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Halo |OT14| They call it Halo

P

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
sltPoison said:
I forget where I copy pasted this from, but how accurate is it?

Didact
You know, I totally get Didact as far as his "I fucking hate you guys" villain bit. Let's look at his life, in short.

>Born a brilliant tactician with a strong capability for war
>...In a society that abhors violence against any living thing and views warriors with contempt
>Stumble upon the love of his life, marries her, and has several children, all of whom he is very proud for taking up the warrior's life like their pop
>Suddenly these human dudes attack
>Defends his people, people resent him for it
>"Quit killing ANYTHING!"
>All his children are killed during the war, by humans
>Humans claim to be running from nightmarish parasite
>Tell your people about this
>"Probly just an excuse bro. Finish your war. Also, you suck for defending us. Save the humans, etc."
>Devolve humans back to the stone age for being too cool for school
>Occasionally try to bring up that whole "galaxy-devouring parasite" thing
>"lol fuck you Didact, there's no parasite"
>There is a parasite
>"DIDACT HELP US, THERE IS A PARASITE"
>He opts to overhaul and strengthen the vigilance of all defenses, build sanctuaries, and cleanse the Flood utterly, the way you do with any disease
>"Sorry bro, we're gonna go with this guy's "galactic suicide rings" project instead."
>"But-"
>"lol fuck you Didact, how about some eternal imprisonment for being such a swell guy?"
>Imprisoned for no fucking reason
>Wakes up just in time to be betrayed and murdered by one of his own people
>Flood is wrecking everyone's shit because all military budget went into Suicide Rings™
>Have to reincarnate and obliterate the personality of a guy he was just warming up to
>Mutation makes him look fucking hideous
>Campaign against the Flood goes horribly
>Dickshit Forerunner guys actually trying to preserve the Flood instead of wipe them out because space hippies
>Wife, his sole emotional support, barely talks to him anymore because she actually supports using the Suicide Rings™ even though she spends all her days trying to find a way to preserve humanity, Didact's old foe
>Wife literally cares more about making sure your enemy lives than being with you
>Didact tries to find her
>"go away Didact, just kill us all so the humans (who warned us about the parasite you tried to defend us against after defending us against the humans) can live!"
>Wife dies on earth after burying Ark
>Didact never sees her again
>Forced to kill your wife (and the rest of the galaxy) then go to bed for a few thousand years
>Wake up, praying that the plan worked
>First thing you see is more fucking humans basically robbing your tomb and fucking around with your planet
>And they brought OTHER aliens that hate them
>Your only allies are toy soldiers you made because your own fucking people would never give you warriors (except your sons, who died)
>People of this time now have the gall to brand you a villain
Click to expand...
I haven't finished Primordium so I don't know how accurate this is, but if so... the fuck.
Tashi said:
You playing default?
Click to expand...
Yes.

Something, something get shit on?
 
R

Reagan's BR

Banned
Dax01 said:
Eh. All you're doing is stating your opinion on a game to support a statement that's not true. None of it backs up the part I quoted.
Click to expand...
I was explaining why I believe you disagreed with me. I believe the majority of people who played Halo 1 over LAN and Halo 2 over XBL prefer those games to Halo 3. I think most people in this thread who fit that category would agree with me.
 
C

CyReN

Member
Posted by a HaloWaypoint mod, holy awesomesauce of goodness.

You know, you are so eager to refute people's point that you have completely missed one part: actually refuting their points. Someone else makes a claim, you make an opposite claim and think that to solve it. I will tell you what's wrong with the game. And I won't be keeping my post short, no. Because there is no point making claims and not supporting them with arguments. I will write as long as I can and need to, so you have been warned. Don't as for short responses if you expect people to talk about something as personal.

First of all, let's start from the top. The reason I dislike Halo 4 is the skill gap. More precisely, the lack of it. That's the main reason, and that echoes in all of my arguments against Halo 4 as far as multiplayer goes.

That said, one of the major hindrances and the most prominent one are the aiming mechanics. I haven't quite figured out what exactly is flawed in those mechanics. Is it the aim assist, is the strafe, is it the Field of View, or a combination of those? However, that reason is irrelevant to the point I am trying to get through here. It's too easy to get kills with the precision weapons. I can only offer you my personal experience of this, but based on the fact that numerous players would also agree with me, I can only expect there to be at least some truth to my claims.

