Why Halo 4 Forge is a disappointment

Games Other Halo
1

As a veteran of the Halo series, I greatly miss the days of Halo 1 CTF on Blood Gulch, but I have come to greatly enjoy the Forge Mode, particularly in the company of 3 friends. Mucking about in Forge mode in Halo: Reach and Halo 3 was awesomely fun. Halo: Reach vastly improved the forge mode from Halo 3, and I was very pumped for Halo 4 to see a similar jump in forge. Here’s some problems that I have found with the current forge mode.

GENERATING LIGHTING

This one’s just obvious. What starts as a slight delay when you enter player mode in forge becomes an incredible nuisance with the addition of 3 players. The frequent re-calculation of shadows is unnecessary when I go into player mode to quickly test something. I would expect it to be calculated when saving the map, not every time you enter player mode.

FORGE MAPS

Another issue with Halo 4 is that it doesn’t learn from Halo: Reach at all. What we learned in Halo: Reach is some very simple concepts. Simple = Good. Variety = Good. Creativity = Good. Forge World brought all 3 of these concepts into one tightly wrapped package. It had a ton of space to be creative, a variety of landscapes, and it was just a simple yet awesome map. While it suffered from some minor issues like draw-distance, it was still the single-handed best map of Halo: Reach in my opinion, solely for the amount of options it offered. Halo 4 boasted that it would offer “3 completely different Forge Worlds.” Instead, we got 3 very tiny maps that claim to be “catered” to Forge, yet each offers a minimal height restriction and lack of variety.

RESTRICTIONS

One big mistake that’s very easy to see with Halo 4 is that it actually took away some of the great options from Halo: Reach. Race mode is nowhere to be seen, and Grifball isn’t a playlist option. Community maps are not easily shared, and there’s no easy way to play forge maps online. Halo 4 saw some major downgrades in terms of it’s limitations, as I was expecting MORE, not LESS.

LACK OF INTELLIGENT ADDITIONS
There was a lot of talk about Halo 4 Forge. With the popularity of Halo: Reach’s Forge Mode, Halo 4’s Forge was being touted as the forge mode that was finally getting a huge development budget, having lots of staff put on it, and finally being the polished incredible map editor we wanted. Instead, we got a slightly watered down version of Reach’s forge mode, with a few small additions (Magnets being one big one).

Playing through Forge mode in Halo 3, Reach or Halo 4, you can quickly see some significant issues that could be solved, but just weren’t. For example:

  • Underground items. Sometimes, you lose a gravity lift or something underground. A menu to browse through spawned items that highlights them when selected would be great, so you could delete specific items without selecting them, or a way to change the selection distance.
  • Better camera adjustment while forging. Many times, I have had to place an object to move it from another angle as when wielding bulky objects in particular, you sometimes just get a face full of metal, which makes it diffficult to properly forge. Some options for camera would be amazing.
  • Better use of player mode in forge. Many options for Forge mode like Ordnance Drops can’t be properly tested in forge. There should be an option to test your ordnance drops, or atleast offer speed boosts/overshields/etc as spawnable powersup.
  • Lack of building variety. Halo: Reach offered structures which was a great boon to building things in Halo. Having pre-fab buildings at your fingertips made building a base easy. However, Halo 4 did nearly nothing to add to these. Literally, you get the same 2-Story and 3-Story Towers available in Halo: Reach. Is this Halo 4 Forge, or just a patched port?

Anyways, that’s my rant about Forge Mode. I’m greatly enjoying the normal Multiplayer, and I have some qualms about the campaign that don’t fit this thread, but those are the issues I have with Forge. I was really hyped for this game, and rather disappointed that rather than a heavily expanded forge mode, they took the Halo: Reach forge mode, removed some of the most awesome bits, added in a few cool things, and called it a day.

2

Good summary. I was also very disappointed by Halo 4’s Forge. I’d love to see an actual map editor in Halo 5, but that’s not going to happen.

3

I agree with most of your list, but we definitely didn’t need more preset buildings. That’s just lazy forging. What we needed were more simple structures (Walls, floors, rooftops, etc.) that fit together NICELY, looked right, and could be used to make your own buildings. I miss the days of Halo 3 where you could forge entire bases out of a few simple boxes, walls, and fences.

Since Reach, all I’ve been seeing is bases made of preset buildings and towers which contrasted horribly with each other and left every map looking exactly the same. All the pieces were overly complex in aesthetic design and shape which meant it was damn near impossible to get them to fit together nicely and look right. Reach didn’t improve Halo 3’s forge, it made it worse. And copying Reach’s palette was the biggest mistake they could’ve made for forge.

Also, there was a bug in Reach’s forge where objects would shift slightly after you closed and loaded the map, and it seems that bug was never fixed and made its way into Halo 4.

4

I completely agree, one of the main things I did on reach was forge maps and I think more different ‘blocks’ would of been amazing but they have just ported reach which is disappointing. The maps are WAY TOO SMALL they need to bring out a forge world or the game will go sour quick! Thats what kept Reach going was the all new game types and beautifully made maps brought into the multiplayer custom game to create an all new experience every day. PLEASE FIX.

5

I was just kind of puzzled by the lack of a Forge World and a “structures” item option. I loved making all manner of wacky mid-air, platform-based maps in Reach; but Halo 4’s Forge is, as OP said, disappointing.

However, seeing how 343i is handling some of the content, I wouldn’t be surprised if they released an update or a free DLC with all the good stuff. You never know.

6

That’s what I’m hoping. Even barring the question of improving forge (Adding items, etc), the lack of Forge World and the generating light issue is just… really disappointing. I hope atleast 343 will patch the generating light, and possibly add in Forge World if we get lucky.

7

I completely agree with you.