Audley's Workshop: Rat's Nest Reforged

I'm going to be ramping up the production of Audley's Workshop pieces for a bit, with three different categories for subjects. I'll still cover reworking or speaking about weapon/vehicle sandboxes from games (mostly Halo, with some inclusion of Perfect Dark, PlanetSide, and the Unreal Tournament series)...but I'm adding two other subjects: Halo map design and some diving into League of Legends design.

Today will mark the launch of the Halo Map design Audley's Workshop series: Reforged. There are tons of maps in the Halo series people remember fondly. Some, they think are great maps. Some, they enjoyed playing and tilted their head when Forgers or other players called shit design. Others were just god-awful maps.

For the Reforged series, I'll stick mostly to the ones people enjoyed but became confused when the design of the map was attacked by the more analytical or cynical crowds.

Coming from primarily a BTB background, the first map I'm going to talk about is quite possibly the best Neutral Assault map I ever played, but a map that I felt played every other gametype subpar or poorly.

Rat's Nest

Before we get into talking about how to make things better, we have to talk about what they did well and what they did poorly.

As I said above, Rat's Nest was a fantastic Neutral Assault map. No Halo 3 map felt more balanced for Bomb than Rat's Nest.

A large part of this is the focus on the inner areas of gameplay for moving the bomb – map control is obtained by controlling the respective Kitchens (labeled “red base” and “blue base” on the overhead picture above...they got the name Kitchens from me in H3 BTB customs, which was a leftover callout from PlanetSide for “the room behind the spawn room – where players are cooked”).

However, if a team took control of your kitchen but lost bomb control, you could simply take the bomb out the back of your base, hop into a vehicle, and speed run it along the outside of the base, offsetting map control entirely and resetting the map.

If a team scored, the bomb respawned at Rockets – an area with zero high ground, limited cover, and only three routes out – toward windows (Plat in picture) or toward the middle of the map. Often, teams who had just been scored against would either spawn at their Windows (Plat) or near the entrance to Mauler / at Sniper spawn. Either way, they were spawning in position to contest the reset bomb, meaning a team that had just scored needed to fight to retake map control, rather than easily snowballing into multiple scores in a row (unless the matches were extremely one-sided.)

Although vehicles were fairly dominant in many of the Halo 3 BTB options, Rat's Nest kept them under control. A large portion of this was the geometry separating the streets from the kitchens and bases, leaving vehicles with very poor options for sightlines or extremely risky routes if they wanted to be aggressive for kills. Any player with a Plasma Grenade or good timing on a highjack could end a vehicle run on their own.

In short,

• Map control could be reset any time the aggressor lost control of the bomb, whether arm attempt was successful or failed.
• A “back” route to the bomb plant which was actually faster than the inner route, but sacrificed map control.
• Bomb reset point is in the weakest point of the map, far away from any power positions and with very limited route options to move the bomb out.
• Strong central arena portion of the map dominated by infantry battles.
• Vehicles were fairly limited in power by map geometry separating outer ring from inner arena.

So what were the map's problems that arose on other gametypes?

An overabundance of 90 degree angles and CQB weapon choices (shotguns, Gravity Hammer, Bubble Shields, automatics, Dual Maulers) meant that attempting to push through a corner was a truly dangerous task. Additionally, the doors protruded a bit meaning players could camp above the doors and surprise pushers with SURPRISE DEATH FROM ABOVE as they ventured into a new room. The only true counter to door campers was to use the Brute Shot to fire barely around the corner, killing them or weakening them with splash damage.

The aforementioned separation of the streets and inner sanctum meant attempting to run vehicles to look for kills in Slayer was useless unless the enemy Kitchen and base were under your control, in which case players would spawn by Sniper, at the elbow, and at windows, ripe for picking off by a Warthog or Ghost patrolling the streets.

Unlike Assault, Capture the Flag tended to be extremely snowbally at the top level, where once one team managed to get control long enough to pull the flag past middle, that control stuck long enough for back to back caps. Since map control wasn't forcibly reset by the movement of the objective to a neutral location, and spawning Windows would mean getting slain from players on your balcony (seen as “Garage” on the picture), it was hard to get back into a position to retake map control.

