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Halo 5: Guardians |OT5| Is HaloGAF irrelevant now?

mo60

Member
Yeah. I have matches in Warzone were I do insanely well in and get like nearly 30 kills and matches were I get pummeled by the enemy team and only get 4 kills. At least it's not as bad as before were you were farmed by the enemy team for 10 straight minutes. Also air vehicles are definitely still way to powerful in warzone despite the recent req changes.
 
However, probably one of the biggest reasons why I quit, I just wasn’t having fun. I don’t know how to explain it, but the game just wasn’t fun for me near the end. H5 had some really great gameplay, but there are just so many core problems not related to the gameplay that ruined it for me. I used to play the shit out of FF in Reach. I had days of playtime just in FF. WZFF on the other hand was just so mediocre. It didn’t capture the fun of FF at all. It was just a bunch of bullet sponge enemies with super long respawns to make it “challenging.” The most fun I had in H5 was with modes like Super Fiesta and things of that nature. They tried to capture that with bringing back Action Sack, but they ruin it with shit like Tank World. Fuck Tank World. It seems like for every step forward 343i makes they go back five.

There are a lot of times I actually think about coming back and playing. I do miss the gameplay and community. Then I just think about all the things I listed and it’s a huge turn off. Plus having to download 100GB doesn’t help. Anyways I’ll stop here. I could easily keep ranting on more, but whatever I’ll shut up.

BTB pistol starts

I'm a cynic so I'll naturally agree with this, but your point and woorloog's ring true for me.

For me, the problems boil down to mechanics. I can't say the gameplay is bad. It simply isn't enjoyable with long gameplay sessions.

Halo lost its simple fun with Halo 5. Halo always had depth and required skill and could be played at a high level. It's just too complicated to keep up with everyone in MM. If I want to be successful at all I had to constantly be in try hard mode. I think Halo 5 has mechanically become a game that is better suited for mouse and keyboard and custom binding of multiple inputs. No matter what settings or elite controller setup, I always felt like I was fighting with the controller. The constant sweaty try hard nature of the game also revealed to me how obnoxious the game becomes with a mastery of those mechanics in 343's terrible maps.

Speaking of maps...there weren't a lot of maps that I liked visually. Go play Destiny for example. While the pvp is a mess (imo fun), the maps are pretty and interesting visually.

I think Halo 5 revealed to me how hard it is to design video games and please the old community lol. We got a lot what we asked for (sort of), but it's still not what a lot of us want to play.
 
I'm a cynic so I'll naturally agree with this, but your point and woorloog's ring true for me.

For me, the problems boil down to mechanics. I can't say the gameplay is bad. It simply isn't enjoyable with long gameplay sessions.

Halo lost its simple fun with Halo 5. Halo always had depth and required skill and could be played at a high level. It's just too complicated to keep up with everyone in MM. If I want to be successful at all I had to constantly be in try hard mode. I think Halo 5 has mechanically become a game that is better suited for mouse and keyboard and custom binding of multiple inputs. No matter what settings or elite controller setup, I always felt like I was fighting with the controller. The constant sweaty try hard nature of the game also revealed to me how obnoxious the game becomes with a mastery of those mechanics in 343's terrible maps.

Speaking of maps...there weren't a lot of maps that I liked visually. Go play Destiny for example. While the pvp is a mess (imo fun), the maps are pretty and interesting visually.

I think Halo 5 revealed to me how hard it is to design video games and please the old community lol. We got a lot what we asked for (sort of), but it's still not what a lot of us want to play.

People give Destiny's pvp a lot of shit. However at the end of the day it was just fun. It didn't matter how well I did or didn't do, I enjoyed it. The different classes keep things interesting, guns where satisfying and fun to use, and the maps/art style was good.

