TheAssassin

I feel this would have worked much better if halo 4 had invasion... that way you could add spawns in the ship or something if a teammate is nearby or spawn on your teammate so you can get a raiding party or something.. just a thought great job on the map tho

I would like to start by saying good job THFE . I love what you guys do and how creative you are and you make the game more fun. Halo could really benefit by including more user maps in matchmaking, but custom games will have to do I guess. I have a few suggestions you may find interesting in your map making designs. This is entirely my opinion so you can take it or leave it or just maybe take a few ideas if they work. That being said, I have learned recently, from school of all places, about 4 different characteristics that make an environment preferable. I feel like if you incorporate some of these they could benefit you. These characteristics are Coherence, Legibility, Complexity, and Mystery. Now, these are categorized into present (what someone sees just by looking at the map: coherence, complexity) and future (what someone learns as they move through the map: legibility, mystery). Coherence -Can be thought of as understanding the here and now -how easy it is to organize/structure the environment -Has redundancy, and identifiable elements -Has limited number of units/chunks (for example: regions, zones, borders) -It has an immediate "wayfinding" assessment (i would like to say that you guys do a superb job of this on almost all of your maps, as soon as someone looks at it they instantly know what to do; and for competitive maps this may apply for controlling lines of site as 'ok this is clearly a sniper alley or br/dmr zone, and this is useful for close-quarters weapons') Legibility -(The future sense of Coherence) -It is the understanding in the future -It has features you can explore without geting lost -It has openness, distinctive elements, landmarks for wayfinding (these apply more for how easy it is to move through the map, they can wander around and get back) -Has a sense of what you see now is typical of what's to come (I feel like this is most useful for players who first see a map, after all once you've played a map so much you can start to tell where everything is, this may speed up the learning curve however) Complexity -Exploration in the here and now -Environment that has enough to keep one occupied -Has enough to make it worth exploring -number of elements and diversity of things in scene (this may be accomplished with different asthetic features, heres to looking at you Oakley) -content of things in scene; manmad vs. natural (i feel this is slightly possible with forge) (this may seem to conflict with coherence which suggest its limiting the number of things that makes it better but its NOT, a place can be both high in coherence and high in complexity; also this is in the present as someone initially looks at the place does it enough elements to be complex enough to be worth "exploring" and at the same time be distinct enough to have coherence; also this is not be thought of as making as many features as possible as that would just be clutter but having distinguishable features easily recognized) Mystery (i feel like this is the most important as part of the fun of playing Halo or even custom maps is the sense of exploration and developing new "cognitive maps" and the sense of accomplishment one gets from finding their way around, it also ties in with complexity in that the maps you show seem to have new features around every corner, the maps dont always look the same) -Best thought of as Exploration in the future -a promise of more information (in my class this was discussed by paintings that had roads or rivers that run out of sight or behind an object, and by objects that are partially obscured such as by mountains or trees. I feel like this was done well in halo reach by having glass windows that provided a view but was an entirely enclosed map or maps that had "cruisers" that were off in the distance but not part of the map) -Being able to gain more information -Partial info of what may lie ahead I would like to say you already do a good job of these things, and there is the chance that this does not help you or you can't do these things or ignore all of what I said. Hopefully, I have helped give you some ideas, at least one amongst all the info, perhaps things to keep in mind when you are making/developing new maps. Also, these things were intended as characteristics people prefer settings in the real world (mainly nature) but I feel that they can apply equally as well to the virtual world. Another point I would like to distinguish is Mystery vs Surprise. They both deal with the uncertainty, but mystery has more continuity as one continues on through the stream of info they are getting. Surprise deals more with things that are unexpected or sudden (for example: the crate of death booby trap, or having a map where turning one corner suddenly leads to an ubrupt dead end) Hopefully I have imparted some knowledge for you to incorporate from these characteristics for people who are first learning your guys maps... and if you really understand what I said it would be possible to make maps that are the opposite of what I said to completely mess with people and be deliberately confusing like having maps that seem random or a maze that is just too unintelligible to navigate. Keep up the great work!