How do armor abilities, loadouts, specializations, and ordinance drops make Halo 4 any less competitive than any other Halo? From what I understand, balance and simplicity aren’t things that fall under the meaning of “competitive” (not to mention Halo 4 is, in no way, unbalanced).
So, to those who refer to Halo 4 as “not competitive,” what makes it that way? Thanks. (:
Competitive gamers are just use to the original Halo where it was all about Weapon and Map control.
From what I understand, competitive is the strive to win.
Competitive features are things that encourage team efforts to win.
I understand where people say Reach wasn’t as competitive… because of the ranking system. People just wanted credits, there wasn’t another rank they had to work for.
But then there are competitive and non-competitive things. I may be alone in this, but I don’t see AAs or Specializations stopping me from teying to win, especially if there is a “competitive” ranking system based on performance instead of time playing. Halo 4 seems to be doing that ranking system, so I don’t think it should be too much of an issue.
Someone with a Hardlight Shield isn’t going to stop me from trying to win.
you’re attracting the HALOisCOD kids … I can see this thread/ sooner rather than later
It’s hard to answer that question really since we don’t have Halo 4 to judge on it’s own merits rather than what came before. To do so and write Halo 4 off is quite ignorant but so also mindlessly praising it without taking a step back and analyzing things.
Don’t get me wrong, i am concerned about how Halo 4 will play out and how balanced it will be. I will still play it regardless of what any casual or purist might think or say to the contrary.
I would be interested in seeing how MLG takes apart Halo 4 and how close they can get with using vanilla Halo 4 without removing everything.
Big difference in trying to recreate Halo CE and balancing out Halo 4 for competitive play. Shouldn’t a game (Halo 4) be it’s own template rather than relying on a past one for the purposes of creating a competitive atmosphere?
I rather have the game balanced out and remove the things that are broken rather than just remove everything because it’s not similar to a past game.
Loadouts could work, I really have no opinion on them until I play them. Most of the AA’s are fine. Specialisations could ruin the experience, you’ll have people running faster, shields reloading faster, ect. I think that could be bad for Halo 4.
> Loadouts could work, I really have no opinion on them until I play them. Most of the AA’s are fine. Specialisations could ruin the experience, you’ll have people running faster, shields reloading faster, ect. I think that could be bad for Halo 4.
Even if that’s the case, how does it make the game less competitive?
For some reason an extremely asymmetrical game like SCII is boasted as being competitive, but for Halo to be competitive, it must be extremely symmetrical.
This get’s politician’ed into “asymmetrical isn’t competitive for Halo.” And then a bunch of hyperboles get tossed around that completely contradict the intent of competitive gameplay.
It’s not the ideas or the features even that make Halo “Less competitive” It’s the broken things that make it.
Let’s see, Armor Lock was the instant win button, Jet pack made map control and cover absolutely obsolete, and stuff like bloom made spamming the trigger button give you a random chance to win against a much better player.
Personally, the Armor Abilities in Halo 4 don’t look that bad. People are willing to say that Promethean Vision is OP, but it does nothing but reveal the location of an enemy, which the Radar already did. Basically, while giving you somewhat of an advantage over another player, the other player isn’t at that much of a disadvantage. One can still kill the PV user. I’ll have to see how they’re going to balance Jet pack though.
Loadouts aren’t bad in any way as long as they keep power weapons as pick up only. Specialization aren’t bad either, if done correctly. The only Specialization that seems to be a problem at the moment is the one that allows you to regen shield faster, and even then it’s, once again, not completely game breaking.
Ordinance drops are the only things I have a problem with, but if they are only in the Infinity game types, that’s fine (and let’s hope those are a small selection of game types). I’m okay with the weapon drop and the overshield. Why? Well, Overshiled has always been in Halo, so it’s just about racking up kills now, and with the weapon drops, you lose the weapon upon death and another player might actually pick it up before you. The other power ups though, like speed boost and increased weapon damage, are no good at all in my eyes.
I think the things we really have to look at are the lack of friendly fire and not getting pulled out of zoom while shot, along with other Halo “essentials” that seem MIA so far. Those things can potentially hurt Halo’s competitive standing more than any of the other listed problems.
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this bowser kid always starts these threads.
elaborate troll.
> Let’s see, Armor Lock was the instant win button,
Case and point.
