I played last weekend and felt that Arena was a bit AR/melee/grenade-heavy. Coupled with the small radar size and low aim assist on controller for some of the precision weapons, it all felt a bit sweaty/fast compared to my favorite Halo experience: Halo 3.
But BTB felt fantastic today. The sandbox works much better on the larger map and gives multiple ways to play. It was frenetic in all the right ways and looked fantastic. I love the map, a good balance of sightlines that allows each area of the map to be useable. Strong Valhalla vibes and nice to be back with the BR whenever I fancied it. Anyway, I was very impressed having been a bit worried last weekend. Excellent work by 343 and I’m looking forward to launch.
Ideally, I’d still like to see:
Larger radar size
AR range decreased slightly
Tiny buff to aim assist on the pistol for controller
Slight buff to vehicle health, the hogs were getting shredded in the games I played
Sniper zooming etc fixed
Playing on Series X.
I disagree about it feeling fantastic. It just felt okay to me
To me the map felt like an overcluttered mess and too tight of lanes.
I also am not a fan at all of the vehicle drop system as it doesn’t guarantee a certain vehicle will spawn. I think they need to go back to the old spawn system for them.
I do agree with your improvement list though.
I liked it. Better than social lost. Lol the vehicle health is already very high
I agree! Has a great feel to it; classic Halo with a good touch of modern mechanics. Solid points below as well.
I agree with all those. Especially the AR range and pistol. Although The pistol needs better range rather than more aim assist. Giving even more AA would give you a big advantage over using a mouse.
> 2533274825006669;2:
> I disagree about it feeling fantastic.
>
> To me the map felt like an overcluttered mess and too tight of lanes.
> I also am not a fan at all of the vehicle drop system as it doesn’t guarantee a certain vehicle will spawn. I think they need to go back to the old spawn system for them.
>
> I do agree with your improvement list though.
I wasn’t sure about the vehicle spawn system but actually really liked it. BTB in the past had a major problem with players just camping power spawn points all game. They literally would only play for 50% of the game, the rest of the time they’d stand waiting for sniper or banshee. Coupled with full teams of 8 playing on mics and treating it like a ranked playlist (each member taking a specific power weapon and then spawn farming the entire game), old BTB (I’m mainly talking about Halo 3 here) had some horrible rounds. This seems to fix some of this problem, at least in my limited run today.
the banshee needs a huge buff. it can’t turn as sharply, it gets destroyed faster, it has more counters, it doesn’t do enough damage to kill in one swoop, the banshee bomb doesn’t even 1-shot on direct hit.
its weird how weapon TTK is so fast but vehicle TTK seems to be the slowest its ever been.
> 2533274806943680;6:
> > 2533274825006669;2:
> > I disagree about it feeling fantastic.
> >
> > To me the map felt like an overcluttered mess and too tight of lanes.
> > I also am not a fan at all of the vehicle drop system as it doesn’t guarantee a certain vehicle will spawn. I think they need to go back to the old spawn system for them.
> >
> > I do agree with your improvement list though.
>
> I wasn’t sure about the vehicle spawn system but actually really liked it. BTB in the past had a major problem with players just camping power spawn points all game. They literally would only play for 50% of the game, the rest of the time they’d stand waiting for sniper or banshee. Coupled with full teams of 8 playing on mics and treating it like a ranked playlist (each member taking a specific power weapon and then spawn farming the entire game), old BTB (I’m mainly talking about Halo 3 here) had some horrible rounds. This seems to fix some of this problem, at least in my limited run today.
I think they overdid it with the new system to avoid the spawn farming though. Plus they do drop the vehicles in the same spot every time so you can camp them still if you are hard pressed to be the person that gets the drop. I also don’t think it feels good to have some vehicles never spawn and instead just see a ton of ghosts. I think they would be well off to do more of a mix like they already do with the mongoose and warthog off the spawn.
> 2533274953195665;7:
> the banshee needs a huge buff. it can’t turn as sharply, it gets destroyed faster, it has more counters, it doesn’t do enough damage to kill in one swoop, the banshee bomb doesn’t even 1-shot on direct hit.
>
> its weird how weapon TTK is so fast but vehicle TTK seems to be the slowest its ever been.
I didn’t get into the Banshee, so will take your word for it.
From the vehicles I got a go in, the Ghost felt nice and powerful, hogs less so.
The only thing annoying tonight was the reoccurring “user banned” for the game crashing. Hundreds if not thousands of people experienced this lol. But everything else has been pretty solid for a version of the game that is 5-6 months old right now. 165FPS on PC with controller now after the PC updates today. So far so good, they just need to remove the auto-ban for “leaving” games until the crashing is fixed lol
> 2533274806943680;9:
> > 2533274953195665;7:
> > the banshee needs a huge buff. it can’t turn as sharply, it gets destroyed faster, it has more counters, it doesn’t do enough damage to kill in one swoop, the banshee bomb doesn’t even 1-shot on direct hit.
> >
> > its weird how weapon TTK is so fast but vehicle TTK seems to be the slowest its ever been.
>
> I didn’t get into the Banshee, so will take your word for it.
>
> From the vehicles I got a go in, the Ghost felt nice and powerful, hogs less so.
Yeah I have always loved the ghost and this one might just be my favorite overall. The banshee was really cool too but I only got it twice. The wraith looks soooo good though, we need it in the game ASAP