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[Steelyuhas]

Button and stick mapping for Halo 5, seriously new console, new engine and no excuses.

Doubt there will be a completely new engine.

 

[TheOhrenberger]

I use jetpack exclusively. I can get ridiculous sightlines on maps without all that much danger to myself because the vertical acceleration on both ascent and descent is so fast. I can reach areas that I have no right to be in, like the Ragnarok tall rocks, and rain death down on people who wrongly assumed that the map couldn't be broken and that their cover was reliable. A few times in a typical game, I use it to finish a kill who has nowhere to go by popping up briefly in the air over his cover. He has no ability to counter this except to rely on teammates who don't have any reliable line of sight to me. Is it as bad as the hovering variant in Reach? No, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather see it cut in favor of more well-considered abilities like the thruster.

Since you're discounting PV here as well, let's talk about that. I can see all the way across small-to-midsize maps with it because the pulse range is so large. I, and by proxy my team, get instant awareness of everything that's going on at any point on those maps. The waypoint killed stealth on flag runs back hope to the cap, Promethean Vision killed stealth on flag runs to the enemy base.

Heck, we can talk about Hardlight Shield if you want. Yeah, it's directional protection, that's great, so you can be killed by grenades or flanking. But the reason it was a lateral move from Armor Lock is simply because the user can move. On a big map, don't expect to finish your kill up with any degree of reliability when they can just pop a shield and waltz to cover.

Our definitions of OP are different, that much is apparent. I'm using it as shorthand for elements I don't think fit in with Halo's core, for various reasons. You can disagree, that's fine, but I wouldn't act as though it were incredulous that they were brought up.

It's very apparent that our definitions of OP are different, so I won't waste too much of our time responding to everything you said (mainly because a lot of it is accurate, I just don't see it as OP).

That being said, I do want to touch on PV. The only use I've ever seen for PV is finding Camo players. With the radar on, PV becomes useless. Sure, you can get a more accurate representation of where players are, but you still get a good idea from the radar and at that point your just wasting your AA slot with a redundant power. Also, PV pings on enemy radars so I know when you've seen me. I used PV a lot when I first realized how OP camo was (as a way of countering it), but I found that it was the most useless armor ability at the time.

 

[Steelyuhas]

You do porn?

wow

Spoiler

Time to get some sleep.

 

[Enfinit]

Doubt there will be a completely new engine.

I highly, highly doubt Halo 5 will be on a brand new engine. They'll do what they did with Halo 4 and just heavily modify the previous existing one.

 

[Tashi]

You do porn?

fuckin LOL

 

[NullPointer]

"We know people hate jetpack, so we made sure it doesn't break the game"
*Jetpack breaks the game*

Except that it doesn't

 

[Steelyuhas]

So I assume Barrow and Heckfu have spread that like wildfire already?

 

[TheOhrenberger]

The Reach TU should have been global, and Anniversary should have just been a code that came with CEA or a full fledged Reach: Mythic second disc, but not what they did with it.

Even Anniversary just being a code in the box with CEA would have been better for Reach as Anniversary Classic would have been able to use Reflection, Pinnacle, Asylum and Blood Gulch as maps + all the community remakes. We wouldn't have had the pointless split in Reach between Anniversary disc owners and Reach disc owners because CEA can't load any DLC and Reach disc maps can't be marked as optional in Annidisc playlists.

Seriously, it's so silly that Reach has Halo 1 mode, and Blood Gulch, which is generally considered to be the feature map of Halo 1's multiplayer.. and they don't appear anywhere near each other in matchmaking while existing in the same game.

Reach's matchmaking was just a mess.

 

[TheOhrenberger]

Button and stick mapping for Halo 5, seriously new console, new engine and no excuses.

Every game needs button mapping. No excuses ever.

 

[Omni]

I use jetpack exclusively. I can get ridiculous sightlines on maps without all that much danger to myself because the vertical acceleration on both ascent and descent is so fast. I can reach areas that I have no right to be in, like the Ragnarok tall rocks, and rain death down on people who wrongly assumed that the map couldn't be broken and that their cover was reliable. A few times in a typical game, I use it to finish a kill who has nowhere to go by popping up briefly in the air over his cover. He has no ability to counter this except to rely on teammates who don't have any reliable line of sight to me.

