"Champions DLC doesn't work in Spartan Ops?"

Games Other Halo
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Microsoft manages the Microsoft Marketplace. They should have noticed by now that the file descriptions for the Champions Bundle and the Sub Bundles are inaccurate. This could effect the Microsoft Marketplace reputation. Add in the detail the their name is also on the game
itself.

“Step up your game with the Halo 4 Champions Bundle, an incredible collection of maps, armors, skins, and the all-new game type Ricochet and armor mod Resistor, gathered together to complete your Halo 4 experience. The Halo 4 Champions Bundle includes the Bullseye Pack, the Steel Skin Pack, and the Infinity Armor Pack, as well as brand-new ways to personalize your Spartan, with five armor skins, five weapons skins, and eight Spartan stances for your lobby player card.”

“This add-on works with: Halo 4”

This is as of 1924 hrs Pacific, 29 August.

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> Bravo? Oh you mean asking for MLG advice AFTER the game was launched and they were crashing and burning? Bravos hiring was another PR stunt from a -Yoink!- bankrolled studio. And I guess removing the DRM restrictions on Xbone was because they realized the error of their ways, not because their preorder were abysmally low?
>
> They didn’t need to hire Bravo if they had taken advantage of and listened to the multitude of Halo MLG vets who were advising them for FREE because they cared about this game. Instead of really listening to the MLG community and supporting their title from the begining, 343i tried to tell MLG what they should have, and only sought Bravo’s guidance after they had nearly alienated and been rejected by the entire MLG community.

You mean they didn’t hire Bravo because he’s hot? It’s not 343’s job to cater to MLG. While they might get a lot of attention in the community they were probably a small minority of the sales. Having MLG’s stamp of approval doesn’t make a game good, nor does lacking it make a game bad. To be honest, Halo 4 has bigger problems than not involving MLG from the start.

And to everyone saying Microsoft isn’t going to get your $400 for another console after the Halo 4 console…I hope you realize Microsoft doesn’t see any of that money. They sell their consoles at a loss so they’re basically giving you $50 to get a console.

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Well we get an explanation, but not in a bulletin: Source

> Hi, DecadenceXx. HurryingCandy is correct. Due to the expansive sandbox featured in Spartan Ops missions, we have less flexibility to use additional memory for new content. We would have loved to implement it across the board but unfortunately that was too risky of a move (risky in this instance meaning there was a strong likelihood of breaking things).

*hides

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> Well we get an explanation, but not in a bulletin: Source
>
>
>
> > Hi, DecadenceXx. HurryingCandy is correct. Due to the expansive sandbox featured in Spartan Ops missions, we have less flexibility to use additional memory for new content. We would have loved to implement it across the board but unfortunately that was too risky of a move (risky in this instance meaning there was a strong likelihood of breaking things).
>
> *hides

Already seen it. Looks like we’re finished.

Why does it have to end like this…

Maybe they could bring back Firefight via DLC? Let it run on existing War Games maps, give us single-player/co-op fans some place to use the new content… I heard a rumor about new DLC being announced at PAX, but that’s most likely BS, unfortunately…

At any rate, they still need to change the description for the Champions Bundle on XBL Marketplace to warn people that the content doesn’t work in Spartan Ops. Indeed, they should have warned us from the beginning…

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I’d rather have Firefight be based off campaign maps

That DLC was confirmed to just be the Champions Bundle, bs angel quoted someone saying that the champions bundle was new

https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst224860_NEW-Halo-4-DLC---Pax.aspx

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> I’d rather have Firefight be based off campaign maps
>
> That DLC was confirmed to just be the Champions Bundle, bs angel quoted someone saying that the champions bundle was new
>
> https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst224860_NEW-Halo-4-DLC---Pax.aspx

Somehow, I doubt that 343i would go through the trouble to build new maps for a Firefight DLC. But adapting existing War Games maps might be easier on them, and honestly, at this point I’d be willing to settle for that at the least.

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IF Halo 4 ends up working on XBox One (with it’s better hardware), maybe 343 could look at adapting Champions Bundle for Spartan Ops?

But until then, the Microsoft Marketplace File Descriptions need to be edited to reflect the detail that the Champions Bundle, and the sub bundles, only function within “Halo 4: War Games”.

