Twilight Gap
Member
spartan charge is halo 5's promethean vision/jetpack
armor lock is in a league of its own
armor lock is in a league of its own
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Halo 5: Guardians |OT2| All Hail The Conquering Hero
- Thread starter Slightly Live
- Start date
- Status
Ive had no problems pulling off reversals on people who do that, not saying it's perfect, but its still better than an ability that actually stops flow; Something you are NEVER supposed to do in a MP FPS game. 343s update made it better but AL is something devs should look back to see what not to do for a MP game.
Ryouji Gunblade
Member
I miss the near endless features of Reach (Custom Firefight, co-op Campaign matchmaking, etc.), but not the actual gameplay.
I follow his Tumblr and stuff, picked up the Halo 4 art book way back when, still need the Halo 5 one.
This game with all the features of old will make it GOAT.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Git gud.
I suck and I can still evade most SC attempts.
H5 artbook has great art, but could use more captions.
Ha I follow it too, some great stuff on there. 5' artbook release here in the UK has been kind of wonky, think it's finally out now though.
The Antitype
Banned
People wildly overstate the negative impact of both Armor Lock and Spartan Charge.
Both are easy to counter and incredibly punishable.
The only issue I had with any of the AAs in Reach was that they should have been tied to specific armor sets. In Team Fortress or even the Overwatch Beta, it takes a nanosecond to identify the silhouette of an opponent, know what abilities they have, and adjust by tactics on the fly.
In Reach any guy could be sporting any AA, and they could switch between respawns. So there was no anticipation, only reaction. If you're going to add a class-based element in your gameplay. you need to make the classes clearly distinguishable on sight, and no, a little light on the small of their back doesn't count.
AAs didn't hurt the game nearly as much as people like to make out, but they were far from perfectly implemented.
That's a shame. There's no such thing as a design book, so I love when there's a tonne of design insight captioning all of the art.
It came out a bit ago, I was keeping an eye on it. But it seems like Amazon is the only place with it, weird.
Edit: Found a copy on Wordery for £19, might grab it.
User 73706
Banned
Again: the reason the weapon skin hierarchy is the way it is in H5 is because Sparth forced the team to have some restraint and quality control with the skins so as to actually keep things identifiable even in situations like Warzone, where there are potentially 100+ weapon designs at play. H5G made some massive improvements in regards to weapon identification compared to H4, and the changes - while generally innocuous - go an impressively long way in terms of keeping everything discernible at pretty much any distance.
This can be seen from the weapons themselves, to the actual projectiles they spew: a common complaint, even here on GAF, in H4 was that the Shotgun's profile sort of devolved into a generic dark blobby "rifle" shape at every distance outside of CQC, meaning most people mistook it for a DMR up until they were actually in Shotgun range. I actually had a moment once in H5G where I mistook the Shotgun for the DMR yet again, but there's one huge difference: the Shotgun's always projecting a flashlight. It's literally shooting out a warning signal at all times now, which is way more fitting. Even the Light Rifle and Binary Rifle, which were generally considered to be too close (mainly due to both being designs for a single "Binary Rifle" concept early in-dev), received minor changes. The Binary Rifle is obviously way longer than the Light Rifle, but the major difference this time boils down to how the Spartans wield them; the Light Rifle is made out to feel bulkier and the top of its profile slopes downward, like this:
While the Binary Rifle, despite being massive, was thinned out a bit and feels more like you're holding a huge satellite antennae of doom or something, with the top of its profile being mostly flat, and the gun's weight sloping downward towards the wielder, like this:
It's a subtle change, for sure, but it helps the Light Rifle feel more like a terrifying Forerunner weapon you just ripped off of an AT-ST, whereas the distribution of weight on the Binary Rifle makes way more sense and the absurdity of lugging around a death beam longer than you are tall is still equally absurd, but in more of an awesome way than an awkward-looking "Spartans are tripping over themselves just trying to hold this thing up" pose the way they held it in 4.
An important rule of thumb I've been using - not that it's the be-all-end-all, mind you - is that the higher-tier loadout weapons generally have a higher level of detail to their designs. It even works using your examples:
That rare SMG skin's "decals" more or less boil down to four parts: that inner circle, its "ripples" orbiting closer to the magazine, and then the two sets of repeating lines across the gun's surface. The legendary Pistol skin, on the other hand, teeters between convolution and complexity while still being cleanly identifiable as a Pistol, despite not being able to have its different design elements broken down as easily.
