I don't agree with the corridor part but in my Legendary playthrough the AI would stand still and let me shoot them, drive Banshees into corners and allow me to jack them, and they would walk around but just not shoot at me at all at times. It's supposedly worse on the easier settings, he's not trolling.
GDC: Halo 4 Post Mortem starts right now.
- Thread starter dragonelite
- Start date
I don't agree with the corridor part but in my Legendary playthrough the AI would stand still and let me shoot them, drive Banshees into corners and allow me to jack them, and they would walk around but just not shoot at me at all at times. It's supposedly worse on the easier settings, he's not trolling.
yeah, the ai took a noticeable hit. it isnt all that uncommon to see them get hung up and doing nothing, which was exceedingly rare in the previous halos. the elites are also far easier in halo 4, but i don't think thats due to a downgrade of ai and is was more likely a design choice.
PedroLumpy
Member
Do you think there was anything good about the unlocks? All you're effectively saying is that it was only 'kinda' bad instead of just bad. If that's the best that can be said about unlocks, then it should be called out as the shitty change it is.
maybe if you had quoted my full post instead of just selectively highlighting the first part, you'd have your answer.
PedroLumpy
Member
Well I did read the entire thing, that's what prompted my question. You seem to not like the unlock stuff, but then seem oddly dismissive of criticism directed at it. Those 2 ideas presented together is confusing, thus I inquire further.
dancrane212
Member
To help give context to the campaign's story 343 should bring back their version of the scan visor from Anniversary.
Rather than having to find some radio/text log (which may or may not be related to what I have questions about) or open a wiki I simply look at the creature/object I wish to learn more about, scan it and am presented with a piece of lore directly related to the thing I just scanned. Having a scan visor in Prime added so much to making that universe feel alive. Being in-game and getting a simple bit of text explaining that your ship was built on planet XYZ is far more immersive than finding a terminal that you have to stop playing the game to watch on Waypoint.
Rather than having to find some radio/text log (which may or may not be related to what I have questions about) or open a wiki I simply look at the creature/object I wish to learn more about, scan it and am presented with a piece of lore directly related to the thing I just scanned. Having a scan visor in Prime added so much to making that universe feel alive. Being in-game and getting a simple bit of text explaining that your ship was built on planet XYZ is far more immersive than finding a terminal that you have to stop playing the game to watch on Waypoint.
toymachine
Member
I enjoy multiplayer what I don't enjoy is:
Scorpion is total garbage
hijacking sometimes doesn't work
Mantis missles feel janky
Gauss Hog is the most powerful thing on earth
web integrated fileshare still doesn't work
community maps are kind of lame
no multi-team
action sack is way too limited, think of other fun stuff
Scorpion is total garbage
hijacking sometimes doesn't work
Mantis missles feel janky
Gauss Hog is the most powerful thing on earth
web integrated fileshare still doesn't work
community maps are kind of lame
no multi-team
action sack is way too limited, think of other fun stuff
as i said, it was a minor issue at launch (for the reasons i posted that you left out in my quote) and i havent thought about it sense. thats the definition of a minor issue in my book and doesnt need to be brought up over and over again as a major piece of evidence about how broken 343's halo 4 is. its ammo for some - those that either havent played the game much, hate anything and everything cod in their halo, or have an agenda to push.
PedroLumpy
Member
Well, I guess I look at it as a minor issue is like a 'bug', something that obviously wasn't intended to be there, but managed to slip through.
Something like this may still only have a minor impact, but it's something that they did intentionally. That paints it in a whole different light when the designers thought this would actually be a good idea. So when designers purposefully put in something that makes their game worse, I think it's VERY important to call it out. Thus I dislike the whole 'Oh it's not THAT bad it's only kinda bad' defense. I think it should be trashed regardless of where it falls on the badness scale.
i see your point and am glad they are getting that feedback from the community , but it isnt something that impacts my enjoyment of the game in the slightest now, so i dont dwell on it.
Except they do negatively effect gameplay. JiP is shit because it didn't work or function properly. If it did, it would be less of a problem, but yeah people would still complain about it because CoD.