Eghhhh! This is the single most frustrating thing that happens to me in game regularly. I just want to scream at whoever is using it

 

[kittens]

It's very apparent that our definitions of OP are different, so I won't waste too much of our time responding to everything you said (mainly because a lot of it is accurate, I just don't see it as OP).

That being said, I do want to touch on PV. The only use I've ever seen for PV is finding Camo players. With the radar on, PV becomes useless. Sure, you can get a more accurate representation of where players are, but you still get a good idea from the radar and at that point your just wasting your AA slot with a redundant power. Also, PV pings on enemy radars so I know when you've seen me. I used PV a lot when I first realized how OP camo was (as a way of countering it), but I found that it was the most useless armor ability at the time.

And for spotting crouched players, who don't show up on radar. Which is why it can sometimes be impossible to sneak into bases in CTF, like Havok said. A hugely important mechanic, greatly diminished by adding in an unnecessary armor ability.

Eghhhh! This is the single most frustrating thing that happens to me in game regularly. I just want to scream at whoever is using it

Happened to me all the time, especially on Solace.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I'm fine with AAs as a concept, I'm fine with loadouts as a concept. Frankly, I'm fine with the execution on a majority of the elements that fall within those categories. I generally prefer vanilla objective settings to MLG, and that's been the case throughout the series. The catch: I don't think that certain very specific elements of either loadouts or AAs belong. No matter what the actual gametype settings are, I will never want to play CTF that includes Promethean Vision because I think it is highly damaging to the experience. I'd really rather not play CTF that allows players to spawn with a shotgun. But that doesn't mean I want a stripped down experience either, though I have severe issues with a lot of the wrapper elements in that new CTF experience (that I've written about ad nauseum, so I won't go into it here). I really enjoyed Reach Objective with Sprint and thought Hologram would have worked really well in it, but they went from Sprint/Drop Shield/Camo to Sprint/Evade/Camo to Sprint/Camo, which is really just trading broken ability for broken ability and then not going far enough in culling them.

It's a weird problem to have, but at its core I just want everything to be well-considered without the imbalanced, easily exploited crap that has popped up here and there in every game in the series. It's not even that I think those ideas are bad, just misguided and poorly executed, especially (but not anywhere close to solely) in the context of "this is what Halo is now and what we are focusing every iota of our efforts onto."

Firstly well said without hyperbole mate.

I'm all for minor tweaks e.g. boltshot and PV range nerfs. However I just don't have issue tackling other AA's in Halo 4 or for the most part Reach. Armour lock can die in hell of course. For example in Reach players complained about slow kill times and enemies getting away due to jetpack or sprint. Now jetpack has a huge nerf and I feel a lot of effort was put in by 343 for map design to cater for this. You can see it in most maps and partly the reason for mor clutter as well. Now you use a jetpack advantage as a broken example but with enemies having sprint this is a solid principle in play. If it is just 1v1 with no enemy sight line then you have the Aa advantage and should get that headshot for the kill with height advantage. Conversely if that enemy used teamwork or a buddy system you'd be toast before you got at shot off. Enemy team mates have jetpack and audibles to counter your jetpack or sight lines etc.

When I'm not on an iPad after hours I'd like to have a back and forth with someone like yourself for the various action reaction. In Halo 4 I rarely feel disadvantaged by an enemy AA, even PV or camo.

Of course with differing playlists, if they were implemented with classic vs. infinity, then plenty of play styles are available to all player types.

 

[Garrett 2U]

It is simply no fun being shot from the sky.
That is the only anti-Jetpack argument needed.

It is simply no fun being picked off by an enemy you cannot see.
That is the only anti-Active camo argument needed.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I highly, highly doubt Halo 5 will be on a brand new engine. They'll do what they did with Halo 4 and just heavily modify the previous existing one.

No engine is 100% new. Code snippets, vector art beginnings blah blah are core to productivity. By definition of new console hardware and the amount of reworking it will be classed as a new engine.

It is simply no fun being shot from the sky.
That is the only anti-Jetpack argument needed.

It is simply no fun being picked off by an enemy you cannot see.
That is the only anti-Active camo argument needed.

Clearly you're a hardcore classic guy and the playlists should support that. I like both styles of play though. I have no issue dealing with jetpack packers or camo campers and teamwork trumps all AA's. Sure they may get one or two cheap kills but they are toast by me or a team mate very shortly after that. Again simply use cover to traverse a map or camo/cover and take out that camo sniper to even then have camo sniper yourself. That's not even bring in the 3x scope DMR into play either, which is even easier to counter those.