“AL was a pause button that slowed gameplay down for attackers.”… But it is also an instant win button by “pausing” the game.
> I think the things we really have to look at are the lack of friendly fire and not getting pulled out of zoom while shot, along with other Halo “essentials” that seem MIA so far. Those things can potentially hurt Halo’s competitive standing more than any of the other listed problems.
So what you’re saying is, in order for Halo to be competitive, it needs to be comprised entirely of things that demand skill? I thought in order for a game to be competitive the game needs to provide an incentive to INDUCE the competitive side of the players. This incentive would be the incentive to win. I don’t see how any of the elements being added to Halo 4 reduce the incentive to win. Its competitive integrity is still intact.
> > Loadouts could work, I really have no opinion on them until I play them. Most of the AA’s are fine. Specialisations could ruin the experience, you’ll have people running faster, shields reloading faster, ect. I think that could be bad for Halo 4.
>
> Even if that’s the case, how does it make the game less competitive?
Unequal.
> this bowser kid always starts these threads.
>
>
> elaborate troll.
First of all, I’m not a kid.
Second of all, I start these threads to invoke discussion and since I’m honestly curious about people’s standpoints.
> > > Loadouts could work, I really have no opinion on them until I play them. Most of the AA’s are fine. Specialisations could ruin the experience, you’ll have people running faster, shields reloading faster, ect. I think that could be bad for Halo 4.
> >
> > Even if that’s the case, how does it make the game less competitive?
>
> Unequal.
So equality is a factor when it comes to competitiveness? I never understood why.
> > I think the things we really have to look at are the lack of friendly fire and not getting pulled out of zoom while shot, along with other Halo “essentials” that seem MIA so far. Those things can potentially hurt Halo’s competitive standing more than any of the other listed problems.
>
> So what you’re saying is, in order for Halo to be competitive, it needs to be comprised entirely of things that demand skill? I thought in order for a game to be competitive the game needs to provide an incentive to INDUCE the competitive side of the players. This incentive would be the incentive to win. I don’t see how any of the elements being added to Halo 4 reduce the incentive to win. Its competitive integrity is still intact.
The things that are being added are not the problem (For the most part anyway) instead we have to look out for the things being taken out. I think that some of the new features will be great and very fun in a Halo game, however, 343 can’t lose sight of the things that made Halo competitive in the first place.
> > > I think the things we really have to look at are the lack of friendly fire and not getting pulled out of zoom while shot, along with other Halo “essentials” that seem MIA so far. Those things can potentially hurt Halo’s competitive standing more than any of the other listed problems.
> >
> > So what you’re saying is, in order for Halo to be competitive, it needs to be comprised entirely of things that demand skill? I thought in order for a game to be competitive the game needs to provide an incentive to INDUCE the competitive side of the players. This incentive would be the incentive to win. I don’t see how any of the elements being added to Halo 4 reduce the incentive to win. Its competitive integrity is still intact.
>
> The things that are being added are not the problem (For the most part anyway) instead we have to look out for the things being taken out. I think that some of the new features will be great and very fun in a Halo game, however, 343 can’t lose sight of <mark>the things that made Halo competitive in the first place.</mark>
And what were those things?
Well, first of all, the term “competitive”. Competitive in the context of gameplay means the gameplay’s suitablity for competition. You can’t really say “this is competitive” or “this isn’t competitive”. The term only works as a comparative term (e.g. “this is more competitive than that”). Balance and simplicity do fall under this as balance is one of the factors that decides how suitable the game is for competition. As for simplicity, this just usually -Yoink!- competition as a game simple with the amount of content and deep with the usage of the content is often better than a game complex with the amount of content.
What do armor abilities, loadouts, specializations and ordnance drops do then? Well, first of all, I can’t answer the question “what do they do?”, no one can. I can only answer the question “what will the potentially do?”.
Armor abilities and loadouts kind of go hand in hand. The concepts of different armor abilities are very good, some of them are quite amazing. However, having them in loadouts destroys the whole concept. When giving players abilities they spawn with, abilities that are different for every player, you really need to balance them carefully. The balancing is really, really hard when you look at the big picture. When the abilities are fundamentally different in function, you might very well end up with a situation where the armor ability you pick-up has too big of an impact to gameplay in which case it easily becomes like rock-paper-scissors when you can’t really predict your opponent’s choices. Suddenly, all consistency is thrown out of the window. And consistency is a very important concept for competitiveness of a game.
