I'm going to throw all of my praise and excitement for Spartan Ops out of the window now because most of the missions this week are just rehashed from last week. It was bad enough that 3 of them from last week were ripped from campaign with only one receiving and new skin. 343 you lazy bastards, you said 50 missions.
Tried playing Land Grab twice over the weekend via matchmaking, and the netcode was so terrible it was literally a slideshow that I was kind of controlling. All the other episodes were fine, so I went back to it and had the exact same problem.
So is this new episode set to Heroic as well for co-op? I'll probably be doing these on my own the first time around, but wanted to ask anyway.
There is a critical flaw, and it's the lack of that thirty seconds of fun. You're getting yourself hung up one element that I didn't go into much detail, though I should if I'm going to say anything about it (the Brutes DO flush you out in the hallway, by the way, I replayed it last night to help clarify my thoughts on Halo 4's combat). The gameplay is not the same there are some of the same elements at play, but those are wrapped in a different package. Some factors aren't even there at all, like the unpredictability of the principal antagonist upon near death: in Halo 3, for example, you couldn't be sure if a Brute would either berserk at you or keep firing his weapon. It's a wonderful way to reward the player for fighting an enemy. This element doesn't come into play with the Knights or the Elites in Halo 4.
Then there's the poor feedback system, the lack of unit cohesion among the Forerunner enemies, and lots of other factors that I'm working on clarifying my thoughts about.
Still having the 30 seconds of fun. The only Halo where this does not happen for me is Reach. Fuck the inhumanly accurate AI in it.
No, they don't do it properly anyway. It allows me to pick them one by one even more easily (this can't be the intended design?). And i don't remember them doing this in most places, only in certain areas with only Brutes (motor pool, camo Brutes in the Covenant mission's barrier towers, some others; but they never send the flushing parties very far)
As for predictability, don't the Brutes berserk always in certain conditions? The Grunts (in Halo 3) certainly go kamikaze if their leaders die, very predictable. And the Brutes are very predictable in Halo 3 as well, in general. The encounter design in Halo 3 is good, the AI is not much better than Halo 4's.
Again, the AI in general is lacking in Halo 4. But i can't remember a game after... Halo CE or 2? Not quite sure but anyway, after those no shooter has impressed me by their AI. (Predictability is an aspect of AI, so me commenting on AI is relevant)
I do agree that the enemies lack something... doesn't prevent me having fun though.
Poor feedback? How? I don't have problems with this in Halo 4, SP or MP, well, other than the PromKnight shields being too faint. Clarify?
As for the unit cohesion, yes... the Prometheans, if they truly worked as teams would elevate them to above the Covenant as enemeis, i think.
That said, the Covenant in Halo 4 lacks cohesion as well... These damn general AI issues in the game.
I'm going to throw all of my praise and excitement for Spartan Ops out of the window now because most of the missions this week are just rehashed from last week. It was bad enough that 3 of them from last week were ripped from campaign with only one receiving and new skin. 343 you lazy bastards, you said 50 missions.
Lol! It was more satisfying watching FUD and waiting every week.
If the missions don't get better I'll prolly just watch the cutscenes on YouTube. Fuck doing these solo. Bs add legendary matchmaking shit is easy with 4 players.
Bite sized Firefight with reused assets is all Spartan Ops was ever going to be. Such a waste of time and "bandwidth". If all those people had put their effort into Forge maybe we could've had colors for once.
Bite sized Firefight with reused assets is all Spartan Ops was ever going to be. Such a waste of time and "bandwidth". If all those people had put their effort into Forge maybe we could've had colors for once.
Cool, playing the first mission this week and it is the only new one and it is taken from campaign. I'd rather have firefight than this shit 343. Oh yeah I also can't complete the mission because the final enemy is under the ground.
Tried playing Land Grab twice over the weekend via matchmaking, and the netcode was so terrible it was literally a slideshow that I was kind of controlling. All the other episodes were fine, so I went back to it and had the exact same problem.
