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Halo |OT15| Beta-tested, GAF approved

People laugh when I play Big Team Battle, but this is why. Sometimes after work I don't want to jump into an ultra competitive playlist, I just want to play some Halo and not worry about being on my "A" game.

Yea itd be nice if they just included some sort of distinction between competitive and social playlists...Playlists where you could go in and not care about winning or losing as much.

How could that possibly be achieved?
 

BigShow36

Member
Yea itd be nice if they just included some sort of distinction between competitive and social playlists...Playlists where you could go in and not care about winning or losing as much.

How could that possibly be achieved?

It's impossible. If they somehow managed to have a seperate and distinct playlist where ranking was non-existent and casual play was expected, a "social" playlist if you will, then there would be the game-destroying risk of having a game where teams are unbalanced. It's hypothetically, entirely maybe possible that sometimes you would have a game where good players were matched against poor, and the entire playlist experience would be compromised. We simply can't have that kind of injustice in our Halo.

The completely arbitrary and illogical solution is to not seperate the playlists and have no ranks, and we're sticking to it.



The latter 3 are obviously campaign specific, but the first two would fit in with my views on multiplayer as well.
 
Does anyone here have any experience with Halo Custom Edition? I'm considering trying to replicate bits of my sandbox in there. Modelers are also welcome - I have no idea how to do 3D but apparently Photoshop CS5 can paint on 3D objects (meaning I could at least handle texture work).

Does anyone know if you can add anti-aliasing to Halo PC so the more detailed custom weapon models don't turn it into a jagfest?

Also, how would you guys feel if there were no AAs or Armor Mods/perks or Sprint but one of the extra buttons gained from the cleared up space were used for something else? Like a button to initiate altmodes or something.
 

HTupolev

Member
Does anyone know if you can add anti-aliasing to Halo PC so the more detailed custom weapon models don't turn it into a jagfest?
I know they've added some sort of antialiasing model through Open Sauce, but I'm not sure what one.

If worst comes to worst, I'd imagine it's possible to just supersample the hell out of the game, if it's running well enough on your machine.
 

darthbob

Member
Does anyone here have any experience with Halo Custom Edition? I'm considering trying to replicate bits of my sandbox in there. Modelers are also welcome - I have no idea how to do 3D but apparently Photoshop CS5 can paint on 3D objects (meaning I could at least handle texture work).

Does anyone know if you can add anti-aliasing to Halo PC so the more detailed custom weapon models don't turn it into a jagfest?

Also, how would you guys feel if there were no AAs or Armor Mods/perks or Sprint but one of the extra buttons gained from the cleared up space were used for something else? Like a button to initiate altmodes or something.

Anti-aliasing isn't actually supported in the Halo PC engine. I recommend either FXAA or some sort of screen filter AA solution.

I recommend taking a look here as well.
 

Computron

Member
Does anyone here have any experience with Halo Custom Edition? I'm considering trying to replicate bits of my sandbox in there. Modelers are also welcome - I have no idea how to do 3D but apparently Photoshop CS5 can paint on 3D objects (meaning I could at least handle texture work).

Does anyone know if you can add anti-aliasing to Halo PC so the more detailed custom weapon models don't turn it into a jagfest?

Also, how would you guys feel if there were no AAs or Armor Mods/perks or Sprint but one of the extra buttons gained from the cleared up space were used for something else? Like a button to initiate altmodes or something.


What Tupolev said. If you got an OK video card that is from the last ~7yrs, you should be able to supersample H-PC through your video card's software with ease, IIRC.

On the topic of texturing, that requires you to be able to split out certain different visual phenomena into separate parameters based on the specific shaders you have access to.
So it's unlike comping together a picture of a gun in photshop, you have to know how to create the individual specular/diffuse/gloss/etc. maps that will work together to give your gun it's material definition.
Its semi engine-specific (I'm not sure how the situation is in HPC, but I don't imagine its very good) and it requires a lot of practice.
In other words, proficiency in photoshop alone wont make you anywhere near a good texture artist. Photoshop's 3D support is also terrible.

However, if you want to get your hands on game development, I would still encourage it. What can you do? Do you program/script?
Do you got any good detailed weapon concepts or modeling sheets I could take a look at?
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Yea itd be nice if they just included some sort of distinction between competitive and social playlists...Playlists where you could go in and not care about winning or losing as much.

