I doubt it, I'm not very big on one life MP. I'm also funneling all funds into my kids Christmas at the moment, lol.
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Halo 5: Guardians |OT2| All Hail The Conquering Hero
- Thread starter Slightly Live
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I doubt it, I'm not very big on one life MP. I'm also funneling all funds into my kids Christmas at the moment, lol.
inoperativ
Member
Excellent hahah!
It's the pve
I believe the people playing destiny spend more time in PVE situations than pvp (unless it's Iron Banner or Trial of Osiris time)
Halo needs fire fight
I understand 100%. I'm struggling to pull the gun on it myself with all the money that is going to be spent later in the month lol not to mention I've spent a decent amount of games this month.
ZeezbruhTV
Member
Our rule is if they want to do the armory glitch, then they get punished for it.
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
Lmao I was waiting for someone to sum up why I just can't get into h5
I'm not ashamed to admit this is exactly the reason.
The Antitype
Banned
Saying it's the PVE is overly simplistic.
The key features that most of the successful games - not just shooters, but games, period - have is persistence and progression.
For Destiny, the persistent and progression is provided via the loot grind. Everything you do in the game, in every mode, goes toward RNG rolls, or towards building rep with factions (which lead to more RNG rolls), or getting specific pieces of gear that they can carry from that point on both as a sign of cred to other players, and to provide actual benefit in gameplay.
For COD, it's the level grind. New weapons, add-ons, perks, prestiges etc.
Both feed into one, single, persistent online identity. Every match, or game, contributes to it in some way.
The only persistent progression in Halo 5 exists in your stat profile and your REQ collection. The latter only has in-game consequence in Warzone. Firefight could help by giving players another mode to earn and use their REQ cards, (and frankly, so would some kind of scoring mode in campaign that allowed for REQ card use).
But that's not really as much of a draw, because you don't really 'own' anything. In Destiny, you get a cool drop, you don't only get so many uses until RNG blesses you again. In Halo 5, you use up all your Whiplash cards, you're SOL. Outside of the loadout weapons, there's no real sense of significant unlocking. That's part of the reason why the simple REQ 6 DMR is more coveted than the most powerful REQ 8 power-weapons (along with the DMR just being great for large maps, obviously).
Truthfully, the piece of persistence and progression that most players care about - particularly those that spend more time in Arena, is their stat profile. Their rankings, W/L, K/D, etc. That's where they see all their time and investment actually making a persistent impact. And that's what Bungie wanted, which is why the player's stat page is as easy to view in Halo 5 as the player's gear loadout is to view in Destiny.
They wanted Halo to be purely competitive. Which is fine. But if you're going to push that as your identity, then you better damn sure have the complimentary systems in place to ensure new players or lapsed players can get into the progression at any stage. Hook them and keep them. And frankly, the matchmaking and ranking systems are so disastrously bad, that they're failing to do so. COD and Destiny have the benefit that their progression and persistence draws don't require tight matchmaking. You get your ass kicked in COD or Destiny, you're still gaining XP toward that new unlock, or a chance at a nice loot drop.
In Halo 5, the persistence is wrapped up in the competitive pursuit, and they've absolutely dropped the ball at ensuring every match is competitive and fun for the player. The carrot-on-the-stick for Halo is watching that K/D and W/L increase. When you're constantly getting your ass kicked in one-sided mismatches, then the carrot gets further and further away, and you say 'fuck it'.
PVE will help. But it's not the fix many people are claiming it would be.
There is no way short of completely shifting philosophy and focus away from the purely competitive toward some other form of persistent progression, or completely overhauling the poor matchmaking and ranking systems that Halo 5 can ever hope to move up into the top 10 most played games on Xbox Live.
Hehe cohesive is the last adjective I'd use to describe 343i's work so far. They were tasked with carrying on Halo's legacy. A much better tact would have been to take what Bungie has done with the franchise and build on it, not gut everything that people loved and replace it with mediocrity.
I thought they learned that lesson after H4, and after seeing some Early H5 gameplay. I even think they took some steps in the right direction with H5's multiplayer tuning. But the continued absence of Bungie modes (firefight, oddball, infection, etc) leaves such an unnecissary void and the game suffers for it.
The irony is that the attempt to strong arm their way out of Bungie's shadow, they've landed squarely in it.
Poodlestrike
Banned
It's already in.