But if you can get over the fact that I don't have real world evidence that aiming is substantially easier than in previous games, I can argue that aim is the most visible mechanic in the game and one of the most important for the game. If the aiming skill gap is low, encounters will be more about who sees who first and less about who has the better aim. And while I have nothing against tactical shooters where it's all about surprising your opponent, Halo is not such and loses a major part of its skill gap in encounters where the winner has no shields 99% of the time unless their opponent really screws up. A game like Halo simply doesn't function without proper aiming skill gap.

Moreover, the aiming skill gap is participant in the current structure of the utility weapon sandbox. DMR is supposed to be a single shot precision weapon with a high skill gap, but rewarding kill time when mastered. However, in its current state, it's the most effective weapon in the sandbox for anyone.

Another major factor to the lack of skill gap are the ordnance drops. Power weapon control is part of map control and map control is a very important area of skill in competitive Halo. Ordnance drops effectively lower the importance of map control when personal ordnance gives no incentive to actually move around map. Players also have no control over the weapon, and even the most skilled player can't stop a less skilled player from selecting a weapon from their personal ordnance and picking it up because the weapon drops right in front of them. Getting a weapon from global ordnance is more a matter of luck than a matter of skill because the drop times and locations of weapons are incredibly hard to predict accurately, the system is practically random. All this renders power weapon control obsolote and makes the game more random and less controllable which, as you may already understand, deteriorates the skill gap.

The whole loadout selction system doesn't encourage skillful gameplay either. I have no problem with selecting your weapon as long as the sandbox is properly balanced and there are no power weapons in the loadout selection (power weapons in this case classified as weapons that can kill in one shot), although vehicle countering weapons are also weapons that shouldn't be in loadouts (the Plasma Pistol) for the sake of proper vehicle combat. However, where the loadouts fail is the selection of armor abilities. No one should be able to select an ability off-spawn that makes preset movement paths and shortcuts obsolete (jetpack), an ability that allows them to see every player on the map (Promethean Vision), or an ability that allows players to prevent or at least delay their death with a push of a button with no skill involved. Invisibility is also an ability that shouldn't be in loadouts as the only form it works there is a form that encourages camping and discourages movement.

Jetpack shouldn't be there in the loadouts. If it's in the game, it should be as a map pick-up. You see, by breaking the preset movement paths and shortcuts and by allowing players to get to locations they wouldn't get to without jetpack, map control becomes shallower because there is no high ground advantage that isn't negated by the jetpack. There is no incentive for players to fight over a location that would be advantageous without jetpack in play due to jetpack negating its advantage.

Promethean Vision doesn't work because it essentially allows you to know all that is happening without putting yourself to a position where you can actually see a large part of the map which, inversely, would mean that everyone can see you. In other words, you can be aware of all that is happening without positioning yourself well. That lowers the importance of good position and, again, map control.

Hardlight Shield is simply a less severe case of Armor Lock. The only meaningful difference this time is that at shorter distances you can't protect yourself from well placed grenades. But at longer distances, the effect is still the same. You can effectively stop the encounter until your shield either runs out or a teammate comes and kills the opponent you left weak. In either case, its effect to gameplay is negative. The more certain your death is, the more skillful maneuver you should need to stop yourself from dying. But in case of the shield, you can escape a death otherwise certain death (being at no shield), with a simple push of a button.

Camo, as I said, is something that, as an ability to spawn with, only encourages camping and discourages movement. In other words, it does the exact opposite of what a good gameplay mechanic should do in a shooter. It, as well as all the other abilities, would also work better as a map pick-up, of course modified from how it behaves now. Map based power-ups increase the potential for power weapon control as well as map control, ending up with a more skill based experience.

The maps in the game are something that is also of not very good quality. map design is at least as important in terms of skill as gameplay design. Properly designed, the map and the gameplay are in constant interaction with maps affecting how players play and the gameplay affecting how certain maps are played. Haven is amongst the better maps of Halo 4, it has something that is very important to a map of a game as movement oriented as Halo: depth of movement. It has lots of shortcuts and jumps that give the map some sort of skill gap where a skilled jumper will utilize the map design much more effectively than an unskilled one. And there is the interaction. The speed of Halo 4 allows a player to utilize the jumps on Haven effectively and that in turn makes the gameplay more dynamic.

---

Unfortunately, such depth isn't common in Halo 4 maps. Haven is more of an exception than the norm. And even it is partially affected by what is one of the most prominent of map design flaws in Halo 4: excessive size. Complex is a good example of a map that is usually played in 4v4, but would be more suitable for 6v6 by its design. Most of the time, movement on the maps in Halo 4 isn't smooth. On Adrift, for example, I find myself often in a situation where I have to go through a lot of trouble to get to the other side of the map, depending on which side I am. Because there is the other side which has both the man cannons, while the other has none. If the map was designed so that there was man cannon on each side of the map, the movement would have been more even on both sides which would have produced a more seamless movement experience.

