Mr. Enigma
Member
I was with you until you said this.
Halo 4, One Year Later: What Happened?
- Thread starter FyreWulff
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I was with you until you said this.
This is why I cringe every time people say that 343i learned something. They haven't. Not one bit.
J-Roderton
Member
Sure I could pop in H3 and just play, but the only way I'd ever pay money for a Halo game again would be if they went back to that. Yeah, I agree it was basically balanced perfectly, had maps, and no bullshit. You wanted the upper hand, you get to the power weapons and power ups first, non of that load out, jetpack, sprinting bullshit. It was fun, and for me Halo 4 was not. I enjoyed Reach for what it was but it didn't compare. Then H4 came out. Hyped once again. Played it for a couple months trying to like it, but ended up getting rid of it quite soon after. They added even more crap to the mix. Campaign sucked too. If I grab the next Halo I'll be sure to see it played first and make sure I'm not buying a steaming pile of poo.
So "What happened?" As a huge Halo fan for years, it feels like a huge middle finger to the fanbase.
It's hilarious.
So "What happened?" As a huge Halo fan for years, it feels like a huge middle finger to the fanbase.
It's hilarious.
as pointed out, it wasn't something that could remove from unlocks.
Mainstreamer(1up)
Banned
Simmer down there Crouching Tiger, it was 343's first crack at it, if Halo 5 sucks then you can crucify them.
Masquerader
Member
Remove their tongues if such an instance were to occur. Don't even let them sing "Always look on the bright side of life". For by that stage, crucifixion would be too good for them
Though I didn't mind H4 that much, this part has me a bit worried, but I'm just gonna put my faith in 343i and hope for the best.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
Assuming 343i was trying to appeal to the twitch-shooter community, it completely fucking backfired. Halo fans play Halo for a reason, and twitch-shooter fans play those for a reason. There's definitely some people who like both, but when you try to amalgamate the qualities/mechanics of two very different games, it turns out like shit. I play Halo when I don't want to deal with randomness, chaos, killstreaks, perks, etc.
there were many reasons. Another of which was it was 2007 and nothing else was out for MP except CoD4. These days a FPS comes out every other week.
NO to dual welding. NO NO NO.
Actually, you couldn't even play the classic mode without Live. They didn't include the classic Halo 1 'mode' on the disc.
The whole multiplayer solution was poorly executed for fans of Halo CE and fans of Halo Reach, all around. The Reach TU should be written as "how to not ever do something"
l Zealot l
Member
The option should be there. Even if it's just for campaign/custom games.
343 showed Bungie how to do single player right but they couldn't get anywhere near Bungie in multiplayer. Bungie are hugely overrated in terms of their single player experiences and to be honest the original Halo was great but the rest of them were boring and stale. The Silent Cartographer mission I believe was the greatest thing Bungie ever did in terms of the single player experience.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
Nope. Halo 4 had the weakest campaign in the series.
Yeah Halo 4 got real weird.
duessano
Member
Exactly. Just as an option. Doesn't need to be for ranked games, but dual wielding is fun.
l Zealot l
Member
Agreed.
Story felt bland and level design was far to linear.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
Not only that but playing through it felt like a chore. Half-way through I just wanted it to be over, and it's a short game! Nothing about it makes me want to re-explore. None of it is memorable. The Promethean are frustrating enemies. Very linear; no room to explore. Button to button, clear this area, blah blah ad nauseam.
Make a campaign that begs to be explored. A campaign that I want to return to over and over. Convey a story that's interesting but easy to follow. And for god's sake don't make shitty characters like Palmer.
Surface of Me
I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
Dual wielding is awesome. A lot of of fun I had in Halo 3 was just mixing and matching. Spiker + Plasma Rifle is a deadly combo. For those who don't want dual wielding, why?
l Zealot l
Member
I was speaking very undetailed.
I genuinely liked the first mission, just putting that out there.
