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[BraXzy]

Started my new job yesterday PogChamp.png

 

[blue_phazon]

Started my new job yesterday PogChamp.png

Congrats? What is it?

 

[orichalcos]

Any chance of getting a single player expansion for halo 5?

No. The story continue in Halo 6.

 

[NippleViking]

They could toy with a few things like:

1. One WZ map F2P.
2. One Arena playlist F2P.
3. W10 Forge F2P.
4. Offer an upgrade from F2P for the full game @ $25 and throw in some bonus REQs.
5. Bundle with slim consoles and digital code for any future OG X1 sales.

Only they know the comparative F2P loss vs cash in on what's left of potential sales. I'd like to think at some point they'll decide to push Halo to the other 75% of X1s out there and more.

Yep. After post-launch content plan is complete, Halo 5:F2P may actually be a very attractive offering.

 

[TCKaos]

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/MyExWlFE/video/18388474

We were down the entire match because the other team got most of the bosses, we clutch captured two bases at the same time (monument and north), then FAT called in a ghost ultra to destroy the core, while I ran back to monument to stop the recapture just in time and we end up winning.

"You can still destroy the enemy core" finally came true.

We've played literally thousands of games combined, and I think this might be the first time that we were down by 400+ points and managed to destroy the core at the last minute as Palmer advertises.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/MyExWlFE/video/18388474

We were down the entire match because the other team got most of the bosses, we clutch captured two bases at the same time (monument and north), then FAT called in a ghost ultra to destroy the core, while I ran back to monument to stop the recapture just in time and we end up winning.

"You can still destroy the enemy core" finally came true.

ha thats pretty cool. those are the kind of games where I'd be on the other team XD

 

[SmartWaffles]

And even warzone is all for solo vs teams, and it keeps putting me back into the game I just quit. And it keeps matchmake against the same full team.

Thinking about deleting Halo to save some space now.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Again, the pricing of the Mechanized Mayhem and Mythic Warzone packs is just a bit too high for my liking. $10 for 3 guaranteed vehicle certification unlocks is too steep. I'd actually consider paying $10 if it was 6 guaranteed unlocks since I only have 6 vehicle certs left =) But I'll just suffer through the gold grind instead.

And even warzone is all for solo vs teams, and it keeps putting me back into the game I just quit. And it keeps matchmake against the same full team.

Thinking about deleting Halo to save some space now.

No doubt. It's super frustrating. I really think a solo queue would do wonders to the population, but it doesn't seem to be a priority for 343 at the moment. An announcement at E3 that 343 is at least considering it would be really awesome.

 

[jem0208]

So here's the thing: a designer wants to give the player enough information that the player can complete their goal, but the designer wants to keep enough information from the player so that it isn't a cakewalk. I'll ignore PvE entirely, as I know the crux of this argument is in the PvP side. When it comes to one player shooting at another, the most important thing at a very basic level is whether or not they got a hit or a miss.

Now what tools can a designer utilize to let the player know that they have a hit or a miss? They could have a number pop up showing how much damage was dealt. With a health bar, this is huge. This lets the player know not only how much damage was dealt in raw numbers, but also essentially how much more they have to deal. Even without a health bar, it's giving players incredibly detailed information about what they've just done. I'm just going to toss this one aside right away. There's no challenge in learning, and when a shot misses, it doesn't feel as big of a deal, because another number will pop up on the next hit. (A good look at this is in Destiny. Engagements don't feel as big of a deal in part because of the feedback system.)

Let's abstract that concept just a bit and say there's a hit marker. This adds a bit of challenge to learning, as you are forced to learn how many hits will net a kill. Strangely enough, misses feel like a bigger deal than they did with numbers. The big problem lies in the moment to moment decision making that hit markers give. In a simple retreat encounter, Player A tries to disengage from Player B. Player B has counted 9 BR hit markers on Player A. In a situation with hit markers Player B knows that from just those 9 hit markers, that it's more than likely a good idea to immediately follow up on the attack. What has Player B learned from that encounter aside from counting hit markers?

Let's take a look at no UI elements signalling hits, and just at in-game visual and audio effects, while also using the Player A/B scenario from before. In this scenario, Player B has to learn how much damage they've dealt in correspondence with how intense the effect is on their screen. There's a higher level of learning and still misses feel like a big deal. Moment to moment decision making is based more on previous learning than on counting a UI element.

Now when would having hit markers be more valuable than not? It's primarily in debugging what isn't working. The best example is in Halo 3. Inconsistent networking conditions could cause sniper shots to be blood shots. With hit markers, the game would respond by not showing a hit marker, because it didn't fully register. Without them, players tended to waste multiple shots. But take note that under normal conditions, this wouldn't be an issue. So now a big question to the designer should be "When do I allow players to see if things are in an abnormal condition?" With hit markers enabled, the answer is always. Like I said before, the problem is that it lessens the challenge in learning the game.

