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Halo 5: Guardians |OT2| All Hail The Conquering Hero

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*waves*

I wrote that for Kotaku. Happy to answer any questions or whatevs.

Good article, I agree with a lot of your points. The story was disappointing to say the least and you summed up why nicely, this character you've grown with and learned to love literally turns evil for no very apparent reason on a whim. It could have been okay but it just happened with not build up room reason. I just feel there are so many different directions they could have taken with this game, why this?

I do disagree about the gameplay, I thought it was great for the most part though you do make some great points (like how useless a sniper is towards Promethans). The new spartan abilities are incredibly fun to use and the levels were designed in a way that took advantage of them.

I'm actually nervous about the next game, if I have to fight Promethean for an entire campaign it won't go over well with me unless they drastically redesign them but 343i will find some stupid reason to include covenant as baddies just because they are superior enemy types.

343i needs to take some tips from Bungie... People don't want bullet spongie enemies. If anything the best enemies are the ones that require skill in shooting different parts of the body and some feedback when you do... The regular Promethean are just bullet sponge until you expose that core and then it's fun to finish them off.
 
I agree with much of this article, but not all of it.

Master Chief was always the walking embodiment of a war crime. I don't think focusing on that is such a bad idea, considering the Covenant, whose arrival was a great distraction from the true reason for the Spartan program, is all but dead.

In fact, I think all of the tension in the universe, between ONI, Outer Colonies, and remaining alien factions prior to Halo 5 was wasted in this effort to hastily make
Cortana a bad guy.

I'm also ok with Cortana being a bad guy, but I feel like they should have let the idea brew for a game or two. Maybe by having her stop and all out war between the aformentioned factions with her own show of force.

And anyone who only plays the games probably knows nothing about ONI, the Outer Colonies, or any tension at all. It's only present in the expanded universe. I don't think that any of the main plot points, like Chief being the embodiment of a war crime or
Cortana going mad with power
, are bad but they're just thrown at us. We have so little context in the more recent Halo campaigns when we need it. The context does exist in the expanded universe, but relying on the expanded universe to be the only real context we have is a big issue with some of the more recent games.
 
*waves*

I wrote that for Kotaku. Happy to answer any questions or whatevs.

It's a well written piece and I enjoyed reading it, but I don't agree at all. :p

For me the meat of the Halo universe was always in the extended universe and stuff like the questionable morality of the Spartan II program, and how it was originally meant to be used to quell human rebellions. I felt (possibly because I am a massive Marathon fan) that Bungie wanted to tell a much more interesting and complex story than "noble space marine & friends fight against impossible odds" but were limited by the sheer popularity of the games which forced them to aim everything at the lowest common denominator. There was still a lot of stuff I really liked, like the terminals in Halo 3, but in general I thought the series lost its path in Halo 2 story-wise.

I think 343 need to get much better at telling their stories and probably rethink the entire way they deliver them because they're trying to tell a more nuanced story using the same old techniques which just isn't working, but I enjoy the general direction they are taking it.
 

DocSeuss

Member
See I never understood this.

HALO 1 - All I knew was that there were enemies in front of my gun to kill.
HALO 2 - Sequel to Little Shop of Horrors. No idea what was still happening story wise. GRAVEMINDDDDDD!
HALO 3 - Chief does a Reverse Jesus and resurrects downward instead of upwards. I remember a Scarab Tank sequence. What was happening again? What's a Forerunner?

I think 343 gets a pass for what Bungie did to my brain. FROM SOFTWARE Dark Souls/Bloodborne games are easier to understand.

It's not Bungie's fault you didn't pay attention to their game. Even marginally doing so makes it abundantly easy to understand.

What is the purpose of life?

To enjoy a good Halo campaign.

Good article, I agree with a lot of your points. The story was disappointing to say the least and you summed up why nicely, this character you've grown with and learned to love literally turns evil for no very apparent reason on a whim. It could have been okay but it just happened with not build up room reason. I just feel there are so many different directions they could have taken with this game, why this?

I do disagree about the gameplay, I thought it was great for the most part though you do make some great points (like how useless a sniper is towards Promethans). The new spartan abilities are incredibly fun to use and the levels were designed in a way that took advantage of them.

I'm actually nervous about the next game, if I have to fight Promethean for an entire campaign it won't go over well with me unless they drastically redesign them but 343i will find some stupid reason to include covenant as baddies just because they are superior enemy types.

343i needs to take some tips from Bungie... People don't want bullet spongie enemies. If anything the best enemies are the ones that require skill in shooting different parts of the body and some feedback when you do... The regular Promethean are just bullet sponge until you expose that core and then it's fun to finish them off.

