Halo 4 Halodrome

[Maximus IL]

 

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Canvas: Impact

 

Players: 8 - 12

 

Gametypes:

• Slayer
• CTF
• Oddball
• KoTH
• Extraction
• Regicide
• Grifball
• Ricochet

Supported Gametypes: Ricochet (primary), CTF, Extraction, KoTH, Oddball, Team and FFA Slayer, and (just for kicks) Grifball.

 

Description: Halodrome is the bigger brother of Minidrome, designed for the 343i Ricochet Forge Contest. There are four primary routes between the bases: upper, lower, and each side. Both sides directly connect to upper mid and lower mid, allowing the routes to be used in different combinations. All ball spawns occur along the midline of the map on the upper level. While upper mid has good sightlines to the bases and the exit of the lower routes, it is completely exposed by design, with protected approaches from the green and gold lifts.

 

Goals: Since Ricochet allows players to score from a distance, a special goal was designed for that gametype (scoring from the midline was trivially easy with only the CTF setup). The goal makes scoring quite difficult from the center mid bridges or platforms (at least, in testing no one was able to do it in-game), but does allow reasonably easy scoring from behind the Y-crosses on the side routes, and easy scoring anywhere in the arc between the side platforms and basement ramp. It is also possible to score blind from behind the center Y-cross pair on the upper level (above the opening to the basement) and on the ramp up from the basement. During testing, most goals were scored by throws within 10 units of the goal. The difference in the goals is depicted below, with Ricochet pictured first, followed by CTF and Grifball:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ordnance:1x Railgun (lower mid, 140s timer) and 2x Concussion Rifles (wide ramps, one nearer to each base, 130s timers)

 

Weapons:2x Needlers (no extra clips, 100s timers) adjacent to each base, various loadout weapons, frag and pulse grenades. No plasma grenades are on-map.

 

 

Other Comments:I added Grifball because I could. I don't really have a better reason. And yes, the spawns have been tested . . . you can spawn camp all day long just like in real Grifball.

 

Other Screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we'll finish up with a screencap of a posthumous Ricochet goal . . . killed in mid-jump to the goal. So close to the +50 . . . yet so far away.

 

 

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[Maximus IL]

Video of CTF play.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k35IKbqc6PQ

[Rayner Sutardja]

It looks pretty cool, but from the video i can see you being spawn killed over and over again; you should probably add more spawns or decrease the effectiveness of the top platforms, the sightlines are way tpo long. I'm no expert, but I see no reason to go to the bottom parts of the map when they are so risky, even the railgun, which doesnt seem to spawn often is ealisy accesible by dropping down from the top. Just add some cover and your map will be changed. The concussion rifle too, you should place it below the map. At least for now, it seems like the top is too powerful. Those are the issues i can see from the gameplay but the map definitely can be improved to be a great map!

[Maximus IL]

Thank you for the reply.

 

FYI, the perspective in the vid is not mine (I'm not that good). It's addict3d 2cha0s's perspective. I was off in the distance trying to get the flag while my teammates tried to cover me. But as we were playing shorthanded against a full team (that also happened to have two very good 50's), it was an uphill battle.

 

While I do agree that the map plays very fast and the center is quite powerful for CTF, I don't think there was much spawn killing. In the vid, chaos was attacked immediately off spawn only twice (at the beginning). There were several times where she died within 5 seconds or so of spawn, but that was because she chose to immediately engage. The spawn itself was safe.

 

Also, the map was built for Ricochet. Top mid is far less powerful in Ricochet. Unlike CTF where you have to transit no-man's land 3 times (twice in enemy territory and once in yours), in Ricochet you only have to transit no-man's land once (from your base to mid), and if you go the side routes, you don't have to transit it at all because you could squirt around the sides and score with a throw. There was additional cover in the early versions of the map which did make CTF play more traditionally, but the cover caused problems with Ricochet.

 

In order to keep Ricochet from playing like basketball (score - change of possession - score - change of possession - score . . . etc.), you have 2 viable choices: indirect routes to slow the ball carrier and let the opposition catch up, or open routes with a very strong power position to allow the opposition to cover the approach. To keep the action going, I deliberately chose the latter (except for Hekau, all the other Ricochet contest finalists chose the former). No-man's land exists to make running goals difficult without control of the middle, and to give a player an immediate choice of protecting the goal or pushing upfield off spawn.

 

Anyway, I do understand that my choice in design leads to very non-traditional CTF play and I perfectly understand if some (or many) players do not like the way it plays in CTF. I personally find it fun . . . but I also built the map, so I'm quite biased. When it comes to Ricochet, however, I think it plays very well, and the playtesting comments were quite positive. If you have any desire to try the map, I would recommend giving Ricochet a shot.

 

I would post a video of Ricochet to demonstrate, but I don't have a capture card, and the only game that was capped by someone who does was the above CTF game.

[Tommy]

It reminds me of Marathon a little bit, but with a CTF focus. Looks like a solid map