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[ElRenoRaven]

Just heard Ghaleon was dying. Sucks.

He's not dying silly. He's just passing the mantle on to you.

 

[TheOddOne]

You will be the new Ghaleon.

Step it up.

Man, those are some huge shoes to fill. I am not ready, I want see the world and meditate.

 

[scar tissue]

I guess if I could sum it up: The game is fun but it's barely Halo.

This. The art design looks like a cheap Halo knockoff by Gameloft that could be called "Holy Ring: Warfare Developed" or something like that.
And the gameplay is equal parts Crysis 2 and Halo: Reach.

 

[Barrow Roll]

I find it kind of "odd" the people who were vehemently defending the game pre-release and were drinking the kool-aid from E3/PAX and all that are now some of the most disappointed/salty/offended/disenfranchised etc.

What happened between those two things? Seriously? Did it just "take more games" for some of you to realize you hated it? All of you guys at those events and personal "parties" who got to play early were all kinds of indoctrinated. Now, it's like you're (some of you) different people.

Shit's really weird.


I'm still enjoying the hell out of the game, but I enjoy most of the changes. I think it's a step in the right direction, but perhaps I'm (and people like me) part of the problem. The way I see it, it's the "purists" who are having the biggest fits.

I'm still having a blast.

This. The art design looks like a cheap Halo knockoff by Gameloft that could be called "Holy Ring: Warfare Developed" or something like that.
And the gameplay is equal parts Crysis 2 and Halo: Reach.

lmao, complain about the MP as much as you want, but this has to be a joke.

 

[Gray Man]

He's not dying silly. He's just passing the mantle on to you.

...Are we ready for the mantle?

 

[Rev3rb]

smh == this thread

 

[Garrett 2U]

This. The art design looks like a cheap Halo knockoff by Gameloft that could be called "Holy Ring: Warfare Developed" or something like that.
And the gameplay is equal parts Crysis 2 and Halo: Reach.

The art design is phenomenal.
IDK, I'm loving this game. I find it so much fun.
I just need more small maps.

 

[Shake Appeal]

It seems like the first week shows the whole content, Spartan Ops is going to have... Interesting.

No, the first week shows that Spartan Ops is a parceled-out and less polished (by necessity) Campaign rather than a team-oriented survival mode with fail conditions and controllable scoring. Hence: not as interesting to me as Firefight.

 

[DesertFox]

Halo 4 Grenade trick, you want to watch this. http://youtu.be/Dk7Cb7VYSYU

Wow - so months of internal testing couldn't find a glitch that the general public found in 4 days. What was that about not needing a Beta again?

 

[Karl2177]

I guess if I could sum it up: The game is fun but it's barely Halo.

=/

This is exactly it.

Also, I want chanting monks in more than 1 cutscene in campaign.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

Maybe the people having a good time need to post more to balance out those about to throw themselves from cliffs.

Thread has been a straight devolution into sorrow the last two days.

But that's understandable since the negative stuff gets posted about, because those who are happy are less likely to say anything because the are playing.

Shit, I'm only typing now because I'm in the middle of reading my nuke book and taking online quizzes.

 

[Garrett 2U]

No, the first week shows that Spartan Ops is a parceled-out and less polished (by necessity) Campaign rather than a team-oriented survival mode with fail conditions and controllable scoring. Hence: not as interesting to me as Firefight.

Lol you musta played a different Firefight than I did on Reach.
ODDT's firefight was phenomenal, but team-oriented survival wasn't the direction Bungie seemed to be taking it.

 

[Devolution]

Maybe the people having a good time need to post more to balance out those about to throw themselves from cliffs.

Thread has been a straight devolution into sorrow the last two days.

But that's understandable since the negative stuff gets posted about, because those who are happy are less likely to say anything because the are playing.

Shit, I'm only typing now because I'm in the middle of reading my nuke book and taking online quizzes.

>=o

Lanning is fun as fuck. Well it was fun until people got ordinances and shit.

 

[MrDaravon]

Yep. And when I was playing with Daravon and his buddies yesterday, there was a chorus of "Well, if Halo is CoD-lite now instead of its own thing, we might as well just play CoD." I fear for the population after next week.

