I think a Big Team and Arena focus could work within a unified framework, meaning no damage or ROF or whatever values change between modes like TU vs Non TU did.
The main thing is, if the game is changed, it needs to be changed universally.
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Halo |OT19| 793 Posts, And None Worth Reading
- Thread starter Ozzy Onya A2Z
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The main thing is, if the game is changed, it needs to be changed universally.
Thanks!
Well I think from a certain perspective Halo 4's approach is better, because the weapons all behave identically, etc. Of course with the additions of different types of ordnance and AAs it does change things up, and from a uniformity standpoint is less than ideal, but I don't think it's as bad as the Reach TU split.
Looking back on it, I wonder if 343 would do it over again the same way for Reach or whether they would just bite the bad press and implement the TU or some form of it globally. It certainly does have its issues in certain modes with certain weapons (plasma weapons and the dolphin gun) but I still feel like it plays better.
I agree with this if your going to change base game play differences between playlists should be team size and game type. Not the radical differences as seen in 4.
Off topic a bit but I've found a paleontology course I can get onto, at a university yay.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
This is the developer and fan conundrum though, with Reach TU/Ann. they tried to support classic play and splintered the settings to no end. Further the bloom variants splintered things even further. I agree with you this sort of gunplay splintering is a big no no. However the ranked vs. social splintering or sprint vs. no sprint variants are a yes yes IMO. The ironic part is 343i saw this exact splintering issue and stuck hard and fast to their unified vision of Halo 4 at launch...It was solid design on paper.
I think that's the defining difference, when you fire a weapon you need that consistency so you can get better and not have variants or playlists alter you damage output or firing cadence etc. As for sprint or map design or ranked/social I don't think those alterations create the same detriment as gunplay splintering and therefore are quite acceptable. The non-gunplay splintering is basically required at this point IMO.
Armour abilities are that weird middle ground but I feel the current Halo 4 handling is almost on the money as opposed to launch Halo 4. If they just created modes or playlists and contained the variants within those rather than having differing variants per playlist. It's a fine nuance but one I feel is extremely important in creating standardised modes with standardise vote variants.
Perhaps a visual representation is easier -
Ranked classic arena:
No AA's, fixed loadouts, JiP disabled, on map power weapons or global ordnance only & no sprint.
Playlists for selection within this mode: Doubles, Slayer, CTF/Assault, BTB, KOTH & Oddball (mixed together as vote variants)
Social with big team numbers via cloud with heavy vehicles:
AA's, custom loadouts, JiP enabled, on map power weapons or global ordnance only & sprint enabled.
Playlists for selection within this mode: Slayer or CTF, that's it.
All the usual suspects get their own playlists e.g. Grifball, Infection, Action Sack.
If you look at Halo 4 now you can go into Slayer (5v5) and vote for classic, Infinity or one other. This vote variety per playlist creates the issues you describe Tashi. Reach was even worse as the gunplay was all over the place between playlists AND vote variants, that's a no no. If they stuck hard and fast to the playlist and only nuance vote variants or gametypes and used player toggles such issues would be alleviated and your select few playlists wouldn't have the wild variation of game start/experience that we've seen in Reach & 4.
SHIFTYkiwi
Member
Anyone else miss halo 3's double xp weekends? I know it wouldn't work in Halo 4 since a lot of people have already maxed out their ranks. However it was a good way to introduce players to new gametypes, such as grifball in halo 3 when it only used to be a double xp playlist.
YourExWife
Member
One more week for this season of TS. We getting top 200 or what?
Halo 4's splintering however is a direct result of Infinity settings. Fans complained and complained and so 343 has been slowly doing away with Infinity. However at this point, the majority of players remaining seem to enjoy Infinity. So, 343 didn't really have a choice with the splintering in Halo 4. It's not ideal but it's probably the best they can do to please everyone who still plays the game.
For the record, I'm fine with Ranked vs Social. That's not the segregation I'm speaking about.
edit: ExWife, I can't play tonight but tomorrow night I probably can.
uh, what?