So is this new episode set to Heroic as well for co-op? I'll probably be doing these on my own the first time around, but wanted to ask anyway.
Only reason I got that was because a single marine was glitched into the wall. I tried to save the others, but I was eventually overrun (was doing it solo)
Reach had plenty of randomness-bloom, jetpack super high, terrible maps(lets camp this one lift all game), weapons didn't work(bloom), Armor Lock(worst addition to a Halo game ever), spawns were horrible in Reach
H4 randomness occurs with Ordnance drops in Infinity but still don't seem no where near as bad as reach mess. Play something without personal drops, Infinity is meant for good ol' casual fun, nothing more. Hit detection is great in H4 with any weapon. It baffles me seeing how much negative is coming towards H4 way.
h4 is more random to me... I got used to bloom never liked it and dont miss it, I played btb more than anything... then vanilla and then objective...guess the game was just really kind to me..AL is terribad agreed...PV isn't far off though.
I also want to say this game looks better but I loved the grain filter in reach, I really loved the green night vision and used it all the time when playing campaign and FF, the texture work in reach was great... the streaming thing they do doesn't work right in this game... PC gaming has ruined me I guess.
1. Neil Davidges Halo 4 soundtrack is REALLY good don't get me wrong. But it lacked the iconic punch Marty had. I realized this the moment I listened to it. There were maybe 2 times in the campaign I thought the music came close to Marty levels. And one of them was on Requiem when nothing is going on toward the end. It was the same music piece I thought they'd use for when Requiem was first revealed. I can't put my finger on why Marty's music felt more iconic... maybe its because he used to be a jingle writer so he knows how to make themes stick. Or it was the lack of percussion (I've always noticed Marty music has a lot of percussion) Either way, Marty >>>>> Davidge.
2. The opening scene to Composer's music is like legit straight out of Star Wars. I thought I was watching a cutscene from Battlefront or something. Here's the link to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwuyYLFRvtQ
Probably been posted, but if you have the xbox smartphone app running, when you go edit the name of a map or replay, the text input keyboard will pop up on your phone's screen and you can type in from there. Very handy and comfy.
Bite sized Firefight with reused assets is all Spartan Ops was ever going to be. Such a waste of time and "bandwidth". If all those people had put their effort into Forge maybe we could've had colors for once.
I really liked the music that played on the second or third level when
you see the Didact's ball thingy for the first time
. It was kinda weird, jarring and unsettling at the same time. Good stuff.
Plus I liked the menu music. Not sure where it came from (didn't hear it in game either), but I put it up there with Marty's. For the first time since Halo 2 (and less so, Halo 3) I've been quite happy to just sit at the menu listening.
I've only played the first couple of missions of Spartan Ops, but if they are all backwards levels of campaign sandboxes then i would have rather the resources spent on making more (quality) maps.
The fact that the AI in this game isn't as dynamic as the others, coupled with unlimited re spawn/higher difficulty = everyone has fuel rod cannons, leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
The CG cut scenes are fantastic though.
Also the "what did you expect for free" argument is paper thin. Look at Spec Ops; they are executed a lot better with original environments and even varying game play scenarios.
I'll tell you one thing: for better or worse, this is the most fun Halo to play by yourself online. For a while yesterday I popped headphones on and played Regicide and King of the Hill and even CTF alone and didn't feel the immediate frustration I felt in Reach when playing with randoms. Possibly because winning the game seemed kind of irrelevant besides just having fun and racking up kills.
Also, a guy in my office was just rhapsodizing about how he wasn't really a Halo fan, but this game is awesome, so there's that.
Indeed.
I haven't had any issues with MM, the only time was with this large party, we couldn't find a BTB match at first, constantly aborted the search.
No, I just know that 343's design philosphy is bigger = better, so at least Forge could save us with proper Halo maps. Big and convoluted never makes for good Halo maps. Even something like Headlong was 10x more streamlined than the labyrinths in Halo 4.