The exception to this rule was when your team managed to spawn near Sniper, but even then you were left with only a handful of options: 1) Push over Sniper area into the main central area (where you have to overextend to get back into the kitchens) 2) Push into the massive choke point known as the Mauler to retake your kitchen. Or 3) Push over Sniper area into the enemy Mauler, and either attempt to solo retake control of the enemy Kitchen or push behind their base to their Balcony/vehicle spawn area to attempt a sneak cap as they move back toward the center of the map.

Laundry list:

• Everything is a 90 degree angle, which increases the potency of camping. (Reduced movement incentive.)
• Door geometry allowing players to hide on top of doors increases potency of camping. (Reduced movement incentive.)
• Combined with above two, a heavy focus on CQB weaponry leads to almost mandatory camping / lack of reasons to move in a stalemate unless Rockets are going to spawn soon.
• Vehicles have few options on how to break a stalemate, due to massive segmentation of the map.
• CTF is snowbally, due to never losing map control upon scoring and ease of spawn killing from major spawn areas during a scoring run.
• Retaking central control after losing is is extremely difficult due to required passing through choke points in order to do so.

So how do we fix it?

In Rat's Nest case, a majority of the problems (90 degree angles, too many choke points, too many CQB weapons, door camping) have really obvious solutions.

Open up the angles. Remove some CQB weapons. Widen some choke points. Flatten the doors.

Fixing the potency of vehicles and reducing the occurrence of multicapping in Flag will require a more deliberate approach.

But before we get into fixing the two major issues, let's do a little more focused discussion on where to open angles, and which CQB weapons need to stay.

The biggest offender is the entrance/exit to the Turret area of the map from the Kitchen. Turret is the primary flanking area into the opposing Kitchen, and thus the most important place to push (pushing across bridge is a death trap due to being open to crossfire sightlines from turret + Sniper with limited options to break both sightlines simultaneously.)

In order to improve the incentive to actually push from turret, rather than stalemate camp the area, We can bust open that door and stretch the entrance further toward the Brute Shot spawn, which will give the pushing player more vision toward the back side of the kitchen as they push. This encourages a team with confidence by giving them more information as they push (more field of vision) and reducing the amount of space a CQB wielder has to hide and use for an ambush.

The second offender is also the primary choke point of the map, the Mauler->Kitchen door, directly across from the aforementioned turret door. This is an area I feel should be greatly widened for a couple of reasons.

With one of the “safety spawn” areas occurring just behind the pictured player, outside in the streets, this route is one of the primary routes in order to attempt to retake your Kitchen, or reenter the fray after being slain. Widening this area reduces the chances you'll be cut off by grenades and further increases your ability to see the CQB wielders who have taken refuge in your Kitchen.

Finally, the entrances to the Kitchen from your own base are also choke point doors with areas to hide around the corner. Sure, you can bank a grenade off the door frame to peg a player around the corner, but he still has plenty of room to dodge and be prepared to take you down with whatever weapon he and his teammates have primed.

In order to fix this particular area, you could widen the bottom doorway in order to increase the sightlines for players looking to push out or peek into the Kitchen, or trim the frame and round off the square edges, giving a bit more visibility around the corners as you prepare to push, increasing the potential reaction time and increasing counterplay for a camping Shotgun or Hammer played just inside the door.

So now let's talk CQB weaponry.

Per side, Rat's Nest has 2 SMGs, 2 Spikers, a Brute Shot, a Shotgun, and 2 Maulers (both right next to each other). Each team also has access to a Bubble Shield and a Regenerator in their Kitchen. On top of that, the map features a neutral Hammer.

In total, the map has 6 Shotgun-type weapons, 4 high RoF automatics, and 2 splash damage explosives (not counting the power weapon of Rockets).

Personally, I would remove all 4 Maulers and move the Shotgun from its place near the center of the map into the Maulers' home. This would better equip players coming off Snipe Street spawn into the Kitchen to fight off players inside their kitchen, assuming the Shotgun was available.

The Hammer needs to stay, as it serves a unique purpose of being an anti-vehicle weapon inside Rocket street with its high physics impact carrying the potential to launch vehicles off the cliff – countering bomb runs or flag runs that took the risky road. It's also a viscerally powerful weapon in general with a ton of satisfaction when used.

The SMGs and Spikers on the map are somewhat superfluous with every player spawning with ARs as their secondary weapon. SMGs' primary role in the case of BTB use cases were as a counter to Banshees, while Spikers saw almost no use for any reason. Either or both of these could be cut without having any significant effect on the gameplay of the map.

