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[Shake Appeal]

Apparently the secret to the Arena is not to play it, because I got moved up to Silver without doing anything recently.

 

[Photolysis]

Yeah, it was terrible for me in the two games that I played on it. You can't stand back at where you first spawn and look out or else it slows down horribly. I ended up moving off to one side to play, and it seemed to get better. It really sucks, because I think it's probably one of the best firefight maps of them all.

The spawn area is the worst. When moving past that the only frame rate problems I've had were caused by Phantoms... I'm guessing the top of the glacier combined with that are too much for the game to handle. Not much of an isssue if you focus on the ground though.

It does play very well in Firefight, but the frame rate problems really could do with being solved. That said, my playstyle and preferred setup locations on the map means the FPS usually stays stable at 30 or high twenties. Perfectly playable.

 

[Shake Appeal]

You can't really 'fix' framerate problems on consoles, sadly. And Reach has them in abundance.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

Remember that time I was in the Halo Reach campaign trailer thread and I was all like you cant make a better game (in terms of tech) on the same hardware without getting shittier results?

Yea.

I mean yea there's improvements in the programming that make it work better, and tricks they try and add in, but ultimately if you lock the variables and be brutally honest the above sentence IS TRUE.

Still I would love to see Reach on my PC running at 60fps locked. That's the shit Halo deserves.

 

[Slightly Live]

"We got the final editorial draft of [Bear's novel] in last week, and so we've been going over it and giving back our notes and changes," said O'Connor. "We ran it by a guy we hired from a website called Ascendant Justice, and he came back and said, 'Oh my God, I just had my mind blown like three times in twelve pages.'"

Forerunner novel, blowing minds three times in just twelve pages.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

No, there were legitimate complaints from level headed people on GAF in there as well. Shotty/Snipers was literally popping up every other game or more back then. I did post in that thread surprisingly, told people to get a grip, but I remember complaining about it in game too.

As far as stuff like that not happening in here, go dig up the Reach Beta thread. :lol

I mean none of this stuff matters now, but it's like the one guy said, this game has so many problems, and banning kids who reset challenges is not even a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things. They're going to hit a cap anyways, and even if they did get a billion credits, who cares?



Well, I think we both know you're not going to get any legitimate answers or discussions about the negative aspects of the game on here.

As much as I dont think Bungie would (or should) be a part of those discussions I think there are people mature enough here to discuss the negative stuff. Unfortunatly its hard to type something up that doesnt just sound like its a troll post.

But yeah I agree, I would prefer to see action taken over other aspects of the game, as far as im concerned if someone wants to credit reset theyre way to a General then who cares?

The Beta thread had complaining for the sake of the game. Why play a beta if your not gonna give feedback? Game turned out better for it in my opinion.

 

[Photolysis]

You can't really 'fix' framerate problems on consoles, sadly. And Reach has them in abundance.

Obviously the hardware can't be improved, and I guess Bungie can't go too far in to the graphics engine. I would have thought that stuff like draw distances could be changed though and that the engine could be changed to be more aggressive about culling effects to preserve the frame rate.

 

[TheOddOne]

Forerunner novel, blowing minds three times in twelve just pages.

*Faints*

 

[Shake Appeal]

Obviously the hardware can't be improved, and I guess Bungie can't go too far in to the graphics engine. I would have thought that stuff like draw distances could be changed though and that the engine could be changed to be more aggressive about culling effects to preserve the frame rate.

Even if those changes were possible, they are too huge and sweeping with too many potential ramifications for anyone to risk making them post-release.

I mean, there seems to be a certain variability in people's experience of framerate drops, but for me they are too frequent and too consistent to be ignored. I will always avoid Glacier in FF now, because it verges on unplayable (and something has to chug steadily at ~15fps before I'll call it that). Scoping from one Asylum base to the other is always irritating. And when I look out the bottom of the barn at the start of Winter Contingency, at the very first enemy encounter, the game crawls. Every. Time.

And that's ignoring how easy it is to have a Forge World map made unpleasant to play just because you built an area too densely.

 

[ShinAmano]

So I finally started to buy stuff with all the credits I have accumulated over the past couple weeks...seriously why are all the leg upgrades so expensive?

