Community Conversion

Hello Halo Customs! For the past 7 months now, The Psycho Duck and I have been working on a project that has been pretty massive in scope. Up until now only a few select people have played or heard about it, but that is about to change! Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Conversion, a new game mode in Halo 4 designed by the community, for the community!​
Conversion is an asymmetrical, progressive-objective based game mode. It has many similarities to modes such as Invasion and Territories in Halo: Reach alongside a balanced weapon setup and the smooth gameplay of Halo 4. It is a blend of some of the best features from the Halo series and it will fill the void many feel in the series after the removal of asymmetric game modes with Halo 4.​
While many people have tried to make similar modes to try to recapture Invasion in Halo 4, The Psycho duck and I decided we wanted to create a standardized mode and map type so that many people could become involved not just in playing Conversion, but in making their own maps for it. Because the mode is standardized and the maps designed around it, anyone who has played the game mode could potentially make their own Conversion map. There are 2 completed Conversion maps fully tested and ready to be played right now, both created by Duck and myself, but there are also many more in the works or in the planning stages by other members of the Halo community. The game type is not modded, so for those of you who prefer to shy away from modding this mode is completely legitimate.​
Much of how the mode works is described in the video above, but I will run you briefly through how the game is played. Conversion is played with 2 teams of 6 people each over 2 rounds, allowing each team to play an offense round and a defense round. The Blue team always runs offense first and the Red team always starts out on defense. In each round there are 3 objectives, the first of which starts out on the map and the others unlock as objectives are captured. Offense team must plant an Extraction node and defend it for 45 seconds in order to score a point and move on to the next objective. Defense team may attempt to convert the node and intercept the point. Defense team can score on the offense round, but they cannot activate the objective until offense team first plants it. After either team scores the first objective a number of things will happen. Both teams will start respawning further along in the map, and weapons and vehicles will start to unlock for each team. After the second objective is captured or intercepted, all weapons and vehicles unlock, making the fight for the final objective all out war. After one team scores 3 objectives in a round or the timer runs out, the teams switch sides and the next round begins back at the first objective.​
Players are offered 3 load outs to spawn with that allow them to play different roles in the fight: A quick and CQC focussed medic class, a standard Battle Rifle Class, or a more ranged DMR class. A good team will want to have all 3 classes in play if they can, though sometimes one class may be more appropriate than another. Teamwork is essential in Conversion, as is communicating and putting together a strategy, as there are many factors into who comes out on top. There will be 2 maps released with the game mode at launch that were designed from the ground up for Conversion. These maps have been tested for months on end and are highly polished. These are shown below and will be posted on HC in the following days.​
The first of those maps is Firebase, a medium sized Conversion map set on Ravine. Firebase uses Ravine's terrain in new and interesting ways in order to feel like a completely different place, yet still feel rooted in the Halo universe. Firebase features a Rocket Warthog for the attackers and plenty of power weapons for both teams. Gameplay is fast paced but strategic, and positions of power on the map are often as important to hold as the objective itself.​
The second map is Colony, a large scale Conversion map set on Impact. This map is much larger than Firebase and more vehicle heavy, with a Rocket Hog, Ghost, and Mantis roaming the map and more power weapons at the player's disposal. Colony flows very differently from Firebase but still follows the same formula, and teamwork and communication are still the keys to victory.​
While no game mode will please every part of the community, we know there has been a serious want for asymmetrical modes and strategic gameplay in Halo 4. Conversion is our answer to that want, and those who have played it tell us that it fills the gap beautifully. In order to get members of HC into lobbies playing this new mode, Halo Customs will be adding the option to list your custom game lobby as playing Conversion. Duck and I will be hosting lobbies over the next week to help get players into Conversion games as well, but feel free to start your own Conversion lobby all the same! I hope you all enjoy this exciting new addition to the Halo 4 sandbox and help make many more maps for this mode in the future! There are already a lot of maps just getting started all around the community, and maybe a few even further along. ;) Enjoy!​
 
Guys I'm so stoked you finally released this, I had a blast testing with you, thank you for letting me help. I know you wouldn't put it out if it wasn't as close to perfect as possible. Oh, and Robius. Nautilus looks amazing, you and Gryffin do quality work together.
 
