Lobby Recap Recap for CTG Lobby 1/11/14

[Psychoduck]

Post feedback for the following maps below.

• Panic Attack: Inversely symmetrical BTB arena map, played Slayer.
• Port Authority: asymmetrical urban map, played One Flag and later played Slayer
• Excavation: inversely symmetrical map with Mantises, played CTF and Extraction
• Silentium: symmetrical horseshoe map, played CTF
• Shipwreck: asymmetrical debris field map, played Slayer
• It Came From The S Bend: urban linear progressive flood map
• Bedrock: inversely symmetrical Sandtrap-inspired map, played Slayer
• Tree Thing: asymmetrical 4 tower platform map, played Slayer

I'll post my feedback as I have time tomorrow.
Flying Shoe ILR, MockKnizzle, The Fated Fire, PA1NTS, DirtyyJuicebox, Oasis Hurler, Charles Stoot, Minish Link, randombunny360, Logan923, Jesus in Malibu

 

[PA1NTS]

Panic Attack - I really like the design of the map because it can support anything from 4v4 to 6v6. This was kind of a lopsided game but I managed to get some pretty good gameplay. I'll try and save it.

Port Authority - I would have really liked to stick around for Slayer on this because I like the map, but that chokepoint near the flag was kinda hectic and overused. Then again, that's most likely because i've played the Reach version more and perhaps know the strategy a little more. Either way, I still lasered Psychoduck from across the map so I'm happy.

Excavation - I had a blast playing this map for the first time. The whole middle cave is pretty awesome. This match was really close and involved some clutch moments near the bases.

And... that's when I had to go

 

[Skyward Shoe]

Panic Attack: I can't find any fault with the map, small changes may come up in the future but otherwise this is a finished map.

Port Authority: Overall this was fantastic. We'll have to get more games to see where the flag goes, as it used to be a great strategy to pull it up the laser side. Hopefully that translates into Halo 4.

Excavation: I felt like the games both did well. The mantis's are balanced and require skill to use and destroy. If no one has any more changes to propose I am going to make a final version of this soon.

Silentium: Silentium was a cool horseshoe style map that I felt could be reworked in a few ways. The general openness of the middle natural areas by each base led to some rather stagnant gameplay when attacking for a flag run, and overall it felt like spartans had nowhere to move on foot besides the one keyhole tunnel in the middle. Here is what I would suggest:

1. Block vehicle access to the keyhole and make it faster to go through. Walking from one base to the other through the keyhole is slower than a hog can drive around the entire U-circuit, which is a problem if they pull the flag that way. It also took far too long for players on foot to get to the other side of the map, and most of the gameplay ended up taking place in one hallway because of this. Warthogs and ghosts should also definitely not be able to go through it, as they can move between bases far too quickly.

2. Add tunnels from near the tip of the U to the spawn buildings. This will allow players to take a long but safe path walking on the edge of the map, as opposed to the quick but dangerous keyhole.

3. Fated and Duck will go into this more, but we talked about shrinking the entire map down a bit. This would help with the openness in the courtyards and also with players moving around the tip of the U on foot. There could also generally be more structure in the center of the map, more interior areas where engagements can take place.

Shipwreck: A really solid and cool map all around, whether going to space or smacking hogs with the hammer.

It Came From The S-Bend: For a first test I think this went well. We're talking about potentially boosting zombie movement speed in the upper areas and making teleporters spawn in 5 seconds earlier to give zombies a head start on the humans. Hopefully they will be able to set up better then and we will see more tactical assassinations like I got on Dirty . Also, we are trying to make the door spawn at the end of the level, but Halo 4 is glitching really badly and not letting anything spawn there. Hopefully it will eventually work.

Bedrock: I liked the style of the map, very Sandbox-esque. I would try chain hogs on the map to see if they work, there were a lot of situations where I wished I was spraying bullets and not slow moving rockets at an enemy. It would make it harder to use in the center, but it should be difficult there because it is an interior space more suited to players.

Tree Thing: First test felt good, though we did stomp on the other team a bit. Jumps were fun but risky, I fell off at least once. Probably better without sprint, we could get around very fast, but I wasn't necessarily bothered by that myself.

