Halo 5: Guardians Beta Thread | Hot Red on Blue Action

I really like this gameplay a lot. However, I still want these abilities to be toggle-able. That especially goes for sprint. Not that I don't enjoy these abilities, but being able to turn them off for specific game scenarios, whether it's for competitive players who prefer not to play with sprint, or custom games where the thruster would be a nuisance, would be an added bonus that would literally do nothing to harm 343's vision. I'll get to ADS in a second though.

I really liked the energy shield timer recharge bar, the removal of grenade indicators, and even the built-in player callouts. The maps seemed like there was a lot of work put into them, but of course they're symmetrically-designed, so it may not be as much as I think. Ground pound is a fun feature, and so is the sprint thrust. The default thruster pack feels very natural.

Then there's ADS. It's the only thing, besides flinch which has already been confirmed to be removed, that I want completely gone, reverting back to the old fashioned working way of scoping. People say it's only aesthetic, but all ADS does is restricts vision, significantly decreases bullet spread (which is NOT good on automatic weapons), and makes precision weapons like the BR and DMR very difficult to use in ADS mode, or at least not nearly as efficient as it was to in standard scope mode.

I really enjoyed this game and the HUGE skill gap that is present in it. The emphasis on team work is great, but I seriously hope 343 balances this fact with the playlists in the final game (perhaps even in the beta). We need to go back to Halo 3's ranked and Halo: Reach's Arena way of matching players: putting players running solo and in twos with other players running solo and in twos. The same goes for players running in teams. This is a very basic concept, but I've seen it absent for quite a while now, and it gets EXTREMELY frustrating when I'm matched against a team of four while I'm searching solo. With such emphasis on teamwork, I would hope that every playlist in Halo 5 Guardians does this.

Gameplay is only the tip of the iceberg for me. There needs to be a whole lot of other implementations that, of course, simply aren't present in the beta. Matching system, competitive ranking system, global ranking system, custom game options, Forge, Theater, API availability to third parties, stat tracking (
heatmaps?
), and the list goes on.

Since this is a review for the gameplay though, I'll say that it's everything we've wanted: a pure arena experience, a large skill gap, and an emphasis on map weaponry. So with the exception of my thoughts on ADS, I'll say it's solid. Of course, there's still a long way to go for the general online experience that will be presented in 2015.
 
I'm indifferent towards it so far. There are things I enjoy such as the assault rifle not being a worthless piece of shit (for once), there being very little aim-assist on the precision weapons, the prophet's bane requiring the player to be hella close, how fast the overall game is, the maps themselves so far, and the strafing moves feel great.

On the other hand I don't really like the ADS as it just feels awkward with the DMR/BR, I feel like I'm giving away way too much in terms of vision, and I frankly don't think it works as well as the zoom on the dmr/br like they used to. I also think it be cool if 343 just picked one of the two guns, and stuck with it. I honestly don't care which one. The clambor feels clunky in comparison to something like Tittyfall. I understand that game is auto clambor, but still, it feels all nice and fluid. This just felt annoying at times.

It's definitely a step up from 4, probably might see myself enjoying it more than 3. But I don't see it being as fun for me as Reach was, or fucking memorable the way CEPC and Halo 2 were.

Also the fucking field of view is lame. I hate console field of views as it is, and I was looking forward to the cursor being a bit more centered, but god damn man it still looks wrong. Also some of the visual direction on midship makes some of the shots irritating to pull off.
 
Septic360 said:
Isn't next week's playlist BR starts? Why are people moaning about AR starts if that's the case?
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Yeah I don't get this either. AR starts are good, you need to work with your team to get BRs and power weapons. And hold those important spots on the maps. In Halo 3 they had BR starts on some games and AR in others, I thought that was a pretty good mix. I haven't got a chance to play the beta yet, so I dunno if the AR is useless or more powerful like the last game.
 
After playing 19 matches yesterday, I am very happy with the direction of Halo 5.

- All the weapons feel very good and balanced with the exception of maybe the sniper rifle which needs to zoom in a bit faster, and seems to have some hit box issues.

