Lobby Recap Recap for CTG Lobby 11/6/13

[Psychoduck]

Post feedback for the following maps below:

• Panic Attack: Inversely symmetrical map with warthog jumps, played CTF
• Embark: Asymmetrical urban map, played TS and One Flag CTF
• Excavation: Inversely symmetrical map with Mantises, played Extraction
• Asunder: Symmetrical large BTB map, played CTF
• Traxus: Conversion map

I understand we had some severe lag issues, including the entire lobby being broken up so feedback may be a bit less in-depth this time. I'll be posting my feedback as the day goes on.
Flying Shoe ILR Rodan117 MockKnizzle Tomtris Jesus in Malibu tokee da smokee WARHOLIC The Fated Fire SloppyApples

 

[Skyward Shoe]

Picnic Attack: This game went really well. I'm not sure what else to say. We had a bit of a stalemate but the teams were really solidly balanced and it was definitely possible to infiltrate the base. We'll see what happens as testing continues.

Asunder: While I liked some of the outposts near the sides of the map, it had some huge issues.

First, the map was very flat and had some huge open lines of sight. The center of the map and the areas around the bases were the worst sections for this, as there was nothing to stop you from firing on a player all the way across the map. This was made an even larger issue by the Binary Rifles on the map, which are inherently imbalanced weapons that can utterly control long lines of sight. This happened because you tried to make the map a lot larger than it needed to be, and so spread your resources thin. Shrinking the map down and adding hills to the map would help with this, making sure that the lines of sight are not all long. Some long lines of sight are ok, but they need to be very limited with shorter ones dispersed around them. The bases were also very poorly set up, as player had trouble even getting into them. There need to be multiple ways to enter each base, and the primary ways in should not be via gravity lifts or man cannons, which can be blocked or camped by other players.

Traxus: First Tier felt a little strange. It wasn't horrible, but it felt difficult to put pressure on the zone as an attacker, even holding the power positions. The objective area felt a bit too open and small, possibly too close to all of the other buildings. The movement across the map was also sort of strange. Offense team feels weighted to move left across the map, and it doesn't really feel like they move up much at all after phase 1. The map curves to the left but the teams don't really angle with it, and because the objective is not central about half the map doesn't get used. The area around the 2/3 objective is always spammed with people, the objective building looking in is underutilized, and then the entire section of the map on the other side to he building is nearly never used at all. The curve itself isn't as much of an issue, it's that the player spawns and objective don't line up correctly for tiers 2 and 3.

 

[Master Debaytes]

Panic Attack

• It was just as good as it played the first time around. Teams were very balanced in the game we played on it as well. I still have yet to see any real problems with the map.

Embark

• Other than the lag in game, I wasn't noticing any issues with this one. Honestly a great map in my opinion.

Excavation

• I need a couple of more plays on this map before I give my definite opinion. I really enjoyed the game we played on the map though, despite the mass amount of sponging that occurred. The phrase "heavy but not too heavy" still applies.

Asunder

• I essentially have all of the same concerns with this map that Shoe has listed above. Something else I would note is that both bases do not need to have a shotgun and a rocket launcher. I would move the rockets out of both bases and put one single rocket launcher out at the mid point of the map. I would also keep the shotguns at the top of the bases rather than their current position at the bottom.

Traxus

• I really don't think I know enough about Conversion to give Constructive feedback for this map, I'm afraid. I had fun playing on the map at least, if that matters for anything.

 

[Jebus]

As the teams were balanced very well, I think I can properly give my own input finally.

-Panic Attack: Great map that played very well, looked great and was generally fun to play on.

-Embark: Well made map with that classic feeling to it. The initial rush to the Rocket Launcher is especially exciting. I can't say this is a good/bad thing but it's really easy to push out of each area as a team and cripple the other team in a single blow.

-Excavation: Another well made map both in gameplay and aesthetics. However playing Extraction on this map did not feel fitting in the least and did not play too well, in my experience. I also felt the Mantises were able to dominate an area too well, even with the amount of short flanks around the map plus with the Rocket Hogs. I also couldn't find any Plasma Pistols and/or Plasma Grenades on map to help control enemy vehicles.

-Asunder: Well there's a couple of things about this map that I can point out that negatively affected gameplay. For one, even though we only played 6v6, this map is still too extremely large even for 8v8 games. The center of the map was a suicidal corridor, also known as "no-man's land," was also a problem especially with the two Binary Rifles on each end easily being able to destroy anybody that attempts to cross this corridor. This too means the map needs line-of-sight controlling as most of the map was too open and as infantry, you felt vulnerable to anything possible. The map also suffers from "chronic Forge-Island flat syndrome" where on the ground, it was just flat and uninteresting. Traversing the map was long and difficult as the only way to pass onto the other side was by taking no-man's land, which usually meant certain-death. The general geometry of the map was good, however.

-Traxus: Good map with some small problems at the first phase. The area in and around the first objective was a mosh-pit and a mess for the attacking team, as it felt there was nothing to help counter some of the defending team's positions. Looked well made aesthetically, however.

 

[Psychoduck]

Panic Attack:

• I didn't really pick up on any issues from the game last night. It looks like the map plays quite well for both 5v5 and 6v6 games. It also seems that when teams are even the flag game can become very standoff-ish which isn't necessarily a bad thing because there were still a lot of strategic pushes.

Excavation:

• I didn't really pick up on anything new last night. I would definitely suggest that Flag is the best fit for the map, but Extraction still functioned rather well. The vehicle balance feels great as always. I'm not really sure what else to say about this one right now.

