343 You Are So Close To Striking Gold

All my previous posts have been pretty critical of this game in Season 1 but I am actually pleasantly surprised with Season 2.

-First and foremost, the new map Catalyst in Ranked is exactly what we needed. Its much bigger with much more cover than the other maps. All the other maps in the playlist feel the same. They are so tight that I feel like I’m playing on MLG Amplified every game, especially with how fast people are in modern Halo. I would like to see Behemoth reworked and added back in next. This is another larger map that doesnt feel so ‘tight’ and will add much needed variety.

-Last Spartan Standing and Rumble pit are fun as hell. My only problem with them is they are not ranked so consequently it gets boring after a few games with no actual incentive to win. If you were to slap a visible rank on these 2 playlists along with making team snipers and doubles ranked when they rotate in this game will blow up!

I’m guessing they want to get data on who is playing LSS before creating a ranked mode. I disagree that it gets boring. I personally prefer that it hasn’t got a visible rank. I play to enjoy the game not to sweat.

I’m currently in an on-again off-again love-hate relationship with the new map.

Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. I’m on the fence. Now that I’m more familiar with the layout and know where I was dying from the first few times I played it, I can control the map. And when you’re the controlling team it’s comparable to Halo 3’s Epitaph or Narrows, but with more depth.

It’s a really fun map when you slow it down and play it right.

Other times, if I’m coming off a losing streak and I’m pre-tilted going into the game, I’m blindly sprinting around head first into bullets. And I end up hating the map and just can’t seem to make it work.

LSS is also a win. I didn’t want to like it, but I genuinely do. As an old head, stuck in my ways, they’ve taken me from 100% convinced that Halo should only and always be that symmetrical arena shooter, to 90% sure.

LSS has me dropping my guard a little bit.

But being the old head that I am, I am still stuck in my ways. I hate AR starts and I want a BR start. Always.

For me to invest any kind of money into the game as far as battle passes and store items go, the game really does need more BR start playlists. Whether it’s ranked 2v2, BR start BTB, or BR start FFA, or just a “Precision Slayer” BR start slayer playlist. I would happily ditch ranked for social BR start playlists. Happily. I don’t even need more ranked playlists to choose from.

And for “tactical slayer”, let’s call it as it is, they ruined swat. Take us back to just SWAT and SWATnums. Mangler is definitely tolerable for SWAT, but the Stalker Rifle needs to go. It’s ruining SWAT. They also need to tweak the odds of gamemodes being selected. I’ve played maybe 2-3 whole games of classic BR and Pistol SWAT. The rest have been mangler and Stalker. They pop up way too often.

Now on to the last thing. KOTH… I’m fine with everything but the hill noises. They’re really out in left field. We don’t need the alarm. It’s super distracting and infuriating when you’re the one in hill.