Persistent progression that affects gameplay is by FAR the worst part of Halo 4. It throws out what made Halo what it is in the first place. Everyone starts on an even playing field, something that was already tampered with a bit in Reach, at all times, no matter what. This may seem trivial, but it really isn't. This fucks over guest accounts, new players and offline accounts generally. Any game that rewards people with a competitive advantage for playing more is bad. Why should you feed the elite more of a competitive advantage to skew wins in their favour? This contributes to making it effectively harder for folks to get into the game when they're being Boltshot'd everywhere. Default loadouts generally suck, too.
Also lol at saying it takes only a day or two of playing to reach that. Maybe if you play continuously for those two days and hit the XP cap, and even still then you'd need at least 5 days. It takes a considerable amount of time to get to 50 for any new player, some amount of time a player may not ever reach because they've become so disinterested in that time. There is no upside to this, or saving grace of using it; it's counterintuitive and doesn't work. It's a shit way to balance in CoD and it's shit here, only having the effects amplified by weapon imbalance. They tried and failed because their reward feedback loop wasn't strong enough to make people fight through the negative experiences they were having while trying to unlock everything.
I witnessed the same problems when I played on Heroic. I was surprised to see such bad AI in a series known for enemies with excellent AI (well, the Elites are pretty much it).
There are a lot of small things like that people have not picked up on because they gave campaign a cursory glance. Or they were reviewers who had to review the game under a strict schedule and couldn't be bothered to actually investigate things like sub par enemy AI, bugs, and the completely overhauled competitive multiplayer (what I am referring to are things like global ordnance, personal ordnance, 12 second weapon despawn times, changes to CTF, omissions of modes like Territories, and many more odd changes and omissions).
The only unlocks that are seriously terribad are the Specialization, I mean you have to go through 60 levels just to get a "perk" that reduces the flinch you take and then you've still got another 70 levels to unlock more gameplay impacting stuff. I also think that loadouts and spartan points to unlock weapons was a terrible idea. Keep them for unlocking armor and stuff and the specializations should've just unlocked more armor and emblems.
It's all terrible.
Spartan points are idiotic too because of what limited choice you have anyways when you spend them. Weapons, AAs, whatever. They're all tools that segregate new players and can make the difference on the battlefield.
Clear evidence that ripping off Call of Duty without thinking about the consequences was the goal for Halo 4 multiplayer. Because the rest of the shit the game does wasn't enough already.
Diablohead
Member
I enjoy multiplayer what I don't enjoy is:
Scorpion is total garbage
hijacking sometimes doesn't work
Mantis missles feel janky
Gauss Hog is the most powerful thing on earth
web integrated fileshare still doesn't work
community maps are kind of lame
no multi-team
action sack is way too limited, think of other fun stuff
gauss hog still a 1 hit killer? so broken
I'm actually about to play halo 4 again after months of leaving it to see if I can still get some fun out of my full priced LE.
Synth_floyd
Banned
YES! This perfectly sums up Halo 4. As well as Diablo 3. And Sim City.
JiP works fairly well, but definitely has issues, BUT do you forget how shitty it was in virtually every past halo game to either have your entire team quit out because you were losing or to have the entire enemy team quit because you were dominating? how fun was it to take on 4 players by yourself? or, even more fun, playing on a full team hunting for the one guy on the opposing team that wont quit (halo honor) but instead spends the whole game, all 15 minutes of it, playing hide-and-seek? a flawed JiP is loads better then that.
good points about the guest accounts, i hadnt considered that.
Everyone's also forgetting about the Boltshot at launch, that stupid pocket shotgun was better than the Ordnance shotty's, it always made my day to shoot someone at close range with a Shotgun or Scattershot and not have them die only for them to one shot kill me at an even longer range while they backpedaled. How did that weapon made it through testing is a mystery to me, also this tweet cannot be stressed enough on what one of the lead designers feels about MP.
Diablohead
Member
same way the brute shotgun pistol was in halo 3, somehow OP yet made it in and was on the broken side of things for a while.
Halo 4's base gunplay is good. I love the DMR.
Everything else (including all maps outside of Haven and Complex) is complete tripe. Kill streaks, instant respawn, vehicles made of paper, spawning with the Plasma Pistol, armor abilities, horrible framerate on some maps, the Mantis, specializations, loadouts... That's to say nothing of the abysmal campaign experience.
I could go on forever. At this point I have exactly zero hope that Halo 5 will be any fun at all. Halo had a good run.
