He has been getting some shit for "betraying" Halo. I feel that Halo has betrayed us. I have said it before, I am giving 343 the benefit of the doubt that maybe they were unfairly thrown into grinding out a rushed Halo game.They get one more chance to make it right. If they do not deliver everthing I want and nothing less I am quiting consoles all together.
"What you guys are playing right now is a dumbed down version for clowns."-cannot say it better
I haven't seen the vid yet. I'll watch it before calling him a whiner, which he is anyway but, each rant must be rated on its own merits.
Anybody who is waiting for the next Halo FPS to save competitive gaming, in a way that is similar to the past Halos titles they know, should pack their bags now. The continuity of evidence is that it is not going to happen. Time for the strongly competitive minded community, including Pros, is to find someone to create the Pro FPS title they want and crowd fund it through Kickstarter. Surely it would be a completely successful project ... ? Well, maybe. Imagine the detail, speed and precision of a dedicated competitive FPS without all of the baggage of a fictional universe, campaign and silly gametypes.
I'll come back with comments when I've watched the vid.
Anybody who is waiting for the next Halo FPS to save competitive gaming, in a way that is similar to the past Halos titles they know, should pack their bags now. The continuity of evidence is that it is not going to happen.
Fine. Have fun gaming with the dozens of other halo players who like that crap that is out now. And BTW CoD became EVEN more popular after it broke into that competitive scene, with custom rules and settings. NOBODY LIKES THIS GAME!!!!!! CoD was always more popular on XBL but all of the real glory was in Halo. The best comparison i can make is imagine a world where Arena Football became a little more popular and the NFL wanted to steal those people away. Even though areana Football is setup to cater to guys who are nowhere good enough to break into the pros. So the NFL starts taking ideas from arena and passes it off as a product. Now, with the exception of 20,000 people, nobody can stomach the NFL and the arena league continues to gain in popularity doing what it does best instead of trying to be something it's not. This game is not good, it's not fun, and it's not Halo.
This game really is too fucking easy. My skills didnt magically appear with the launch of H4, the title update made me better. I miss challenging myself in ranked slayer and objective games.
CSR is a joke to try to stop a gut shot with steristrips....
If I want an easy game with no competition, I will play Call of Duty. Since they both offer no online competition...I will be playing CoD as they do it 100% better.
Meh, I think the game's fun and typically have a blast playing, but I'm a "casual" so I don't matter. CSR sucks, and I too would like a division of ranked and social playlists again, but that's far from a deterrent for me. I just treat everything like social, it's not like you can see your rank on-screen anyways.
Call of Duty is unplayable for me due to numerous broken mechanics and laughably bad netcoding. I'm sure many people who "switch" will be back in some way eventually. In either case, Battlefield is an excellent franchise and will occupy my time when XB1 launches, and I hope Halo 5 will be fun as well.
I strongly agree with Deep in that those holding their breath for Halo 5 to be a savior for the competitive community are going to be sorely disappointed. Who knows, maybe they pull it all together and please everyone. I'm counting on it being heavily skewed towards a wide audience again.
He said he is not giving up on Halo. Just moving on to more and bigger venues that don't feature Halo. I gather he'll come back to Halo when there is a paycheck for him. He is perfectly justified in doing that and his reasoning makes perfect sense for a professional wearing his shoes.
Eventually he does start ranting on Halo 4. He lost my vote there because not everything he wants, I want. It's a numbers game. How many customers want what he wants?
The usual slurs about casual gamers. That alway helps viewership and a personal following. Not.
He mentions fun but does he not realize fun is dependant on many social and economic variables?
Where was he going with the shades of grey?
Please Gandi, don't talk to the Halo crowd for awhile. I need a rest too.
In spite of my many disagreements with Gandi's opinion, I really do thank him and others for their many efforts to re-invigorate the Halo competitive community. They did muster a measure of success for awhile.
Eventually he does start ranting on Halo 4. He lost my vote there because not everything he wants, I want. It's a numbers game. How many customers want what he wants?
I'm no numbers expert but I am sure if we put a poll up here on the website we could get a decent sample.
Eventually he does start ranting on Halo 4. He lost my vote there because not everything he wants, I want. It's a numbers game. How many customers want what he wants?
I'm no numbers expert but I am sure if we put a poll up here on the website we could get a decent sample.
Not likely. Most of the people I play with like Halo 4 a lot and they never read or post here.
The usual slurs about casual gamers. That alway helps viewership and a personal following. Not.
Actually, it does. Competetive gamers want to associate with like-minded individuals, as do any groups. Seeing that the majority of his viewers, and twitch viewers in general, tend to be on the more competetive and skilled side, he will only lose viewers by catering to the casuals.
Well, I always hear the competitive community complaining, but what do they specifically want? There is a playlist with competitive settings, but nobody plays it.
To me, it seems like everyone wants to play vanilla slayer with visible ranks, no sprint or AAs, and fixed weapon spawns. Sprint and AAs aren't going anywhere, so where does that leave you?
Well, they introduced Legendary Slayer, which solves the AAs, loadouts, and ordinance issues, but then everybody complains about AR starts. That playlist is the closest thing to "classic" halo I've plated since Halo 3, but NOBODY PLAYS IT.
It seems more to me that people are just extremely fickle and just want a reskinned version of Halo 2, but I'm sure they would complain about that too...