I think it'd be an interesting experiment to have players that have a high ping to the server give hit markers when they are hit, while other players don't. It isn't the best solution, but I think it could be interesting. If I were the designer in question, I would only use them as a post game tool in Theater. This allows players to go back in and see what went wrong on certain engagements. Ideally, using Focused settings would allow players to avoid abnormal networking conditions altogether(but we all know that isn't the case in reality). In all honesty, I don't see hit markers going anywhere; I think it's as ingrained in 343's Halo as Sprint. I would love for the game to go back to as good of a feedback system as Reach had.

Note: I think that the increase/decrease in challenge is negligible with hitmarkers, however, for the sake of argument I'm going to assume it isn't...


Alright, first off the concept of the skill gap is important in this argument. The skill gap is the difference between the skill ceiling and the skill floor. Everyone knows what the skill ceiling is but the definition of the skill floor is a bit more nebulous. In the case of my argument I'm defining the skill floor as the base level skill and knowledge required to function properly in a match.

Now, your argument is fundamentally flawed due to the fact that increasing challenge in learning is not always good (in general I'd argue it's a bad thing).

Generally you always want to increase the skill ceiling, it means the game offers more depth is more rewarding to master among other benefits. However, the exact opposite is true with the skill floor, you should always try and decrease the skill floor. The base level skills in a game (in the case of Halo, things like shooting, running/sprinting, jumping etc.) should be as easy as possible to pick up and learn to a basic level, otherwise you introduce a large amount of frustration for new players with no benefit to high level play. To use a fairly clichéd line: The game should be easy to learn but hard to master.

Hitmarkers have very little to no effect on the skill ceiling, adding or removing them is not going to change the outcome of any engagements or a match at high level play. This is because high level players will have enough experience to know when their shots are connecting (barring problems such as lag). In high level play weapon hitmarkers are essentially superfluous information. (Side note: I think adding the option to remove hitmarkers would be a good thing for those who find them annoying/useless).

The place where hitmarkers do have an effect is at the bottom of the skill gap or the skill floor. Adding hitmarkers makes the game more accessible (lowers the skill floor) as it's effectively a teaching tool, it helps newer players understand when they are missing or hitting shots. As I said before, shooting is a base skill in Halo and learning it to a basic level should be as easy as possible.

 

[IHaveIce]

If you count hitmarkers or shieldflashes or shots doesn't seem to make a difference to me. Grenade Hitmarkers should go since they just promote blind grenade spam.

Shot-hitmarkers I see no real problem with even after Karl's great written paragraph.

 

[Akai__]

Halo 3 ruined its self, worst multiplayer, slow movement speed, shield doors, equipment,,,

At least the campaign is among the best.

All I'm saying is that hitscan is the last change Halo 3 needs. Not sure if you have played Halo 3 on MCC, but when the Dedicated Servers actually work, it plays like a dream. Even BTB is still yet undefeated in terms of how much fun it was. You can even make a direct comparison with the Valhalla and Sandtrap remakes that Halo 5 has. Hitscan is absolutely ruining those 2 maps, with the BR that can cross map you. But I agree with Shield Doors, Equipment and Movement Speed, though. Those could really see an improvement.

If H3A is happening, then I only want to see the campaign getting the Anniversary treatment. We really don't need yet an other Halo MP game, as it will only split the community again. Halo 5 has a really good MP and it needs all the support it can get, until Halo 6 is out.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

So Aussie party of 7 gets party joining clusterfuck as usual, cross game chat works fine for 10 though. Down to fireteam of 6 and we get a game of Turbo. Next down to 5 and can't find BTB focused or balanced. Now 5 can't find WZ assault focused/balanced. Aussie population eats dicks and I guess everyone just wants turbo craziness.

 

[jizzlobber]

RIP warzone in Australia, tried narrowing my search and all you get is the same Osiris and Anzac teams who kill farm over and over... I'm going back to US servers where I can get a decent game.

I never quit out of a game until rank 144, if I get banned for quitting after being farmed then 343 can jam the game up their arse

 

[op_ivy]

Yeah same. I didn't watch any of the other matches outside of Optic-Liquid, but it makes me happy to see that Optic can still put together a good win. APG was really impressive tonight.

aPG and liquid are in a weird spot. for those that dont know, just before the last chance qualifier for pro league aPG suffered a concussion forcing him to leave liquid until he could recover. liquid's coach, assault, stepped in for him. aPG felt that that spot was now assaults and being a stand up guy didnt/doesnt want to bump him off the squad. naded retired from the season, opening up his spot on optic which aPG was able to fill. but i'd imagine liquid would really rather have aPG and i think you could make a strong argument that aPG would find more success on liquid. really curious if they will swap assault for aPG when roster changes are allowed, i think even assault would be fine with it.

