Support NeoGAF

[Remachinate]

Got the game today, and i'm not feeling it if i'm honest. One big problem I have is the controls - I just cannot find a good control scheme that places sprint, armour abilities, reload and crouch all in comfortable positions. No matter which scheme I choose, one of them feels off. Years of conditioning has got me crouching when i'm meant to melee, sprinting when i'm meant to crouch etc.

I too was disappointed with the limited ability to remap keys. For me, crouch and zoom on the sticks is non-negotiable, and I think the same is true for enough people that it's odd that there's no layout that changes only that. Right now I find Boxer the most natural, though I would have preferred melee on B/grenade on LT.

 

[Archpath1]

all hail Ragnarok 24/7 playlist!

 

[BuggyDClown]

I too was disappointed with the limited ability to remap keys. For me, crouch and zoom on the sticks is non-negotiable, and I think the same is true for enough people that it's odd that there's no layout that changes only that. Right now I find Boxer the most natural, though I would have preferred melee on B/grenade on LT.

Try Fishstick, its the perfect layout.

Fishstick + Legendary perfect.

 

[paischtu]

They seriously need to get the X on the hud back when a team-mate dies. Not only on radar. It is so necessary in SWAT

 

[JohnOfMars]

I wish, they took out my Sol emblem even though it was there at Pax..

I'm a Sol emblem guy too and here's what I've done:

Use the Cross Hair Foreground with the Lines set to the same color as the Buzz Saw Background and black for the middle dot. It's kinda wonky, but in game you can't tell.

 

[RepairmanJack]

They seriously need to get the X on the hud back when a team-mate dies. Not only on radar. It is so necessary in SWAT

It's sad to hear "On my X!" from a friend and then have to ask "Where?". Probably the most easiest callout in Halo history, gone.

 

[DesertFox]

Edit - wrong forum sorry

 

[JohnOfMars]

It's sad to hear "On my X!" from a friend and then have to ask "Where?". Probably the most easiest callout in Halo history, gone.

It's super-important for Active Camo campers. There was a guy camping on Longbow last in in Big Team Slayer and he killed three of my teammates because there's no X to mark a spot as dangerous.

 

[ultron87]

I wish Slayer Pro had radar. I guess I just need a "Slayer" playlist.

 

[Gr1mLock]

I wish Slayer Pro had radar. I guess I just need a "Slayer" playlist.

Lol. I actually like the no radar just because my general awareness in halo is terrible and its forcing me to be extra cautious.

 

[Acidote]

Hey, I have the limited edition and all the DLC codes redeemed. Shouldn't I have the 8 specializations unlocked?

 

[MrBig]

Hey, I have the limited edition and all the DLC codes redeemed. Shouldn't I have the 8 specializations unlocked?

Specializations unlock after reaching SR50.

 

[Everdred]

Hey, I have the limited edition and all the DLC codes redeemed. Shouldn't I have the 8 specializations unlocked?

You don't get to pick one until level 50 and even then you have to wait until level 60 to use it's Armor Mod

 

[Acidote]

Then why does in says:

Instant access to all 8 Specializations

That's not instant! haha

 

[MrBig]

Then why does in says:



That's not instant! haha

That's how specializations work, they are progression past the base SR1-50, going from SR51-130. The instant access refers to them not being available to anyone else after reaching SR50 until some arbitrary amount of time that will be decided by 343.

 

[exYle]

Then why does in says:



That's not instant! haha

Well, the other guys only have 2.

 

[Lothars]

Then why does in says:



That's not instant! haha

Yes it is because It means that you have access to all 8 specilization when you hit level 50 since the rest of the specilizations will be unlocked for everyone else at the rate of once a month or so.

 

[Acidote]

That's how specializations work, they are progression past the base SR1-50, going from SR51-130. The instant access refers to them not being available to anyone else after reaching SR50 until some arbitrary amount of time that will be decided by 343.

That sucks, I'd rather have everyone who's dedicated the same chance.

 

[Sobriquet]

I can't load the level Requiem. I get an error code that says I'm missing DLC. WTF

 

[Ape Gone Insane]

this. keep that shit out of matchmaking. the forge maps where one of the reasons why i stopped playing reach in multiplayer. so damn ugly and bland.

The map set on an asteroid is ugly and bland? If you're referring to the aesthetics of the Forge pieces, it's not like the clean, white objects are in every single multiplayer map anyway. Having one good space station esque map set on that asteroid with the galaxy background would be fantastic.

 

[Azar]

It's sad to hear "On my X!" from a friend and then have to ask "Where?". Probably the most easiest callout in Halo history, gone.

My friends and I have been struggling a lot with callouts. Knowing where your teammates died and being able to see that on the HUD was always vital information.

