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Halo: Reach |OT7| What are They to Say Now?

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
Because criticisms and discussions take up more room than "this game is fun!," and H3 isn't exactly a shining part of the Halo mp palette.

is a game really that bad if you still keep coming back to it after more then a year to discuss its flaws? i'm just kind of sick of reading obviously greatly exaggerated "reach sucks" posts.
 

MrBig

Member
is a game really that bad if you still keep coming back to it after more then a year to discuss its flaws? i'm just kind of sick of reading obviously greatly exaggerated "reach sucks" posts.

I haven't been keeping up with this thread so excuse me if anyone here said something as simple as "reach sucks" and walked away without a hint of intelligence, only a sense of bashing without reason.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Nah, it just oozes with fail. It was intended to be a response to Schooly's thoughts that we went to great lengths to "casualize" the game. I'd talked to him in person briefly about the subject at Claude's earlier in the year, but we both sort of danced around the subject. Didn't seem like the right venue.

And I'm definitely not blaming, or intending to blame, MLG for any of Reach's faults. We brought them out because we believed they would bring something valuable to the development process. Which they did. But it certainly didn't have anything to do with being casual.

Nobody at Bungie believes the studio has made a perfect game.

Liar Liar pants on fire. Don't you lie. All you Bungle folks think you made the perfect game. Don't you lie at all. j/k lol
 
I think the only way to get an apples-apples comparison is to compare games at the same time in its lifcycle. Especially when you have statements like, "The population numbers indicate that they converted 6 out of every 7 players from Halo 3 to Reach."

...

Reach has not retained its player base the way Halo 3 did.
I agree with you, and I think FyreWulff's way of looking at it is bonkers.

That said, I don't think you can overestimate the effect of Reach facing a far more cluttered market for FPSs than Halo 3 did, and being largely out of step with most current trends (and thank goodness for that; there are more than enough 'hyperreal' 'modern' 'warfare' 'simulators' or whatever out there).

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle: Reach probably has turned a lot of people off Halo (and anecdotally I can confirm this, as plenty of my Halo 3-playing friends simply couldn't get into Reach, or were eventually too annoyed by it to continue playing), but not as many as its biggest detractors would like to claim.
 
This thread goes to the weirdest places sometimes.

Just give me a Race playlist or some weekend exclusive playlist and I'll be happy.

Maybe we'll see a Destiny reveal trailer at the VGA's... maybe?
 
People may not be able to tell you what is wrong or needs improvement, though, or they may think the problem is something it's not. The usefulness of feedback from any source is questionable. And if the post-TU confusion demonstrates anything, it's that making a number of changes in isolation from the larger ecosystem of the game's mechanics has wacky consequences and may result in something that doesn't play the way people expect.

As much as I'd love to see a Halo game get the kind of shakedown Starcraft II did (years in development, SC pros involved in design and balancing decisions from day one to the day of release, a five month public beta that saw eighteen patches, constant rebalancing post-release, etc.), it's all but impossible in the current environment for console gaming.

Edit: and in fact we should be intensely thankful to Bungie for being consistently one of the most forward-thinking developers when it comes to promoting things that were once PC-exclusive (online multiplayer, post-release support, patches) in the console space.



Great analysis here. I think one of the things to come in the next generation of consoles will be a greater feedback loop between devs and players in the console setting. Although blizzard is one of the few devs that even does the constant balancing act well.
 
I haven't been keeping up with this thread so excuse me if anyone here said something as simple as "reach sucks" and walked away without a hint of intelligence, only a sense of bashing without reason.
Even the sum of valid complaints across all the OTs does not soundly lead to the conclusion "Reach sucks". It's pretentious hyperbole that has no place in a rational discussion or criticism among fans.
 
Looks like I missed about on some halogaf fun last night. Ghaleon actually played Reach, my peach fuzz faced friend Hitmonchan almost played Xbox, and Devo got super drunk, but surely failed to get as drunk as I did.

Speaking of being that drunk, as a result I'm going to need to play some significant Xbox today, so if anyone is trying to play them haloz or bf3 let me know.
 

Karl2177

Member
Nah, it just oozes with fail. It was intended to be a response to Schooly's thoughts that we went to great lengths to "casualize" the game. I'd talked to him in person briefly about the subject at Claude's earlier in the year, but we both sort of danced around the subject. Didn't seem like the right venue.