Asunder:

• I'll avoid repeating anything that's been said already. Basically, the map was unnecessarily large. There's never a good reason to use the entire large Island. Even if you want to make a large map, you don't need it to be that large and you need to actually create some terrain other than just an endless flat expanse. Obviously sightlines should not reach across the entire middle of a a map in most circumstances. The binary rifle is a broken weapon which is made even worse by this lack of segmentation. The bases also suffered from having approaches from only one direction (the ramps, lift, and man cannon did not add enough variation of routes into the bases). This combined with the nearby shotgun and rocket launcher made the bases extremely easy to camp.

Traxus:

• The way this map is laid out as a whole just isn't working very well. There's a lot of structure that does not get used very much, there are some long and awkward sightlines, and the cliff side is full of random clutter used to break up sightlines. There's nothing intuitive or organic about the layout and it just starts to feel confusing. There aren't many opportunities for strategic pushes, and the vehicles are a pain to use because of all of the clutter. I don't like how the entire map is built off a flat plain, there isn't really a sense of the map getting bigger as it progresses. All of the objective areas are also awkward (as are most of the approaches to them). A lot of this is caused in part by the fact that you're working on Forge Island, but they're problems nonetheless. I want to see some better routes in phase 1 with the power position and objective platform reworked. Phase 1 should be relatively simple and straightforward with a central objective platform and some simply defined approaches. Right now there's all of this awkward structure getting in the way (including the big wall that the defenders were easily able to camp behind). I would use more rocks and low-rise structures to define the routes and positions in phase 1 rather than having big walls and whatnot to try to segment the area. When moving on to phase 2, having the objective so near the side of the map with the defenders all coming from the garage isn't working. The objective should be further from the periphery of the map, with the ability for defenders to spawn behind it on both sides. The whole cliff side is just awkward to attack from and the routes are generally confusing and poorly defined. The skybridge isn't really cutting it as a position either because of its surroundings. The jump from phase 2 to phase 3 does not feel like an exciting leap forward in the map, and it doesn't dynamically change the way routes and positions on the map are used. The objective being in a little cubby pushed up against the back of the map is also not working. The approaches to that whole building are awkward for both teams, movement options are limited by the objective being up against the wall. I think something that might be helpful would be to spend more time looking at the map from above and analyzing the routes. Right now, there's just a bunch of structures that are trying to segment the map, but they aren't defining routes in an intuitive way. Traxus is almost over-complicated while simultaneously failing to provide the right tools which players need to defend and attack the objectives.

 

[Rodan117]

Panic Attack: We had a fun, and hectic match on this map. Overall it has really good flow and balance. I know our teams were evenly matched, but even so, the balance stems from it being relatively easy to both steal a flag and easy to defend a flag. Our tactics for the most part devolved into "just touch the flag to reset the timer" which is part of the joy of a medium CTF map. The central area is particularly well designed, I especially liked the "shelf" over the ramps leading to the central bridge and I love the "chunky" aesthetics on the bridge area too.

Embark: My favorite map of the evening (and that's not just because I had the most kills in our match on Team Slayer ) . It reminds me of some of the classic urban maps that I've grown to love in Halo, especially Headlong. It had a great mix of vehicle and foot mobile interaction, and terrific weapon placement. It's not perfect, but something about it just works- if I had to put my finger on it, I'd say it's the mix of verticality in combat mixed with the vehicle areas. This is a map that I would potentially vote for in MM every time it came up, and I think it would stand a good chance of making MM playlists. I do feel that it played a lot better Slayer than it did One Flag, though. Driving vehicles, sniping, CQB...this map had it all for a great slayer experience. If any changes were to be made, I would say just a little less cover on the top mid area to help players combat the DMR-heavy gameplay there. Regardless, it's an instant classic to me and I have to DL it.

Excavation: This map had some balance issues, all stemming from the Mantis. Players on foot were just not given enough tools to fight back against it, although I did find a plasma pistol a few minutes before the match ended- if there is a way to move the placement to a more obvious location the Mantis would not have been so overpowered. I really liked the lower portion of the map where the ghost spawns, and the grav lifts leading up to the Crate area up top are well designed and look great. The cave area is also very well done in terms of visuals. The flow seemed to work, but maybe not for extraction, as some of the objectives seemed a bit too easy to defend. I believe if the Mantis was removed it would have been a very balanced and very fun match.

Asunder: This was my map, and I completely concur with the opinions already stated. What else is there to say? I'm going to scratch this one up as a fail, but I am interested in remaking it on a smaller scale with similar structures, taking into account the advice I've been given. Someone said "It feels like a Halo:CE map" and that was basically the intent, so that was nice to hear. However, Halo 4 is not CE as we know so I have a lot of work to do to make this playable and fun.

Traxus: This map was my first experience with Conversion (which is awesome by the way) and although it had a few issues, it did show me the potential of the gametype. It was so fast-paced, but I enjoyed seeing the Invasion-esque elements like the blocked-off entrances that opened after scoring an objective. We had some problems with the first objective though. The dialogue we had in the game had us questioning whether it was a spawn placement issue, or if the team was really just defending the objectives really well, but the gameplay turned into a mass rush for the objective, spamming it with bodies in an attempt to get a last-second extraction. It was chaotic and not necessarily unenjoyable although I think all of our K/Ds took a massive hit during those few minutes (oh well). I liked the attention to detail, like the crane behind the first spawns that added a nice visual element. And the vehicles here worked well I thought, with enough room to do a lot of damage, but enough cover for players to be able to hijack. Flawed, sure, but like I said, it helped show me the potential of the gametype and made me hungry for more Conversion. I think some ofhter players had a less enjoyable time playing on this map than I did.. with a few edits I can see this map working very well.