Here's my Halo 5 feedback, based solely on Slayer, I barely touched Breakout and did not play Stronghold.
First the pros, when I criticize something, I like to start out with what was good before discussing the bad.
The good:
- The reduction in auto-aim and sticky-aim is really good for Halo, it brings back skill in aiming, especially with the precision-based weapons.
- The controls are pretty fluid for the most part, though I wish we still had custom-button mapping...it's 2015, we should be able to bind any command to any button of our choosing.
- Map design, from what I've seen so far, is really good. The maps truly give an arena feel to them, especially the forged ones, they feel like someone studied Quake maps and applied that logic to the design in Halo 5.
- Static timed power weapons, this is great, and I felt it shined the most on the forged maps because it gave a diversity in the power weapon distribution across the map. Pegasus' power weapons made that map play really good. The sniper would spawn offset from the rockets, but the rockets would eventually spawn at the same time of the sniper, I think this was a great decision.
- Clamber is good, it actually create fluid movement through the map. While the classic Halo crouch jumping to get to a ledge is pretty much gone now, the clamber does provide faster movement options and thus faster gameplay.
- Thrust is a neat addition, I think it gives an arena-style movement option, but one thing I noticed is that as soon as people would get shot (including myself), it was too easy to just thrust out of the line of sight, so I'm not sure if that's intentional or if it could be tweaked
- Slide, ground pound and thrust melee (is this charge?) I won't comment on, I rarely used them.
- Smart scope, aka ADS, I'm on the fence with this, I think cosmetically it's not as good as the classic zooming of Halo, but it is what it is. What I disagree with is being able to automatically go back into zoom just from holding down the trigger. This puts the COD-style control settings players at a superior advantage over those who choose to use a controller setting where the zoom is click on the right stick. My suggestion, remove the ability for the smart scope to auto-zoom back in from holding down the trigger. When you're descoped, you should have to press the button again, the game shouldn't auto do it for you, it defeats the purpose of descoping in the first place
Now for the bad:
1. Since power ups were not in the beta, I can't fully get a grasp of what Halo 5 is going to really be like. Static timed power ups should be in the game alongside the static timed power weapons. Like HCE, I'm hoping camo will be near a power weapon and overshield be near a power weapon as well. This will motivate people to move around the map and try to fully control the map.
2. Auto-call outs. I think for matchmaking purposes, e.g., people not playing in a party, it's okay, but for custom games, I think this stuff needs to be toggled on/off. If there is a esports playlist, it definitely does not need to be on. The player themselves should be communicating and paying attention to what's going on rather than the game doing it for them, again, I'm speaking specifically for esports matches.
3. The dudebro crap at the end of the match...please remove it, this isn't even entertaining at all.
4. Bringing up the scoreboard in the middle of a match stops your movement, please change this so that it doesn't stop your movement. Some people quickly tap their back button to see who's alive, etc., and many of us are still moving while doing this...but it stops us...not sure why it's been changed from H2 and H3.
5. Sprint, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it doesn't technically bother me, however, I think this definitely needs to be a toggle for custom games. If esports doesn't want sprint...then allow that to be toggled. It isn't hurting the game and it isn't hurting those who want to play the game with sprint...I'm sure there will be a standard playlist of their liking that will feature sprint...so why punish those who don't want it? A toggle would be a middle ground.
6. Smart scope. I know I put this in the pros, but I'm also going to say this is a bad thing, it should be a toggle as well, but I'm guessing that requires new animations/assets to be designed to bring back a classic scope/zoom to the weapons that have zoom capabilities. I'm on the fence whether the automatic weapons should get to have a buff when using smart scope.
7. The sunlight glare on forge really needs to be toned down...this isn't reality and this isn't Battlefield. It is a major distraction to the game in my opinion.
8. Muting options need to be better, I should be able to go into my game settings and set the voice chat to mute so I don't hear anyone...it's this way in MCC, why not in Halo 5? If it was just missing from the beta, that's understandable, but if it's not...please add.
9. Starting weapons. The AR/pistol was horrible, it made the game frustrating and brought back SMG-start memories...it simply doesn't work for Halo, at all. The BR/Pistol, again, this was almost working, but when it comes to close-range battles, if you spawn in an area where someone has a full auto gun...your BR and pistol aren't going to help defend you from the spray fest...so this leads to the best starting weapon set that Halo 5 had....that was the AR/BR. The AR/BR was great, it gave total spawn protection every spawn, and on top of that, I saw players dropping their starting weapons for weapons on the map, like the DMR, the SMG, light rifle, etc. It made the game feel like classic Halo. The default starting weapons of Halo 5, universally across all the classic modes, should be AR/BR start, period. In my opinion, anything outside of this will only bring the game. If esports want's BR-only starts, then fine, let them do that (though I disagree), but for default standard vanilla Halo 5, AR/BR across the board...please.
10. Time to kill. Time to kill on most of the weapons is really good, but the one suffering a good time to kill is the pistol. It's the only weapon in Halo 5 that I thought was completely out-classed by everything that we were given in the beta. To make the pistol a valid pick up, it needs a buff, and I would almost say give it a 3-shot kill. Reason for this is the reduced auto-aim and sticky-aim basically makes this a precision-based gun, but it needs to be able to compete against the others, a 3-shot kill would make it compete in my opinion. When I say 3-shot kill, I'm talking head shot, e.g., two non-headshots to pop shields and the final blow to the head for a kill, or if you're a pro, three-head shots will suffice.
Further on time to kill, the time to kill right now universally is pretty fast, much faster than previous Halos in my opinion and that's a good thing. This allows a single individual to be able to kill the enemy on their own versus always needing to team-shoot with their teammates. While I understand this is a team-game...past Halos have always relied on team-shooting to be a successful player and a faster time to kill allows the individual to not have to depend on their teammates, especially if it's randoms in matchmaking who don't have a clue what team-shooting is.
11. General matchmaking connectivity. This has to be butter smooth come launch, any hiccups, any errors, any delays, etc...will turn people away from this game instantly. With the crap that MCC has been, having those matchmaking errors in Halo 5 are just going to kill the population for this game. Hopefully the beta has given 343 enough information to tweak and perfect the matchmaking connectivity prior to launch.
Conclusion
When the beta first started, I gave it two matches and I didn't enjoy it at all, and it was solely due to the starting weapon set, AR/Pistol.
Once the BR/AR start came into play, I couldn't stop playing the game...only thing that did stop me from playing was when the matchmaking had errors and I ran out of patience. I think there's a lot of promise in Halo 5 for it to bring back that classic core Halo feel that I personally get from Halo Combat Evolved. The thrill of timing power ups and power weapons makes the game so much fun and entertaining. It brings that feeling of Quake to the console and no other shooter on consoles does this.
The thing I'm most worried about will be the default starting weapons. I fear that if it's not BR/AR start, personally, I'm not going to enjoy the game at all. If there's not at least one playlist featuring BR/AR start, then I likely won't waste my time buying the game. I'm 34, almost 35, I work full-time and barely have time to play video games. I do not want to have to depend on playing custom games to get to have BR/AR starts. I think many people are like me in that we simply do not have the time we used to to play video games anymore. We're all busy with our lives and when we do get that time to play, it's precious to us. Furthermore, Halo is an amazing shooter that we all have a passion for, but in the past Halos, the default starting weapons have always made or broke the game for us. Having the BR/AR start will truly make Halo 5 enjoyable and I feel it will be a Halo we will want to play for a very long time.
