Sapphire Dreams
Member
I like Halo 4 BTW.
343 Scrapped Traditional Halo: A Story About Triple-A
- Thread starter Plywood
- Start date
I like Halo 4 BTW.
Fair enough, I've still pm'd a mod to change the thread title.
Can Crusher
Banned
I still find it incredible that in this industry MS had a hard time finding someone better than Josh Holmes.
A lot of the "we realised x" moments seem like they happened after it was too late to fix them.
But nothing here surprises me, because it all speaks to how Halo 4 seems to have massive amounts of love poured into some individual areas, but seems to have been utterly dunderheaded in fitting it all together.
The plot has nice bits but the storytelling is a shambles, even though things like the capture of the actors is amazing. They created dozens of enemy and spartan designs, and then selected the worst ones that fit the least with the established aesthetic (which the environments DO adopt). There's lots of individual maps, but no small ones. The weapons sandbox has amazing variety of exactly the same bloody things, which ends up being amazingly dull and pretty frustrating because you don't get a good feeling for how the weapon is a little bit different from the weapons of it's class.
But nothing here surprises me, because it all speaks to how Halo 4 seems to have massive amounts of love poured into some individual areas, but seems to have been utterly dunderheaded in fitting it all together.
The plot has nice bits but the storytelling is a shambles, even though things like the capture of the actors is amazing. They created dozens of enemy and spartan designs, and then selected the worst ones that fit the least with the established aesthetic (which the environments DO adopt). There's lots of individual maps, but no small ones. The weapons sandbox has amazing variety of exactly the same bloody things, which ends up being amazingly dull and pretty frustrating because you don't get a good feeling for how the weapon is a little bit different from the weapons of it's class.
Randolph Freelander
Member
That quote says it all. "We built something people liked! And then we patted ourselves on the back and discarded it."
Halo 4... garbage game. There was only one level I found remotely enjoyable, and I can't remember the name of it but it was towards the end on the asteroid (I think) and it reminded me of Pillar of Autumn and Cairo sort of melded together. That was the only level in the entire game that I enjoyed. It was the Halo I enjoyed. The rest of it? No.
But anyway, as for the particular tale of the game development.... sounds like development. Nothing to see here.
The Librarian
Banned
lol. What pros? And you seem to be misremembering, as Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 traded places for number 1 (with Halo 3 getting to the top more often) until MW2 came out. Then it was Halo 3 in second place.
The campaign is the best in the series. It has, by far, the best encounters and enemy battles. It took the sandbox and expanded it and fleshed it out to a scale not seen in any other Halo game.
Why? Halo 3 was a great game
Having worked on every single Halo game since Halo 2, I can tell you that with every release, a significant swathe of people decided it had died. Halo2sucks.com was a real, energetic thing. Gameplay tastes can be really specific, to the granular level, and you will shake out a strata of taste with every iteration.
A common complaint in Halo 2, for example, is that the pistol is nerfed, because a three-shot-kill pistol from anywhere on the map was going to be problematic online, in a way that it wasn't when you were playing in a LAN. And so you had huge amounts of people who quit for that reason alone.
Also, making Halo 4 was TOUGH, but "hell" is relative. There will be other devs reading that article and scoffing at our version of "hell" because they went through way worse.
SlipperyMoose
Member
I'm glad they figured a lot of things out now before the next generation started because that could have proved disastrous. I personally liked Halo 4 and while I have issues with it (like I do most games) I think overall 343 can really do amazing things with Halo, the potential is there.
Halo 4 isn't my favorite, but it is in my opinion the best Halo since Halo 3.
Halo 4 isn't my favorite, but it is in my opinion the best Halo since Halo 3.
The Librarian
Banned
I hope we see more interesting Halo spin-offs in the future, like an ODST 2 or Halo Wars 2. I need to re-play Halo Wars. It's been a while.
OK...while we are on the subject. Somebody PLEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAASE make all ground vehicles (Warthog and etc.) control like a traditional ground vehicle? Right trigger is accel and left is brake. START THERE.
OK what the f*(k was so bad about the campaign in Reach? Happens to be my favorite Halo. easily had the most interesting squad of ALL the Halo games.
EagleBurnn
Banned
I love the way the Warthog controls. No changes.
JustProgress
Member
We made a traditional Halo slice of gameplay that all of our testers loved.
Then we scrapped it.
Then we scrapped it.
OverHeat
« generous god »
AstroNut325
Member
I had to reread that portion of the article! I'm at a loss of words!
That's one thing I wanted MOST from Halo 4... traditional Halo! WTF...
We actually have someone in the office whose name is literally Dolan.
He still has no idea why I call him Uncle or say "pls" after he has finished talking.
I feel like Halo 4s campaign fails to achieve any big epic set pieces. Theres nothing where you think wow, this is an awesome battle Im in the middle of, which happens several times in Halo 3. I expect the graphics made anything like the Scarab battles in 3 unworkable.
Also, its got some inexplicably slow moments. The pacing between the last two missions is weird. It doesnt feel like a game ramping up to a climax at all.
dragonelite
Member
While the covent was there it could use some cool scarab fight or a big forerunner robot.
Its the goddam Didact.