It actually kills in roughly .6 seconds with 3 shots (with the first shot being t=0).
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
I suppose I was reflecting for looking forward to HX1. Agree with your point about handling Halo 4/Infinity.
Technically the splintering is the result of 343 adding "classic" settings, since Infinity settings were the default.
But that's splitting hairs...
Me, i'd prefer them to decide. I like Infinity so i have no problems with it staying. On the other hand, classic settings are all right, so i'd be fine with them alone. Both? Just no. One or the other.
If they'd just add some more GaussHogs to BTB...
Yes. I thought Reach should have had double cR weekends to make Inheritor something that people would "ahem" reach for. But then that stupid credit cap really worked against that anyways. Halo 3 rocket race weekends were kind of a nice change of pace. Bungies anti-credit earning attitude in Reach actually makes me wonder how they'll behave next time around.
User 73706
Banned
Yes, including "on-disc" gametypes. So start up a custom default Slayer, it is Turbo.
Halo is trying to be a jack of all trades master of none. I wrote this before, but just compare the base experience of infinity Slayer vs team throwdown and pro Slayer.
You're getting two vastly different experiences, and in the end, the game is splintered.
Compare team Slayer in Halo 3, social Slayer in Halo 3 and MLG team Slayer in Halo 3. The base game is almost identical and that if anyone really wanted to, he can drop in and drop out of all playlists without really missing a beat.
Can someone play infinity Slayer for a while, then go and play team throwdown? Now the question becomes, is infinity representative of future Halo, or is team throwdown?
You're getting two vastly different experiences, and in the end, the game is splintered.
Compare team Slayer in Halo 3, social Slayer in Halo 3 and MLG team Slayer in Halo 3. The base game is almost identical and that if anyone really wanted to, he can drop in and drop out of all playlists without really missing a beat.
Can someone play infinity Slayer for a while, then go and play team throwdown? Now the question becomes, is infinity representative of future Halo, or is team throwdown?
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I enjoyed the podcast. I feel like Wahrer's crazy ass ideas are more entertaining when he talks about them vs. reading about them in megaposts.
Syphon Filter
Member
You cant kill someone that fast. Two shots in will already be 1 second.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
You're underestimating how long a second is or overestimating how long a shot takes. I think?
Game went too far from its roots now to ever have a succesful unified experience.
Halo 1-2-3 were good because the only thing seperating Casual and Competetive was precision weapon starts and sometimes no radar (not including MLG, which changed spawns in Halo 3)
But now you have Halo fans that have wanted a return to Halo CE and have kept fuckin that chicken for over 12 years
Fans that want a return to Halo 2-3.
Fans that liked Reach
Fans that like Halo 4.
Halo 1-2-3 were good because the only thing seperating Casual and Competetive was precision weapon starts and sometimes no radar (not including MLG, which changed spawns in Halo 3)
But now you have Halo fans that have wanted a return to Halo CE and have kept fuckin that chicken for over 12 years
Fans that want a return to Halo 2-3.
Fans that liked Reach
Fans that like Halo 4.
No, the CE pistol kills faster than 1 second and its great. It works because it actually requires skill to land shots, unlike later Halo games.
Syphon Filter
Member
I'll take your word for it but the way funk made it seem was that Halo overall just had fast kill times which is false. Halo gave you a chance to turn around and kill someone if you were good enough.
If i recall correctly, Halo CE AR firing 16 bullets takes about a second and a half and is enough to kill someone, provided you hit with all of them. The pistol killed much faster, again provided you hit.
Poker Face
Member
It has the ability to kill that fast, it doesn't mean everyone will be able to 3 shot and hit the minimum kill time every single time.
The split you make however in Ranked/Arena vs Social in terms of settings is something I disagree with. I think fundamentally Halo has strayed away from the fact that multiplayer is competitive. Playing to win. The team with the most kills or the most objective points wins. Playing to win can be and has proven to be a fun, social experience for years.
Your Big Team social settings sound like Infinity settings. I think from launch until now, Infinity settings have proven to be not what most fans want.