Weak vehicles are something this was eventually going to come to. You called a system where a vehicle has individual health more logical. But that isn't the case. In reality, the system is more counter intuitive than a system where the vehicle health is linked to player health as the player never really knows when the vehicle will blow up. It's not intuitive when a player is driving around in a Warthog with full shields while the vehicle suddenly blows up from a single DMR bullet.

However, that is not the worst problem the health system produces. As the vehicle health doesn't regenerate over time to a high enough point, the vehicles destruction is always inevitable. Even the most skilled driver can't avoid getting their vehicle destroyed when constantly being fired at. The problem is only amplified with the ability of non-explosive weapons to destroy vehicles.

Non-explosive weapons should never be able to destroy vehicles because you always have them, they are easy to aim at the vehicle, and they always have a lot more range than explosives. Of course exceptions here are the Sparan Laser and Rail Gun beacuse they are power weapons and not designed to be spawned with. however, sniper, with its bullet reserve, should not be able to destroy vehicles.

That's not nearly all about the reasons why Halo 4 multiplayer is so detrimental to skillful gameplay. But I am running out of time, so, I can't write more. If you wish, I can return and lay out all the things I dislike about in the campaign, Forge, and Spartan Ops. They should fit to a single post due to campaign and Spartan Ops being very much the same with not a whole lot to say about Forge.

However, if you expect me to write short posts with zero arguments to support my claims, don't expect me to. If you want to know why people dislike something, you better listen to their reasoning, too. If you wish to attempt to refute my post, please remember that it's written in regards to skill gap and depth of gameplay. That's the only perspective from which it should be judged. Skill is a personal preference of mine. I congratulate you if you even manage to properly refute at least one of my points.
Click to expand...
 
O

Omni

Member
Non-explosive weapons should never be able to destroy vehicles because you always have them, they are easy to aim at the vehicle, and they always have a lot more range than explosives. Of course exceptions here are the Sparan Laser and Rail Gun beacuse they are power weapons and not designed to be spawned with. however, sniper, with its bullet reserve, should not be able to destroy vehicles.
Click to expand...

Since when is the Sniper not a power weapon? I think that the sniper's ability to destroy vehicles isn't that bad. Hell, it IS a .50cal. And it's not like people with snipers are going around destroying every vehicle that they see.

Agree with pretty much everything else though.
 
N

NullPointer

Member
CyReN said:
Posted by a HaloWaypoint mod, holy awesomesauce of goodness.
Click to expand...
I'm with him on most of that, except for the jetpack and vehicle complaints. Jetpack simply doesn't negate a high ground advantage. A jetpack equipped player can get to your sweet position without using ramps and trick jumps, but that's kind of the point, and is a consideration in the map design.

And a vehicle run will almost always net you a few kills and sometimes quite a few more, which makes them viable and worthwhile, and woe be the players facing an enemy team that has all the vehicles in hand.

One last bit - there is plenty of map movement, as teams struggle to take advantageous ground to fire their weaponry, and to pick up vehicles and ordnance. Its different map movement than running timed circuits to pick up weapon X at interval X, but its still there.
 
T

Tawpgun

Member
I think that 99% of the people who love Halo 4 would love it if it was a refinement of Halo 3 or Reach.

But by changing things so drastically, and so badly in some regards, you lost the fans that actually cared about that stuff.
 
R

Reagan's BR

Banned
Easy 10 step plan to fix (most) of Halo 4's MP issues:
1. Remove AA's, perks, and Loadouts
2. Remove global ordinance and add static weapon spawns (It isn't predictable, it doesn't promote teamwork, it was a stupid idea and should never have even been considered)
3. Increase strafing speed and decrease aim assist
4. Remove killstreaks
5. Make good maps
6. Make matchmaking work
7. Make the playlists good (no more regicide and dominion)
8. Fix CTF
9. No more auto pickup for oddball
10. No more baseball cards

5 step easy plan to fix Singleplayer:
1. Write a good story
2. Believable characters
3. No more digitized human Master Chief that Cortana can touch in a nuke explosion that was stupidly scripted
4. Fun enemies
5. Good levels

Easy plan to fix Spartan Ops:
1. Get rid of it


343, hire me.
 
K

Karl2177

Member
randomrosso said:
Since when is the Sniper not a power weapon? I think that the sniper's ability to destroy vehicles isn't that bad. Hell, it IS a .50cal. And it's not like people with snipers are going around destroying every vehicle that they see.