 

[Cheddahz]

I was going through my Xbox clips yesterday and realized I had a bunch of clips from Halo 5, so I decided to put them together in a video and while putting the video together, I realized that I need to stop playing so much Overwatch and head back to Halo 5 someday, because man, it is a wonderful game

 

[Fuchsdh]

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/MyExWlFE/video/18388474

We were down the entire match because the other team got most of the bosses, we clutch captured two bases at the same time (monument and north), then FAT called in a ghost ultra to destroy the core, while I ran back to monument to stop the recapture just in time and we end up winning.

"You can still destroy the enemy core" finally came true.

I think I've had full comebacks maybe five or six times? Honestly all with randoms too. Unless you're playing against a focused team they tend to relax and stop calling shit in figuring they've got it in the bag, it's actually pretty easy if you can move fast and have competent teammates to turn the tables.

 

[User 73706]

That FOV is gonna make you develop gills.

It's just for stress-testing purposes. 1080p60fps128fov is what I have right now, but somewhere between 90 and 108 will probably end up being the default. You can't really tell with how low-quality the capture is (i'm just using Xbox DVR for now), but there's also some post-processing in that uses a photoshop-style Overlay effect in real time + some blurring at the screen's edges to make sure you have a fairly wide FOV, but with a significantly smaller fovea within.

blop blop blop blop blop blop blop blop

I don't necessarily have a problem with hitmarkers themselves, if anything I just think it's that H5 (and to a lesser extent 4) promote such aggressive traversal that the player isn't generally encouraged to do anything but pursue enemies if they score a hit. If the movement suite was designed to encourage original trilogy-type gameplay with hitmarkers included, I don't doubt it could be done, but H5 definitely promotes more of a cat-and-mouse speed chess than an equal-footing one. That being said, I do think I'd rather hitmarkers only show up on direct hits (e.g. sticking players, hydra, etc.) rather than giving players hitmarkers when radial damage (mainly from explosives) is applied.

 

[Akai__]

Halo Wars 2 Beta taking place from 13th-20th. This will surely be an "available now" announcement at the Xbox Briefing.

I'm so excited to finally play this.

 

[link1201]

Halo Wars 2 Beta taking place from 13th-20th. This will surely be an "available now" announcement at the Xbox Briefing.

I'm so excited to finally play this.

I'll look forward to the streams. I suck at these types of games.

 

[singhr1]

Halo Wars 2 Beta taking place from 13th-20th. This will surely be an "available now" announcement at the Xbox Briefing.

I'm so excited to finally play this.

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

None of the screenshots show the base-building aspects right? I wonder if they changed the mechanics on that

 

[Caja 117]

Is it me not remembering all correctly, or in this Halo comebacks are more likely to happen compared to other Halo? I swear I have seen more comeback wins in this game When it comes to Slayer, then in Other Halo, I was playing a game the other night were my team was Wining 47-36, only to end up loosing 49-50, at some point the game was 49-42. last night Every game I played one of the team had a considerate margin, 10+ kill lead, only to be reduced to 1 or 2 kills.

 

[Fuchsdh]

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

None of the screenshots show the base-building aspects right? I wonder if they changed the mechanics on that

Nope. Just combat.

Brute vehicles look kind of funky, but interesting and still recognizable (new aerial vehicle tho.)

UNSC stuff looks like classic pre-war era for the most part.

 

[Samurai G0SU]

Is it me not remembering all correctly, or in this Halo comebacks are more likely to happen compared to other Halo? I swear I have seen more comeback wins in this game When it comes to Slayer, then in Other Halo, I was playing a game the other night were my team was Wining 47-36, only to end up loosing 49-50, at some point the game was 49-42. last night Every game I played one of the team had a considerate margin, 10+ kill lead, only to be reduced to 1 or 2 kills.

Last game i played was horrible for my experience.

Game started with 0-8. us losing.
Game ended like 36-50...

But i agre, comebacks can happen and when they do, it's marvelous!

 

[Garrett 2U]

Halo Wars 2 Beta taking place from 13th-20th. This will surely be an "available now" announcement at the Xbox Briefing.

I'm so excited to finally play this.

I'm. So. Pumped. !.

I've been trying to ignore the hype for E3, but Scorpio and Halo Wars 2 are making it very difficult.