Well, I always hear the competitive community complaining, but what do they specifically want? There is a playlist with competitive settings, but nobody plays it.
To me, it seems like everyone wants to play vanilla slayer with visible ranks, no sprint or AAs, and fixed weapon spawns. Sprint and AAs aren't going anywhere, so where does that leave you?
Well, they introduced Legendary Slayer, which solves the AAs, loadouts, and ordinance issues, but then everybody complains about AR starts. That playlist is the closest thing to "classic" halo I've plated since Halo 3, but NOBODY PLAYS IT.
It seems more to me that people are just extremely fickle and just want a reskinned version of Halo 2, but I'm sure they would complain about that too...
What we want mostly is yes a base vanilla version of Halo. Or at the least give us the option to play AS IT WAS INTENDED. The Legendary playlist failed because of three reasons.
1st is because while it is as close you will get to vanilla Halo, it still has a lot of features that prevent it from feeling and playing the way it should. Flinch and Sprint ruin the game by allowing people who make stupid mistake not to be punished by a more skilled player.
2nd reason is the maps. All of the maps that came with Halo 4 are over cluttered and force bottle necking to compensate for the DMR. A good exsample of this is Valhalla, a classic Halo 3 map made terrible because the DMR allows players to cross map anyone the can scope in on. It totally breaks the balance of the game. Now while Legendary Slayer does have it's own mix of classic Halo maps to be played on it, they too are broken by sprint because they were never designed for players to move any faster than the base spped. Not to mention the sniper rifles (a key power weapon) is easily disrupeted by an AR because of Flinch. And just to add, Forges dynamic lighting cause a severe and annoying framerate drop.
3rd All the players who would actually play this game type have traded in their halo 4 and play halo 3 or just have given up on the franchise altogether (probably for the better)
And BTW Deep you don't even play online too much. You mostly play customs so how would reverting back to the vanilla Halo affect you. Of couse there would still be infection, action sack, and griffball.
And if a poll would not be an accurate gage of what is the correct corse for Halo then let me ask you this. Do you think that the post Reach era of Halo is more popular with gamers?
And BTW Deep you don't even play online too much. You mostly play customs so how would reverting back to the vanilla Halo affect you. Of couse there would still be infection, action sack, and griffball.
And if a poll would not be an accurate gage of what is the correct corse for Halo then let me ask you this. Do you think that the post Reach era of Halo is more popular with gamers?
I do play Halo though and have done so for 8 full years. You don't know why I don't spend as much time in MM. Even I am not sure why. I don't play Infection or Grifball and rarely if ever Action Sack, since it's in MM but thanks for the back handed insult.
I am about moving forward with Halo until it doesn't suit me. I do not know when that will be. I don't take a shit dump everytime something Halo doesn't suit me. To me the old Halo qualities are a subset of everything that has made Halo great for me. I can't help it if the new Halo isn't as popular to some people as it used to be. Look at REACH. Look at Halo 4. Look at the reveal for Halo XB1. Look at 343i and Microsoft. Do you really think the next Halo FPS is going to suit you or will it suit me? Whether it does or not will be not be our fault. Developers look at their combined market and make a shot. If they were looking at initial sales, we might get another Halo 4 PLUS. If they think extended multiplayer numbers are more important then we might get something more CODish. Either way, the traditionalists lose.
MM population right now is less than half that of REACH in January 2012. Obviously Halo 4 MM is not as popular as that of REACH or Halo 3 before that. We do not know why this has happened.
And BTW Deep you don't even play online too much. You mostly play customs so how would reverting back to the vanilla Halo affect you. Of couse there would still be infection, action sack, and griffball.
And if a poll would not be an accurate gage of what is the correct corse for Halo then let me ask you this. Do you think that the post Reach era of Halo is more popular with gamers?
I do play Halo though and have done so for 8 full years. You don't know why I don't spend as much time in MM. Even I am not sure why. I don't play Infection or Grifball and rarely if ever Action Sack, since it's in MM but thanks for the back handed insult.
I am about moving forward with Halo until it doesn't suit me. I do not know when that will be. I don't take a shit dump everytime something Halo doesn't suit me. To me the old Halo qualities are a subset of everything that has made Halo great for me. I can't help it if the new Halo isn't as popular to some people as it used to be. Look at REACH. Look at Halo 4. Look at the reveal for Halo XB1. Look at 343i and Microsoft. Do you really think the next Halo FPS is going to suit you or will it suit me? Whether it does or not will be not be our fault. Developers look at their combined market and make a shot. If they were looking at initial sales, we might get another Halo 4 PLUS. If they think extended multiplayer numbers are more important then we might get something more CODish. Either way, the traditionalists lose.
MM population right now is less than half that of REACH in January 2012. Obviously Halo 4 MM is not as popular as that of REACH or Halo 3 before that. We do not know why this has happened.
At the most basic level halo isn't fun for anyone...casual or competitive. So guess what no one plays it. Earlier halos were fun for both crowds. No fun no people that simple. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but the drop in player population says a lot more than any individual can.
And BTW Deep you don't even play online too much. You mostly play customs so how would reverting back to the vanilla Halo affect you. Of couse there would still be infection, action sack, and griffball.
And if a poll would not be an accurate gage of what is the correct corse for Halo then let me ask you this. Do you think that the post Reach era of Halo is more popular with gamers?
