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Halo |OT10| The Calm Before The Storm

Vire

Member
Ghaleon, seems like you can still build that kind of map it's just going to be elevated into the air. Impact will allow you to build that same map, just you have to build the floor space.
 
Bungie remakes blood gulch, ascension, and sanctuary. 343 makes a grifball court.

lol.

I still think forge doesn't look very good. The shadows help it's overall staleness, but from what I just watched the forge pieces are going to make forge suffer the same way it did in reach. every thing will look the same.

:/
 

Overdoziz

Banned
Ghal I think on Impact (as Fyre said):



This seems like it could be that kind of area. No exactly the same, but decent.
It's not flat though, and doesn't seem that big. Honestly even something like the Quarry on Forge World where Asylum is build isn't flat enough. I guess 343 wants the Forge maps to look 'realistic' so they make add a bunch of hills but that only hinders Forgers in creating maps.
Ghaleon, seems like you can still build that kind of map it's just going to be elevated into the air. Impact will allow you to build that same map, just you have to build the floor space.
Problem with this is that it requires more objects which is more taxing on the engine and if there's no flat natural terrain Forge pieces it will make the map look really bland like in Reach where it's just gray on gray.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Ghaleon, seems like you can still build that kind of map it's just going to be elevated into the air. Impact will allow you to build that same map, just you have to build the ground.

You could do that in Forge World as well, but that caused huge frame rate issues. Both of the maps I made suffered from it because I used too much Forge geometry.

My #1 wish for Halo 4's Forge was a set of objects to shape terrain with. Think big versions of Halo 2's golf flag, upside down: a rounded object painted to look like grass. Make 5-6 different sized and shaped versions of those, and we can form the terrain rather than use what we get in the default map or have to make a totally flat map based on giant wall pieces (Forge World).

I'm still hoping that there's a space I missed, or those kind of objects are included. I just wanna dream up a map and build it, not shoehorn it into a map that's already detailed.
 

FyreWulff

Member
These forge maps look pretty good in my opinion. We could have used like a snow/sand/covenant environment but what are you gonna do. Impact looks like its going to be my favorite. You know what would be cool? With each of the three map packs, they include a forge environment separate to the 3 main maps. Not going to happen but I could be optimistic right?

Snow and Covenant forge maps are basically all that's left.

We've had

- Human (Foundry, Erosion)
- Steelrunner (Tempest, Forge World, Ravine)
- Stonerunner (Sandbox)
- Space / Rock (Impact)

So that leaves Snow and Covenant as Halo motifs that haven't shown up as Forge palettes.

You could do that in Forge World as well, but that caused huge frame rate issues. Both of the maps I made suffered from it because I used too much Forge geometry.

My #1 wish for Halo 4's Forge was a set of objects to shape terrain with. Think big versions of Halo 2's golf flag, upside down: a rounded object painted to look like grass. Make 5-6 different sized and shaped versions of those, and we can form the terrain rather than use what we get in the default map or have to make a totally flat map based on giant wall pieces (Forge World).

I'm still hoping that there's a space I missed, or those kind of objects are included. I just wanna dream up a map and build it, not shoehorn it into a map that's already detailed.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure why they seem so allergic to make just a big flat spot on a Forge environ somewhere.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
These forge maps look pretty good in my opinion. We could have used like a snow/sand/covenant environment but what are you gonna do. Impact looks like its going to be my favorite. You know what would be cool? With each of the three map packs, they include a forge environment separate to the 3 main maps. Not going to happen but I could be optimistic right?

I assume it's possible, but I'd see most people raising a big fuss if it counted as one of the maps in the packs. A free DLC? Maybe.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
It's not flat though, and doesn't seem that big. Honestly even something like the Quarry on Forge World where Asylum is build isn't flat enough. I guess 343 wants the Forge maps to look 'realistic' so they make add a bunch of hills but that only hinders Forgers in creating maps.

Yeah. The only really cool parts I saw where ideas began popping into my head was the chasm on Ravine. Building a map that is all walkways and jumps would be interesting there. Impact might be where I mess around though.
 

heckfu

Banned
Bungie remakes blood gulch, ascension, and sanctuary. 343 makes a grifball court.

lol.
All of those maps you listed were broken in many ways.