Seriously, Complex was deemed fit for release in 2012. Complex. That map is just a bunch of building assets stamped out in random places in a field. There is zero rhyme or reason to its layout. Remember when Bungie released videos prior to Halo 2's launch where they went through different maps and explained the design process behind each? I'm dying to get a video like that for the maps thrown onto this disc. Why was this path built here in Exile? Why was this building designed like this in Complex? Why did you make Solace so unnecessarily busy? Why is Abandon some hills with Forge pieces at the top?
Every single map designed by 343 feels like they wrote down a big checklist of all the different elements that make up a great Halo map, but they had zero understanding of how those line items come together to make something cohesive.
Perhaps my biggest frustration with the map design is how... grounded everything is. Everything is earthy and filled with rocks and soil and vines and typical stuff you could imagine being on Earth somewhere. Setting multiplayer inside a giant virtual reality system gives you a blank slate to build whatever the hell you want, so why not build maps that are totally beautiful and unique while retaining great structures for flow and combat? I'm thinking of something like Wipeout Fury.
I'll tell you one thing: for better or worse, this is the most fun Halo to play by yourself online. For a while yesterday I popped headphones on and played Regicide and King of the Hill and even CTF alone and didn't feel the immediate frustration I felt in Reach when playing with randoms. Possibly because winning the game seemed kind of irrelevant besides just having fun and racking up kills.
Also, a guy in my office was just rhapsodizing about how he wasn't really a Halo fan, but this game is awesome, so there's that.
No, I just know that 343's design philosphy is bigger = better, so at least Forge could save us with proper Halo maps. Big and convoluted never makes for good Halo maps. Even something like Headlong was 10x more streamlined than the labyrinths in Halo 4.
Seriously, Complex was deemed fit for release in 2012. Complex. That map is just a bunch of building assets stamped out in random places in a field. There is zero rhyme or reason to its layout. Remember when Bungie released videos prior to Halo 2's launch where they went through different maps and explained the design process behind each? I'm dying to get a video like that for the maps thrown onto this disc. Why was this path built here in Exile? Why was this building designed like this in Complex? Why did you make Solace so unnecessarily busy? Why is Abandon some hills with Forge pieces at the top?
Every single map designed by 343 feels like they wrote down a big checklist of all the different elements that make up a great Halo map, but they had zero understanding of how those line items come together to make something cohesive.
Perhaps my biggest frustration with the map design is how... grounded everything is. Everything is earthy and filled with rocks and soil and vines and typical stuff you could imagine being on Earth somewhere. Setting multiplayer inside a giant virtual reality system gives you a blank slate to build whatever the hell you want, so why not build maps that are totally beautiful and unique while retaining great structures for flow and combat? I'm thinking of something like Wipeout Fury.
Super good points, especially on Complex. The aesthetic thing bothers me particularly on that map. It's bland in a realistic sort of way. I'm playing a game, give me cool colors and less potentially real life like areas.
The game is normally pretty smooth for me, too. It wasn't until yesterday that I had any trouble.
For some reason, all of my games last night were terribly laggy. As the host would be changing each game, I'm thinking I was the one with the problem, not the game. My k/d went down .15 last night. :[
Are we really giving props to the Brutes of Halo 3 in here?
They are literally the biggest joke of enemies that exist in Halo. Especially the Halo 3 version with their non-recharging armor, that you can almost always break with one PP shot; then roar, charge... headshot. I rushed through H3 right before H4 on heroic, and it was just as big of a joke as I remember.
While I love the set-pieces and some of the larger battles in h3, the brutes are not really that 'challenging' to fight, although I guess sometimes they are 'fun'. Its the same as running over bk's in multiplayer, its fun for a little while... but ultimately not satisfying.
The Brutes were good for one thing in Halo 3. The inclusion of the Brute Chopper, best vehicle ever.
I had 1 laggy match yesterday, some dude ate about 10 BR shots, and another time a rocket didn't come out of my rocket launcher, lol. I actually saw just the poof of smoke from the business end of the RL on the killcam, but no actual rocket
Are we really giving props to the Brutes of Halo 3 in here?