Here's reasons I dislike 4 in dot point.
- MCs armour been changed. (If it had to be done it should have been done when reunited with UNSC)
- Splinter Covenant were detailed in K5 but still felt like they were cheaply pulled into the fray.
- Didact was a C-tier villain and was boring with generic motivations.
-UNSC was to quickly reintroduced.
- MC is found and nobody cares.
- Palmer (need I say more)
- levels were boringly designed with adventure taking a back seat to linearity (press the button to spawn enemies then advance pls)
- IMO Forerunner architecture was better in other games.
- Forerunner weapons were reskinned Human/Covenant weapons ( a race as advanced as them shouldn't have such terrible weaponry)
- Prometheans were boring.
- Spartan 4s were ripped from a dude/bro sitcom (nothing like the lethal and stoic 2s or even 3s)
- UNSC infinity is ridiculously OP in the universe. So is the UNSC as a whole realistically considering how 3 is only 4 years on.
- no Arbiter (waaaat)
- story wasn't up to scratch
So much more but that's some. In general the game didn't have that Halo "magic" the others had, it's one of those things you can't explain but was apparent to me.
It's been fluctuating around 15,000 for the past few weeks.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
I agree with all of this, and this is mostly on the story side of things. The actual gameplay was incredibly mediocre as well. It was just... weak. Halo 2 was better, even (although I really like that campaign... I don't get the hate).
NoMoreTrolls
Banned
H4 sucked. I played it for two weeks and moved on. It's a shame, too. Three was pretty damn fun, and I really enjoyed ODST.
The updated perks aren't convincing me that 343i knows what the Halo audience wants. Hopefully we'll see at E3.
The updated perks aren't convincing me that 343i knows what the Halo audience wants. Hopefully we'll see at E3.
Rickenslacker
Banned
The balancing act at play basically had it so you had a bunch of weapons that were sub-par on their own and requiring another for viability. So you would get a bunch of power weapons along with a bunch that are dinky on their own, with very little in-between. I also didn't like how much you would give up during dual wielding; had to drop your weapon to toss a nade, trying to melee will drop your weapon, trying to switch will drop your weapon, the system just felt clumsy.
you couldn't play online MP without online....... yeah, no crap.
And no one plays on LAN anymore, so that's moot. Unless you love split screen.
I do agree Reach sucked and it made me not want to play CEA MP
I loved Reach and its multiplayer. It's a different flavor from Halo 3, sure, but its not nearly as terrible as Halo 4. But the DLC for it was handled so poorly. None of the DLC maps were particularly great, you could never play them because everyone in the lobby had to have them, and the whole situation with CE was just weird.
shungokusatsu
Member
Amazingly informative post, Ty OP. I think it's pretty clear this is another case of a franchise being given to imitators rather than creators. Same situation Call of Duty has encountered with the IW games. I've just about come to accept the fact that we'll never get a CoD game as good as CoD4 and MW2.
Nydius
Member
It's not like 343i was an all new team of people who were oblivious to what Halo was. There were quite a few Bungie people who made the move, most notably Frank O'Connor. They were also pretty much handed everything Bungie had done for Halo - engines, code, artwork, assets, everything - yet completely changing the design to be a clone of the COD loadout, perk, and killstreak system was the best they could do? (Aside: We may be watching history repeat itself here with Black Tusk Studios as well; they're now in charge of Gears and have Rod Fergusson at the helm, several Epic employees, and all of the Gears assets, but will they deliver a game like Gears 1/2 or another game like Gears Judgement?)
Sorry, but 343i deserve to be crucified for Halo 4 alone and their repeat blunders post-release. I have little faith in 343i after what they did with HCEA and H4. ANY future Halo games I play will be rentals first. If they can dig back into the rich history Bungie handed over to them and remember what made Halo special compared to all the other FPS' games out there, then I'll buy.