 

[squidhands]

The spawn area is the worst. When moving past that the only frame rate problems I've had were caused by Phantoms... I'm guessing the top of the glacier combined with that are too much for the game to handle. Not much of an isssue if you focus on the ground though.

It does play very well in Firefight, but the frame rate problems really could do with being solved. That said, my playstyle and preferred setup locations on the map means the FPS usually stays stable at 30 or high twenties. Perfectly playable.

I went exploring down that maintenance tunnel and tried playing outside that area, and things were fine. Even the turret area just to the left of the main spawn played well, but the best area to hold up is just an utter crapfest visually.

Mythic Score Attack kicked my ass, not sure if I'll be doing that much more. Those Brutes are assholes.

And that's ignoring how easy it is to have a Forge World map made unpleasant to play just because you built an area too densely.

This is such a huge disappointment for me. We have this huge budget and some pretty incredible pieces to work with, but if you try and make anything that resembles a complicated structure, you get punished for it (by the way, if you want to see an amazing-looking map that looks like it could belong in the H:CE campaign, download this).

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Anyone who quits a game or is idle for more than 2 minutes needs to be banned from MM for 2 hours or something.

BTB is getting ridoinkulous.

 

[Jinjo]

Okay, wtf just happened? I get an invite, but in order to have my NAT to open I always need to reset my router. I turn of the xbox, reset the router. Turn my xbox back on. Try to sign in with my account, it goes to the test. Everything goes fine, NAT is open. I boot up Halo and I get the notice you get when you first start up the game. Welcome to Noble team: here's 5000 credits. I kind of freak upon seeing my rank, but that updates back quickly to Major. All my armor unlocks are still there. So I check campaign: all my progress got deleted dammit. There's no record of me ever finishing campaign, while I did this multiple times. What's the deal here?

I hope a simple reboot fixes it.

Edit: No it doesn't. Thankfully everything in my service record is intact, the game just locally doesn't recognize my campaign progress. It says I've yet to finish, but in my service record it says I already finished it on legendary. Does anyone have any idea what happened here?

Spoiler

Atleast I got a free 5000 cR out of it.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Obviously the hardware can't be improved, and I guess Bungie can't go too far in to the graphics engine. I would have thought that stuff like draw distances could be changed though and that the engine could be changed to be more aggressive about culling effects to preserve the frame rate.

Yeah, I'm sure you can change things like draw distance and particle effects and such, but I imagine those were likely built as global variables, not map-specific ones, and I would rather have one map with a bad framerate than see the entire game's visual quality drop (and let's face it - this game is gorgeous).

The truth is that we are pushing the limits of current gen console hardware, and if the economy wasn't in the shitter it would be time for a new generation to start. We're just going to have to take what we get.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

That Shotty Snipers is ruining Halo thread is disgusting. :lol

Ferrex was out of line to post in such an angry manner, BUT EVERONE misinterpreted what he said. He wasnt saying he doesnt care about the paying customer, way I see it hes trying to say he cant just please Gaf, because there are tons of paying customers who dont have a voice on the internet.

Also, LOL at the people complaining that the Halo 3 Sniper is too hard, and saying that Snipers should be taken out but it should be 100% shotguns. :lol :lol :lol Im sure I also read someone complaining about the Pit. Gaf shocks me at times. :lol

 

[TheOddOne]

Anyone who quits a game or is idle for more than 2 minutes needs to be banned from MM for 2 hours or something.

BTB is getting ridoinkulous.

Thats harsh, maby 15 minutes inactivity you get kicked. But for quiting at the start the game, then ban for a hour.

 

[Slightly Live]

That Shotty Snipers is ruining Halo thread is disgusting. :lol

Ferrex was out of line to post in such an angry manner, BUT EVERONE misinterpreted what he said. He wasnt saying he doesnt care about the paying customer, way I see it hes trying to say he cant just please Gaf, because there are tons of paying customers who dont have a voice on the internet.