With a Bubble Shield and a Regenerator both spawning in the Kitchen on short timers, players carrying CQB weaponry were empowered further, as their fast kill times could slay players within the field created by the equipment. The Bubble Shield is good for defensive purposes in Bomb, but in terms of pushing potential doesn't really enable anything, especially in the case that you're pushing against other CQB weaponry, as you're just giving them opportunity to get into range by throwing down the shield on yourself. The Regenerator, however, is much better for pushing, as it allows you to survive BR fire as you move into position.

Pulling the Bubble Shield back from the Kitchen can reduce some of the power teams taking over Kitchens carry, whether they have CQB weaponry or not. The Bubble Shield could be moved into the bases, at the old SMG spawn location (upstairs along the wall), further encouraging its use as a defensive tool for Bomb disarming or as a tool to protect from choke point grenades as you push into your Kitchen.

Or, the Bubbles could be placed in a location that helps alleviate one of the problems I mentioned with CTF, where post-capture spawning typically left players spawning at the Windows were susceptible to fire from their balcony as they attempted to push back toward their base. Place the Bubble Shield near the Windows (opposite from the Plasma Grenades) to improve the chances for players to get back to their base with a bit more safety.

And that segues us into talking about how to improve the map's snowball situation for CTF.

One major issue of the Window spawn is that players only have two options upon spawning there: Move toward your base (where enemy players are killing you) or Move toward Rocket spawn (the weakest position on the map).

The ramps leading down to rockets are a complete dead zone. You can only move forward or backward when passing through. Adding an additional route from here into either the Kitchen or the Base would drastically improve map flow in this area, in addition to enabling players an option to avoid the Balcony spawn campers.

Between the two options, giving the route into the Base is probably the wiser option – it avoids creating too much funneling into the Kitchen, and also creates a new flag route option for a trailing team. While a leading team will almost always want to run the flag through the Kitchens due to the speed / safety of the route, a trailing team usually wants to run the flag a back way, typically into a vehicle behind the base. In this case, if a player is managing the sneak grab alone, he may elect to take this path and look for reinforcements at Rockets, an area of the map few are likely to venture to when the weapon is not due to be up. If an enemy team groups to stop the capture from this route, they are left out of position for map control and the trailing team may set up to stop the bleeding.

With the Mauler entrance to Kitchen also opened up, the snowballing in Flag matches is alleviated as players have better options to retake their side of the map, as the team with control of the interior is more exposed in general.

But they're still safe from the final problem I highlighted, which is the low amount of options for vehicles on the map.

I don't necessarily think this is a major issue existing on Rat's Nest, and more a bit that gives the map a unique flavor. After all, once a spawn trap is set up, the Warthog can dominate. And when a spawn trap isn't set up, a lone wolf Ghost can score kill after kill patrolling the outer ring for players picked off in the center of the map.

However, for players who find their BTB fun primarily when utilizing the motorized portion of the Halo sandbox, Rat's Nest can be a frustrating experience.

Minor improvements could be made in order to help out a driver's life. For instance, the “cliff” below Ghost spawn could be moderately reworked into a ramp, improving vehicle flow through the center of the map and giving players driving past rockets an opportunity to drive by or do gun runs past the Kitchens, without the enormous risk of being forced to stop, turn around, and reverse back to Rockets with ample time to end up stuck by plasma grenades, flipped by other explosives, or highjacked.

Although the doors of the map are big enough for a Warthog to fit through, they could be made just a bit bigger to encourage the true offroad terror driving surprise of WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A WARTHOG RIGHT HERE?

Although not NECESSARY, introducing a low route or open window into the Kitchen or Base from Snipe street to give a Warthog gunner sightlines into the area could improve harassment or route options for the wandering tusked beast.

Regardless of the flaws discussed here, Rat's Nest was a map that played quite well in the context of Halo 3 at a competitive level. Despite accusations of passive play, it was a Slayer map that rarely failed to reach the 100 kill marker, and CTF matches were always fast paced and exciting. The map was just far superior for Bomb and failed to reach its potential for other gametypes. The changes detailed herein could've made the map a Classic, rather than just a “Oh I remember that one.”

This concludes the inaugural Audley's Workshop: Reforged.  Hope you enjoyed!  Next visit to the Forge Workshop, we'll be talking about Lockout.  (But I'll probably revisit the Armory next and talk about Armor Abilities.)