It's subtle, for sure, but another important note regarding weapon hierarchy is that they tend to try and use color arrangements to illustrate weapon rarity the same way it works in nature. Take this old Plasma Caster concept lifted from the Sprint, for example:
Particularly in the three-tier setup on the right, the colors become much more vivid, vibrant and much more dominant on the gun casings as they become more powerful. It's just like how more venomous animals are decked out in a number of fancy colors, while hardier species lower on the food chain use more "natural" colors that serve them better as modes of evasion, particularly camouflage.
For a more subdued example, note the relatively simple sandy grey coloration of the default Railgun:
and the Whiplash, while insanely good in actual combat, is only an Uncommon-rarity gun and thus just has a few additional trimmings of bright complementary colors:
The system operates on some fairly straightforward principles that get muddied by pure virtue of how many skins exist, but they're still stuck to well enough that you know that seeing an enemy holding something like this:
on the battlefield is a very, very clear sign that you need to be getting the fuck out of that encounter.
You can maintain the identity of a weapon without creating ugly, dull skins.
I don't get how this is restrained, there's a bunch of colours and shapes mish-mashed together, the only thing identifiable is the weapons model.
Weapons in this game do have great silhouettes, and warzone weapon skins do indeed do a great job of quickly indicating a weapons tier, but the arena loadout skins don't have the same kind of tiering. We aren't complaining about the Warzone stuff.
User 73706
Banned
You can maintain the identity of a weapon without creating ugly, dull skins.
I don't get how this is restrained, there's a bunch of colours and shapes mish-mashed together, the only thing identifiable is the weapons model.
Weapons in this game do have great silhouettes, and warzone skin tiers do indeed do a great job of quickly indicating a weapons tier, but the arena loadout skins don't have the same kind of tiering. We aren't complaining about the Warzone stuff.
Arena's loadout skins are a more understandable complaint, and while I could leverage those concerns to some degree (having designs get too busy on a handful of similar boxy rifle-shaped weapons becomes problematic), I think those can be chalked up to "we're one month into release and they can't just have players being totally content with day-one skins when they'll be adding more into the system for free for months on end" more reasonably.
Yeah don't worry, I think the Warzone stuff is fantastically well done. The design language for tiers is perfect. The second you see a Whiplash, you know it isn't a default Rail Gun. All of that stuff is great.
I just think Arena loadout skins leave a lot to be desired, and like Glass said, the higher tier stuff doesn't look any more epic than the uncommon skins. I personally like the legendary skins the least.
Prinz Eugn
Member
In the first weekly update they described it, it already sounded like a bad idea they kept trying to save just by how complicated it was. Like they loved the idea, but instead of giving up on it after it didn't really work, they glommed on all sorts of random features like knockback to make it seem less terrible.
Unfortunately for them, having a one-way pause button in the middle of a goddamn FPS will always be a terrible idea.
Thanks for your analysis, I can't add much because you've touched on a bunch of stuff that rings true
and its 4am fak
And Warzone definitely has some sexy hierarchy. The UNSC weapons all follow the same progression as the Rail Gun, with the final Saw, rockets, Hydra, shotgun etc getting that coat of white paint at the rarest quality. The Promethean weapons also have their own distinct paint style to them which the new Light Rifles continue.
My sticking point is definitely more on the arena side of things, but December's skins look like they'll placate me!
The Antitype
Banned
There are other solutions.
Give the option for people to hide their personal stats, so they don't feel the need to protect them.
Give people that quite an immediate stat and rank reset across all games.
Revoke all REQ items from those who quit x number of games, etc
There are more than enough ways to curb quitting.
Is that a serious suggestion?
Oh snap my connection dropped, sorry guys in my match. Oh, my past 70 hours of gameplay no longer count. GG.
Samurai G0SU
Member
Theyll probably reset them all in janurary. Then only select playlists after that.
Theyve done it before. Dont see why not this time around.
Cant wait to hear more about the december forge update. Hope its xmas and new years type of presents hehe if u knooww what i meaan
Edit: wtf am i reading? Lol
Theyve done it before. Dont see why not this time around.