I do play Halo though and have done so for 8 full years. You don't know why I don't spend as much time in MM. Even I am not sure why. I don't play Infection or Grifball and rarely if ever Action Sack, since it's in MM but thanks for the back handed insult.
Sorry if it came off as an insult bud. Was not meant to be, I'm just from the NE area of the US and we are not too good with words. I was really just asking if the change back to a more basic Halo would truly affect you and how.
And just to be clear on one tink I do really think that 343 got the shaft on this. It feels rushed and unpolished. I think (or at least hope) that they are listening and really want to nail Halo 5. Would anyone be opposed to a Core Hardcore playlist? Core being like Halo 4 and Harcore like Halo 2. Maps made base on Halo 2-3 setting and then through forge (not hard mapped into the world geometry) objects added to compensate for AAs sprint and DMR.
Oh, we can certainly guess. We can even look at some trends and such to come up with even half a reason.
Its funny. DC mentioned that maybe we need to do a Kickstarter for a game that's good again. You mentioned it recently too. We might have to start the cycle over again.
When you have to start calling it 'Vanilla' Halo. that's when you know something is wrong. The faster you deviate from what ships in the game the faster the two camps split and the less fun the game becomes. Did Halo 4 get much right? No, not really, not when it comes to bringing the groups back together. Reach went too far off base, and it was too late (according to some) to reel it back in.
When you have to start calling it 'Vanilla' Halo. that's when you know something is wrong. The faster you deviate from what ships in the game the faster the two camps split and the less fun the game becomes. Did Halo 4 get much right? No, not really, not when it comes to bringing the groups back together. Reach went too far off base, and it was too late (according to some) to reel it back in.
Halo was ultimately defeated by itself.
Agreed Hop!
All of these playlist and settings changes are terrible. Small tweaks like we had in H3 between the Ranked/Social and MLG playlists are one thing. Totally different mechanics between playlists should show something is up with your game.
The COD machince will just keep on churning out games and gaining more players as the tournaments get bigger.
In all honesty, 343 is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Watching the recent Ghosts MP reveal really blew me away with all of the cool stuff they are offering players in the new COD. If 343 is serious, I mean REALLY serious about getting Halo back into the competitive scene, look at this recent MP reveal and take some notes.
If 343 comes back with just another campaign and basic multiplayer - stick a fork in 'em, they are done. No more of this "trust us".
If 343 comes back with just another campaign and basic multiplayer - stick a fork in 'em, they are done. No more of this "trust us".
Except, that would be even more than what people like Dixon would want. Less is more. So how does 343i deal with this?
I still say bring back the old gameplay. Building a great game around it. AAs, perks and Infinity settings did nothing, but destroy the gameplay. Does any of thoughs make the game more fun or more competitive? No. Was Halo 3 perfect? No. There are so many ways you can improve on Halo3 without throwing in a bunch of gimmicky stuff. Here is what I think they could do if they used Halo 3.
-Improve NetCode
-For the love of god bring back the C.E. pistol even if it's a pick-up.
-Treat the jet pack like a vehicle
-Keep loadouts, but make them fixed like in Reach
-More Armor and Emblem(bring back Elites) Emblem designer and paint shop for armor
-Firefight
-More and better maps at launch. At least 12.
-Improve Forge
-More Stats that can be accessed from the game.
-Ranks-Ranks-Ranks
-Clan support.
-Reach lobbies
-Make the DMR pick up only. I think the poor sign lines in H4 were because Iof the range of the DMR.
-I like H3 vehicles, but a few new one would be cool.
I could keep putting thing down, but I think you get the point that Halo can still be amazing if they clean the shit off it.
I think they could go back to the basic Halo formula, but the would have to buff up everything else. In game stats, in game ranks, Interactive and competitive maps, lobby, forge, even the emblems and armor would have to be better. Also bring back Firefight and Living Dead.
Halo needs to be a competitive game at its core. It should be the same game in every playlist. Most important the game needs to be finished when released there is to much competition for Halo to come out half baked.
You know, I watched the reveal for the COD ghosts MP and I think jet packs are coming to COD......
I'm really split here. I've played halo with the same 4 people (generally) since H3 or even late stages of H2. We were playing twice per week. We weren never great, be we got better. We worked on working together, map strategies, weapon spawns, who would get what, how to attack or defend fixed positions. Honestly, with H4 that is all gone and I don't think any of us has played for months. There's nothing to do now but run around and shoot at people. I can do that in COD on much better maps.
I know there is a competitive playlist out there. But the people that play it, do so all the time. It's on unfamiliar maps, with unfamiliar settings. There is nowhere else in MM to go to play those settings. So, either we go play that playlist exclusively and get our ass handed to us game after game after game or we go play something else. That was really the beauty of H3. Everyone could enjoy it on the same set of maps with a few minor changes in starting weapons and items on the maps. Everyone, competitive or casual, was learning in the same direction. If the casuals wanted to try their hand at some competition, they could without feeling completely overmatched. The competitives could go play casual games to just screw around, and have a minor list of things to complain about. That somewhat disappeared in Reach and is totally gone now.