 

[Psychoduck]

• Panic Attack: I didn't really pick up on much from this game. it was just a Slayer game, and nothing's changed since I deemed the map complete after last time.
• Port Authority: We need to put something under the attackers' "flag" to prevent it from falling through the map and keep the waypoint as close to the score point as possible. Other than that, this is playing just as well as it did in Reach. Spawning felt good this time, which is all we had really changed since the last tests. The new additions to the Halo 4 version all feel good, and everything else is more or less the same as it was in Reach, meaning that it's been tested hundreds of times. We need to get Extraction set up on here, that should be interesting.
• Excavation: I think this is done. Nothing's really changed over the course of the last several tests, and that's because nothing's really needed changing. The map provides for some great heavy vehicle action, with the Mantises and Rocket 'Hogs countering each other in interesting ways. both vehicles take skill and coordination to operate effectively on this map. The weapons all feel pretty good, as much as I hate to say it given the Railgun's absurd aim correction. They're all necessary to counter the vehicles. Objectives all feel quite good also Flying Shoe ILR.
• Silentium: This map has a lot of potential, but is currently held back by a few things. Basically, there is a lot of extraneous space which is dragging gameplay out a bit. I would love to see the map shrunken down a bit, with both sides of the U being shortened. This will cut down on the flat empty space around the "mountains", but more importantly, it will make the tip of the horseshoe see much more action as it won't be such a hike from where players typically spawn. Once this is done, warthogs will be able to traverse the map faster, so the inner "keyhole" route for infantry will need to be shortened to compensate (even if the sides of the horseshoe aren't shortened, this route could stand to be). This way, the infantry will have a tight quick route between the bases, or a more open long route where they aren't entirely safe from vehicles, but have access to longer sightlines on the bases and more powerful weapons. Keeping with this idea, i would actually swap the spawn location of the Spartan Laser and the railgun in order to balance the two main infantry routes better. Otherwise, there will be little incentive for players on foot to circle around the tip of the horseshoe and gameplay will boil down to a single chokepoint. Once the sides of the horseshoe are shortened, the areas in front of the bases will be less flat and open as well. Aside from this, I would argue that the old bases are fairly useless. Having an indoor flanking route for infantry along the exterior of the map is nice, and having a few positions along that route to fire on the bases is nice, but it doesn't need to be this well fleshed out. These objects could be better spent on making the new bases and the keyhole route more interesting to fight in. With these changes, i think the map will be right on track to playing very well PA1NTS.
• Shipwreck: Like with Panic Attack and Excavation, I think this map is effectively complete. i don't think I have anything to say about this map that i haven't said before.
• It Came from the S Bend: My thoughts on this seem to be the same as Shoe's. We'll be making tweaks to Zombie movement speed in the "hive" as well as making some teleporters spawn in slightly earlier. This will give Zombies more opportunity to coordinate and cut the humans off.
• Bedrock: While I understand your reasoning fro including Rocket 'Hogs on the map, I would still rather use a Chain 'Hog on the map in most situations. Around the exterior of the map there wasn't much in the way of angular geometry to use as a backboard for the rockets. I don't want to say too much about the map's layout before playing any objective modes on it, but there were some aspects of the map that I found rather underwhelming. The structure in the middle was interesting, and the rocky structures broke up lines of sight nicely, but I didn't see much in the way of tactical movement during our game. Again, I hope that this would change in objective, but in Slayer everything felt very simple and undefined. Vehicles drove around the outskirts of the map and infantry cut through the middle, I didn't see much going on beyond that. Aside from the layout, i didn't feel like there was much in the way of interesting geometry on the map either. Structures seemed to be placed to break up the monotony of the flat island terrain rather than to create interesting or meaningful encounters. Despite this, there was still quite a bit of flat space around the map. I hope that didn't come across as overly negative, as that was not my intention. I'd love to play the map more (and try some CTF or Extraction on it) and be proven wrong, but this is what i gathered from the one game I played Oasis Hurler.
• Tree Thing: This map would truly benefit from a no-sprint gametype, but it still felt great. The sniper and the sword (and their placement) felt perfect for the map, and all of the jumps complemented the hard movement options nicely. Your concern about the map being too permeable in regards to sightlines could be valid, though. I didn't find any broken sightlines in particular just yet, but we'll have to keep an eye on that. I'm really looking forward to playing KOTH and One Site Extraction on here, I'm sure i'll have much more feedback after doing so MockKnizzle.

 

[PA1NTS]

I thank you Psychoduck Flying Shoe ILR this is the feedback I've been needing. Silentium BETA V16 COMING SOON.