Ideally we'd get one type of settings that worked for Ranked/Arena and Social. The decision has to be made. They would be balanced and fair while also being fun. These are the things that made us love Halo in the first place. I do however think that in customs, fans should be able to change a wide variety of settings and also be able to easily find others who like these settings as well (in game).
I definitely agree that kill times should be such that you can still have a chance to fight back against (potentially kill), somebody who gets the drop on you, but I disagree with the bolded in the sense that if somebody gets the drop on me, shoots me from behind or from the side and I hadn't noticed them yet, they should definitely have an advantage and a good chance of killing me pretty fast if I'm not perfect about turning the situation around.
Personally I think Halo 3 and pre-turbo Halo 4 managed this best, with their BRs' firing speed and number of shots to kill creating a really nice flow to that sort of encounter. The Reach Anniversary pistol also did this pretty well.
Something like the original CE pistol getting kills in under a second is totally ridiculous and has no place in a modern Halo, in my opinion. For specialty weapons like the Shotgun or Sword, or Sniper, or Rockets, it's fine to be able to get an extremely fast kill because those are power weapons with (relatively) limited uses. But putting a kill time that short on a standard pistol or rifle people are going to be using all the time seems like a really bad idea.
It can work if it's done similarly to CE (no aim assist, high movement capability) but I much prefer H2/H3's levels of aim assist. Reach went a bit too far and 4 is straight up babby levels of aim assist and bullet magnetism.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
I agree with this post. Recharge delay (time it takes for your shield to begin recharging) and recharge rate (time it takes to charge from 0-100% once the delay (usually several seconds) is over) shouldn't be as long as CE was, especially since there's no health pack system.
I think I even told you this before, but I addressed this several times in that thread I made. Kill times being slower like in Halo 3 has less to do with people getting a chance to fight back than you think. More people in Halo 3 would get 4-5sk's than people would get 3-4sk's in CE. Couple that with a superior strafe and more skill-demanding weapons, and you have a multiplayer where if you get shot first, you have a chance to fight back granted you were skilled enough and/or if the other person messed up.
In Halo 2, if I got the drop on you and shot you first, it's game over. That game had so much aim assist and the BR was hitscan, so even though the kill time was longer that doesn't prove the point of you still having a chance to fight back if I shot you first; in fact, it was the opposite.
CE was nothing like CoD and the potential kill time for the Pistol was under 1 second.
But now you have Halo fans that have wanted a return to Halo CE and have kept fuckin that chicken for over 12 years
But is it really asking too much for CE fans to want the broader Halo fanbase to experience what that gameplay was all about?
Apparently so, according to Halo devs.
I made it seem like that? After all the posts I've made otherwise?
EDIT:
Allow me to direct you to this little thread I created. Please give it a read.
Also, I think the Anniversary Pistol when it first launched killed faster than the CE Pistol because it had no bloom, was semi automatic, a 3sk and had a lot of aim assist lol
Halo 2 had Rockets that would home in on the enemy player. Reach was nothing compared to H2.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
I have to disagree with this, Halo 3 had equipment and MLG did not. No bubble shield, no vehicles, no asymmetrical maps, no brute shot, radar vs. no radar (which alters the game drastically IMO)...you get the idea. Sure it was somewhat "closer" to the default game than 4's difference but it's a far sight from the default game. When you look at Halo 3 as you point out it had infection, doubles, MLG, objective, social/ranked and no one ever complained about the splintering back then. Why? The gunplay, damage, firing cadence and for the most part movement was all relatively consistent.
It hits home a crucial point, the masses don't want to have to train with a team, memorise spawn traps, force spawns or be on the receiving end of spawn killing etc. It's not fun and the big populations won't come back day after day for that. Sure it's damned competitive for hardcore or MLG players who practice callouts and spawns etc but it's not BTB, it's not default flag, it's not mid sized maps nor 1-sided maps etc. You may capture a certain percentage who want to drill/grind/team up to this but it has to be more than just the basics.
