The new Forge is great in many ways, but it’s also a step back in others. I wanted to list some suggestions I had about what I expected to be in the Forge that wasn’t and what needs to be added in. Feel free to comment on what you think of the Forge and what should be added/taken away, etc. One more thing: I’m a forger who focuses on inventions rather than making maps, so my suggestions might be geared towards that.
-Bigger maps. This is my first and foremost issue. As cool as these environments look, looks don’t matter as much as actual function. These maps are tiny. Nowhere near half the size of Forge World. Ravine’s land area is pretty much the size of Paradiso.
-Better maps. In Reach and 3 we got nice, large, flat spaces (Reach had a lot of hilly parts but they didn’t interfere much). In 4, we have very hilly and rocky terrain. Most of Erosion’s land is absolutely un-buildable due to wacky terrains. To add to this, all maps have pre-made, non-deletable structures. With all due respect, 343 and CA, where was the logic for this? Forge is all about making your own maps, not building off of preset things. I can’t stand the base in Impact or the tower thing in Erosion.
-Helicopters. These were a huge part of Halo before. While these are mainly for custom games, customs are closely tied in with Forge. The Falcon and Hornet were essential to so many Forged games and machinimas (also closely knit with Forge).
-Mid-size Covie ground vehicle. Not as important as helicopters, but still feels like there’s something missing. The point of the chopper/revenant was to give the driver offensive power in something faster and more maneuverable than a tank.
-Custom powerups. Huge deal for me. I happen to love making all sorts of missile launchers. Being able to pick up a powerup and let explosives drop into a man cannon to launch was essential to many types of launchers. In addition, these were the basis for ODST pods and many other inventions. Then there’s the obvious part, which is Custom game functions… people used them to enhance gameplay.
-Propane tanks/Plasma batteries. Not too important, but something I’ll miss from Reach. Propane tanks were great missiles and very fun in other aspects due to their ability to rocket in random or controlled directions when slightly damaged. Fuel canisters are pretty much the same exact thing as fusion coils. And plasma batteries provided excellent Covenant explosive power, especially in machinimas.
-Precision editing. Big one. Huge one. Why was this removed? Magnets are good and all but this was very important for complex structures.
-Object textures. I thought that after all the ruckus about Reach’s grey being dull and boring, you guys would have added the option to change textures and colors on objects. Not so. White is just the new grey.
-Ability to turn off lighting. The lighting is great, don’t get me wrong. However, I was forging with some friends yesterday, and I can tell you the generating lighting was horrendously annoying. Every time someone exited Forge mode, everyone’s screen paused and the lighting had to load. Worse yet, occasionally one of us would lose out spot in the menus or even something one of us was holding. Not sure if this happened to anyone else. So please let us turn it off for quicker, more efficient Forging, and let it work its magic after we’re done.
That’s all I can think of for now, I’ll add any I think of later. Just so you know, I like Halo 4, and I’m having fun with it. I just think the Forge could use some improvements. And I’m not sure if half of these can even be added in. But we’ll see. Also I know there’s a whole slew of complaints regarding custom games, but I tried to leave out as many things that were mainly custom games as I could, as this deals specifically with Forge.