Something was just lost when it came to the transition of H5 compared to past Halo. I could play them for hours on end. In H5 I can only play maybe an hour or two. I just feel so drained after each and every match. I can't even go into BTB and enjoy myself without having to do my absolute best at all times. I'm not a really hyper competitive person. I like to win and I'll try to win, but that's not my main focus. Enjoyment is the main goal and I just can't do it in H5 most of the time. In Reach, I could fuck around in Elite Slayer or go play some Invasion. Then when I had enough of pvp, I could go do FF or campaign scoring for some dailies/weeklies. Then if I really wanted to be serious I could go to arena. There was always something I could go do to enjoy myself. The same applies for progression. I could look forward to the next rank of Hero or Legend. Plus I could get items with the credits I saved up. There is none of that in H5. Just some generic spartan rank 152 and items you can only get from rng req packs. It's not satisfying at all.

Maybe I'm just getting older or I'm looking at it through rose tinted glasses.
 
People give Destiny’s pvp a lot of shit. However at the end of the day it was just fun. It didn’t matter how well I did or didn’t do, I enjoyed it. The different classes keep things interesting, guns where satisfying and fun to use, and the maps/art style was good.

Something was just lost when it came to the transition of H5 compared to past Halo. I could play them for hours on end. In H5 I can only play maybe an hour or two. I just feel so drained after each and every match. I can’t even go into BTB and enjoy myself without having to do my absolute best at all times. I’m not a really hyper competitive person. I like to win and I’ll try to win, but that’s not my main focus. Enjoyment is the main goal and I just can’t do it in H5 most of the time. In Reach, I could fuck around in Elite Slayer or go play some Invasion. Then when I had enough of pvp, I could go do FF or campaign scoring for some dailies/weeklies. Then if I really wanted to be serious I could go to arena. There was always something I could go do to enjoy myself. The same applies for progression. I could look forward to the next rank of Hero or Legend. Plus I could get items with the credits I saved up. There is none of that in H5. Just some generic spartan rank 152 and items you can only get from rng req packs. It’s not satisfying at all.

Maybe I’m just getting older or I’m looking at it through rose tinted glasses.
Your right. Halo 5 just isnt as fun as previous halos.
And its hard to enjoy 4v4 games casually
 
It wasn't about player count, maps, modes. There are a plethora of issues that makes Halo 5's entry barrier way too high compared to its competitors and predecessors.
 

Ade

Member
Well, one advantage of two weeks of food poisoning confining me to my bed is that I've finally found the time (and only having an OG surface helped) to go through H2Vista and get all still obtainable achievements.

Legendary continues to not be fun, as does getting the Scarab gun, but its all done now.
 

Haruko

Member
People give Destiny’s pvp a lot of shit. However at the end of the day it was just fun. It didn’t matter how well I did or didn’t do, I enjoyed it. The different classes keep things interesting, guns where satisfying and fun to use, and the maps/art style was good.

Ehhh, agree to disagree there.
I like the art style and some of the gun play enough, but as much as I tried to get into Crucible matches, it was frustrating as fk to me. The maps to me were OK at best. Granted, I only played pre-Taken King, so I'm guessing some things finally improved (like post-game shitty loot rolls). But I much prefer the accurate hip-fire combat in H5 so I've never felt like re-investing in Destiny to find out.

I do think you are right about Halo needing more rank/MMR decay, and more incentives for ranked modes beyond a bunch of similar emblems.
 
Ehhh, agree to disagree there.
I like the art style and some of the gun play enough, but as much as I tried to get into Crucible matches, it was frustrating as fk to me. The maps to me were OK at best. Granted, I only played pre-Taken King, so I'm guessing some things finally improved (like post-game shitty loot rolls). But I much prefer the accurate hip-fire combat in H5 so I've never felt like re-investing in Destiny to find out.

I do think you are right about Halo needing more rank/MMR decay, and more incentives for ranked modes beyond a bunch of similar emblems.

It only got worse post TTK, you are not missing much here.
 

Detective

Member
Two games in a row and I got kicked to frozen menu. Kudos kudos.

Keep it up, this is fun.

It didn't say leaving fire team
It didn't say your console lost connection

Just BANG, you are in frozen menu. Can't control anything.

Each and every day you learn something about this game.

Evolution.
 

jem0208

Member
Two games in a row and I got kicked to frozen menu. Kudos kudos.

Keep it up, this is fun.

It didn't say leaving fire team
It didn't say your console lost connection

Just BANG, you are in frozen menu. Can't control anything.

Each and every day you learn something about this game.

Evolution.