 

[Havok]

It's very apparent that our definitions of OP are different, so I won't waste too much of our time responding to everything you said (mainly because a lot of it is accurate, I just don't see it as OP).

That being said, I do want to touch on PV. The only use I've ever seen for PV is finding Camo players. With the radar on, PV becomes useless. Sure, you can get a more accurate representation of where players are, but you still get a good idea from the radar and at that point your just wasting your AA slot with a redundant power. Also, PV pings on enemy radars so I know when you've seen me. I used PV a lot when I first realized how OP camo was (as a way of countering it), but I found that it was the most useless armor ability at the time.

Your radar doesn't cover an entire small to medium map, PV does - I can see base-to base on Solace with ease, or from side to side on Relay. It's not just about accuracy, it's about range in combination with absolute precision. And it won't ping enemy radars when you are outside of a relatively small radius. The only indication that the enemy team has that somebody somewhere is using it is the sound effect, and that gives no positional information to them. You get immediate awareness of where the enemy is at will, without having to be in radar range. That's about as far from useless as you can get.

Firstly well said without hyperbole mate.

I'm all for minor tweaks e.g. boltshot and PV range nerfs. However I just don't have issue tackling other AA's in Halo 4 or for the most part Reach. Armour lock can die in hell of course. For example in Reach players complained about slow kill times and enemies getting away due to jetpack or sprint. Now jetpack has a huge nerf and I feel a lot of effort was put in by 343 for map design to cater for this. You can see it in most maps and partly the reason for mor clutter as well. Now you use a jetpack advantage as a broken example but with enemies having sprint this is a solid principle in play. If it is just 1v1 with no enemy sight line then you have the Aa advantage and should get that headshot for the kill with height advantage. Conversely if that enemy used teamwork or a buddy system you'd be toast before you got at shot off. Enemy team mates have jetpack and audibles to counter your jetpack or sight lines etc.

When I'm not on an iPad after hours I'd like to have a back and forth with someone like yourself for the various action reaction. In Halo 4 I rarely feel disadvantaged by an enemy AA, even PV or camo.

Of course with differing playlists, if they were implemented with classic vs. infinity, then plenty of play styles are available to all player types.

I think where we're starting to diverge at its core is the bolded - I'd rather those advantages come from player action that doesn't take place in a menu. I know some people do prefer the other style, and that's fine, but it's all the way not for me. For what it's worth, I don't find those moments to be as much of an annoyance in 4 as in Reach, but I think a lot of that is due to the increase in rifle strength and better base player traits where I can kind of brute force my way out of situations that are impossible to outmaneuver (an impossibility potentially brought on by the fact that I just don't have the right loadout items equipped - I've been meaning to write something up about the entropy of variables in Halo 4 that would deal with the sheer number of possible situations like this when you are given no information beforehand about what the enemy has equipped).

 

[Overdoziz]

Except that it doesn't

It doesn't break the game, but it does often make anticipating player movement impractical. For example: Someone is on the bottom floor on Prisoner without a jetpack. You see him for a splitsecond and then you lose sight of him. You know there's only a couple of ways up to the other floors so you can anticipate his movement and you make decisions based on that. Had the player at the bottom floor had a jetpack he could've gone to any of the floors without much effort or time. You can't properly predict that kind of stuff. I know some people think a game being predictable is the worst thing since Satan, but I think it has to be like that to up to a certain level. Without the Jetpack you know that people will always be either walking on a surface or jumping near a surface. If you come around the corner knowing there is someone there you have a rough idea of where to aim before even turning the corner. Add in jetpack and all of a sudden people can be practically anywhere in the air on a map, you can't practically anticipate that kind of movement and that really bothers me.

/2010

With the radar on, PV becomes useless.

Frankie alt?

 

[Enfinit]

By definition of new console hardware and the amount of reworking it will be classed as a new engine.

I highly, highly doubt that.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

Make the AA's into equipment a la Halo 3 and make Camo/PV Powerups. Everyone should spawn exactly the same, except for their primary/secondary weapons from a pool of weapons.

We all "sound" like a broken record at this point..

Frankie alt?

lol

 

[Tashi]

Eww fuck equipment

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I highly, highly doubt that.

