Map design is an art in an "art form" and the second you start creating rules to abide by you confine your creativity into a small box. Thus map design is subjective and If my thinking contradicts your rule then that means your rule already doesn't make sense. People can think Extermination maps are either great or terrible for 2v2's and that’s fine. You'll never convince "everyone" that Extermination don't work for doubles because what if some players personally enjoy the amount of depth and movement while playing on them? You could be logistically sound in every argument you make as to why Extermination maps can never be great 2v2 maps but that wouldn't change the positive experience people have playing them because their overall philosophy is different than yours. Alright, now that I've made my case, I'm done. I'm challenging your principals here because breaking through conventions can lead to opportunity and progress.
To you... but that doesn't give you any grounds in your argument. To say there are no rules is ridiculous. If I make an octagon, I could say this: The negative space really encourages immediate player interaction at an aggressive and constant rate. But guess what. It's just an octagon. Even if 99% of people enjoyed it, it would still be a bad map. We're not talking about preference. How do you decide if a map is successful if everything is "art" and subjective. The way you're thinking, there cannot be a bad map. And if that were true. What are any of us doing.
Nice quote lol. The problem here isn't people enjoying their time on a map that's clearly way too small to play doubles on. The problem is that as a level design community shouldn't be promoting that style of map in a tournament. If people like playing on tiny octagons with no depth for their 2v2s, cool. Whatever. But for the sake of a tournament put on a map with a drop of depth so we can show them what a true purpose built 2v2 map plays like. Otherwise we would just use the shitty dev maps and crouch around.
it's fine if you think every potential map experience deserves equal attention in the spotlight. It's a good mindset for a tournament and I dont disagree; variety is the spice of life after all. I also personally don't arbitrarily dismiss a map based on its premise unless it's poorly executed. Nevertheless, the whole "design is art and art is subjective" mentality is detrimental to progress because it can result in hand-waving away issues. Level design is not just art - it's a science, and the science behind design reolves around reading and understanding player behaviors. There is obviously no rulebook on game design, but as we discussed a month ago, there are enough widely agreed upon and proven concepts that more or less qualify as "rules" - or at least solid guidelines - to address common issues. Things like weapon balance, spawn abuse, bumpy geometry, dark lighting, etc. - these things are responsible for making a map accessible and functional for the majority of players. It's not really a philosophy so much as it is just common sense. In the context of Extermination maps, I'll reiterate that many of the maps I have played have not been designed with 2v2 gameplay in mind. 2v2 gameplay is sensitive to spawn exploits, it's sensitive to weapon abuse, and it's incredibly susceptible to wear and tear because there are less strategies and gametypes that can be played. Therefore, the ideal 2v2 experiences - regardless of how they are designed - are maps that do not have those problems. Most people who understand Halo and level design would agree that fighting two players with very strong weapons off of your spawn is not a good experience, especially if those spawns are exploitable and you are perpetually spawning into those situations. The audience who typically enjoys that type of gameplay is incredibly small, and it tends to err more towards 4v4 where those situations are more manageable. In 2v2 however, it tends to snowball rather quickly, and that lowers the potential for making meaningful comebacks. Again, that is common sense. You can recognize that there are people who enjoy that gameplay, and still decide that there are issues with its longevity. Swap out any controversial or polarizing experience that happens to be enjoyed by somebody and it'll likely be the same situation. People liked Snowbound, but do we need more "camp the bottom" maps? Certainly not any that repeat that map's mistakes. Resurfacing this "subjectivity" argument comes across as disingenuous. Maybe other people think they'll never work between game modes; I for one don't think a map designed for Extermination is inherently unable to play 1v1 or 2v2 - or hell, even 4v4. But where are these maps? Everything ive seen is "too small", and usually too free flowing, which means you can run around aimlessly and abuse spawns; or "too symmetric", meaning you will just sit in the middle and block all of the spawns behind you, forcing them to spawn in the same spot every time. We had a lobby play Nemesis twice earlier, and aside from some admittedly hilarious turret shenanigans, said spawn killing happened. Not spawn trapping - spawn killing, as in I am flying above the map with a turret and wathing you spawn while i shoot you with an insta kill. This happens even worse on some other Extern maps ive played. I honestly dont think anyone truly believes that abusable spawns are acceptable. In fact, i would question their knowledge of the subject if they made such a ridiculous claim, especially if their only defense for that was "some people like it and design is subjective ,so you cant say im wrong." At least entertain the discussion with some substance.
Artstation and Pinterest --- Double Post Merged, Aug 12, 2017 --- That's an actual strategy that was genuinely hard to deal with. It's not a good 2v2 map.
I wish more people did historical themes instead of "Forerunner this" and "UNSC that" H5 forge totally gives us the ability to pull off very convincing themes, and throwing in stuff like what @Xandrith just posted up there would make this community so much more interesting.
Forge does not give us the ability to pull off convincing themes very well. It really is a primitive tool artistically. Generally the lighting sells the theme more than you could ever do with primitives.
I can't come up with good enough themes on my own yet, I'm sorry senpai --- Double Post Merged, Aug 12, 2017 --- Come up with better jokes. Make our brothers proud
I'm working on a mishmash of Falling Water, the other FLR house in Pasadena, and the prairie school in general Hope it works Here's the layout if anyone wants to fumble with it https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...tspartin_afdf8d22-858b-4e7b-a541-a07323ab0456 --- Double Post Merged, Aug 12, 2017 --- I should mention that a lot of walls aren't in place yet, and I may have forgotten a lift
So I've got something up on the table that I worked on and kinda abandoned. I was attempting a map that blended the traditional "I live underground I'm evil" thing with a sort of "It's not magic it's industrialized harvesting of energy" type thing. I got pretty far, ran a few tests but was not super satisfied with the final product. Issues that are clear to me: -The verticality is nothing special. The height transitions on the map are very gradual and with the current sightlines, they are even less impressive -The map is very cave like and does not have enough structure to convince players of the industrial part -The layout is open and too many areas of the map can be seen from too many places Things I like: -I'm fond of the current color scheme -The areas of the map where you dip underground below the playspace is cool and I like it I would like to take this map and incorporate some of the cool moving elements I posted in here earlier but I'm not 100% what parts of the map I should tear up and out to make this possible. Feel free to look in forge and tell me what you think. https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...Hyperion_a2b0e565-b9fa-4b1e-913e-cfb367165578