And I'm definitely not blaming, or intending to blame, MLG for any of Reach's faults. We brought them out because we believed they would bring something valuable to the development process. Which they did. But it certainly didn't have anything to do with being casual.

Nobody at Bungie believes the studio has made a perfect game.

Perfection is an absolute. In this case almost everything is relative. Does the studio think that it is the best game that they've made to date?
 

Karl2177

Member
That's hardly going to be any easier to quantify though.

Improvements that they've made in terms of performance, technical stuff, story, and gameplay. Personally, I give the studio's best game to ODST. It is all a matter of opinion, but here it's self-opinion.
 

Louis Wu

Member
(I still get people asking me if Reach is just an ODST style short sidestory game)
That's pretty funny. We get a LOT of questions - many of them are stupid. I've NEVER been asked that - EVER. Not even once.

You must talk to a userbase that has zero overlap with HBO.

His numbers are taken from Bungie.net, so im guessing they are pretty accurate? (Well as accurate as they can be given how unscientific this all is!)
You're totally missing what Fyre's saying - and what Bungie has said a number of times.

The COUNTING methods for the two games are different. Even today. It's just the way they were set up.

The population counts, as reported by Bungie.net, are NOT directly comparable. Bungie has said this many, many times.
 
ODST is probably the best Bungie Halo game, yeah. Story, design, audio/music, risks taken that paid off, introduction of Firefight, and the maps added for Halo 3 were really solid. If it had been a little more fully-fledged, a little more varied in its city design, and packed in a few more multiplayer maps, I wouldn't even have to think about it.
 

urk

butthole fishhooking yes
Perfection is an absolute. In this case almost everything is relative. Does the studio think that it is the best game that they've made to date?

There isn't a single, unified opinion I could summon for you. That's like asking what the studio's favorite color is.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
I doubt they actually had much time to really "play" it. I may be dead wrong when I say that, but I find it hard to believe that these MLG guys actually had much of any say or had much of any time to play the game early on. It's not something they (or anyone for that matter) could just sit down and play a few games of and put their two cents in.

However, it might actually be beneficial to bring in a few of the well known MLG teams over the course of the multiplayer production, let them have a week of really playing the game against one another in their 4v4 formats or whatever, and just take their opinions on the changes/additions over the course of creating the multiplayer experience. That means that it would have made sense to bring these guys in multiple times throughout the creation process to really get a lot of good playtime in with the different multiplayer builds or whatnot.

I find it pretty silly that Urk said that to be honest. Just because they got the approval of two pros, that immediately speaks for the rest of the competitive community? It's really hard to give an opinion on this because I really have no idea how long these MLG guys got to play it beforehand, when they got to play it beforehand (as in like alpha builds or closed beta builds?), how many of these MLG guys actually got to play it, and so on. But that post by Urk made it sound like they did their best effort to really reach out to the MLG community for their feedback. I almost find that a bit disturbing that a company, such as Bungie, has to enlist help from an outside source to help create their own game... Especially after their previous two (might even be able to say three) games were so great for competitive gaming and MLG. Probably none of these MLG kids know a single thing about making a video game, and of course they are going to be awestruck when they are invited to play an early build of a new Halo game. Almost anyone in that position is going to be excited about any new changes to the game.

It is really easy to criticize now with hindsight, but if Bungie really did enlist the help of MLG for Reach, then they must have handled it pretty damn poorly. I wish we knew more of that story, but in the end how can you blame MLG? It was Bungie's game. Responsibility ultimately lands on their own shoulders.
Well said.

I do think that this coming out is pretty damn funny though. Hysteria actually for most of the season used the Needle Rifle :lol
 

Trasher

Member
They usually do, but CoD doesn't do that:

http://majornelson.com/2011/11/30/live-activity-for-week-of-november-21st/

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty: Black Ops

Skyrim
Battlefield 3
FIFA 12
Modern Warfare 2
Halo: Reach
Gears of War 3
Madden NFL 12
Saints Row: The Third
Assassin’s Creed Revelations
GTA IV
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Forza Motorsport 4
Batman: Arkham City
NBA 2K12
Halo 3
FIFA Soccer 11
NHL12
Call of Duty 4

It took MW3 and Blackops together to finally push World at War past the 20th rank horizon.




Then why even compare Reach to CoD in terms of UU? What I'm saying here is that you don't see the CoD "new game comes out, a lot of people move on to it but a bunch go back to / stay on the previous one". You see a bunch of people switch to Reach and they don't go back to 3. If Reach was really the giant misstep and uncompetitive game that some say it is, then we should have seen a significant portion of the playerbase go back to 3 or stop playing Halo completely.

