Map Preview Headplant

Stevo

The Grinchmind
Dec 31, 2012
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116
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33
United Kingdom
Headplant
2-10 Players
Headplant is a map I've been working on for the last few weeks. I drew up some concepts of it as soon as I saw the Forge mode reveal for The Master Chief Collection.
It's first finished concept was called Born, there was nothing significant about it's name or why I called it that, I just did. After seeing the power of Scripting in the demo one of the problematic passageways, I felt was too short for CTF from base to base, could be restricted using a series of switches.

Born itself was something I enjoyed forging, but the map was far too big for Halo 2: Anniversary gameplay. It annoyed me a lot that due to the sprint ability being taken away, and the same pieces being available in Forge, maps as a whole were proving a lot more difficult to Forge in smaller scales without wasting objects. To pass time, and re-familiarise myself with the pieces, I recreated a quick version of Guardian to see what the limitations were for sightline performance issues, piece usage, and ideal distances to cover.

Headplant is a remake of Born. I wanted to name something which involved the palm trees but still felt like a Halo map name. Headplant was decided from Facepalm (something you're all aware of!) which has Head for Face, and the Palm tree is a plant, making Headplant.
It has a completely new layout to compensate for larger sightline framerate drops, while it still possesses the ability to effectively team-shoot from numerous positions in the map. I've managed to create a decent 4v4 arena with only using around 475 objects for the map itself, with a lot of decent height variance and detailing. There are two parts of the map, that while they don't show performance drops in Forge, have a slight drop in framerate when firing SMGs across the map. The two areas are the base accesses to the main bridge when firing upon Green/Garden.

The map is currently set up to use the following gametypes;

  • Slayer
  • Capture the Flag
  • Oddball
  • King of the Hill
  • Territories
  • Assault
  • Ricochet
The map is set to handle Free-for-All play with seven initial starting points, and team play for two teams only currently.

Screenshots

Will post once I figure out how to retrieve pictures from Waypoint!!

Video Walkthrough

I'm looking to get some testing sessions together on this, so if you're free to play some competitive games, leave me a message!

EDIT: After a few small player tests (upto 4 players). The majority feel that this map would struggle to support a 5v5 game, with the optimum being 3v3/4v4 team based games. FFA games so far have been rather fun.
 
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BlazeDillon

Proficient
Jan 25, 2013
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I like the way it looks. Invite me sometime when you test.

The only bit of concerns I have is, the sword spawn seems a bit bland and non dynamic compared to the rest of the map. Is there reasoning behind it being plain bridges at the top of straight ramps? Not that it's bad, I just think it could benifit if it were a little different, the interactions there would probably be more interesting. And one other thing is the paper cover. It may just be a personal preference but I'd suggest adding 1x5 shorts onto the end off your brace larges to widen them up that it'd probably help a bit.

If you agree with me on those at all or don't have specific reasoning behind those choices, I'd more than gladly come in and play around with it to see if you like it.
 

Stevo

The Grinchmind
Dec 31, 2012
248
116
198
33
United Kingdom
This looks cool. I like the contrast between the open exterior area and the tighter interior areas.
Thanks, Duck :)

I like the way it looks. Invite me sometime when you test.

The only bit of concerns I have is, the sword spawn seems a bit bland and non dynamic compared to the rest of the map. Is there reasoning behind it being plain bridges at the top of straight ramps? Not that it's bad, I just think it could benifit if it were a little different, the interactions there would probably be more interesting. And one other thing is the paper cover. It may just be a personal preference but I'd suggest adding 1x5 shorts onto the end off your brace larges to widen them up that it'd probably help a bit.

If you agree with me on those at all or don't have specific reasoning behind those choices, I'd more than gladly come in and play around with it to see if you like it.

Yeah, the trouble with the Sword bridge is that there's a long sightline that allows you to see through into Green. This is there so that players on the open end of the map can still contribute (albeit momentarily) towards bringing the flag carriers down. As this is open, and very long sighted, I've tried to keep decorations to that area to a minimum so only gameplay contributing pieces are visible to keep performance at it's optimum. If I extended the bridge back (I was looking to do that, to make it match the O.S Spawn below) It may widen the players view a little too much and cause issues with performance. I still may consider it though. After all spawns, objectives and weapons I still have about 40 objects left to play with.

I'm not sure I get what you mean about the Brace Larges? There are 4 total on the map; two in the central area and one in each base... which ones did you feel were too little in terms of providing protection?
 

BlazeDillon

Proficient
Jan 25, 2013
92
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I didn't mean bland as much aesthetically but more gameplay-wise. Seems like the interactions there can really only happen at the top of the ramps. It doesn't seem like there is very much dynamic cover onto it and the top can just back up until theyre out of sight forcing people to move up there to really take a person out. An example of what I mean would be ascension's snipe tower. On your way up, you have ways to dip in and out before physically approaching the tower and you can shoot it from the side. Yours on the other hand is more a straight forward 'push or leave' situation. Again, not bad but I just think every interaction will be about the same.

I mean all of the brace larges honest. If you widen then up to a half block they would seem less awkward.
 

Stevo

The Grinchmind
Dec 31, 2012
248
116
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33
United Kingdom
The cover on the bridge isn't quite as you'd expect. You're visible when walking right at the back of the bridge, so it's a more difficult location to hold... but it has it's benefits.

I've made some minor modifications to it that would allow such without causing performance issues.