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halo 2 auto update - monday!

GhaleonEB said:
On a related note, Frankie said a week or two ago that the playlists would get an overhaul once the first two maps and auto-update were out.

they already confirmed the 2v2 Team slayer playlist, is my favorite Team Slayer mode in custom games I can see myself playing it for a long time.
 
GhaleonEB said:
Frankie said over in the HBO forum that he was "Still waiting on dates myself," when asked for the exact date the maps would release. I would say that makes it unlikely.
Hrm... Well, at least they're due some time this month, and we're already halfway through.

Iamthegamer said:
Whoa, land mines?! When was this mentioned?
They're just larger fusion cores. Y'know, those exploding blocks in Zanzibar.

And while the increased 'nade damage sounds nice... Can they flip vehicles now? :/
 
FiRez said:
They would need to change all the physics to do that, but I can live with that

Well, since the explosions are more powerful, it's certainly possible that the physics respond accordingly.

Then again, half the time when guys are hit with a rocket, they just fall down. :(
 
That's just freaking awesome! I can't wait!

FYI, in order for flipping vehicles to come back they'd have to go back to the gravity/physics from Halo 1.

As for people just falling down when hit by a rocket...well lets just say that the armor the Spartans wear is no laughing matter.
 
Ive never seen someone simply fall down when they get hit with a rocket,it always launches them :lol

I hope these new grenades=1 sticky on warthogs=death.I've stuck a Warthog twice before and it didn't blow up,crazy.
 
Ramirez said:
Ive never seen someone simply fall down when they get hit with a rocket,it always launches them :lol

I hope these new grenades=1 sticky on warthogs=death.I've stuck a Warthog twice before and it didn't blow up,crazy.

It's pretty hard, but try sticking the wheel of a Warthog in motion - you'll flip it every time which will usually either kill the occupants or leave them in critical condition.

The Warthog, however, will remain unscathed.
 
ah, thanks for that containment pic. i had missed that. those 3d screenshots are pretty cool
 
You know, I'm excited about the update and all, but I don't know about how it will fix a lot of the problems.

Usually in games like this, balancing fixes make people happy for about three weeks and then they develop dislikes about the way things have become with the new rules and all of the sudden there's another list of complaints just as long as the one pre-fix. If there were 50K people clamoring for more melee and grenade damage, in three weeks there will be 50K other people raising a stink because "grenades are too powerful! They've broken X element of gameplay! It's too easy to kill the entire defending force in Coagulation!".

Does anybody see what I'm talking about? There's an old saying about only being able to please half your audience no matter what you do.
 
Dr. Zoidberg said:
You know, I'm excited about the update and all, but I don't know about how it will fix a lot of the problems.

Usually in games like this, balancing fixes make people happy for about three weeks and then they develop dislikes about the way things have become with the new rules and all of the sudden there's another list of complaints just as long as the one pre-fix. If there were 50K people clamoring for more melee and grenade damage, in three weeks there will be 50K other people raising a stink because "grenades are too powerful! They've broken X element of gameplay! It's too easy to kill the entire defending force in Coagulation!".

Does anybody see what I'm talking about? There's an old saying about only being able to please half your audience no matter what you do.

I think you raise a valid point - there will certainly be those who prefer the old balance. In this case, though I don't think it was 50% wanting a change - one of the near-universal complaints about Halo 2 is how the grenade and melee combat were weakend to the point of near-irrelevance.

As long as the changes bring things back to about where the first Halo was in terms of grenade/melee usefulness, I don't think there will be much griping. It all depends on implimentation.

What does bug me about this is the suggestion by Jaime that the changes were necessitated not by the fact that they were wrong to begin with, but because the players are not using them correctly. I've read this passage several times over, and the insinuation bugs me more and more:

ItÂ’s surprising how much impact the community can have on how a game evolves after it is released. Their choices and play styles subtly change how the core gameplay works. After Halo 2 shipped, we saw a lot of people relying on a small number of weapons and always choosing dual-wielding over melees or grenades.

The implication seems to be, "You guys are not using the weapons the way you are supposed to. Here's a carrot to point you in the right direction," rather than, "We didn't balance things the way we should have, and are trying to fix it."

It's subtle, but it bugs me. It shifts the blame, as it were, to the community and away from the developer for balance issues.

