Havok said:
Not even just Forge maps, but every map (although Forged maps do amplify the problem, you're right), since spawns and spawn zones are placed with Forge. Part of me wonders if this is the primary reason for the awful spawns in the last two games. I remember one of the Bungie guys here saying to place two spawn points on top of each other instead of just one, to give the system more choices, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the spawn system. Note: I am completely ignorant of the technical details of any of these systems and am just speculating.
I think two spawns on each other have the same weight.
People generally like my spawns, however none of my maps have made it into matchmaking. But you are correct, the more choices you give the engine (ie more spawn points), the better they work. It seems weird but people that forge maps almost always have them spawn starved, because they think "I want someone to spawn in this area, so I'll throw down a point or two" then they need to be putting down 5 or 6 to account for deweighting by nearby players or increased weighting by nearby teammates. I wrote an entire FAQ for it for Halo 3
over at HBO.
Notable changes from 3 to Reach as confirmed by Jonnyothan is that Reach has Line-of-Sight spawn blocking depending on what weapon the enemy player is holding.
tl;dr Spawns work better if people think of spawning players in
areas and not
points. Especially since you can place up to 250 now, which is over twice the amount you had access to in Halo 3.
tl;dr2 Most maps should not ever have sided spawns because they're either a) not big enough or b) not enough safe locations on both sides to put the team. It just barely works on Valhalla, definitely does not work on Highlands or Tempest, etc. The only map in Reach that should have sided spawns in Slayer is Coag, because it's the only one that's long enough in one direction to justify it. Otherwise people should be making heavier use of buddy spawning to spawn a team next to each other (which is why you need to place more than 2 spawnpoints at a location). If you want locked spawns there needs to be more than 2 ways out of the base.