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Halo 4 |OT| Spartans Never Die

zlatko

Banned
So I hope, and this is probably just me, that 343 includes some DLC armors/helmets as the game goes on. Namely some Reach helmets like the Noble 6 helm, and the body armor with shotty shells on it and kat's robot arm.
 
None of those things were in place in Halo 4's segment. But they could be leveraged in Ops.
And since Halo 4 has taken some cues from COD, Modern Warfare Spec Ops has always had a few missions where one player is providing air cover in a Helo or AC-130 while the other is on the ground taking objectives. Those are some of the best missions in Spec Ops and it'd be interesting to see a Halo 4 take on that.
 
I thought I read somewhere that they were trying to prevent overly fragmented playlists.

I would have thought they would have a shit load of data to refer to and drop the really unpopular ones, but FFA being left out is just a headscratcher. as a person that plays only with randoms, I really miss that one, because team play is ludicrously frustrating some days when playing solo.

Also, I've noticed almost nobody uses headsets or trys to talk these days. I think that's due to party play.

FFA is Regicide.
 

MrBig

Member
Crossposting from the community thread

So, Forge is stagnating. The greatest community tool Halo has seems to have been cast to the side for H4, and there hasn't been much discussion about it beyond basic complaints from most people. Not enough time, not knowing where to take it, not knowing what creators need, focus on other projects, not caring; whatever the reason was it doesn't matter.

I'm posting this to give some insight into where I would like to see Forge taken in the future, hopefully others will jump in and voice their thoughts to show 343 what they want, because why not help them and ourselves out, in getting what we need to foster the amazing creations the Halo community is known for? There's so much untapped potential here and I don't want to see it fade into the background

fw2ajzf4.jpg


Forgeworld 2.0 as I envision it. A large island with some interesting scenery, with potential for all sorts of small areas around the shore, edge of the mountain, and the interior of the mountain to be made into useful areas; water and lava can be used to create hazards and interesting interactions with the environment.

fw2detrmlrv.jpg


For the actual toolset, I've compiled some things from the community's and my own wants, things that will make creating amazing things not only easily possible, but quicker, beautiful, and more accessible.

General
- No kill zones anywhere inside map geometry, only far into the distance
- Strict adherence to standard World Unit sizes for every single object in the forge palette
- Pivot points logically positioned on all objects
- Correctly align magnet points to eliminate gaps
- Magnet points on corners
- Individual item count limitations, and $ budget cost, based on the asset’s actual performance cost as opposed to arbitrarily pooling objects to share a common limit/cost
- Completely eliminate objects shifting their coordinates and rotation upon re-loading a map
- Simplify asset polycounts to reduce performance costs
- Design some assets around shared texture sheets to reduce resource costs and increase unity of design
- Grid mode that snaps objects to the 1/10th or full unit WU grid automatically without delving into a submenu
- Expand what settings are possible to package within Forge maps to ensure that creations are played as intended
- Bring back the Precision Editing mode
- Do not move the monitor/camera when selecting objects; how this is handled in H4 forge currently makes it impossible to precisely align large objects by hand
- Remove any first person ambient sound the the Monitor biped emits, to hear the ambiance as players will hear it in-game and because it's just annoying

Aesthetics
- Forerunner design palette
- Lighting similar to Haven: semi-bright lit areas, non pitch-black shadows; creamy highlights, dark blue blacks
- Metallic material on forerunner objects stays “alive” and interesting in shadowed areas, doesn’t become dull and monotonous
- Make use of shaders that apply detail textures to objects based on angle to further differentiate floors and ceilings from walls

Object Coloring
- “Short” variations of building blocks use the object color system to color nearly the entire object
- “Tall” and “flat” variations of building blocks, as well as the rest of the forge assets, use the object color system to color light strips, as in the current iteration, visually similar to the forerunner highlights used in H4’s Campaign, for visibility; setting the color to “neutral” disables the light entirely

Triggers, Switches, and Dynamic Objects
- System for activating specific systems, linked by “channels”
- Single use switch
- Multi use switch
- User definable trigger volume
- Object that acts as a switch when shot at/destroyed
- Activateable structures
-Doors
-Levers
-Spawning/De-spawning of objects
- Zanzibar/Last Resort ring + spinning fan?
-???
- Sound volumes: ambient sounds that the user can place fields of