How could that possibly be achieved?

Bottles of Mountain Dew piled next to the couch as some kind of rank?
 
Bottles of Mountain Dew piled next to the couch as some kind of rank?

What if you could play in social and choose options like Doom style: Hey! not too hard, hurt me plenty, Nightmare! and it would use trueskill to give you easy or hard matchups.

Then there would of course be real ranked playlists.

I get host alot of the time in Halo 4. I dont like host records though they are always scratching good connections off, while ISP's with a temporary turboboost option gets hosts then fails to give a reliable connection a minute into the game.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
What if you could play in social and choose options like Doom style: Hey! not too hard, hurt me plenty, Nightmare! and it would use trueskill to give you easy or hard matchups.

Then there would of course be real ranked playlists.

I get host alot of the time in Halo 4. I dont like host records though they are always scratching good connections off, while ISP's with a temporary turboboost option gets hosts then fails to give a reliable connection a minute into the game.

I dunno. I think that'd be a cool option in theory but would just result in most people choosing the easier option all the time.
 
I dunno. I think that'd be a cool option in theory but would just result in most people choosing the easier option all the time.

Yea I dunno. It just stinks people have no safe haven now that every playlist is not labeled social or competitive. You could have tryhard objective players going genghi khan all over a bunch of casual players just trying to have some flag fun.

Trueskills ok but when the population of these playlists get low you start matching up against Ninja after your third win...its just not creating a great user experience anymore.

Before you'd usually have all the truly good players away from the casuals in the ranked playlists while the casuals ran around having BTB fun.

Its like throwing college ball team against an NBA team.
 

TCKaos

Member
I got Bioshock and Bioshock 2 with Spec-Ops the Line over the winter through an Amazon sale. Just started playing Bioshock.

JESUS THAT BIG DADDY MOVES SO GODDAMN FAST. IS THIS REAL LIFE?
 

Overdoziz

Banned
Talking only aboutcampaign wrongs I assume? But yes, good to see theyaknowledge the bullet sponge thing
The thing is that Knights aren't even that much different from Elites in terms of how (much) they take damage. Deplete the shields, get a headshot, you've got yourself a dead Knight.

Where 343 first went wrong is when they decided that Promethean weapons shouldn't be any more effective at depleting shields than regular human weaponry. Aside from an odd encounter here and there you never have access to Plasma weapons and without those taking down Knight shields becomes a chore. Whether you like it or not, Halo campaign has always been about getting that Plasma Pistol (or Rifle) in order to make killing Elites much easier, especially on higher difficulties. Take this away and you've got yourself enemies which feel like bulletsponges when in reality they don't act much different from what we've seen in the past.

Another very important part of Halo is the feedback of the shields. Reach definitely takes the crown in this department. In both multiplayer and singleplayer the feedback is so clear that you can anticipate when someone's shields are about to go down better than in any other Halo game. Being able to see that you're doing damage with your shots is essential to making enemies feel less like bulletsponges which is something Bungie understood very well. They never really got around to 'fixing' Brutes without giving them shields too, but I think making them very vulnerable to needles and headshots (one shot to pop the helmet off, another to kill) was a good effort.

I've got the feeling 343 didn't understand how important shields are when they designed the feedback system on the Knights (and Elites for that matter). The shields are barely visible when you shoot Knights, the exact moment when their shields break isn't very clear, and you can't see whether or not a Knight had shields unless you shoot them. From what I remember the shields recharged much quicker than those of Elites too, making them even more frustrating to deal with.

It's the (seemingly) small things.
 
The thing is that Knights aren't even that much different from Elites in terms of how (much) they take damage. Deplete the shields, get a headshot, you've got yourself a dead Knight.

Where 343 first went wrong is when they decided that Promethean weapons shouldn't be any more effective at depleting shields than regular human weaponry. Aside from an odd encounter here and there you never have access to Plasma weapons and without those taking down Knight shields becomes a chore. Whether you like it or not, Halo campaign has always been about getting that Plasma Pistol (or Rifle) in order to make killing Elites much easier, especially on higher difficulties. Take this away and you've got yourself enemies which feel like bulletsponges when in reality they don't act much different from what we've seen in the past.

