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Halo |OT 23| Thruster is Love, Thruster is Life

DJ Gunner

Member
Reach is the worst. Halo 3 is amazing.

I know Reach gets alot of flack- but I truly enjoyed the game until they flooded TS with forge maps. I liked Reach alot more than 3. I won't post a long-winded defense of this opinion because there really isn't one. 3 was the better Halo on paper but I just had more fun in Reach, for awhile anyways. ZB, especially with Magnums, was absolutely GOAT.

4 was just awful. I'm not buying 5.
 
There was no saving Halo 3's gameplay. The Title Update and Anniversary playlists in Reach were better than all of Halo 3's offerings, and Halo 2 if comparing them today.

Basically what I'm saying is, if we got TU Reach in 60FPS/1080p it would be the 2nd or 3rd best Halo game in TMCC, maybe.
 

Hubble

Member
There was no saving Halo 3's gameplay. The Title Update and Anniversary playlists in Reach were better than all of Halo 3's offerings, and Halo 2 if comparing them today.

Basically what I'm saying is, if we got TU Reach in 60FPS/1080p it would be the 2nd or 3rd best Halo game in TMCC, maybe.

We'll disagree and numbers don't lie. Halo 3 had a more active population than Reach. Halo 3's gameplay was perfection and 343 should have emulated it in Counter-Strike form with add-ons.


Halo 3 was the heart of Bungie in that it was made like a true PC game from its roots in p2p connection. At the time of release, better netcode or dedicated servers for consoles did not advance. Unfortunately, it was way too connection and host dependent but the wide variety of playlists and the gameplay and competitiveness is second to none. Everything from casual fun like social slayer, infected, griffball, to the serious types like MLG playlist, which was the best Halo game ever made with every setting/map or doubles was done to perfection.
 

DJ Gunner

Member
There was no saving Halo 3's gameplay. The Title Update and Anniversary playlists in Reach were better than all of Halo 3's offerings, and Halo 2 if comparing them today.

Basically what I'm saying is, if we got TU Reach in 60FPS/1080p it would be the 2nd or 3rd best Halo game in TMCC, maybe.

With Anni maps and a forge-less TS playlist I am in 100% agreement.
 

RBK

Banned
There was no saving Halo 3's gameplay. The Title Update and Anniversary playlists in Reach were better than all of Halo 3's offerings, and Halo 2 if comparing them today.

Basically what I'm saying is, if we got TU Reach in 60FPS/1080p it would be the 2nd or 3rd best Halo game in TMCC, maybe.

Didn't need much saving, it was pretty good at launch.

Can't say the same about Reach.
 

Booshka

Member
Halo 3 had terrible aiming and movement mechanics, not only was it a bad Halo game, it's a bad FPS. Netcode was shit, BR is intentionally random, sandbox is bloated as fuck, dual wield gimmick was still in, even though it was obvious from Halo 2 that it doesn't suit Halo gameplay.

Campaign is bad too, your main adversary are Brutes, instead of Elites, the best Halo enemy. A bunch of giant, sprawling vehicle sections, which I guess you need since moving around and shooting in First Person feels like total ass.

Why there wasn't a mass exodus back to Halo 2 shortly after Halo 3 released, I will never understand.
 

jem0208

Member
We'll disagree and numbers don't lie. Halo 3 had a more active population than Reach. Halo 3's gameplay was perfection and 343 should have emulated it in Counter-Strike form with add-ons.

3's movement speed alone makes it one of the worst Halos. It also has the worst weapons from any Halo ever:

- Dreadful BR
- Even worse AR
- Abysmal pistol

On top of that the shooting in general just feels bad. It's not satisfying at all.

That said it's still probably my favourite game of all time.
 

RBK

Banned
Halo 3 had this legendary map:
Halo3_MP_The-Pit_3rd-01--screenshot_large.jpg


End of discussion.
 

jem0208

Member
Halo 3 had this legendary map:
Halo3_MP_The-Pit_3rd-01--screenshot_large.jpg


End of discussion.

It also had this:

halo-3-map-snowbound.jpg


Wasn't it proven that the movement speed across the first 3 Halos were pretty much the same? The FoV changes were what made each game feel faster/slower than others.

The feel is extremely important though. It feels ridiculously slow because the FoV is awful. Which is a bad thing.
 

JDHarbs

Member
Wasn't it proven that the movement speed across the first 3 Halos were pretty much the same? The FoV changes were what made each game feel faster/slower than others.
 