Yup. To be clear I wasn't the one saying that, but that was the sentiment in the room, and that's been my biggest concern for months: they tried to capture the CoD audience but didn't go all the way with it, so the game is in this weird in-between that I don't think is going to satisfy either crowd long-term. I'm still really enjoying it, and I like some of the things they took from CoD, but they either didn't balance some of them, or go far enough on others. I think that the current maps and playlists really aren't helping things either though. I'll continue to play the game and probably flip-flop between this and BO2 or whatever, but I think most of my friends will wind up going to BO2 full-time. The only reason it's even really depressing is most of these people were hardcore full-time Halo fans until Reach, and that game turned out to be such a bummer for them that they checked out CoD, and at this point Halo 4 just feels like a "CoD-lite" to them as you said.

I will be very interested to see how they rollout playlist changes, DLC, and general changes.

 

[Hypertrooper]

No, the first week shows that Spartan Ops is a parceled-out and less polished (by necessity) Campaign rather than a team-oriented survival mode with fail conditions and controllable scoring. Hence: not as interesting to me as Firefight.

Interesting. When did they say it is going to be like that?

 

[HigherLevel]

I believe you're ignoring context when you say this, though. Bungie were obligated to create Reach, their decision to split a statement that they were creatively tired of the franchise, Reach was their last hoorah, and a chance to do something fresh, whilst still making Halo.

Reach wasn't Halo 4 to Bungie, Reach was still very much a spinoff, disconnected from the baggage that's associated with the numbered iterations.

It was precisely the principles that 343 have eschewed that caused Bungie to stand down in the first place, they recognised that there's a level of creative restriction associated with making Halo 4 that didn't enthuse them as a team.

It was 343's job to take that mantle and do what Bungie didn't want to, to make Halo 4 in line with what Halo fans want and expect. They've taken major liberties in that regard.

There's also the fact a lot of core Bungie people weren't even working on Reach because they had moved on to Destiny.

 

[Ken]

Welp, this OT went dark fast. Ghaleon moving on is sad

I was going to say something positive after I finished this mostly good game of Slayer Pro on Haven, but after killing two members of the opposing team while bottom middle and then getting wiped out because the entire enemy team immediately respawned right behind us, I don't have anything positive to say.

 

[Arnie]

There's also the fact a lot of core Bungie people weren't even working on Reach because they had moved on to Destiny.

Excellent point, didn't even consider that.

 

[TheOddOne]

 

[Overdoziz]

Maybe the people having a good time need to post more to balance out those about to throw themselves from cliffs.

Thread has been a straight devolution into sorrow the last two days.

But that's understandable since the negative stuff gets posted about, because those who are happy are less likely to say anything because the are playing.

Shit, I'm only typing now because I'm in the middle of reading my nuke book and taking online quizzes.

ARE YOU ENTERTAINED

 

[Devolution]

I was going to say something positive after I finished this mostly good game of Slayer Pro on Haven, but after killing two members of the opposing team while bottom middle and then getting wiped out because the entire enemy team immediately respawned right behind us, I don't have anything positive to say.

Even if people don't spawn right by you there's always dash and PV to make up for that.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

ARE YOU ENTERTAINED

Oh, I am. In fact, I just covered the invasion of Denmark.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Maybe the people having a good time need to post more to balance out those about to throw themselves from cliffs.

I am having a good time, and it is even better when I forget this game is supposed to be a continuation of the Halo series. But that good time is trampled on by a lot of design decisions, and an overarching philosophy that treats me as if I care about filling bars and armour unlocks and 'personalization' more than I do about two-teams-enter, one-team-leaves contests between similarly ranked players who have equal and informed access to the same resources and have to apply their knowledge and skill to win those contests.

Unfortunately, I care much more about the latter.

 

[sp3000]

This is why I see myself kind of separating from the current gaming demographic.

I don't need a bunch of shit.

I just want a balanced game.

For all its faults Halo was egalitarian as fuck. Everyone gets the same shit. None of this play to unlock, everything is random, oh by the way that guy had X after you die.

They've moved completely away from this.

Fuck me.

This is what 343 never was able to understand. It's what made Halo different from every other me too FPS.

I find it funny how positive the gaming OT is because its full of new fans while old Halo veterans in this thread are able to see all the problems with the game

343 is like EA, trying so desperately to go after a new audience at the cost of the existing one. Which is hilarious because Halo has one of the largest fanbases of any game, but that COD money is just too much to pass

 

[bobs...onGaf]

That's another thing. When people said "they were seeing the game through tainted eyes" or "they didn't play enough games to really pass judgement yet." Many of those people would give the "yeah, but we didn't play it enough *eye roll* crap."