The newer games are all on top?
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Even the sum of valid complaints across all the OTs does not soundly lead to the conclusion "Reach sucks". It's pretentious hyperbole that has no place in a rational discussion or criticism among fans.

Exactly. Everyone always agrees that for a game it's great but for a Halo game it let's them down. I of course don't agree even though I dislike some of the things in it. Examples being Armor abilities, vehicles and how broken they are compared to past games. Despite that it's a great game still because no game is perfect. Bungie tried something new too and I applaud that even if I didn't like all of the new things they tried.

There isn't a single, unified opinion I could summon for you. That's like asking what the studio's favorite color is.

This is one thing I think that a lot of people forget too. Bungie isn't a single person. Everyone there is going to have different opinions on the game they have made. At the end of the day not everyone will be happy with it. Even everyone who made it.
 
The newer games are all on top?
When you think about it, the fact that Reach is beating Gears of War 3, Madden NFL 12, Saints Row: The Third, and Assassin’s Creed Revelations is impressive in itself. Also, the multiplayer playerbase is split a little with the Anniversary disc.
 

CyReN

Member
Why bring in MLG players at all? As far as I'm aware MLG had nothing to do with Halo 2's development and it was the best multiplayer game ever made. As far as I'm concerned stay far far away from MLG and you'll probably have a better game.

You really think Reach was destroyed from a day input from 2 MLG Pros? I get what your saying but I rather have someone there to give the game feedback that plays the game seriously.

The thing that bothers me is this is just a little jab at a community for no reason, they've obviously moved on to their Activision game. Why have someone from their company say this now? I thought bashing MLG was long over by now.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Am I the only one that thinks this post just oozes with narcissism? Urk really comes off as almost blaming MLG for being the reason that their multiplayer sucks. I feel bad for continuing to address this post, but I guess it just really disturbs me. I like Urk. I like Bungie. But really? Sack up and just accept that you guys created a flawed multiplayer experience. The population numbers don't lie. =/

I guess it's a good thing Bungie is moving on from Halo. I think they got a bit too full of themselves, which lead to them trying to do too much with Reach. I'm really pumped to find out what their new game is, but I'm also equally pumped about them moving away from Halo.
I don't blame Urk. He's sorta defending Bungie and throwing a little jab at MLG. I feel like the general MLG community feels likes Bungie has been fucking up Halo since CE. When Halo 2 was on the circuit, people wanted Halo 1. Whem Halo 3 was on the circuit they wanted Halo 2. Same goes for Reach. It's all reactionary bullshit. And the truth is I'm curious is to see what MLG is if Bungie didn't continue to put out amazing Halo titles.

Also, low population is a product of the weaker sales for Reach. Obviously there are a lot of people who stopped playing Reach and I do think that's had an effect but this population is very low.
 
When you think about it, the fact that Reach is beating Gears of War 3, Madden NFL 12, Saints Row: The Third, and Assassin’s Creed Revelations is impressive in itself. Also, the multiplayer playerbase is split a little with the Anniversary disc.

When you play Reach from the CEA disc, it says you are playing Reach. I think those count towards the Reach UU's.
 
Why bring in MLG players at all? As far as I'm aware MLG had nothing to do with Halo 2's development and it was the best multiplayer game ever made. As far as I'm concerned stay far far away from MLG and you'll probably have a better game.

No Halo game released after or before Halo 2 will be anything like Halo 2. Can you please stop comparing everything to Halo 2. You like Halo 2. You love Halo 2. You don't like Reach because it isn't like Halo 2. You don't like Halo 3 because it isn't Halo 2. You would have hated Halo: CE retroactively had you known how good Halo 2 was going to be.
Halo 4, while being 2^2, will not be Halo 2 to the power of Halo 2. I think wanting games to go back and be like Halo 2 is silly.
"It was the best multiplayer game ever made". This isn't subjective at all. Let's not for a second think I am in anyway disregarding any success Halo 2 has had. It was a great game.
 
Why bring in MLG players at all? As far as I'm aware MLG had nothing to do with Halo 2's development and it was the best multiplayer game ever made.
I swear, people have such ridiculously rose-tinted glasses for this stuff. Halo 2 as it was on the day of its release was plagued with problems. SMG starts (and other weapons that were more or less useless)? The sword? Standbying, superbouncing, and other glitches? Shoddy netcode? Ridiculous autoaim on precision weapons (swipe 2 snipe!!!!)? Lock-on rockets? Poor playlists, poor map settings (Banshee on Ascension lawl), and little that could be done about these things on Bungie's end, let alone ours? Fucking noob combo and the magical mystery plasma pistol?