 

[Caja 117]

Last game i played was horrible for my experience.

Game started with 0-8. us losing.
Game ended like 36-50...

But i agre, comebacks can happen and when they do, it's marvelous!

Is incredible regardless on which side you are on, it gives a sensation of great excitement, rewarding if you are pulling of the comeback and or of Self questioning if you blew up a large lead.

 

[ATOMICJORGE]

What happened to the Halo Wars 2 thread?

Edit: nevermind

 

[orichalcos]

Guys, what is this Mechanized Mayhem REQ Pack? I have all REQ cards (almost), can i buy this? (80k req point)

 

[jem0208]

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

None of the screenshots show the base-building aspects right? I wonder if they changed the mechanics on that

Creative Assembly's games typically don't have real time base building. I hope they haven't changed it and removed that...

 

[SmartWaffles]

Guys, what is this Mechanized Mayhem REQ Pack? I have all REQ cards (almost), can i buy this? (80k req point)

Not worth it, 80k for 3 certs while you can buy 8 golds for 16 unlocks.

 

[orichalcos]

Not worth it, 80k for 3 certs while you can buy 8 golds for 16 unlocks.

Thx dude.

 

[singhr1]

Creative Assembly's games typically don't have real time base building. I hope they haven't changed it and removed that...

Thats what i was thinking when they first announced it. I doubt it will become Total War-like but hey you never know.

I wouldnt mind some politics in my Halo.

 

[Feel the Swift]

Is it me not remembering all correctly, or in this Halo comebacks are more likely to happen compared to other Halo? I swear I have seen more comeback wins in this game When it comes to Slayer, then in Other Halo, I was playing a game the other night were my team was Wining 47-36, only to end up loosing 49-50, at some point the game was 49-42. last night Every game I played one of the team had a considerate margin, 10+ kill lead, only to be reduced to 1 or 2 kills.

Yes, especially in modes like Strongholds too where triple capping can send the other team into a frenzy and you can catch them off guard.

 

[The Real Napsta]

Not worth it, 80k for 3 certs while you can buy 8 golds for 16 unlocks.

You'll probably get more than 16 now thanks to that emblem slot.

 

[jfoul]

I really don't want to go through breakout placement this month. Is it required to place in all arena game types for the monthly emblem?

 

[link1201]

I really don't want to go through breakout placement this month. Is it required to place in all arena game types for the monthly emblem?

Nope, just place in one and you're good.

 

[Loomba]

I really don't want to go through breakout placement this month. Is it required to place in all arena game types for the monthly emblem?

Just one.

I think I've played like 2 games of breakout since release. Really doesn't interest me in the slightest

 

[jfoul]

Nope, just place in one and you're good.

Just one.

I think I've played like 2 games of breakout since release. Really doesn't interest me in the slightest

Damn, good to know. I've finished placement in all arena game types monthly since launch.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

I don't think we're ever going to see a ODST sequel.

Mostly because the behind the scenes of Fable Legends has shown that Microsoft really wants to shoe horn multiplayer into everything.

And I don't think a multiplayer could really fit with in ODST.

 

[Trup1aya]

I don't think we're ever going to see a ODST sequel.

Mostly because the behind the scenes of Fable Legends has shown that Microsoft really wants to shoe horn multiplayer into everything.

And I don't think a multiplayer could really fit with in ODST.

The original ODST just had H3 multiplayer + firefight...
I'd imagine An H5 ODST would just have H5 multiplayer

 

[Forerunner]

Halo Wars 2 Beta taking place from 13th-20th. This will surely be an "available now" announcement at the Xbox Briefing.

I'm so excited to finally play this.

That's looking good! However, I'll pass on the beta. I can't justify 13 GB for something that is temporary when I still have data caps. I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's impressions though.

 

[Sordid]

First time in a while where a match felt really smooth so of course it was against a full team...

absolutely pooped on haha. It's like 343 are actively trying to put folk off the game we really need a solo queue playlist.

 

[Granadier]

Anyone know of some Halo emoji?

 

[Forerunner]

Anyone know of some Halo emoji?

Spoiler

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[BizzyBum]

Anyone down to play? Arena or Warzone.

 

[Akai__]

Pro League is live again: https://www.twitch.tv/halo

 

[blue_phazon]

Is there gonna still be a weekly blog update today?

 

[Granadier]

Spoiler

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[sir_dany12]

Is there gonna still be a weekly blog update today?

Yes, I think

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Looks like E6 is going to take down EG.

 

[YourExWife]

Looks like E6 is going to take down EG.

Watching Snipedown's stream, it's just too many bad plays/decisions to comprehend. They are looking crazy rough.