Orion was not well received in the beta for the most part, but it showed a lot of promise - certainly more than Pegasus (the other forge map in slayer). There were a couple issues, namely the advantage the glare and cover provided for one side of the map was slightly unbalanced, but there were some decent ideas to counteract that advantage - namely the sniper rifle and the hydra were on the other side of the map. With a few tweaks, it could have been excellent as it was an overall straight-forward design with interesting choke holds, not to mention is was one of the more visually unique maps we’ve ever seen in a Halo game.
Then, the final version comes out with the game. The tweaks made to it were just awful. The soft, bright flare of the sun turned into a weird, unnatural orange ball. The sniper alley was extended to be even wider and afforded even less cover. The cave feature of the map leading to the glare-side spawn was drastically opened, making it even more advantageous and easy to hold position over by the glare because you can literally anyone from a mile away coming at you. The hydra was removed, taking away any chance of removing a team from a stronghold position of the map (a single BR doesn’t hold weight against a team of pistols, btw). Some other visual changes were added, including a very ugly and random color theme on the building structures, and some strange vegetation (random tree stump) scattered throughout, the center structure was changed, making it impossible to hold position up there, and the window in the base on the opposite side of the glare was taken out, making it difficult to see what was happening around you and thus negating any advantage of being up there. None of these changes were favorable, and the flow of the map changed from a battle in the middle structure (near the hydra) to spawn killing kids in the cave.
Orion could have been excellent, and if I’m being honest, it was shaping up to be one of the better maps from the beta. They trashed it to showcase forge features, and now it’s gone forever. A true tragedy.
The only reason I liked Orion is because to me, it is the most Halo like map. None of this “claustrophobic danger around every corner” feel that a lot of the maps have. With that said, being spawn killed 6 times in a row on SWAT got pretty old.
I think they destroyed Pegasus also, it feels like half the map it used to be. I think they should have modified the green hill/DMR spawn/Pillars area instead of just deleting it and putting a -Yoinking!- rock there.
Both of these maps were better in the beta.
Actually; every map was better in the better; with the DMR & Prophet’s Bane being on Truth.
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> I think they destroyed Pegasus also, it feels like half the map it used to be. I think they should have modified the green hill/DMR spawn/Pillars area instead of just deleting it and putting a -Yoinking!- rock there.
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> Both of these maps were better in the beta.
>
> Actually; every map was better in the better; with the DMR & Prophet’s Bane being on Truth.
>
> Now every level has a -Yoinking!- plasma caster.
Yeah, where the -Yoink- did the hydra go and sword go? The plasma caster is crap.