343i needs to tune their difficulty to Reach's and that would solve half my combat complaints. There's still a bunch to be said about the level design. Lots of good ideas, lots of little changes that could make their games great. The Great Big Flaw, for me, is the core attitude towards the characters.

It's just never going to be Star Wars. There's nothing they can do about that without completely retooling their approach to their characters and world.

Nodding along with that. I do think the movements are pretty cool though but the sandbox and AI don't make the most of it. The characters and heroic nature points, nailed it.

Yeah, once I hit about 3200 words, I knew we were gonna be cutting stuff, so I didn't really talk about the mechanical complexities. I could have done a whole section on how and why the level design took a nosedive in 4 and 5.

It bums me out, because I like so many people at 343, and I like some of 343's ideas. I wish I could fly out to Microsoft and actually do some consulting work on the franchise, 'cause there's a lot of small things that could be done to tweak stuff.

It's a well written piece and I enjoyed reading it, but I don't agree at all. :p

For me the meat of the Halo universe was always in the extended universe and stuff like the questionable morality of the Spartan II program, and how it was originally meant to be used to quell human rebellions. I felt (possibly because I am a massive Marathon fan) that Bungie wanted to tell a much more interesting and complex story than "noble space marine & friends fight against impossible odds" but were limited by the sheer popularity of the games which forced them to aim everything at the lowest common denominator. There was still a lot of stuff I really liked, like the terminals in Halo 3, but in general I thought the series lost its path in Halo 2 story-wise.

I think 343 need to get much better at telling their stories and probably rethink the entire way they deliver them because they're trying to tell a more nuanced story using the same old techniques which just isn't working, but I enjoy the general direction they are taking it.

A) Bungie's best storytellers in Marathon didn't work on Halo. They were working on Duality and then drifted off to do other things.

B) It's fine you were interested in that expanded universe, but that's not what the game campaigns were doing or why people played those game campaigns. It's like saying you like the yuuzhan vong. That's nice and all, but people wouldn't watch the movies for that.

C) Based on the stuff some of the Halo writers said, Bungie wasn't really concerned with any of that stuff. Nylund wasn't their pick, which is why they steamrolled his book in Reach. They hated the idea of ODSTs back when Microsoft came up with them. They didn't write the techncial bible--a Microsoft guy did. Etc. So, no, your theory doesn't really seem to hold up based on what some of the writers for the games have said about them.

It's not like 343 doesn't have good writers on board. Hell, Frankie's Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian (might have the title wrong) is the single best Halo story there is, imo. Brian Reed is no slouch either. The big problem is that core conceit driving the whole thing, as well as a mistaken desire to shed Halo's identity to bring it in line with games it can't possibly compete with. It's like they're Ferrari and they've decided to start competing with Volkswagen.
 

BraXzy

Member
Nah, Occasionally stream some CSGO, but I play way worse when I stream. Something about trying to focus on the chat, and just the quality drop overall makes it a more difficult way to play.

I get like that too, I'm not great but I definitely play worse if I stream. Like when someone was over at your house and watching you play waiting for a turn when you were a kid, suddenly you're aware of an audience judging you hehe. Plus the whole chat thing.

Page 117 hypu

It's page 59 scrub sort yourself out.
 

taylor910

Member
anyone have the ability to accept me into one of the gaf spartan companies?

The Spartan company thread is pretty dead and I'd like to be able to play with a good group.
 

thumb

Banned
*waves*

I wrote that for Kotaku. Happy to answer any questions or whatevs.

I really enjoyed your article. I think you've nailed a lot of the problems with the modern Halo story. I've played 4 but I've yet to play 5--after your article, I'm not sure that I will.

My one critique is that I'm not sure you've captured the extent to which Halo's backstory and character development have always been missing from the games themselves. It's much worse now, but it's always been bad. It was really Eric Nylund that gave John 117 a set of believable motivations and a coherent history. Same for Dr. Halsey. Without this context, Master Chief is nothing more than a patriotic Clint Eastwood character in power armor.
 

link1201

Member
...
My one critique is that I'm not sure you've captured the extent to which Halo's backstory and character development has always been missing from the games themselves. It's much worse now, but it's always been bad. It was really Eric Nylund that gave John 117 a set of believable motivations and a coherent history. Same for Dr. Halsey. Without this context, Master Chief is nothing more than a patriotic Clint Eastwood character in power armor.

I agree with this. Halo campaigns have always kind of benefited from the EU. I just think the early games had the advantage of being new which lends itself to being easier to understand. I think as the Halo story expands it is getting harder to tell stories within the space of a 10 hour campaign.
 