I agree with you Deep, there is something compelling about being a super soldier and fighting aliens to save the human race. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't care for how the story has turned from a gritty war story where the chief was the only hope to more of a superhero story where the chief is pushing through hordes of minions to get to the epic superhero conflict at the end. I'm also probably in the minority, but I thought the underlying Reach story was pretty epic as a stand alone piece. The problem with selling just the story is that there are alot of great story-based shooter games out there. Dead Space, Dishonored, Splinter Cell, ... If Halo only caters to this community, then it will become just another game in a sea of games.
At this point, the only thing that is even keeping me on the xbox platform is Halo. I want to see it become what it was. That doesn't mean I want it to go back to H3 or H2. That means I want it to be the must have title that drives millions of people to buy an xbox. In the current state of affairs, I think that everyone can agree it's not that.
The problem is that Halo 4 is the first entry in a new trilogy and they've already set a precendent for certain game mechanics, notably sprint, AAs, and loadouts, so reneging on all that wouldn't make sense and may actually serve to drive even more people away in my eyes.
Here's what I would do to make a Halo that would appeal to most at this point. Keep in mind that I'm also in the slim minority of players that enjoy Halo 4 as well, but I feel my criticisms are logical.
Separation of Ranked and Social Playlists from Day 1, Visible Ranks in Ranked Playlists
Ranked playlists have one starting loadout dictated by the chosen gametype (i.e. AR starts, BR starts, snipers, etc.), no AAs, fixed weapon spawns, overshield and camo pickups, good 4v4 map sizes. Team Slayer, Team Objective, Team Snipers, SWAT, Doubles, BTB (Slayer + Obj), and FFA.
Competitive playlist from day one, tuned via pre-launch work with any pros that may be remaining for AGL/PGL etc.
Social playlists would allow loadouts and AAs, and would have the goofier gametypes present. Slayer, Objective, Action Sack, Flood/Living Dead, BTB, FFA, Multi-Team. Bring back double exp. and special themed playlists! I feel that this would give the social portion the "arcade shooter" feel that draws many people in to CoD.
Experience and rank for ranked playlists: 1-50 skill rank with 1 exp given for a win, separate playlist ranking tier ala Halo 3 (sergeant through general)
Experience and rank for social playlists: similar to Reach or Halo 4, get exp. for completing games, getting kills, competing challenges, etc. Unlock weapon skins, loadout options, armor color or effect (thunderstorm from Reach, etc.) mods, via challenges. Make it take a long time to hit max social rank, BF3 does this quite well, so did Reach. Keep your players playing.
Add descope, remove flinch. I don't think I need to say more here.
No game-breaking long-range loadout weapons. I'm looking at you, DMR. The only weapon that should be able to hit cross-map is a sniper, period.
Get camo and jetpack out of AA loadouts. Jetpack makes map movement strategy obsolete and breaks the game in my opinion. Camo, well, I don't have anything positive to say about being able to hide behind a rock cloaked all match, awful idea. Get rid of it outside of a timed pickup.
Ordinance drops removed. This was a function of the UNSC Infinity in Halo 4, so it wouldn't make sense to have them return, and they promote camping in the worst way.
Now, the final point of contention for me is sprint. Everyone is really divided on this, and I understand the gripes. My biggest complaints about sprint are that it's ridiculously easy to go in for cheap double melees, and it allows people to escape from putting themselves in dumb situations that would have guaranteed death otherwise. That being said, I do enjoy the upped pace to the game that results from having it, so I'm torn.
I would say in general though, most would be in favor of its removal, although from a design perspective I don't see it happening from 343. If that's the only real sticking point I can live with it.
Here's what I would do to make a Halo that would appeal to most at this point. Keep in mind that I'm also in the slim minority of players that enjoy Halo 4 as well, but I feel my criticisms are logical.
I don't know that only a slim minority of players enjoy Halo 4. I do know that a few people on this forum like to go to the pool only to piss in it. Some posters vowed that they are done with the game and yet they are still here posting. Seems like a waste of time to me but live and let negative posts fly is what I always say.
Everything has a life cycle. You can come up with hundresds of reasons why the halo population has dwindled but player bases age, start families, have less time to play (if they can play at all). The next generation usually is not into what the last generation was into. I had some younger office-mates laugh at me because I have a Yahoo email account (at least is wasn't AOL). Anyone remember My Space? Does anyone remember when American Idol had ratings that no other show could touch?
So, does anyone think that COD will still have the biggest game population in 5 years, 10 years? Will anyone still be playing on a console then?
It could be that Halo has already had its day. Some of us will stay on the ride until the bitter end and just be thankful for all of the hours of entertainment it has afforded us.
I understand what your saying Ders and I agree with most of it, but AAs should be pick ups all the time. My problem with sprint is they have to make the maps bigger for sprit which kinda negates sprint. Also having a ranked playlist and a social playlist that play different will fragment the community and that really needs to be avoided.
I also enjoy Halo4, but I can see why people don't play. I just want a bigger community back and I feel that improving on what was success (H2/H3) would be 343's best bet.
Well, I proposed the ranked/social splits because I think you have a very solid player base that came along starting with Reach that you would lose if you went completely back to "classic" Halo.
I think if they can blend the two playstyles well they will have a monster hit on their hands, and if they go too far in the extreme in either direction, it will be a complete dud. Let's face it, classic Halo mechanics are a dinosaur by today's FPS standards. Us old farts who started on Halo CE may appreciate them still, but quite frankly it's not going to sell games anymore.
