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Halo |OT| HaloGAF Evolved

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Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
They didn't say anything, I can upload for you guys if you want me to.



Snipers on both sides on the perch area, and rockets bottom middle.

2 snipers on the map? Whoa.

And yea I'd imagine that the gametype has already begun to spread around just by people playing it.
 

FyreWulff

Member
2 snipers on the map? Whoa.

And yea I'd imagine that the gametype has already begun to spread around just by people playing it.

Also if anyone has upload a clip or film of a session, you get the map variant and gametype after the film is done playing in your Recent History anyway. Pretty much the only way to keep a gametype to yourself is to never let anyone else play it, heh
 

Tawpgun

Member
At first I thought you were joking, but you're serious? What custom possibilities? This is a FPS, not a race simulator, I don't want the game suffering so 100 people can enjoy racing on a mongoose.



What upsides? Like seriously, I can't think of a single thing the size is an upside for.

Did people REALLY want to play a game where half the map is in the BG canyon and the other half is on the Paradiso Island or something? It's an 8v8 game guys.

Upside is more design freedom. Imagine if Montana and Alaska were seperate maps. You couldn't connect them. Or Montana/Alaska/Canyon.

What if you wanted The Island to also connect to the beach, or use the tunnel.

Or a map between the quarry and coliseum.

My suggestion for Halo 4 is to make another forgeworld like map, but include all of its areas as standalone maps as well.
 

Risen

Member
They didn't say anything, I can upload for you guys if you want me to.



Snipers on both sides on the perch area, and rockets bottom middle.

Well... that addresses the initial spawn issue - but man that seems like a lot of power weapons on a small map at the same time.

Seems like the grenade launcher with two opposing snipes would play nicely.

Can't wait to see BC in the rotation.

Did you say no pistol? My heart flutters

That's just gas...
 

CyReN

Member
lHG3O.png
 

Brolic Gaoler

formerly Alienshogun
Well we were talking gametypes. And regardless of where Ninja falls on the douchey scale, he is exciting to watch because of his raw skill and the crazy shit he attempts.

You should have heard him and T2 going at it the other day. Shit was funny as hell.

You're right, he plays really well, but the kid is a fucking tool.
 

TheOddOne

Member
Had a couple of fucking bullshit matches today that seriously fucking made me rage. Quitting, over abusing AA, RANDOMSNESS and pretty much every fucking reason to hate Reach. I have never mind going negative, if the match was good then it was good.

Unfair bullshit on the other hand, then going negative and feeling that it wasn't even YOU FUCKING FAULT MAKES ME FUCKING ANGRY.

Really fucking vanilla over TU EVERY GODDAMN TIME? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

/vent
 
Had a couple of fucking bullshit matches today that seriously fucking made me rage. Quitting, over abusing AA, RANDOMSNESS and pretty much every fucking reason to hate Reach. I have never mind going negative, if the match was good then it was good.

Unfair bullshit on the other hand, then going negative and feeling that it wasn't even YOU FUCKING FAULT MAKES ME FUCKING ANGRY.

Really fucking vanilla over TU EVERY GODDAMN TIME? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

/vent

Come down to the south this weekend and relax ;)
 

zap

Member
Windows 2 was retconned

There also was no Windows 95 and Windows ME!! lol

I wish that Bungle hadn't combined all the maps in FW. I mean I know they wouldn't have been able to get different themes or anything, but the framerate problems alone make it frustrating :/
 
Over just looked at your Sanctuary, looks great!

The only thing I noticed was it appears the your jump up rock to ring 2 is a little lower on the red side than it is on the blue side. Impressive budget as well.

Have you tested split screen?
 

zap

Member
Over just looked at your Sanctuary, looks great!

The only thing I noticed was it appears the your jump up rock to ring 2 is a little lower on the red side than it is on the blue side. Impressive budget as well.

Have you tested split screen?

I'm going to download next time I get online. Sounds promising.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
Over just looked at your Sanctuary, looks great!

The only thing I noticed was it appears the your jump up rock to ring 2 is a little lower on the red side than it is on the blue side. Impressive budget as well.

