K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I think people just want to be as excited for the future of the series as they are / were for the past games. Sometimes it's hard to not be cynical about the series after Reach and 4.
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Halo 4 |OT2| TURBO
- Thread starter Tashi
- Start date
I'm more excited about the prospect of having Halo 1-4 on Xbox One than I am Halo 5 or Halo 2A. I haven't played through the campaigns in a long time and have been wanting to and would much rather do that on Xbox One, even if they are just simple resolution upscales.
I dunno, for a long time now it seems like people would just rather be cynical and watch upsets and drama and things despite whatever they say here. People talk about having no trust in 343 and expecting the worst and ADS and stuff, yet they are still here. They hate Halo 4, but still they are here. Doesn't make any sense. Someone will reply to this and say some shit like "But we mean well and we just want it to be what it once was blah blah blah...". Ok cool, I get that, but post after post it's just shit and complaining and hate. So like, be in or be out. *shrug*
I dunno, for a long time now it seems like people would just rather be cynical and watch upsets and drama and things despite whatever they say here. People talk about having no trust in 343 and expecting the worst and ADS and stuff, yet they are still here. They hate Halo 4, but still they are here. Doesn't make any sense. Someone will reply to this and say some shit like "But we mean well and we just want it to be what it once was blah blah blah...". Ok cool, I get that, but post after post it's just shit and complaining and hate. So like, be in or be out. *shrug*
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
You need to introduce some rhythm, however faint (doesn't need to be consistent but rhythmic phrases outside of the melody to indicate movement -- with maybe some cleft bass accents, or reverb harp strings or e-bass in a very low octave -- think something like H1 AoTCR indoor areas. You don't need to change the key or lower the octaves of the midi inflections, instead gate the noise threshold so it's not blowing your ears out when it hits that high of a registry. You should check out Reaper if you haven't already as an alternative to FLStudio. You can patch in really nice things and VST's from Ableton, ProTools, Logic, etc. Can't skimp on piano samples.
I enjoyed the outtro to the more familiar melody, it's a nice touch. Add more layers!
I actually had a version where I had a sub bass E pulsing throughout, since I originally wanted it to be more of a suite-ish type thing, where it would transition into what would be "Marlowe's Theme" or whoever the mystery spartan is, but I got lazy and said fuck it. And thanks for the tip about gating the noise, that never even occured to me.
Also, I feel that the Halo collection plus H2A and possibly a Halo 5 beta, it feels like almost too much Halo. I don't want Microsoft to blow their entire Halo load in one year.
NobleGundam
Banned
So good.. H4 Hayabusa Armor
So good.. H4 Hayabusa Armor
That is actually really good. I would love that.
On a personal note, my Director for The Music Man wants me to sing Shipoopi in fucking D. That's so much higher than what I can comfortably do, it's ridiculous.
Hydranockz
Member
I always knew D would make you uncomfortable.
Looks nice, not available in the game -_-.
So good.. H4 Hayabusa Armor
Zvonimir Boban
Banned
Had nothing to do all day so I actually managed to finish the whole thing in a couple of sittings.
That ending :*( Not a fan of the whole "chosen one" angle though, diminishes Chief's badassery in my eyes.
Game itself was pretty boring though, not sure if I'd prefer it if 343 just did their own thing completely rather than trying to keep some of the Bungie formula but churning out a pale imitation instead.
Poker Face
Member
With the announcement of Halo 5, I've been itching to play some more Halo.
I just realised that I've never finished Spartan Ops.
Is it worth playing through to the end? I've played through the first half of it but then kinda just stopped. Should I play it or just watch the story?
I just realised that I've never finished Spartan Ops.
Is it worth playing through to the end? I've played through the first half of it but then kinda just stopped. Should I play it or just watch the story?
The second half is definitely better than the first.
The environments get more interesting but the story I still think is so so.
Gameplay wise? eh, but the story is essential just because it is canon, but it goes in a funny direction...
Prinz Eugn
Member
Hope his ideas have changed
Spartan Ops sucking I think was more an issue of technical limitations and trying to cram something resembling single player into multiplayer spaces and then pushing for way, way, way more missions than their resources could reasonably provide. I think if they were aware of how limited the end product was going to be (esp. Season 1), they wouldn't have tried, or at least I would hope they wouldn't have.
10 amazing missions with those cutscenes in between would have been better than the 50 we got.
I might not be remembering right at all, but what I'm saying is 1 mission instead of however many we got per episode probably would have been better.
Also titanfall PC just removed the CTF and pilot hunter playlists, literally have nothing I want to do in that game anymore. Attrition is a joke.
The pacing would have felt much better too with one or two core mission per week.