Another very important part of Halo is the feedback of the shields. Reach definitely takes the crown in this department. In both multiplayer and singleplayer the feedback is so clear that you can anticipate when someone's shields are about to go down better than in any other Halo game. Being able to see that you're doing damage with your shots is essential to making enemies feel less like bulletsponges which is something Bungie understood very well. They never really got around to 'fixing' Brutes without giving them shields too, but I think making them very vulnerable to needles and headshots (one shot to pop the helmet off, another to kill) was a good effort.

I've got the feeling 343 didn't understand how important shields are when they designed the feedback system on the Knights (and Elites for that matter). The shields are barely visible when you shoot Knights, the exact moment when their shields break isn't very clear, and you can't see whether or not a Knight had shields unless you shoot them. From what I remember the shields recharged much quicker than those of Elites too, making them even more frustrating to deal with.

It's the (seemingly) small things.

Thats why I liked the halo reach campaign, you faced the same coveant still some of them have double shields, triple shields, quick regen shield or being more aggresive than the other covenant but in Halo 4 most of the elites if not all only have 1 shield and the covenant do the same thing.

The promethean knights are weird, they were meant to replace the elites but still they lack being aggresive or push the player to attack them. they just stand there and wait to be attacked to do something.
 
The thing is that Knights aren't even that much different from Elites in terms of how (much) they take damage. Deplete the shields, get a headshot, you've got yourself a dead Knight.

Where 343 first went wrong is when they decided that Promethean weapons shouldn't be any more effective at depleting shields than regular human weaponry. Aside from an odd encounter here and there you never have access to Plasma weapons and without those taking down Knight shields becomes a chore. Whether you like it or not, Halo campaign has always been about getting that Plasma Pistol (or Rifle) in order to make killing Elites much easier, especially on higher difficulties. Take this away and you've got yourself enemies which feel like bulletsponges when in reality they don't act much different from what we've seen in the past.

Another very important part of Halo is the feedback of the shields. Reach definitely takes the crown in this department. In both multiplayer and singleplayer the feedback is so clear that you can anticipate when someone's shields are about to go down better than in any other Halo game. Being able to see that you're doing damage with your shots is essential to making enemies feel less like bulletsponges which is something Bungie understood very well. They never really got around to 'fixing' Brutes without giving them shields too, but I think making them very vulnerable to needles and headshots (one shot to pop the helmet off, another to kill) was a good effort.

I've got the feeling 343 didn't understand how important shields are when they designed the feedback system on the Knights (and Elites for that matter). The shields are barely visible when you shoot Knights, the exact moment when their shields break isn't very clear, and you can't see whether or not a Knight had shields unless you shoot them. From what I remember the shields recharged much quicker than those of Elites too, making them even more frustrating to deal with.

It's the (seemingly) small things.

The Suppressor eats up shields and the Light Rifle scoped-in does ridiculously high damage to Elite shields, even on legendary.

What Tupolev said. If you got an OK video card that is from the last ~7yrs, you should be able to supersample H-PC through your video card's software with ease, IIRC.

On the topic of texturing, that requires you to be able to split out certain different visual phenomena into separate parameters based on the specific shaders you have access to.
So it's unlike comping together a picture of a gun in photshop, you have to know how to create the individual specular/diffuse/gloss/etc. maps that will work together to give your gun it's material definition.
Its semi engine-specific (I'm not sure how the situation is in HPC, but I don't imagine its very good) and it requires a lot of practice.
In other words, proficiency in photoshop alone wont make you anywhere near a good texture artist. Photoshop's 3D support is also terrible.

However, if you want to get your hands on game development, I would still encourage it. What can you do? Do you program/script?
Do you got any good detailed weapon concepts or modeling sheets I could take a look at?

As of now I can only really do concepts, audio sfx/music (the Gravity Gauntlet is already done and has 12 sounds), and 2D animation for proof-of-concept. If you'd be willing to help I'd love to see some of this stuff transfered to 3D. I can make mockups for the Oscillator tonight as it's fairly simple geometrically, but this is offset by the reload animations and the way you wield it (which changes if you initiate the altmode).

I'd be interested in learning how to do texture work but bare minimum I can at least display the way the guns should be colored and textured and everything.

Stupid question: how difficult is it to model 3D parts that are floating or disembodied, like the Energy Sword or some of the Promethean tech?
 