And 343 probably have forge maps built in but listened to the community and aren't putting them in matchmaking on launch day.

Game. Blouses.
 

FyreWulff

Member
I assume it's possible, but I'd see most people raising a big fuss if it counted as one of the maps in the packs. A free DLC? Maybe.

Any new Forge canvases need to be free (and required) DLC. It sucks when the Forge userbase gets split, such as with Halo 3 (Sandbox remaining paid DLC) and Reach (Anniversary disc). If they decide to give us Super Forge World with a bunch of new features, it needs to be able to be used by the entire matchmaking population.
 

Vire

Member
There's not enough space.

Sure there is, did you see that 4v4 map 343 made? Looks like there's considerably more room to use even past that.

I also didn't see any framerate drops during the gameplay of that map.

*shrug*

Still Erosion looks pretty useless as a Forge map, I'm not sure where you could really create something besides over the lake and even then it would be tiny.

The only good thing is the Griffball play space could easily be used as a starting point for Symmetrical 4 v 4 maps.
 

Talents

Banned
I watched the Gamespot video on mute during a meeting. So I had to look away now and then. But what I saw really bummed me out.

All I want in a Forge map is a big open space to build a map on. Basically a space like this:

1000px-Sandbox_msblog.jpg

God damn, the amount of bad maps made on that map and then implemented into matchmaking.
 
All of those maps you listed were broken in many ways.

And 343 probably have forge maps built in but listened to the community and aren't putting them in matchmaking on launch day.

Game. Blouses.

See - I hope the developer base variant of each forge world map makes it in simply because they wont feel like forge maps as all the other forge maps would.

The geometry and forge pieces will have been designed specifically for base variants (I would assume?) - and so the base forge variant would be good enough to be a unique map (in my mind)

Any new Forge canvases need to be free (and required) DLC. It sucks when the Forge userbase gets split, such as with Halo 3 (Sandbox remaining paid DLC) and Reach (Anniversary disc). If they decide to give us Super Forge World with a bunch of new features, it needs to be able to be used by the entire matchmaking population.

I agree - but personally hope this is all the love Forge gets. If they do make a map down the line that has a sweet flat section perfect for forging that would be great - but I dont really want it too badly. A Sandbox remake complete with Crypt and Skybox would probably be perfect for this kind of thing. I hated that map in Halo 3 though - such an ugly aesthetic and the quality of maps that the community put out was horrible.
 
I dunno, the scale felt really weird. Like, we know the structure on Impact is rather large but when the monitor first panned around it, the doors looked like holes you could barely crouch under.

The Infection footage kind of cemented that idea because I felt as though that place was massive.

Having said that, there are SOOOO many different places to put your map! The cavern, the dusty pit, the sleek griffball court, the forerunner structre, the green hills, the fucking cliffs, the moonbase, the asteroid, in the middle of space....

Soooo much more variety will really give what would be similar maps a very different feel.
 

Conor 419

Banned
I think the forge maps are good bar Ravine, which is really not as colourful as it should be.

I agree that the lack of flatness is an issue, they should have just remade Sandbox.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Any new Forge canvases need to be free (and required) DLC. It sucks when the Forge userbase gets split, such as with Halo 3 (Sandbox remaining paid DLC) and Reach (Anniversary disc). If they decide to give us Super Forge World with a bunch of new features, it needs to be able to be used by the entire matchmaking population.
Can't argue with that.

I assume we didn't get a Covenant theme because we aren't going to be spending any serious time with Covenant structures in the campaign.
 

Raide

Member

Like the look of them but for the love of god stop putting massive buildings/structures on Forge maps! Leave them blank and let Forgers choose from loads of prefab items.

Also, they keep making Forge maps with bumpy bits all over the place. It basically forces Forgers to map floating maps since developers never give them enough flat and open areas.

Also, any chance of them uploading the prefab items to sketchup or something? Would be nice to see what we are working with,
 

zlatko

Banned
Random story:

I was driving yesterday on the interstate to get into the city for class, and on my right was a truck. I noticed a sticker on the side of his back windows and it was the Noble team icon.