The Henery
Member
Lmao the competitive decline of this franchise? MLG Halo was at its peak with Halo 3. A game is only competitively viable for big bux tournaments if it's popular among the general playing populace. Halo 3 sat atop the Live charts for the best part of three years and was competitive enough to sustain the league for three amazing seasons. That's sustaining it in terms of garnering enough amateurs to stump up the wonga to make top 128 and pay for Hysteria's Bugatti and, crucially, sustaining it in terms of viewership.
Reach, with its grey goo world (Countdown and Forge World for the viewers to feast their eyes on every game! Didn't they use that undifferentiated Sanctuary remake for like 8 different gametypes?) and wretched 100% bloom killed. It. Dead. Absolutely murdered Halo as a viewing spectacle. It could've been the most competitively purified FPS of all time but if the viewer has to watch every other map on the Lego map maker and the nature of bloom makes it even more difficult for an individual player to make exciting plays (on a double kill? Wait a couple seconds while your reticle resets as the enemy pumps his first 3 shots into you) then nobody will want to watch it. And no viewers means no money for MLG. Which means no tourney and cash prize. Which means no pros want to play it. Which means no meaningful competitive scene. Sundance himself blamed Reach for the death of competitive Halo, a 'disservice to the franchise'.
Halo 3 may have had a dodgy BR and a dodgier net code to boot but it played well enough on LAN, had a healthy roster of very good maps, had a ranking system to compliment and encourage the competitive side of the game in MM and, most importantly, could produce moments of that intangible big Halo magic to thrill the viewer. I cannot see an argument for the decline of competitive Halo starting at 3 no matter how much you dislike the greater reliance on team work. If Reach had launched after Halo 2 it wouldn't have been 'massively successful regardless', not for MLG, no sir.
And good luck on Halo 5 blowing anything out of the water in regards to MLG. I'm glad you're still optimistic after Reach and 4 lol.
NobleGundam
Banned
The ONI Spartan appears to be the Specter version from Mass Effect in Halo 5.
Has access to anything that ONI provides clearances, travel UNSC space including vehicles, ships, weaponry, and perhaps be aided by other Marines & Spartans.
Just my theory on their plans to "Replacing" Chief with said new guy.
Has access to anything that ONI provides clearances, travel UNSC space including vehicles, ships, weaponry, and perhaps be aided by other Marines & Spartans.
Just my theory on their plans to "Replacing" Chief with said new guy.
mhi
Member
But it's a widely held opinion, not an argument. Ask anyone involved in the circuit at the time and they would relay the same opinion
That would of cut out a lot of the repetition that is very present in Spartan ops like Quarry or Sniper alley missions. It would have done a lot for getting rid of some of the bloat that I think is present.
So there is this:
User 73706
Banned
Vehicle Ordnance teasers via Megablox
l Zealot l
Member
I hope the Mantis doesn't return, but the Railgun does.
This is so great, Halo is getting a new engine for the first time since 2001. I am so pumped.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
I understand why you brought up the population, but it really doesn't hold much weight in my eyes. Halo 3 was going to sell a metric shit ton of copies and was going to be played for several years regardless. We can go back and forth about if Reach was the game after Halo 2, but there's really no point because there's no way to know for sure.
So with that in mind, you should know I'm only referring to the gameplay when I mention competitive decline of Halo multiplayer.
^
It's been discussed many times why many people don't hold Halo 3's gameplay in such a high regard. Everything from a deliberately unreliable utility weapon to a tiny FOV with sluggish gameplay. Henery, you mention the teamwork thing with Halo 3 but that would only be a point in your favor if Halo CE required no where near the same level of teamwork of Halo 3, albeit on a different side of the line.
Halo 3's teamwork felt artificially forced in the sense that more than likely if you were caught in an outnumbered situation, you would be dead because no amount of skill would be able to overcome those odds due to the slower kill times and sluggish movement speed/strafe, and overall weaker weapon sandbox. The way they made this situation more "balanced" is by throwing in superfluous gameplay elements like the notorious Equipment and a luck-of-the-draw BR spread.
l Zealot l
Member
Say what you will about 3, but I retain that one of the biggest satisfactions in any Halo game is getting a perfect grenade bounce on a opponent, stripping his shields, then a single shot to the head with the BR.
It was art.
Prinz Eugn
Member
For real, fewer, more focused missions would have been great. They were coming out so fast that even if I wanted to play all of them I didn't really have time to anyway.
I am seriously waiting for the tearful admission that Spartan Ops was absurdly over-ambitious given what resources they had. I bet early on someone said 25 missions a season sounded "reasonable" based on either faulty info or just not thinking it through, and some decision from on high set that in stone as a requirement, dooming it to be a watered-down mess.
lizardwizarding
Neo Member
He insinuated the decline began at H3, are you arguing otherwise? H2 was a better game competitively and I'd love to hear your opinion in response.