I always hear people reminscing about large player populations in Halo 3, but do they ever consider the gaming market at that time? The only other popular shooters on 360 at the time that H3 was launched were H2 and Gears of War. You initially saw the huge surge to H3 for two reasons: people looking for a reason to buy a 360 (like me) and those who were huge fans of H2 who were logically going to make the next step. Gears was a huge game but seemed to attract a different type of player that really didn't affect the Halo playlist populations.
Then came Call of Duty 4 shortly after Halo 3. You saw it gain some traction at launch, and many people were playing it, but Halo 3 was still king due to MLG and the huge following the series has had since 2001. You would regularly see populations in H3 up to 300-500k well after launch. This was until late 2009.
When Modern Warfare 2 launched, the demographic started to switch drastically. The increased customization in that game compared to CoD4 drew people in like crazy, and Halo 3's population started to slowly decline. There is now competition in the FPS market, and CoD is a multiplatform juggernaut. MLG kept Halo 3 popular though.
CoD continues to break sales records with each new release. Bungie releases Reach, which leaves a lot of us scratching our heads. Personally, I hated Reach with a passion, and actually switched over to CoD for a while. The player populations don't stay up for very long after Reach is released, and it is eventually dropped from the MLG circuit.
Anyways, this is all just personal observation and I have no idea what actual player populations are over time to back that up. My point is that the market is much more crowded with games than it was during Halo's heyday, and people are buying the games that have a lot of customization in them, so it's only logical that Halo adapts or dies. From a business standpoint 343 was wise to do what they did with Halo 4, but it certainly hasn't retained the players.
Oh, to be in the 343 boardroom in the coming year.
In just two posts, it is obvious irreconcilable differences in opinion have been presented. You first have to consider what the competition is doing, meet or beat that while knowing which demographics will give you the most sales. While I believe 343i has a strong Halo heart, they will do what is required for the sales first and the extended online presence second. The only thing that can change that order will be through paid episodic features, DLC maps and microtransactions. These huge dedicated server farms are not going to operate for free on initial game sales alone. 343i has been throwing resources and its community reps into competitive Halo for quite awhile now, so they haven't given up on it yet but would they do it again? Obviously everything that is bad about the COD series didn't stop the numbers from growing and Pros jumping in where the money is. There is no future in a purist's version of Halo. It has to grow beyond what we can imagine to be successful.
In before Deep calling him a whiner and saying we're better off with nobody competitive-minded in the Halo universe.
I agree with him. He's passionate about the game and I think he is crying, but he is right.
He has been getting some shit for "betraying" Halo. I feel that Halo has betrayed us. I have said it before, I am giving 343 the benefit of the doubt that maybe they were unfairly thrown into grinding out a rushed Halo game.They get one more chance to make it right. If they do not deliver everthing I want and nothing less I am quiting consoles all together.
"What you guys are playing right now is a dumbed down version for clowns."-cannot say it better
I haven't seen the vid yet. I'll watch it before calling him a whiner, which he is anyway but, each rant must be rated on its own merits.
Anybody who is waiting for the next Halo FPS to save competitive gaming, in a way that is similar to the past Halos titles they know, should pack their bags now. The continuity of evidence is that it is not going to happen. Time for the strongly competitive minded community, including Pros, is to find someone to create the Pro FPS title they want and crowd fund it through Kickstarter. Surely it would be a completely successful project ... ? Well, maybe. Imagine the detail, speed and precision of a dedicated competitive FPS without all of the baggage of a fictional universe, campaign and silly gametypes.
I'll come back with comments when I've watched the vid.
Fine. Have fun gaming with the dozens of other halo players who like that crap that is out now. And BTW CoD became EVEN more popular after it broke into that competitive scene, with custom rules and settings. NOBODY LIKES THIS GAME!!!!!! CoD was always more popular on XBL but all of the real glory was in Halo. The best comparison i can make is imagine a world where Arena Football became a little more popular and the NFL wanted to steal those people away. Even though areana Football is setup to cater to guys who are nowhere good enough to break into the pros. So the NFL starts taking ideas from arena and passes it off as a product. Now, with the exception of 20,000 people, nobody can stomach the NFL and the arena league continues to gain in popularity doing what it does best instead of trying to be something it's not. This game is not good, it's not fun, and it's not Halo.
Meh, I think the game's fun and typically have a blast playing, but I'm a "casual" so I don't matter. CSR sucks, and I too would like a division of ranked and social playlists again, but that's far from a deterrent for me. I just treat everything like social, it's not like you can see your rank on-screen anyways.
Call of Duty is unplayable for me due to numerous broken mechanics and laughably bad netcoding. I'm sure many people who "switch" will be back in some way eventually. In either case, Battlefield is an excellent franchise and will occupy my time when XB1 launches, and I hope Halo 5 will be fun as well.
I strongly agree with Deep in that those holding their breath for Halo 5 to be a savior for the competitive community are going to be sorely disappointed. Who knows, maybe they pull it all together and please everyone. I'm counting on it being heavily skewed towards a wide audience again.
He said he is not giving up on Halo. Just moving on to more and bigger venues that don't feature Halo. I gather he'll come back to Halo when there is a paycheck for him. He is perfectly justified in doing that and his reasoning makes perfect sense for a professional wearing his shoes.
Eventually he does start ranting on Halo 4. He lost my vote there because not everything he wants, I want. It's a numbers game. How many customers want what he wants?