Have you tested split screen?
Zaling and Hydra played in splitscreen and hadn't noticed any framedrops from what I've heard. Wouldn't know about 4-way splitscreen though.


MGS instead of Carnaval!? You crazy son.
Carnaval mid-winter? No thanks.
 

zap

Member
I agree with Ram on Forgeworld. Should have been a couple distinct maps in unique environments.

If they were distinct maps, they wouldn't have had a different theme. They would have all looked essentially the same (and be in the same place relative to each other), but you couldn't use all of Forgeworld at once.

There was a constraint on maps, which is why 5 would have been the same visual style. It wasn't like Steve Cotton decided to put all the maps together and remove their unique themes. They didn't have any!
 

FyreWulff

Member
There also was no Windows 95 and Windows ME!! lol

I wish that Bungle hadn't combined all the maps in FW. I mean I know they wouldn't have been able to get different themes or anything, but the framerate problems alone make it frustrating :/

The map's size doesn't really affect the framerate. Forge World is essentially an entire map made out of slightly-above skybox-level detail geometry from what I can tell. The 360 is also not rendering parts of Forge World that you cannot see or are behind you. I mean, look at Spire's huge skybox. Their auto-LOD and imposter system essentially makes distant objects cheap to render anyway.

There's just some parts of the map that have strange slowdown even with no objects on the map, but Halo 3 had this problem too on certain maps where looking in a certain direction would introduce stutters. Forge World did used to be 4-5 separate maps, but it would have been the same appearance it already had, and the other maps would have still been in each other's skybox from what I remember about Forge World discussions. (edit: you already know of this!) It would have always been 4 basic textures (sand, rock, grass, metal). If they made the map more detailed then the amount of available Forge objects would have to be lowered to compensate.

It's why the bigger Forge-centric maps are heavily Forerunner too, Forerunner's art and design language lends itself to simplistic geometry with a uniform color. Which makes them stellar for LODing and being drawn at a distance. Sandbox was entirely Forerunner, it was just the Stonerunner from Sandtrap with some interesting normal/bump/parallax maps to give pieces more apparent detail than they actually had.
 

zap

Member
The map's size doesn't really affect the framerate. Forge World is essentially an entire map made out of slightly-above skybox-level detail geometry from what I can tell. The 360 is also not rendering parts of Forge World that you cannot see or are behind you. I mean, look at Spire's huge skybox. Their auto-LOD and imposter system essentially makes distant objects cheap to render anyway.

There's just some parts of the map that have strange slowdown even with no objects on the map, but Halo 3 had this problem too on certain maps where looking in a certain direction would introduce stutters. Forge World did used to be 4-5 separate maps, but it would have been the same appearance it already had, and the other maps would have still been in each other's skybox from what I remember about Forge World discussions. (edit: you already know of this!) It would have always been 4 basic textures (sand, rock, grass, metal). If they made the map more detailed then the amount of available Forge objects would have to be lowered to compensate.

It's why the bigger Forge-centric maps are heavily Forerunner too, Forerunner's art and design language lends itself to simplistic geometry with a uniform color. Which makes them stellar for LODing and being drawn at a distance. Sandbox was entirely Forerunner, it was just the Stonerunner from Sandtrap with some interesting normal/bump/parallax maps to give pieces more apparent detail than they actually had.

Hmm, ok. I was under the impression that making the map so large had contributed to framerate issues... I guess not!

I just hate how it is actually pointless to scope in down asylum snipe to snipe... how did that pass testing?
 
Zaling and Hydra played in splitscreen and hadn't noticed any framedrops from what I've heard. Wouldn't know about 4-way splitscreen though.

Based on the budget, it's got a shot to be decent in 4-way I'd say (wishful thinking).

When you think it's final, one of our CC's should see if 343 is interested in it.

I don't know which side you're on based on what you said haha

Good, wasn't trying to take a side lol, just saying that it's not really a fair comparison.

I am definitely a Windows guy though, really looking forward to trying to public beta at the end of the month.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Hmm, ok. I was under the impression that making the map so large had contributed to framerate issues... I guess not!

I just hate how it is actually pointless to scope in down asylum snipe to snipe... how did that pass testing?