Invisible Walls
- “Hard” and “soft” walls
- Multitude of size variants
- Visible in Forge with a transparent hologram shader
- Collision disabled on Monitors to not impede movement while forging
- Collision enabled for player mode in forge to allow testing

Lighting
- Allow the user to define light sources to use for coloring baked lighting/radiosity, assuming no in-game resource/performance cost
- Generate lighting from a start menu selection, not when switching from monitor to player mode

Building Blocks
- Retain current selection, add more if possible
- Add: 10x10, Flat, Short, and Tall; 5x5 Tall; 10x5 Flat; etc
- No large chamfered corners, no gaps, or extruding pieces; all simple shapes
- All follow a single design aesthetic

Buildings
- Source new buildings from old maps
- Design some original buildings

Natural
- Throw out the rocks that were retained from Reach
- Bigger range of rocks with flat and rounded surfaces, from as small as a 1x1 up to the size of a 10x10
- Trees, shrubs
- Flat and rolling variations of grass/dirt/rock textured objects using the procedural shader that assigns a texture based on angle
- Hollow tree trunks
- Chunks of bark that can be used as structure pieces

Doors, Windows, and Walls
- 3 sizes of door frames, 2, 5, and 10 WU lengths
- Flat planes of glass; no extruding frames. 2.5x5, 5x5, 5x10, 5x10 round, and more sizes. No highly occluding cloudy detail map, rather a faint forerunner design overlayed on the planes

Decorative
- Simplify the designs used for these, reduce their resource cost, standardize sizes to fit to the WU grid
- Railing to use the same visual style as the “Bridge” piece’s railing
- More interesting pieces: holograms, random props, assets similar to those included in the Dominion category

Inclines
- Standardize sizes to adhere to the WU grid
- Normalized 15/30/45/60 degree angles

Bridges and Platforms
- Add hard light bridges
- Hollow tubes

Scenery
- Take interesting assets from the campaign, as resource budget allows

I encourage people to add to this and discuss things; let 343 know what you want so you can help Forge be all it can be. Hopefully they will listen if enough people weigh in.
 
Nope. Not for me.

Me either. I did that, worked the few first times, and now its just a black screen again.

edit:

But man, in multiplayer do we know of these issues will be fixed:

- no X when player dies
- knowing if teammates are shooting or being shot at
- my mic icon appearing when i speak

Its basic stuff but not having it really bothers me
 

LuchaShaq

Banned
I think the surprise with 4 is how effective the pistol and AR are. The AR will own any precision weapon user is they're foolish enough to get too close. The pistol is actually capable enough to take down enemies with rifles--still can't take a DMR at range but the proliferation of closer weapons makes it far more viable than Reach.

Really? I've played maybe 4 hours of multi and I don't think AR or pistol have killed me once.
 

rakka

Member
Really? I've played maybe 4 hours of multi and I don't think AR or pistol have killed me once.
it won't happen on the larger maps but certainly will on haven when it gets hectic. I have way more deaths from automatics than precision weapons like the dmr or BR.

Maps and tweaks in December. Certain map glitches and exploits can be fixed weekly. You will see ongoing commitment in this vein and serious observation of player patterns and behaviors.

can you bring back death markers (really need that for swat)

can players above you on radar be triangles (hard to see diamond with arrow in splitscreen)

can killfeed and scoreboard not be all caps and so small and such a horrible font (hard to read and especially in splitscreen)

can turning JIP off be an option, and can you give more time post game, and disallow quitting when full game/ map vote starts (and at least dont start map vote until all players are found) you can't blame them for quitting since as mentioned there's nearly no time post game to view carnage report and quit etc.

in splitscreen can you tone down the lighting or whatever makes complex run so horrifically? it's an amazing looking map but framerate runs into single digits in splitscreen. a few BTB maps also have performance issues. why didn't anyone pick that up in testing?

etc.
 
Crossposting from the community thread

So, Forge is stagnating. ... etc/
I encourage people to add to this and discuss things; let 343 know what you want so you can help Forge be all it can be. Hopefully they will listen if enough people weigh in.

Great list.

Instead of Forge World, why not a "simulation cube" that they can tie into the Infinity mythos or whatever? Since they seem hellbent on doing that.

Here's my thinking:

Giant cube that basically acts like the Veldt. The forger can choose from a variety of textures/backdrops that are basically just the ground plain and the nearby scenery/skybox. Since we just want a giant flat plane to work with, creating a dozen or so skyboxes of skies and distant (non-reachable) terrain, and textures for such a simple arena shouldn't be much of a problem.