They are literally the biggest joke of enemies that exist in Halo. Especially the Halo 3 version with their non-recharging armor, that you can almost always break with one PP shot; then roar, charge... headshot. I rushed through H3 right before H4 on heroic, and it was just as big of a joke as I remember.
While I love the set-pieces and some of the larger battles in h3, the brutes are not really that 'challenging' to fight, although I guess sometimes they are 'fun'. Its the same as running over bk's in multiplayer, its fun for a little while... but ultimately not satisfying.
The Brutes were good for one thing in Halo 3. The inclusion of the Brute Chopper, best vehicle ever.
I am enjoying 4 MP a lot - none of the new additions really feel totally broken as I feared they would. Sure, it has some flaws: maps are a bit too busy here and there, Infinity gametypes are too random, and there aren't enough small maps - but as is, I am having lots of fun, and I like it a lot.
Face it: never going to get Halo 2 back, never going to stay in one place, never going to be exactly what you want.
Reach made coordinated teamplay more viable than Halo 4 does (for many reasons, not least of which was timed respawns), and -- for better and worse -- made dominating as an individual harder, and scored things more clearly, and didn't have JIP, and had Arena if you were so inclined. It made your win/loss ratio kind of relevant (whereas in Halo 4 it's a lot less meaningful mainly because of JIP), and the presentation of those wins and losses on Bungie.net far more coherent and appealing than they are on Waypoint.
Those things didn't excuse a lot of things that Reach did badly, but they made winning the game matter more. Almost all the incentives in Halo 4 are either deliberately designed to reward individual achievement rather than team accomplishment or unintentionally cause the latter to be less viable.
Are we really giving props to the Brutes of Halo 3 in here?
They are literally the biggest joke of enemies that exist in Halo. Especially the Halo 3 version with their non-recharging armor, that you can almost always break with one PP shot; then roar, charge... headshot. I rushed through H3 right before H4 on heroic, and it was just as big of a joke as I remember.
While I love the set-pieces and some of the larger battles in h3, the brutes are not really that 'challenging' to fight, although I guess sometimes they are 'fun'. Its the same as running over bk's in multiplayer, its fun for a little while... but ultimately not satisfying.
The Brutes were good for one thing in Halo 3. The inclusion of the Brute Chopper, best vehicle ever.
Go through Halo 3 on Heroic without using the most effective combo in the game. You will see Brutes do things that you never expected them to, because you're actually allowing the AI to go through more of their routines.
To call them garbage, even though you're only playing it like you would on Legendary is silly. Are they as good as Elites? No. They were placed in an unfortunate situation where the player needed an Elite-like enemy when the Elites are then allies.
I'll tell you one thing: for better or worse, this is the most fun Halo to play by yourself online. For a while yesterday I popped headphones on and played Regicide and King of the Hill and even CTF alone and didn't feel the immediate frustration I felt in Reach when playing with randoms. Possibly because winning the game seemed kind of irrelevant besides just having fun and racking up kills.
Also, a guy in my office was just rhapsodizing about how he wasn't really a Halo fan, but this game is awesome, so there's that.
I am enjoying 4 MP a lot - none of the new additions really feel totally broken as I feared they would. Sure, it has some flaws: maps are a bit too busy here and there, Infinity gametypes are too random, and there aren't enough small maps - but as is, I am having lots of fun, and I like it a lot.
Face it: never going to get Halo 2 back, never going to stay in one place, never going to be exactly what you want.
Reach made coordinated teamplay more viable than Halo 4 does (for many reasons, not least of which was timed respawns), and -- for better and worse -- made dominating as an individual harder, and scored things more clearly, and didn't have JIP, and had Arena if you were so inclined. It made your win/loss ratio kind of relevant (whereas in Halo 4 it's a lot less meaningful mainly because of JIP), and the presentation of those wins and losses on Bungie.net far more coherent and appealing than they are on Waypoint.