Hephaestus, Spartan God of the Forge.

Okay, so the title's a bit of a stretch this time to get a really horrible pun in. But this episode of Audley Enough will focus on helping you take advantage of one of Reach's biggest improvements from Halo 3: Forge 2.0 and ForgeWorld.

Map design is a tricky business. The smallest hitch in an otherwise well-designed map can ruin its ability to be played effectively, but today I'm going to be ranting on a few of the missteps map makers may have in their attempt to assemble an awesome map. You won't become a master forger by reading this, but it may offer a few thoughts that help you rethink your design and improve your map.

First, let's talk about Lines of Sight, and breaking them. There are four basic degrees through which you can break lines of sight. The first is through the main geometry of your map. Walls, partitions, blocks, and the like will always serve to separate your players' abilities to shoot at one another. Every map you'll ever make will establish its main lines of sight through the design you give your walls, bridges, floors, ceilings, walkways, and caves. Once you get those established, it's time for the less prominent, but even more important ways to block lines of sight.

Up next is natural cover, or geometrical cover. This is still a part of your map's intended geometry, but rather than being intended as just a wall to establish your map's form, these are intended to be used by the player as a form of significant cover. The best example I can give of these are the rocks on Standoff. They block large amounts of sightlines from your opponents, and provide safety from grenades and enemy fire, while allowing you to still fire upon your opponents when you choose to peek out. They are a perfect example of cover that is intentional from a design standpoint.

This leaves us with two more methods of blocking lines of sight. Both of these are pretty similar from the standpoint of appearance, but the functionality given by them is what separates them. The first is often called "lazy cover," but I prefer to simply call it CLUTTER. Clutter are pieces of your map that block lines of sight for very short periods of time, but cannot be used to hide behind, move around your map effectively, or offer any sort of control for the person present there. The latter, although it may be an identical piece of map geometry, are what I call Micro-Breakers. A Micro-Breaker is a very small break in your line of sight (or a very small opening in an otherwise blocked line of sight) that allows higher skilled players to micromanage the sightline in order to use effectively.

Clutter is very rarely a good thing to have on your map. It should never be added prior to play-testing your map -- if you end up needing it, don't fret. Sometimes areas of your map ARE too open and need some form of brief respite such as a small rock you can fit behind. But when it comes to clutter, remember that LESS is MORE. If you've got an area of your map that needed clutter to be safe, chances are you're not really expecting your players to be going there often anyway. A map with an example of excessive clutter is the BTB map/Sandbox variant Vindictive. The Brute Towers, the tunnels, the Crow's Nest, and the pillars on top of the base are all examples of clutter. They block lines of sight, but offer very little safety for players trying to pass through that area of the map.

On the other hand, Micro-Breakers are a great thing to have on your map. The Pit and Narrows are two maps that show a great amount of Micro-Breakers, from the yellow padding, to the holes in the partition walls, to the slots on the ceiling of sword room in the Pit, and the different holes and openings littered all around Narrows that allow highly aware players to see positions newer or less-skilled players wouldn't bother to use. Micro-Breakers help your map to establish a skill gap, which is absolutely great if you wish your map to garner competitive merit.

Our next topic is elevation. We all know map flow is important. That's a given. One way to improve your map's flow is to improve the variation of elevation. Especially as we move into Halo Reach, where you'll have to keep the Jetpack in mind (assuming you allow default loadouts), elevation is key.

One mistake newer forgers tend to make is to follow a three-tiered elevation scheme: "Floor, One Block, Two Block." While this can work out for a very basic design, it's not creative and eventually the gameplay becomes very predictable.

There are a few ways to alleviate this. The most elementary of these, throw in a height of half-block! Ha! That'll show those critics...right? Well, maybe.

Another way to improve your height variations is to offer alternate passages between areas where "2 Block" meets "1 Block." For example, you could have a slow grade (slope) leading up behind 2 Block, while you have a series of jumps, or a lift on the other side (more exposed), that allows the player to scale straight up. (See: Pit Sniper Tower)

Keep in mind that your entire map doesn't have to be flat. I'm not saying go crazy and make nothing flat, because that would be a profoundly annoying map to play on, but remember that slopes are a way to offer varied elevation, and with Halo Reach's "Fixed" and "Phased" options of placement geometry as well as the ability to turn things one degree of one unit at a time, being able to make hills and ramps out of pieces that aren't hills and ramps will be much easier. Take advantage of this. Angle your tunnel so it comes out in a way that puts the person coming out of it slightly higher than those who came into it. Now you've got a map of Floor, One Block, 1.15 Block, and 2 Block! It's variety, it's depth. It's a start.