I immediately said aloud in my car to myself, "That guy is BAD ASS!", and followed that up with at least 7 Ric Flair WOOOOOOOOOOH's...

I have a problem. ; ;
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I have to admit that I had more fun on Sandbox maps than most forgeworld maps.

So did I. But I think that's because the I found the underlying game to be a lot more fun. So even subpar maps could play well because the game played well. I've played some great custom maps in Reach and ended the game very frustrated, because it was still Reach.
 
I think it's nice that there is 3 distinct environments (although Ravine looks stale as shit), but the geometry on each environment is lacking mild, flat designs, which like Forge World is going to lead to a lot of people making forge maps in the sky, which not only makes them ugly as sin because they are entirely forge pieces, but also makes maps that are more difficult to get solid performance out of.
 

BigShow36

Member
If I'm understanding you correctly, your argument is that Halo (the first one) is the last game where individual skill was more important than the ability to work as a team. (I'm not suggesting that the ability to be a team player isn't a skill - I'm trying to summarize your overall point, that Halo allowed individual skill to shine and gave greater depth to team play than later games did.)

While I use Halo 1 as my example game, I don't think it was perfect and there are certainly some changes that could improve it. That said, on to your post...

I don't think you can really compare the two skills like that. Their importance varied depending on the situation; the environment of Halo CE (local LANs primarily) meant that any group of players usually had vastly disparate skill sets. In those types of situations, not only did you not see much teamwork, there was usually one or two individuals who steamrolled everyone else just through blunt individual skill. This made up the bulk of people's experience with Halo 1.

Teamwork became vastly more important when you actually got two teams of roughly equivalent skill or at least players who were familiar with what they could or couldn't do. The depth of viable strategy was greatly increased by the weapon and power spawning syste, the player respawn system and the utility weapon. Simply put, there were more viable options in any given situation that could be pulled off through a combination of individual ability and teamwork.

You also began to see players find success by being really good either through individual ability or their ability to work off their teammates. In later Halo games, you will only find success through your teammates.

The part I don't get, then, is why the early competitive winners were so quickly eclipsed when Halo 2 came out.

If you look at the early days of competitive gaming (first national championship was in 2002, AGP was pretty active in 2003, MLG kicked off that year), you'll see names like HP Darkman, StrangePurple, Zyos. They dominated at the start (especially when they teamed up to form The Dream Team) - but soon after Halo 2 came out, they ALL faded away. It's like they couldn't adapt to the new game (though the Ogres and Walshy, who'd all been around in 2003, had no trouble doing so).

I can't speak for all of the old-schoold elite players, but I am still friends with one of the players from that first National Championship (which didnt' really feature the best at the time, but the best they could find) you're referring to. He stopped playing Halo because it was a completely different game that he didn't enjoy, not one he couldn't be good at.

The term "adapt" is thrown around a lot. The irony is that the reason a lot of players left was because it was too easy to adapt, there wasn't as much "adapting" required, and the skill gap was narrowed.

So if a group of guys could dominate the competitive scene, both individually and as a team, when the game was DEEPER, and rewarded individual play more... why wouldn't they dominate even MORE in a game that became less deep? (Zyos kept playing FFAs through 2006, and then dropped out of professional gaming, but he stopped playing team games in 2005, and the rest of the Dream Team was gone in 2004.)

Because the differential between them and teams below them got narrower. A shallower skill gap benefits lower-skilled players much more than it does higher skilled players. Especially when you reduce something like the shooting skill, which everything else hinges on. Players who used to have a large advantage because they had great dexterity and could react and think quickly suddenly saw all those advantages nullified to a great extent.

The difference between Halo CE and Halo 2 was massive. The way Halo was played changed forever, and a lot of the great CE players simply didn't enjoy the changes.