Cant wait to hear more about the december forge update. Hope its xmas and new years type of presents hehe if u knooww what i meaan
Edit: wtf am i reading? Lol
The Antitype
Banned
Obviously there'd be a number of times you have to quit before that happened, just as the current bans work.
And I didn't mean just within Halo 5. I meant, your entire Halo history is wiped from the internet. Much more than 70 hours worth for most people.
Emperor Bohe
Member
Pegasus is one of the worst maps in Halo history
K/D stats doesn't belong to halo imo. they should get rid of it.
Samurai G0SU
Member
Its been there since 2. Huh? They always displayed your kills and deaths...
The Antitype
Banned
Could you?
I definitely remember being able to look up K/D stats for people on Bungie.net, but in game I felt like the only stat you could access quickly for people online was ranking.
But it was over 10 years ago, so maybe I just forgot...
Monocle
Member
I enjoyed this breakdown.
One of Halo 5's most underrated qualities is its greatly improved readability compared to Halo 4. This is apparent in every area you might hope for, from weapon silhouettes and firing effects, to alien enemies' damaged states, to just about every animation in the game. It's clear that 343 recognized how visually muddled Halo 4 is next to Bungie's Halos and then made a concerted effort to bring Halo 5's visual design up to par.
I'm not sure if most players appreciate the impact of these improvements, but I do, and I think they're a significant indication that 343 processed player feedback from Halo 4 and the Halo 5 beta, evaluated their own work with a critical eye, and actually went to the trouble of implementing major changes to make a better Halo. I was ready to write off the Halo series after Halo 4, but with this game 343 won me over.
Samurai G0SU
Member
Wait did i just jump in a convo about video game stat privacy? Lol
dont answer me. Im going night night
User 73706
Banned
I think a lot of the changes are hard to discern immediately coming off of Halo 4, but in terms of properly executing on evolutionary iterations to the game 3 -> 5 (or even Reach -> 5) is a pretty comparable jump to CE -> 3.
except good
FATstronaut
Member
Landing a thruster ninja is my favorite thing in the world
Feels good man
I meant on player's profile not after match results
It's moments like this that make me kinda hope the inevitable social arena playlists have friendly fire off. That teammate ended up killing me with the one round in that RL :/ I then booted him from the game.
Between that, my use of the AR and all the missed shots by the enemies in this next clip you'd swear that this was a bronze match but regardless this double kill felt good
Anyway this one arena match was basically everything that could happen in Halo summed up in 10 minutes. I'm good for the rest of the night and gonna call it after one match.
Between that, my use of the AR and all the missed shots by the enemies in this next clip you'd swear that this was a bronze match but regardless this double kill felt good
Anyway this one arena match was basically everything that could happen in Halo summed up in 10 minutes. I'm good for the rest of the night and gonna call it after one match.
How is it 'easy' to counter? It mostly works when you catch people unaware. I mean obviously if you're seeing someone sprinting and not shooting, you know they'll try and charge so you thrust aside. But most spartan charge kills are usually when you're in a firefight with someone and some random just spawns and sprints into the combat. I'd say it's very noob friendly. Is it an offensive addition? Not necessarily. But I'm not a fan of it, it's basically a 5 meter melee/offensive action for people who love to sprint into the action, and who would usually die in past games. It's tempered by the fact it only strips shields from the front, but if you're already in a firefight, it's basically a kill. I'm not saying remove it though and I'd definitely never say it's like armor lock, lol. Spartan Charge is one of the least of my worries about Halo 5.
Triscuitable
Member
With Spartan Charges, I can be caught around a corner by some random player who rushed into my radar faster than I could react (but that's another problem entirely). I get thrown back, and they can pretty much gun me down with anything, because it does way more damage than a regular melee attack.
I hate them. I hate them and I think they're a crutch mechanic.
blue_phazon
Member
Halo mp is like Dark Souls. It's so difficult and unforgiving, yet makes you feel like a champ when you overcome the challenges and come out on top. I'm a new Halo player who started on MCC and this game is a breath of fresh air compared to other shooters.
I just solo'd my way up to platinum 6 in Slayer. I CAN TASTE THE DIAMOND
I just solo'd my way up to platinum 6 in Slayer. I CAN TASTE THE DIAMOND
Speedy Blue Dude
Banned
Good games GAF BTB-Group. My Microphone wasn't working on my Headset for some reason, which is why I dropped out of the party. Not sure why it refuses to work.