Even the largest population in Halo 3 wanted to play with vehicles and equipment and a variety of maps of differing sizes/shapes etc. Slayer and BTB have always out populated MLG or hardcore modes.
This idea that hardcore MLG from 3 alone can be the core gameplay for all modes is bullocks to be frank, with respect to the large populations. Tashi's ideal that gunplay should be a core standard across modes is ideal and that sort of standardisation is what allows the skill progression. If you cater to the top 1% or %5 you alienate the 95-99%. Ghost gets this and we saw good work in expanding the appeal of throwdown over say 3's MLG. I do agree with making the core game less random and more competitive but there's nothing wrong enabling a variety of modes with a solid core. Default has always been the more popular core, from 2 to 3 and Reach to 4. Halo 4 at launch forgot this, the MLG crowd do the polar opposite. I try to sit somewhere in the middle.
I feel Halo 4 now (not launch or Infinity) has very much for the most part succeeded in finally bringing that core and standardised gunplay/movement back. Reach couldn't do it, Ann. couldn't do it, 4 at launch couldn't do it and now we have a new studio, gunplay sandbox and real experience in unifying the "core mechanics" for all modes. The turbo update has really been a far better design methodology for Halo matchmaking, it's far from perfect but it's more rights than wrongs now.
From what I've gleamed from the survey so far to me the maps are far and away the most important aspects to what makes players love a game, even more than the mechanics themselves. The map design is decided in parallel to the gametype or working mechanics during development so it's inherent I suppose.
I think with some hard and fast decisions, which seems to be what you're suggesting more so, HX1 could really be something that clicks with the wide variety of players but drills down to the specific modes that keep individuals or teams come back day after day. Hardcore, default, casual fun or new players alike. The developers have this burden to deliver a competitive game that can shape shift but feel familiar and promote personal/team growth in many aspects. I agree nobody wants to win or lose based on a random personal ordnance drop, you'll see in my post above I never mentioned personal ordnance AKA Infinity.
Oh I feel like fun today? Action sack, but my guns basically behave the same. Oh my regular friends are on right now, let us warm up a match or two in social then hit up ranked slayer and get that next rank level up for everyone. Oh some friends are joining and dropping out during a night's session, we should hit up the 64 player mode with JiP and have some great Halo encounters...
I'm not trying to piss off a specific group but variety is simply a must, a core competitive game is also a must and the sooner we all get that and work to achieve what the developer is burdened with the more progress or good ideas we can come up with.
Halo CE had aim assist. A lot of the skill came from the wider FOV (making player movement seem a lot faster and the player model smaller on screen) and shot leading coupled with the fact that you could kill or be killed rapidly from anywhere on the map.
What newer Halo games should strive for is faster kill times with faster strafe and lower aim assists.
Also I think there are better ways to make players learn the game rather than making the game easier for them. Tutorials, training modes, training playlists and closer skill matchmaking. How about you create obstacle courses for each map that teaches you specific jumps and sightlines. Jump on this box, shoot this target here, throw a grenade off of this wall. Give points for speed and accuracy, attach a leader board, add multiple difficulties. Grab this flag, run here, jump here.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
Something like Mirror's Edge highlights for the first 5-10 games would relate to your idea. The Halo 3 training mode was a good easing into the game as well. Obviously social vs ranked is another layer to that too.
Training is a great feature, look at FIFA14 and the skills or Killer Instinct and the dojo training. if Halo could create a set of skill mini-games like this you have solo warm ups, XP progression and also the social aspect like FIFA14 does. It's actually quite fun to go back and do bronze, silver or gold etc of the same skill but stepping it up and beating your friends only leaderboard.
I totally agree with your post, again.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I like this stuff a lot, as long as it's optional. Really highlight it when someone first boots up the game, but don't force anyone to play it if they don't want.
How do complex games like Dota, LoL, and Starcraft handle this stuff?
DotA has a full tutorial that's almost like a campaign really and teaches you the game as if you've never played it before. Starts at basic movement. They also give video and details on each hero and their abilities in a separate reference. The game also offers many matchmaking options.
