This is a very open question, and I’d like to hear everyone’s personal idea of what makes a map good, or what gives it that sweet flow.
I’m not doing this to prepare for forge, so don’t constrict your idea to what’s possible in the forge maps. The reason I’m asking this question is because a lot of people are saying Halo 5 maps are junk, and that <Previous Halo title> did it so much better. I don’t disagree with this statement, but I’d like to hear the qualities of a great map that set it apart from others. And inversely, I’d like to hear the pitfalls of a bad map that give it a bad taste.
Don’t limit yourself to just Halo titles if other games come to mind!
For me, my biggest factor is whether or not the map has memorable playspaces. I loved Standoff because whipping a Warthog around the front of an enemy base is fun and memorable. The map needs to have an area I want to go to and engage enemies, and the area needs to be designed so that my performance aligns with how well I play.
I love varying map location themes. If the map tells a story, then it’s a good one in my opinion. For casual play I love asymmetrical maps like High Ground. For competitive play, it just needs to be extremely balanced and have unique landmarks for callouts.
i could write several pages on this topic, but I have very little time cheers.
A great map has an interesting layout, often with multiple levels of elevation that interact with one another. Derelict, Midship, and Warlock might play well, but they aren’t what I consider to be great maps. Everyone is always making clones of those maps, and they always feel just so bland and interchangeable. Even the original versions of those maps aren’t all that interesting to begin with.
A great map is nice to look at, without interfering with gameplay. Ideally the visuals are smooth instead of cluttered, and the different areas of the map are well defined instead of looking the same.
A great map has proper flow conducive to tactical gameplay and is designed with purpose. Prisoner is a fairly good example of this. The underlying concept is to get on top, yet the way the map is designed promotes flow to all areas of the map. If you sit up top the entire game, you lose out to rockets and camo. If you sit at the bottom, you get teamshot from superior angles. Snowbound is a bad example. There’s no real underlying concept to the map, no defined power positions, no neutral power weapons to fight over. It’s just kind of random chaos. You either sit at each base sniping people, wander aimlessly around the middle, or camp the tunnels and wait for kills.
Generally maps are designed around a small handful of specific gametypes. Not all maps play well for all gametypes obviously. A small asymmetric map will play Slayer and Oddball just fine, but will probably be completely imbalanced for two sided gamemodes like CTF.
cheers.