The usual slurs about casual gamers. That alway helps viewership and a personal following. Not.
He mentions fun but does he not realize fun is dependant on many social and economic variables?
Where was he going with the shades of grey?
Please Gandi, don't talk to the Halo crowd for awhile. I need a rest too.
In spite of my many disagreements with Gandi's opinion, I really do thank him and others for their many efforts to re-invigorate the Halo competitive community. They did muster a measure of success for awhile.
I'm no numbers expert but I am sure if we put a poll up here on the website we could get a decent sample.
Actually, it does. Competetive gamers want to associate with like-minded individuals, as do any groups. Seeing that the majority of his viewers, and twitch viewers in general, tend to be on the more competetive and skilled side, he will only lose viewers by catering to the casuals.
Well, I always hear the competitive community complaining, but what do they specifically want? There is a playlist with competitive settings, but nobody plays it.
To me, it seems like everyone wants to play vanilla slayer with visible ranks, no sprint or AAs, and fixed weapon spawns. Sprint and AAs aren't going anywhere, so where does that leave you?
Well, they introduced Legendary Slayer, which solves the AAs, loadouts, and ordinance issues, but then everybody complains about AR starts. That playlist is the closest thing to "classic" halo I've plated since Halo 3, but NOBODY PLAYS IT.
It seems more to me that people are just extremely fickle and just want a reskinned version of Halo 2, but I'm sure they would complain about that too....gif "53")
What we want mostly is yes a base vanilla version of Halo. Or at the least give us the option to play AS IT WAS INTENDED. The Legendary playlist failed because of three reasons.
1st is because while it is as close you will get to vanilla Halo, it still has a lot of features that prevent it from feeling and playing the way it should. Flinch and Sprint ruin the game by allowing people who make stupid mistake not to be punished by a more skilled player.
2nd reason is the maps. All of the maps that came with Halo 4 are over cluttered and force bottle necking to compensate for the DMR. A good exsample of this is Valhalla, a classic Halo 3 map made terrible because the DMR allows players to cross map anyone the can scope in on. It totally breaks the balance of the game. Now while Legendary Slayer does have it's own mix of classic Halo maps to be played on it, they too are broken by sprint because they were never designed for players to move any faster than the base spped. Not to mention the sniper rifles (a key power weapon) is easily disrupeted by an AR because of Flinch. And just to add, Forges dynamic lighting cause a severe and annoying framerate drop.
3rd All the players who would actually play this game type have traded in their halo 4 and play halo 3 or just have given up on the franchise altogether (probably for the better)
And BTW Deep you don't even play online too much. You mostly play customs so how would reverting back to the vanilla Halo affect you. Of couse there would still be infection, action sack, and griffball.
And if a poll would not be an accurate gage of what is the correct corse for Halo then let me ask you this. Do you think that the post Reach era of Halo is more popular with gamers?
I am about moving forward with Halo until it doesn't suit me. I do not know when that will be. I don't take a shit dump everytime something Halo doesn't suit me. To me the old Halo qualities are a subset of everything that has made Halo great for me. I can't help it if the new Halo isn't as popular to some people as it used to be. Look at REACH. Look at Halo 4. Look at the reveal for Halo XB1. Look at 343i and Microsoft. Do you really think the next Halo FPS is going to suit you or will it suit me? Whether it does or not will be not be our fault. Developers look at their combined market and make a shot. If they were looking at initial sales, we might get another Halo 4 PLUS. If they think extended multiplayer numbers are more important then we might get something more CODish. Either way, the traditionalists lose.
MM population right now is less than half that of REACH in January 2012. Obviously Halo 4 MM is not as popular as that of REACH or Halo 3 before that. We do not know why this has happened.
At the most basic level halo isn't fun for anyone...casual or competitive. So guess what no one plays it. Earlier halos were fun for both crowds. No fun no people that simple. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but the drop in player population says a lot more than any individual can.
Sorry if it came off as an insult bud. Was not meant to be, I'm just from the NE area of the US and we are not too good with words. I was really just asking if the change back to a more basic Halo would truly affect you and how.
And just to be clear on one tink I do really think that 343 got the shaft on this. It feels rushed and unpolished. I think (or at least hope) that they are listening and really want to nail Halo 5. Would anyone be opposed to a Core Hardcore playlist? Core being like Halo 4 and Harcore like Halo 2. Maps made base on Halo 2-3 setting and then through forge (not hard mapped into the world geometry) objects added to compensate for AAs sprint and DMR.
Oh, we can certainly guess. We can even look at some trends and such to come up with even half a reason.
Its funny. DC mentioned that maybe we need to do a Kickstarter for a game that's good again. You mentioned it recently too. We might have to start the cycle over again.
When you have to start calling it 'Vanilla' Halo. that's when you know something is wrong. The faster you deviate from what ships in the game the faster the two camps split and the less fun the game becomes. Did Halo 4 get much right? No, not really, not when it comes to bringing the groups back together. Reach went too far off base, and it was too late (according to some) to reel it back in.
Halo was ultimately defeated by itself.
Agreed Hop!
All of these playlist and settings changes are terrible. Small tweaks like we had in H3 between the Ranked/Social and MLG playlists are one thing. Totally different mechanics between playlists should show something is up with your game.
The COD machince will just keep on churning out games and gaining more players as the tournaments get bigger.