I have no idea. Maybe the map variant was finished and aspects of Forge World changed later? There's also the issue that it seems to be compounded by slightly different 360 hardware, the slowdown happens on my brother's Xbox but not mine (but then I get slowdown looking at one of the corners of the coliseum)


Im pretty sure it would have less issues if it was smaller though right Fyrewulff? I get what your saying and everything, but if they had seperated the maps, while they would all appear in eachothers skyboxes they wouldnt be physical objects and would take up less resources surely?

From what I remember, Havok doesn't simulate physics for inactive objects. So if nothing is interacting with an object, the engine just skips over it in the game state update. Which is why Bungie also turns off physics for Structure objects after they settle even if you set them to Normal because the engine would tank if they were active. Ever take one of the building objects and fling them into each other? The engine is not amused. If you remember, you could trigger massive slowdown if you made the Elephants interact with each other in certain ways on Sandtrap because Havok was all "WTF IS GOING ON"

There's a scene from one of the Halo 3 vidocs where they're showing the physics debug mode, and you can see which objects are marked inactive and active. Let me see if I can go find it.
 
Im pretty sure it would have less issues if it was smaller though right Fyrewulff? I get what your saying and everything, but if they had seperated the maps, while they would all appear in eachothers skyboxes they wouldnt be physical objects and would take up less resources surely?
 

Ramirez

Member
Upside is more design freedom. Imagine if Montana and Alaska were seperate maps. You couldn't connect them. Or Montana/Alaska/Canyon.

What if you wanted The Island to also connect to the beach, or use the tunnel.

Or a map between the quarry and coliseum.

My suggestion for Halo 4 is to make another forgeworld like map, but include all of its areas as standalone maps as well.

Montana and Alaska, wat? You lost me bro.

I've never played a single forged map that actually successfully connected all of the areas into some awesome play experience I couldn't live without. Meanwhile, we can't even get some 4v4 maps in MM because of the framerate issues on the map.

If they were distinct maps, they wouldn't have had a different theme. They would have all looked essentially the same (and be in the same place relative to each other), but you couldn't use all of Forgeworld at once.

There was a constraint on maps, which is why 5 would have been the same visual style. It wasn't like Steve Cotton decided to put all the maps together and remove their unique themes. They didn't have any!

To me, that's a huge oversight in design, common sense says to me that 5 unique maps are going to go a lot further with players than 5 that all share the same theme. Reach's MP maps as a whole are a blunder, the reliance on so many forged remakes is really bad for such a huge studio. Pretty sure someone could play Ascension (Reach name escapes me atm) for 5 minutes and realize it has some of the worst spawns in the history of FPS, and really that's a common theme with all of the forge maps, Bungie or fan made.
 

Trey

Member
Montana and Alaska, wat? You lost me bro.

I've never played a single forged map that actually successfully connected all of the areas into some awesome play experience I couldn't live without. Meanwhile, we can't even get some 4v4 maps in MM because of the framerate issues on the map.



To me, that's a huge oversight in design, common sense says to me that 5 unique maps are going to go a lot further with players than 5 that all share the same theme. Reach's MP maps as a whole are a blunder, the reliance on so many forged remakes is really bad for such a huge studio. Pretty sure someone could play Ascension (Reach name escapes me atm) for 5 minutes and realize it has some of the worst spawns in the history of FPS, and really that's a common theme with all of the forge maps, Bungie or fan made.

Pinnacle.
 
What upsides? Like seriously, I can't think of a single thing the size is an upside for.

Did people REALLY want to play a game where half the map is in the BG canyon and the other half is on the Paradiso Island or something? It's an 8v8 game guys.

Like I said, it had potential upsides that were not used or harnessed appropriately. Something like sandbox would have probably translated better if it would have meant more variety. I like forge world, it can be fun to mess around in custom games and forge, but if it meant better more varied maps, I would sacrifice it for smaller forge based maps.
 

Ramirez

Member
Like I said, it had potential upsides that were not used or harnessed appropriately. Something like sandbox would have probably translated better if it would have meant more variety. I like forge world, it can be fun to mess around in custom games and forge, but if it meant better more varied maps, I would sacrifice it for smaller forge based maps.

