For Arena, that is.
Short of a few questionable design decisions and the inherent visual disadvantage of being made with forge, I’m pretty happy with the maps in the BTB playlist. They ‘feel’ like Halo.
I think one of the major reasons so many people voice that Halo doesn’t ‘feel like Halo’ comes down to the overriding map design philosophy. Most of the maps feel as though they were built to take full advantage of the new mobility features. That makes sense. You add a critical new feature to a game, you obviously want to make sure that players are encouraged to make use of it.
And it would be fine if it didn’t carry over across almost every single 4v4 map, or if the maps counter-balanced the closer/denser confines with more open areas. But for the most part, every map feels catered toward shorter engagement distance (ie, the average distance that enemies enter each other’s line of fire), verticality, and multi-person pile-ups. Frankly, at times it feels as if you’re never two steps away from a freshly respawned enemy at any given time. And that heart-pounding, max-speed experience certainly has it’s appeal… but not for 20 games in a row on maps that all provide a relatively similar combat experience with a slightly different coat of paint.
When I think of Halo - even putting aside BTB and sticking purely to 4v4 - I think of maps like Hang’em High, Sanctuary, Lockout/Guardian, The Pit, Narrows, High Ground among others. Plenty of these maps have close-quarters areas that will have you jumping at shadows, they also have more open areas and longer sight lines, and lots of the mid-range precision shoot/grenade battles that defined Halo for so many.
I can’t tell you with any authority that The Rig is actually smaller than Sanctuary as far as square-footage or geometry. But it sure FEELS smaller by virtue of how that geometry is arranged and how battles are thereby forced to play out. By comparison, Truth - despite probably actually being smaller in raw scale, feels much larger because of all the open space and the longer sight-lines. Likewise for Colisseum, even Eden to a lesser degree.
Please 343i, more maps with longer sight-lines that encourage mid-range engagement. If only for variety’s sake. There’s still plenty of places within these maps where you can fit tons of usage of the new mobility mechanics.
big maps in arena would be the worse idea ever its like asking for arena maps in BTB or warzone
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> big maps in arena would be the worse idea ever its like asking for arena maps in BTB or warzone
Don’t need to be big, just more open.
Sanctuary and Hang’m High weren’t big maps, they just allowed for more mid-long range engagement instead of encouraging short-range engagement.
343 has actually done this for a reason I think, and its because the old open maps almost always turned into a BR campfest when people pick them up or started with them. It’s not the best made maps of course, but I see why, the people who prefer using the AR and SMG need to have somewhere to play too.
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> > 2533274805919869;2:
> > big maps in arena would be the worse idea ever its like asking for arena maps in BTB or warzone
>
>
> Don’t need to be big, just more open.
>
> Sanctuary and Hang’m High weren’t big maps, they just allowed for more mid-long range engagement instead of encouraging short-range engagement.
yea and people didnt move much from their side of the base either at least with some cover people try to flank.
I agree with this post, we need more open maps.
You know, I’ve been thinking about making a post like this. That’s the issue with BTB maps in Halo 5, they all look big, but they don’t feel big. Indoor combat is encouraged in almost every map. What happened to maps like blood gulch or Valhalla? Different devs yada yada, I get it. But if they’re going to keep remaking maps, why not do the most popular?
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> 343 has actually done this for a reason I think, and its because the old open maps almost always turned into a BR campfest when people pick them up or started with them. It’s not the best made maps of course, but I see why, the people who prefer using the AR and SMG need to have somewhere to play too.
Yeah so it was fun
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> > > 2533274805919869;2:
> > > big maps in arena would be the worse idea ever its like asking for arena maps in BTB or warzone
> >
> >
> > Don’t need to be big, just more open.
> >
> > Sanctuary and Hang’m High weren’t big maps, they just allowed for more mid-long range engagement instead of encouraging short-range engagement.
>
>
> yea and people didnt move much from their side of the base either at least with some cover people try to flank.
Disagree. I think there was plenty of movement through those maps as teams tried to control the power weapons and the major choke points.
These maps just don’t feel like Halo maps. They’re not BAD per say, but they just don’t bring the kind of mid-range, methodical combat that made Halo special.
I like H5’s maps, but it would be nice to see more maps that didn’t look and feel like a giant segmented box…
I agree. I can’t even fathom who sat down in a meeting and said “To complement Halo 5’s newer and ‘faster than ever’ movement options, I think we should make every single map cramped to keep the player flying blind and ensure that they’re never used as anything beyond a glorified fast forward button!”