In all honesty, 343 is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Watching the recent Ghosts MP reveal really blew me away with all of the cool stuff they are offering players in the new COD. If 343 is serious, I mean REALLY serious about getting Halo back into the competitive scene, look at this recent MP reveal and take some notes.
If 343 comes back with just another campaign and basic multiplayer - stick a fork in 'em, they are done. No more of this "trust us".
I still say bring back the old gameplay. Building a great game around it. AAs, perks and Infinity settings did nothing, but destroy the gameplay. Does any of thoughs make the game more fun or more competitive? No. Was Halo 3 perfect? No. There are so many ways you can improve on Halo3 without throwing in a bunch of gimmicky stuff. Here is what I think they could do if they used Halo 3.
-Improve NetCode
-For the love of god bring back the C.E. pistol even if it's a pick-up.
-Treat the jet pack like a vehicle
-Keep loadouts, but make them fixed like in Reach
-More Armor and Emblem(bring back Elites) Emblem designer and paint shop for armor
-Firefight
-More and better maps at launch. At least 12.
-Improve Forge
-More Stats that can be accessed from the game.
-Ranks-Ranks-Ranks
-Clan support.
-Reach lobbies
-Make the DMR pick up only. I think the poor sign lines in H4 were because Iof the range of the DMR.
-I like H3 vehicles, but a few new one would be cool.
I could keep putting thing down, but I think you get the point that Halo can still be amazing if they clean the shit off it.
I think they could go back to the basic Halo formula, but the would have to buff up everything else. In game stats, in game ranks, Interactive and competitive maps, lobby, forge, even the emblems and armor would have to be better. Also bring back Firefight and Living Dead.
Halo needs to be a competitive game at its core. It should be the same game in every playlist. Most important the game needs to be finished when released there is to much competition for Halo to come out half baked.
You know, I watched the reveal for the COD ghosts MP and I think jet packs are coming to COD......
I'm really split here. I've played halo with the same 4 people (generally) since H3 or even late stages of H2. We were playing twice per week. We weren never great, be we got better. We worked on working together, map strategies, weapon spawns, who would get what, how to attack or defend fixed positions. Honestly, with H4 that is all gone and I don't think any of us has played for months. There's nothing to do now but run around and shoot at people. I can do that in COD on much better maps.
I know there is a competitive playlist out there. But the people that play it, do so all the time. It's on unfamiliar maps, with unfamiliar settings. There is nowhere else in MM to go to play those settings. So, either we go play that playlist exclusively and get our ass handed to us game after game after game or we go play something else. That was really the beauty of H3. Everyone could enjoy it on the same set of maps with a few minor changes in starting weapons and items on the maps. Everyone, competitive or casual, was learning in the same direction. If the casuals wanted to try their hand at some competition, they could without feeling completely overmatched. The competitives could go play casual games to just screw around, and have a minor list of things to complain about. That somewhat disappeared in Reach and is totally gone now.
I agree with you Deep, there is something compelling about being a super soldier and fighting aliens to save the human race. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't care for how the story has turned from a gritty war story where the chief was the only hope to more of a superhero story where the chief is pushing through hordes of minions to get to the epic superhero conflict at the end. I'm also probably in the minority, but I thought the underlying Reach story was pretty epic as a stand alone piece. The problem with selling just the story is that there are alot of great story-based shooter games out there. Dead Space, Dishonored, Splinter Cell, ... If Halo only caters to this community, then it will become just another game in a sea of games.
At this point, the only thing that is even keeping me on the xbox platform is Halo. I want to see it become what it was. That doesn't mean I want it to go back to H3 or H2. That means I want it to be the must have title that drives millions of people to buy an xbox. In the current state of affairs, I think that everyone can agree it's not that.
The problem is that Halo 4 is the first entry in a new trilogy and they've already set a precendent for certain game mechanics, notably sprint, AAs, and loadouts, so reneging on all that wouldn't make sense and may actually serve to drive even more people away in my eyes.
Here's what I would do to make a Halo that would appeal to most at this point. Keep in mind that I'm also in the slim minority of players that enjoy Halo 4 as well, but I feel my criticisms are logical.
Separation of Ranked and Social Playlists from Day 1, Visible Ranks in Ranked Playlists
Ranked playlists have one starting loadout dictated by the chosen gametype (i.e. AR starts, BR starts, snipers, etc.), no AAs, fixed weapon spawns, overshield and camo pickups, good 4v4 map sizes. Team Slayer, Team Objective, Team Snipers, SWAT, Doubles, BTB (Slayer + Obj), and FFA.
Competitive playlist from day one, tuned via pre-launch work with any pros that may be remaining for AGL/PGL etc.
Social playlists would allow loadouts and AAs, and would have the goofier gametypes present. Slayer, Objective, Action Sack, Flood/Living Dead, BTB, FFA, Multi-Team. Bring back double exp. and special themed playlists! I feel that this would give the social portion the "arcade shooter" feel that draws many people in to CoD.
Experience and rank for ranked playlists: 1-50 skill rank with 1 exp given for a win, separate playlist ranking tier ala Halo 3 (sergeant through general)
Experience and rank for social playlists: similar to Reach or Halo 4, get exp. for completing games, getting kills, competing challenges, etc. Unlock weapon skins, loadout options, armor color or effect (thunderstorm from Reach, etc.) mods, via challenges. Make it take a long time to hit max social rank, BF3 does this quite well, so did Reach. Keep your players playing.
