How I feel as a Forger and Custom Gamer in H4

Games Other Halo
1

Halo 4, despite all the efforts of 343i, is a huge, giant, colossal step back for Forgers and Custom Game creators.

Allow me to explain why.

  • The Forge environments are atrocious. Yes, atrocious. There is no flexibility in these maps whatsoever to create what we want. They’re too small, have a huge lack of terrain, and there are barriers EVERYWHERE.

In Reach, with Forge World, you had all these different locations, which specialised in providing you with the ideal terrain that you needed for whatever you were trying to create. It might have been bland, but the flexibility on it was close to perfection.

And here, now, over two years later, we have these… things, that we call ‘Forge Environments’. None of these environments provide us with enough skybox space, terrain or flexibility to build our own cool maps and minigames.

  • The lack of customisation and good gametypes. As if the restrictions in Forge didn’t put you off enough already, 343i went and took away most, if not all of the customisation for gametypes. So not only can we not build good maps, we can’t create good gametypes either. WHY?

Even Race is not in the game any more. Well, it isn’t right now, there’ll more than likely be a release of other gametypes at a later date, but the main gametypes that were customised for minigames are already on the disc, and they’re hardly editable.

I don’t see any logic in taking away flexibility and creativity for no reason. They could have easily given us a big space like Forge World, so why didn’t they?

  • Precision Forging is gone. Again, where is the logic behind taking away our ability to nudge objects with the left stick and to zoom in as a monitor. We now have to rely on hand-placed magnet points on objects in order to get them in line. Even then, when you load up the map, everything can move up to a huge 3 units away from where you last placed it.

Yes, I know it’s a loading issue, but why on earth is it even worse in Halo 4 than it was in Reach?

  • Dynamic lighting rendering. So first, we get dynamic lighting, which allows our objects to cast shadows in the map and on each other. Cool, right? Wrong. It might look nice up close, but at a distance, you can see it all rendering in a circular pattern as you move closer to a far away point. Just place a long line of Station Corridors and you will see what I mean.

So, 343i and Certain Affinity have taken one step forward and two steps back with Forge and Custom Games for Halo 4. What are your thoughts on this post, and on the overall state of Forge and Custom Games?

2

It seems 343 wanted to grab the casual players more then the halo players

I see the marketing reason but the custom community was stiffed hard core

the covie community was pretty much let to die.

I agree
343 fix this

3

At the end of the day guys it’s not 343i making the decisions.

If someone at Microsoft sees that dropping all these fan favourite things like gametypes, custom games and vehicles, just to make sure it will get out before Christmas, they’ll do it.

4

I’ll laugh at first if they include forge world sized maps on one of the DLCs down the road for Forgers. Then after a good guffaw … I’ll be ticked.

5

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

OP, prepare to have an influx of people who have never even been in Forge to jump in here and proclaim how the new Forge “is GREAT!”. Happens in every other logical complaint thread.

6

I have to make my own floor every time I go to start on a new map. Most of my maps now are floaters.

The terrain on Ravine is complete rubbish. I like the Forerunner side of the map but that is it. Same goes for Impact. Erosion is ok, but its still seems like a uphill designed map meant for KoTH.

I would rather have all the map specific objects for all the maps. The objects you get for Impact are the best IMO and would fit perfectly with Ravine or Erosion. Erosion’s pipes would fit perfectly with the other two maps, and what the hell is up with only having pipes on Erosion?

My other problems with Forge are not being able to force player colors or even have our default colors. WTH is up with that? No scoping in or out in Monitor mode. Objects were taking out, only people who have gone through every piece will notice what was left out. Like Reach, when I leave a Forge session and return at a later date, the objects no longer line up the way I left them. Shadows stop working or get glitchy after x amount of objects have been placed in a map.

I have more but i’m running out of time, laters.

7

Never saw a map on reach that took up more space than what any of these forge environments have to offer. What are you trying to build? a planet?

8

> Never saw a map on reach that took up more space than what any of these forge environments have to offer. What are you trying to build? a planet?

in reach, the different environment were VERY easily separated without ruining aesthetics. It was also flexible because you could switch location in game and not have to back out and start a whole new game to compare what looked better. And yes, many race maps, mini-game maps, and strait competitive maps took spaces that were larger than ravine or erosion. (i.e. Rasu, hemorrhage, many a space battle map, and many infection maps.)

9

Just watch the damn Social Skirmish Roast and know that 343i has likely seen it. There’s no way you could be let down by how thorough a cross-examination this expert panel threw down a few days ago.

Just watch it and catch up with the rest of us.

10

This product was completely driven by Microsoft.

…and what drives Microsoft?

MONEY.

…what drives money?
MARKETING

Considering all the hardcores are already gonna buy it with their eyes closed,
Who,then, is -Yoink!- marketing to?

NEW PLAYERS.

What do they want the New Players to focus on?
Shooting Bad Guys in Campaign/Spartan Ops.

Where does that leave the priority level for people like US?
BOTTOM OF THE PILE.

11

I agree that it is dumb certain ganetypes, and things like precision editing were removed, but the maps are fine. Forge World was terrible in that all of the terrain was bad, none of the textures matched, and the map itself was just all-around too big.

12

Did you just say Forge World was “Too Big”?

The 47 maps I made on it BEG TO DIFFER.

13

Forge has been a joke since halo. 3.