I'll also repeat what many others have said: Hey 343i, since Marty O'Donnell was fired, pick him up, stat. Halo 4's music design was just as bland and uninspired as the rest of the game. Not having quality ambient music and a cohesive musical theme was one of many problems.
from hundreds of thousands to 15k. wow
No. As in, you couldn't play "Halo 1 mode" at ALL without online and a gold account. Because the gametype to activate the Halo 1 pistol functionality, bleedthrough, etc, was not on the disc. If you bought CE:A and expected to play SOME form of Halo 1 multi, you actually could only play standard Reach.
To re-iterate how stupid this is: a game that is all about celebrating the release of Halo 1 doesn't actually let you play Halo 1 multiplayer out of the box.
To make this even better, they did not include Blood Gulch (a section of Forge World) on the disc. You know, the map that I can safely say comes to mind first when a majority people think "Halo 1 multiplayer". So you can't play -the- Halo 1 multiplayer map via the disc, even though it's in Reach.
AND THEN IT GETS EVEN BETTER THAN THAT
Due to the way they did the anniversary disc, they couldn't even optionally make Blood Gulch show up in the Anniversary playlists. No problem right? Just make Anniversary Slayer an option on Blood Gulch in other playlists. NOPE. They absolutely refused to make Anniversary available outside of the DLC paywall, so to this very day you cannot play Anniversary Slayer/CTF etc on Blood Gulch online in Reach. The map is there. The gametype is there. But never shall the two meet, because derp.
It seriously would have been less damaging if they had just included a code for Anniversary with the game but didn't have the pointless Reach Multiplayer Demo included. I have no idea what the point was for the way they did it.
Surface of Me
I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
I sort of see your first point, but Bungie was good at making sure when their were dual wielding weapons on maps, there were plenty to make a pair. I dont agree that it was dinky vs powerful at all really, the Plasma Rifle and the Mauler both hold their own. Disagree completely on the second point, that's basic risk vs reward game design.
flamingotripod
Member
Halo 3 had best singleplayer
Halo 2 had best multiplayer
Halo 4 has the worst single and multiplayer
Halo 2 had best multiplayer
Halo 4 has the worst single and multiplayer
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
To expand on this...
Halo 3: ODST had a very good singleplayer and introduced a cool new game mode.
Halo: CE had a great single and multiplayer.
Reach was decent on all fronts.
You can't increase your numbers when you piss off the fans you already had either. Why does one of gaming's most successful exclusive franchises need to try to appeal to new audiences when it already had such a strong audience, potentially alienating the fans they already had? And shouldn't a new studio taking the reins try to at least perfect what Bungie had already perfected before trying to "change things to increase the audience"?
They didn't want to include another MP-only disc like ODST, because it would have driven the price up to $60. They still wanted to have "CE" multiplayer and they decided early on that it was going to use the Reach MP. I agree that it wasn't the best choice, but it was probably the least offensive choice to include the demo. AFAIK, the only two major issues associated with it were the Reach playlist caps and booting into Reach when the Anniversary disc was in.
Muscle Wizard
Banned
As someone who considers himself somewhat versed in Halo lore... I didn't know there was an ancient race of humans at war with the Forerunners. That really confused me, as the previous games and books went on about how primitive humans were entrusted with the legacy of the Forerunners, but they were also destroyed and turned into ghost robots beforehand?
I know the why of the single disc. But it should have been a second disc or nothing.
Best Option: A second disc that has the entirety of the Reach multiplayer on it. Allows one to easily set up LANs with all the DLC maps and gets massive DLC adoption in multiplayer like Halo 3 Mythic.
Including a code: Every person that buys Anniversary gets the maps as an added bonus. CE:A has more disc space. Anniversary playlists in Reach can use Blood Gulch and Forged variants of maps they didn't remake. Reach multiplayer doesn't get split between two discs.
Mitigation option: Anniversary disc multi, but added Forge World to act as a 'bridge map' between Reach and Anniversary disc owners. Allows FW variants to be used in Anni playlists, Anni disc owners have an actual useful forge palette to work with.
