Hello everyone. I have been thinking for a long time about what Forge needs to make it fresh besides new structure and scenery and more variety in maps. I came to the conclusion that this idea is something that would cause a Renaissance in the Halo Community through the creativity that could be achieved with it. It would add a new dimension to Forge, the 4th one, TIME.
I beg that you read some of what I have to say; I know there’s a lot, but that’s for people who think they can see the potential in this. I really want to get ideas from the Community for how this could be used, certain issues that we could expect with it, etc. Any sort of comment, including criticism, is appreciated. Help me with this, guys. And this is not Halo 4-specific, it’s a general request to 343 that at some point they implement this.
CONCEPT:
Player-activated triggers that initiate pre-recorded events in Forged map.
SIMPLE EXAMPLES:
-Open doors
-Shut down shield doors
-Create low-grav area
-Cause weapon or vehicle spawns/drops
-Initiate teleportation
-Add visual and audio filters
TYPES OF TRIGGERS
BUTTON- manually activated by Spartans; there can be a few types, such as UNSC, Covenant, and a few Forerunner types. Example types would be a UNSC computer, Forerunner terminal, levers, etc.
TRIPZONE- The Forger specifies a zone that triggers when entered by a Spartan; color customizable; Tripzones could have different event triggers for entering and leaving the zone
TIMER- These are out of the Spartans’ control; they are simply activated when a designated amount of time passes, players killed, points earned, etc.
GENERATOR- Trigger that has a specified health and when destroyed triggers the event; think Generator Defense or that battery that held the bridge up on Last Resort.
Note: Triggers can have charging time, where the player must constantly be activating it (holding button/standing in zone) for a specified amount of time. Triggers can be set to reset after a certain period of time, or can have 2 different alternating events (door opening, door closing).
METHOD #1 FOR TRIGGER FORGING [PREFERRED]:
Forgeable by recording physical triggered actions as the monitor (moving/deleting/spawning in-game options, zones used for specifying shield loss, anti-grav. There can be a meter similar to the budget that depletes as actions are used to prevent XBOX/server explosions. Players could even record multiple events and overlap them so that one person can record many different actions in an event.
METHOD #2 FOR TRIGGER FORGING:
Forgeable by having triggers cause new phases of the map, like Invasion. This would not be as good as we couldn’t have transitions, and each phase’s changes would only occur all at once.
SIMPLE MAP EXAMPLES
Fortified asymmetrical map for 1-flag CTF, where attackers must destroy a generator or press a button to open a gate, allowing them to bring heavy vehicles through the gate and into the defenders’ fortress
Zombie map with Timer Triggers that cause slow shield and health decay over time (like radiation) and the Survivors must make it to the safe room (with button activated doors) to survive.
Space map where players can press a button to open a hangar door or disable a shield door and cause low-grav as well as space sound filters.
Indiana Jones-style obstacle courses where tripzones trigger events such as a Killball chase, the ground to open up, detonation of mines, and more [Thanks to Jace Taran]
A Hunger Games form of Infection where the Infected is hidden in the sky/ceiling with levers that cause explosions, radiation (shield decay), weapon drops, etc. while the other players fight for survival. Maybe there is a -Yoink- in the map (a Generator trigger) that when shot causes the Gamemaker to fall from his box to get destroyed by the contestants [Thanks to TypicalClock]
COMPLICATED MAP EXAMPLES
A fortified Zombie map where survivors can use a button trigger to spawn a one-dimensional red visible Tripwire trigger zone in front of a doorway that when breached activates an explosion event. The zombies however can destroy a Generator trigger that destroys the other triggers and also kills the lights, allowing them to hunt down Spartans in the darkness penetrated only by the scanning lasers of their Promethean Vision (in an E3 interview someone said they are working on some sort of effect on Spartans using PV) before emergency floodlights as well as Auto Sentries are activated by a Spartan using a 20 second charged trigger.
Maps that start out empty and have many Tripzones that cause the map to build or materialize as the player moves through it (like Inception), or stealth maps that have motion-activated lights, or maps that have a feature similar to Clairvoyance in Skyrim where when the player steps in certain zones, the path to a power weapon or objective to be illuminated.
2-player+ puzzle maps where there is glass between the players and they must complete obstacles to activate buttons to help the other player, like the beginning of Portal 2 coop. I’m sure a clever individual could use the triggers idea and set up Generator triggers all around a room that activate portals to create a Portal map.
BTB maps with weak points in the structure of certain forts so that if shot by a Scorpion or Wraith enough will cause the whole thing to collapse. “Builders” can go back to that weak spot and after pressing a charged button trigger (similar to arming a Bomb) can repair the building.
Space map where triggers cause a breach in the ship and gravity lifts or shield doors send players out into a low-grav, dark, silent space zone to battle. [Thanks to Jace Taran]
I hope you can see how deep this would make Forge 3.0; the mini-games, puzzle maps, Zombie maps, Invasion maps, BTB maps, space maps, even 4v4 competitive maps would all benefit greatly from 343 giving the ability to players to set triggers in their maps.
Please comment with support, criticism, ideas, anything. Thank you SO MUCH for spending your precious time to read this. I am going to add a list of ALL of the community’s ideas for this after enough have commented.