Agree with pretty much everything else though.
Click to expand...

Jimmy Random knows that Snipers kill vehicles, so he wastes all of the shots on the Warthog. Meanwhile your base is being overrun by infantry. It creates a weapon where it has two roles, and role and weapon should be a 1:1 ratio.
ibeVE7OJeSXwi6.png
 
N

NullPointer

Member
Reagan's BR said:
Easy 10 step plan to fix (most) of Halo 4's MP issues:
1. Remove AA's, perks, and Loadouts
2. Remove global ordinance and add static weapon spawns (It isn't predictable, it doesn't promote teamwork, it was a stupid idea and should never have even been considered)
3. Increase strafing speed and aim assist
4. Remove killstreaks
5. Make good maps
6. Make matchmaking work
7. Make the playlists good (no more regicide and dominion)
8. Fix CTF
9. No more auto pickup for oddball
10. No more baseball cards

5 step easy plan to fix Singleplayer:
1. Write a good story
2. Believable characters
3. No more digitized human Master Chief that Cortana can touch in a nuke explosion that was stupidly scripted
4. Fun enemies
5. Good levels

Easy plan to fix Spartan Ops:
1. Get rid of it


343, hire me.
Click to expand...
ibwzLOQV6G41jL.gif
 
M

MIMIC

Banned
Reagan's BR said:
Easy 10 step plan to fix (most) of Halo 4's MP issues:
1. Remove AA's, perks, and Loadouts
2. Remove global ordinance and add static weapon spawns (It isn't predictable, it doesn't promote teamwork, it was a stupid idea and should never have even been considered)
3. Increase strafing speed and decrease aim assist
4. Remove killstreaks
5. Make good maps
6. Make matchmaking work
7. Make the playlists good (no more regicide and dominion)
8. Fix CTF
9. No more auto pickup for oddball
10. No more baseball cards

5 step easy plan to fix Singleplayer:
1. Write a good story
2. Believable characters
3. No more digitized human Master Chief that Cortana can touch in a nuke explosion that was stupidly scripted
4. Fun enemies
5. Good levels

Easy plan to fix Spartan Ops:
1. Get rid of it


343, hire me.
Click to expand...

I've always been too afraid to ask this....but....what the hell does "AA" mean? Anti-air?
 
Computer

Computer

Member
That is awesome. I am tired of people playing odd ball dirty and throwing it off the map. 343 needs to put this on all maps in odd ball.
 
T

Toa TAK

Banned
I just finished my 1st specialization (Pioneer), and going onto Operator. After that I really don't know which to choose from, anyone got any ideas on which I should choose next? Because once I do these two, I'm good as far as what I need from them go.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Neo+Gaf=Nerd_Fap said:
That is awesome. I am tired of people playing odd ball dirty and throwing it off the map. 343 needs to put this on all maps in odd ball.
Click to expand...

The downside is you're limited to 12 of them, and Relay is pushing the size limit on being able to seal up the map (you can already see the gaps in my prototype, although I think I can close those up with better placements) with an invisible grav-dome.

Forge needs to let us have invisible solid objects like 343/Bungie have been able to place so we can close up maps functionally but not visually. Or let us have resizable grav-areas.
 
S

Sr Kitsune

Member
Toa TAK said:
I just finished my 1st specialization (Pioneer), and going onto Operator. After that I really don't know which to choose from, anyone got any ideas on which I should choose next? Because once I do these two, I'm good as far as what I need from them go.
Click to expand...

I would suggest "Rogue" since it gives you the Stability armor mod, it takes away the flinch system. Even if you don't have a problem with Flinch (?), Rogue is the only armor mod that actually lets you bypass a part of the gameplay.

Toa TAK said:
Cool, I'll do that next then. Flinch isn't a problem for me, but recently, it's become a lot more noticeable. But I'll do Rouge nonetheless.
Click to expand...
It's more noticeable when you're using snipers. I suppouse they(343i) will re-add Team Snipers once they launch a TU that allows them to put Stability in the MM loadouts.
 
T

Toa TAK

Banned
Deadly Paw said:
I would suggest "Rogue" since it gives you the Stability armor mod, it takes away the flinch system. Even if you don't have a problem with Flinch (?), Rogue is the only armor mod that actually lets you bypass a part of the gameplay.
Click to expand...

Cool, I'll do that next then. Flinch isn't a problem for me, but recently, it's become a lot more noticeable. But I'll do Rouge nonetheless.
 
F

Fracas

#fuckonami
Is there a general consensus on the quality of the revamped gametypes?