Talk to Corrine Yu about the graphics optimisation alone for the new console, GPU/APU, memory resources, windows 8 console framework and already that is more than enough for a new engine version at least. You wouldn't label the CE engine the same engine as Halo 4 or 3 now would you? Fact is in the kernel there are elements from all Halo games still, confirmed by Frankie, pre 4's release.

I haven't even touched on third party plugins like physics or video being ready for next gen Xbox either. I could wax far more lyrical about this but there is no need.

Make the AA's into equipment a la Halo 3 and make Camo/PV Powerups. Everyone should spawn exactly the same, except for their primary/secondary weapons from a pool of weapons.

We all "sound" like a broken record at this point..



lol

For infinity types far more imbalanced, one player gets AA advantages, I'd rather playlists than some old classic game stuffed with half arsed new mechanics.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

Eww fuck equipment

Lesser of two evils mah dude.. I'd rather have someone fight over picking up a Jet Pack than spawn with it.

I'm surprised the Flare was never made into an AA actually lol

Grav. Lift = Jet Pack
Radar Jammer = Camo
Bubble Shield = AL/HLS
Regen. Field = Regen. Field (Players complained about this in Halo 3, but now they made it into something you spawn with.)

I've never heard anyone propose that PV be a powerup but I like the sound of that.

Yeah that's the direction I was hoping for with Halo; cool and fresh new weapons/abilities added to the sandbox while retaining that "everyone is equal and has to fight for advantages" philosophy.

PV could be like the other Powerups where they last for a set time and disappear if you die.

 

[TheOhrenberger]

Make the AA's into equipment a la Halo 3 and make Camo/PV Powerups. Everyone should spawn exactly the same, except for their primary/secondary weapons from a pool of weapons.

Yeah equipment sucked. I'd much rather spawn with an AA. That being said, I do agree that AC should be a powerup, and I've never heard anyone propose that PV be a powerup but I like the sound of that.

 

[kittens]

Yeah, I'm cool with pretty much every AA as a pick-up.

Also: it's crazy that, even after playing Reach for almost an entire cumulative month and being at Forerunner rank, I still have only three multiplayer commendations maxed out. Not sure what Bungie was thinking with those ones, lol.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Pretty sure that bulletin was just a troll. The spartan ops story summary had me laughing the entire way through, it's not even April 1st yet. Then the dropship teaser pic lol? Can't wait to see what they have in store for April fools.

Halo 2 vista was pretty underpopulated - so I guess im not surprised or sad to see it go- I just wonder why remove it totally when you can instead just drop the server count and whatnot? Seems like it would cost next to nothing to keep it alive?

Glad that specialisations are finally being given to everyone - it's just a shame at this point that some of the people who where capped at 70 are probably beyond caring.

And I can't believe they are hyping up a forge playlist - I mean the fact I'm excited for it just shows the lack of quality of the existing maps.

 

[Overdoziz]

Power-ups >>> Equipment > Armor Abilities

A power-up is the only one of the three that really forces you to play offensively because there's a limited time of use for it. You pick it up, it's activated immediately and you've got a minute or two to make full use of it before it runs out. Equipment and Armor Abilities don't encourage this kind of gameplay and sometimes even discourage it.

 

[FyreWulff]

ron paul it's happening.gif

edit: nok and I had a pretty good escape on grifball. Time to self-render it.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

For what it's worth, I don't find those moments to be as much of an annoyance in 4 as in Reach, but I think a lot of that is due to the increase in rifle strength and better base player traits where I can kind of brute force my way out of situations that are impossible to outmaneuver (an impossibility potentially brought on by the fact that I just don't have the right loadout items equipped - I've been meaning to write something up about the entropy of variables in Halo 4 that would deal with the sheer number of possible situations like this when you are given no information beforehand about what the enemy has equipped).

Power-ups >>> Equipment > Armor Abilities

A power-up is the only one of the three that really forces you to play offensively because there's a limited time of use for it. You pick it up, it's activated immediately and you've got a minute or two to make full use of it before it runs out. Equipment and Armor Abilities don't encourage this kind of gameplay and sometimes even discourage it.

I'd be willing to trial this sort of thing but to me there are a number of factors why things like load outs emerged from Bunge and were kept by 343:

1. Latency online, such a factor in so many mechanics and design or development decisions e.g. Halo 2 or 3 were horrible at allowing me to spawn at the start and my team mate being 2-3 strides behind from a lesser spawn picks up the power up or weapon off spawn literally while they are running behind me. In a USA host dominated game this is a very common occurrence. Load outs smooth this out for team mates and enemies.