See, this is just wrong, though. H4 built directly on Reach. That was rather the problem. The absence of modes is almost certainly not an intentional part of the strategy, that's just ridiculous. Much more likely to be simple time/resource constraints.
inoperativ
Member
Warzone Firefight (or another PVE mode) alone is not enough, they need to make people feel like the time they invest in playing the game is getting them somewhere if they want to compete with Destiny and CoD for players like the guy who wrote the Eurogamer article. The REQ system is great but since it doesn't offer that many genuine advantages to players that have spent a lot of time playing the game (by design) it's always going to lose for people who are more interested in grinding better gear and stats than the actual gameplay. I don't think there's much you can do about that while remaining committed to how Halo is "supposed" to play according to the people who are still left (making it possible to spend REQ points on specific cosmetic items would be one thing though, would give people more specific goals to grind towards).
Still yeah I really want a PVE mode that allows REQ use, and I don't think there's anything permanent about the decline of the popularity of the series. If 343 provide solid content updates throughout the next year (and hopefully beyond) and keep listening to the community they will have a lot more good will around the release of the next game. I also think leaving out split screen was a terrible decision all around which genuinely cost them sales, at least based on anecdotal evidence, and sorting stuff like that out will help immensely. Just make split screen 30 FPS locked, the people who really want it will be playing campaign co-op with their nephews/dads/uncles and really don't give a shit about the performance as long as it's playable. Even add something like Perfect Dark's Counter Operative mode for specific encounters in the campaign (one player controls MC and the other player an enemy and takes control over another enemy when killed), I know Warzone is supposed to be the mode which appeals to casual gamers and that other series don't already have but you still get destroyed if you can't BR/magnum consistently so it's kind of hard to sell to someone who just wants to have some light competitive fun.
Halo 5's position is IMO a result of a combination of neither appealing to the hardcore FPS gamer who has succumbed to the grind of CoD/Destiny, or the casual shooter fan who wants some fun modes and a decent amount of content. The good thing is that it also is in a position where some not-too-massive additions could address both of these crowds without alienating the core fans. Some of them will definitely not happen until Halo 6 if ever, but I'll be very frustrated if there are no changes to this situation after all of the updates are out. Having said all of that, I've still never had problems finding games so the population is more than good enough for now as far as I'm concerned.
Sure, H4 was heavily influenced by reach... But reach itself was off-putting. It was a huge mistake to let that game be their major influence (a point that I see they've learned with H5). Maybe I should have said they should build on Bungie's ideas that resulted in positive momentum for the franchise.
I really don't care if the absence of modes was intentional or the result of time/resource constraints. I'm a consumer who purchased something, and I'm stating what dissatisfied me. Whatever their excuse is, doesn't change the fact that people are underwhelmed by the final product.
Other consumers, apparently are also dissatisfied. 343i and MS either need to adjust their strategy, or better prioritize their time and resources to make sure that the features modes and gametypes that people expect are ready for launch.
Hope you you get them bro.
Poodlestrike
Banned
You have every right to be dissatisfied. But your criticisms before were not about being dissatisfied, they were broader in scope, attributing motive to the lack of modes and using them to demonstrate some kind of systematic issue.
Be unhappy, fine, that's your (and everybody's) prerogative, but that particular point was baseless.
(And in case anybody's going "lol why do you care stop slrping, I'd like to see the same kind of demand for rigor that positive criticism receives applied to negative criticism. It's a thing I'm working on.)
Destiny has some of the best gunplay ever. And this is coming from someone that's been playing games for over 20 years. Also, Destiny welcomes folks from levels of skills and gives everyone a fun activity to do.
jfoul
Member
WHOA WHOA WHOA, I do just as much positive criticism for this game as I do negative. If not more.
When it comes to applying motive to the lack of modes, specifically firefight, I was responding to another poster who claimed the lack of firefight was an attempt for 343i to leave their own marks on the franchise. If that's the case, then they have replaced it with mediocrity (Spartan ops in H4, nothing in H5). There is no argument against that. I strongly doubt that time is why we don't have firefight. If it were ever a priority for 343i then we would have gotten it in some form between H4 an today.
And there IS a systematic issue with 343i launching Halo games without features and functions people expect.
There was no firefight in H4 and it launched without any sort of MP that could be considered arena. Spartan Ops missions were nothing more than thrusting users into the same playspaces with slightly different objectives. MCC MP was broken for a long ass time. And H5 shipped without splitscreen, campaign scoring, forge, big team battle, oddball, King of the Hill, firefight, and a lack of map variety. There are 0 dev made BTB maps.
There's no objective way to look at this situation and not see a systematic issue.
I love halo5. I've said it time and time again in this thread. But there are some issues with this franchises management. There is no way around it.
