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Halo |OT8| A Salt on the Control Room

Ramirez

Member
here is my terrible shop (used image preview on OSX) of the Darbabi's...

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Could make a siege gametype. Have an Incenerator cannon on the wall near the gate.

Promethean Crossbow for bonus points. Hardlight phalanxes aplenty, too.

It'd be interesting if they made certain compartmentalized sections of maps that can only be made through based on your armor ability. For example:

A small vertical vent that you can only Jetpack through (such as the thing you fall down at the very end of The Covenant in Halo 3). Call it the "laundry chute."

A heavy ion/plasma field that you need to activate a regeneration field in so you can safely traverse it, otherwise you get incinerated.

A very bright and damaging Forerunner guard mechanism that can only by stopped by the Hardlight shield because it's front-facing, otherwise you get blinded and vaporized.

Maybe venture into Metroid Prime territory and have a certain speed booster panel that's activated by using the Thruster, certain door lights that can only be opened/unlocked by Auto Turret rounds, etc.

Ooh! Obvious one: defense/sentry field that you have to use Active Camo to evade, otherwise you get shot up too fast to traverse it safely. Maybe this could work in Spartan Ops somewhere.
 
It's the man cannons that pose the biggest initial worry, for me. I think it was Dax that mentioned the need for them to propel the player upwards much more than they have in recent videos, and in Reach. The fun of Valhalla was the risk versus reward nature of taking the cannon or hoofing it around the rocks. If the cannon fires at a lower, less risky trajectory then that balance is immediately altered.

That was me.

The mancannons in Halo 4 seem to operate like the mancannons in Reach, sadly: propelling you in a safe, low, and deliberate way so as to avoid fall damage or any danger. Reach mancannons were not fun for these reasons. Halo 3's mancannons were fun because they launched you high into the air, exposed you to an element of danger (thereby adding risk and a bit of an adrenaline rush), and being able to land safely to engage in battle immediately.

I know there are some people in here clamoring for a remake of Valhalla – and even though Valhalla is my favorite Halo map ever – I for one don't want to see a remake. Frankie's a smart man, so I assume he was very deliberate in his word choice when he made that tweet. It's a remake, not a re-imagining. A remake of Valhalla would not work. And why's that?

Let's start with the mancannons because you mentioned that. Because of fall damage they'd have to be altered, and as soon as that's done, one very fun aspect of Valhalla is gone forever. I explained in the quote above why the mancannons in Reach (and it looks like the mancannons in Halo 4) aren't as fun as those in Halo 3. There's nothing like going through a mancannon in Halo 3, especially on Valhalla, and altering them diminishes the amount of fun that can be had.

Obviously mancannons not being as fun isn't reason enough to not remake a map, but that wouldn't be my only problem. Valhalla was designed around the BR's 2x scope. There's no way you can pin players on the hill from either base without getting closer. 2x scope forced the combat closer, so even though it was a very open map, you were able to travel without worry of being constantly pinged. This wouldn't be the case with Halo 4's sandbox: it has a DMR with a 3x scope. That magnification will push the combat out, making it play differently from how it was designed; probably breaking the map in the process. From the hill you'll probably be able to hit players close to their base, and from the base you can pick off people at the hill.

Infantry combat wouldn't be the only aspect about the map's combat that would be crippled by Halo 4's sandbox. The vehicle combat would suffer too, theoretically, before you consider the map's layout. Vehicle health is not tied to player health in Halo 4, and Valhalla was designed with that mechanic in mind. On this point maybe it would play better – I have a hard time imagining how such a change plays out. But that's not the biggest cause for concern. Valhalla, despite its openness, is a cramped map for vehicles. Try imagining players being able to spawn with plasma pistols, plasma grenades, and the whole host of anti-vehicle measures you can spawn with in Halo 4. There will be barely room to maneuver – literally – around all those factors. True, 343 could limit the options you can include on this map, but will they? Even if they did, there are many other factors in Halo 4's sandbox to consider when driving a vehicle. Like...