It genuinely sounds like your particular game is broken. I barely ever have issues...
 
Two games in a row and I got kicked to frozen menu. Kudos kudos.

Keep it up, this is fun.

It didn't say leaving fire team
It didn't say your console lost connection

Just BANG, you are in frozen menu. Can't control anything.

Each and every day you learn something about this game.

Evolution.

Stability has gone way down lately, but it's very inconsistent when things start breaking. Last night we didn't have much trouble while I was there, or at least no crashes to dashboard or player drops. Other nights we could get everyone on the fireteam into the same game less than half the time.
 

Detective

Member
It genuinely sounds like your particular game is broken. I barely ever have issues...

Yeah, my digital copy is broken /s

Just because you dont have them doesn't mean there isn't issues.

Just like you dont have lag or latency doesn't mean isn't any for others.
 

Detective

Member
Stability has gone way down lately, but it's very inconsistent when things start breaking. Last night we didn't have much trouble while I was there, or at least no crashes to dashboard or player drops. Other nights we could get everyone on the fireteam into the same game less than half the time.

Last night was horrible connection wise to me and my friends. And some people we played against. Lag/Latency

Day before that was OK.

Today is this, Tomorrow who knows!?!
 

Madness

Member
Yeah was pretty bad yesterday with servers. I hate how long it takes just to connect to servers when you first start the game now. Played very little yesterday. First match in ranked we had a player quit. I honestly have not gone one day since launch that someone did not quit in Arena or Warzone.

Heroic Firefight too easy, gonna start trying Legendary or Mythic. But with randoms might be foolish.
 

Sordid

Member
Played big team for the first time since the forge update, you guys weren't joking about the framerate issues. Horrible experience made worse by the usual connection shenanigans.
 

IHaveIce

Banned
these freezes are taking my enjoyment from the game, last week it was only sometimes or every 10 games, now it is like I have it in every match.
 

Toa Axis

Member
Sooo, Act Man did an hour long interview with the lead behind Halo CE's multiplayer, and it's pretty interesting. He talks about design methodology, Bungie's culture at the time, Halo 5's lack of split screen, etc. There are time stamps pinned in the comments section too, so you don't have to watch the whole thing to get to a specific topic. Would recommend giving it a look if you the time.

https://youtu.be/OheqVrMGPv0

Also, first time posting in HaloGAF, so hiii~
 
Finally finished editing, encoding, and uploading our PAX South 2017 post-event discussion. Check it out if you want to hear some impressions/thoughts from the HaloGAF contingent that went this year (we talk about the Nintendo Switch, Switch launch games, third party games, the event floor, indie titles, VR, and more). Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTm6Z2Hu5k

Also, like, subscribe, favorite, support me on patreon, etc., etc.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Finally finished editing, encoding, and uploading our PAX South 2017 post-event discussion. Check it out if you want to hear some impressions/thoughts from the HaloGAF contingent that went this year (we talk about the Nintendo Switch, Switch launch games, third party games, the event floor, indie titles, VR, and more). Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTm6Z2Hu5k

Also, like, subscribe, favorite, support me on patreon, etc., etc.

What a bunch of nerds

subscribed
 
So what's that Chrome extension for REQ's that enables you to sell multiple at a time? Anyone have a link handy?
Sooo, Act Man did an hour long interview with the lead behind Halo CE's multiplayer, and it's pretty interesting. He talks about design methodology, Bungie's culture at the time, Halo 5's lack of split screen, etc. There are time stamps pinned in the comments section too, so you don't have to watch the whole thing to get to a specific topic. Would recommend giving it a look if you the time.

https://youtu.be/OheqVrMGPv0

Also, first time posting in HaloGAF, so hiii~
Thanks for sharing.

EDIT:
Thanks!
 
Sooo, Act Man did an hour long interview with the lead behind Halo CE's multiplayer, and it's pretty interesting. He talks about design methodology, Bungie's culture at the time, Halo 5's lack of split screen, etc. There are time stamps pinned in the comments section too, so you don't have to watch the whole thing to get to a specific topic. Would recommend giving it a look if you the time.

https://youtu.be/OheqVrMGPv0

Also, first time posting in HaloGAF, so hiii~

Quality content on your first post, well fuck me :)

thx for the link.
 