100% agreed
Destiny's gunplay is unbelievably overrated. It feels pretty good because the guns have a nice kick to them and enemy hit reactions are well done. However it has very little depth to it and the skill ceiling is really low because there's a massive amount of aim assist and huge bullet magnetism.
Hitting a headshot just isn't satisfying because it's so easy to do. Every weapon in Destiny is like the sniper in H5.
RedSparrows
Member
Again, Firefight would be nice, but you are NOT going to see the same levels of engagement in the same way. The two games are fundamentally different in their core design and engagement. Halo tacking on 'PvE' experiences is not going to match Destiny's cynical addictive pull. As an extra option though, bring it.
RedSparrows
Member
And yet I frequently have excellent matches. In fact, most of them are pretty good, with the odd stomp either way. What gives? Let me in on the secret!
Yeah, I've had more extremely close games a month of H5 than I have had in any other Halo.
The skill matching works very well to get close matches.
It's not overrated at all. Don't care about the skill ceiling one bit as long as the game is fun to play. Secondly, Halo 5 has fun gunplay as well, but controls are weird and map design lacks any of the Halo soul. I'd like to see maps integrate nature and have more colors. No more UNSC stuff.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Copperhead, I think. Check Waypoint.
Don't worry, I'm not accusing you of being some kind of hyper negative troll or anything similar
Just making a broader point that the criticism you gave doesn't line up with the facts as we know them.And I'm inclined to agree that there are issues with franchise management, as evidenced by the mixed reception of 4 and 5, but I don't think that the root causes are the ones you named initially. Furthermore, I feel that H4 and H5's problems come from very different places, so attributing them to the same root cause doesn't make a ton of sense. That's what I'm objecting to here. I'm not saying that there's not problems, I'm saying that I feel that the source of the problems is different than the one you gave.
H4's issues were fourfold: expanding on Reach (clearly a poor decision), casualizing the game, prioritizing visuals over campaign gameplay, and using EU elements without sufficient explanation. H5's problems are simply a dearth of available content and some shaky storytelling. These are two dramatically different sets of issues, and I'm not sure how you can link them to the same core cause unless that cause is reductionist to the point of being "lol 343 sux," which again, I don't think you were doing, but you'd need to.
Poodlestrike
Banned
It does a lot right, but most of the best stuff came well after launch, IMO. Turbo update did wonders.
5 has fun gunplay which is also skillful (for most of the weapons at least). In Destiny the guns pretty much aim themselves.
I think 343 really needs more bargaining power. I don't know that they don't have it, but if they really did, I feel like they would've told Microsoft that they needed to delay MCC and 5. MCC because it didn't work and 5 because it needed more content. Like I think that's a problem they have that Bungie didn't. I could be completely wrong. I mean, there's nothing but speculation to back this up. But Bungie never seemed to have a problem launching a good Halo game as an outside studio, while 343, as an internal studio, has had a lot of problems launching good Halo games. From an outsider's perspective, I would guess that 343 just doesn't have the power to tell Microsoft no on some things.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Bungie never delayed anything, they just got super fucking lucky
H2 apparently got thrown together in less than a year after they had to throw out nearly everything.
Zeouterlimits
Member
You imply 343 knew about MCC's matchmaking issues in advance. They've said repeatedly and talked pretty candidly (assuming I recall correctly) that they were completely caught off guard.
The most overused word by the Halo community. Majority of skill comes from moment-to-moment decision making and utilizing the correct tactic. Secondly, aim assist is needed for a smooth experience on a controller. No one likes fighting the controls when using precious time to play a video game. That's why I stopped playing Halo 5, the controls are just too much of a hassle.
Still enjoy watching Snipedown or Walshy though.
343 says a lot of things. I don't believe that they didn't know in advance that it was going to launch in a shitty, shitty state. I mean, the game launched with issues like 1th place and being able to boot people out of matchmade games. Those aren't issues that only appear when a lot of people start playing a game.
RedSparrows
Member
So there is skill? Which is used by people like Snipedown and Walshy?
How can I play Halo 5 with a good deal of pleasure? I use an Xbox One pad, standard fare. I tweaked the sensitivities, and hey, I shoot people.
The Jackdog
Member
thats the thing, i think, for me. parties were broken, bugs everywhere. the game was littered with bugs. not JUST matchmaking not working
inoperativ
Member
Skill is maybe not the right word but I very much like that getting a perfect medal in Halo 5 actually feels like an achievement. The controls work very well IMO, there's plenty of aim assist -- just not as much as in Destiny or the previous Halo games. It does take some time getting used to when switching between other games but it's nowhere near as bad as it was to switch between Timesplitters and CE back in the day, for example.