Hubble

Member
3's movement speed alone makes it one of the worst Halos. It also has the worst weapons from any Halo ever:

- Dreadful BR
- Even worse AR
- Abysmal pistol

On top of that the shooting in general just feels bad. It's not satisfying at all.

That said it's still probably my favourite game of all time.

I guess we'll disagree almost about everything. The movement speed was perfect. It was Bungie's love song to Halo - they poured their heart into that game and was the last true Halo MCC title. The BR was perfect in that game. I liked the burst and it had a lot more personality than Halo 5's boring point and click. The AR worked as intended - I don't see nothing wrong with it and was good. I can agree with you on the pistol that it was too weak but I don't think Halo 5's pistol is strong enough either.

And numbers dont lie. It was the most active Halo in numbers and that says something when it launched early in a console cycle with less population. I think the shooting, movement, and everything was top notch and felt very satisfying. Curious, what rank were you? A ton of people enjoyed Halo 3.


That said it's still probably my favourite game of all time.

I guess we agree then :p
 
The BR was perfect in that game.

And numbers dont lie. It was the most active Halo in numbers and that says something when it launched early in a console cycle with less population.


Please, a non-hitscan primary sandbox weapon in a P2P environment says it all! I loved Halo 3 but non-hitscan BR was armour lock and bolt shot levels of bad decision making. This was a development decision in a matchmaking system with little to no regional filters, I'll just leave that there for you to ponder.

As for numbers do you realise Halo 3 by end of life had over 5 times the amount of FPS titles being released than when it first launched? By the way it also launched years after the 360 had launched.
 

Hubble

Member
Please, a non-hitscan primary sandbox weapon in a P2P environment says it all! I loved Halo 3 but non-hitscan BR was armour lock and bolt shot levels of bad decision making. This was a development decision in a matchmaking system with little to no regional filters, I'll just leave that there for you to ponder.

As for numbers do you realise Halo 3 by end of life had over 5 times the amount of FPS titles being released than when it first launched? By the way it also launched years after the 360 had launched.


I already mentioned the poor netcode in Halo 3. I am talking about the BR's weapon design in general, not hit registration. The BR in Halo 3 felt very good e.g., the sound and as I said I liked the burst personality of the weapon than the dull Halo 5 BR.

And Halo 3 stood out and shined with the FPS competition, while Halo Reach and 4 drowned..
 

jem0208

Member
Snowbound really wasn't a bad map, Boundless made it even better.

If you want to name a bad map, use Isolation or Epitaph. Maybe even High Ground.

Epitaph! That's the name of it! I couldn't remember it so I went with Snowbound. Both are terrible maps though.

I guess we'll disagree almost about everything. The movement speed was perfect. It was Bungie's love song to Halo - they poured their heart into that game and was the last true Halo MCC title. The BR was perfect in that game. I liked the burst and it had a lot more personality than Halo 5's boring point and click. The AR worked as intended - I don't see nothing wrong with it and was good. I can agree with you on the pistol that it was too weak but I don't think Halo 5's pistol is strong enough either.

And numbers dont lie. It was the most active Halo in numbers and that says something when it launched early in a console cycle with less population. I think the shooting, movement, and everything was top notch and felt very satisfying. Curious, what rank were you? A ton of people enjoyed Halo 3.




I guess we agree then :p

The movement speed feels so slow and sluggish. The very poor FoV makes it feel like your Spartan is gently strolling across the battlefield.

The BR had in built randomness and travel time which combined with poor net code led to a unsatisfying and frustrating weapon imo. 5's BR was satisfying as it actually hit where you were aiming. The AR is worse, it's completely useless and also ridiculously boring to use.

I can't remember what rank I was. Somewhere in the high 40s in team slayer and doubles. I generally played social and custom games with my friends though.

Thing is I loved the game back then, like I said it's probably my favourite game ever. I just think it has aged badly.
 

Ramirez

Member
I like how on this page alone you have some of the most diehard "Halo purists" calling the opposites favorite the best Halo & worst Halo, heh.
 

Hubble

Member
Epitaph! That's the name of it! I couldn't remember it so I went with Snowbound. Both are terrible maps though.



The movement speed feels so slow and sluggish. The very poor FoV makes it feel like your Spartan is gently strolling across the battlefield.

The BR had in built randomness and travel time which combined with poor net code led to a unsatisfying and frustrating weapon imo. 5's BR was satisfying as it actually hit where you were aiming. The AR is worse, it's completely useless and also ridiculously boring to use.