All that aside, if this update does anywhere near what I think it will for the combat then I'm going to be one happy camper. The grenade and melee combat are my #1 gripe about the combat in Halo 2, and if fixed will make the game much more fun.

It's funny - just yesterday morning I was thinking to myself, "new maps are great, but that won't make the underlying gameplay what it could be." This stuff might do just that.
 
GhaleonEB said:
What does bug me about this is the suggestion by Jaime that the changes were necessitated not by the fact that they were wrong to begin with, but because the players are not using them correctly. I've read this passage several times over, and the insinuation bugs me more and more:



The implication seems to be, "You guys are not using the weapons the way you are supposed to. Here's a carrot to point you in the right direction," rather than, "We didn't balance things the way we should have, and are trying to fix it."

It's subtle, but it bugs me. It shifts the blame, as it were, to the community and away from the developer for balance issues.

Nah. We spent Friday up at Bungie playing the shit out of the new maps with the auto-update. The guys we spoke with (Brian Jarrard, Max Hoberman) made it pretty clear that it was indeed a weapon balance issue and that they felt these changes made the multiplayer experience better. The tone definitely wasn't that they were trying to shift the blame onto a whiny community or anything like that. And just for the record, grenades and melee rock your balls again.
 
chespace said:
Nah. We spent Friday up at Bungie playing the shit out of the new maps...

Are the new maps' design and weapon balance and all that razzmatazz working out alright? Are we talking Zanzibar quality arenas here or... Colossus quality?
 
Mr. Lemming said:
Are the new maps' design and weapon balance and all that razzmatazz working out alright? Are we talking Zanzibar quality arenas here or... Colossus quality?

Or Lockout and Midship quality :D
 
So, if you go on LIVE to get this update, sign off, then go play a LAN game somewhere, what happens?

Does this tweaking only effect when you go on LIVE or is it a permanent change to the Halo 2 save?
 
duderon said:
Or Lockout and Midship quality :D

I didn't know how people on a whole felt about those two maps, so I didn't go with them... I almost said Coagulation instead of Colossus.

I like Lockout and Midship (Except when I run to the wrong base because everything looks the same) :)
 
Hero said:
So, if you go on LIVE to get this update, sign off, then go play a LAN game somewhere, what happens?

Does this tweaking only effect when you go on LIVE or is it a permanent change to the Halo 2 save?

It sounds to me like a permanent change to the Halo 2 save, because this change also effects split-screen play.

That makes me wonder though, what happens if you have XBL and download the update, then go on XBConnect or something and play against others who do not have the update? Do you have more powerful grenades and melee or what?
 
I would imagine it would be like most other games where if you have the update and someone else doesn't the game would say you guys are playing with different versions of the game and wouldn't connect.
 
chespace said:
Nah. We spent Friday up at Bungie playing the shit out of the new maps with the auto-update. The guys we spoke with (Brian Jarrard, Max Hoberman) made it pretty clear that it was indeed a weapon balance issue and that they felt these changes made the multiplayer experience better. The tone definitely wasn't that they were trying to shift the blame onto a whiny community or anything like that. And just for the record, grenades and melee rock your balls again.

Very cool - I'll just assume I was over analyzing again. I love those guys - Jaime included - so the wording really irked me.

Looking forward to Monday even more now. Thanks. :)
 
If there were 50K people clamoring for more melee and grenade damage, in three weeks there will be 50K other people raising a stink because "grenades are too powerful! They've broken X element of gameplay! It's too easy to kill the entire defending force in Coagulation!".

I wouldn't mind that, it would make it a higher scoring map. Coagulation is so damn boring to play, half the people leave whenever I get matched up with it.
 
I hate to be the guy that rains on this whole Auto-Update parade but my experience with the grenades in the original Halo multi-player was less than great. As every time you'd kill someone the last thing they'd do is chuck a grenade at their feet. No skill, not a lot of strategy, just what struck me as a somewhat cheap way to make up a kill.

These newly improved Melee attacks pretty much play right into this, you get up close with your Plasma rifle, ready to give them about five shots (if my memory serves) and then a crack on the head (just like old times). Only as soon as you finish the shots and raise up for the melee you hear that wonderful "tink tink" Then you kill the guy and he kills you post mortem.

I seem to recall slayer matches that weren't much more than a game of dodge ball (only with grenades instead of balls).