Part of the answer might be as simple as "the competitive scene wasn't big enough to support them and they went back to school" - the first real contracts weren't signed until mid-2006. But I don't think that's all of it. To me, as an outsider (to the competitive scene), it seemed that players that were BETTER individually (in Halo) had more trouble adapting to the team dynamics of Halo 2 - it's not that Halo's team play is deeper, it's that Halo's team dynamics are LESS important than the individual skills of the members of the team. (That is: four great FFA players could easily dominate in Halo team play - but 4 great Halo 2 FFA players wouldn't necessarily dominate in Halo 2 team play.)

I guess, for me, it boils down to "Team playing is a different skill than solo playing, and its importance was greatly diminished in the first Halo, compared to later games."

I agree that teamplay and individual play are different skillsets, to a point; there is some obvious overlap in the skillsets. "Teamwork" is not something that you need to force in a team-based game, like Halo. It's something that will always be present, and its depth will grow when you allow for different playstyles to find success.

Tying this back to your original argument, it seems we agree... to a point. Individual skill is MORE important in Halo than in Halo 2. Where we seem to diverge is that you are suggesting that higher individual skill will necessarily lead to higher team skill... and I'm suggesting that there's not really a correlation (at least in the first game). I will ABSOLUTELY agree that in Halo 2 and 3, teams with greater-skilled players dominated, and I will agree that in the early days of Reach, wins were more unpredictable because there WAS a greater 'random' factor - one that MLG removed over time, leading to fewer upsets and more predictable outcomes. But what I don't see is a greater 'depth' in Halo gameplay that comes from individual skill - what I see is that individual skill level was far more important than the ability to work together as a team. To me... that's LESS depth.

Wow, I didn't expect this to be that long. And now I'm late for a meeting. :(

My original point was that a game that allows an individual to be a deadly, effective force has more potential for deep teamwork and strategy than one that doesn't. The reason being is that it allows players to seperate themselves from their teammates, cover more of the map and attack from unexpected angles and have a realistic shot of success.

However, basic strategy like Teamshot is going to be much more prevalent in a game that restricts the individual and certainly much more prolific. My question would be; is that better? Is it better to have the outcome of the game rely so much on the most primitive form of teamwork, especially when its due to the fact that its literally forced on players?

Look at how team strategy has evolved. It started in Halo 1 as an incredibly dynamic thing, where teams would prioritze powerups and choose how to allocate their resources and move around maps. Individual players would each be working on a different objective and playing off their teammates.

Halo 2 moved to a static-setup from of strategy, where an initial coordinated rush was followed by attempting to hold a ceratin power position. Individual players who struck out on their own would find they couldn't realisitically take on more than one enemy at a time, and quickly found that sticking to one area with teammates was the best way to succeed.

Halo 3, team strategy resembled Halo 2's, but more like a swarm of zerglings, where success primarily came from having more players shooting at the same thing.

All the strategies of Halo 2 and Halo 3 were perfectly viable in Halo 1 as well, but there were also so many more strategies that could work. It only appears that teamwork was less important because it was less in-your face. It's easy to look at a team all sticking together and say, "that's teamwork." In reality, I see greater depth in a team that has a couple of players sticking together directly attacking enemy positions, another across the map contesting a power weapon and another sneaking in for a flank.

Decreasing the importance individual ability and saying it increases teamwork is like saying increasing the size of the basketball hoop will increase teamwork.
 

bGanci

Banned
Available now at Amazon.

If you pre-ordered it at GameStop. You have to wait until October 18th.
Best buy didn't get any in either. Amazon sold out :/. I had one ordered but cancelled it. I figured I would just pick one up when I got dishonored. :/
 

Woorloog

Banned
Whoah, whoah, whoah.
We get 3 Forge Worlds, and not a single one of them has natural, completly smooth, open outdoors area?
I'd facepalm but that doesn't convey strongly enough how i feel about lack of open, smooth area.
Fuck Coliseum Walls.
 

Raide

Member
Just give me 4 massive boxes all linked together. Sand, Snow, Grass and Space. All flat but give players lots of objects that are custom designed to make hills/caves etc. More good prefab items and more lego style items.
 
Why sure they are, I'm HaloGAF's sweetheart.
You're more of a big sweetie to me.
Im now pretty far through The Thursday War and eat my words - it starts out very much like Glasslands but then becomes far more interesting. I kind of wish things played out differently - essentially I wish it was a different story - but I am very interested in the story being presented.