Also, LOL at the people complaining that the Halo 3 Sniper is too hard, and saying that Snipers should be taken out but it should be 100% shotguns. :lol :lol :lol Im sure I also read someone complaining about the Pit. Gaf shocks me at times. :lol

Also note that 99% of them never posted much in the Halo 3 thread or subsequent threads at that time. :lol

 

[shintoki]

Anyone who quits a game or is idle for more than 2 minutes needs to be banned from MM for 2 hours or something.

BTB is getting ridoinkulous.

I've quit out of quite a few to be honest. Right after the first person leaves, normally another 1 or 2 do. And it just becomes shit then. It happens both ways. I really don't want to stick around to kill the 2 people left when we have 8, nor do I want to be camped for 10 minutes.

I always thought it should be harsher plenty for the first leaver, lesser on the 2nd, etc. While at the same time, they need to give a reward for just sticking to the end. Something like 750 credits for playing a game to completion.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Also note that 99% of them never posted much in the Halo 3 thread or subsequent threads at that time. :lol

Haha yeah, im just at the point in the thread where that was being pointed out. Pretty funny/ pathetic for people to jump on a bandwagon over a game they dont own. Im suprised they got away with it to be fair.

Meh, Halo gets abuse on these forums, but now I know why, 90% of the people abusing Halo probably havent even played it. :lol

Spoiler

The other 10% clearly suck at it based on the posts in that thread.

Im glad I wasnt around to jump on the bandwagon to be fair, Halo 3 matchmaking has come along way, but it still has problems, and im still feeling the pain people are expressing in that thread to this day :/

 

[Photolysis]

Even if those changes were possible, they are too huge and sweeping with too many potential ramifications for anyone to risk making them post-release.

One thing you do have to bear in mind is that the features I mention already exist in the engine; they're used during split screen or normal play. Whether they could be easily modified though, I don't know; I'm not a Bungie engineer.

Still, reducing stuff is much easier than increasing it at this stage. If you wanted to increase the graphics workload for example, then that's the really risky stuff (and likely to break things) because the rest of the engine is built on the assumption that the graphics will be taking X amount of resources.

I would also say the risk is worth it because it's having a significant impact on the playability of the game.

I mean, there seems to be a certain variability in people's experience of framerate drops, but for me they are too frequent and too consistent to be ignored. I will always avoid Glacier in FF now, because it verges on unplayable (and something has to chug steadily at ~15fps before I'll call it that). Scoping from one Asylum base to the other is always irritating. And when I look out the bottom of the barn at the start of Winter Contingency, at the very first enemy encounter, the game crawls. Every. Time.

And that's ignoring how easy it is to have a Forge World map made unpleasant to play just because you built an area too densely.

People say there appears to be variation in the frame rate drops. I don't really see how that can be the case because the game itself is heavily reliant on the fact that it takes the same time for instructions to be executed on each console. It's how the pseudo-random AI will always react the same for each player, for example in Firefight.

I'm prepared to bet that the variation people report is a result of different playstyles (some techniques means the game has to draw more than others), a varying sensitivity, and standing in a different position or viewing from a different angle. The latter two are particularly important.

 

[Jinjo]

Okay, wtf just happened? I get an invite, but in order to have my NAT to open I always need to reset my router. I turn of the xbox, reset the router. Turn my xbox back on. Try to sign in with my account, it goes to the test. Everything goes fine, NAT is open. I boot up Halo and I get the notice you get when you first start up the game. Welcome to Noble team: here's 5000 credits. I kind of freak upon seeing my rank, but that updates back quickly to Major. All my armor unlocks are still there. So I check campaign: all my progress got deleted dammit. There's no record of me ever finishing campaign, while I did this multiple times. What's the deal here?

I hope a simple reboot fixes it.

Edit: No it doesn't. Thankfully everything in my service record is intact, the game just locally doesn't recognize my campaign progress. It says I've yet to finish, but in my service record it says I already finished it on legendary. Does anyone have any idea what happened here?

Spoiler

Atleast I got a free 5000 cR out of it.

So after playing another game I get the rank promoted to Major grade 3 message. This is weird.

Spoiler

Please don't ban me Bungie. I did nothing wrong.