I'd like to know 343's reasoning for taking it out. Did they think it was HUD clutter and not important enough to warrant inclusion? Did the shift to instant respawning mean people died too often, thus resulting in too many indicators on-screen?

If so, that's disappointing, as it's doing away with really valuable tactical information for a feature that caters to those who get bored when they have to wait for more than two seconds.

 

[Ape Gone Insane]

The default version of Foundry is one of my favorite Halo maps of all time.

I always felt a natural hatred towards the map. It was a bunch of shit-coloured boxes lapped together with a couple of stairs thrown in.

 

[TheOddOne]

I can't load the level Requiem. I get an error code that says I'm missing DLC. WTF

What in the world? Did you install it to the harddrive? Delete it and reinstall it if so.

 

[RepairmanJack]

My friends and I have been struggling a lot with callouts. Knowing where your teammates died and being able to see that on the HUD was always vital information.

I'd like to know 343's reasoning for taking it out. Did they think it was HUD clutter and not important enough to warrant inclusion? Did the shift to instant respawning mean people died too often, thus resulting in too many indicators on-screen?

If so, that's disappointing, as it's doing away with really valuable tactical information for a feature that caters to those who get bored when they have to wait for more than two seconds.

I honestly can't think of any reason that it would be taken from the hud and put on the radar. People dying too often, it's still on the radar so why not the screen. Instant spawns, people aren't dying enough for it to be an issue and there is still a CD for respawn on most gametypes. Hud clutter, I can't see it being any more of an issue than the constant grenade icons, the weapon drop waypoints, the map waypoints, etc.

If it's HUD clutter, I would be all for removing the grenade indicator in favor of death X's.

I always felt a natural hatred towards the map. It was a bunch of shit-coloured boxes lapped together with a couple of stairs thrown in.

I would feel bad if Bungie even spent the time to actually play test that map. :lol It was sort of supposed to be an example of what could be done with foundry/forge and it looked like someone just threw some random stuff in and called it a day. It was outdone by the community almost instantly.

 

[CyReN]

I'm a Sol emblem guy too and here's what I've done:

Use the Cross Hair Foreground with the Lines set to the same color as the Buzz Saw Background and black for the middle dot. It's kinda wonky, but in game you can't tell.

woa nice find.

 

[Sobriquet]

What in the world? Did you install it to the harddrive? Delete it and reinstall it if so.

I'll give it a shot, thanks.

 

[Havok]

My friends and I have been struggling a lot with callouts. Knowing where your teammates died and being able to see that on the HUD was always vital information.

I'd like to know 343's reasoning for taking it out. Did they think it was HUD clutter and not important enough to warrant inclusion? Did the shift to instant respawning mean people died too often, thus resulting in too many indicators on-screen?

If so, that's disappointing, as it's doing away with really valuable tactical information for a feature that caters to those who get bored when they have to wait for more than two seconds.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was just an oversight. There are a lot of little usability things like that that are missing in this game that are present in Reach, like pregame lobby party indication. I'd actually welcome Reach's built-in callouts above the radar in this game, some places are just impossible to describe with all the gray and lack of set weapon spawns to use as reference.

Of course, if their excuse really was HUD clutter, they should have taken a real hard look at nearly every other system they put into the game, because those are far worse offenders as far as UI clutter goes.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Why no fleur de lis 343i? </meaningless rant of the day>

 

[Flame Lord]

Why did the

Spoiler

UNSC fire/relieve Del Rio of command of the Infinity? Not much explanation was given, and MC defied a direct order from a Captain of the Navy. Sounds more like a court Marshall to me than a cowboy/fraternity law of 'hey it's okay you were right anyways'. They persecuted Halsey, but back up the Chief who has been missing for 4 years?

Spoiler

He should have known better to defy Space Jesus.

My friends and I have been struggling a lot with callouts. Knowing where your teammates died and being able to see that on the HUD was always vital information.

I'd like to know 343's reasoning for taking it out. Did they think it was HUD clutter and not important enough to warrant inclusion? Did the shift to instant respawning mean people died too often, thus resulting in too many indicators on-screen?

If so, that's disappointing, as it's doing away with really valuable tactical information for a feature that caters to those who get bored when they have to wait for more than two seconds.

Yeah I didn't notice that until last night. Never knew how helpful it was until it was gone.

