanced towards the top and the bottom Garden spawn doesn't even have the line of sights to apply pressure from afar. You're given maybe 2 options at most at any given moment, and then told to crawl through a minute hallway single file rushing with your AR blazing again and again. And if you like that play style and are okay with just about no difficult decisions having being made or risky plays, and if you're okay with sacrificing Halo's most skillful elements in favor of a playstyle that's fine. I understand. But when I was asked to help out choose maps for matchmaking it's then my job and my duty to choose maps I believe would play well under thousands and thousands of games under the worst conditions. And for me to choose a map that I don't believe will promote either excellent mental gameplay (because I don't think Port 66 is particularly interesting to play as Twice Forsaken or High Guard), OR promote excellent mechanical gameplay (because I don't think it's as rewarding or well-scaled as High Guard) then why would I push that map? I don't believe it does anything particular well, and I'm trying to think in the best interest of what SHOULD be pushed for matchmaking. See here's what's interesting about this statement: "What you, seth and multi find enjoyable about halo is much different then what I find enjoyable about Halo and what a HUGE bulk of the Halo population find enjoyable about it." I don't think the general Halo population can agree on what it wants, or even knows what it wants. But I do know that the playstyle you love in Port 66 is not what would be popular in matchmaking. Because fundamentally the only difference between playing Strongholds on Port 66 and Strongholds on Overgrowth is that at least Overgrowth doesn't stagnate at the top of the map. I would rather Overgrowth be in HCS than Port 66 and I believe it's one of the worst maps in Halo history. But issues on it are more easily overlooked as the ones I see on your map. I could already imagine the thumbnail for Port popping up in the background of the playlist and everyone in the party lets out a heavy sigh because we know exactly what's about to happen. We'll either sit in the top of the map and endlessly spawn you Garden, or we will spawn Garden over and over and over and repeatedly push down the same hallways against endless grenade clinks until the game comes to an end. And then the average player will say "Why the **** are forge maps in a playlist" the same way they do now and the same reason why the entire competitive community at Beyond doesn't trust forge maps in matchmaking. It only takes one Malta to ruin an otherwise good playlist after all. The AR-heavy single hallway play-style you claim is intentional easily carries the largest stigma in the community, so if you're going to pull the bullshit popularity fallacy of what the community wants, then you're out of luck. And even if they did know what map they want, is that what they should want? This forum understands level design better than 99% of the Halo community, so why would we ditch everything we believe is valuable for what the general population does't understand. The average Halo probably loves not moving a single inch outside of S3 on Lockout with their sword, crouched and ready to swing. Because that's what they've been accustomed to for the past 13 years since Halo 2. They don't even know what proper map cycling is because we haven't had a map that actually promoted that since Chillout. The CoD community would love to play on Nuketown forever, if you threw that same map on CounterStrike the community would probably off themselves at how completely brainless the map is because they actually know what a good design is - despite those two games being fairly mechanically similar. When I was brought in I felt as if it were my job to actually contribute and pick maps that not only would provide variety, but pick maps that would help steer Halo down the right path. And while I've always been an advocate for the most unusual designs anyone could possibly imagine, I wouldn't feel right pushing something that I feel would ultimately 1: not promote what I believe to be important in Halo, and 2: be enjoyed by the community. It's the same reason I didn't push Stigma. A few Sentinels made excellent points in that despite Stigma being uninteresting and possibly even broken, it might be worth pushing on the merit that it resembles Guardian and people are familiar with that and can latch to it. I understand the importance of that, but if I were the sole person in charge of Halo's entire matchmaking it wouldn't sit right to me to push a map that I believe ultimately dumbed down the game purely for the sake of familiarity. That's a dangerous path to go down and it's what we've driven down the past 14 years of midship clones. I've always felt Halo, even at its worst, could be such an incredible game if only given the proper maps. And the same is true of Halo 5. We should be promoting maps that are going to be further would people expect from level design, and it wouldn't sit morally right with me to push your map on any grounds. It's not mechanically rewarding given the scale and narrow hallways and sharp turns. It's not mentally provoking given the options and sightlines you have. It's not even balanced in the way that a linear map should be balanced or contained. By your own standards, I wouldn't push it on the sake of it being popular with the community because there's nothing that Port 66 accomplishes that Overgrowth doesn't already do but with less issues. And overgrowth is