This happened a ton in the threads leading up to launch with the whole team slrp vs team downer crap. Now it's actually playing to fruition and many of those problems seem to be effecting those "team slrp" people. It's kind of fucked up to see.

And again, this is coming from someone who is enjoying the shit out of the game.

Yeah its really thrown me. I LOVED the game when I was playing it out at Eurogamer, but it feels like online I keep playing against people who just want a good K/D and will camp back and use camo and AR rather than get into BR/ DMR battles.

Game felt like it had a gentleman's agreement going on pre-release, online everyone is just scrambling to abuse the cheapest elements of the game.

Games a LOT of fun when its played 'well', but that rarely happens.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

This game gets me really excited for Blops2. There thats positive!

 

[scar tissue]

lmao, complain about the MP as much as you want, but this has to be a joke.

Well, it was indeed hyperbole (I wrote the post immediately after checking out the armory), but the art design of everything covenant related and around 75% of the armor permutations is terrible. Flood look stupid too, and covie weapons sound all wrong.

The forerunner artstyle and the rest of the UNSC stuff apart from the spartans is stellar. The MP maps have an excellent design as well.

 

[FyreWulff]

There's also the fact a lot of core Bungie people weren't even working on Reach because they had moved on to Destiny.

Which core people? Seropian was gone after Halo 1. Jones went into the background since Halo 2 (and depending on who you talk to, there was the Seropian Halo 2 that was 86'd after he left and then the one we ended up getting). ODST was Staten's baby, and Reach was Marcus Lehto's.

The Big Guy behind each Halo hasn't been really that consistent in the first place. This is just my view of them, though, maybe Bungie historians have a better view.

 

[Ken]

Even if people don't spawn right by you there's always dash and PV to make up for that.

I don't mind if they had to run a few seconds to get back to us. I do mind when it feels like the game spawned them and all they had to do was pull the right trigger a few times to clean up without ever moving.

 

[Devolution]

The BTB games I've played against better teams can be summarized as this:

Turtle in some well fortified area. Wait for ordinance drops. Snipe and laser the other team from who knows where.

Win.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Interesting. When did they say it is going to be like that?

Never, and accordingly I never expected it to be that. But that is what I would have preferred, and I am not enthused by what I have played in its place. That shouldn't be hard to follow, but whatever. 343 don't need you to defend their honour with passive aggression and sarcasm, kid.

 

[erpg]

This is what 343 never was able to understand. It's what made Halo different from every other me too FPS.


I find it funny how positive the gaming OT is because its full of new fans while old Halo veterans in this thread are able to see all the problems with the game

That's a generalization I can't agree with. The difference between the Gaming OT and this one is that everyone here has been pickled in Reach for 2 years.

 

[Garrett 2U]

The BTB games I've played against better teams can be summarized as this:

Turtle in some well fortified area. Wait for ordinance drops. Snipe and laser the other team from who knows where.

Win.

Yeah BTB is pretty crappy. Sucks as over half the maps are catered towards it.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Which core people? Seropian was gone after Halo 1. Jones went into the background since Halo 2. ODST was Staten's baby, and Reach was Marcus Lehto's.

The Big Guy behind each Halo hasn't been really that consistent in the first place. This is just my view of them, though, maybe Bungie historians have a better view.

Who was the main guy with Halo 3? I know he also worked on H1 and H2 - guy did a great job.

 

[Karl2177]

Go:
http://youtu.be/55zOTemj03k?t=10m16s

 

[The P of Poland]

I don't understand how some of you could put up with Reach's bullshit longer than this one though. What's stopping you from doing customs? The baseplay is superb.

343 made half their changes base traits that can't be changed in customs in order to push "their vision", even if their vision happens to be different from our vision of what Halo ought to be.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

This game gets me really excited for Blops2. There thats positive!

Every time I watch a Blops 2 stream I can't get excited for it. I think it's the first COD I'm not getting.

Yeah its really thrown me. I LOVED the game when I was playing it out at Eurogamer, but it feels like online I keep playing against people who just want a good K/D and will camp back and use camo and AR rather than get into BR/ DMR battles.