Everything else (including all maps outside of Haven and Complex) is complete tripe. Kill streaks, instant respawn, vehicles made of paper, spawning with the Plasma Pistol, armor abilities, horrible framerate on some maps, the Mantis, specializations, loadouts... That's to say nothing of the abysmal campaign experience.
I could go on forever. At this point I have exactly zero hope that Halo 5 will be any fun at all. Halo had a good run.
This is true, playlists like Team Throwdown where they've stripped all the bloat away and left only the core game itself are actually quite fun. Halo 4 had so much potential, but after seeing this presentation I can't bring myself to have any hope for Halo 5 or anymore at all for Halo 4.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that myself.
It's sad, really. I've loved Halo for such a long time, to see it die like this is pretty disappointing. I would love for them to take a back to basics approach on Halo 5, and use the new console as a fresh start, but we all know that's not going to happen. Halo 3 PC will almost certainly be the last Halo game I buy.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
I can believe that some people had issues with AI crapping out on them because it happened to me once, enemies just standing there for a few seconds before their routines started working again. On the other hand, it happened to me once over the whole course of my Heroic run, so I also have no trouble believing that many people weren't hit by that problem. As for the other small things that you mention, I can't say I've noticed any (speaking strictly of the solo campaign, I haven't tired multiplayer yet), and it's not like previous Halo games were completely glitch-free.
For what it's worth, I enjoyed my time with Halo 4 immensely, more so than with ODST and even Reach, although Halo 3 remains the best current gen game in the series.
plantedunicorn
Member
I liked Halo 4 well enough but if I had to describe it, I would say massive wasted potential.
Mountain Dew and Doritos disagree.
Naked Lunch
Member
Halo is dead.
Not only was multiplayer ruined in 4 - but 4 ended up completely destroying the story as well.
Its over.
Not only was multiplayer ruined in 4 - but 4 ended up completely destroying the story as well.
Its over.
HiredN00bs
Banned
This assessment is almost diametrically opposite to my own. I almost want to believe it is wholly sarcastic, or a fraudulent opinion piece from a stealth franchise insider, but IGN's Ryan McCaffrey gave it a 9.8 with the statement that they "out-Bungie'd Bungie", so there's very clearly a contingent of gamers that, in my opinion, didn't understand what made Halo great, and buy into all the bullshit they added.
But I bet proffesional model Cortana whimpering for you and touching your chest really spoke to you and made you appreciate Halo 4's character design. Disgusting.
I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic. I seriously doubt anyone legitimately enjoyed the carnival of stupid campaign story (or the ridiculously melodramatic and cheesy "love story" between Chief and Cortana). It was like watching a bad fanfic come to life.
JohnnySasaki86
Member
Is there any summery of what was said?
You aren't counting Reach I'm assuming....
It really doesn't, I go entire matches without people joining at times. It's improved a lot since launch, but it's not good enough to be global and dependable. I agree it was shitty in the past and it's a partial solution, just not entirely there yet.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Joke post confirmed.
I think this depends on Halo 5.
After all 4 was 343i first game, lets see what they do next and how they address the issues.
I'm on the last level at the moment and to summarise:
The graphics and art are incredible, they will make a brilliant game using that engine.
The campaign is ok, but by far the worse of all the games yet. It's way too linear, the new enemy types are awful. There are highlights though, Wraiths vs tanks in Lvl 5 is awesome, flying up to a convent ship, killing everything, then flying out using a jet pack is great.
Spartan ops is awesome, the best thing about the game by far. Going forward they can turn this mode into something really special.
All in all, for Halo 5, they need the series biggest ever levels. It's time they did massive war. The series needs at least 5 new races or enemy's. The convenent are getting boring.
It's still better then most FPS on the market but still weak when compared to Bungies games.
The graphics and art are incredible, they will make a brilliant game using that engine.
The campaign is ok, but by far the worse of all the games yet. It's way too linear, the new enemy types are awful. There are highlights though, Wraiths vs tanks in Lvl 5 is awesome, flying up to a convent ship, killing everything, then flying out using a jet pack is great.
Spartan ops is awesome, the best thing about the game by far. Going forward they can turn this mode into something really special.
All in all, for Halo 5, they need the series biggest ever levels. It's time they did massive war. The series needs at least 5 new races or enemy's. The convenent are getting boring.
