Let me take a moment to confess, I am a forum lurker. Everyday I take around an hour so to brush up on what people are saying on the popular Halo forums about the Halo 5 Beta, and every day I’m finding myself a little stunned by the ignorant opinions formed. There’s a tendency for Halo fans to be blinded by the past, and in this case they seem to be blinded by a mix of nostalgia for the classics and a hatred for Reach and Halo 4. It’s disappointing seeing the countless strawman fallacies used to try and justify the opinion that Halo 5 is “garbage”, when in reality it’s far from it. Allow me to walk you through some of this arguments, and my criticism of them.
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Call of Halofall (or any similar title combinations) - Claims that 343i is ripping game mechanics from other franchises to compete. This is a simple case of correlation does not equal causation. Yes, sprint is in other franchises. Yes, thruster pack is too. And yes, so is clamber. So what? The developers aren’t trying to shoehorn other mechanics into their game simply because they’re in popular games, they’re implementing them because they believe the mechanics to be a natural evolution to the existing game. These mechanics aren’t even entirely out of place, and I’ll touch more on that with following criticisms.- Sprint is Killing Halo! - The beaten horse, that sprint is the ultimate evil to have ever touched the Halo franchise. Sprint robs players of their “earned” kills by allowing players to escape from bad situations. This is the ultimate strawman argument as sprint is not the great evil that people are trying to make it out to be. Is sprint a good mechanic for Halo? No. Is it as bad as players are making it out to be? Absolutely not. It’s the combination of sprint with map geometry that makes it abuse able, and let’s be frank, the maps in Halo 5 aren’t as rife with abuse as those in Reach and Halo 4. We don’t have Skyline or Countdown with their countless walls and obstacles that players can dash around all day. Players are pretty exposed as they try to get away. Additionally, the maps in Halo 5 place an emphasis on Macro-Positioning, meaning a team needs to hold down multiple points simultaneously for optimal control of the map, and in doing so one player should be able to react to and finish off a kill fleeing from a team mate. Sprint simply isn’t as big of a deal as it was in other Halo titles, especially with the faster kill times, better maps, and improved sprint mechanics of having shield delay and being able to be shot out when not at full velocity.- Halo is an Arena Shooter - The belief that Halo is an Arena Shooter as it has qualities similar to the genre. I’m guilty of this one as well, but Halo was never actually a straight Arena Shooter. It was designed as a blend between Arena Shooter and Squad Based Shooter. Yes Run and Gun gameplay and fast kill times are fundamental parts of Halo’s core mechanics, but Halo is not bound so strictly to those as it is not a pure play Arena Shooter. Many would prefer that it was tied more to the Arena genre, but that is nothing more than preferential bias.- Thruster Doesn’t Belong! - Thrusterpack ruins confrontations. It’s a lazy man’s “strafe”. It was stolen from CoD:AW. Yeah, no. Thrust is nothing more than an age old FPS mechanic, and just because it was featured in AW doesn’t mean it was taken from AW. More likely than not, it was implemented because it is essentially a “Dodge-Jump”, a mainstay mechanic from several popular Arena Shooters. The developers have gone on the record multiple times saying they want to make Halo more like an Arena Shooter, so why are people claiming they’re stealing mechanics from other games when it is also featured in Arena Shooters like Unreal Tournament and Quake so prominently?- Grappling from Titanfall! - Similar to the Thruster argument, but this time claims that the developers have stolen a different mechanic from a different popular game. Again, not the case. Grappling is essentially a double jump. A more “realistic-looking” double jump. And once again, a mechanic found in many other games long before Titanfall launched, especially Arena Shooters such as Quake and Unreal Tournament.- Halo 5 is Similar to Reach and Halo 4 - As the game has similarities to what are indisputably the weakest two titles of the franchise, it too will be bad. Again a straw-man fallacy and a case of correlation does not equal causation. The fundamental differences between Halo 5 and these two previous titles lies in the difference in gun game (faster Optimal TTK with low Aim Assist) and better map pool. These two differences set Halo 5 far apart from its two predecessor titles.
This by all means is not meant to defend Halo 5 as being a perfect game, but only meant to show how irrational many of its criticisms are. The game is far from perfect, and it might not even be great, but it most certainly isn’t a bad game in its current form. There’s a lot that could be improved upon, especially considering the complications that sprint does bring to the game. It simply is that the issues people are raising to hate the game aren’t the deal breakers they’re trying to make them out to be. Personally, I would love to see the following tweaks made to improve the game: -
BR/DMR: Lower Aim Assist & Bullet Magnetism, Faster Rate of Fire (Bigger difference between optimal and average kill times empowers individual players and the faster killtimes will help balance the passive traits of sprint and thruster).- BR: Tighten Spread (makes weapon more consistent)- AR: Make spread same scoped and unscoped (Makes headshots more consistent when unscoped)- Thruster: Keep Weapon Up When Thrusting (Imitates Dodge Jumping in other Arena FPS Games)- Base Movement Speed: Increase by 10%, keep Sprint as is (No more than 15% difference between the two, helps balance the passive ability of sprint and speeds up gameplay).- Grenades: Remove ability to be shot from players hands, or at least shrink the hitboxes significantly.- Groundpound: Remap button so it is no longer on crouch.- Rockets: Bring back the old model. Please. It’s iconic, this new AT4 looking one is an unnecessary change.- Slide Mechanic: Tie it to Thruster & allow players to use it sooner from sprint- Weapon Ready Up Time: Make it quicker to bring weapon back up after sprinting or thrusting- Smart Scope: Make it faster (not with Sniper though)- Power Ups: Bring back Camo, Custom, and OS! Also, bring back “quick camo” (like in CE) for certain weapons.- Covenant Weapons: Bring back “plasma stun”, but have stun only affect sprinters and thrusters- Maps & Player Models: Make it easier to see players. Especially Blue Team on Eden.
Thanks for reading. As always, feel free to discuss below or on Twitter @SecretSchnitzel.
Cheers!