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> > > Personally I’m “abandoning ship” until they fix this, and i guarantee that if they don’t I’ll wait for Bungies “Destiny” to come out and do that then sell Halo 4.
> > >
> > > They ruined their own game with their lack of communication with the players as well as not including the added features in all version and game-types without telling anyone that this would be so.
> > >
> > > Bungie, i will wait for the with your <mark>majestic star ship</mark> to pick me up as i stand upon the dead wreckage that is Halo 4.
> >
> > What if that ship is the one from REACH, that BUNGIE game a lot of people hate?
>
> But i loved Reach, it was the only game that Bungie made that made me feel like I was the actual man behind the mask, so to speak. Plus Bungie actually cared about their fans and players in that game, giving us a valid reason as to why new armors and abilities could not be used.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Reach, I still play campaign to this very day.

What I’m saying is that a lot of reach haters are all hyped up for Destiny.

Destiny’s trailers look good But so did Reach’es, I just don’t want them to set themselves up to be disappointed.

There is the chance that Destiny may not be what we expect, but I’ll try it anyway.

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> Maybe they could bring back Firefight via DLC? Let it run on existing War Games maps, give us single-player/co-op fans some place to use the new content… I heard a rumor about new DLC being announced at PAX, but that’s most likely BS, unfortunately…

Probably, but what I think we should be asking for is more forethought. First of all: THINK OF WHAT PROBLEMS MIGHT OCCUR FROM HOLDING CRITICAL INFORMATION BACK FROM CERTAIN GROUPS IN THE COMMUNITY.

But what I think may be more important is asking them to put more forethought in development. The long term future of SOPS should have been considered from the start and leaving something as basic as update compatibility out shows that what they tried to do instead was built for the short term release (what is the experience going to be like while the episodes are going to be released.) The missions not being terribly replayable is another indicator of this limited mindset because it shows that they didn’t really anticipate people playing it months or even years out even on just a semi-regular basis.

“But what could they have done differently?” you might ask. Well it’s simple, they could have done more with less.

We don’t need a dozen different box types or other scenery items in SOPS to cover up otherwise dull level geometry if 343 would simply put a little more thought in making that level geometry work better with the eye and with gameplay. We likewise don’t need a dozen different visual styles of covenant when that sort of minor variation doesn’t penetrate the players awareness even outside of combat. What we need is more variable AI behavior to provide the spice that 343 tries to make with clutter. And in the exact same vein, we need a much better way of building co-op experiences than fighting over asset A on one map, asset B on another, and so and and so on when they all involve the same god-damn button press! We need more intricate maps with more apparent function that can easily be transformed into battlezone A, B or C with just a few simple wall pieces, a different group of covies, and a few AI tweaks (and more direct objectives such as “KILL THE COVENANT.”)

It just requires a little more thought and investment in more meaningful parts of the game (ex. level design and the AI) and we can indeed have our cake (a good co-op mode) and eat it too (have support for it).

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> I’d rather have Firefight be based off campaign maps

I’d like to be able to Forge our own PvE content. Or have a mode in SOps that allows for some customization like Reach FF. Forging the campaign or SOps maps with enemy spawning would be all kinds of win imo.

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> > I’d rather have Firefight be based off campaign maps
>
> I’d like to be able to Forge our own PvE content. Or have a mode in SOps that allows for some customization like Reach FF. Forging the campaign or SOps maps with enemy spawning would be all kinds of win imo.

I had another where you could possibly create your own Spartan Ops missions in Forge… using the existing Spartan Ops maps from Season 1, you could set up objectives like you would an Invasion map in Reach, but with addition of things like enemy spawn points, and Landing Zones for Covenant drop pods of various types, Phantoms, and Pelicans.

You should be able to create a wide variety of objective types; from simple button-pressing objectives with Covenant and Forerunner terminals, to more interesting objectives using assets from multiplayer gametypes like Dominion, Extraction, Oddball, Invasion, Assault, and Territories.

Lastly you’d have some unique Forge items for Spartan Ops, such as weapon and Ammo crates for the UNSC, Covenant, and Forerunners, crashed Pelicans and Phantoms, Covenant Artillery, Forerunner Power Conduits (like those you see in “Majestic Rescue”, EP-8/CH-2), Forerunner AA guns, and so on.