2. With the sheer number of power ups you'd have the same random experience when encountering players. Same goes for spawns or running into enemies after those initial spawns or obj rounds have passed. Once things are in play you often do not know what is around the corner, again team communication or player awareness is paramount. To me no different in load out or power up here, just load outs even things out for every one and provide more hands on time for all players.

3. I use camo AA offensively far more than defensively, same for jetpack, arguable for PV too.

 

[Garrett 2U]

Clearly you're a hardcore classic guy and the playlists should support that. I like both styles of play though. I have no issue dealing with jetpack packers or camo campers and teamwork trumps all AA's. Sure they may get one or two cheap kills but they are toast by me or a team mate very shortly after that. Again simply use cover to traverse a map or camo/cover and take out that camo sniper to even then have camo sniper yourself. That's not even bring in the 3x scope DMR into play either, which is even easier to counter those.

I don't understand your logic.

So first of all, they have a 3x DMR as well.

Next, a position where you control the engagement is called a power position.

A Jetpack is a portable power position, but with camo you are invisible and completely control when the engagement starts.

Please explain, how is spawning with a portable power position balanced?
Because it sure as hell isn't fun to fight against.
How are you supposed to use cover and tactically advance when you do not know where the enemy is? And they control the engagement.

Enjoying fair fights does not make me a hardcore classic player.

3. I use camo AA offensively far more than defensively, same for jetpack, arguable for PV too.

When Jetpack is used offensively is when it is abusive to sight lines.
And that is great you use camo offensively, but most people use it defensively.



P.S. I still can't believe you called me a hardcore classic player because I do not enjoy Jetpack and Active Camo.
Sometimes I feel like you're a parody account.

 

[Havok]

Power-ups >>> Equipment > Armor Abilities

A power-up is the only one of the three that really forces you to play offensively because there's a limited time of use for it. You pick it up, it's activated immediately and you've got a minute or two to make full use of it before it runs out. Equipment and Armor Abilities don't encourage this kind of gameplay and sometimes even discourage it.

Pretty much. Powerups had a core ruleset that made them as effective as they were:

• They were on long spawn timers — time varied by game and map, but 1-3 minutes was common.
• They were activated on pickup, you couldn’t choose when to use them.
• There were scarce — more than a couple powerups on a map was a rare occurrence.
• They were time-limited -- once you picked up Camo in H2, you had 45 seconds to use it.

Equipment broke pretty much all those rules in one way or another. Regens were often on 30 second spawn timers, maps had equipment littered around them like a pinata in the sky broke open, they could be used at any point as a pause button. Armor Abilities compounded the problem. I wish they had executed on equipment properly and made it scarce. I'd rather this never have happened:

X = Bubble Shield, not pictured: Two Power Drains, one Trip Mine, one Gravity Lift.

(image from an internet somebody, edits made by me for this article back in September)

 

[FyreWulff]

Nokyard's Guide To Nonchalant Grif Defending

 

[xxjuicesxx]

Looking back on it, ODST is one of my favorite Halo campaigns.

I hope so...they didnt have to spread any focus with a MP mode, it better be a good campaign.

 

[VivaciousJazzy]

Well, add this to the list of "Why the fuck can't I get info on my friends in the game?"

To recap,
Viewing party details will tell you who's in the party and whether they are in a game or not. That's basically it.
If you go to their Gamercard, you can see what map they are playing.
If you join a queue to join their lobby, you can sometimes get a "time remaining" metric.

Now I discover that you can see what playlist they are in, but only IF YOU GO TO THE ANNOYING WAYPOINT WEB APP.

This is beyond ridiculous.

There's a waypoint app that has halo 4? Mine only does reach.

 

[blamite]

There's a waypoint app that has halo 4? Mine only does reach.

the app.halowaypoint.com thing, none of the apps have been (or probably ever will be) updated to H4 for whatever dumb reason. :/

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Bold responses. Note I am trying to adjust my posting style here to not incite flame wars etc.

I don't understand your logic.

So first of all, they have a 3x DMR as well.
So aside from all other counters or teamwork if a jetpacker has a line of sight then so do you. They also lack strafe, jump, cover for the most part and make for easy teammate clean up kills even when they do kill you.