They rarely ever are.
 
You should have heard him and T2 going at it the other day. Shit was funny as hell.

You're right, he plays really well, but the kid is a fucking tool.

Whatever but he's often hilarious and at points between events last season his stream was the only thing keeping me interested in MLG. MLG and their now shitty website certainly didn't. I visited there the other day for the first time in a while: Starcraft shit smeared EVERYWHERE, all across the front page, not a mention of Halo in the eight headline banners. One iffy season and they acted like it was a loyal old friend they didn't want to be seen with in front of their new, richer set with hotter girlfriends.

Also, on forge world being split into smaller sections to ameliorate framerate issues, I'm convinced it wouldn't make a difference. Why? A map as small as bloody Prisoner has arguably the worst framerate drop in Reach when sniping from snipe spawn to the floor. I honestly think it's something more native to the Reach engine and the 360 just not handling it.
 

Havok

Member
Montana and Alaska, wat? You lost me bro.
Those are the two plateaus above the canyon. They have brought us such wonderful creations as Abridged with their incredible design freedom.

Having all of this premade, immovable geometry here actually restricts your design, because you're building around really terribly placed rocks and trees that you can't move, as well as having to use the incredibly uneven geometry of one of the few places that can reasonably house a map. If you're building a BTB map, you're basically restricted to the Canyon, Montana, or Alaska, and none of those are flat enough that you can actually use a unique design that isn't hamstrung by the preset landscaping, because using Forge pieces to sculpt out a perfect area is nearly impossible (especially with the Covenant vehicle related bugs). I know that Ghaleon ran into this problem when he was building Sandybridge, and I certainly have run into this every one of the five times I've put the effort in to build out a map concept I had in my head.

A separate, large, open, flat area (like Sandbox without the dunes) that could be loaded with different palettes and landscape objects (a 'large hill' item would be adequate to get your basic geometry customized to your design) would be far and away better than Forge World. You avoid being restricted by the kind-of-poor terrain and blue/grey palette fatigue, both of which plague Forge World.

The big map-spanning racetracks are nice, but they're a novelty. They're not worth cannibalizing five maps that by all means should have been great to make a Frankenmap that has largely produced garbage. I don't even care if the framerate is caused by the size, I'd give up Forge World in a heartbeat just to have four new graphically styled maps in the game. I say this as someone that has put a pretty huge amount of time into Forge.
 

Ramirez

Member
Drop in, drop out for non ranked playlists in 4, PLEASE. So freaking tired of logging on to this game and people dropping out in the first minute, and then you're f*cked the rest of the game.
 
Sandbox with reach's forge features would have been fine.

Maybe a bigger flat space or differing flat areas of different heights to play with but that's about it.

And as for the news on the new MLG gametypes news this probably means they wont be in matchmaking anytime soon yes? :(
 
They rarely ever are.

So true. Halo always has a ton of ambitious features, that are never utilized or fully realized. I hope Halo 4 manages to deliver on what new things its attempts.


Drop in, drop out for non ranked playlists in 4, PLEASE. So freaking tired of logging on to this game and people dropping out in the first minute, and then you're f*cked the rest of the game.

This. of course, they would have to go back to a Halo 2/Halo 3 formula, but it would work. Also, if by some crazy chance they implement bots to replace players, I pray they include the option to vote to boot the bots incase they wind up being a death magnet.
 
Drop in, drop out for non ranked playlists in 4, PLEASE. So freaking tired of logging on to this game and people dropping out in the first minute, and then you're f*cked the rest of the game.
Eh. I'm not sold on drop-in, drop-out. There's a chance of me being placed in games where the opposing team has an insurmountable lead, or the game's almost over.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Sandbox with reach's forge features would have been fine.

Maybe a bigger flat space or differing flat areas of different heights to play with but that's about it.

And as for the news on the new MLG gametypes news this probably means they wont be in matchmaking anytime soon yes? :(

Judging by deadlines for all other things due for the next update, April update is the soonest if they're still testing them and haven't finalized.
 
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