- The new abilities all feel very useful in the right scenarios and quickly become part of the basic flow of the game, but still feels very much like Halo. I personally found shooting from the hip is still more effective than scoping in most situations.

- Both maps feel very well designed. I played two maps 19 times yesterday and never really got sick of it.

- Kill cams are possibly bugged and show things that didn't happen or maybe they do work and reveal hitbox issues.

- Matchmaking needs some optimization for speed.

- I could do without the game winning scenes that show the Spartans celebrating.

Overall I feel like this finally is an evolution of Halo's gameplay and 343 is doing very well. All the new mechanics mesh in very nicely and spice things up, while a few are hard to master. At first I was worried it didn't feel like Halo but after about 3 matches I started to get in my old rhythm again and definitely like everything.
 
So is this supposed to be up in AU? I've been trying since this morning and I still keep getting the server error message telling me to try again later...
 
Life in the shit tier can be good, I just got a win going too of team at 19/3 I was playing again chaff tho so only got +4 for the win.
 
Clintizzle said:
Is there a nice way to tell someone who complains that this is not 'halo' to stick with TMCC?
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Pretty much got to be blunt I guess. People crying about no BR start yet and not liking anything that's added. Please just go back to the Halo you prefer and not turn Halo 5 into whatever that Halo game may be (I expect 3 for most people who love the BR starts).

leng jai said:
So is this supposed to be up in AU? I've been trying since this morning and I still keep getting the server error message telling me to try again later...
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All I can think of is hard resetting your Xbox?
 
Oh wow, I really like this!

One thing though, what is the point of the killcam? It seems to show you what the enemy did after they killed you, rather than the actual killing.
 
Leyasu said:
You're most probably playing out of region. Choose a datacenter is a must for full release.
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Yeah its been laggy as fuck outside my first 2 games. No coincidence, I dominated those 2 games. I even saw guys teleporting the lag was so bad. Titanfall on the US server with 190 ping doesn't even do that to me.
 
Liamc723 said:
Oh wow, I really like this!

One thing though, what is the point of the killcam? It seems to show you what the enemy did after they killed you, rather than the actual killing.
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I think this might be lag dependent. I've seen US streams on twitch where killcam works as its supposed to. But I think if you are in a (slightly or a lot) laggy game, you get to see what happens afterwards.

Either way, I wish there was a toggle to turn it off. I dont need a killcam in Halo, I can almost always tell what killed me.
 
ebullientprism said:
I think this might be lag dependent. I've seen US streams on twitch where killcam works as its supposed to. But I think if you are in a (slightly or a lot) laggy game, you get to see what happens afterwards.

Either way, I wish there was a toggle to turn it off. I dont need a killcam in Halo, I can almost always tell what killed me.
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Its 100% lag dependent. The only Tim I've seen Halo killcams work, is when I played AU customs. That's how I knew most of my Halo 5 games were lagging hard.

That, and dying in half a second from the SMG after unloading BR into someone.
 
Man the lag is unbearable. As if my shots aren't registering. Seriously they got to solve it for us AU folks.

I've also found out that the DMR owns the BR. The range on it is necessary especially in hip fire mode. The BR also seems to get me in trouble because I need to get much closer than I feel comfortable with especially with those beefed up AR's
 
Septic360 said:
We need to party up as EU members. Hopefully that way it won't chuck us in games from other regions.

GT: SEPTIC360
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Hell yeah! my GT is LOTRs I'll add you later. I can't always use mic though. Having a blast, but I do not like the victory celebration, killcam from 4 or the way the Spartans call the Sniper "Snipes" that is awful. Get rid 343i.

I don't know if it's just me but the BR seems a little weak too.

I'll be buying this game day one.
 
leng jai said:
Tried this like 10 times. No idea what is wrong, lol.
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I'm in South Australia & getting something like that too.