Next, a position where you control the engagement is called a power position.

A Jetpack is a portable power position, but with camo you are invisible and completely control when the engagement starts.

Radar shows a camo user near by. Counter with any of the following:
1. awareness to back away or crouch stealth and attack
2. Jetpack out of reach or line of sight
3. Grenade to expose enemy
4. PV to see your enemy exactly
5. Prior team communication
6. Out camo using your own camo
7. Always move near cover and have a plan B exit
8. AR spray fire for shield pings and damage
9. Have a power weapon like rockets, use yourself as bait.
10. For camo snipers use camo to watch when they fire on teammates then you have the advantage with your DMR. Also use stealth map/camo to flank, assassinate or generally ruin their day. Also communicate to the rest of your team the moment you spot, engage or die from camo snipers.
11. Hologram decoy.


Jetpack counters:
1. Jetpack of course
2. Camo to remain concealed
3. Tall cover movements
4. Sprint out of range or other cover beyond jetpack reach
5. Out DMR attacker
6. Massive directional audio cues, mow them down with team fire
7. Crouch stealth before the enemy use of jetpack (awareness)
8. Move underneath them when close, very hard enemy aiming when movements and positioning are correctly used with this method.
9. PV to know where jetpacker high hiding spots are in use.
10. Noob combo or needler is very effective against individual jetpackers
11. Hologram decoy.


Please explain, how is spawning with a portable power position balanced?
Because it sure as hell isn't fun to fight against.
How are you supposed to use cover and tactically advance when you do not know where the enemy is? And they control the engagement.

Always move tactically near cover or teammates or stay behind scrimmage lines if you're getting caught out. Anticipation, bottlenecks, repetitive use, reflexes, communication, flush them out or uncommon/unexpected actions.

Enjoying fair fights does not make me a hardcore classic player.

Didn't mean to try and pigeon hole you, sorry mate.


When Jetpack is used offensively is when it is abusive to sight lines.

this is true for jetpack anytime, it is in its nature, that's the AA specific advantage.

And that is great you use camo offensively, but most people use it defensively.



P.S. I still can't believe you called me a hardcore classic player because I do not enjoy Jetpack and Active Camo.
Sometimes I feel like you're a parody account.

I seem to get that a lot here.

 

[Madness]

It's the illuminati I swear.

It's the George Lucas method... Slowly keep changing the series, adding new features no one likes/wants all the while saying this is the definitive experience. Then, you quietly start removing traces of how the games looked/played before, until no one except the grizzled old guys remember what it was like originally.

 

[TheOddOne]

Wait, 20 people consistantly? Wow. Still shitty for those lads.

 

[kittens]

Fixing broken features won't fix a game that plays like shit. I call it Halo 4.

Fixing the game... won't fix the game?

"Making improvements won't make the game better."

 

[Garrett 2U]

There's a waypoint app that has halo 4? Mine only does reach.

Web app
app.halowaypoint.com

Unfortunately it doesn't have the animated background.

 

[Barrow Roll]

What's there to be positive about, honestly?

p.s. i'm up for Halo 2 achievement grindin.

@Barrow Roll and the other Halo 2 Vista boosters: I am in. Time to get the last few achievements. I want to get Halo 2 on 100%.

By the way... what if the press was playing the title update on Majestic Maps?

Meet up with other like minded individuals here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=508701

So I assume Barrow and Heckfu have spread that like wildfire already?

Don't know why you're so embarrassed about it. Wish I did porn.

 

[FyreWulff]

Wait, 20 people consistantly? Wow. Still shitty for those lads.

20 peak.

Which is higher than tons of XBLA and 360 games that MS seems to have no trouble footing the bill for that consistently have no more than 2 unique players left.

 

[Omni]

Wait, 20 people consistantly? Wow. Still shitty for those lads.

Could've sworn I've seen the population peak at 37(lol) or so a few weeks ago. I only get on maybe once or twice a week

 

[TheOddOne]

20 peak.

Which is higher than tons of XBLA and 360 games that MS seems to have no trouble footing the bill for that consistently have no more than 2 unique players left.

Oh. Then again most of those XBLA titles have some form of matchmaking.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

Has this been posted yet?