Game felt like it had a gentleman's agreement going on pre-release, online everyone is just scrambling to abuse the cheapest elements of the game.

Games a LOT of fun when its played 'well', but that rarely happens.

Unfortunately this always seems to be the case. Public Playtesting and events like PAX/E3 will always be better because there most definitely is a "gentleman's rules" type of thing going on. Once you get the online population into a game it's every asshole for himself.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

I don't think Hyper goes out of his way to be a passive-aggressive asshole all the time

but he sure does it unintentionally a lot.

 

[HigherLevel]

Yep. And when I was playing with Daravon and his buddies yesterday, there was a chorus of "Well, if Halo is CoD-lite now instead of its own thing, we might as well just play CoD." I fear for the population after next week.

I'm not going to lie. I'm probably going to be one of those people with the way I feel about 4 right now. CoD stuff works in CoD because it is designed around that. Halo is not that type of game and throwing CoD stuff in it doesn't work. I played almost 5000 games of Halo 3, and 2000 games of Reach despite how many issues it had. Halo is my favorite series, and I haven't even played a CoD game extensively since MW2, but if the games are going to be basically the same thing I'll go with the game this stuff was originally intended for.

I was also generally optimistic about these changes prior to release but after playing them I realize how it doesn't work and takes out all the enjoyment of a game with great gunplay.

 

[Devolution]

343 made half their changes base traits that can't be changed in customs in order to push "their vision", even if their vision happens to be different from our vision of what Halo ought to be.

What would you need to change other than dash?

 

[sp3000]

343 made half their changes base traits that can't be changed in customs in order to push "their vision", even if their vision happens to be different from our vision of what Halo ought to be.

This is what really pisses me off about 343. It's not even that they messed up the matchmaking with their idiotic CTF rules, but that custom games have to also stick with those rules.

It's that they think their vision is so superior that players don't deserve to have the option to play anything different. It's unbelievably arrogant

The lack of a beta just shows how far they were in their own world, thinking they were making the best Halo game without a single bit of community feedback

 

[Rickenslacker]

I think a part of it is Halo fatigue, there's been a Halo game yearly since 2007, and I've played the shit out of them all barring Wars. I feel like Halo 4 is the perfection of Reach's concept, where Reach was a departure from the Halo norm and a completely unsatisfying unfun experience that was flawed at the core, 4 takes the DMR, the AAs, sprint, the bloom, and incorporates them in ways that are far more tolerable. The DMR now feels like the CE pistol in rifle form that I originally thought Reach's was going to be. But a lot of the added elements really taper my excitement or ability to take it seriously, the instant respawning, the sprinting (and maps accommodated for that), the perks, the experience points, the changes to objective gametypes, the ordnance both personal and global, I'm just not feelin' it. I guess I'm like BigShow in a lotta ways in that I too always hoped that there would be a game that went back to a lot of CE's feel and design methods with some updates, but that's not gonna happen.

I'm replaying Halo 3's campaign right now, and while at the time it never really did much for me, I'm still missing its approach to environment design and its tongue-in-cheek goofiness (mostly in stupid Grunt humour that I actually do miss). I mean, Halo 4 is fun don't get me wrong, but I don't see it having much staying power for me. I see a lot of potential in the future of it, but I just don't see myself glued to it for one reason or another. I guess I'm just very picky and it would have to be catered to me in order to change that, but I'm not saying they should've or that I'm disappointed that they didn't. I'm not putting my foot down on it either as future map packs and playlist updates might change my thoughts on it, but at the moment I don't see myself getting the season pass.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Finished it. Will go to spoiler thread for that discussion, but I can say it's my favorite campaign since Halo 1.

Yeah, there were some issues here and there, and the firefights occasionally may have been a bit worse than Halo 3 or the others but in the end the story and pacing were fantastic (despite needing a bit more explanation of characters at times). So all the MP stuff aside, this was a fantastic campaign.

I was a bit sour after Halo 3 campaign due to the story being really thin, and this one was quite a bit better. Previous games may have had slightly better encounters and "30 seconds of fun" but I felt this one resonated with me so much more than any of the campaigns since Halo 1.

 

[scar tissue]

I sort of hope that people move away from Halo 4 very quickly and the sales of map packs and future spartan ops seasons will be poor. Maybe 343 will reconsider for Halo 5 then.

