I've gotten a little bit of radical feedback from a couple people in particular. And would like to explain/ justify design choices.



I have watched the gameplay footage, and quite honestly I do not see anything game breaking. Every encounter that led to negative feedback all resulted back towards the player's reactions or decisions, not the maps design. It is easy to watch the footage and explain that they should have done this or that. And it is very easy to miss these things while in the heat of a battle.

Overall the map is playing how I want/intend it to.



"Make oversheild easier to get to"



It is intended to be a difficult to reach power up. Many current players seem to think OS needs to be in a highly contestable area in H5, but I disagree. People see examples of OS placement like on Empire, and think that should set a precedent. I personally think that leads to terrible encounters. In most cases 2 players run up to it and either

A) punch each other until somebody dies

B) both attempt to grab it simultaneously, and it randomizes who gets it.

C) easily grenade-able and the player dies after picking it up, before it kicks in.



For those reasons alone, I wanted it to be in a difficult to reach and difficult to nade area. (Excluding splinters) It is still however easily shootable, in fact, staying on those pipes is a terrible location because sight lines up there are restricted so much, while sight lines looking at the area are abundant. It is a transition area, not a power position. It requires practice to navigate, but once you learn it, you own it. Similar to the tac jump up to top middle on Fathom. It is about map knowledge and overall meta.



"Top Lift is too powerful"



Top lift is meant to be a counter position to the main hallway. It can be attacked from the front, right, and behind. There are no weapons or incentive to camp up top, and if you do decide to remain up there to challenge main hallway, it can be easily flushed out with according positioning or weapons. Especially when you take into account the window from sniper room. Coming through that window on to OS pipes is another counter to the top lift. ESPECIALLY if you are timing OS. From top lift, you have zero sight lines on OS or Splinter window. It can effectively be the best way to flank that position, and trap campers like rats, and if you are timing OS and plan out a flank correctly, it is almost guaranteed you will crush their set up. It was all carefully thought out during the building phase. It can be very helpful to set up one player up there, but it is in no way game breaking.



"Too many corners"



I do not believe there are too many corners, or that it creates bad gameplay. Those corners of discussion lead to more interesting encounters at range, or from room to room. It is the nature of room based maps. Arguing that you can crouch behind walls is a weak argument holistically considering I could HLG on virtually any map in Halo 3 specifically, it isn't even about just crouching and waiting (which is a play style, not a map exploit.) but if I really wanted to, and have before, crouch around the map, watch your movements and keep cycling around to the areas that you just checked. Endlessly juking you. Again, that is a trolly play style, not map exploitation. In some circumstances, maps can definitely have too many exploitable hiding spots, but there are none that could no be countered on Loading zone by nading or coordinating a flank.



"Too segmented"



It's a room based map, I have since inception opened up areas, and expanded areas for more breathing room, but ultimately I don't feel it needs to be expanded any more so than it is now. At least when it comes to scaling or sight lines. Any changes I have been suggested from the last play test lobby, would create a ripple effect that would create a problem somewhere else on the map, or change gameplay from what it is currently, and intended to be. It would become a never ending cycle of trouble shooting for personal preferences.



"There's no call outs"



This one really rustles my jimmies. In the old days of Halo, when it was more competitive, the players would create call outs based off of the variables placed in the map. Weapons, structures, grenades, spawns, power ups, etc. Basically, being able to call out player locations to teammates. In Halo 5, players feel the need to have all that information provided for them without studying the map. Instant knowledge without putting forth effort. If you cannot put forth the effort to study a map, you will not get the optimal experience out of it, plain and simple.



I could call someone out on any point of the map. If you don't understand that call out, it is not a map flaw, it is a lack of map knowledge. Now some people will argue that the map does not have distinct visual cues for accelerated learning call outs, which I think only helps the overall experience. It forces people to understand the map more, it does not hurt the aesthetic theme by making one side visually red and blue like a mario kart battle track. Not only is that corny, but it theoretically hurts encounters. (Blue players blend in with blue side, and likewise for red.) The obvious example would be Monolith in Halo 4. Visually a train wreck. Loading Zone is an asym so there is not even a need for dramatic color coding.



Call out's include top cat, mid cat, low cat, bottom lift, top lift, main hall, blue spawn, snipe 3,2,1, red porch, smg, red br, blue br, bottom mid, PC, OS, green room, sneaky, and so on.



Like I stated before, map knowledge. We never needed to be spoon fed information from the competitive halo games, and we don't need it now. And if you don't want to spend the time to learn call outs, how can you expect to get the optimal experience out of the gameplay?



Always take feedback for what it is, but if you can prove otherwise, more power to you and your design.

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