 

[rakka]

removal of the death markers, just another thing that 343 changed/removed for the worse. I noticed it first game I ever played online. then I played SWAT and it's absence was even more apparent.

just a little thing but in addition to lobby layout, horrible tiny font and all caps for killfeed and gamertags, scoreboard while walking, right analog to scroll scoreboard, top medals, the medals themselves (too many of them, all look the same and too small), k/d spread next to kills, assists and deaths in post game, allowing quitting even when a full game is found, time in between matches, icon to show if my headset picked up my speech ingame, and a hundred more, it all adds up. not even taking into account the actual gameplay and flow

 

[zethren]

It's so funny playing against Active Camo players. They dip down into Camo in a nook and think they're hidden. The radar "jamming" really works against that strategy.

Just spray a few bullets in that general direction with the AR and you'll ping their shields, revealing their location.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Having played with it a bit I think Promethean Vision is definitely my favorite AA ties with Thruster pack. I was afraid people would just camp with it but it rewards players being aggressive and going after campers a lot more.

 

[JB1981]

It's so funny playing against Active Camo players. They dip down into Camo in a nook and think they're hidden. The radar "jamming" really works against that strategy.

Just spray a few bullets in that general direction with the AR and you'll ping their shields, revealing their location.

do camo users show up on the radar?

 

[Tain]

Is Thruster actually that useful? I feel like the zoomed out camera might be tricking me into thinking I'm moving a shorter distance than I actually am.

 

[zethren]

do camo users show up on the radar?

Fairly certain they appear as one of the blue dots on the radar.

Even if they don't, they're in that area of blue dots. Just spray some bullets in that direction and you'll find them.

 

[pringles]

removal of the death markers, just another thing that 343 changed/removed for the worse. in addition to lobby layout, horrible tiny font and all caps for killfeed and gamertags, scoreboard while walking, right analog to scroll scoreboard, top medals, the medals themselves (too many of them, all look the same and too small), k/d spread next to kills, assists and deaths in post game, allowing quitting even when a full game is found, time in between matches, icon to show if my headset picked up my speech ingame, and a hundred more

Yeah there are a ton of small changes for the worse, most of them make no sense.

The scoreboard is probably my biggest pet-peeve. Talk about 'fixing' what wasn't broken.

 

[JimboJones]

Is Thruster actually that useful? I feel like the zoomed out camera might be tricking me into thinking I'm moving a shorter distance than I actually am.

I thought it was shit at first because I was expecting it to work like evade form Reach but after using it for a while it has got be out of some tight spots mainly for strafing behind cover very quickly and it's useful for modifying directions in mid jump.

 

[kaizoku]

As someone who never really got into halo (played reach abit but never mastered) I don't see why seeing an X where you or team mates die is essential.

If anything that feels like a hangover which people got used to, but is actually something we're better off without.

If you wanna know where you died, learn the fucking maps. Thats how it works in other games. As for team mates you always see their markers on screen and when they get into trouble and disappear off the map. If you need to know where the action is then pay attention.

 

[Azar]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was just an oversight. There are a lot of little usability things like that that are missing in this game that are present in Reach, like pregame lobby party indication. I'd actually welcome Reach's built-in callouts above the radar in this game, some places are just impossible to describe with all the gray and lack of set weapon spawns to use as reference.

I agree that there were some weird UI decisions in this game. I feel like most things were cut just to keep the screen from being overly chaotic, and they prioritized putting HUD icons on the screen for ordnance over other types of information like death markers. I miss the labeled callouts, too. Basically, 343 has done three things that make it way harder to describe locations to teammates:

• Removed death markers in the HUD. "1 shot on my X" was vital information that we can no longer convey to teammates.
• Removed memorable and key weapon spawn locations. "Guy in camo tower on Zanzibar" "Guy near sniper" etc. could be used to describe locations, and at least when ordnance is randomized, that's gone now.
• Maps seem to be lacking the identifying markers that Bungie was so good at putting into its best maps. Maybe this is just me not knowing the maps that well yet, but there are no useful callouts like Camp Froman or the nicknames that Halo players gave to map locations.

I would really like to hear 343 talk about some of these design decisions for multiplayer to get a better idea of how they prioritized HUD elements and map design and so on. These seem like important issues to me, so I wonder if they have good reasons for excluding them, if it was simply a matter of time and resources, other priorities, etc.

It also doesn't help that the game has a really narrow FOV. I hope that's something they can change on the next Xbox, because comparing any PC game with a better FOV and a scalable HUD to Halo shines a light on how little screen space we have available to us. But I understand it was basically a necessity to run the game at 720p on the 360.

The menu UI is weird, too. I like how fast everything is, it's really easy to navigate, but party hosts not being able to idle on the party view, and instead being forced into the "find a game or create custom game" screen is just so weird. It really throws you off when you're used to being in a party and are suddenly leader. You can't tell who's in your group until you bring up the side menu. And why, when you're matchmaking, does it show the people in your game as part of your party? That's really confusing.

