Just to start out, I’d like to assure you that I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been forging since the release of Halo 3, and I’ve made over a hundred maps in Halo 3 and Reach. I’ve had my maps featured on THFE, RoosterTeeth, and even on here. I know what I’m talking about. This is a list of all of the things that make Halo 4’s Forge mode inferior to Reach’s. I’m not trying to make anyone mad, I’m just trying to get 343’s attention so that they can hopefully either fix these issues in Halo 4 or remedy them in Halo 5. Please don’t troll this thread.
1- Halo Reach had a much better forging environment.
I didn’t even like Forge World all that much to begin with, as there was only one type of scenery on the entire map. However, at least the map was big enough to allow players to make a large variety of maps, in Halo 4 the maps are either too small in general or lack good forging spaces. Here, I’ll show you. Forge World’s good forging spaces included but were not limited to: The island, the cave, the quarry, the canyon (long ways), the canyon (short ways), Montana, Alaska, that overhang next to the waterfall, in the air, the coliseum, that one spot over the cave in the canyon, and the massive amount of space over the ocean. In Halo 4? Well, Impact has one decently sized rock and the air, Erosion has the air and the coliseum, and Ravine is just terrible. Why can’t we just have another big map like Sandbox? With a giant desert, a massive sky bubble, and a crypt?
2- Same palette, harder to look at and more issues.
I’d hoped that 343 would hear the cries of the forgers from Halo Reach, who’ve been asking for a new Forge palette since the beginning of 2011. Why can’t each map have a unique palette again? Like Foundry and Sandbox? Hell, Forge World’s palette may have been bad but at least the shape of the pieces made sense, the blocks were perfect squares, whereas in Halo 4 they’re irregularly shaped on the sides. Why even do that? It makes it next to impossible to make a floor without bumps, holes, or Z-fighting. This decision made no sense at all. Not only are the pieces more obnoxious to use, they’re more obnoxious to look at. Sure, grey is a boring color to look at, but white? White objects onscreen straight up assault your retinas, especially when every item you’re looking at is white.
3- Magnets don’t work.
Yep, arguably the most shown off tool added to Forge isn’t functional. How so? Well, the magnets are only designed to line up objects with the same object and occasionally a few others. And not even that’s reliable, some objects don’t even line up correctly with the same object using the magnets. Take the Large Brace, you have to turn magnets off to line these things up because they aren’t placed symmetrically. That’s unacceptable.
4- Severe lack of Custom games and Custom options ruin forge maps.
What happened to Race, Invasion, Assault, and all of the other gametypes that were removed? What happened to actually being able to create new gametypes that felt really different from the core game? Halo’s longevity is mostly due to its community and Custom Games, you take that away and you’re losing a lot.
5- Every annoying glitch that was in Reach is still present in Halo 4.
Will every object on the map you just made tilt slightly when you save it? Probably. Will your save overwrite another map of yours? Possibly. Does the 90 degree snap finally work well? Hah! Good one. Well, does the 45 degree snap still work at least? Nope, that one got messed up. How did none of these issues get fixed?
6-Removal of vital features to Forge.
This is the one that I can’t for the life of me wrap my head around, Halo 4’s forge tools are a step forward only to be smacked in the face with a bus and shot back. Wait, scratch that, Halo 4’s added features aren’t even a step. It’s a gradual lean forward before getting hit with a bus. There is no reason, I repeat, no reason that the Precision editor should’ve been removed. That was one of if not the most useful tool in Reach, it allowed players to create smooth floors with no bumps or Z-fighting, allowed people to line up different types of objects near-perfectly, allowed players to make smooth racetracks, and much much more. Even if magnets were functional they wouldn’t be a worthy successor to the precision editor. Another thing, why take away the ability to zoom? There’s no reason for that, that’s a really simple and really useful ability.
7- It’s impossible to grab an item from anywhere but the center.
Self explanatory, this decision makes less than no sense.
8- No File Browser.
I don’t care if this is going to be added in later, it’s been two months. There is no excuse. This wouldn’t be so bad if we could view people’s file shares in the pre-game lobby Halo 3 style, but we can’t. Awesome. I’m really excited to make a map that no one can play.