It's still better then most FPS on the market but still weak when compared to Bungies games.
TheRedSnifit
Member
I like to pretend that "TRUE FANZ!" rhetoric is exclusive to Resident Evil, and that other franchises don't have to deal with it. Please don't ruin it for me.
Posted over at HaloGAF:
At least they owned up to it all.
It was referenced to this thread, not sure if it was posted here:
To 343i, Hi. My name is Geoff. I tell you my given name so that you realize I am a real person, to humanize myself. A person that has thoughts, feelings, goals, ambitions, desires and is also disabled. Got your full attention now, do I? Hopefully I do.
I posted some thoughts over in another thread about the GDC Conference. I will reiterate some of them here and add in others as I see fit so that you understand the image of a spartan in a wheelchair paired with Josh Holmes tweets and his comments at GDC, are exceptionally offensive.
I play games to escape my daily life. So I can think and focus on something, anything, other than the constant pain I am in and things I can no longer do. I do not need to have a company, that took over one of my favorite franchises in gaming, remind me none to subtly of the fact I am disabled. What I expect from you is a high quality product that provides me entertainment and value for my money. Not some off the cuff tweets and a graphic that is obnoxious.
That you found it "acceptable" to compare, or whatever label you want to slap on it, things being accessible for those with disabilities to accessibility in a game is appalling. What's more, one of your employees goes on to tweet "Lighten Up" in reference to that same image that I found so offensive. You have effectively belittled people with disabilities with this comparison and reduced the hardships and suffering we endure on a daily basis to a "joke". I can tell you I am NOT laughing and I am sure others like me are not as well. Honestly, I thought as a society we had moved past this level of insensitivity and disregard.
Whether or not you choose to apologize or acknowledge this incredible blunder will determine how myself, and others, view your integrity and character as individuals and as a company. For my part, I am deeply disappointed, disgusted and upset. I hope that you, and your employees, can understand why.
- To my fellow Community Members: It is my hope and wish that you help to make 343i aware of exactly how offensive this actually is, and perhaps, respond to it. Many thanks.
I was surprised there wasn't a thread on this actually. Good on Josh apologizing though.
The Librarian
Banned
Didn't realize how offensive that image can be until Geoff explained it. Good on Josh to apologize.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
That line pretty much speaks for itself. I can't tell people what to like, just as they can't tell me what to like. You don't have to like my opinion, but it's my honest opinion and it ain't changing. I loved Bungie's work; I thought they did a fantastic job with the franchise, but the campaign experience needed something that I feel maybe Bungie weren't up to the task of providing, not due to lack of talent, but maybe due to decreased interest, as obviously they had grown tired enough of the franchise to move on. I do genuinely feel after playing Halo 4's campaign that Bungie moving on was indeed to the benefit of the franchise. I thought the campaign was, all around, the best that I've ever played in a Halo game.
Bungie's Halo games were always excellent, but they were rarely, if ever perfect, and neither is Halo 4, but that doesn't not make it an excellent game. Everyone has different things that they like, or different things that may appeal to them in entirely different ways, particularly on the gameplay design/pacing side of things. I think Halo 4's pacing is the best of the franchise. I enjoyed the fights more, I enjoyed the weapons and their diversity more. I thought the level design and art was much better overall than what is present in any previous Halo title. And this next part probably isn't fair, but I don't care. It's one of the major ways Halo 4 stepped up compared to past games. The performance capture and character performances were among the strongest and most believable I've ever seen. You had more characters of lesser importance to the main storyline leave a strong lasting impression than has ever been the case for me in any previous Halo campaign. I think they've give more life to this franchise than what might have otherwise been there without Halo 4.