I can't remember what rank I was. Somewhere in the high 40s in team slayer and doubles. I generally played social and custom games with my friends though.

Thing is I loved the game back then, like I said it's probably my favourite game ever. I just think it has aged badly.

Yeah, I had to roll my eyes on this one. I guess I can't imagine someone saying Halo 3 aged badly or what not when it was being played for years with an active userbase including myself and who competed compared to the quick flounder of Halo Reach and Halo 4. I feel you can still play Halo 3 now on guardian oddball, team slayer narrows, koth construct, ctf pit, and feel it is better than most shooters out today. I also felt a lot of your arguments are just to justify Halo 5, which was a very bad beta, where a lot of pros are unhappy about (go watch Twitch) like the movement feeling so slow and sluggish and so forth in Halo 3, which does not feel like that at all. It is still very mobile. The AR was fine in Halo 3. You can still kill a BR opponent if he is not good and as it should be, a BR opponent should beat an AR. I don't care if the AR is close range or not, a BR is a skill weapon and should be able to defeat an AR or a SMG in any circumstance. In Halo 5, this was severely compromised. The AR in Halo 5 is way too powerful with a battle against a skilled BR opponent being far too close with the former winning a lot. I know a 343 tweet has said otherwise but after playing, I don't agree at all. Halo 3 offered tight teamwork oriented play where the following Halo's did less of.

But yeah, on a proper netcode and registration, I think the Halo 3 BR is the best BR in the series and a lot better than 5. You hit it when you said in Halo 5 your shots actually counted and I agree here. The BR in Halo 3 was random only because of the poor netcode, but if they fixed that, it would be awesome with personality especially in a redesign with the pop.
 

jem0208

Member
Yeah, I had to roll my eyes on this one. I guess I can't imagine someone saying Halo 3 aged badly or what not when it was being played for years with an active userbase including myself and who competed compared to the quick flounder of Halo Reach and Halo 4. I feel you can still play Halo 3 now on guardian oddball, team slayer narrows, koth construct, ctf pit, and feel it is better than most shooters out today. I also felt a lot of your arguments are just to justify Halo 5, which was a very bad beta, where a lot of pros are unhappy about (go watch Twitch) like the movement feeling so slow and sluggish and so forth in Halo 3, which does not feel like that at all. It is still very mobile. The AR was fine in Halo 3. You can still kill a BR opponent if he is not good and as it should be, a BR opponent should beat an AR. I don't care if the AR is close range or not, a BR is a skill weapon and should be able to defeat an AR or a SMG in any circumstance. In Halo 5, this was severely compromised. The AR in Halo 5 is way too powerful with a battle against a skilled BR opponent being far too close with the former winning a lot. I know a 343 tweet has said otherwise but after playing, I don't agree at all. Halo 3 offered tight teamwork oriented play where the following Halo's did less of.

But yeah, on a proper netcode and registration, I think the Halo 3 BR is the best BR in the series and a lot better than 5. You hit it when you said in Halo 5 your shots actually counted and I agree here. The BR in Halo 3 was random only because of the poor netcode, but if they fixed that, it would be awesome with personality especially in a redesign with the pop.


I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about the movement speed.


As for the rest, none of my arguments are to justify 5 at all. They're all problems I have had with 3 since way before 5 was even announced. I also disagree about the beta completely however that's an entirely different discussion.

I also think that diversifying the weapon roles is a very good thing and is a big problem with 3. BR is the only weapon you need. You can rely on it in almost every single situation and I think that's a bad thing. It makes the gameplay more repetitive as you never need to use any other weapons.

As for 3's BR itself, it literally has inbuilt randomness with the spread. It's not just the netcode. Here's a post Bungie made on the subject:

http://halo.bungie.net/news/content.aspx?cid=14347

In Halo 3, each bullet from the Battle Rifle’s three-round burst is networked individually under the cases outlined above. Additionally, each bullet has a different margin of error, with the first round from the Battle Rifle being the most accurate of the three bullets. The first bullet can have an error between 0 and .15 degrees off of the true aiming vector. The third bullet is between 0 and 0.38 degrees, the second bullet falls somewhere between the first and third. It is a mistake to look at where the third bullet lands and assume all three bullets are that inaccurate. The outliers (0.15 on bullet 1 and 0.38 on bullet 3) are the absolute worst-case scenarios. In that context those numbers don’t mean a whole lot – but in the grand scheme thing of how the Battle Rifle operates, they are pretty meaningful.
 