 

[The Librarian]

Just played my first game on Atom. Hm...not sure how I feel about the map. It's pretty interesting, but I'm kind of on the edge of hour it flows.

 

[TheOddOne]

So after playing another game I get the rank promoted to Major grade 3 message. This is weird.

Spoiler

Please don't ban me Bungie. I did nothing wrong.

Bungie's prolly looking at your post and going ''Ýeah, right''.

Spoiler

I still believe ya

 

[Mr. Sam]

Just played my first game on Atom. Hm...not sure how I feel about the map. It's pretty interesting, but I'm kind of on the edge of hour it flows.

"Hour it flows"? But yeah, I played Rumble Pit Slayer Pro on it last night and - after some initial frustration - began to enjoy how it played. Haven't played any team games on it so far though.

 

[GhaleonEB]

1500cR Be Their Huckleberry
Kill 100 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking with the pistol.

oh god why

 

[Jedeye Sniv]

Haha yeah, im just at the point in the thread where that was being pointed out. Pretty funny/ pathetic for people to jump on a bandwagon over a game they dont own. Im suprised they got away with it to be fair.

Meh, Halo gets abuse on these forums, but now I know why, 90% of the people abusing Halo probably havent even played it. :lol

Spoiler

The other 10% clearly suck at it based on the posts in that thread.

Im glad I wasnt around to jump on the bandwagon to be fair, Halo 3 matchmaking has come along way, but it still has problems, and im still feeling the pain people are expressing in that thread to this day :/

Dude Halo gets abuse everywhere. It's still annoying on podcasts where weeks later they're still talking about Civ and yet they dismiss Halo and the fiction canon in a single episode... I guess it's the price to pay for being an XBox launch game and for being beloved by bro's but still, it's damn annoying. Not only is it probably the best console shooter but it has one of the most interesting fictions. But if you say that outside of this thread you'll get laughed at.

It's safe in here though

1500cR Be Their Huckleberry
Kill 100 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking with the pistol.

oh god why

Now that's what I was talking about yesterday. That's a hard challenge but fun. Good thing the pistol is such a fucking beast! :lol

 

[bobs...onGaf]

So before I got distracted before, I meant to post that I found a really cool small touch Bungie added.

Basically, playing Snipers off the back of a Mongoose is like a ton of fun for me, so I set up a custom game by editing Rocket Race where I switched the RL for a Sniper, and turned invincibility off. Its a pretty fun gametype I was trying it 2 v 2.

Someone joined my game and ended up on my team, and thats where I noticed the cool effect, if he was on a mongoose and he died it would like teleport me onto the mongoose to take his place. But the teleportation had an actual like visual to it, like you zoomed across the ground.

I wish teleporting through teleporters had this cool effect. If anyones interested in checking it out I quickly uploaded one of the teleports onto my fileshare - some of them were really disentoriating. Dont bother rendering this, its nothing special, but just shows off an effect I havent seen before:

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=7240832&player=bobs99


Ghaleon play one game of Gruntocalypse, thats an easy Huckleberry right there.

 

[Hypertrooper]

1500cR Be Their Huckleberry
Kill 100 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking with the pistol.

oh god why

'cause you have to kill some grunts with the pistole and not with the DMR. Its just for the people out there to show, that there are other ways to kill a grunts.

 

[Willeth]

Suddenly, Hunters.

I love the new bonus round.

 

[Disguises]

Anyone who quits a game or is idle for more than 2 minutes needs to be banned from MM for 2 hours or something.

BTB is getting ridoinkulous.

Must.....resist.....quoting....avatar.....

And yeah, there seems to be more quitters now that a few weeks ago :/

 

[ShinAmano]

Suddenly, Hunters.

I love the new bonus round.

Firefight I am assuming...how?

 

[PalaceBrother]

Bungie's prolly looking at your post and going ''Ýeah, right''.

Spoiler

I still believe ya

Spoiler

Why are we whispering?

 

[Neuromancer]

1500cR Be Their Huckleberry
Kill 100 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking with the pistol.

oh god why

Gruntpoclypse, it'll take 10 minutes. I love the pistol.

 

[TheOddOne]

Spoiler

Why are we whispering?

