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Halo |OT9| One Final Effort Is All That Remains

BigShow36

Member
It allows lower skilled players to have a better chance at contending with higher skilled players at a purely shooting standpoint - analagous to AA. This eases players into the game and makes it more approachable. And the bullets are "randomized" within a visually represented area, which expands and contracts predictably.

The question is, is that more "fun" though?

There are several pieces to your argument which I take issue with (I understand that your argument is merely demonstrative rather than an actual indication of your thoughts on the subject).

First off, lower skilled players should not be in a match against highly skilled players in a decent matchmaking environment. In fact, I would argue that skill-muddling features like bloom actually make the matchmaking environment less enjoyable. The reason being it doesn't allow the game to get an accurate picture of skill and doesn't allow the matchmaking to function properly. There's more to "skill" than shooting, and a bad players against a good player will still get handily beaten. If we add features that compress the skill-gap, its more likely that players will find themselves matched up out of their skill range.

The second issue I have is the argument that it makes the game more approachable. I disagree on the premise that bloom gives no clear indication of why a player is or isn't landing shots. Players being introduced into a new environment need clear feedback on what does or doesn't work. Bloom only adds a layer of confusion and there are much better ways of introducing players to the game that don't frustrate higher-level players.

The last point of contention is the aspect of "fun." Understandably, this is a very difficult, if not impossible, point to contend. However, I don't think the actual mechanic of bloom is what players enjoy about the shooting mechanics. What bloom does, and what players enjoy, is adds a sense of urgency and fear to firefights.

However, the cause of that urgency is where bloom and no bloom weapons are different. The sense of urgency and fear with bloom comes from the randomized nature of the encounter. It's similar to watching a roulette wheel spinning; you feel intense emotion, but in the end it's ultimately out of your control. I would rather see those emotions created through a geniune challenge presented to the player. Where each encounter is a pure match of planning, skill and excecution. That gets the bloom pumping far more than bloom does, and is ultimately a more "fun" experience.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Yeah, so is the lack of any information that benefits the Competitive Community

I think tossing Reach's problematic gameplay changes - player inertia and weight, low jump height, shield delimiter, bloom on primary weapons, nuclear grenades - and restoring the quick, agile and free flowing and balanced combat of the series kinda helps the Competitive Community. The maps shown so far have several great arena maps - already more than Reach had at launch. As does the very deep suite of custom options so Competitive Communities can create their own Competitive game types. I figured Competitive players would be delighted with these developments, but what do I know.
 
A while back I said Infinity Slayer would be the most popular playlist. I may have to revise that. 0_o

So we have for game types:

Slayer (Infinity Slayer variant)
Regicide
Capture the Flag
Dominion
Flood
King of the Hill (I think?)
Oddball (Grifball variant)

Might be more coming, but it's a pretty tight list of new and reinvented game types. Cleared a lot of the clutter from the lists that had accumulated over the years, which should make for more focused playlists.

The lack of any mention of Assault by 343 to this point concerns me. Surely they wouldn't publish a multiplayer Halo title without Assault, would they?
 

Woorloog

Banned
Explanation of Custom game options, whether certain things are toggle-able, the explanation of Frankie's Skill based MM comment. to name a few

We've never gotten these before for Halos (well, for most part. Skulls have been detailled, i think), don't expect them now.

Ranking system will be probably explained in time, but do remember other than competitively oriented Halo palyers, people don't really care about it. And i reckon competitively oriented players are a minority in Halo nowadays (just my guess, this is hard to quantify anyway).
 
I think tossing Reach's problematic gameplay changes - player inertia and weight, low jump height, shield delimiter, bloom on primary weapons, nuclear grenades - and restoring the quick, agile and free flowing and balanced combat of the series kinda helps the Competitive Community. The maps shown so far have several great arena maps - already more than Reach had at launch. As does the very deep suite of custom options so Competitive Communities can create their own Competitive game types. I figured Competitive players would be delighted with these developments, but what do I know.

The changes in gameplay help everyone. Those same custom options allow the other communities the same chances.
 

Amazing Mic

Neo Member
And i reckon competitively oriented players are a minority in Halo nowadays (just my guess, this is hard to quantify anyway).

Arena's population jumps 10-fold when there is a credit jackpot. I don't care how many people left because of AAs or maps or MLG or whatever (doubt it was a huge %, IMO)- that's staggering and says a lot.

I get my fix from those playlists and hope there is something for it in H4, but I can't say I'm shocked by the information releases focusing on what they do.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
The lack of any mention of Assault by 343 to this point concerns me. Surely they wouldn't publish a multiplayer Halo title without Assault, would they?

I'm worried about that as well. Some of the game types announced so far are essentially old game types significantly re-imagined:

Regicide --> Juggernaut

Dominion --> Territories

Flood --> Infection

CTF, Slayer an Oddball are back, heavily redesigned or expanded. For the life of me I can't remember if KotH is actually in, though I thought I read it was.

I love Assault, and in particular Neutral Assault. I hope it made it through. Otherwise, BTB objectives look to be limited to Dominion and CTF. Both look excellent, but a third would be nice. If it's not in, I can't really fault 343, given the overhaul they've giving everything. But I'm still hoping.