I don't like CTF at all, but I'm enjoying the new Oddball and I feel that KoTH is the best it's ever been.

P.S. Karl, I'll be uploading your Countdown shenanigans tomorrow. Been super busy the last couple of days. Got the clip on my Xbox ready to cap tomorrow afternoon.

edit: forgot to add, I mentioned this a while back, but Oddball would be GOAT if there was an "I'm open!" button that notified the carrier where a teammate was. That and a designated catch button. Would be great for Grifball as well.
 
D

DeadNames

Banned
monsterfracas said:
Is there a general consensus on the quality of the revamped gametypes?

I don't like CTF at all, but I'm enjoying the new Oddball and I feel that KoTH is the best it's ever been.

P.S. Karl, I'll be uploading your Countdown shenanigans tomorrow. Been super busy the last couple of days. Got the clip on my Xbox ready to cap tomorrow afternoon.
Click to expand...

New Oddball is awesome.
 
S

Striker

Member
DeadNames said:
New Oddball is awesome.
Click to expand...
Tossing is not bad, but auto pickup is not good.

I didn't think much was wrong with old Oddball - just needed to be played on the appropriate maps (Warlock, Midship, Lockout). It and King are not CTF/Assault gametypes where they can be used in most maps.
 
H

Havok

Member
monsterfracas said:
Is there a general consensus on the quality of the revamped gametypes?

I don't like CTF at all, but I'm enjoying the new Oddball and I feel that KoTH is the best it's ever been.

P.S. Karl, I'll be uploading your Countdown shenanigans tomorrow. Been super busy the last couple of days. Got the clip on my Xbox ready to cap tomorrow afternoon.

edit: forgot to add, I mentioned this a while back, but Oddball would be GOAT if there was an "I'm open!" button that notified the carrier where a teammate was. That and a designated catch button.
Click to expand...
King changes are good pretty much across the board.

Like Oddball throwing, hate autopickup. That you can't see the Oddball carrier's callsign (and this goes for CTF as well) is fucking maddening and should never have shipped.

Both have problems finding maps that work really well with the gametype. Haven works for both, so each have a solid entry, but KOTH Ragnarok or Oddball Complex are things that have no business existing but do because, well, Halo playlist management. Thing is, I don't think either of the two can carry their own playlist specifically because of this (well, and because the population is still pretty pathetic even now that one of them got axed). There just are not enough maps for them to maintain independence.

I think my CTF issues are pretty well documented at this point. I don't think it achieves its goals very well and is a pretty big misstep as a whole.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
randomrosso said:
Why didn't you just use one big one for the roof? If you flipped them on their side, you'd get more use out of them, no?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure the side acts the same way. Also, they're a fixed size. Always 10x10 or 5x5.

edit: yeah, they're cubes. 10x10 grav zone and a 10x10x10 Hill Marker:

zR45yl.jpg
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
blamite said:
That'd require gametype adjustments though, this solution is entirely map-based.
Click to expand...

They're also broken as hell even when you get them working. They love to reset to default when you save a map, amongst other bugs. Hopefully they are addressing this in the upcoming TU.

I believe petetheduck had to get his working on a map by saving the map and then dashboarding out of Forge to finally get the traits to work correctly, for example.

edit: I remembered correctly
 
N

NullPointer

Member
Toa TAK said:
I just finished my 1st specialization (Pioneer), and going onto Operator. After that I really don't know which to choose from, anyone got any ideas on which I should choose next? Because once I do these two, I'm good as far as what I need from them go.
Click to expand...
I've gone weird, taking Operator (vehicle health+EMP resistance) and Pathfinder (turret specialty) as my first two and putting them in a BTB focused wheelman loadout. Working on Rogue right now as my buddy swear by its flinch reducing powers - good for DRM battles and especially so if you want to run with a light rifle. But god damn is it going to be hard to go without dexterity or ammo.
 
M

Mabef

Banned
Is proximity chat in Halo 4? I was building a gametype that requires teams to talk with each other, but, now that I think about it, is that even possible? Technically speaking, that is.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Barrow Roll said:
Quick, lose the game on purpose so Relay gets nullified.

I actually think Relay isn't horrible.
Click to expand...

I was put in charge of updating it for matchmaking (the softkills only). It'll probably be showing up soon.

Mabef said:
Is proximity chat in Halo 4? I was building a gametype that requires teams to talk with each other, but, now that I think about it, is that even possible? Technically speaking, that is.
Click to expand...

AFIAK no. Don't know if it's at the gametype level or the engine level. There was separate fine controls for it in Reach and Halo 3 they could use at the playlist level.
 
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