I'm trying to work my way out of the bronze rank right now in slayer. The highest I got to was near the end of bronze 2 and then I started losing games and I dropped back to bronze one.I so badly want to get out of the bronze rank right now, but I just don't have a lot of time now to play this game constantly. My first halo game was halo 4, but I did play a bit of reach and 3 like two years ago. It actually feels really satisfying getting a kill in this game compared to halo 4.I suck at warzone and I'm okay/crap at objectives in halo 5. I'm scared of trying BTB because I'm afraid I will struggle like I struggled in warzone and also because I always seem to do better in the smaller maps in halo 4.
LordBaztion
Member
Nearly a month after release, Multiplayer is broken outside US and UE and 343 seems to doesn't care. Had the press said something about?
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/e0d9938206f04a598ce84f2c8cadce02/topics/warzone-dont-work-south-ameria-africa-australia/06223e76-9c6e-45fe-af01-fb00160803b0/posts?page=82#post1625
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/e0d9938206f04a598ce84f2c8cadce02/topics/warzone-dont-work-south-ameria-africa-australia/06223e76-9c6e-45fe-af01-fb00160803b0/posts?page=82#post1625
Speedy Blue Dude
Banned
Second Night in a row now.
Why can't I find ANYONE after queuing for 20 minutes? Is the population that low that there aren't enough Onyx/Diamond players to match me against in BTB?
Xbox has been hard reset, game quit, network reset, etc. Still no games unless I queue with one more and get matched against Platinum and Gold?
Why can't I find ANYONE after queuing for 20 minutes? Is the population that low that there aren't enough Onyx/Diamond players to match me against in BTB?
Xbox has been hard reset, game quit, network reset, etc. Still no games unless I queue with one more and get matched against Platinum and Gold?
el_Nikolinho
Neo Member
Second Night in a row now.
Why can't I find ANYONE after queuing for 20 minutes? Is the population that low that there aren't enough Onyx/Diamond players to match me against in BTB?
Xbox has been hard reset, game quit, network reset, etc. Still no games unless I queue with one more and get matched against Platinum and Gold?
I've got the same thing in team arena. Can not find a game (I'm ranked diamond 6 and I'm in australia, so that probably affects it)
every other playlist finds a game within 30 seconds
Speedy Blue Dude
Banned
I'm in the USA.
Warzone and other playlists give me near instant results... can't believe a Triple AAA game, a game belonging to a such a massive franchise like Halo has problems like this. If it was a game like Splatoon, or something, I'd be accepting of small populations... but the game that used to have the most popular online multiplayer from 2007-2009, and used to sell 3+ million copies in a day?
el_Nikolinho
Neo Member
They just need to increase the range of ranks it searches for people after a while (which I'm guessing they already do, but maybe make it an even wider range). I know it would suck for lower ranks but I just want a game man.
I'd be super surprised if the reason is that there isn't enough people playing, especially in team arena, barely a month after release.
I'd be super surprised if the reason is that there isn't enough people playing, especially in team arena, barely a month after release.
ATOMICJORGE
Member
Me too I really want back the green olive colour, standard military colour
I found this on reddit. This is one of the funniest things I have seen in halo 5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNDB-o4EuAQ&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNDB-o4EuAQ&feature=youtu.be
ManUnkindH
Member
I kept getting weird errors last night, even threw me into the dashboard one time disconnecting from the game. Also, items not showing up in my inventory. Never had these kind of issues pre-patch.... Wtf is going on?
The Antitype
Banned
I'm in the USA.
If it was a game like Splatoon, or something, I'd be accepting of small populations... but the game that used to have the most popular online multiplayer from 2007-2009, and used to sell 3+ million copies in a day?
To be fair, the Halo name was dragged through the mud by Halo 4 and MCC. So it's hardly shocking if the masses aren't jumping on board with the same enthusiasm anymore.
And truthfully, mourning the fact that Halo used to be popular and isn't anymore is like mourning the fact that Quake used to be popular and isn't any more.
Franchises don't stay big forever.
As far as BTB, I think it should be a social playlist. It's tough to get 8 people together, and people don't want to play with randoms when their forward-facing ranking is affected by full team performance and/or quitters.
- Status