The changes in gameplay help everyone. Those same custom options allow the other communities the same chances.

Exactly!
 
Maybe. I know i won't.
I can see how many things may play out and i can plan pretty well for many things. I'm confident in my skill, i know i will be getting ordnance drops so i will need one weapon slot for those weapons. Thus starting with another primary weapon will go waste many times, in these cases another perk is a better choice.
Of course there may very well be times when two primaries may come in handy and i will probably have at least one loadout for that (Rifle, AR/Storm Rifle, Camo, Firepower and some other perk, kind of camper build.

Nopenopenope.gif

Everything you've every said or will say is now invalid.

Shame.
The lack of any mention of Assault by 343 to this point concerns me. Surely they wouldn't publish a multiplayer Halo title without Assault, would they?

I don't think Assault is going to be in the game. In refining objective gametypes, they probably saw it as too close to CTF. RIP Neutral Assault, the best gametype in Halo.

Ghaleon, I'm pretty sure they said at SDCC that King was in the game.
 

nillapuddin

Member
The gameplay vids from IGN are decent, I grabbed them in HD and will up to YT, their video player is so shitty

Holmes straight up says the energy beam is a grav lift, Ellis says nah
weird confusion is weird

when you ignore someone it doesnt hide when they are quoted : /
 

TheOddOne

Member
Polygon: 'Halo 4's' Dominion mode delivers a sense of urgency to multiplayer
Dominion takes elements of the Conquest game type found in titles like Battlefield 3, while adding additional, Halo-inspired wrinkles to the mode. Matches start with three unoccupied bases that must be captured in order to earn points over the course of a round. If a control point is occupied long enough, it can be resupplied, which offers additional points after a predetermined amount of time.

The aforementioned wrinkles come in the form of the structures that house each capture point. Once a point is secured and resupplied, defensive emplacements start to deploy around its structure. These emplacements include holographic vehicle deployment stations as well as powerful anti-personnel turrets and shield doors that limit access to the control point inside.

Those fortifications remain even if another team takes over the base, but taking over one of those bases takes slightly longer, and is much more difficult as the defenses are up.

Those defenses become more important over the course of a match as each team tries to secure points captured by the opposition. Even abortive attempts to take a point can result in a delay in a resupply or fortification, and, more urgently, a delay in point rewards. During the few matches we were given the chance to play, this dynamic tended to define Dominion. Teams were forced to act quickly, especially toward the end of the match, as just holding two out of the three capture points wouldn't prevent a win by the other team after a late stage resupply.

More interestingly, a sort of slaughter-rule is in effect in Dominion. If one team dominates the other and secures all three capture points, a sudden death timer begins, forcing the losing team to capture a point before all of their members are killed, ending the match. This sense of urgency and fast back and forth is a different sort of multiplayer sensibility compared to Halo's traditional team modes, which tend toward the deliberate and a slower pace.
 

heckfu

Banned
Being one of my favorite comic book characters in the Halo series is now complete.

FcPTh.gif
Hey. My avatar!
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
Why is waypoint banning and locking any and all mention of Flood mode? The info is official and straight from a trusted, legit source, OXM.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
What bothers me is the lack of Theater talk

To be fair, there's a lot of stuff they haven't talked about yet. (Challenges, Waypoint integration, etc.) I'm not reading too much into it.
Why is waypoint banning and locking any and all mention of Flood mode? The info is official and straight from a trusted, legit source, OXM.

They might have stricter rules about mag info, or don't want that out quite yet. It seems like it was intended to be part of the next wave if information, not colliding with the stuff that was out of embargo this morning. Those pesky French.
 

Beckx

Member
Yeah th..that's not how it works

You never know, I jokingly asked Frankie for a DLC code for Defiant (or Noble? the one with Highlands), a few others joined in on the joke, and he emailed us all codes. So Frankie will always be cool in my book, and I will continue flinging hail marys his way. :)
 
The gameplay vids from IGN are decent, I grabbed them in HD and will up to YT, their video player is so shitty

Holmes straight up says the energy beam is a grav lift, Ellis says nah
weird confusion is weird

when you ignore someone it doesnt hide when they are quoted : /
In the Machinima gameplay video he falls into it and it kills him, so Holmes is mistaken.
 
I'm worried about that as well. Some of the game types announced so far are essentially old game types significantly re-imagined:

Regicide --> Juggernaut

Dominion --> Territories

Flood --> Infection

CTF, Slayer an Oddball are back, heavily redesigned or expanded. For the life of me I can't remember if KotH is actually in, though I thought I read it was.

I love Assault, and in particular Neutral Assault. I hope it made it through. Otherwise, BTB objectives look to be limited to Dominion and CTF. Both look excellent, but a third would be nice. If it's not in, I can't really fault 343, given the overhaul they've giving everything. But I'm still hoping.

I hope Juggernaut and Territories come back though. Maybe slightly changed, but overall the same as they were in previous games. We still haven't really heard about KoTH either, so I'm wondering about that too.