As a final note on this subject, remember what I said about Micro-Breakers? They can be applied to elevations as well. As I mentioned the Pit's yellow pads, little subtle ledges that can be jumped on for slight advantages are a great way to add temporary elevation to higher-level play on your map. Little columns that can be jumped off of to traverse from one elevated portion of your map to another are also great, and can add even more of a skill gap to competitive play on your map.

To avoid writing a novel on general map design, I'm going to limit myself to one last topic before I wrap this entry up: Symmetry versus Asymmetry.

Symmetrical maps are ALMOST ALWAYS better for establishing balance from the start to the finish of your map. That doesn't mean you cannot make an asymmetrical map that is fair to both teams. There are four general types of maps, in regards to symmetry:

1) Totally Symmetrical: One side of the map is either a copy of the other side, or a mirrored image of the other side. Narrows, Pit, Midship, Warlock...all of these maps are symmetrical maps all the way to their core. Whether your map is symmetrical four-ways, two-ways, or flipped-symmetry (like Citadel), a totally symmetrical map offers the exact same opportunities to both sides starting the game.

2) Functionally Symmetrical: The two sides are...almost...the same. They work out pretty the same for both teams under most circumstances, but they're not EXACTLY identical. Standoff is an example of a map like this. The differences between the sides aren't enough to affect the two teams' playstyles. The only real differences in a Functionally Symmetrical map are aesthetics.

3) Mostly Symmetrical: The two sides have the same general features, but the different geometry forces teams to have to play their side differently. Valhalla in Halo 3 is the prime example of this type of map. Beach side needs Pelican to retake the hill, while Waterfall side needs Turret to retake the hill. Mostly Symmetrical maps tend to have equal opportunities for the START of the map, but begin to differ once the initial rushes have played out. MLG's Construct also falls in this category.

4) Totally Asymmetrical: No form of symmetry at all in terms of geometry or starting positioning. It is almost NEVER okay to have two-sided objective gametypes on these maps, but properly designed asymmetrical maps can work beautifully for Slayer, Oddball, or King of the Hill, as well as one-sided objective gametypes.

The important thing to keep in mind when making an Asymmetrical Map (for anything except One-Sided objectives) is to offer relatively balanced opportunities off the opening of the game, as well as equal opportunities for control and safe spawning throughout the game.

This doesn't mean "Red Player A" and "Blue Player B" both have to have perfectly equal travel times to the power positions or power weapons. In fact, that's not a requirement at all. What IS a requirement, however, is that if Player A can get to a power position faster than Player B, that Player B has at least one potential counter to player A rushing that position, whether it be a good sightline on the exposed pathway leading there, or an easier way to obtain a power weapon such as Sniper to attempt to Snipe Player A out of the power position. Likewise, since Player B is given easy access to a Sniper, Player A would have to have some way to harass Player B (such as an accessible DMR from the power position) in order to keep the two positions balanced, and allow the better player to come out on top.

It's important to remember on asymmetrical maps that power positions and power weapons should never be contiguous unless being in that power position is highly exposed and dangerous. Don't place your Sniper Rifle at the top of a tower at the highest point of the map with a ton of cover. Don't place your Rockets on a top middle platform with clear sightlines on everyone on the bottom of the map.

Make sure that there's not only one area of interest on the map when forging an Asymmetrical map. You don't want both teams sending everyone they have to a single location, leading to a clusterfuck off the start. The more paths and choices that can be made from the start, the more that players who display intelligent decision making can shine.

That should wrap up today's entry. I tried to keep it short, because as I said, a novel could be written on Map Design that still wouldn't cover enough to ensure every map ever designed was good. But hopefully, you've read the topics I've covered today and thought, "Audley Enough, he's right! Clutter DOES suck...and I need to add more areas that skilled players can take advantage of, even if casual players would just ignore them!"

Be sure to tune in next time, where I'll talk about [insert future subject here.] That's right, Audley Enough, I still don't know what I'm doing here.

Oh, P.S., if you wish this had pictures to go with it, too bad. I'm a writer. If you want someone to spruce these articles up with illustrations, send all hate messages to Anubis x MT.