Without being too picking, from what I've gathered through osmosis it seems people that preferred H3 competitively were either late to the H2 scene or they could not reliably pull off the button glitches, which made their experience a living hell (insert: get gud).
The Henery
Member
'At the time'
Of course. Halo 3's gameplay had a smaller skill gap than its two predecessors. Many looked forward to a better sequel. It never arrived. Now you have Instinct gushing on Twitch about how good it feels to play a 'real' Halo again while playing a laggy Construct King against a hundred other people in the playlist. In 2014.
Point is, 'at the time', Halo MLG was at its strongest and showed no sign of abating in popularity. When we're talking about MLG, as Funknown was, it isn't enough that the game be competitively sound purely on gameplay merit. It has to provide a compelling viewing experience too. And the game has to be fun enough at the amateur and casual level to feed the bottom. Halo 3 fulfilled both of these metrics.
Saying Halo 3 would have been a success in MLG regardless of its content is as asinine as those who say Halo 4 would have lost as many players as it did, regardless, because of COD and Battlefield, no matter the gameplay. It completely absolves the game of any responsibility or credit and is a very weak argument.
Me too I mean Quarry was a canyon in the middle of nowhere that was back and forth to the covenant that could have been cut down considerably within the Spartan ops environment.
It was a nice idea but the execution really doesn't hold up to the expectations of it. I mean some of the new areas were nice and all, but playing through them so often really robbed any enjoyment with the rather dull scenarios you were in.
Orochinagis
Member
Spartans already do that, this Spartan is a privatized one or they finally moved their Mortal Didacta and merge the Spartans to only respond to ONI which it could make the other spartans deflect or going wild.
Looks like they tried to mimic COD' spec ops but halo mechanics didnt allow that dynamism the designer tried to make
The Henery
Member
I don't prefer H3 competitively to H2. He quoted an MLG vid and pondered whether competitive Halo declined with H3. Did the individual skill gap contract with each release? Yes. But the competitive Halo scene was in an upward ascendance from CE through 3 seasons of H3. There'd never been so many kids playing, wanting to compete, wanting to go pro. It was only when Reach arrived that a decline began. Ninja and Naded are the biggest Halo streamers right now and they play H3. Not Reach, not H4.
And if anyone removes Funknowns post from its context and claims I'm arguing semantics, then the 'competitive decline' starts with Halo 2 then, doesn't it? Seeing as it's less individually skilful than Halo CE. Argument doesn't make sense either way.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
Damn, I have a feeling fully staffed, fully operational 343 is a force to be reckoned with.
After spending a few hours playing Halo 4 today, I seriously hope they crush as many bugs as possible before releasing H5. I couldn't count the amount of times the game glitched out or required me to press a button several times to get a response from it. Pressing X multiples times to spawn, trying to assassinate someone who isn't on the same level as me resulting in no animation or assassination, and being unable to accurately get an idea of my surroundings based on sound effects because they that don't playback and they all sound the same are examples of today's frustrations. It really makes me miss Halo 3.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Two things:
- They're human.
- Halo 3 still shared similar core fundamentals like Power-ups and weapon timing, unlike Reach which brought everything that it did while also taking away Power-ups.
Yeah but so did CE and Halo 2. Halo 3 would probably be an easy game to go back to if the gameplay was faster, but after the games we've received today it's far too slow. So it was slow back then and it's even slower today, IMO at least; its gameplay did not age well whatsoever.
Regardless of its content? I wasn't making that kind of leap.. After the success of Halo 2, what reason would they have to release a game like Reach? The series was in its prime and fans were simply craving more Halo, so it would've been a terrible decision to drastically change that core when the Halo-biters were dying off left and right. Reach released like it did due to several factors like it being Bungie's last Halo game after making 4 similar gameplay experiences before it.
Halo 3 was going to be Halo 3 in terms of content, but the gameplay should not have been what it was. For example, if MLG settings were base gameplay settings for Halo 3, it would've been a far better experience. Couple that with a more reliable BR and a better FOV, more responsive strafe, etc. and bam.. Halo 3 is suddenly drastically improved, and those don't appear to be daunting changes.
Halo 2 was the CE of Halo 3/Reach/4. Great game, took away some of the power of an individual player, but as a package (combining button glitches and overall better pacing like in its Objectives (ie: faster paced CTF)) it was not as "weak-feeling" as Halo 3.