How would the ordnance system work? Where would they spawn? How would you drive vehicles around those? What about the AAs? It'll take too long to go through each of them to discuss how they could theoretically alter the combat of the map to its detriment. To summarize: Valhalla wasn't designed with any of them in mind, so there will be many, if not all of them, that would not fit comfortably within the map's design. There are probably plenty of examples you can think of when thruster, jetpack, camo, sentry turret, and PV would not work. What about the specs? What about...

My first instinct would be to jump at the chance of a Valhalla remake, but the more I think about it, the more I don't want it. There are simply too many additions from Halo 3's sandbox for that map to handle adequately without significant alterations. Please do not remake Valhalla.
 
Promethean Crossbow for bonus points. Hardlight phalanxes aplenty, too.

It'd be interesting if they made certain compartmentalized sections of maps that can only be made through based on your armor ability. For example:

A small vertical vent that you can only Jetpack through (such as the thing you fall down at the very end of The Covenant in Halo 3). Call it the "laundry chute."

A heavy ion/plasma field that you need to activate a regeneration field in so you can safely traverse it, otherwise you get incinerated.

A very bright and damaging Forerunner guard mechanism that can only by stopped by the Hardlight shield because it's front-facing, otherwise you get blinded and vaporized.

Maybe venture into Metroid Prime territory and have a certain speed booster panel that's activated by using the Thruster, certain door lights that can only be opened/unlocked by Auto Turret rounds, etc.
Brink dis this. Only certain classes could make it through certain paths. It was interesting, and played well in most cases, but I don't see it working in Halo.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Yeah. Valhalla is my favorite BTB map, ever. But between the DMR and the fall damage and implications for fall damage: do not want.
 

Omni

Member
What was that map in Halo CE (PC) that was basically a big bridge in a canyon at night with paths either side and underneath (I think)?

That would be a cool remake. Valhalla wasn't that great, IMO.
 
Lets try this the long way, process of elimination.
Here's a list of all maps, remake omitted, asterisks represent maps that have already been remade, highlighted are the maps I think would make good candidates. "Small/Medium" (by my judgment) maps are strikedthrough.


Halo CE
  • Battle Creek *
  • Blood Gulch *
  • Boarding Action
  • Chill Out *
  • Chiron TL-34
  • Damnation *
  • Derelict *
  • Hang 'Em High *
  • Longest *
  • Prisoner *
  • Rat Race *
  • Sidewinder *
  • Wizard *
PC/Mac exclusives:
  • Danger Canyon
  • Death Island
  • Gephyrophobia *
  • Ice Fields
  • Infinity
  • Timberland *
Halo 2
  • Ascension *
  • Burial Mounds
  • Colossus
  • Foundation
  • Headlong *
  • Ivory Tower *
  • Lockout *
  • Midship *
  • Waterworks
  • Zanzibar *
  • Containment
  • Sanctuary *
  • Turf
  • Backwash
  • Gemini
  • Relic
  • Terminal
Halo 2 Vista:
  • District
  • Uplift
Halo 3
  • Construct
  • Epitaph
  • Guardian
  • High Ground
  • Isolation
  • Sandtrap
  • Snowbound
  • The Pit
  • Valhalla
  • Foundry (very unlikely)
  • Rat's Nest
  • Standoff
  • Ghost Town
  • Assembly
  • Orbital
  • Sandbox (very unlikely)
  • Citadel
  • Longshore
Halo Reach:
  • Boardwalk
  • Boneyard
  • Countdown
  • Powerhouse
  • Spire
  • Sword Base
  • Zealot
  • Anchor 9
  • Breakpoint
  • Tempest
  • Condemned
  • Highlands
 
No way it is Spire, might as well cross it out.

That map sucks.

I only crossed out maps that were pretty much impossibilities. Spire isn't highlighted.

So candidates are:
Sidewinder - Badass map
Infinity - for the name more than anything.
Waterworks - Awesome, but I don't know how well it would play in modern Halo.
Terminal - So long as there are trains
Sandtrap - I want Elephants! (Or Mammoths, them good too)!
Valhalla - One of my favorite maps of all time.
Standoff - Seems like a good candidate.
Longshore - Seems to fit. Might play well in Halo 4.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Will we earn XP / Spartan Points for playing Halo 4's campaign?
 
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