StarCraft 2 I believe has tutorials but I'm not 100% sure. My guess is yes. They also have a skip-able training playlist where you play a certain amount of games where the maps are slightly different and the game is played at a slower speed. I skipped those because I felt they were a little too different from the core experience.
Totally agree about not forcing someone.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
I didn't make that clear. I do think you should get the advantage if you get the drop on the other person. It means you're probably more familiar with the space and more aware of your surroundings than the other person. My point was that this shouldn't be the primary thing that determines the result. I totally agree that it should be a factor.
Again, the person
The gif is an ideal kill time for me. Too bad this isn't what we got. I didn't realize how much I missed something like this until we apparently didn't get it.
It doesn't seem like the full gif. :/ You know what I mean though.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was. I just meant that I dislike short kill times generally, and since CoD constantly has very short kill times, this is one of the main reasons I don't play it. I didn't mean that Halo CE kill times were like CoD.
And you're right "potential" kill times is an important distinction I think.
Especially since they've even made multiplayer into canon as a war games simulation. Like why not have some kind of tutorial/weapon guide type thing in the war games options or something, have Roland go over some stuff or Palmer. Heck, I remember Perfect Dark would let you fight bots of various difficulties, use different weapons in a training simulation I think.
For example, people said it was hard for BK's to learn weapon spawns (takes literally only a few matches), why not have a part of the menu that has all maps and a graphic that shows a top down view of what weapons are where, sort of like the Gears loading screens. Instead, they have to clutter up the on screen display or change the game with shit like random global ordnance.
Ragnarok Flames
Banned
we wouldnt have this problem if 343 didnt muck up the damn game with their needless changes, they could have dropped loadouts so that the weapon balancing wasn't split amongst X amount of STARTING weapons. and have a system in place to tweak the damage points of each weapon as needed. but it took MONTHS to get the best Halo 4 experience (Legendary)
I don't know why this hasn't happened yet. It's seriously the easiest and simplest way of letting all the players know where to find power weapons.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I really don't want HUD indicators for power weapons. It let's anyone who's close enough and looking the direction know when you pick one up.
User 73706
Banned
Doesn't apply to the actual mechanics, per se, but it'd be a fun little jab at players with halo honor tenure if, upon the tutorial prompt, they pointed out you've already played through certain games. Hell, on the first run-through, they could do a simple schematic prompting Infinity training protocols, and if you said no they'd always be there in the options, but you wouldn't have to run through them.
Palmer and Roland could eye the player as your suit's being calibrated for the first time with some dynamic dialogue:
[If you've made zero progress through any halo game]
Palmer: "Sit tight while we debug your shielding, Marine. Roland, give me an idea on the new recruit's study habits, would you?"
Roland: "Let's see here..." *Roland flips through some hologram archives* "Blank slate, ma'am. Kid should probably be put through a couple drills, stay on the safe side."
(cue yes / no prompt for the player)
[If you've gone through some prior games, could vary depending on what you've done, of course]
Palmer: "Sit tight while we debug your shielding, Marine. Roland, give me an idea on the new recruit's study habits, would you? We might want to boot up those Infinity drills."
Roland: "Let's see here... huh, what do you know, we've got a historian. My records have all the major sims listed - Alpha Halo event, Chief's campaign on Delta, urban scuffles in Voi, field trip to the Ark, and a couple extras for good measure - Noble's last run on Reach and even some sleuthing in New Mombasa after the slipspace event."
Palmer: "I stand corrected, looks like this isn't your first rodeo. What do you say?"
(yes / no)
Palmer and Roland could eye the player as your suit's being calibrated for the first time with some dynamic dialogue:
[If you've made zero progress through any halo game]
Palmer: "Sit tight while we debug your shielding, Marine. Roland, give me an idea on the new recruit's study habits, would you?"
Roland: "Let's see here..." *Roland flips through some hologram archives* "Blank slate, ma'am. Kid should probably be put through a couple drills, stay on the safe side."
(cue yes / no prompt for the player)
[If you've gone through some prior games, could vary depending on what you've done, of course]
Palmer: "Sit tight while we debug your shielding, Marine. Roland, give me an idea on the new recruit's study habits, would you? We might want to boot up those Infinity drills."
Roland: "Let's see here... huh, what do you know, we've got a historian. My records have all the major sims listed - Alpha Halo event, Chief's campaign on Delta, urban scuffles in Voi, field trip to the Ark, and a couple extras for good measure - Noble's last run on Reach and even some sleuthing in New Mombasa after the slipspace event."
Palmer: "I stand corrected, looks like this isn't your first rodeo. What do you say?"
(yes / no)
Ragnarok Flames
Banned
you think they'd make Palmer that respectful?
User 73706
Banned
"I stand corrected, looks like this isn't your first rodeo, egghead. What do you say?"
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I like that idea a lot, Wahrer.
I didn't make that clear. I do think you should get the advantage if you get the drop on the other person. It means you're probably more familiar with the space and more aware of your surroundings than the other person. My point was that this shouldn't be the primary thing that determines the result. I totally agree that it should be a factor.
Again, the personwith better skillswho out plays the other should win, plain and simple.
The gif is an ideal kill time for me. Too bad this isn't what we got. I didn't realize how much I missed something like this until we apparently didn't get it.
It doesn't seem like the full gif. :/ You know what I mean though.
Yeah, totally agreed with you on this then.
Maybe this is the gif you were thinking of?
Another way to teach your player something is through...I'm not sure what word to use. It's basically "conditioning."
Rayman Legends is a really hard game, but it's never oppressively hard and teaches you how to play it.
Here's one example. I was was running through this area and there was this thing of fire that spawned in front of me. I was at the edge of a platform and need to jump to another one right in front of me, but if I had jumped, I would have jumped right into the fire. If I had let myself fall, I would have fallen into some lava. However, there were some enemies right on the edge of the second platform, so when I fell, I hit at them. In Rayman, hits make you go forward a bit, so hitting the enemies pushed me forward so that I landed on the second platform without hitting the fire or landing in the lava.
Basically (if that didn't make sense), if the enemies hadn't been there, I would have fallen into the lava and not known how to beat it. Since the enemies were there, I hit them and survived. I didn't actually realize any of this until playing through it again. By that time, I was hitting "attack" (X) to survive whenever I got into that situation. The game had conditioned me to do that, and I didn't even realize it until much, much later.
I think, then, that in very subtle ways, things like Campaign in Halo could condition you to do certain things, so that they are second nature when you play multiplayer.
In fact, Halo already sort of does this. Campaign does a good job of conditioning you on your grenade throws -- when to through them and how often mostly -- so when you get into multiplayer, grenade throwing is second nature and I don't even think about it.
I think, then, that there are other things you could do to subtly teach and condition the player to do certain things, such as how to burst fire with the AR. Perhaps enemies (like the prometheans) could be designed more to encourage better handling of the AR.
Make sense?
I gotcha. I think some of that could definitely be useful in campaign and like you said we already see some of it. However, I think it could only teach you so much. Much of Halo's skill comes from knowing the maps. You can't really learn those in campaign, even though Reach's maps were spliced into campaign. Campaign is certainly great for teaching you how weapons work though and prepare you for MP in that way.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
User 73706
Banned
I think my Multiplayer / Arena suggestion is probably a little too ahead-of-its-time and consumer-dependent as-is, but I don't think of it as a playerbase segregation in the same sense that, say, Legendary BRs and Infinity Slayer are. The point is that, while they're both PvP, that could potentially be where the similarities end. Multiplayer and Arena would be completely separate game modes, comparable to the differences between Campaign and Multiplayer, or Forge and Theater. There'd be room for people to do both, of course, but the entire point is that they represent such radical departures from one another that they'd merit their respective titles, rather than Arena being "multiplayer but with less guns, player count, and vehicles" or Multiplayer being "arena but with killstreaks and perks."
The lemons talk is a really concise way to handle that bit of game deisgn.
The lemons talk is a really concise way to handle that bit of game deisgn.
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