I REALLY need to get some other stuff done, but couldn't put the book down - after so many dud's recently its nice to enjoy a Halo novel again.

I just hope we get some Spartan 4 action, at least a look in at the training facilities on the Infinity.

My gripes with Parangosky still remain, but im kind of able to look past them
Glad to see you enjoying it a lot more. :)
 
I think it's nice that there is 3 distinct environments (although Ravine looks stale as shit), but the geometry on each environment is lacking mild, flat designs, which like Forge World is going to lead to a lot of people making forge maps in the sky, which not only makes them ugly as sin because they are entirely forge pieces, but also makes maps that are more difficult to get solid performance out of.

300px-Flatland.png


I definitely agree. While the hills and natural formations are reat for beginner level stuff (Erosion caters to these players well) I definitely think having the superflat area on Ravine being the grey Forerunner structure is a bit silly. True, players need not spend wall piees making a floor but that is only a temporary fix As Over said, different floors would be great.
 
Random story:

I was driving yesterday on the interstate to get into the city for class, and on my right was a truck. I noticed a sticker on the side of his back windows and it was the Noble team icon.

I immediately said aloud in my car to myself, "That guy is BAD ASS!", and followed that up with at least 7 Ric Flair WOOOOOOOOOOH's...

I have a problem. ; ;

I was watching a Dexter episode from 2009 and at one place, there was an entire wall filled with ODST posters. I always love it when I see Halo appear in a TV show or something similar.
 

bGanci

Banned
Whoah, whoah, whoah.
We get 3 Forge Worlds, and not a single one of them has natural, completly smooth, open outdoors area?
I'd facepalm but that doesn't convey strongly enough how i feel about lack of open, smooth area.
Fuck Coliseum Walls.
You can create a smooth surface in the air can't you? Build it above the map?
 
Good news everyone, I was able to preorder from Walmart last night. They reopened their preorder for the limited edition. It's only kind of lame that has to be shipped to my house though.
 
1 more map left.
Perhaps the map packs are themed?
#CovieWinterWonderland
#FloodMapPackThatTotallyWontHaveMapLikeIsolationOrBackwash

Beaten by Hydranockz. Bawls.

Good news everyone, I was able to preorder from Walmart last night. They reopened their preorder for the limited edition. It's only kind of lame that has to be shipped to my house though.
Would prefer to pick it up at Midnight I'm guessing?
 
Random story:

I was driving yesterday on the interstate to get into the city for class, and on my right was a truck. I noticed a sticker on the side of his back windows and it was the Noble team icon.

I immediately said aloud in my car to myself, "That guy is BAD ASS!", and followed that up with at least 7 Ric Flair WOOOOOOOOOOH's...

I have a problem. ; ;
Lol awesome random moments like these always require a camera to capture.

I was on the freeway and my bro spotted this truck with decals that were dark blue and halo ring / halo styled fonts. The name said "Halo Trucking Co.". My jaw dropped and I tried to get my phone, but by then it was too late as we were heading into the exit... :'( NPH Moment "Did You See The Size of That Unicorn!?"
 
Can anyone recommend me a good monitor - I really need to upgrade - I have been using this default Dell monitor for a while now - I think its 17 inches lol. Would be nice if it was actually widescreen though - for some reason the fact it seems so square is bugging me all of a sudden.

Whats generally a nice size for gaming? I actually dont want to get something too big as its going to be my PC monitor and I dont want to have something huge taking up too much space.
 

Havok

Member
I really hope performance issues are hammered out with this version of Forge. I'm not seeing a lot of really good, flat, open spaces for people to really get creative with. Having to work with or around existing geometry is a huge problem with creating even small and midsize maps, and pretty much killed the possibility of (good) BTB Forge maps that didn't chug. Hell, Kynan mentions how the bottom of the Impact building would make a good 1v1 map because it's small and circular and has a lower level, but there's a giant damn rock in the way that every map there would have to contend with. I dunno. Performance is pretty much the make or break thing for me at this point, floating maps could be truly viable and loosen up the crazy tight restrictions on creativity they currently have.
 
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