And you can poke fun at Cortana touching my manliest of men's chest in Halo 4, but I'll tell you one thing: Halo 3, one of the most important games in the franchise, while still a great game, fell flat in damn important areas. The scenes with Miranda and Johnson were handled so badly that it was hard to feel anything when they both died. I felt happier for their respective voice actors when life left their game counterparts than I did for the characters themselves dying. That game didn't feel like the epic conclusion and experience that I was hoping for. For a game with such big implications and significance, it felt pretty small. That was no way to send off the Chief. I honestly don't think they truly got it right until around the end scene of the game with the Chief and Cortana on the Forward Unto Dawn. Reach, despite lacking Chief and a vocal Cortana, by comparison, is a much, much better executed game, with even better executed gameplay than was the case in 3, in all areas. For all the talk that I often hear about gameplay from many fellow Halo fans, a lot of people sure seem to gloss over some of Halo 3's most glaring weaknesses. Those epic scarab battles don't do nearly enough to cover up these problems, nor do they make up for the mess that was equipment in Halo 3. It was a total mess. I remember going through the game and never having the time to really appreciate or understand sometimes what piece of equipment I was holding, leading to situations where I ended up wasting what I had before even realizing what it was for. Well, I'm ranting here, so I'll just end by saying what I've been saying. Halo 4's campaign to me, is the best of the games and is a major step in the right direction for the franchise. Never have I been more excited about what's next for Halo's campaign.
I stress campaign because I want to make it clear that I don't play Halo MP, because Halo's MP has never interested me. And much Kudos to Josh for taking responsibility and apologizing for that. I didn't make a big fuss over it, but I myself thought it was rather insensitive and silly that it made it in there. I'm sure he meant no offense, but I loved what 343 did with Halo 4 (campaign), and even I saw it and immediately didn't like it. It was even worse once I found out it wasn't some GAF made mockup, but was actually official. Still, he owned up to it, which is always the right thing to do when, even when you unintentionally cause such offense.
The Librarian
Banned
LMAO.
Anyway, I think it speaks about the game itself when, through all your posts waxing about Halo 4's positives, the only thing you can seem to talk about is the story, ignoring a Halo game's most important aspect: the gameplay.
dragonelite
Member
I can respect that..
RIP in Peace
Blue Ninja
Member
People saying Halo 4's story was well-executed are deluding themselves, though. 343 had some great ideas about what to do with it, but their execution mostly fell flat.
Spoilers:
The Didact isn't the mysterious, menacing enemy he should've be, he just pops out of a Cryptum and suddenly everyone and their grandmother knows who he is and what he wants. That whole Librarian-thing felt contrived and like a crutch because they needed something to happen. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that "genetic adjustment" she gives the Chief is never mentioned in the series again. The only thing that was well done about the story was the relationship between the Chief and Cortana, and even that did its best to turn into space magic at the end.
They should've spent more time giving exposition, maybe even in-game instead of during cutscenes. There are other ways to tell stories while playing than slowing down gameplay and making the screen go blue, after all. And when a mysterious, 100,000 year old enemy awakens from his rage-filled slumber, give that reveal some fucking weight. Cortana shouldn't immediately know who he is. Same with that whole "hard light cage", thing. They had an entire conversation to slip in a "I used hard light"-line, and it instantly would've validated the whole thing in my opinion.
In hindsight, the gameplay in Halo 4's campaign was pretty great for me. Not as open as Halo 3 or Reach, but from a purely gameplay perspective I still enjoyed what I got.
why is it good on him for apologizing? not only did they shit on the faces of disabled people, they shit on the faces of Halo fans all for some attempt to be clever/funny
only after being called out for their stupidity he apologized. i don't think people should get props for forced apologies, especially when it was easily avoidable
The Librarian
Banned
People make mistakes. Sometimes you say or do something that you don't realize is offensive until after the fact. As I said, I didn't realize how offensive that was until somebody explained it to me. I easily could've made a similar mistake.
He didn't have to apologize, but I'm glad he did.
Prophet Steve
Member
Plenty of people that loved the ODST campaign, especially on GAF.
About the post mortem, I felt that it was barely critical of the game and much of it, especially the first twenty minutes or so just felt like they were petting themselves on the back for the great story they presented. Which did not include stuff they learned from the development.
Also, when you present as a motivation: Some badass that wakes up and wants to destroy humanity and don't see how that would be lacking I doubt you are looking very clearly.
Multiplayer, except for spartan-ops, is not even touched on but the lack of competitive or any fun modes (even the current Action Sack severely disappoints) are points that should have been touched upon.
Campaign was way too linear for a Halo game and seemed to have cut down severely on the mix between vehicles and walking that Halo must do so well. Which also results in the coop being way less fun than it is normally. The coop also seemed a lot simpler even on higher difficulties.
I do agree with the little critique they did have on the game though.