That's why we look at real data (quits etc) before making the change. this was sensible and gives us time to do more nuanced changes.

I still think the proper solution would be to:

1) Make BTB social, we need a social playlist, BTB has never been competitive and there's too much going on for one players skill to be reflected in the rank.
2) Add JiP back in as it would now be social.
3) Make an option to opt out of JiP in the menus. Personally I don't want to join a match in progress with no clue on what's happening while losing out on power weapon control, even if it's not ranked. It's especially annoying when you join a match with a gambit boost and have less time to meet the requirements, you then possibly wasted a card. This goes for any playlist that has JiP.
 

Montresor

Member

Like others have said, it's a well-written article. I disagree with a lot of it though but I'm work and given the effort and care you've put into the article, I don't want to half-ass my own response.

I think what's clear though is that 343 and fans alike would benefit greatly if the next Halo game had a vast codex/library like with Mass Effect games. That could help keep the ever-growing backstory fresh in people's minds from game to game.

I know you didn't mention it in your article, but one person in this thread stated "How did Halsey lose her arm"? Well she lost her arm in the previous damn game. A codex would help out with keeping things that have already happened in previous game fresh in people's minds, and also enriching people's knowledge with codex entries from the expanded universe, stuff that's never been in games but that people can finally read about in codex/library.
 
A) Bungie's best storytellers in Marathon didn't work on Halo. They were working on Duality and then drifted off to do other things.

B) It's fine you were interested in that expanded universe, but that's not what the game campaigns were doing or why people played those game campaigns. It's like saying you like the yuuzhan vong. That's nice and all, but people wouldn't watch the movies for that.

C) Based on the stuff some of the Halo writers said, Bungie wasn't really concerned with any of that stuff. Nylund wasn't their pick, which is why they steamrolled his book in Reach. They hated the idea of ODSTs back when Microsoft came up with them. They didn't write the techncial bible--a Microsoft guy did. Etc. So, no, your theory doesn't really seem to hold up based on what some of the writers for the games have said about them.

It's not like 343 doesn't have good writers on board. Hell, Frankie's Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian (might have the title wrong) is the single best Halo story there is, imo. Brian Reed is no slouch either. The big problem is that core conceit driving the whole thing, as well as a mistaken desire to shed Halo's identity to bring it in line with games it can't possibly compete with. It's like they're Ferrari and they've decided to start competing with Volkswagen.

A) Sure, there were still a lot of similarities in CE (forerunner mysteries, 343's foreboding dialogue, questions about the motivations of the covenant and the flood...), not to forget the Cortana letters which Bungie more or less completely retconned in Halo 3 (as I was reminded a couple of days ago in this thread). Halo 2 explained a lot of things too quickly and for example the gravemind in 2/3 was absolute butchery of what should have been a really cool character IMO, he should have been left in the terminals and not forced into cutscenes.

B) Yeah, I don't disagree, obviously this is just my opinion as a fan of the series and I can't claim to speak for anyone else.

C) I'd be interested in knowing how this ties into the complete rewrite of the Destiny story and all of the writers leaving soon afterwards... AFAIK all that is known about this stuff is that the Bungie heads weren't interested in the extended universe, but many of the writers were obviously actively engaged in fleshing it out and happily considered Nylund's work completely canon.

As I said I absolutely agree that the way they are telling their story is not working and your Ferrari analogy hits the mark for me, but I can't agree with your complaints about the actual story they are telling.
 
I'm asking for a refund, this game is NOT UK friendly and when I get into BR battles, shoot first yet die because the servers think i'm a second behind in the battle i'm sorry but it's bullshit, I don't want to put up with this any longer and since 343 refuse to give us ping bars and server selections i've had enough.
 

Jinaar

Member
It's not Bungie's fault you didn't pay attention to their game. Even marginally doing so makes it abundantly easy to understand.

Nope I don't buy that for me personally. It is Bungie's fault in making what is in essence a simple Space Marine Pew Pew game hard to follow. It wasn't all that easy at the best of times to understand. What someone already said afterwards, the extended universe information is where the meat of the story is and people interested in understanding more need to go that route and were rewarded if they did.

Halo has always been about a singular place and time to jump into and have action. The story was never going to be that meaningful.

I do agree Halo 4 was in that same vein of what the heck is happening here, but Halo 5 was not that hard to understand for me at all. But I am biased because HUNT THE TRUTH campaign added so much other material as well that I followed, could reflect on and add it to my campaign experience.