The sad thing is in halo 2 by using a modding program developed by a fan you could inject anything in the game into multiplayer. You could also reskin the bit maps.
Such as a pelican, which is already coded in the damn game.

That should have been expected in the first version of forge along with player models, weapons, vehicles from all previous games.

Another thing that would refresh forge is releasing all of the previous maps. Even in the old graphics.
That would give a cool throw back play to anyone who prefers older halos (me) and still allow people to play the newer style. It would add diversity to machinima and mm. It would give forgers so many environments.

Also Microsoft would not lose money.
All 25 halo 3 maps are 9$ on odst used (does not go to -Yoink!-)
Halo 2 maps aren’t available any way due to original server shut down.
Halo ce maps are not available for sale.
Reach maps suck no one would buy them anyway.

That being said for a true (original) release of those maps I would spend more than I would on a normal pack and there is not even work required.

The engine will support them and all they would have to do is upload the dl.

14

> Just watch the damn Social Skirmish Roast and know that 343i has likely seen it. There’s no way you could be let down by how thorough a cross-examination this expert panel threw down a few days ago.
>
> Just watch it and catch up with the rest of us.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQHdYqp_E4A

Good video, even though it’s an hour and a half long. The way 343 decided about how to mute someone in-game is atrocious.

15

As far as Forge goes, Certain Affinity has acknowledged the oversights and is preparing a patch to fix them.

16

I can not help but notice the only place good for forging in a flat space with equal edges is the “griffball court” Believe it or not it is actually bigger than the hangar area in forge world. The grid is still the same size, it would cover the hangar entirely. If you feel brave enough to drop the grid i nthe griffball court you will see.

Otherwise I can agree here. I forged in halo 3, reach, and already have a fourth map underway. The only maps I made are on erosion or impact.

Ravine isn’t the worlds greatest forge map, and I feel as if there isn’t enough in some of the item categories now. Also some of the “special” map categories need more to them. The Erosion pipes are cool, but why not add like pumping stations, or open pipes that you can go inside of? Impact has some nice special items, so does ravine, although ravines items are a bit lacking.

The other thing I wish we could have is a time of day system, or weather based system. That has been a request of forgers for a long time.

So I have a question:
What did you think of forge in Halo 3 compared to 4?

17

I definitely agree that Forge World was at least the right size if not too small. It obviously had no trouble loading so if you only wanted to use an enclosed space, you had a few great areas for it, whereas if you wanted a complete change of scenery on an exploration map, that option was available too. Some of the frustrating things about all this to me include the fact that for everything they took out, they didn’t at least provide an adequate replacement.

The two things I have the biggest problem with include precision editing (who doesn’t miss that?) and Monitor/Spartan mode switching.

It is sad that for all the promise they gave of Halo 4’s Forge, they left out a feature that I consider essential. I think it’s great that they left the nudge in (editing coordinates), but even that isn’t precise enough. I was trying to line up a ramp with a 90 degree drop, for example. In Reach, I could have used precision editing with the crouch button and gotten it done in about four seconds. In H4, I had to use precision editing, a lot more time, and a little luck, and it STILL didn’t go where I wanted it to go. I’m losing hope that it’s even possible. Thanks for magnets and the ability to turn them off when they’re useless, but the crouch button isn’t doing anything right now in Monitor mode. They called it an oversight on their part and may be able to patch it. I’m going to stick with Reach’s Forge until then.

The other thing I really liked about Reach’s Forge was the ability to quick change from Spartan to Monitor AND BACK. I also really enjoyed that I could switch to Spartan mode while moving as the Monitor and it would carry my momentum. Now it takes time to decide that the objects I have placed should, in fact, have shadows. After waiting a long time (yes - a second compared to instant is long) it turns you back into a Spartan and you can move about, with great confidence in accurate shadows.

Nobody cares about shadows. It sucks that 343 was so concerned about the aesthetics of the game that they failed to realize that they were sacrificing too much for not a lot of benefit. It now takes twice as long for me to test a jump I just created to see if it’s doable. Guys, if you really want dynamic lighting, I’m all for it… but for those of us who don’t care in the slightest bit, it would be really nice if we at least had the option of turning them off so it didn’t slow down our map-making. Bring them back in the game and we can see them there. Thanks!

Also, what’s with the out of bounds areas? It just stands to reason for me that if I can see it, I should be able to go there. Ravine, for instance, allows you to travel to the outside walls of the island you’re on… but not too far. I don’t think it would be too much to ask that the boundaries be stretched just enough so we can make that final run around the edge of the map. I can go there, but it tells me to leave within ten seconds. Why? I’m there! It’s part of the map!

I’ll be posting this as a new thread as well.

18

> I definitely agree that Forge World was at least the right size if not too small. It obviously had no trouble loading…

FW had a lot of trouble loading - aren’t you familiar with frame rate loss? A single destroyed Wraith was all it took to bring the FR down. Smaller maps are better for FR because there are significantly fewer assets being rendered outside of your actual map. Big maps aren’t the end of the world, but FW was too detailed to be as big as it was.

19

So far the only map I have found good enough to build a map on is Erosion. And thats only because I am doing a indoor map in the big hanger thing area.

Speaking of indoor maps, anyone notice the lack of indoor maps in Halo 4?

20

is it hard to put one HUGE multiterrain BLANK, when i say that i mean no permanent buildings :stuck_out_tongue: