My problem with sprint is they have to make the maps bigger for sprit which kinda negates sprint.
This.
Adding sprint and other "features" to Halo is like the NBA allowing players to pick up their dribble and run with the ball for a few seconds. Then stretching out the basketball court to accommodate that. Maybe the NBA execs want it to compete with the breakneck speed of the NFL. But at the end of the day, basketball would actually play slower, be less exciting…and silly.
Halo would have lost marketshare to COD regardless of how Reach and Halo 4 turned out. COD is a good and popular product. It's that simple. Going back to the analogy, you don't see the NBA actually trying to radically overhaul their game to stay relevant. They make small adjustments like on how flopping is called. How has COD evolved by the way? Very conservatively, at least according to what I've read.
There's a big difference between evolving a product and completely changing its DNA. Sprint by itself breaks Halo gameplay in so many ways that it can easily be a thread by itself. And going to a 5 shot kill instead of a 4 shot kill on top of sprint? Wow. Tack on promethean vision, jet-packs, ordinance drops, etc. Halo 3 maps had flow, power positions, weapon spawns that encouraged combat, etc. Halo 4 maps are just not fun to play on. If anything, Halo's evolution is not going in the right direction and not just from a competitive standpoint. The game is just not as fun for anyone, especially when it launched.
If Halo continues with the current formula, online play will probably disappear with 5. You can say that the developers need to continue evolving the game, but the online population says that hasn't been working out so well. A drop of 100K's to 25K isn't getting fixed by micro-transactions. It means there's something really wrong. COD may eventually lose marketshare as well, but I doubt it'll do it with such style.
There are a few other things out there at play as well. One is that the release cycle for Halo games is about three years, where Call Of Duty has the shiny penny every single year. I'm thinking that they'll have to hope that Call Of Duty burns itself out, like Activision did with Rock Band or like American Idol, or start pushing the development cycle to come out at least with content on a longer and more consistent basis. Keep that three year lifespan, but announce about a dozen planned DLC drops for maps that you can put on a calendar, and sell with a season pass, or get sheep to prepay for, or keep selling them a la carte. Love them or hate them, Treyarch is very actively supporting the shit out of their product and happened to hit big with a few innovations that helped make their game even more of a phenomenon. I can't say the same for 343, despite actually enjoying their game more.
Another thing is that you're not going to overcome/beat/make up the gap on Call Of Duty by being more like them. They've got a formula that's fast and easy and accessible, and that works for an awful lot of players, but you're not going to reach them ever because the skillset is different, the graphics are different, because Halo is more "pew pew", because people like to play army and not space Marine, or whatever else keeps them solidly there. You can't make your product better by watering it down. You've got to simply make yours better and more attractive and refine your formula to the point where you have it perfected. Hell, I think Drost said it a while back in sitechat, and we were yammering about it last night in a pregame lobby, but I'm not sure Bungie or 343 really understand how or why the game works. Its been more of a happy accident that communities glommed onto (Grifball, SWAT, Firefight, BTB) or improved upon it and helped to balance it (MLG/competitive communities).
Hell, I remember a gripe online, around Thanksgiving, where seemingly every community involved with the game was frustrated because things were either broken or half assed, and there was a feeling that there was a really good game here, if only you could get through the layers of accumulated stuff. Where Halo 4 is so much of a better game than Reach, there's still the taint of Reach on Halo 4, and some of the lessons given then certainly weren't learned.
Interesting point about 343 not actually knowing how their own game works, have you ever seen them play the game in promo videos? I've NEVER seen people play like that LOL.
Interesting point about 343 not actually knowing how their own game works, have you ever seen them play the game in promo videos? I've NEVER seen people play like that LOL.
I don't really know what it is about H4 that makes me not want to play. I mean, I want to play Halo, but when I get in and start playing, I quickly become "meh". The main reason I still play is my friends. When my friends aren't online, I really can't be bothered to play alone. Even though the game has improved, it just feels like something is missing.
A few weeks ago, some of us went back and played some H3. We had fun and it didn't feel like work. H4 just feels like work. Perhaps that's the best way I can put it - it feels like work.
Also, COD, while it does have a new game each year, the developers flip-flop between Infinity Ward and Treyarch. So really they have 2 years between releases to work on their new game. Right?
One thing you have to ask yourself is"has Halo overall gotten better". While CoD's gameplay is pretty much unchanged they built a better game around it. In many ways Halo has taken steps back(lobby system, forge, ect.). Halo is still a very good multiplayer game no matter what anyone says, but all the stuff they have added turned away more people than it added.
There needs to be a sea change for Halo 5. Maybe 343 did get screwed having to push out H4, but I don't know.
343 needs to realize Halo is a retro game at this point. They need to play to that demographic and run with it. Let it be HALO. Not CoD-lite.
Go back to Halo 3 and look at that game and why people liked it. It wasn't because of flashy abilities and menus. It wasn't because of experience points. It was the simplicity of controlling maps and everyone getting the same weapons so it was a level playing field. When you got a kill in Halo 3, it was 9 times out of 10 because you played better. It wasn't because you just got an ammo drop with rockets or because you sprinted out from cover to stab them in the back.
Small maps. Symmetrical. Large maps shooting sight lines. Reasonable weapons (no DMR).
Kick the H4 stats website to the curb. Look at what Bungie did and do that - long lists of spreadsheets of all your stats and data. Simple. Easily viewable to sharable. No one cares about their stats anymore because no one will ever take the time to look at the pain in the ass website.
I could go on. Today was the first time I'd played H4 in 3 months.
This.
Adding sprint and other "features" to Halo is like the NBA allowing players to pick up their dribble and run with the ball for a few seconds. Then stretching out the basketball court to accommodate that. Maybe the NBA execs want it to compete with the breakneck speed of the NFL. But at the end of the day, basketball would actually play slower, be less exciting…and silly.
Halo would have lost marketshare to COD regardless of how Reach and Halo 4 turned out. COD is a good and popular product. It's that simple. Going back to the analogy, you don't see the NBA actually trying to radically overhaul their game to stay relevant. They make small adjustments like on how flopping is called. How has COD evolved by the way? Very conservatively, at least according to what I've read.
There's a big difference between evolving a product and completely changing its DNA. Sprint by itself breaks Halo gameplay in so many ways that it can easily be a thread by itself. And going to a 5 shot kill instead of a 4 shot kill on top of sprint? Wow. Tack on promethean vision, jet-packs, ordinance drops, etc. Halo 3 maps had flow, power positions, weapon spawns that encouraged combat, etc. Halo 4 maps are just not fun to play on. If anything, Halo's evolution is not going in the right direction and not just from a competitive standpoint. The game is just not as fun for anyone, especially when it launched.
If Halo continues with the current formula, online play will probably disappear with 5. You can say that the developers need to continue evolving the game, but the online population says that hasn't been working out so well. A drop of 100K's to 25K isn't getting fixed by micro-transactions. It means there's something really wrong. COD may eventually lose marketshare as well, but I doubt it'll do it with such style.
There are a few other things out there at play as well. One is that the release cycle for Halo games is about three years, where Call Of Duty has the shiny penny every single year. I'm thinking that they'll have to hope that Call Of Duty burns itself out, like Activision did with Rock Band or like American Idol, or start pushing the development cycle to come out at least with content on a longer and more consistent basis. Keep that three year lifespan, but announce about a dozen planned DLC drops for maps that you can put on a calendar, and sell with a season pass, or get sheep to prepay for, or keep selling them a la carte. Love them or hate them, Treyarch is very actively supporting the shit out of their product and happened to hit big with a few innovations that helped make their game even more of a phenomenon. I can't say the same for 343, despite actually enjoying their game more.
Another thing is that you're not going to overcome/beat/make up the gap on Call Of Duty by being more like them. They've got a formula that's fast and easy and accessible, and that works for an awful lot of players, but you're not going to reach them ever because the skillset is different, the graphics are different, because Halo is more "pew pew", because people like to play army and not space Marine, or whatever else keeps them solidly there. You can't make your product better by watering it down. You've got to simply make yours better and more attractive and refine your formula to the point where you have it perfected. Hell, I think Drost said it a while back in sitechat, and we were yammering about it last night in a pregame lobby, but I'm not sure Bungie or 343 really understand how or why the game works. Its been more of a happy accident that communities glommed onto (Grifball, SWAT, Firefight, BTB) or improved upon it and helped to balance it (MLG/competitive communities).
Hell, I remember a gripe online, around Thanksgiving, where seemingly every community involved with the game was frustrated because things were either broken or half assed, and there was a feeling that there was a really good game here, if only you could get through the layers of accumulated stuff. Where Halo 4 is so much of a better game than Reach, there's still the taint of Reach on Halo 4, and some of the lessons given then certainly weren't learned.
Interesting point about 343 not actually knowing how their own game works, have you ever seen them play the game in promo videos? I've NEVER seen people play like that LOL.
Oh yes you have.
I don't really know what it is about H4 that makes me not want to play. I mean, I want to play Halo, but when I get in and start playing, I quickly become "meh". The main reason I still play is my friends. When my friends aren't online, I really can't be bothered to play alone. Even though the game has improved, it just feels like something is missing.
A few weeks ago, some of us went back and played some H3. We had fun and it didn't feel like work. H4 just feels like work. Perhaps that's the best way I can put it - it feels like work.
Also, COD, while it does have a new game each year, the developers flip-flop between Infinity Ward and Treyarch. So really they have 2 years between releases to work on their new game. Right?
One thing you have to ask yourself is"has Halo overall gotten better". While CoD's gameplay is pretty much unchanged they built a better game around it. In many ways Halo has taken steps back(lobby system, forge, ect.). Halo is still a very good multiplayer game no matter what anyone says, but all the stuff they have added turned away more people than it added.
There needs to be a sea change for Halo 5. Maybe 343 did get screwed having to push out H4, but I don't know.
343 needs to realize Halo is a retro game at this point. They need to play to that demographic and run with it. Let it be HALO. Not CoD-lite.
Go back to Halo 3 and look at that game and why people liked it. It wasn't because of flashy abilities and menus. It wasn't because of experience points. It was the simplicity of controlling maps and everyone getting the same weapons so it was a level playing field. When you got a kill in Halo 3, it was 9 times out of 10 because you played better. It wasn't because you just got an ammo drop with rockets or because you sprinted out from cover to stab them in the back.
Small maps. Symmetrical. Large maps shooting sight lines. Reasonable weapons (no DMR).
Kick the H4 stats website to the curb. Look at what Bungie did and do that - long lists of spreadsheets of all your stats and data. Simple. Easily viewable to sharable. No one cares about their stats anymore because no one will ever take the time to look at the pain in the ass website.
I could go on. Today was the first time I'd played H4 in 3 months.