Don't you know about the crazy Bungie headless banner? I hope you don't meet him, he crazy.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Gruntpoclypse, it'll take 10 minutes. I love the pistol.

Well yeah. I'm just not a fan of using it.

 

[theultimo]

Gruntpoclypse, it'll take 10 minutes. I love the pistol.

Its to get some people the pistol achievement, I assume.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Well yeah. I'm just not a fan of using it.

Really? Why not?

 

[squidhands]

Well yeah. I'm just not a fan of using it.

Now that Sniper Attack has no weapon pickup (no grenades either, RAAAGE), the pistol is awesome for making quick work of the Skirmisher wave. I'm starting to favor it more now that I'm getting the hang of it for FF.

 

[Willeth]

Firefight I am assuming...how?

Firefight multiplayer matchmaking. I chose Sniperfight for the infinite pistol for the challenge, forgetting that it had been extended. At the end of the set, a bonus round - and Hunters just spawn in fucking everywhere. There were only two of us left at that point, and we both had fuel rods, and I died pretty much immediately trying to flank. My friend survived to within a second of the end but even so only managed to kill about four of the twenty-or-so Hunters that were charging up the hill toward him.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Really? Why not?

In Score Attack specifically, mind you. After using the scalpel that is the DMR, the pistol it feels like a steak knife. (And yes, I know it's the same gun, tweaked.)

 

[LosDaddie]

Gruntpoclypse, it'll take 10 minutes. I love the pistol.

I thought Gruntpocalyse was only an option in Score Attack

 

[bobs...onGaf]

I thought Gruntpocalyse was only an option in Score Attack

You can complete all Firefight challenges in Score Attack luckily, I tend to avoid general Firefight when going for challenges.

 

[Neuromancer]

I thought Gruntpocalyse was only an option in Score Attack

It is but Score Attack is considered part of Firefight Matchmaking.

Edit: I'd be late to my own funeral

 

[georgc]

Forerunner novel, blowing minds three times in just twelve pages.

I'm jaded toward the halo universe after bungie just shit tossed prior cannon with the end of reach.

 

[The Librarian]

"Hour it flows"? But yeah, I played Rumble Pit Slayer Pro on it last night and - after some initial frustration - began to enjoy how it played. Haven't played any team games on it so far though.

"How it flows."

Oops.

 

[Slightly Live]

I'm jaded toward the halo universe after bungie just shit tossed prior cannon with the end of reach.

I think the setting of the Forerunner books will probably help put fans' fears of fiction contradiction to rest. The setting means the author doesn't need to worry about which version of a particular weapon is going to appear or whether or not a certain character's personality is consistent from their previous appearances.

With the exception of the glimpse the Halo 3 Terminals gave us, this time period is fresh ground and with the same author handling all three books, I'm much more confident things will carry over smoothly.

Plus, in my opinion, Greg Bear is an outstanding author - miles above any previous author that has approached Halo's fiction. To have such a high calibre author take the reins is a real treat for Halo fans.

 

[feel]

Pistol is sweet, I feel like a methodical badass when I use it (or at least when I use it well). Love letting the bloom settle and then nailing that final headshot, and the calm reload animation afterward, it's all zen-like.

 

[Hugbot]

I'm jaded toward the halo universe after bungie just shit tossed prior cannon with the end of reach.

Well rest assured there's almost no pre-existing canon to be fucked with, since the novel is set during Forerunner times.

Also it's written by Greg Bear who is just rad.

Edit: damn it dani

 

[Chorazin]

I'm jaded toward the halo universe after bungie just shit tossed prior cannon with the end of reach.

Halo's extended universe has generally had it's ducks in a row, so I'm not worried in the slightest about the Forerunner Trilogy. It's the games themselves that fuck with the books. :lol

However, I'm more looking forward to the next "present" day Halo books, written by the lady that wrote the Star Wars: Republic Commando series.

 

[LosDaddie]

You can complete all Firefight challenges in Score Attack luckily, .

It is but Score Attack is considered part of Firefight Matchmaking.

For realz?

That's cool, but damn, I wish I would've known this last night.