Just met a gafer at the airport. I assume.

That's nice.

Will Halo 5 be stable come the March update? Or will it continue to crash, soft-lock, and fail to load players into matches, all while constantly hitching when you actually make it into a game? Any improvement to framerates in forge or do we just have to suffer with near-unplayable maps in matchmaking?

Thanks in advance for any news on this front because I'd like to keep playing this game past this month.
 
Finally finished editing, encoding, and uploading our PAX South 2017 post-event discussion. Check it out if you want to hear some impressions/thoughts from the HaloGAF contingent that went this year (we talk about the Nintendo Switch, Switch launch games, third party games, the event floor, indie titles, VR, and more). Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTm6Z2Hu5k

Also, like, subscribe, favorite, support me on patreon, etc., etc.

Video came out pretty good! :D

0uzS54d.gif
 
Just met a gafer at the airport. I assume.
Were you blinded by their majesty?
Video came out pretty good! :D

0uzS54d.gif
lmao
Finally finished editing, encoding, and uploading our PAX South 2017 post-event discussion. Check it out if you want to hear some impressions/thoughts from the HaloGAF contingent that went this year (we talk about the Nintendo Switch, Switch launch games, third party games, the event floor, indie titles, VR, and more). Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTm6Z2Hu5k

Also, like, subscribe, favorite, support me on patreon, etc., etc.
Nice, I'll check this out.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
That's nice.

Will Halo 5 be stable come the March update? Or will it continue to crash, soft-lock, and fail to load players into matches, all while constantly hitching when you actually make it into a game? Any improvement to framerates in forge or do we just have to suffer with near-unplayable maps in matchmaking?

Thanks in advance for any news on this front because I'd like to keep playing this game past this month.

It sounds like you're describing a bunch of issues and conflating them into one problem. I can't speak to your specific issues and I 100% believe you're experiencing all of them - although soft locking and players failing to load into sessions - you'd need to be specific about where and when. But I can tell you that we continue to monitor and improve, correct or fix issues as we discover them.
 
It sounds like you're describing a bunch of issues and conflating them into one problem. I can't speak to your specific issues and I 100% believe you're experiencing all of them - although soft locking and players failing to load into sessions - you'd need to be specific about where and when. But I can tell you that we continue to monitor and improve, correct or fix issues as we discover them.

It sounds like you're unaware of the issues plaguing everyone in this thread for months now, despite us and everyone else and FAT's mom complaining about them all the time.

They are not one problem. They are all their own problems, and they happen on a regular basis. The current build and/or servers are not stable. Sometimes these issues occur at the same time. Ex: Search with party in playlist (it doesn't matter which, it happens in everything, literally all the fucking time) -> get match -> countdown happens -> loading screen comes up with spinning circle in bottom left -> game never loads and just sits with spinning circle until you "quit the build". Sometimes it will just kick 1 or more of your party back to the lobby. No error message or anything, they just don't load in while everyone else has no problem. Sometimes both of these issues happen at once. Sometimes the entire game just hard-crashes while loading into a match. Sometimes the game hard-crashes when opening REQ packs (no detectable pattern here). If, by some miracle, the servers are cooperating, you can expect the game to hitch (freeze) at least once per match for no particular reason. This is in addition to the hitching that already happens nonstop in Social playlists when people quit or join (LITERALLY EVERY TIME SOMEONE LEAVES OR JOINS THE GAME - this has been an issue through multiple updates at this point and is also annoying). Framerates: months later and we still have the ~20fps forge maps in Matchmaking. There's no way no one notices these things before pushing to the public and for it to be an issue this long afterwards is frankly a joke.

On top of all of this, being guaranteed to play against Mexicans, even at peak hours US almost like clockwork, leading to opponents that teleport and skip all over the place the entire match (this happens to folks who live further north and east than I as well), is super swell.

Either you're actually unaware these things are happening - meaning you haven't read much of this thread, or twitter, or... anything Halo related, or played the game at all in the last two months, or talked to anyone who has - which I don't buy, or you are aware and are just giving a safe, PR friendly response. In either case, this doesn't inspire confidence.