Got one match today after a hard reset. But then the screen started doing this major flickering whilst matchmaking... then just dumped me back & said there was a problem with the server, try again later. Now when I try to connect into matchmaking I get the flickering & server unavailability message.

I didn't have that problem in the early access preview last week.
 
The Antitype said:
There's a lot of work to be done on this game.

A lot.

If it ships in anywhere near it's current state of balance and design, it will be destroyed by whatever the latest COD is, and probably a Titan Fall sequel too.

It would make the Halo 4 population numbers curve look like a gentle decline.
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Laughing my ass off at the hyperbole from a select few of you. This game is a BILLION times more fun then Halo 4 ever was 11 months before the game launches.
 
The Antitype said:
There's a lot of work to be done on this game.

A lot.

If it ships in anywhere near it's current state of balance and design, it will be destroyed by whatever the latest COD is, and probably a Titan Fall sequel too.

It would make the Halo 4 population numbers curve look like a gentle decline.
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Lol. We need this sort of comic relief here on GAF. So thank you.
 
Not enjoying this game at all. Stopped playing all together, and I doubt I'll play again until next week. Not buying Halo 5 but thanks for the free trial 343.
 
Cow said:
Not enjoying this game at all. Stopped playing all together, and I doubt I'll play again until next week. Not buying Halo 5 but thanks for the free trial 343.
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People like you are why devs don't do real betas anymore. This game is a year out, and still being made. This isn't a server test, or a bug squashing run, or a free demo.
More a freaking beta of a game that is very far from being done. The whole point is for the community to give feedback and help shape the development of the game. Not for you to say "thanks for he demo but your game sucks!"

Hell if they wanted to they could make it a third person cell shaded melee combat game in a year. As I said before, some games go halfway to the drawing board with a year left. Not saying halo needs it, but people are acting like this is a demo of a finished or near finished product. And that is asinine.
 
Not sure how I missed this originally, but hearing that flinch is not going to be in the final game makes me really happy. It was my biggest complaint so far. I figure the balance issues will be resolved, but I didn't think that flinch effect had any chance of being gone. Now the only other big thing (besides balance issues such as automatic weapons in general being a bit too strong and grenades needing their range and spawn count reduced) I want to see are more control options. I really want to take the bumper jumper layout then tweak it to be LB thrust, X sprint, and A jump. I also want to be able to turn off ground pound entirely, I do it on accident sometimes and it's frustrating. If some of these changes happen I'll be extremely pleased going into the final product. Good job 343, I had lost faith in you but now I see some hope.
 
the core gameplay loop is solid. this is a great foundation. TTK isn't crazy low but people don't feel like bullet sponges either. You feel like you have a chance with every weapon, grenade blast radius feels right and general player movement seems about the right speed.

Sniper rifle seems almost too easy to get headshots with. Not sure what's up with that.
 
I don't know how to feel about this game.

It's ok for what it is and isn't terrible, but it doesn't feel like a Halo game at all. I don't feel like I'm playing a Halo game, it's just really off. Like, I'm playing an FPS with a Halo skin. It looks like Halo, but it doesn't feel, nor play like Halo.

People stopping so they can ADS to kill you now is just tragic. It's not even a run and gun shooter any more. Still don't think sprint is needed because it's already faster than Halo 3.

On the plus side, the AR is no longer rubbish
 
Posted this on the community thread, but wanted to make sure the feedback thread got this as well:


I played some more matches last night and a few this morning before heading into work.

I think the pistol is a beast, however, I would like to see the pistol go to a four-shot kill instead of five. The rate of fire on the pistol is pretty much perfect. Also, I would like to see a stronger zoom on the pistol. Not as strong as the BR/DMR, but perhaps 2% more than what it currently is.

My reasoning for this is because when you do spawn and the other team has rifles, the pistol's scope isn't strong enough to really ping other players out of their scopes.

I did find myself rarely picking up the rifles though. The rate of fire on the rifles are much slower than the pistol, and to me personally, I can't stand slow-firing rifles, I wish they fired as fast as I could pull the trigger, like the pistol.