already a joke. It's not even a particularly interesting design that would open the eyes of the general Halo population the way that a map like Twice Forsaken or High Life might. And most importantly I'm not going to push it for matchmaking on the account of us being friends considering we've always gotten along. But frankly the way you've dealt with pent up anger over the past week despite us not even having contact in between, by posting here literally lying about things I've never even said is really frustrating and paints me in a bad light; Especially because I was nothing but respectful and open to debate when we talked. I even offered the most simple and primitive solutions that would take under 10 minutes without sacrificing any of the map's character or gameplay attributes. I've always supported your unorthodox designs and enjoyed them but frankly I don't even care to be friends with you at this point. ___________________________ For anyone who's unaware, this is my analysis of Port 66. There are two high points on the map pressed against the back edge, with a lower Garden area that has 0 line of sights to challenge the top without actually pushing up an extremely narrow corridor leading up to it. There are two routes around back but they're fairly difficult to reach from Garden given that they're the exact opposite end of the map. Our Slayer match immediately played out by planting two players each at the two high points of the map and repeatedly spawning the other team in Garden over and over. Their choices being a single way to get into either high tower, or push through the dead center of the map to get around the back. We all agreed this was the best and most simple way to control the map, and executed it with some decency, a few spawn flips but the game played out like that in essence. Now I don't think Strongholds is a particular interesting gametype, BUT in Objective you have the ability to force players to move places that they don't want to move. This can often be a huge saving grace in unbalanced maps, however both high towers in Port have a stronghold; the 3rd being in Garden. The most obvious thing to do (to me) would be to NOT place strongholds where players are already going to go; that's a given and allows the map to still have its natural influence while forcing players towards to bottom. Great. The issue I have is that immediately after finishing Slayer we loaded up Strongholds and in the loading screen we all said "So we're going to do the same exact thing right?" and we did. We guarded the two top holds and sat there. The map fundamentally plays identical between the two game modes, and if that's the case why are we even playing Objective if it's no different than Slayer. The only difference is that in Slayer you at least have the option to slow the game down and move around the map so you're not continuously funneled, in Strongholds you don't have a choice to push because you're racing the clock. You HAVE to push and push and bleed lives at no fault of your own until user error kicks in and you can capture one. I recommended unblocking the spawns next to the two towers so teams can push from both sides, and moving the strongholds away from the already empowered positions. Because why the **** would they be there. --- Double Post Merged, Feb 9, 2017 --- Also for the record, I wasn't the sole person against Port 66. Every person in that chat agreed to not push it after our games on it.
Just grinding out on Halo 5, should have 85 silver packs by tonight. Anyone wanna be my grinder slave for 10k RPs an hour? I'll give you much more once I've got 99 packs and rolling in it.
I'll give you this one since it's closer to what I've seen you make Clocktower. 2 atriums. A spiral staircase somewhere that takes you from the lowest level to the top. Lots of catwalks and things to jump on. Claustrophobic and masochistic like you're being grinded by the clock gears themselves. There's already a clocktower map but there should be a sweatier one.
I think you forgot team skill. Which is apart of both sections. Peoples ability to work together matters. Also, splitting control at the top of the map is not a good strategy in my opinion for one simple reason. Because Garden is segmented it is impossible to tell how many people are pushing a side. Now, I agree the hallways being narrow hurt this and is the main issue with the map, but I had him switch the stairs with the hall on high side and shrink the length of the hallway and shrinking the area the stronghold is placed at making it more claustrophobic and nade friendly. It also empowers the approach to have more strength. Also, got him to raise the short cut giving the person the ability to clamber up top. He has also widened and opened up the path more on cafe side. I think the biggest issue with the map is the size of the halls being what they are. They should play much better now.
Easy when you have as many mental prefabs for this type of stuff. 2v2 is what I am assuming you want it to be for.
2v2 or Exterm. Forgot to mention that I think the staircase should be a bit isolated from the atriums. Bonus points if you can jump across the atriums on the chime things that usually hang inside a tower. And at the risk of copying the other map, I don't think there should be playable moving gears, but I'm not opposed to it (scripts willing). i love this ceiling
Just like the team up top can't see the bottom team, it works both ways. You could push right into a team of 4 up top. EDIT: Also I hardly consider unpredictability a proper way to balance a 4v4 map.