Maybe that won't be the case.. But I am just a little wary of the grenade tweaks.

Also, as for the plasmas on a warthog. The trick is to hit somewhere near the occupants (preferably the driver) Remember, their health is the vehicle's health and the proximity of the plasma to the occupant matters. I took one plasma on the passenger side before without much problem, but one next to my driver seat pretty much ended the story.
 
chespace said:
Nah. We spent Friday up at Bungie playing the shit out of the new maps with the auto-update. The guys we spoke with (Brian Jarrard, Max Hoberman) made it pretty clear that it was indeed a weapon balance issue and that they felt these changes made the multiplayer experience better. The tone definitely wasn't that they were trying to shift the blame onto a whiny community or anything like that. And just for the record, grenades and melee rock your balls again.

great, thanks for the heads up.

i'm a lso curious about the new maps complexity. we know that containment at least has doors to open at the bases, but i wonder if all the maps will have the same level of interactivity and destruction that zanzibar featured... it really seems that zanzibar got by far the most design attention of the original maps
 
op_ivy said:
great, thanks for the heads up.

i'm a lso curious about the new maps complexity. we know that containment at least has doors to open at the bases, but i wonder if all the maps will have the same level of interactivity and destruction that zanzibar featured... it really seems that zanzibar got by far the most design attention of the original maps

I've thought that as well. Since Zanzibar was the map picked to be shown at E3 last year, Bungie may have made sure it had all the elements that they wanted to put in the rest of the maps: Vehicles, turrets, interactive and moving environments and destructible structures. It's kind of the Silent Cartographer of Halo 2.

From the look of Containment, at least the interactivity is there, between those huge mines/bombs and doors that open and close. Be interesting to see how much stuff can be blown up on Warlock.
 
SA-X said:
I would imagine it would be like most other games where if you have the update and someone else doesn't the game would say you guys are playing with different versions of the game and wouldn't connect.

What "most other games" are you referring to?
 
I 've alwasy thought they should only give the sniper rifle's 4-8 shots. That will prevent people from camping for the entire match. Either way, I'm glad the update is finally here. I would like to see how fast the level 50's drop when they can't cheat.
 
Something I've seen no one mention...SPAWN POINTS!WTF is with starting some teams together and starting one member of one team by the other team :lol

Both teams should spawn at the opposite bases to start a match,but they dont,and it really breaks the balance in TS sometimes because the other team gets spawned by the sniper and the other team gets a spread out spawn near nothing :|
 
Yusaku said:
What "most other games" are you referring to?
PC games. Thats how it works in most PC games I've played. Guess I should have said that instead of 'other games'. My fault.
 
I am a firm believer that there should be TWO sniper rifles on Colossus. One spawned near either team.. One a team gets the beam rifle and has a good sniper, its way to easy to pick off the other team if you have good player covering your back.
 
super-heated plasma said:
I am a firm believer that there should be TWO sniper rifles on Colossus. One spawned near either team.. One a team gets the beam rifle and has a good sniper, its way to easy to pick off the other team if you have good player covering your back.

yeah, but then if one team gets ahold of both it's all over, even more so
 
super-heated plasma said:
I am a firm believer that there should be TWO sniper rifles on Colossus. One spawned near either team.. One a team gets the beam rifle and has a good sniper, its way to easy to pick off the other team if you have good player covering your back.

Agreed. Colossus is among the most poorly balanced maps, partly for that reason. On a related note, the last Humpday Challenge Bungie did they played Neutral CTF Snipers on Colossus - and it looked pretty fun. I hope they add some crazy modes like that to the playlists, they are currently a little dry.
 
rocksolidaudio said:
yeah, but then if one team gets ahold of both it's all over, even more so

yeah, exactly why i dont think increasing the numer of these "super weapons" will improve the matter.

if it were up to me, the sniper rifle would be eliminated completely :P
 
op_ivy said:
yeah, exactly why i dont think increasing the numer of these "super weapons" will improve the matter.

if it were up to me, the sniper rifle would be eliminated completely :P

I like the sniper rifle, but only on maps where they are really balanced and needed, such as Coagulation and Waterworks. Each side gets a rifle in their base, and the amount of open territory is large. If you lose it, it's your own dumb fault and probably means you're in the process of getting owned anyways.