Those things didn't excuse a lot of things that Reach did badly, but they made winning the game matter more. Almost all the incentives in Halo 4 are either deliberately designed to reward individual achievement rather than team accomplishment or unintentionally cause the latter to be less viable.
I play to win. You can't just generalize everyone together, just cause there's unlocks based on xp gained means that's what all players care about. I enjoy them don't get me wrong but I want to win every match first and foremost. Individual battles are super important in H4, I've lost them just based on missing one shot. Team Slayer Pro is evident of that when competitive settings are present. I've had so many close matches in H4 little time then I ever did in Reach, teamwork plays a huge role. Again this is mainly about competitive settings like Slayer Pro. Now Infinity is for casual fun and shouldn't be taken so hard.
Plus reaching a broader audience for Halo was obviously their goal, while we hardcore have consistently made winning us over seem an impossible and unrewarding task, so more power to them if they do end up establishing a much broader playerbase for the future.
Go through Halo 3 on Heroic without using the most effective combo in the game. You will see Brutes do things that you never expected them to, because you're actually allowing the AI to go through more of their routines.
To call them garbage, even though you're only playing it like you would on Legendary is silly. Are they as good as Elites? No. They were placed in an unfortunate situation where the player needed an Elite-like enemy when the Elites are then allies.
To be honest, most of the time I don't use PP on heroic.
I generally stick, use grenades, sniper, etc. I don't see them do anything that I don't expect them to do.
I'd say chieftains are my favorite, simply because of the fact they actually have a shield + a helmet you have to knock off. In ODST firefight, those guys were almost like a puzzle to solve depending on what weapons you had. All the rest of the brutes, not so much.
Plus reaching a broader audience for Halo was obviously their goal, while we hardcore have consistently made winning us over seem an impossible and unrewarding task, so more power to them if they do end up establishing a much broader playerbase for the future.
I and many other dealt with the same thing with Ghost Recon, which wasn't BAD until Future soldier and that's only because it was a giant unpolished turd when it released.
I really doubt Halo will ever end up in that basket though.
Plus reaching a broader audience for Halo was obviously their goal, while we hardcore have consistently made winning us over seem an impossible and unrewarding task, so more power to them if they do end up establishing a much broader playerbase for the future.
Plus reaching a broader audience for Halo was obviously their goal, while we hardcore have consistently made winning us over seem an impossible and unrewarding task, so more power to them if they do end up establishing a much broader playerbase for the future.
The battle with the Chieftain at the end of The Ark is the best fight in any Halo games. I really wish Halo had more moments where you are offered several choices in a subtle way like in that encounter.
And to the people who keep stating that Frankie said there will be a classic playlist; he never promised anything aside from a stripped down playlist which we already have.
Spartan Ops is starting to lose me. I'll keep playing it each week because I desperately want to see the format succeed, but the actual content has some issues.
Spartan Ops designers need to seriously cool their jets on a couple of things: Their undying love for throwing multiple FRG and Conc Rifle Elites into every encounter, and throwing a dozen combat-mode Watchers at the player at once. On FRG/Conc Elites: One-hit kills are not fun. Two of them at once is not fun either, surprise. Two of them at once while a sword guy is rushing you and you're being knocked around like a pinball is once again, not fun. On Watchers: Their weapon is headshot-capable. They ignore cover. They have a direct line of sight to the player's head at all times because they're in the air. Getting downed in a heartbeat because there are 4 of them that spawned right in front of me, giving me no time to react, blazing me while I clumsily navigate behind a box is not fun. I understand that they have to make it a decent challenge for 4 people, but I would be incredibly surprised if 4p coop was their primary use case. Even if it were, adding a bunch of explosives is not the way to compensate, they're already doing that by dramatically increasing the AI count and enemy rank over the campaign (there are far more Generals and Zealots than in the campaign). It would be a fun challenge even if they weren't making the players explode in an instant during every encounter.