Overdoziz

Banned
Oh, and I forgot about how hard it is to actually get headshots on Knights compared to Elites. Seemed to take at least 3 headshots nearly every single time.
 
The shields were really bad on the promknights, like the change in Anniversary they just weren't well indicated and their bursts were subtle. They would also cover their heads with the face shielding, so they were kind of like armoured brutes with shielding as well. Coupled with annoying teleporting with invincibility frames and a support enemy that could bring them back from the dead, yeah, ammo right out the window.
 
I honestly don't understand the Knight complaints. On my solo Legendary run I think I ran out of ammo exactly once trying to hit a distant Wraith on Reclaimer. I mean yeah, they have high health, but I think the whining's waaaaay out of proportion. And I'm sure the problem is exacerbated when people try to MLG their way through campaign hoping that a DMR and Plasma Pistol will be there for every single encounter. Worst-case scenario, some of the more challenging fights can be straight-up cheesed. I got the achievement for finishing Forerunner with a human weapon solo on heroic because you can seriously run past every encounter save for the first Knight fight.
 
Low population/small host pool. Welcome to Reach.

How are you not pulling host on that upload speed?

Because your upload doesn't really matter in the determination of a good connection.

xbox bottlenecks bandwidth speeds to 2mbs/s

It especially doesn't matter when shit like this ^^^ is in place.

Try a more realistic test of something on the Best Coast rather than testing a server like 10 minutes away.

THIS is what matters. No matter how much data you can fit in your fat pipe per second, that doesn't change how long it takes to get to and from the other end of the pipe.

You and Tashi each have what are by all accounts great internet connections. It doesn't make one bit of a difference to me in NM playing on your connection (or vice versa). The latency will nullify that every time. So, just as playing on Tashi's host is terrible for me, playing on mine would be terrible for him, despite my 60Mb pipe.
 

darthbob

Member
Just for you,





The game should still be matching me locally first and foremost, not Mexico and Quebec, Canada, wtf.

Seriously?

Thanks for that. I'd wager that after the TU, the networking information that pertains to connection history was reset and you just need to play more games to average it out.

Also, try a /tracert in CMD and see how many hops it takes to query Google, GAF, etc. Generally speaking you want no less than ~25-35 hops, and the ping time in milliseconds is important too.

If you notice anything odd, I'd ring up Verizon and ask them to reprovision your equipment.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
I honestly don't understand the Knight complaints. On my solo Legendary run I think I ran out of ammo exactly once trying to hit a distant Wraith on Reclaimer. I mean yeah, they have high health, but I think the whining's waaaaay out of proportion. And I'm sure the problem is exacerbated when people try to MLG their way through campaign hoping that a DMR and Plasma Pistol will be there for every single encounter. Worst-case scenario, some of the more challenging fights can be straight-up cheesed. I got the achievement for finishing Forerunner with a human weapon solo on heroic because you can seriously run past every encounter save for the first Knight fight.
I had quite an easy time on Legendary and and I rarely had ammo issues, but it simply wasn't any fun. Like I said before, killing Knights (and other Prometheans) was more of a chore than anything enjoyable.
 
Just for you,
The game should still be matching me locally first and foremost, not Mexico and Quebec, Canada, wtf.

Seriously?

Ya - so you have ~100ms ping to a straight up *server* on the other side of the country. P2P is going to be even worse. If there happens not to be someone local to match you with (or if True Skill actually worked, but we all know that's a joke), it's going to match you with what it's got. And Quebec isn't that far away from you, really.
Thanks for that. I'd wager that after the TU, the networking information that pertains to connection history was reset and you just need to play more games to average it out.

Also, try a /tracert in CMD and see how many hops it takes to query Google, GAF, etc. Generally speaking you want no less than ~25-35 hops, and the ping time in milliseconds is important too.

If you notice anything odd, I'd ring up Verizon and ask them to reprovision your equipment.

@ the bolded, H4's system is just plain different than H:R (my theory). All 3 boxes I've had at my house over the course of Reach gameplay became host boxes in just a few weeks. H4, I've gotten host maybe 10 times total. Shit's whack.

Also, I doubt he's got any issues with his equipment and I doubt that Verizon is going to reconfig their backbone or reroute his traffic if he's not having congestion issues.



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