Worst option: Release a disc that has only the Anniversary DLC on it, cannot load any DLC (even though there's Defiant DLC achievements added in the TU that only unlock if you have the Anniversary maps), go through the trouble of every single map in Reach supporting the Halo 1 functionality but never actually use it. (The way they ended up doing it, they should have just put the actual Halo 1 pistol into the Anniversary map data)
HiredN00bs
Banned
That's peak concurrent players. The actual number of unique players per day is unknown.
Here are today's hourly population counts per playlist:
Source: http://halocharts.com/2012/chart/playlists/2014-05-05
Only four lists ever get above 1000 concurrent players:
-Big Team Battle (8v8)
-Heavies (8v8)
-Team Slayer (4v4)
-Team SWAT (4v4)
The 4v4 lists never get above 2000 players. That sucks for a year-and-a-half-old Halo game.
Yeah, that's one of the first revelations of the Bear trilogy. It's some serious retro-conversion.
That's peak concurrent players. The actual number of unique players per day is unknown.
Here are today's hourly population counts per playlist:
Source: http://halocharts.com/2012/chart/playlists/2014-05-05
Only four lists ever get above 1000 concurrent players:
-Big Team Battle (8v8)
-Heavies (8v8)
-Team Slayer (4v4)
-Team SWAT (4v4)
The 4v4 lists never get above 2000 players. That sucks for a year-and-a-half-old Halo game.
This is depressing. Changed halo formula to cater to COD crowd and look what happened. I'm glad Halo fans quit this garbage.
HiredN00bs
Banned
There are actually a lot more traditional options in say, the Team Slayer playlist, but the problem is that they're co-mingled with Infinity Modes. This is partially because all of the unlocks for in-game content like armors and emblems are tied to completing commendations (counters for kills with certain weapons, certain medals, victories in certain game modes, et cetera), which require those modes. You can't get Armor X and Emblem Y unless you get n kills with Gun Z, and you can't use Gun Z unless you assign it to a loadout that's only available in Infinity modes because the traditional modes don't include it as a loadout and because most of the maps don't have regular old weapon spawns.
The game is somewhat of a mess organizationally, being pulled in many directions by the demands of fans and the demands of its own design.
clutch.as.it.gets.
Member
I think Halo 4 and Halo 2 are pretty close - both had bad campaigns.
CE is the best for me, then Halo 3 followed by Reach.
I didn`t play ODST.
Because Halo 2 was cut and paste. Enemy encounters frequently repeat 3-4 times as the laziest padding I've ever seen, and the boss fights were really lame. Even Reach had a better campaign.
Sound like a hot mess. I stopped playing two months after release. Didn't even check the maps that came with season pass lol.
The whole loadout thing must go away. Let everyone start with DMR or BR with couple of grenades and be done with it. it worked for all previous Halos (except Reach).
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
Loadouts are fine. Just make them static/preset with no option to customize them and no option to change your loadout mid-match. This would reduce random encounters and reinstate the strategic, predictable quality of classic Halo matches while still shaking things up a tad.
A few things. They needed to tell a better story, I consider myself a Halo fan and even I didn't fully understand what was going on. It was like I missed a cut scene or two sometimes. They need to make maps free after a time like halo 3. The map packs split the community too much. With so many other competing titles they need to do something to KEEP a healthy community. Also they added a COD feel to Halo and I didn't like it.
???
One of the biggest issues with Halo 3's handling of DLC is that they didn't make the maps free after a time. The game is going on seven years old, and the maps still aren't free.
I guess I am alone in liking Dual Welding.
Having the Plasma Pistol and Plasma Grenade be selectable in load outs was one of the worst decisions in the game. I would never want to play BTB because I would just get Plasma Pistoled and Plasma Naded whenever I got in a vehicle. One of the most infuriating things in the multiplayer ever.
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