When you play Reach from the CEA disc, it says you are playing Reach. I think those count towards the Reach UU's.
Yeah, I'd imagine they do. Oh well, better luck next time, Bungle!
 
It's not impressive at all. You can't exactly call it a fair fight when their are two games that count as one for Reach. It's more telling that soon enough there wont be a Halo game in the top 10. Think about that, once a series consistently in the number one slot now not even in the top ten. A fucking Halo game, the flagship series for Xbox.

Haha, oh wow. Look at how many of those games have been influenced by every Halo game. That's impressive. Look at how many games offer a robust stat tracking system and game history similar to Halo. Look at their community support and interaction which are simply not present in other titles. Look at how the Halo games have innovated the console FPS market time and time again. I'd say that is entirely fitting for the flagship series for the Xbox. The fact that, 10 years down the line, only now can Halo be shaken from the top is testament to the influence it has had on other games and how they have needed to raise the bar for quality.
 
A lot of these 'problems' are not only bullshit, but you fail to see why Halo 2 was so good. When your main argument is the the technical side ("lol netcode") and not the gameplay you know you've fucked up. I said before that Reachs netcode is amazing, but guess what? It amounts to nothing because the core game flops.
Curious how you selected one point among like twelve as my "main argument". You are clearly not to be reasoned with. Good evening.
 
Haha, oh wow. Look at how many of those games have been influenced by every Halo game. That's impressive. Look at how many games offer a robust stat tracking system and game history similar to Halo. Look at their community support and interaction which are simply not present in other titles. Look at how the Halo games have innovated the console FPS market time and time again. I'd say that is entirely fitting for the flagship series for the Xbox. The fact that, 10 years down the line, only now can Halo be shaken from the top is testament to the influence it has had on other games and how they have needed to raise the bar for quality.

Agreed, also the problem with the activity charts is that we don't have an overall idea of the population in each game, I imagine the gap between 1 and reach being quite large, but the others, who knows.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Agreed, also the problem with the activity charts is that we don't have an overall idea of the population in each game, I imagine the gap between 1 and reach being quite large, but the others, who knows.

I'll just say what I've said before even back in the Xbox days when Halo 2 dominated all. Why give a shit where it is on the freaking charts? As long as I have people to play with Halo could be 100th on the charts. Prime example. Till the day support for the original xbox died I could still hop into RTCW and find a game to play. Granted that was like 3 servers to choose from but I still played it and damn easily too. All with maybe 60 players tops playing it. Same with Whacked. Maybe had 8 of us tops playing that game through out it's life. I really just wish to god they'd quit posting those damn charts. All it does is cause stupid bickering for no reason at all because OMG someone's favorite game isn't number 1. When it was Halo on top it was the COD fanboys crying all the time about it. Now it's Halo fans turn to cry about not being number 1. /rant off.
 

kylej

Banned
What is this drivel?

Influence? Who cares about influence? Are you going to sit here and talk about how Doom influenced Halo? It's irrelevant.

Support? Like the one patch for Reach that fixed everyones problems? Hint: It didn't.

Innovation accounts for nothing when there are now better, more competent, more balanced multiplayer games on the market.

this post rules.
 
What is this drivel?

Influence? Who cares about influence? Are you going to sit here and talk about how Doom influenced Halo? It's irrelevant.

Support? Like the one patch for Reach that fixed everyones problems? Hint: It didn't.

Innovation accounts for nothing when there are now better, more competent, more balanced multiplayer games on the market.

Go play Halo 2 buddy.

You clearly cannot comprehend how Halo, or Doom for that matter, have essentially driven the production of other fantastic shooters. You simply cannot understand how modern FPS games are copying features 3-4 years after Bungie developed them. You simply cannot comprehend how people might look at Halo 2 in a bad way.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
I think first we need stop acting like the general conclusion that the Halo community has come to is that Reach sucks.
 
I said damn! Those are seriously crazy. Do you have a gallery of the previous ones too?

Yup. It's missing the most recent ones, though. But I'll post 'em here for your enjoyment:





I still have a few new ones I haven't finished yet, including a doozy on Penance that I'm going to have to reshoot tonight.
 

Gui_PT

Member
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