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> Hi, DecadenceXx. HurryingCandy is correct. Due to the <mark>expansive sandbox</mark> featured in Spartan Ops missions, we have less flexibility to use <mark>additional memory for new content</mark>. We would have loved to implement it across the board but unfortunately that was too risky of a move (risky in this instance meaning there was a strong likelihood of breaking things).

Two things:

  1. I’d hardly describe any aspect of any Halo game as “expansive sandbox” ever. Far Cry, GTA, The Elder Scrolls, Fuel, TDU 1 & 2, and the like are sandbox. Battlefield is borderline sandbox to me. Halo 3,4, and Reach’s maps are hardly large enough to be called “sandbox,” and “expansive” is hardly a word to describe any Halo map besides Forge World.

  2. Do they honestly expect us to believe adding a few model and texture files will tax the memory so much that the game would become unstable? I’ve modded a lot of games, and a few models and textures being used in place of others hardly taxes the memory, if at all. Take Skyrim on PC for example. I’ve added over 2,000 new models for weapons, armor, scenery, and NPCs, all with high polygon counts and at least 2K (2048x2048) resolution, additional extensive scripts to utilize them, and the game hasn’t crashed in over 750 hours of gameplay with minimal frame rate drop. You’re telling me the 360 can’t handle 5 new armors, with maybe 20-30 256x256 and/or 512x512 texture maps, and a few scripts for the new tactical and support mods?! Nice try; I don’t buy that for a second.

Edit:
Give us significant daily, weekly, and monthly challenges for Spartan Ops, and I’ll drop this subject. One of the days Spartan Ops DID HAVE A DAILY CHALLENGE, so don’t tell me you can’t do this small favor for us that would maybe take you guys 1-2 hours to complete. You can even run the same challenges every day, week, and month for all I care.

Also, how do we make our own Halo Waypoint challenges like in Reach? There’s a section for it in the challenge menus, but I’ve yet to see a Halo Waypoint challenge. Stop giving us the cold shoulder. If this were War Games, you’d be busting the employee’s Oddballs (I hope that doesn’t violate any code of conduct, but I’ll change it if it does) to fix these issues. Crack some skulls, and get on this pronto… Please.

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I’m afraid thats under the can but won’t fix list which has only grown since launch sadly

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> > Hi, DecadenceXx. HurryingCandy is correct. Due to the expansive sandbox featured in Spartan Ops missions, we have less flexibility to use <mark>additional memory for new content</mark>. We would have loved to implement it across the board but unfortunately that was too risky of a move (risky in this instance meaning there was a strong likelihood of breaking things).
>
> 2. Do they honestly expect us to believe adding a few model and texture files will tax the memory so much that the game would become unstable? I’ve modded a lot of games, and a few models and textures being used in place of others hardly taxes the memory, if at all.

In place of others, sure. But this isn’t a matter of replacing content.

Adding Champions Bundle support to Spartan Ops means forcing that game mode to load additional content on a console with only 512MB RAM (shared between the CPU and GPU). Spartan Ops does load quite a bit more content than War Games, the most notable and apparent example being data for enemies – models, textures, bump and other maps, animations, sounds, and AI. There are tons of other engine differences that could cause Spartan Ops to use far more memory than War Games – netcodes, scripting engines, and probably some things that only the devs themselves would know or understand. With all that in mind, it is entirely plausible that there isn’t enough available RAM to insert the Champions assets without heavily refactoring other core systems, which isn’t typically done post-release for exactly the reason bs angel provided.

> Take Skyrim on PC for example. I’ve added over 2,000 new models for weapons, armor, scenery, and NPCs, all with high polygon counts and at least 2K (2048x2048) resolution, additional extensive scripts to utilize them, and the game hasn’t crashed in over 750 hours of gameplay with minimal frame rate drop.

I see two possibilities here:

a. You have absurdly high amounts of RAM available.

b. Skyrim isn’t keeping all of that content in memory at once.

Either way, your experiences with Skyrim have no bearing on 343i’s ability to cram more content into an Xbox 360’s memory.