As I've said before, I'm holding out until March, because I enjoy playing the game - when it works. If these issues are still prevalent after the promised update, I don't know if I can continue to suffer this nonsense when I have plenty of other perfectly functional games to play. I understand it's not your job specifically to fix the game, but being a higher-up and essentially being unaware that your main title is *literally broken* is ridiculous.

EDIT: Seriously, just read some of the posts ***on this page*** above yours. This is an everyday complain cycle in HaloGAF, man.
 
Here's a specific game you can see crap out, just from last night :)
http://xboxclips.com/Ozzy+Onya+A2Z/3395152d-cef5-4bf8-93b7-8e3789218d14
(this is actually a very light version of crapping out, often it's after the game starts within about 1-3 minutes of FF heroic or skirmish)

I also get the halting/pausing at least a few times a night, usually 1-3 times per game in the last couple of weeks.

I agree with ExWife this is on the regular now. You could literally look through my H5 game history in the last 2 weeks and any night I played there was at least one game that failed to load or dropped during the game, a game crapped out to the dashboard once in the last few days, REQs always still take forever to load, literally I have had games start before I can even select a boost or open a daily login card etc.

I'm curious if the testing team or data metric tools you've built actually track a gamertag or set of friends across all their Halo games solo or in parties. Go micro NOT macro on this Sum'Bitch. You've got shitloads of data to gather, collate, report etc. It needs a more human touch. I'd love to hear about what the studio actually does from A-Z in this regard. Fuck I'd love to throw some armchair specialist bullshit into these Halo threads if that info was ever available.

Honestly you've seen my matchmaking history of MCC and H5. Shit track me completely, you could hire one dude to go through my history and you'd find 95%+ of the problems listed in these OT threads.
 

EYEL1NER

Member
Just met a gafer at the airport. I assume.
What was the giveaway or tell?
I was waiting for a connecting flight in CLT last summer and saw someone who I didn't suspect was from GAF but I recognized them as a fellow geek. He had the 40K Aquila eagle tattooed on his forearm. The way his sleeve and arm were resting though made it tough to tell for sure; the area where there should be a reverse- and forward-facing head was covered up. I supposed it could have been some other eagle, a military tat, or some kind of new-Nazi thing too, but I wanted to be sure. I didn't want to bother this guy but I routinely get people asking about my FFVII tattoos on my calves and even if I am busy or not in the mood, I'll oblige them and raise the leg of my shorts a bit to fully show one off and then ask if they saw the other leg and turn to show that. So I figured 'Why not ask to see it?'
I was sitting in a chair in the gate area directly facing him and said "Excuse me, sir?" He glanced up and I gestured at my forearm and said "I'm sorry to bother you but I couldn't see all of your tattoo and was just wondering if it was maybe the...." He cut me off and said "It is." He turned his arm a bit so I could see that it was an Aquila and then relaxed back into the same position he was in. I told him that it looked great and thanked him.
My flight wasn't due to leave for a while and my wife and daughter were both caught up in iPhones and an iPad.
So after a couple minutes of boredom, I opened my backpack and pulled out the book I brought with me to read on my flight, the second Ciaphas Cain omnibus from the Black Library. I did have a fleeting moment of panic where I thought 'Oh great, now this guy is gonna think I'm trying to show off my street cred by pulling out a 40K book in front of him.' Side note: I tend to overthink things a lot and read way too much into harmless situations. Anyway, I opened the book and began reading from where I left off. After another few minutes the woman this guy was with nudged the guy and nodded towards my book. He said something quietly to her and they then both stood up and walked off. It wasn't time to board a flight at that gate or the one next to me, so I don't know where they went. I didn't watch them to see if they moved to some seats a couple rows away or not, if I had creeped them out. After they left my wife asked "What was that about?" I told her nothing, that I was just wondering if that was a Warhammer tattoo on the guy's arm.

And thus concludes my captivating retelling of "The Nerd at the Airport." I'm sure you were on the edge of your seat throughout.