Add descope, remove flinch. I don't think I need to say more here.
No game-breaking long-range loadout weapons. I'm looking at you, DMR. The only weapon that should be able to hit cross-map is a sniper, period.
Get camo and jetpack out of AA loadouts. Jetpack makes map movement strategy obsolete and breaks the game in my opinion. Camo, well, I don't have anything positive to say about being able to hide behind a rock cloaked all match, awful idea. Get rid of it outside of a timed pickup.
Ordinance drops removed. This was a function of the UNSC Infinity in Halo 4, so it wouldn't make sense to have them return, and they promote camping in the worst way.
Now, the final point of contention for me is sprint. Everyone is really divided on this, and I understand the gripes. My biggest complaints about sprint are that it's ridiculously easy to go in for cheap double melees, and it allows people to escape from putting themselves in dumb situations that would have guaranteed death otherwise. That being said, I do enjoy the upped pace to the game that results from having it, so I'm torn.
I would say in general though, most would be in favor of its removal, although from a design perspective I don't see it happening from 343. If that's the only real sticking point I can live with it.
I don't know that only a slim minority of players enjoy Halo 4. I do know that a few people on this forum like to go to the pool only to piss in it. Some posters vowed that they are done with the game and yet they are still here posting. Seems like a waste of time to me but live and let negative posts fly is what I always say.
Everything has a life cycle. You can come up with hundresds of reasons why the halo population has dwindled but player bases age, start families, have less time to play (if they can play at all). The next generation usually is not into what the last generation was into. I had some younger office-mates laugh at me because I have a Yahoo email account (at least is wasn't AOL). Anyone remember My Space? Does anyone remember when American Idol had ratings that no other show could touch?
So, does anyone think that COD will still have the biggest game population in 5 years, 10 years? Will anyone still be playing on a console then?
It could be that Halo has already had its day. Some of us will stay on the ride until the bitter end and just be thankful for all of the hours of entertainment it has afforded us.
Oh yeah, the UI and lobby interface in Halo 4 was obviously designed by a freshman graphic designer at ITT Tech. Let's have a system that works again.
I understand what your saying Ders and I agree with most of it, but AAs should be pick ups all the time. My problem with sprint is they have to make the maps bigger for sprit which kinda negates sprint. Also having a ranked playlist and a social playlist that play different will fragment the community and that really needs to be avoided.
I also enjoy Halo4, but I can see why people don't play. I just want a bigger community back and I feel that improving on what was success (H2/H3) would be 343's best bet.
Well, I proposed the ranked/social splits because I think you have a very solid player base that came along starting with Reach that you would lose if you went completely back to "classic" Halo.
I think if they can blend the two playstyles well they will have a monster hit on their hands, and if they go too far in the extreme in either direction, it will be a complete dud. Let's face it, classic Halo mechanics are a dinosaur by today's FPS standards. Us old farts who started on Halo CE may appreciate them still, but quite frankly it's not going to sell games anymore.
I always hear people reminscing about large player populations in Halo 3, but do they ever consider the gaming market at that time? The only other popular shooters on 360 at the time that H3 was launched were H2 and Gears of War. You initially saw the huge surge to H3 for two reasons: people looking for a reason to buy a 360 (like me) and those who were huge fans of H2 who were logically going to make the next step. Gears was a huge game but seemed to attract a different type of player that really didn't affect the Halo playlist populations.
Then came Call of Duty 4 shortly after Halo 3. You saw it gain some traction at launch, and many people were playing it, but Halo 3 was still king due to MLG and the huge following the series has had since 2001. You would regularly see populations in H3 up to 300-500k well after launch. This was until late 2009.
When Modern Warfare 2 launched, the demographic started to switch drastically. The increased customization in that game compared to CoD4 drew people in like crazy, and Halo 3's population started to slowly decline. There is now competition in the FPS market, and CoD is a multiplatform juggernaut. MLG kept Halo 3 popular though.
CoD continues to break sales records with each new release. Bungie releases Reach, which leaves a lot of us scratching our heads. Personally, I hated Reach with a passion, and actually switched over to CoD for a while. The player populations don't stay up for very long after Reach is released, and it is eventually dropped from the MLG circuit.
Anyways, this is all just personal observation and I have no idea what actual player populations are over time to back that up. My point is that the market is much more crowded with games than it was during Halo's heyday, and people are buying the games that have a lot of customization in them, so it's only logical that Halo adapts or dies. From a business standpoint 343 was wise to do what they did with Halo 4, but it certainly hasn't retained the players.
Oh, to be in the 343 boardroom in the coming year.
/rant
In just two posts, it is obvious irreconcilable differences in opinion have been presented. You first have to consider what the competition is doing, meet or beat that while knowing which demographics will give you the most sales. While I believe 343i has a strong Halo heart, they will do what is required for the sales first and the extended online presence second. The only thing that can change that order will be through paid episodic features, DLC maps and microtransactions. These huge dedicated server farms are not going to operate for free on initial game sales alone. 343i has been throwing resources and its community reps into competitive Halo for quite awhile now, so they haven't given up on it yet but would they do it again? Obviously everything that is bad about the COD series didn't stop the numbers from growing and Pros jumping in where the money is. There is no future in a purist's version of Halo. It has to grow beyond what we can imagine to be successful.