Is VIP back? Is race back? Theres still a lot of unanswered questions (clans,team emblems, ranking system,playlists,custom game options, etc) so hopefully we hear about some of this stuff soon, because I'm on the hype train right now.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
The stuff is leaked information.

No it's not. Where was it leaked from exactly? Every magazine's information is posted here every week/month - this is no different.

The information is from the latest French OXM which subscribers already have. The information is from the actual magazine, not stolen or anything.
 
You never know, I jokingly asked Frankie for a DLC code for Defiant (or Noble? the one with Highlands), a few others joined in on the joke, and he emailed us all codes. So Frankie will always be cool in my book, and I will continue flinging hail marys his way. :)

Me, you and Bry.

Anyway, I'm hoping for an upload to YT feature.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Arena's population jumps 10-fold when there is a credit jackpot. I don't care how many people left because of AAs or maps or MLG or whatever (doubt it was a huge %, IMO)- that's staggering and says a lot.

I get my fix from those playlists and hope there is something for it in H4, but I can't say I'm shocked by the information releases focusing on what they do.
They don't play there because it is competitive, they play just for the jackpot. Put the jackpot on any list and that list will have higher population, no matter its normal population.
Nopenopenope.gif

Everything you've every said or will say is now invalid.

Shame.

Well, depends a bit on how Camo works while moving.
If it is highly visible, i scrap that build and do something else. Maybe jetpacker?

I don't care about how i win, i care about winning. I'll camp my way to victory if necessary*. I'll use armor lock, jet pack, camo, regen, whatever if it brings me victory.
Though mostly i'll stick with something i find fun and faster (camo, AL are slow), i'm pretty bad camo and armor lock user in Reach...

*I did this once in Halo 3 Lone Wolves. Shotgun, shield doors, won by 26 points. Of course the other players were really bad for some reason, there was over 10 point gap beetween me and the second player.
Wasn't particulary fun (other than winning). So maybe i won't do it much, if at all.
 

mhi

Member
Jesus you guys want EVERYTHING (at least multiplayer wise) revealed b4 launch ?!! Not even saving some "huh this is cool" moments.

Twitter Age is upon us.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I hope Juggernaut and Territories come back though. Maybe slightly changed, but overall the same as they were in previous games. We still haven't really heard about KoTH either, so I'm wondering about that too.
I understand the sentiment, but I think it's going to be met with the same answer as the CTF changes were: these are the new game types. They are not the old game types.
 

Amazing Mic

Neo Member
They don't play there because it is competitive, they play just for the jackpot. Put the jackpot on any list and that list will have higher population, no matter its normal population.

Exactly- I'm not disagreeing in the slightest- I'm just highlighting in that particularly case you have 10 jackpot searchers for every 1 "competitive" player.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
You can't post leaks.

Few of their mods tweeted out warning people too.

I don't understand how it constitutes a leak. Information from a magazine in which the publisher and developer greenlit isn't a leak.

A leak is someone with access to the internal build posting screenshots of new multiplayer levels on some dody image board or something. There's a massive difference.

Bah, I'll just ask someone.
 
No it's not. Where was it leaked from exactly? Every magazine's information is posted here every week/month - this is no different.

The information is from the latest French OXM which subscribers already have. The information is from the actual magazine, not stolen or anything.
NeoGAF is not HaloWaypoint. HaloWaypoint has strict rules. If the magazine hits the shelves, they are allowed to talk about it.
 

Beckx

Member
I don't understand how it constitutes a leak. Information from a magazine in which the publisher and developer greenlit isn't a leak.

A leak is someone with access to the internal build posting screenshots of new multiplayer levels on some dody image board or something. There's a massive difference.

May be trying to give the publisher lead time on sales, so information from scans is deemed verboten.
 
Man, all this info is overwhelming haha. This game looks insanely good though. So pumped, I don't think Reach ever had me this excited. In fact, I haven't been this excited for a game since Halo 3.
 

Arnie

Member
Ranking system will be probably explained in time, but do remember other than competitively oriented Halo palyers, people don't really care about it.

I know this to be absolutely, unarguably, objectively false.

I've got plenty of friends who're most certainly not 'competitive' players who hated it's implementation (or lack thereof outside of Arena) in Reach.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Jesus you guys want EVERYTHING (at least multiplayer wise) revealed b4 launch ?!! Not even saving some "huh this is cool" moments.

Twitter Age is upon us.

Why not? I want to know what kinda game i'm getting. I don't want to know the plot of course, i want details about gameplay, modes, stuff like that. And i reckon most others do as well.
Cool is cool regardless if you know about it beforehand.


I know this to be absolutely, unarguably, objectively false.

I've got plenty of friends who're most certainly not 'competitive' players who hated it's implementation (or lack thereof outside of Arena) in Reach.
Anecdotal. My friends don't give a shit about competitiveness. Indeed, one of my friends seems to be hating the whole concept. And this anecdotal as well.

Maybe i should have been more clearer, majority probably don't care how the system works. Whether they like the implementation or not comes afterwards.
 
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