To you what defines an overall good map? Do new/better high poly, improved weapon textures and new\better animations sway any opinions? Or, is a good map...well good, just because it's fun? Or, maybe it's a combo of the both. Spill your thoughts.

For me, it's gameplay that matters. I could care less what the map looks like, as long as it's fun to play.

And I personally prefer the original classic weapon set.

Anything that shows that effort was put into the map.

I don't care about gameplay, as long as it looks good the map is fine.

I know it's the opposite, but I go for looks, and Machinima.
My work recently may look good, but it's probably very poor in gameplay, but I couldn't care less about how well it plays

Nothing overdone, balancing , easily relateable , Not lag inducing.FUN! Something like CMT's Snowgrove, Sanctuary, Bay of Pigs , Hugeass , Extinc- never mind.

Very few people play maps for looks. If there is little gameplay value, the map will not be fun to play, and fewer people will like it.

True, but then again, machinima teams dont play bad looking maps either, no?

It's hard to get a good looking map that plays swell, CMT went for gameplay, Zteam went for more of the visual part assuming halo already did a good job on gameplay

idk, the tradeoff for good visuals are great for me

Game play needs to be worthwhile, and good. I don't really care about looks much, but if looks good, hell, thats awesome. Alot of custom stuff can bring my expectations of a map too. I like default things from the first game (unless its good looking, and plays well corresponding to the map), not some crappy looking sniper rifle or vehicle thats just annoying (aka stuff on coldsnap)
Also needs to be a bit optimized with some portals or something, bases defined easily, etc.
Basically, needs good gameplay, and graphics that most people can play on.

At least having a scoped pistol on the game

Scratch 198 for pepole who pray to the M6D. Oh the humanity

you mean a nonbalanced whoring handcannon that can zoom aswell?

My say to an over powered sniper rifle

"You mean a non balanced whoring cannon that everyone betrays you over that can zoom aswell?"

Edited so gamma will understand
Edited by Igotaname13_ on Aug 4, 2009 at 06:07 PM

No one mentioned the sniper rifle...

Sniper Rifle is weaker than the pistol in ways.

It has a slower ROF
Smaller clip size
Visible contrails
You have to have a greater lead at a distance

We are talking about Custom.

A map like Extinction threw in the SMG, which was its pistol. Overpowered.
Other maps like Coldsnap didn't have the "pistol" varient it was all snipers, granted the sniper was overpowered if you ever, ever got into close combat nothing would save you but a couple of random no scopes.

Every map needs a "good" secondary weapon. The Pistol, hand cannon, is one of them.

Most people use the pistol as their primary weapon.

Not if they are given a good primary gun, either it be another over-powered weapon. Like the Coldsnap sniper, shotgun, RACKET LAUNCH CHAIR, or a heavy machine gun.

Edited by Igotaname13_ on Aug 4, 2009 at 06:31 PM

So now a good map is defined by a mere 2 guns?

Ah, so a map is best balanced by filling it with more and more unbalanced weapons.

Yes.
I like my games to make me feel like I have less than the enemy. Because I like to feel like I am sticking it to the man!



I don't know a lot of people that use every single gun on the map during a 6 vs 6 battle.
Edited by Igotaname13_ on Aug 4, 2009 at 07:05 PM

Depends, if you want people to play your map alot Online, then make it some kind of halo 3, gears of war, or some other popular game themed map.

If you want to be with the pros, make a map with good textures, good gameplay, good environment

If you want to be a noob, make a box map and spawn some nukes here and there, don't be afraid to add like 10 longswords on each team...

and if you just want to be with the AI people, go take something, besides BG, and make some Ai maps...

You forgot the people who don't care about gameplay, machinima lovers.

Make an epic looking map, populate like mad without looking, use dev to spawn what you need, let both teams spawn in the same base, make every gun have the same damage as how cool it looks.

There is an machinima section on the site, same for machinima maps, so it's not more than fair to name it...

nonetheless, you can have your own opinion about gameplay related maps
Edited by BeachParty clan on Aug 4, 2009 at 07:34 PM

If you're going to use a map strictly for machinima, then yeah, go ahead and make it look as good as you can, and don't worry about gameplay.

But if you intend it to be played, then looks alone are simply not sufficient.

lolz according to beach party because my gun has some cool texture it must shoot 9999 nuclear missiles at it enemy =P I like that *joking*

A good map is one that a regular player can play on, one that isn't ovrepopulated with vehicles and has a kind of symmetry across the entire arena.

Bloodgulch in my opinion covers the symmetry, but too many vehicles and banshees could rule the sky rather easy.

So people should base their maps creations whether mods or new maps based on a symmetrical design or one that provides a balance of power. My blizzard_chill map is a mod of coagulation with that train of thought as it's base, (balanced gameplay, symmetrical spawn points, equal number of vehicles for each team, teleporters to the center, and of course lovely power-ups and heavy weapons in strategic locations that are dangerous to get to in the middle of a fire fight!)

Gameplay. Design isn't too big of a priority for me (look at some of my maps..) as long as it plays well, it's good to me.

Well, if there is too much of this, there must be a counterpart:
look at extinction, lots of air vehicle, but also the huge covenant turrets, i think there never is too much, aslong as you don't lose sight of balancing it out without being overenthousiast about placing as much as you can

that's mainly the problem i think, keeping track of the whole picture

i agree with the gameplay part.

but i think that other than having team weaponry balancing issues fixed, there is another concern that i want to point out.
if you are being whored by the other team (like them hogging the only two shees in the map, of which one is your team's) , then there should be a way for the besieged team to fight back, break out of the siege and turn the tide of the game.

my friend was playing halo 3 once, and just when his team was collecting ammo for the fight, their shees got stolen, and they were practically owned by the opposing team (my friend's team had nothing but plasma pistols against a shee-flying team).
they did manage to stop the siege, but that was like only 30 seconds to endgame, so they lost still.
proof-of-point.
Edited by sargejohnson on Aug 5, 2009 at 10:39 AM

Actually that brings us back to rebalancing the map, with more variation that's actually fair for both teams, and to make it even harder, don't tend to give both teams the exact same loadout =P

a proper balanced loadout without making it bored... possible?

I enjoy nonlinear maps, or maps where each team has a different base, like Siege.

Flat out fun is all that matters to me :D

if it plays well/good for machinima/and is well textured

If you can make it look good, make it play good, make it good for machinima, make it exception- and glitch-free, and even make noobs like it, well then, you've got yourself a perfect map.

But I've yet to see one made that does all of that.

I only download maps if they're leaks, have CMT slapped on the front, or they have nukes.

The stock maps

=/