We just have different view points.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
Holy shit, nearly a month after launch I FINALLY played a match on Pegasus! Amazing map rotation! Decent enough map, feels like there is a lot more opportunity for power positions to change hands in the shrunk down play space (but that could just be a result of my extremely limited play experience on it!). Anywho, I found it at least enjoyable. Perhaps I'll get to play on it again in another several dozens of hours of multiplayer!
 

Trup1aya

Member
And anyone who only plays the games probably knows nothing about ONI, the Outer Colonies, or any tension at all. It's only present in the expanded universe. I don't think that any of the main plot points, like Chief being the embodiment of a war crime or
Cortana going mad with power
, are bad but they're just thrown at us. We have so little context in the more recent Halo campaigns when we need it. The context does exist in the expanded universe, but relying on the expanded universe to be the only real context we have is a big issue with some of the more recent games.

Well that's kind of my point Halo 5 was the perfect opportunity to get gamers up to speed key points of the extended lore. I had assumed that the addition of a new fire team would serve as an excuse to explain back story to players.

I figured Locke, an ex-assassin, would have read up on his target, and would be explaining particulars about the history of chief and blue team. This little info dumps would have served as nice segues into flashback missions with a young, pre-covenant Blue Team.

That's where we would learn about the ethical deficiencies of Halsey's plans, how her cold logic and lack of empathy parallels Cortana's current scheme. Thet could have highlighted the Blue Team Bond and brought these characters to life, while at the same time shedding some light on the present day tensions in the Halo Universe.

Halo 5 could have been all about getting gamers up to speed. Instead they just frantically pushed ahead into a new chapter .
 

C Jones

Member
Nope I don't buy that for me personally. It is Bungie's fault in making what is in essence a simple Space Marine Pew Pew game hard to follow. It wasn't all that easy at the best of times to understand. What someone already said afterwards, the extended universe information is where the meat of the story is and people interested in understanding more need to go that route and were rewarded if they did.

Halo has always been about a singular place and time to jump into and have action. The story was never going to be that meaningful.

I do agree Halo 4 was in that same vein of what the heck is happening here, but Halo 5 was not that hard to understand for me at all. But I am biased because HUNT THE TRUTH campaign added so much other material as well that I followed, could reflect on and add it to my campaign experience.


We just have different view points.
I agree with you. I also don't think the stories were particularly well told in the previous games either.
 

ShutterMunster

Junior Member
Kotaku shits on 343 for their campaigns and story telling and they're totally right.

This is fantastic. I love the gameplay in 343i's game, the core combat feel, but the storytelling is poor. Bungie's Halos weren't much to write home about as is, but 343's efforts are really woeful. They need to bring in some real writing talent.
 
That kotaku article about the Halo campaigns post bungie is quite possibly the biggest load of garbage I have ever read. Just because 343i didn't decide to baby and pamper gamers prior to Cortana's turn, doesn't mean that it somehow wasn't an amazing twist for the story, or that it doesn't make the stakes and the potential for the next Halo game much higher than they've ever been going from one title to the next.

Anybody that is even a tiny bit reasonable can see quite clearly that there's a lot more than meets the eye to
Cortana's character in Halo 5. She demonstrates some extremely altered, almost Iso-Didact in nature ideology, but at the same time there's still a strong degree of belief in, or care, for the Master Chief. Yes, a good bit of it could indeed turn out to be a trick, but there is enough in the game's story for even that to be in doubt. All 343i did in this game was they decided to focus more on setting the stage and waiting to tell us how the story threads established in Halo 5 and in Halo 4, end up playing out in Halo 6.

Their not including it all does not automatically make the story lackluster, and neither does their decision to tread more carefully with Master Chief and Blue Team's role in the overall story, and how they end up coping with the reality of the threat Cortana presents. They never did entirely see her as the 'enemy' in this one. She was still largely seen as someone who could be saved. The rest of Blue Team was less easily forgiving or blinded as the Chief was, but it's a dynamic that worked really well in Blue Team. With how this game ended there can be no doubt that the Chief suffers very little illusions now about what has to be done with Cortana. The Cortana he knew is no longer there.

And when you toss in Dr. Halsey and that spine tingling reunion with the chief, you just know shit is going to hit the fan in Halo 6. 343i has just set the stage perfectly for what could end up being the best story experience the Halo series has ever had. They've shown now through two games that they are a hell of a lot more in tune with the overall fiction and the characters themselves than even Bungie were, and that will only lead to better campaign experiences, not worse, which is why the last two games in the series have actually been the best overall experiences in my eyes.