LIVE Activity for week of December 31st

Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles (based on UU’s)

Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
Halo 4
EA Sports FIFA Soccer 13
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
NBA 2K13
Skyrim
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Assassin’s Creed III
Madden NFL 13
Far Cry 3
Battlefield 3
Modern Warfare 2
GTA IV
Borderlands 2
Gears of War 3
Halo: Reach
Forza Motorsport 4
Forza Horizon
EA SPORTS NHL 13

http://majornelson.com/2013/01/09/live-activity-for-week-of-december-31st/

lol Halo 4.

 

[TheOddOne]

Wait, Gears is beating Reach? There is a god.

 

[Talents]

So MLG has pretty much dropped Halo? This probably wouldn't of happened if they had added more options to customise gametypes...

Good jahb 343.

I actually want to know how they are like one of the top 30 developers of all time, they've made 2 games, 1 of which was a remake...

 

[Madness]

Kind of unfair to include out all the postiive things 343 has done. A map that everyone likes (Haven-even though it's voted too much). Smoother gameplay with jump height and lack of bloom. Better tuned AA's, I've yet to quit because of an AA being used. There are no OP ones like Armor Lock or even Evade. Supporting the damn game (TU wise). And Bungie did promise their fans they would support the game like the previous installments, because they were worried about that knowing it's Bungie's last Halo.

Like I said, Halo 4 isn't what we want in a Halo game, but at least 343 is responding to us instead of dancing around the issue with minor playlists updates like Bungie did. The playlists are fucked up in Halo 4, but that's easier to fix than the problems we had in Reach. I'm just not going to justify the support we had in Reach because I never want to see it again in the series.

We're getting a TU three months post launch. I shouldn't be surprised about that, but I am. I'm used to waiting a year for another developer to come in. Also, we've yet to see what Halo 4 can do in MLG because of this Virigin shit. From the gameplay I've seen from MLG gametypes, it looks to be promising.

To be fair though, I feel with Halo:Reach, Bungie was experimenting because they'd made 3 straight games that played mostly the same. Also, the game launched on the 14th of September, 2010 and by November 30th, they'd released the Noble Map pack and basically stopped most of their focus on the game beyond a few tweaks by their community/playlist management team. The game was de facto handed over to 343I by Bungie Day 2011 with Bungie vs. the World being the last thing they did.

As for the AA's being tuned better or not making you quit, it's because there are other random factors that take precedence. It's hard to hate on jetpack when you're literally getting peppered from the other side of the map by binary rifles etc.

You have to wonder how much better Reach would have been without the DMR. Imagine Reflection, Powerhouse, Countdown, Pinnacle, Asylum, even the Cage with BR starts.

I know Reach gets a lot of hate, but I don't see how people say it has more problems than H4. You tone down the zoom of the DMR, remove some forge maps, fix bloom and AL, and slightly increase movement speed and you have a great game.

In Halo 4, you need to fix loadouts, perks, armor abilities, static weapon spawns, personal ordnance, add red x on death, instant respawn etc. to make it play like how most people want it.

As for hardlight shield vs. armor lock, I don't see how AL is worse? You were an unmovable object on the map, with the huge maps in H4, nothing infuriates me more than getting someone down to one shot for kill only to have them put up the shield and just walk away into cover somewhere. Plus hardlight shield even reflects projectiles back somewhat. The only way to really get someone with a HLS on is to throw a grenade behind them, but you'd have to be somewhat close, and even then, since you cannot pick up grenades without the perk, you're screwed.

 

[Madness]

Also, rest in peace to Halo 2 online multiplayer being officially dead. For me personally it was when they shut down the live servers, but it sucks for those who still play.

Halo 2 was one of those once in a generation games. Don't get me wrong, I loved the hell out of CE, but H2 multiplayer was where it was at. Nothing came close for a long time until maybe Gears 1 launched.

I still remember being in grade 12 and walking down the hall during class and seeing my old chemistry teacher playing it on launch. His class was busy reading, but he was sitting in class, with his xbox hooked up to the class television playing Halo 2. He was a true fan though. He was my grade 10 chem teacher, and after class, he'd routinely play Halo:CE with us. I don't know what he would think about Reach or H4 though...

 

[Shadders]

They're killing Halo 2? Again?

 

[Crimson Kopite]

So MLG has pretty much dropped Halo? This probably wouldn't of happened if they had added more options to customise gametypes...

Also, you know, Virgin gaming has tournaments locked down (and not MLG). So that's probably the reason.

 

[StalkerUKCG]

Was Frankie born in Midlothian ?