Allow forgers to swap these palettes at their discretion.

Allow for a simple "time of day" light/shadow casting system that allows players to change the position and color of the primary light.

Add in a couple particle generator items that can be placed in the scene. They can have giant boxes or point generators, with a few presets. Allow these to be spawned at specific time intervals or constantly-on.

Add in some basic natural scenery items that aren't just rocks. Some trees, shrubs, etc. would go a LONG way.

And then of course, fix the building blocks and structural items so that they align correctly when placed next to each other.
 

S1kkZ

Member
finally finished the campaign on heroic. the campaign grew on my, i really like it much, much more than on my first playthrough.

while i still think they fucked up the whole antagonist storytelling (and other forerunner stuff), i think they nailed cortana and the chief storyline. i also like the new human characters (lasky and palmer) and hope we see more of them in the future.

for halo 5:

-more alien weapons, that look, feel and sound unique/fresh. not another reskin of existing weapons.
-better storytelling, so that everyone can understand what the hell is going on, without having to read 5 books.
-more open levels and more epic encounters. it shouldnt be hard to find a forerunner thing that is more badass than a scarab.
-in general: dont play it safe, take some risks.
-music needs to be better used. why have a great soundtrack when i barely hear it?
-more enemy types and enemy vehicles
-story stuff
dont turn chief into "the one".
have some balls and turn him into a forerunner or drop that subplot completly.
bring didact back and explain his backstory. he is by far the most compelling halo character, he deserves more.
turn cortana into something new, dont make me rescue her in h5 or 6.
a seperate forerunner campaign would be great (maybe a replacement for spartan ops?)
 

Havok

Member
Am I ever going to unlock more weapon skins or is the LE assault rifle all there is?
There are skins for a bunch of the rifles, it seems that some of them are gated behind Specializations. I've got the DMR NBL skin from the Wetwork spec, I know there's also a Carbine skin (that makes it hideous).
 

Petrichor

Member
Crossposting from the community thread

So, Forge is stagnating. The greatest community tool Halo has seems to have been cast to the side for H4, and there hasn't been much discussion about it beyond basic complaints from most people. Not enough time, not knowing where to take it, not knowing what creators need, focus on other projects, not caring; whatever the reason was it doesn't matter.

I'm posting this to give some incite into where I would like to see Forge taken in the future, hopefully others will jump in and voice their thoughts to show 343 what they want, because why not help them and ourselves out, in getting what we need to foster the amazing creations the Halo community is known for? There's so much untapped potential here and I don't want to see it fade into the background

fw2ajzf4.jpg


Forgeworld 2.0 as I envision it. A large island with some interesting scenery, with potential for all sorts of small areas around the shore, edge of the mountain, and the interior of the mountain to be made into useful areas; water and lava can be used to create hazards and interesting interactions with the environment.

fw2detrmlrv.jpg


For the actual toolset, I've compiled some things from the community's and my own wants, things that will make creating amazing things not only easily possible, but quicker, beautiful, and more accessible.





I encourage people to add to this and discuss things; let 343 know what you want so you can help Forge be all it can be. Hopefully they will listen if enough people weigh in.

I'd love this (ESPECIALLY FOR WATERWORKS) but I'm not sure they'd make such a big investment in what, as you rightly point out, seems to be a bit of an afterthought.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
FFA is Regicide.

it really isn't though, it's 'everyone get the king for MAX POINTS.

to be honest I haven't played it at all, but the dynamic is a lot different. I know everyone will just kill anyone on the way to the king, but you know...
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
The most irritating thing about Regicide is its scoring system, I should not have 25+ kills at the end of the game and the guy right under me has 15 and yet he's short of the 5-20 points necessary to have won the game.
 

FyreWulff

Member
MrBig, that's a great post, and honestly scared me a bit since I was writing a post for ForgeGAF that had a lot of same stuff in it. Saved me some time.
 
Once I got past a certain part of the first level I actually enjoyed playing the game. I hated running out of ammo and having weapons float away on me.

I'm enjoying the multiplayer as well although I'm leveling up pretty fast for a guy who sucks at it. I hope it slows down after a point.

One comment: I hope they contract out another company to do additional maps alongside 343 industries. I've seen 343's plans for extra maps and I can't help but think we could use some revamped older ones tossed in. I think another FPS dev could pick up the slack and deliver on some of what 343 left behind.
 
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