I would say there was even clear evidence later in halo 4 that Cortana possessed an ability to place her feelings for the Master Chief above the rest of humanity or the galaxy when she told the Iso-Didact that she wasn't doing what she was doing for them. It was obvious she meant that the Chief was more important to her than anything and anyone else, which is consistent with her behavior in halo 5. Don't forget also that on that last halo 4 level she had split herself into many different clones. It's possible that there are many versions of Cortana, or at least one more, still out there that isn't as radical as the current Cortana. There's no way of telling that what we are witnessing in Halo 5 isn't just a case of one of Cortana's more rampant clones gaining access to the wealth of knowledge that is the domain and using it in ways that only a rampant Cortana would be expected to.

Cortana did state the rest of her was destroyed, but you really and truly never know. I for one am a huge fan of Halo 5's campaign. Osiris' role was also well handled. All their exploits from the start of the game to the finish were meant to make it believable that they possessed the capabilities necessary to challenge and thwart a key element of Cortana's master plan to rule the galaxy. If Osiris didn't get that much screen-time it would've been a whole lot harder imagining them pulling off what they did when they rescued Blue Team and the Chief at the end. And Osiris' role was far more than the silly "stop chief from being badass" analysis of the article. They observed some very clear threats to the galaxy and they felt that maybe the Chief was a little too emotionally involved to be the right person to deal with the situation without some kind of intervention or assistance, and guess what? They were right! Osiris was just going with the information that they had. Their purpose wasn't solely just to screw over and stop Chief and Blue Team. It started out that way maybe, but it clearly became much more as the game progressed.

And as others have said, I laugh at anyone that believes the storytelling in previous Halo titles was somehow leaps and bounds better than what's present in Halo 4 and 5. It sure as hell wasn't.
 

Sordid

Member
I'm asking for a refund, this game is NOT UK friendly and when I get into BR battles, shoot first yet die because the servers think i'm a second behind in the battle i'm sorry but it's bullshit, I don't want to put up with this any longer and since 343 refuse to give us ping bars and server selections i've had enough.

The server selection improved last week but it seems to have reverted to mostly putting me into US servers again. Not going for a refund or anything but it's putting me off playing Arena solo which sucks because I'm never on at consistent times so usually have to play solo. I usually end up trying Warzone, get a crappy server or 2 then switch the Xbox off :(
 
Refused a refund, xbox support wanted to try and trouble shoot the lag issue lol, I left my feedback on the matter (true feedback, not a rage swear filled reply) and that was that :/

I'm rather bummed out that I have a game based around the US when it comes to multiplayer and it sucks.

I even bought up the single return game pass people seem to get but they said it was a game by game basis, I could tell they did not want to refund me.
 
That kotaku article about the Halo campaigns post bungie is quite possibly the biggest load of garbage I have ever read. Just because 343i didn't decide to baby and pamper gamers prior to Cortana's turn, doesn't mean that it somehow wasn't an amazing twist for the story, or that it doesn't make the stakes and the potential for the next Halo game much higher than they've ever been going from one title to the next.

Anybody that is even a tiny bit reasonable can see quite clearly that there's a lot more than meets the eye to
Cortana's character in Halo 5. She demonstrates some extremely altered, almost Iso-Didact in nature ideology, but at the same time there's still a strong degree of belief in, or care, for the Master Chief. Yes, a good bit of it could indeed turn out to be a trick, but there is enough in the game's story for even that to be in doubt. All 343i did in this game was they decided to focus more on setting the stage and waiting to tell us how the story threads established in Halo 5 and in Halo 4, end up playing out in Halo 6.

Their not including it all does not automatically make the story lackluster, and neither does their decision to tread more carefully with Master Chief and Blue Team's role in the overall story, and how they end up coping with the reality of the threat Cortana presents. They never did entirely see her as the 'enemy' in this one. She was still largely seen as someone who could be saved. The rest of Blue Team was less easily forgiving or blinded as the Chief was, but it's a dynamic that worked really well in Blue Team. With how this game ended there can be no doubt that the Chief suffers very little illusions now about what has to be done with Cortana. The Cortana he knew is no longer there.

And when you toss in Dr. Halsey and that spine tingling reunion with the chief, you just know shit is going to hit the fan in Halo 6. 343i has just set the stage perfectly for what could end up being the best story experience the Halo series has ever had. They've shown now through two games that they are a hell of a lot more in tune with the overall fiction and the characters themselves than even Bungie were, and that will only lead to better campaign experiences, not worse, which is why the last two games in the series have actually been the best overall experiences in my eyes.

