Striker said:
Rather than blaming Reach's changes for being beneath CoD in the charts, look at the real picture and accept the fact this has been here since November 2007.
I said that Reach isn't faring well against the competition compared with Halo 3, which is true. Both you and Urk have provided ample proof.
You implied people were bored of the Halo formula and that the shakeup Reach provided was needed and gave your own boredom as an example. Can you prove folks were getting bored of the pre-Reach Halo formula? If anything, the strong performance against tough competition with Halo 3 proved the old formula had plenty of support.
Striker said:
It's also ignorant to pinpoint any accusations that most Halo players were wanting Halo 3.5. It's also clear that isn't what Bungie wanted hence they felt the need to address the inconsistencies of the game, and improved on it (which most importantly, they did: hitscan).
Where did I say most players wanted Halo 3.5? I said I wanted Halo 3.5 and I said many folks here wanted Halo 3.5 and I also said long term Halo fans wanted Halo 3.5 - all of which is true.
The majority of fans were happy to have each Halo game have minimal changes to the core gameplay concept, to minimise disruptions to the sandbox. Why change something that wasn't broken, that's the general attitude most fans, particularly on here took. Sure, folks would argue over balance issues, but not many folks were asking for major additions or drastic overhauls and it was the same in any of the online communities I frequented.
Whilst it's impossible to know the wants and wishes of every Halo player, the best you can do is listen to those that did voice what they wanted. Playing Halo and being part of various online communities for years you come to know the shift tides of demands, wants and wishes.
Not every long term Halo player wanted Halo 3.5, but many did, including a lot of folks here.
Striker said:
None of the pieces in Halo 3 sped up the gameplay.
Bubble shield = stop the game to a crawl, and forced players to ensue into a CQB battle
Regen = hilariously bad piece that did nothing but give another player another ounce of life; this was the most obscene item, as well, due the awful fast respawn it had
Power drainer = the prominence for larger scale games, even though it felt like it spawned at 10 sec. intervals so everybody and their sister had one
Grav lift = least annoying piece, but that didn't matter since it was hardly used
The rest: flare, radar jammer, personal shield, trip mine = obsolete. Bungie never used them. Why are they in the game?
The fact they brought in sprint was heavenly, because both Reach and Halo 3's base speeds are a snails crawl compared to Halo 1 and Halo 2. They introduced these pieces of equipment to spice up the MP, but in my view, they should have let it alone because you can still make magnificent moments in multiplayer without the need of any special equipment or maneuvers. And for them, I think that's why they did. I personally wished they had left it alone and kept it the way it was from Halo 1/2. Basic elements of overshield and camo on the map with nothing else getting in the way or bringing down the pace of the game.
Who said the Halo 3 Equipment sped up the game? I said Equipment and AA both slowed down the gameplay overall, with AA being significantly worse and slowing things down much faster and with worse results than Equipment, which is true by any degree of measure. I don't know what you're going on about here.
And for the record, Equipment in Halo 3 and AA for Reach were designed around the campaign first and foremost. The roles in multiplayer have always been a secondary consideration.
I agree about wanting to have neither in multiplayer but if came down to choice, I'd have have Halo 3's implementation of Equipment in multiplayer than Reach's implementation of AA's.
As much as I love Camo, I'd delete all AA from Reach if I had access to a big magical button that, when pressed, would delete the "feature" from every build of Reach ever pressed to disk if I could.