Still, of course it would be great to give people the opportunity to choose between more standard aim acceleration and the curve they're using right now and I hope that's included as part of the aim update, but I'm not sure I would make that switch myself.
Edit: if you want to experience truly bad aiming, try Perfect Dark Zero... Playing through it again on Rare Replay and holy shit it's so infuriating to have such a good or even great game ruined by ridiculous aiming.
Ok? When did I say there wasn't?
I played the shit out of Timesplitters and CE - aiming just felt better. In fact, my friend and I would make custom maps for hours and just fuck around in Timesplitters. Personally, I can't wait for the aiming update to release. I know not everyone has issues with it, but I hate it.
Gabotron ES
Member
Copperhead, I think. Check Waypoint.
Don't worry, I'm not accusing you of being some kind of hyper negative troll or anything similar
And I'm inclined to agree that there are issues with franchise management, as evidenced by the mixed reception of 4 and 5, but I don't think that the root causes are the ones you named initially. Furthermore, I feel that H4 and H5's problems come from very different places, so attributing them to the same root cause doesn't make a ton of sense. That's what I'm objecting to here. I'm not saying that there's not problems, I'm saying that I feel that the source of the problems is different than the one you gave.
H4's issues were fourfold: expanding on Reach (clearly a poor decision), casualizing the game, prioritizing visuals over campaign gameplay, and using EU elements without sufficient explanation. H5's problems are simply a dearth of available content and some shaky storytelling. These are two dramatically different sets of issues, and I'm not sure how you can link them to the same core cause unless that cause is reductionist to the point of being "lol 343 sux," which again, I don't think you were doing, but you'd need to.
What criticism did I give that doesn't line up with the facts? I'm confused at this point.
When I look back at the post that got your attention, I don't see myself stating that H5s problems grew out of H4s. I'm saying that this is the second mainline 343 game that has launched missing things that halo fans have come to expect over the years.
And twice that development time was spent building things that ARE unique to 343, but aren't string replacements to what Bungie has given us.
If I could trade Infinity MP, Spartan OPs, Breakout, and Strongholds for Firefight, oddball, and KotH, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And I actually like breakout and strongholds
Poodlestrike
Banned
That the root cause of the problems with 343's Halo is their desperation to do things differently than Bungie.
No. You're just wrong.
Being able to outshoot someone is a necessary skill to have in Halo if you want to be good. Obviously it's not the only skill factor but it's a large one.
And yes, aim assist is pretty important on consoles. However you can go too far with it such as with Destiny where the guns require very little skill to aim. It's pretty much whoever shoots first wins.
inoperativ
Member
I really struggled to get used to the completely different styles of aiming when switching between the two. I never learnt to use the sniper in Timesplitters properly hahah.
Is it just the acceleration curve that throws you off or something else? Genuinely interested since that's the only thing I notice as different when playing.
See, all you're doing is talking down on Destiny to bring up Halo. It's a weak argument. Halo and Destiny are different games. Secondly, every other Halo game had better controls than Halo 5. I have NEVER complained about controls for a Halo game. And what's even weird is that the beta played perfectly fine.
I can move between any shooters without problems, but when I boot up Halo 5, it feels like the gun goes all over the place. Especially in CQC. I tried everything to fix it. Also, there are no social playlists and Warzone is boring as fuck. I don't like experimenting with controls in arena because it will just bring the team down.
The Gaming side thread is going to get me banned, watch it coming guys.
rakkadakka
Member
COD is what ate Halo's lunch. It has been and will continue to do so.
Destiny PVP is fun for a laugh but there's very little in there that feels competitive. Way too many one shot kill abilities and bullshit gear that you have to grind to play with. It's a shame too when games like Guild Wars 1 showed pretty clearly how to have an MMO style game with balanced, fun as hell PVP.
Gaming side threads about Halo are an absolute waste though. Lots of opinions from people who pretty clearly don't play the game anymore or have any interest in doing so.
Destiny PVP is fun for a laugh but there's very little in there that feels competitive. Way too many one shot kill abilities and bullshit gear that you have to grind to play with. It's a shame too when games like Guild Wars 1 showed pretty clearly how to have an MMO style game with balanced, fun as hell PVP.
Gaming side threads about Halo are an absolute waste though. Lots of opinions from people who pretty clearly don't play the game anymore or have any interest in doing so.
No, that really wasn't my argument at all. I asked what Bungie has against firefight. Someone replied that Bungie wanted to do there own thing with the franchise.
I have no idea why 343i chose to omit or reduce the priority of many of the modes Bungie made classic, but it was a bad choice. The root cause is really irrelevant.
Poodlestrike
Banned
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