I had just a relatively shitty game by most HaloGAF standards but it left me feeling pretty good. It was a BTB Basin match. I hung out in the bottom of red base, venturing forth to grab splinter grenades from the top every now and then. It was a close one, I think 100-98 or 96, in our favor. I say relatively shitty because I only got five kills, which is nothing to write home about for 90% of this thread. I also didn't die at all though. I resisted the urge to run out and feed kills to the enemy, which may have been a contributing factor in our win: I wasn't out there dying all over the place. It felt a lot better than booting the game up and getting thrashed right off the bat, which is what I suspected would happen after those WZ matches last night that I was involved in with some of you. I played like absolute ass in those, even worse than normal. Though I think that may have been the first time I played Vanilla WZ since WZFF launched. Or at least since the daily win packs became a thing, if that was after WZFF launched. It's been a while but I probably need to play it a little more frequantly, for Company soldier kills at the very least.
 

mo60

Member
One issue I have been dealing with lately is warzone matches failing to load. The game doesn't crash when warzone games don't load but the loading screen lasts forever and I have to quit the app to find a warzone game again.
 

EYEL1NER

Member
WZFF on Stormbreak: Almost every single match Wave 2 is "Defend the East Armory." Like 99.9% of the time, Wave Two takes place over there. Yet after Wave One wraps up, almost every single time, the seven randos I am playing are screwing around by West, shooting each other's vehicles and Spartan Charging people at the REQ Stations. After I wrap up a Wave One, I immediately begin hoofing it over to East Armory because that I likely where we will need to be. Not a huge deal, since we rarely ever lose East Armory, but you'd think people would have realized that by now instead of always being LTTP on Wave Two while I'm over there already holding shit down.


And I know when I unlocked the Gunfighter Magnum a week or two ago that I acted like "Oh, thanks for nothing, REQ pack. I'll never use this." The reduction of the REQ level has seen me using it over the past few days though. It's nice to have over the regular Magnum in the short time before getting the BR. Although I noticed last night in regular WZ that it did mean I was running out of pistol ammo a lot quicker though. Still can't wait to unlock the extended mags Magnum.
 
Finally finished editing, encoding, and uploading our PAX South 2017 post-event discussion. Check it out if you want to hear some impressions/thoughts from the HaloGAF contingent that went this year (we talk about the Nintendo Switch, Switch launch games, third party games, the event floor, indie titles, VR, and more). Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTm6Z2Hu5k

Also, like, subscribe, favorite, support me on patreon, etc., etc.

Guy on the left is a weirdo.

So are the other guys.

But mainly the guy on the left.
 
One issue I have been dealing with lately is warzone matches failing to load. The game doesn't crash when warzone games don't load but the loading screen lasts forever and I have to quit the app to find a warzone game again.

I just got the same thing literally my first fuckin' game after making that latest post @ stinkles. How can 343i not know this is a problem?

Does this help illuminate our daily experience, stinkles?

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/MyExWlFE/video/26743862
 

EYEL1NER

Member
I just got the same thing literally my first fuckin' game after making that latest post @ stinkles. How can 343i not know this is a problem?

Does this help illuminate our daily experience, stinkles?

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/MyExWlFE/video/26743862
Damn, that's pretty bad. I have had my fair share of crashes upon loading, getting dropped from loading when in a fire team, and other problems, but I'm lucky that I haven't been getting hit with infinite loading screens yet, I guess.
Though it seems like that last time I commented on not having some issues that people were commonly having, the server problems upon booting the game up, then I started suffering from them after commenting. So we'll see in a couple days if I am getting these too. It'd be pretty annoying though, on top of everything else, to have that happening.
 
Damn, that's pretty bad. I have had my fair share of crashes upon loading, getting dropped from loading when in a fire team, and other problems, but I'm lucky that I haven't been getting hit with infinite loading screens yet, I guess.
Though it seems like that last time I commented on not having some issues that people were commonly having, the server problems upon booting the game up, then I started suffering from them after commenting. So we'll see in a couple days if I am getting these too. It'd be pretty annoying though, on top of everything else, to have that happening.

Our entire regular group has been having this issue for months now. It's gotten to the point where everybody can almost time it when it's been "too long" and the whole party simultaneously goes "did it fail to load?" and then we have to quit the build.
 
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