The reuse of areas I guess isn't surprising, but I didn't think it was going to be this aggressive (4 of last week's 5 environments return). If you're going to reuse geometry, at least make the encounters different to the campaign section it was pulled from. But no, Pelican Alley is almost entirely the exact same style of encounter as that section of the campaign (some of the enemy placement is almost exactly the same), complete with snipers and all.
The writing continues to be hit-or-miss. Most of it is pretty good, Palmer needs to stop saying "eggheads" every ten seconds. One line in particular was aggravating. I'll put it in spoilers just in case folks are sensitive to dialogue spoilers, though it's a throwaway line. Writers: in your video game, having a line that says
"Snipers. Frickin' campers."
is not cute, it is not funny. It is an easy, groan-inducing joke that just slaps the player in the face with "HEY ITS A VIDEO GAME ISNT THAT FUNNY WE MADE A REFERENCE!" Ugh. You can do better, the rest of the writing in the game proves that.
I really like the idea, I like the story elements, I want it to succeed. The content is just not there yet.
Brutes are missed. Love them from a fiction standpoint. Seeing a feral bunch of brutes go apeshit (punny) on a prom knight would of been great.
I wonder whats happening with the brutes now.
Halo 5 wishlist
Brutes
ODST
Marine Figure Head (someone like johnson)
Sgt Buck
New Prom Class (if they return)
No more watchers unless overhauled to not be a pixel aiming contest
Spartan Ops is starting to lose me. I'll keep playing it each week because I desperately want to see the format succeed, but the actual content has some issues.
Spartan Ops designers need to seriously cool their jets on a couple of things: Their undying love for throwing multiple FRG and Conc Rifle Elites into every encounter, and throwing a dozen combat-mode Watchers at the player at once. On FRG/Conc Elites: One-hit kills are not fun. Two of them at once is not fun either, surprise. Two of them at once while a sword guy is rushing you and you're being knocked around like a pinball is once again, not fun. On Watchers: Their weapon is headshot-capable. They ignore cover. They have a direct line of sight to the player's head at all times because they're in the air. Getting downed in a heartbeat because there are 4 of them that spawned right in front of me, giving me no time to react, blazing me while I clumsily navigate behind a box is not fun.
The reuse of areas I guess isn't surprising, but I didn't think it was going to be this aggressive (4 of last week's 5 environments return). If you're going to reuse geometry, at least make the encounters different to the campaign section it was pulled from. But no, Pelican Alley is almost entirely the exact same style of encounter as that section of the campaign (some of the enemy placement is almost exactly the same), complete with snipers and all.
The writing continues to be hit-or-miss. Most of it is pretty good, Palmer needs to stop saying "eggheads" every ten seconds. One line in particular was aggravating. I'll put it in spoilers just in case folks are sensitive to dialogue spoilers, though it's a throwaway line. Writers: in your video game, having a line that says
"Snipers. Frickin' campers."
is not cute, it is not funny. It is an easy, groan-inducing joke that just slaps the player in the face with "HEY ITS A VIDEO GAME ISNT THAT FUNNY WE MADE A REFERENCE!" Ugh. You can do better, the rest of the writing in the game proves that.
I really like the idea, I like the story elements, I want it to succeed. The content is just not there yet.
Yup. I'm going to go into more detail on Ops when I do my summary post about the game later today, but on solo Legendary (which I am forced to do as their netcode is shit and it's been unplayable every time I've tried co-op, and matchmaking doesn't allow you to vote for difficulty so I can't even just try spamming it to see maybe if I can get a better connection with randoms) Ops is ten times more fucked than anything in Campaign. On two separate missions so far (one from last weeks, one from this weeks) my respawn has been either in the middle of multiple knights, or multiple high-level elites. Both times I would be killed practically instantly, and I couldn't even adapt because every time I respawned I would respawn in a slightly different location by a few feet, and facing a different direction. Both times I wound up just suicide-plasma grenading them over over to get past it. It's fucking terrible. I'm still flabbergasted they don't adjust difficulty for number of players. But then at the same time they don't reset you to a checkpoint if everyone dies. Bizarre.