EDIT: Let's also not forget about the "newb combo" -- fastest and easiest-to-achieve kill time in Halo. So there were ways to be effective as an individual, but one of the biggest gripes people have with the game is that it felt far too easy and catered to a lesser-skilled audience.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
In terms of the tech department, I have a feeling they can get shit done, since with Halo 4, they were basically bending over backwards trying to get the engine to work with about 150 people, now they have 2x that, 1 extra year of dev time, yeah, I but they are like a tidal wave of technological wonder magic
In terms of the tech department, I have a feeling they can get shit done, since with Halo 4, they were basically bending over backwards trying to get the engine to work with about 150 people, now they have 2x that, 1 extra year of dev time, yeah, I but they are like a tidal wave of technological wonder magic
Halo 4's problems weren't technical though, it was a 360 show piece. The problem was the design...
The Henery
Member
Sure you weren't brah. "Halo 3 would've been successful regardless because it came after Halo 2 and was HD and shit". So Halo 3 MLG would have been successful if it didn't have The Pit, Guardian, Narrows, Construct and Heretic and no ranking system and instead had Countdown and Grey Sanctuary and bloom right? Because it came after Halo 2 and was HD and had Forge. That would've run on the main stage for three years with 100000 dollar nationals yeah?
Substitute that number two with a three and read it back to yourself.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
There were a lot of sacrifices that were made in the engine department for it to become a show piece, it's like that girl we've all had a crush on in high school for about 10 seconds, she's pretty if she's far away, but once you get closer, your penis retracts into your body.
EDIT: This is an awkward first post of the page.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
So because I used the word "regardless" means I took it to the extreme? And you say you're not arguing semantics..
And disregard everything I said about how we already experienced 9 years of Halo games before Reach's release (4 FPS's and one Halo Wars) and it being Bungie's last Halo game? As much as we may disagree on Bungie's vision for Reach, it should at least be understandable to a degree. Also, it's rather a moot discussion on whether Reach would have done better in 2007 compared to Halo 3 anyway because as I said before, we can't know for sure.. Not to mention, Reach also could've benefited from MLG settings across the board (AA's as map pickups and faster movement speed, etc.), and several people here really like ZB MLG Reach.
Frankie said something about possibly being salty in 27 sleeps a few days ago. Maybe what we believe may not happen.
If this Chief collection happens, what if we only get all 4 campaigns, h2 is updated, but no multi-player and the only MP is the Halo 5: Guardians beta?
I'm starting to wonder if they would give us this amazing Halo 2 multi-player suite, updated maps and then expect us to migrate to Halo 5 multi-player within the year.
If this Chief collection happens, what if we only get all 4 campaigns, h2 is updated, but no multi-player and the only MP is the Halo 5: Guardians beta?
I'm starting to wonder if they would give us this amazing Halo 2 multi-player suite, updated maps and then expect us to migrate to Halo 5 multi-player within the year.
lizardwizarding
Neo Member
Fair enough, sorry if I misunderstood.
I'd argue that didn't necessarily have to do with H3's spectator viewership and more to do with it being not a bad Halo game on top of the overwhelming multiplayer success of H2. H3 was going to naturally grow the fan-base regardless. If you look at Reach -- it wasn't that viewer friendly in the competitive scene either, but it was also a lesser Halo game to an extent (multiplayer wise) at launch, and took a hell of a long time to get it patched the way we wanted it and by that time competitive Halo had been dropped and was almost dead when the late band-wagoners were just jumping on the Reach-is-not-competitively-viable-train.
Again, I think that is directly because they didn't screw up H3 in immeasurable ways. This was also at a time before CoD became utterly huge and way before SC2 or LoL came into the picture. It's timing and cultural significance that gave H3 the staying power.
Formal streams again and he plays Reach and many past pros would rather play Reach online than H3. You can ask them.
Last thing I'd like to point out (competitively speaking): H2 never introduced anything negative to Halo's mix. With H3 it began with the ordanance, larger maps, and dodgy hit detection based on the change from hit-scan to bullet travel time. Then Reach with the removal of power ups, bloom, AA's, etc. H2 had a superior map selection than H3, and it mechanically, did not introduce anything to dampen the competitive experience. H2 was simply a different Halo to CE, H3 was a step in the wrong direction albeit minor and inconsequential at the time.
Yeah I definitely hear you. Releasing multiple multiplayer suites simultaneously already seems pretty bananas to me, but to then just give us a year out with them before H5 starts to seem doubtful too when you think about it.
is that the fast and easiest kill time?
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Yeah, I think there's a video on it somewhere too IIRC. And just in case you're being "funny," I was focusing on the combination of the two (fast and easy to achieve) compared to other rifles or multi-role weapon combinations.
EDIT:
Good points. There are many factors to consider.