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Hey guys, here's the preview for the Conversion map "Nautilus" that's co-forged by myself and GryffinGuy007. It's still under construction, but since the gametype is finally publicly released, we thought that we'd share our in-progress project with you all:​
Awesome Robius, a great example of how the community can take part in the game mode besides just playing it. Can't wait to see this and more Conversion maps released alongside the first 2!
 
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Some of the best games I've ever had on Halo 4 are with this gametype. I'm also thrilled to see there are already more maps for Conversion coming! Excellent work to the creators of the gametype and the first two maps. To those of you who are making maps for Conversion, I wish you the best.
 
This has been needed for a while, this is also the pont where conversion customs spam the customs list despite there only being 2 maps so far...
 
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Alright, I played in the lobby yesterday and have some feedback.

1. I had framerate issues on both Firebase and Colony, mostly when people were putting up Regen Fields or grenades were going off. I did have a bit of frame-rate without any of that when on Colony, looking towards the vehicle bay from that area opposite the big bridge (I have no idea what to call it, from the vehicle bay it's to your left).

2. There were some spots where the terrain got rather bumpy and I got stuck (especially transitioning from natural terrain to forge blocks on Firebase).

3. Needs more ammoooo. If you're going to use personal ordnance as a replacement for ammo on the map (I'm assuming this was an intentional choice because I found exactly one primary on the map, a DMR by the waterfall on Firebase), could you please make the choices consistent? There were several occasions on both maps that I ran out of DMR / BR ammo, wasn't all of the way through my POD meter, couldn't find any primaries nearby, and just rushed with the Magnum and died to get ammo back. A simple solution to this problem would be to place a few more primaries on the map and/or to make the ones that are on the map more on the beaten path / visible.

4. Not sure what to think of converting the attackers' point. If the goal is to recreate Invasion, why not give zero seconds (or whatever the lowest setting is) to extract after arming and a longer-than-zero convert time? Outside of the Invasion context, it seemed like the game became pointless when we converted and scored four points. No matter what the enemy team did, we would have won.

The experience overall was refreshing (nice to see a new gametype.. we need them after so many being taken out from previous games). It's not often that I am even close to enjoying an unmodded game of Halo 4. :)
 
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Spin, those games were full of lag, I'm pretty sure that is what you've seen, especially because we haven't had any complaints of framerate on either map after 5 months of testing. ;)
 
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Why did you chose to limit players with fixed load outs? With so much work, it seems sad to think that locking load outs is the only way to preserve game play. I'm will to bet, there's more options on the table. It's a cool idea, however I don't think you looked at all your options.
 
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Why did you chose to limit players with fixed load outs? With so much work, it seems sad to think that locking load outs is the only way to preserve game play. I'm will to bet, there's more options on the table. It's a cool idea, however I don't think you looked at all your options.

Really, we didn't look at all the options over the 7 months of development?

We certainly weren't going to do personal loadouts, which allow you to spawn with an incredibly broken array of weapons (plasma pistol/ nade combo, boltshot, active camouflage, ammo perk.) The game mode would be a mess with those weapons and abilities in it just like the rest of Halo 4 BTB is a mess with them. Vehicles wouldn't stand a chance and we would see a lot more camping and abuse on the maps. We chose these loadouts specifically because they give you 3 defined classes to work with, each of which has specific situations that they are good in. The first class is great for CQC and supporting the team when bunkered in cover, the BR class is well rounded and can shield players going for the objective, and the DMR class can pick players off from afar as they try to rush into the objective and trick them with hologram. These were designed with the mode, it's not there to limit players but to make sure everyone can enjoy the game and to allow players to try different play styles.
 
My opinion on the gametype: It's fantabulous!
My opinion on staff using the media stream to advertise their own projects: Not so fantabulous!
 
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My opinion on the gametype: It's fantabulous!
My opinion on staff using the media stream to advertise their own projects: Not so fantabulous!

I would have advertised it myself, but Shoe does it better justice. And I had nothing to do with making it! ;)
 
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