It's just so disappointing how they were/are deaf to all feedback and even refused to make a beta. Most of this could have been avoided.

 

[Shake Appeal]

idiotic CTF rules

If you had told me a year ago that a Halo game would launch with a dedicated CTF playlist and that I would not only spend relatively little time in it, but that I would avoid going near the flag and instead hang back and get kills while defending, well...

That said, in customs you can set flag at home to score and take the waypoints off carrier heads and give the flagnum limited ammo. You can't stop instant pick-up or the ability to, uh, put the thing down, but you can do that much. Combined it with some map changes to get predictable global ordnance and some other gametype changes to force loadouts, and you could make a decent CTF Classic.

 

[Demoncarnotaur]

I still have a lot to catch up on, but Ill reply to the things that stood out from how far I got. Also, just want to say this is how I feel:

SP: Good, if not rushed and sometimes lacking story. Best cohesive storytelling thus far IMO.
SP Gameplay: Hit and miss, leaning closer to miss for now
MP: Most fun since I've had since Halo 2. It may be flawed, but Im having a blast

What probably bugged me the most about Halo 4's campaign is

Spoiler

that 5 years later, Halo 3 still has the biggest battles. Why don't get get to fight half a dozen wraiths, choppers and ghosts with our own 3 tanks, and a couple of Warthogs? Halo 4 doesn't even come close to that kind of scale, especially when you take the Scarab battles into account. Instead we get a cheap Scarab knock-off which you can board by simply going up the lift or jetpacking up and it doesn't even move around. Then you clear the enemies and destroy the core only to see that it doesn't explode until it's position right above the abyss and when it does there's a small poof and the entire ship is completely gone. Not even chunks of the ship falling down, nope just a small explosion and the entire thing evaporated.

I think this 'Scarab' battle clearly shows the difference between (pre-Reach) Bungie and 343. Where Bungie gives you the Scarab which you can approach in a ton of different ways and is much more dynamic and fun to take down. 343 gives you a Lich which is a static vehicle which you can only approach in one (maybe two) ways and which explodes in a scripted and unsatisfying way. It's a half-asses attempt at creating a new Scarab and I'm pretty sure we only even see it pop up once during the entire campaign which makes it feels kind of out of place.

Agreed.

Damn, what maps? I love doubles so I won't complain, but I guess it will be a lot of Adrift, Solace, Haven and Abandon? Maybe some Forge maps also, but bleh they look so bad. Maybe some standard maps can be forged to make smaller variations.

Halo 4 Complex Glitch Spot Oddball. Please fix it 343!

Yeah, this just happened to me.

 

[Tashi]

I don't mind the negative views and critcism that has been hitting the thread. What I do mind are the broad, sweeping statements about certain aspects or even the entire game itself. I'm sure I do it too from time to time but shit it's been bugging me lately. Let's promote discussion mang!

Any good Forge maps turn up yet? Impressive remakes or anything?

 

[Merguson]

Firefight is good fun for a while.

Then you ran out of maps to play on.

Then it got boring. For me at least. Happens with that kind of mode in any game for me.

We'll see how Spartan Ops plays out though. I like it so far, though I'm kind of annoyed with the fact I can't have subtitles during the CGI video but they appear in-game.

 

[Slightly Live]

If you had told me a year ago that a Halo game would launch with a dedicated CTF playlist and that I would not only spend relatively little time in it, but that I would avoid going near the flag and instead hang back and get kills while defending, well...

That said, in customs you can set flag at home to score and take the waypoints off carrier heads and give the flagnum limited ammo. You can't stop instant pick-up or the ability to, uh, put the thing down, but you can do that much. Combined it with some map changes to get predictable global ordnance and some other gametype changes to force loadouts, and you could make a decent CTF Classic.

I did something like that for BTB Slayer on Ragnorak. edited the map to put down Halo 3 fixed weapon spawns, and forced everyone to spawn with BR's and AR's. No AA's or anything other stuff. Heck, the laser would only spawn at the start of the match and never again.

I really, really enjoyed it; felt like classic Halo.

 

[too much eslim]

I don't understand how some of you could put up with Reach's bullshit longer than this one though. What's stopping you from doing customs? The baseplay is superb.

This I agree with. How were any of you able to play Reach for as long and as consistent as you guys did and can't put up with this. this is more fun and more enjoyable than Reach.