Sand Tarp was a variant that got rid of the Elephants and changed some spawning of items.
How dare they… The Elephants were the best part of that whole map.
Especially flipping them in Forge and seeing the special flip prompt.
It was mostly done because often times in online matches, you had kids taking the Elephants and making roadblocks with them because children are all about “ha ha, look at me drive the big thing !!”
So it was a preventative measure and it was also something done for competitive reasons as well. They also did this to Snowbound with a variant being Boundless, The Pit having an alt variant of Pit Stop, and Epitaph having a variant called Epilogue.
Eech had weapon-spawn tweaks.
I don’t like it. Halo should not be so focused on being competitive-centered.
Infinite already has competitive-mode variants of the maps, I think that’s much better than only having the one version that has to be changed.
Anyway I think we’ve touched on the main issue here.
With only 10 maps, and only 3 of them are BTB, we’re running into an issue of variety.
We don’t all like the same things.
In my eyes the only maps I look forward to playing casually in 4v4 are Behemoth and Recharge, with the occasional Bazaar. I merely tolerate and make-do with the others. That’s 3 out of 7. Streets is the crowd favorite because it’s perfectly balanced for competitive play, and offers a consistent experience every time (Unlikely to get cheesed by the enemy) But it’s also slightly overworked.
Bazaar, Streets, Live Fire, and Aquarius, all seem too competitive-centered and tend to result in very same-y encounters back to back. Competitive players love this because it means they can play chess in Halo. Memorize all the moves and rarely get the rug pulled out from under them by a wild tactic.
But I liked Spire, Powerhouse, and Hemorrhage in Halo Reach. Wild tactics were the ONLY real way to play those maps.
1 Like
When it comes to default colors I prefer the quantity… and not be sold the other half of the quality. Of default basic colors… Granted I feel kinda bad for the people that paid three times for the same red
We are talking about maps here. Not the armour colour customisation.
Boy those old games launched with such awesome maps. The empty feeling I get from Infinite just became vast.
I wonder why it’s so hard for 343i to churn out memorable maps.
1 Like
Honestly, I think all launch halo maps have been garbage since Reach. Hated every single Reach Launch map, the DLC was amazing. Halo 4 became tolerable and the DLC was good. Halo 5 was well Halo 5.
I like how you say its not different when you only compare the number of maps and not the quality of the maps. Please point to any infinite btb map that comes close to snowbound or valhalla, oh wait btb is broken in infinite.
3 Likes
Halo: Infinite had double the development time. Including the 13 month delay.
10 year live service game with double usual development time launching with only 10 maps, no Forge, no coop, no MP PvE equivalent of firefight/warzone, no decent playlists, no way to choose a mode for MP and no proper full filling progression system.
Epic fail.
1 Like
Wouldn’t be so bad except the maps in halo infinite are hot garbage. I honestly can’t think of one map on infinite I get even slightly excited to play.
5 Likes
You’re comparing the original adaptation of Halo Multiplayer with the Halos that followed (Halo 2 and beyond), a game that had Vehicle physics having you flip across the map from a single grenade or rocket and players capable to defending themselves no matter the location on the map with the assumption Pro variants were used - M6D starts (hilariously, Bungie had Default being Plasma Pistol starts on Blood Gulch)
It really all boils down to how Vehicles are now (Overpowered unless you have one of a few select weapons) and the desire to provide players a weaker starting weapon. So instead of balancing core gameplay mechanics to provide an equal experience for players in most locations on any style of map design, developers balance the map design to provide a better experience, since the core sandbox and mechanics by itself can’t do this. - it’s why Rocks were added to Coagulation for example; it’s why large maps more and more now come out with close quarters and medium-ranged fighting areas, rather than a wide open area that nobody dares enter without a Vehicle.
But, I do agree. Older maps were easy to understand, navigate, and create a strategy around that. Infinite’s maps are pretty complex when you consider all the different pathways one can take (at times must take) using various movements, making many of them provide an unpredictability that sometimes creates some incredibly frustrating encounters. To be honest, that can be both a good thing and a bad thing.
The infinite maps are poorly designed compared to ALL past Halo games.
2 Likes
The reach maps were Hot garbage, to plain or grey.
3 Likes
That is an art style choice. The maps had great topography and diverse terrain.
1 Like
I don’t understand why they had no remade maps like Blood Gulch. Simple enough no? Could have upped the number of maps that way with work like design already being done.
1 Like
I think the main issue here is that a game from 2007 has more accessible (not paywalled, rewarding, stable) content compared to a game over a decade later.
When you add all the other issues that everyone is mentioning, something “as simple as” having more maps than a prior entry seems like it would be a given, or at the very least, on par. They don’t have to work from scratch or think up new maps as bringing back older maps is a viable option.
This is before I mention that 3 of them sound unplayable to the BTB community and… well… one of them is launch site 
…
So again, I don’t think the maps thing would be a big issue in and of itself, but when people can’t really earn armor, have issues playing on a fraction of the maps, don’t feel that the challenge system is all that rewarding and enjoyable, and are going to have to wait a while before any of that is fixed, all coming from a game company who we know can make good games, it’s… upsetting.
*I say “as simple as” with quotations because I have no clue how “simple” it really is, but I do imagine it’s easier to make maps than other task that exist in game design.
1 Like
This is without any question the most difficult problem in terms of map design. Do you have an answer behind what makes one map successful and memorable while another map becomes a total flop? What made Lockout (Halo 2) successful and Blackout (Halo 3) a total failure? The same question can also be asked for Midship (Halo 2), what factors made it successful while Heretic (Halo 3) became much less successful?
Sure they can do that.
But then a lot of fans would still cry “LAZY and UNORIGINAL” as it would mark the seventh time we had received Blood Gulch.
- Halo CE - Blood Gulch
- Halo 2 - Coagulation
- Halo Wars 2 - Blood Gulch
- Halo Reach - Hemorrhage
- Halo 2 Anniversary - Bloodline
- Halo 5 Guardians - RvB Dust Gulch
1 Like
Yeah I know. Those were FANTASTIC and memorable times when it still had the spirit of fun instead of just competition. 8 total grenades! What a blast we had. Got kinda ridiculous in the bigger LAN parties though…
Those are two statements that don’t match up to reality…
Vehicles are nearly OBSOLETE right now due to several of them being made of wet paper (Ghosts, Banshees, Wraiths.) or because of the existence and overabundance of shock-based weapons and grenades.
Good luck driving the Scorpion tank if it ever does manage to spawn in before the game ends… you’ll get shock-locked until someone hits you with one of the 4 skewers, SPNKERs, S7 snipers, or gravity hammers that frequently spawn all over in BTB all the time because of ordinance drops AND multiple power-weapon spawn pads. (fragmentation is most guilty of this, since the treasure rooms usually spawn heavy weapons as well, on top of one heavy weapon pad fairly close to each base.
The AR and Sidekick are pretty good starter weapons, also… so idk what you mean by weaker. They’re definitely stronger than CE’s plasma+AR combo. Wait, did we spawn with AR’s back then? I don’t think we did, actually.
1 Like