 

[Future PhaZe]

Is Thruster actually that useful? I feel like the zoomed out camera might be tricking me into thinking I'm moving a shorter distance than I actually am.

Not really. You'd like to think you could get some split second invulnerable frames at the very end of it, but it's almost no help during rifle duels. It's useful to get out of the radius of a grenade, but in that instance the surer bet would probably be a hard light shield.

Overall it's pretty bad.

 

[The Real Napsta]

Any map, no matter how good, gets stale if you play it 5 times in a row.

Not Midship/Heretic

 

[Baller. PhD]

I like thruster for zipping over to a dude and meleeing before he has a chance to react. Other than that it's pretty garbage.

 

[see5harp]

Not really. You'd like to think you could get some split second invulnerable frames at the very end of it, but it's almost no help during rifle duels. It's useful to get out of the radius of a grenade, but in that instance the surer bet would probably be a hard light shield.

Overall it's pretty bad.

Last night I toyed with the idea that it could be beast if you had a sword or shotty but really most teams tend to sense when you are trying to bait and just walk backwards with their DMRs. I couldn't do a damn thing with it and immediately went back to pro vision.

 

[Everdred]

Thruster is by far my favorite. It's saved me from countless deaths. Escaping grenades, quickly jetting behind a corner to survive gun fire, closing the gap between myself and a running enemy. It's also great for jump extension and direction. You can completely halt your propulsion from a man cannon.

 

[haikira]

Just finished my 25th challenge, and my service record shows I've completed 25. But the challenger achievement hasn't unlocked for me.

Any ideas on what's up?

 

[NullPointer]

Just finished my 25th challenge, and my service record shows I've completed 25. But the challenger achievement hasn't unlocked for me.

Any ideas on what's up?

I'm starting to think that all the variables in Halo 4 are off by one. Maybe that's why the 8th member of our party always gets split off and put on the other team in BTB games. This has happened to us, every, single, time.

That and maybe it explains the Spartan Ops challenges to complete Chapter "-1 invalid".

This what happens when arrays start with zero instead of one.

 

[Treythalomew]

Well I just put in the worst game of Regicide in order to get the 10 Regicides in one match challenge. Probably the hardest thing to do when you see people with no shields and you don't take the shot or you just shoot around people to let them kill you when you are the king. I guess it could be easier if you are the worst player in the game and then are never in jeopardy of becoming king but then the match would also end faster. Still a dumb challenge to have.

Getting 17 seems insane considering the bonus gets you 15 points each time and that is only if you manage to kill them before they kill anyone else.

 

[tigerin]

So how you use it the right way? Its seems it'll be faster if I sprint.

Thruster is by far my favorite. It's saved me from countless deaths. Escaping grenades, quickly jetting behind a corner to survive gun fire, closing the gap between myself and a running enemy. It's also great for jump extension and direction. You can completely halt your propulsion from a man cannon.

 

[AHappyPanda]

As someone who never really got into halo (played reach abit but never mastered) I don't see why seeing an X where you or team mates die is essential.

If anything that feels like a hangover which people got used to, but is actually something we're better off without.

If you wanna know where you died, learn the fucking maps. Thats how it works in other games. As for team mates you always see their markers on screen and when they get into trouble and disappear off the map. If you need to know where the action is then pay attention.

Huh? Glad you prefaced yourself as someone who never really got into Halo.

I know the maps. A lot of people know the maps. Having an X on your dead body was such a simple call out if you died in 3 and Reach, there was literally NO reason not to include it in 4.

Also, if you're that busy paying attention to 3-4 other markers on your HUD because you're busy looking to see if they disappear (wat?), you're likely not paying attention to your own surroundings. It's so much easier to go about playing and THEN pay attention to the HUD once a big fat red X shows up.

I definitely look at the HUD to find my teammates, but that's even a split second, I look, see the general direction, and go. I'm not spinning in circles to see if a teammate's marker disappeared behind me, that's asinine. However if a teammate does die and they say "Panda behind you, on my X" I know to turn the hell around.

EDIT: As for the detractors who say this isn't Halo...I agree with you to a point. But if you really want Halo-ass Halo in your Halo 4, play Slayer Pro. It's the next best thing besides popping in Halo 2 and having XBL magically work for it again and playing Team Hardcore for hours on end.

 

[pringles]

+1 for Thruster being good.

Everything else feels like a gimmick with only very situational use, while Thruster is useful constantly.
Dashing away from grenades. Avoiding getting splattered by vehicles. Turning the tables when an opponent has the advantage in close combat. Getting behind cover fast. Throwing off the aim of people shooting at you. Etc etc.

Get to know it, learn how to use it, and you'll never look back.