EagleBurnn
Banned
After all the heat from this article, saying someone from 343 is named "Dolan" wasn't the smartest thing. Just saying.
Joking aside, I'm glad you guys know the real problems with the development of Halo 4 and are admitting to it. That shows all of you want to fix it and that says a lot. I hope Halo 5 is what leads the industry because of it's uniqueness not it's ability to please every FPS fan.
Poor guy, lost in a meme he may never know.
Just one day drop in to the office with a dog and give it to him. Name the dog Gooby.
Then it shall begin.
MarauderShields
Member
Made something that was a lot of fun? Scrap it.
I thought Halo 4 was a great title with a few missteps, and hearing that they went from 25 to 350 people working on it makes me amazed it even turned out as well as it did. That must've been a logistical nightmare. I look forward to what they have planned for future Halo games now that they've been through such an experience.
grimshawish
Banned
Get a thread on that man. Interesting but uhm...am not a fan of their marketing and Gears was driven into the ground :/
EagleBurnn
Banned
New thread. I want to see what everyone thinks of this.
I'm at work right now, maybe someone else wants to.
I agree.
EagleBurnn
Banned
les papillons sexuels
Banned
And then they wonder why halo4 had so much backlash.
All I could think when reading that was "we want to make halo but don't want it be halo, so lets keep making halo anyway." Much of the team at 343 did amazing work, but they really should have just made their own thing instead of being bound by the stipulations that come with making a halo game. Perhaps if their game wasn't held in the same light as past halo games it would still have a sustainable population that like the game for what it is rather than what it's trying to be in name but that the devs don't actually want it to be.
Diablohead
Member
gotta cod-butter up that multi
Go away, we had enough people like you who ruined Halo. Please don't ruin our vehicles in it as well.
BruiserBear
Banned
It sounds like you're basely your opinion entirely on hype levels, and yes Halo 2 had the highest hype levels of any Halo game.
However, in terms of pure game, I think it's the worst of the Halo games in both campaign and competitive. As I already explained, the single biggest addition to the multiplayer was dual wielding, which pretty much turned the whole game into a circle staffing mess. That is why it's been nerfed so heavily in each subsequent game.
The story of H2 is still laughed at for it's messy storytelling shenanigans and major cock tease ending that really wasn't an ending. Even Bungie has admitted the game had a troubled development cycle that ended up with things turning out less than ideally.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
halo levels tend to be open and offer backtracking, we better get rid of that, people dont like it, its not linear, they might go in the wrong direction and get lost, thats no fun. Oh and halo always introduced new enemy types later on in the campaign to mix up the sandbox, people don't like change, just make new enemies that are the exact same as all the other enemies and introduce them right away.
the new halo experience, generic game design.
dragonelite
Member
Still waiting for that Pelican,Falcon airstrike/chopper gunner and Longsword nuke drop after killing 25.
I'd love to hear about some of the ideas they toyed around with but ultimately scrapped for Halo 4, but I guess it's a little early for them to talk about that stuff, considering they could still use some of it in Halo 5.
Speaking of which, my main worry for the campaign of H5 is how they're going to turn the prometheans into an enemy that's actually fun and interesting to fight, as well as fits the rest of the franchise's combat sandbox. If all they do is bring back the knights/dogs/drones I'm out, but then again it'd be pretty tough to find a good narrative reason to ditch them. Hopefully the Durango wil allow them to create more open ended levels too.
Speaking of which, my main worry for the campaign of H5 is how they're going to turn the prometheans into an enemy that's actually fun and interesting to fight, as well as fits the rest of the franchise's combat sandbox. If all they do is bring back the knights/dogs/drones I'm out, but then again it'd be pretty tough to find a good narrative reason to ditch them. Hopefully the Durango wil allow them to create more open ended levels too.
Ol No Bones
Banned
As frustrating as some of the decisions for halo 4 were I am very happy they acknowledge mistakes and are able to admit their failures. I'm actually looking forward to halo 5. The story is screwed up but it should be fun either way.
Go away, we had enough people like you who ruined Halo. Please don't ruin our vehicles in it as well.
Yep. Vehicles in Halo are and should feel like natural extensions of your Spartan. Making them control like "sim" vehicles would be missing the point. That said, more personalized control options wouldn't change that.
I hate reading this, this myth that 3 shot Pistol kills from across the map happened flawlessly all the time in Halo CE is nonsense. Is it really impossible to have a netcode able to process the Halo CE pistol? Or is it just that too many people would rage at getting worked cross map from the most skill based precision weapon in the franchise.
Look at the Shadowrun rifle, it functions extremely similar to the CE Pistol, it can 2 and 3 shot enemies in half a second and provide a ton of consistent long range damage otherwise. But, it isn't overpowered, it works online and is skill based and balanced within the sandbox.
Please don't remind me of the disappointment that was the Lich.
Vehicle equivalent of BXR imminent.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
did you watch their gdc post mortem? Its the exact opposite, they are actually quite proud of many of the glaring issues in the game.
It's an oversimplification of the social engineering, balance tuning, dual-wielding and netcode issues. In reality, like everything, it's pretty complex. I don't pretend to know if it was "right" or "wrong" just that a lot of thought and work went into it.