I would say there was even clear evidence later in halo 4 that Cortana possessed an ability to place her feelings for the Master Chief above the rest of humanity or the galaxy when she told the Iso-Didact that she wasn't doing what she was doing for them. It was obvious she meant that the Chief was more important to her than anything and anyone else, which is consistent with her behavior in halo 5. Don't forget also that on that last halo 4 level she had split herself into many different clones. It's possible that there are many versions of Cortana, or at least one more, still out there that isn't as radical as the current Cortana. There's no way of telling that what we are witnessing in Halo 5 isn't just a case of one of Cortana's more rampant clones gaining access to the wealth of knowledge that is the domain and using it in ways that only a rampant Cortana would be expected to.

Cortana did state the rest of her was destroyed, but you really and truly never know. I for one am a huge fan of Halo 5's campaign. Osiris' role was also well handled. All their exploits from the start of the game to the finish were meant to make it believable that they possessed the capabilities necessary to challenge and thwart a key element of Cortana's master plan to rule the galaxy. If Osiris didn't get that much screen-time it would've been a whole lot harder imagining them pulling off what they did when they rescued Blue Team and the Chief at the end. And Osiris' role was far more than the silly "stop chief from being badass" analysis of the article. They observed some very clear threats to the galaxy and they felt that maybe the Chief was a little too emotionally involved to be the right person to deal with the situation without some kind of intervention or assistance, and guess what? They were right! Osiris was just going with the information that they had. Their purpose wasn't solely just to screw over and stop Chief and Blue Team. It started out that way maybe, but it clearly became much more as the game progressed.

And as others have said, I laugh at anyone that believes the storytelling in previous Halo titles was somehow leaps and bounds better than what's present in Halo 4 and 5. It sure as hell wasn't.

I agree with everything you've said about the campaign, I feel like 343 has a better grasp on the story than Bungie ever did.
 
Refused a refund, xbox support wanted to try and trouble shoot the lag issue lol, I left my feedback on the matter (true feedback, not a rage swear filled reply) and that was that :/

I'm rather bummed out that I have a game based around the US when it comes to multiplayer and it sucks.

I even bought up the single return game pass people seem to get but they said it was a game by game basis, I could tell they did not want to refund me.

While it sucks that you're having a shitty experience I can't really blame them for not wanting to give you a refund when you've played the game for more than 60 hours according to Waypoint. :p

I hope we get the option to select servers eventually...
 
It bums me out, because I like so many people at 343, and I like some of 343's ideas. I wish I could fly out to Microsoft and actually do some consulting work on the franchise, 'cause there's a lot of small things that could be done to tweak stuff.

Ok you're hired.

Start at Chief waking up at 4 and give me a galactic spanning threat that can compete with the flood and OG covenant firing off the Halo rings.

Make me feel like a hero every step of the way.
 
While it sucks that you're having a shitty experience I can't really blame them for not wanting to give you a refund when you've played the game for more than 60 hours according to Waypoint. :p

I hope we get the option to select servers eventually...

yes I did think play time might go against me and they most likely saw that on their profile listings, but I gave them the truth and did not lie so I don't feel guilty asking for a refund, it's not been a month yet.
 

Ramirez

Member
I'm not being an ass, but why is it always the same 2-3 guys complaining about lag? There's a ton of people here from overseas, and I never see much complaints from people I know like Ozzy(AUS) and Dani(Ireland?).
 
yes I did think play time might go against me and they most likely saw that on their profile listings, but I gave them the truth and did not lie so I don't feel guilty asking for a refund, it's not been a month yet.

Fair play. I'm mostly staying in WZ Assault until the JiP situation is sorted for BTB and play on EU servers pretty much all the time but the less populated playlists can be hit and miss which definitely is annoying...

I'm not being an ass, but why is it always the same 2-3 guys complaining about lag? There's a ton of people here from overseas, and I never see much complaints from people I know like Ozzy(AUS) and Dani(Ireland?).

It's fine most of the time for me and the lag compensation is pretty damn good IMO but there's usually a couple of engagements I think would have ended differently (in my favour) in every match I play on US servers. It's stuff like people clearly being able to see me a fraction of a second before I can see them which allows them to land 5 shots (according to the server) in the time it takes me to shoot 4 shots, even if I begin firing immediately. Quite often I end up trading when I get a perfect kill and my opponent doesn't with the same weapon. I don't really take ranks seriously so it's not a deal breaker for me but it's definitely not great if you do.
 

Leyasu

Banned
Refused a refund, xbox support wanted to try and trouble shoot the lag issue lol, I left my feedback on the matter (true feedback, not a rage swear filled reply) and that was that :/

I'm rather bummed out that I have a game based around the US when it comes to multiplayer and it sucks.

I even bought up the single return game pass people seem to get but they said it was a game by game basis, I could tell they did not want to refund me.

Like sordid said last week was great, but this week has gone to shit. Tonight was basically like the first few weeks a mixture of local and out of region. Its so disappointing that they won't give us a ping limit for our game searching .