Having a sniper rifle in a map designed for close quarters combat is a little silly. The BR and Carbine are perfect on maps like Colossus.
 
good job bungie. This is going to rock hard.

PLEASE address the sniper rifle on collosus when you are looking at "equipment issues"
 
Burger said:
good job bungie. This is going to rock hard.

PLEASE address the sniper rifle on collosus when you are looking at "equipment issues"

i wonder if with the improved grenades, it will be easier for teams to grenade spam a camping team with a rifle protecting blue/red base....
 
yay for built-in 2vs2 in matchmaking. a lot of times i find myself with one friend online, and we already know what's going to happen if we play each other...but joining a big team battle doesn't really feel like we're playing together much.

btw, my fave custom gametype by far is 2vs2 elimination games on Lockout, using only the shotgun and sniper rifle. its the closest i've gotten to Quake's Rocket Arena (you can certainly play it with rockets, depending on the map, but everyone seems to prefer snipers....).
 
.. I know i'm not original with that complaint, but I really wish that patch would change the insanely retarded matchmaking service. It dawned to me two weeks ago when me and 3 friends wanted to play online, and since they were all guests, we couldnt choose on what kind of map/servers we wanted.

Of course we could had started on own server, but it's still no excuse for that baffling design decision.
 
Naked Shuriken said:
.. I know i'm not original with that complaint, but I really wish that patch would change the insanely retarded matchmaking service. It dawned to me two weeks ago when me and 3 friends wanted to play online, and since they were all guests, we couldnt choose on what kind of map/servers we wanted.

You mean whether or not you did team slayer or skirmish? Because even if you're by yourself, you don't pick the map/servers/game type. And it's really the most genius way of doing things. I wouldn't be playing Halo 2 online without it.
 
I hope they finally let us use Scorpians in matchmade games. KABLAAM!!! :D

Give one to each team and it won't be unbalanced. And it's easy to snipe people out of them anyway.
 
The Scorpion is already confirmed for Containment...

Oh and matchmaking is the best thing to happen to online games ever.Nothing more stupid than trying to find a good room to play in where they aren't playing the same fuckin thing every game.Not to mention you play with people your skill level...
 
Mr. Lemming said:
FRUSTRATED%20MAN%20HOLDING%20HEAD%207.jpg


Seriously, I wanted to spoil their fun so bad. :(

Did Nutter have anything to say about our boneheaded persistence afterwards? :)
 
Ramirez said:
The Scorpion is already confirmed for Containment...

Oh and matchmaking is the best thing to happen to online games ever.Nothing more stupid than trying to find a good room to play in where they aren't playing the same fuckin thing every game.Not to mention you play with people your skill level...

By the end of Halo 2's run, everybody will be playing CTF only. Every first person shooter ends up the exact same way after the newness wears off.
 
Sp3eD said:
By the end of Halo 2's run, everybody will be playing CTF only. Every first person shooter ends up the exact same way after the newness wears off.

Team slayer seems to be more popular to me. that could be the cheating though.

CTF > assault though
 
I wish they would just cut the shit and make a Zanzibar One Flag CTF 4 v 4 and 8 v 8 matchmaker mode. I would bet money that those would be the most played modes on there.
 
Ramirez said:
The Scorpion is already confirmed for Containment...

Oh and matchmaking is the best thing to happen to online games ever.Nothing more stupid than trying to find a good room to play in where they aren't playing the same fuckin thing every game.Not to mention you play with people your skill level...

It would be the best thing ever if you didn't get matched up with dipshits that quit when they don't get the map they wanted or start losing and immediately throw in the towel.
 
duderon said:
It would be the best thing ever if you didn't get matched up with dipshits that quit when they don't get the map they wanted or start losing and immediately throw in the towel.

Thankfully the party system somewhat alleviates that.
 
SA-X said:
Give one to each team and it won't be unbalanced. And it's easy to snipe people out of them anyway.

I didn't think you could snipe tank drivers anymore.... I only played H2 with scorpians on once near the start of release, but they seemed heinously overpowered, I started getting bored after racking up 20 kills and I just started chasing people with it and running them over. Granted you can jack the tank now, but without sniping then your only option is the rocket, which means that if you steal the rocket and jump in a tank......

i could be wrong though, it's a while since I drove a tank.
 
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