Hubble

Member

After reading this, I like the BR Halo 3 even more. It always felt like it had a lot more personality than the others. It sort of makes sense being a third round burst and the later shots having less of an effectiveness. It's funny because I had a feeling this was the case when using the BR and now I read it. This is why in Halo 3 it was important to lead your shots, and again, I think it adds to the personality of the weapon compared to the boringness of the Halo 5 BR, which doesn't even have an exciting sound profile and is literally point and click. The BR in Halo 3 was burst, you had to lead shots, and this made it more outstanding and skilled to use. Diversifying weapons is fine but making newb friendly weapons more even to skilled weapons e.g., AR and SMG is wrong. This is the reason why there is a big difference in settings for Halo in regular Team Slayer to MLG in Halo 3, where everyone started with a BR, to other similar lists in Halo 2, with BR starts.
 

HTupolev

Member
After reading this, I like the BR Halo 3 even more. It always felt like it had a lot more personality than the others. It sort of makes sense being a third round burst and the later shots having less of an effectiveness. This is why in Halo 3 it was important to lead your shots, and again, I think it adds to the personality of the weapon compared to the boringness of the Halo 5 BR, which doesn't even have an exciting sound profile.
The issue is that shot and spread are both mechanisms to mitigate the effectiveness of a weapon at range, and when you combine them (especially if impact response isn't done very well), it can make a game feel unresponsive or opaque.

I really like projectile weapons, partly because it reduces the need for weird things like spread. But it needs very good responsiveness in order to work out right, and combining spread with it can make it harder to get a feel for what your shots are doing.

I sort of respect what Halo 3 is trying to do with it, and I actually don't mind Halo 3's pacing and such, but it does have responsiveness issues. Especially in online MP, where the netcode is getting in on the action.
 

Hubble

Member
I sort of respect what Halo 3 is trying to do with it, and I actually don't mind Halo 3's pacing and such, but it does have responsiveness issues. Especially in online MP, where the netcode is getting in on the action.

And I agree. As I said, the netcode often gets in the way of the BR intentions, but the Halo 3 BR is actually very innovative for its time. For a burst weapon, it calculates a margin of error for each following shot than the automatic weapons of COD in just holding the triggers down or the plain point and click in Halo 5 BR. On LAN, I actually think the Halo 3 BR works wonderfully. Halo 3 was truly ahead of its time. If anyone doubts this, go play CTF on Pit, or KOTH on Construct, Guardian Oddball, where intense teamwork is needed. It is just a shame 343 is driving the series to the ground e.g., Halo 5.
 

VinFTW

Member
Sent my official feedback to Josh Holmes, was a bit late, but been so busy with my last semester.

Ended up around 18 pages (not very much text and quite a bit of graphics).
 

Madness

Member
Sorry to hear that you tie your enjoyment of an ecosystem to a single title.

I'm in the same boat. Only bought an Xbox One for the Master Chief Collection. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this either. Halo is the Xbox ecosystem. Without Halo, the company has nothing but an underpowered console with a shitty and slow OS coupled with less noteworthy exclusives. I haven't really touched my Xbox One since the beta ended as well. I was iffy about buying the console but fully committed after seeing MCC. Only reason I'm keeping my Xbox One is because I can't deal with the hassle of selling it, or the depreciation in value if I wanted to trade in.
 

-Ryn

Banned
Yeah, I had to roll my eyes on this one. I guess I can't imagine someone saying Halo 3 aged badly or what not when it was being played for years with an active userbase including myself and who competed compared to the quick flounder of Halo Reach and Halo 4. I feel you can still play Halo 3 now on guardian oddball, team slayer narrows, koth construct, ctf pit, and feel it is better than most shooters out today. I also felt a lot of your arguments are just to justify Halo 5, which was a very bad beta, where a lot of pros are unhappy about (go watch Twitch) like the movement feeling so slow and sluggish and so forth in Halo 3, which does not feel like that at all. It is still very mobile. The AR was fine in Halo 3. You can still kill a BR opponent if he is not good and as it should be, a BR opponent should beat an AR. I don't care if the AR is close range or not, a BR is a skill weapon and should be able to defeat an AR or a SMG in any circumstance. In Halo 5, this was severely compromised. The AR in Halo 5 is way too powerful with a battle against a skilled BR opponent being far too close with the former winning a lot. I know a 343 tweet has said otherwise but after playing, I don't agree at all. Halo 3 offered tight teamwork oriented play where the following Halo's did less of.