@ Ramirez, your not being an ass, plus its not lag what people are talking about dude. It's just rage posting...
 
I'm not being an ass, but why is it always the same 2-3 guys complaining about lag? There's a ton of people here from overseas, and I never see much complaints from people I know like Ozzy(AUS) and Dani(Ireland?).

Well,with dedicated servers, isn't that exactly what would happen?

The people with good connections will likely always have those same good connections. People with shite connections aren't going to suddenly move closer to their server's geographic location.
 
Biggest problem with the story is Osiris, they suck, worse addition to a Halo game in a long time and you play as them most of the time. Locke is even the worse part of Osiris and you're in his shoes instead of anyone else's. They messed up trying to make this a co-op game, having Blue Team around was cool, but they weren't done justice at all in game. Halo 5 would have been way more effective if it just focused on Chief. Could have allowed for things to get fleshed out, instead we have the useless Osiris, serving the useless plot of "hunting" Chief down, which wasn't needed in the slightest. What purpose did that actually serve? All it did was piss people off that they weren't in Chief's shoes.
 
I'm not being an ass, but why is it always the same 2-3 guys complaining about lag? There's a ton of people here from overseas, and I never see much complaints from people I know like Ozzy(AUS) and Dani(Ireland?).

maybe because I can feel it effecting my game more then a lot of casuals? I dunno but it's there and it's annoying, playing online games where the server is closer to one guy then another always has a benefit to the other guy even if it's a matter of frames, gunplay in halo relies on it with how fast you can BR someone.
 
I'm from the UK, and I never really feel like lag is or latency is in my games - better players than I, certainly. But not anything screwy server wise.

I would love to see videos of all this lag/latency - without wanting to sound like an ass, half of it is in your head. I remember Leyasu (?) posting a video claiming latency, and the vid showed he missed his shots and was outplayed. :/
 
And anyone who only plays the games probably knows nothing about ONI, the Outer Colonies, or any tension at all. It's only present in the expanded universe. I don't think that any of the main plot points, like Chief being the embodiment of a war crime or
Cortana going mad with power
, are bad but they're just thrown at us. We have so little context in the more recent Halo campaigns when we need it. The context does exist in the expanded universe, but relying on the expanded universe to be the only real context we have is a big issue with some of the more recent games.

If anything, I think H5G was extremely important in that it's basically the biggest shakeup to the state of the universe since Halo 2, and likewise allows for a format more befitting of what 343's trying to do: EU supplements the universe, while mainline games dictate the big plays. Going off of Halo 4, it's obviously going to be next to impossible to execute properly because of how many elements of that game's story were buried away in the EU to begin with, but H5G also ties up a ton of loose ends just in time for its finale, regarding the factions at play.

Prior to H5G, the potential factions / sub-factions in the game consisted of:

UNSC
ONI
Insurrection
Colonial Administration

Swords of Sanghelios
Jul's Covenant Remnant
Various other Covenant splinters, such as the Swords of Abiding Truth

Classic Forerunner intelligences and constructs
Evil Promethean shit

Flood (possibly; some are stored away in the Spirit of Fire)
Precursors awaiting return(?)

Now, following H5G, potential factions consist of:

People with Cortana
People against Cortana

Latent alien influences (e.g. Flood / Precursor resurgence)

wubbadubbadub is that true?
HUH

this space intentionally left to engirthen the spoiler bar size

That's way down, comparatively speaking, and more or less allows them to explore the various sub-factions / races / etc. at play while still managing them under way more broad and apparent categories. I'm expecting Halo 6 to more or less play out like CE with a minimal timeskip, similar to the jump between Fall of Reach and Combat Evolved, where (H5G end spoilers)
you have the Infinity having made an emergency slipspace jump to escape Cortana's unstoppable set of Guardians with no idea where it's headed, but at the same time the Infinity is aware that it's being tracked. Two major sides, random slipspace trajectory, probably going to stumble upon some giant ancient artifact, room for a third party to come in and fuck shit up in the third act. It makes total sense!
 
Kotaku shits on 343 for their campaigns and story telling and they're totally right.

Agree with the story criticisms for the last games. Halo 4's story to me just seemed like a plot device to kill off Cortana because we had to deal with her rampancy at some point. I give that game points for the Composer cutscene though, because it bothers to show how dangerous the Didact is. The threat of the Guardians in Halo 5 are all told and never shown beyond an EMP at the end of the game. There was a trailer that showed a Guardian tearing apart a city - where was that in the game? Reach didn't do the best job illustrating how massive the invasion was, but it still showed the stakes - and they didn't have as large of an amount of technical bandwidth to throw around.