However, the inclusion of armor abilities in laodouts is actually more problematic. You see, all the abilities would work better as map pick-ups than abilities you spawn with. Active Camo is the classical example because everyone knows how well it works for competitive play as a pick-up. However, when you give it to the player off-spawn, the player suddenly isn’t restricted by the location of the power-up, but they can activate it anywhere they want at any time. Not only does this make it the ultimate camping tool (the complete opposite of the movement encouraging power-up), but it also makes one point of map control less relevant. Active Camo isn’t really the only ability that would work better without loadouts, this applies to every single armor ability we’ve seen this far.
Ordnance drops are a controversial subject. They can be completely harmless if they are predictable and always drop to set locations. However, in case there is too much unpredictability to them, they will become random. Randomness, again, is one of the things that can often hurt competitive play, thus making the game less competitive. Another problem is having the drops on symmetric maps. Symmetric maps require symmetry everywhere. What this means in terms of weapon drops is that if you drop a sniper on one side of the map, you also have to drop one on the other side. In other words, this pretty much limits the drop points to the axis of symmetry of the map, making the whole system limited. Again, a system that spawns weapons consistantly at set locations is much better for competitive play due to consistency.
As for specializations, I really haven’t herd anything about them, so I can’t help you understand there. However, I hope this helped you understand why the new gameplay elements are likely to make Halo 4 less competitive than previous Halo games.
> > > Loadouts could work, I really have no opinion on them until I play them. Most of the AA’s are fine. Specialisations could ruin the experience, you’ll have people running faster, shields reloading faster, ect. I think that could be bad for Halo 4.
> >
> > Even if that’s the case, how does it make the game less competitive?
>
> Unequal.
The term is asymmetrical for having the choice to mix up spawning options.
The term is unequal for forced options in an asymmetrical system.
A system with multiple “over-powered” setups isn’t unequal when the choice to make under-powered setups is allowed. The system is still balanced, though tier based because it offers multiple tiers, but multiple options in those tiers.
Only when a system that allows many under-powered setups but offers just 1 or 2 over-powered setups does said system become unequal and unbalanced.
Unreal is a very competitive FPS game, a game heavily influential in Halo’s gamemodes and is a game that uses asymmetrical setups to its players.
> > > > I think the things we really have to look at are the lack of friendly fire and not getting pulled out of zoom while shot, along with other Halo “essentials” that seem MIA so far. Those things can potentially hurt Halo’s competitive standing more than any of the other listed problems.
> > >
> > > So what you’re saying is, in order for Halo to be competitive, it needs to be comprised entirely of things that demand skill? I thought in order for a game to be competitive the game needs to provide an incentive to INDUCE the competitive side of the players. This incentive would be the incentive to win. I don’t see how any of the elements being added to Halo 4 reduce the incentive to win. Its competitive integrity is still intact.
> >
> > The things that are being added are not the problem (For the most part anyway) instead we have to look out for the things being taken out. I think that some of the new features will be great and very fun in a Halo game, however, 343 can’t lose sight of <mark>the things that made Halo competitive in the first place.</mark>
>
> And what were those things?
Well, the two things listed in the closing section; lack of friendly fire and not being pulled out of zoom when shot. Those are really the only things that we KNOW for a fact are missing right now (Whether it was only for the E3 demos is unknown however)
Balanced starts are also another thing. Load outs don’t have to mean that not every one starts on an even playing field. Halo has always been about, somewhat, starting every one out with no advantage over other players (Although some would argue that this was missing in Reach).
Power weapon control is another thing. We can’t let AAs and Loadouts and such take away from the importance of a power weapon. Once again, things like Armor Lock completely made power weapons feel… well… not powerful.
Randomization is something else to avoid, to a degree. Luck should not play a huge role in a game. It might play some bit of a role, but not a huge one. Many people complained that Reach’s bloom made the game too random, thus putting skilled players and new comers on a somewhat more equal level. (And yes, I know bloom was always in Halo, but not as bad as Reach’s)
You see what I mean? The little things that set Halo apart from other games. Halo can borrow all the ideas that it wants from other games, as long as it keeps the things that keep Halo “Halo” are still in it, the game will always be a step above the rest.