But yeah, on a proper netcode and registration, I think the Halo 3 BR is the best BR in the series and a lot better than 5. You hit it when you said in Halo 5 your shots actually counted and I agree here. The BR in Halo 3 was random only because of the poor netcode, but if they fixed that, it would be awesome with personality especially in a redesign with the pop.
Most of the gameplay videos I've seen with a BR vs AR end with the BR outgunning the AR at mid range. If it's close range (aka the AR's optimal range) then the AR should definitely hold the advantage. Halo 5 overall seems to be potentially one of the best, if not THE best, Halos since CE. Really gotta wait and see that change list. There's also the features and customization to think about. Pros have also praised the game if you want to go there.

I loved Halo 3. It was my first Halo in fact.
It had features out the wazoo and a solid community with plenty of content creation to boot. It was a glorious time. However it was not perfection. The movement speed was sloooooooowwwww, the BR dominated the sandbox, and bullet registration was a time and a half to list a couple issues.

Reach had a solid population for a long while with Halo 4's dropping off a cliff for a metric -blam!-ton of reasons.
 

Welfare

Member
Makes me wonder if MCC sold better than Halo 4.

Not a chance. In the US, Halo 4 sold 3.2 million units in November of 2012 and passed >5.0 million sales by the end of the year. This does not include the special edition or bundle.

MCC had only sold >660k in November 2014 and passed >1.0m by the end of the year.

How much has Halo 4 sold ?

All we know are what I just posted, and that it was the fastest selling Halo game in the US for some time into 2013. Oh, and it sold 753,489 units in the UK in just 2012.

Halo 4 getting to 10m is a possibility especially with digital downloads.
 

Hubble

Member
Most of the gameplay videos I've seen with a BR vs AR end with the BR outgunning the AR at mid range. If it's close range (aka the AR's optimal range) then the AR should definitely hold the advantage..


I disagree. In no circumstance should the AR hold an advantage against the BR even at close range. Why reward the unskilled weapon? At close range, the BR is even harder to land consistent all shots at a moving target than a faraway one. It is MUCH easier to kill someone close range with an AR than a BR, so why the hell would you reward that? Bungie had it completely right and their competitive PC roots demonstrated this in their making of the Halo games. While saying this, I am not saying the BR should destroy the AR but in Halo 5, it is far too close and I think the AR wins. There is a reason why there is BR starts for competitive playlists and AR starts for Team Slayer, because of this reason.

Pros have also praised the game if you want to go there.


Pros have not praised the game. Naded dislikes it, Walshy, Hysteria, and Roy all disliked it. Naded has gone on record to say Halo = no sprint and has said Halo 3 was the best one, and that they should have went the Counter-Strike route, as well as many other negative pro opinions. Ninja has been somewhat positive about it. In fact, a pro has told me something kind of shocking really about the game development.
 

Ramirez

Member
I disagree. In no circumstance should the AR hold an advantage against the BR even at close range. Why reward the unskilled weapon? At close range, the BR is even harder to land all shots at a moving target than a faraway one. It is MUCH easier to kill someone close range with an AR than a BR, so why the hell would you reward that? Bungie had it completely right and their competitive PC roots demonstrated this in their making of the Halo games.

Pros have not praised the game. Naded dislikes it, Walshy, Hysteria, and Roy. Ninja has been somewhat positive about it. In fact, a pro has told me something kind of shocking really about the game development.

What did Hysteria tell you that was so shocking?

#neveredit
 
I disagree. In no circumstance should the AR hold an advantage against the BR even at close range. Why reward the unskilled weapon? At close range, the BR is even harder to land all shots at a moving target than a faraway one. It is MUCH easier to kill someone close range with an AR than a BR, so why the hell would you reward that? Bungie had it completely right and their competitive PC roots demonstrated this in their making of the Halo games.




Pros have not praised the game. Naded dislikes it, Walshy, Hysteria, and Roy. Ninja has been somewhat positive about it. In fact, a pro has told me something kind of shocking really about the game development.

Because optimal weapon selection is a core tenant of... well, it's supposed to be a core tenant of Halo gameplay. Hell, it's one of the series' defining traits: the 2 weapon limit.
 

Welfare

Member
Lol please if it were interesting he should've just posted it.

Unless of course the info is protected by NDA, but when has that ever stopped someone.
 
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