The gameplay stuff on the other hand has me confused. Halo 5 is probably the least challenging Halo game up until Legendary. You can absolutely run and gun on Heroic except when you're in the middle of a giant firefight and they all have Suppressors. You're otherwise not penalized for it because the AI behavior is easy read and exploit, even in spite of whatever sponginess they may exhibit. It's definitely improved over Halo 4, where you could be out of an Elite's awareness bubble and shoot them until they died right where they stood. But there have been many instances where the AI has stopped shooting at me entirely while my team revived me (if they eve managed to get to me), including the Warden. The only way I beat the last fight on my first playthrough was because Warden didn't slash my whole team when he stood right on top of us.

Legendary is different and closer to older games in difficulty. However, with the way the encounters are set up, it takes a lot of fun out of experimenting as you stick to cover and whittle down enemies across the map one by one. Co-op is a great deal better, but solo with the squad system left me thoroughly unsatisfied. The vehicular portions would be mostly an exception.

I think 343 understands Halo, but I'm not sure if they're able to capture and recreate its essence, or if they even want to. Or perhaps that's backwards.

At the very least, it'd be nice if the next game had good AI on par with the older titles. This is two games now where their Elites have been anything but.
 
I'm from the UK, and I never really feel like lag is or latency is in my games - better players than I, certainly. But not anything screwy server wise.

I would love to see videos of all this lag/latency - without wanting to sound like an ass, half of it is in your head. I remember Leyasu (?) posting a video claiming latency, and the vid showed he missed his shots and was outplayed. :/

next time I get one i'll xbox dvr it.
 

Ramirez

Member
maybe because I can feel it effecting my game more then a lot of casuals? I dunno but it's there and it's annoying, playing online games where the server is closer to one guy then another always has a benefit to the other guy even if it's a matter of frames, gunplay in halo relies on it with how fast you can BR someone.

I just think you exaggerate a lot, that's all.

As Sik said, the only video evidence any of you have posted showed that there was no lag, just lack of thumb skill, lol.

I mean I get plenty of games that I can tell aren't east coast servers, but it's certainly not bad enough that I need a refund.
 

Strider

Member
I guess Ram is basically just asking if it's actually the servers faults or is it an issue on your end with your internet.

I too find it odd some people in the Uk report the game playing fine and others say it's terrible.

I hope it gets sorted tho whatever the issue is
 
I'm not being an ass, but why is it always the same 2-3 guys complaining about lag? There's a ton of people here from overseas, and I never see much complaints from people I know like Ozzy(AUS) and Dani(Ireland?).

If I'm in a near full party things are pretty bloody solid, we rarely get an overseas dedicated server but when we do you can easily tell as the whole team struggles to get kills. Very much as the lag posters rant about. I wonder how much tracking goes into who you play with an their latency in relation to you and the dedis selected? We tend to play with the same guys'n'gals most week nights.

If I'm solo things are more hit and miss but generally I rank Halo 5 dedis as the best online multiplayer game to date on Xbox OG, 360 or X1. Killer Instinct is just below Halo 5 but has insanely great dedis still where Titanfall a couple of weeks after launch when it got Aussie servers was awesome as all hell.

Coop H5 has been a really pleasant experience with 4 players from local Aus too. 343 & MS have impressed in this department. I'd prefer to be in control of my searching regions but I do have to hand it to them as they are taking care of business in a very fine balancing act of like 8 spinning plates in the air, as far as matchmaking and dedis go.

Gametypes, maps and playlists are another story...where the hell are rounds in Warzone Assault, why not some attack and defense with CTF etc? What happened to carrying a bomb?
 

Leyasu

Banned
I'm from the UK, and I never really feel like lag is or latency is in my games - better players than I, certainly. But not anything screwy server wise.

I would love to see videos of all this lag/latency - without wanting to sound like an ass, half of it is in your head. I remember Leyasu (?) posting a video claiming latency, and the vid showed he missed his shots and was outplayed. :/

I will slowly put my hand up and say that the vid I posted was not hmmm great. But...

Anyway, I will get a couple of vids to compare before the weekend. Like ozzy above said, when this works, it is like nothing other. When the servers are well over 100ms (from titanfall my lowest US server ping is 120+), it is a different story all together.
 
I will slowly put my hand up and say that the vid I posted was not hmmm great. But...

Anyway, I will get a couple of vids to compare before the weekend.

Sorry to single you out man, but I think if there is a widespread issue, collecting and posting info with match links and vids of the experience would be good - perhaps info that could be collected and passed on to 343 to see if improvements can be made.
 
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