On the subject of timing power weapons and powerups, that needs to make a return. That is what made Halo a mental game. Like Quake, managing when a weapon drops and timing when you pick it up and when it will respawn again was one of the many fun things about Halo.

There's not much controlling of anything, if any at all in Halo 5 right now. On the midship map...there's a sword...yippee...that's not much of a power weapon. Where's the shotty to counter it? Where's the plasma pistol?

On the other map, there are two snipers...why isn't there a rocket in the center of the map? What about a camo? Overshield? I'd love to see the removal of the countdown of when the weapons drop, and leave it up to the players to manage it in their own heads.

Make it static, that's why it was so fun in HCE, knowing every 30 seconds a sniper would spawn, every 60 a rocket, etc.



Now onto the subject of the automatic weapons being OP or not. I'm really on the fence with this. After playing more and more last night, I used the AR a bit more. I honestly think nerfing the AR's power is a bad thing. Now nerfing its distance, I would be open to that discussion, because I think that's where the pistol should play a role.

In otherwords, for the CQC off spawn, the AR should always dominate, but when you get into the medium range distance combat, the pistol should always out play an AR.

Since the SMG is a pickup weapon, I think its medium range should be stronger than the AR's.

One of two things will happen if the AR gets a nerf. We're going to back to square one when Halo 3 came out. The assault rifle needs to play a role like it did in Halo CE. It should be a weapon that protects you off spawn in close quarters situations. The pistol should be the utility weapon that provides defense from ranged attacks off spawn.

If we nerf the AR, then we defeat the entire purpose of its existance in the first place. I think the main issue people have is with its ease of use, it's holding down the trigger and doing the typical spray n pray style gameplay...but is that not what it was in Halo CE, only it wasn't effective at medium range distances?

I am pleasantly surprised at how Halo 5 is balanced right now. I was seriously expecting a crap game, but I think 343 have really put in some thought as to how to balance the starting weapons. Those who call for BR start games...to be honest (and this is coming from a person who love HCE and BR start H2) it doesn't really need it, at least not in its current state.

If the pistol's power gets nerfed, then we can have the BR start discussion...because now the utility weapon is no longer present off spawn.

Also to be honest, I don't see a whole lot of weapon balancing needed, other than increasing rate of fire on the rifles and making the magnum a four-shot instead of five, but I don't know how that would affect the rest of the sandbox.

What I do think is missing from Halo 5 is the core gameplay of timing power weapons and powerups. If 343 were to put power weapons on static timers, e.g., every 30 seconds the sniper spawns (regardless of whether it's picked up or not, which means at 29 secs in, if you pick up the snipe, one second later, another one will spawn), I believe the game would become a deeper competitive game.

Also, bring back timed powerups. Put them near power weapons like they were in HCE. Rockets/Camo, sniper/OS, etc.

I think Halo 5 has a lot of potential to be one of the best Halo games since HCE. I can't stress it enough how awesome it would be to have the gameplay of timing powerweapons and powerups again. I really do think it adds a lot of value to the game.

Right now, slayer just feels like running around and fragging...not thinking about anything else at all. Even when the announcer says snipers dropping in 10 seconds, etc...it doesn't provide any depth.

There needs to be more going on in the game than just slaying...Halo CE provided that, it was not just about slaying, but it was also about blocking the other team from getting the powerups and powerweapons on the map....it was about total control of the match from controlling the map, controlling the spawns and controlling the items that spawned.
 
RandyBobandy said:
I don't know how to feel about this game.

It's ok for what it is and isn't terrible, but it doesn't feel like a Halo game at all. I don't feel like I'm playing a Halo game, it's just really off. Like, I'm playing an FPS with a Halo skin. It looks like Halo, but it doesn't feel, nor play like Halo.

People stopping so they can ADS to kill you now is just tragic. It's not even a run and gun shooter any more. Still don't think sprint is needed because it's already faster than Halo 3.

On the plus side, the AR is no longer rubbish
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Interesting point of view on the 'feel' of halo from an AR lover. Gross.
 
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