It doesn’t necessarily solve some of the issues here (such as the Marketplace description lacking any indicator of the content being War Games-only), but the explanation that you received is legit.

455

When I said “replace” I meant instead of loading armor piece X or weapon skin Y, it would load the new content in that designated area INSTEAD of a core piece of content. If you are referring to a master list load order addition, how do you explain so many other games with far more impressive maps and AI that have DLC up the wazoo?

Either 343i is making up excuses, or they truly have incompetent programmers. Don’t get me wrong; I love playing Halo 4. Either way, this raises my doubts of the quality and service of future 343i titles. Why should I buy more games from a developer who can’t design a game to accept new DLC for multiple online game modes?

If an EA puppet like Dice can introduce new weapons and skins into massive (for consol) maps with 32 player servers, or Crytek adding new vehicles and weapons to a giant and dense map with loads of AI chasing you down, why can’t 343i add 5 new armors and a few gun skins to Halo 4? What if the game had 5 more armor sets to begin with? Would Spartan Ops run? Or if the game had 5 less armors, would they still give us this excuse?

Any problem has a solution, and this, like I said before, ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE. If 343i wants to play dumb, or is admitting incompetence, they’ve lost me as a customer… for now.

Like I also said before, I’d be happy if 343i would make a compromise and give Spartan Ops the same caring love they give to War Games in regards to daily and monthly challenges. We deserve at least that much if they can’t/won’t fix this armor, skins, and tactical/support packages issue. Many of us paid $10 for incomplete content without prior knowledge of this issue. The least 343i can do ethically is show us some love by giving Spartan Ops daily and monthly challenges IN ADDITION to the weekly challenges.

Side Note Edit:
FYI, it doesn’t matter if I had 1,000TBs of RAM, Skyrim has a fatal flaw where when the game hits 3.1GBs (or is it 3.2GBs?) of system RAM, the engine crashes. The 360 has 2GBs of system RAM, so obviously that’s not a big issue, but it also illustrates just how much content can be crammed into a game if the developers are skilled with memory and compression management. 343i, as well as a few other choice developers could learn from that example.

It’s better to aim high and overshoot your expectations than it is to aim level and fall short of your expectations. - Goatroach

456

> Well we get an explanation, but not in a bulletin: Source
>
>
>
> > Hi, DecadenceXx. HurryingCandy is correct. Due to the expansive sandbox featured in Spartan Ops missions, we have less flexibility to use additional memory for new content. We would have loved to implement it across the board but unfortunately that was too risky of a move (risky in this instance meaning there was a strong likelihood of breaking things).
>
> *hides

I think they could fix it if they bothered to put the time into solving the issue rather than just writing it off as being impossible. I’ve seen other studios make exactly this sort of thing work in their games. Maybe they should look harder at their staff rather than blame the hardware for not being up to snuff.

At any rate, this changes nothing. I’m not giving them any more money. Ever. I didn’t hear about this until after putting my money out there, and there is no reason I should have had to find out after the fact that half the multiplayer isn’t supported. There are a multitude of steps they could have taken to ensure this little fact was well known far in advance and they didn’t bother. (What else is new?)

I’ve always been taught that a lie of omission is still a lie. I’m not going to pay them to lie to me.

457

since BS angel is right, I regret buying this DLC. Such a waste of money since I can’t play with my stuff on spartan ops. Oh well, lession of the story is. Always look to see if their are problems with DLC before buying them. Hopefully 343 makes it up to us by coming out with new DLC that WILL work with spartan ops. Very out raged about this.

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>

I agree with you that 343i seems to be creating smokescreens here, but remember, this isn’t the first time that 343 has been less than honest with us. The Crimson Map pack; In-game CSR; Fileshare; The Red X. 343i has shown a propensity for being very cavalier with the truth.

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> When I said “replace” I meant instead of loading armor piece X or weapon skin Y, it would load the new content in that designated area INSTEAD of a core piece of content.

What core pieces of content do you propose they replace?

> If you are referring to a master list load order addition, how do you explain so many other games with far more impressive maps and AI that have DLC up the wazoo?
>
> Either 343i is making up excuses, or they truly have incompetent programmers. Don’t get me wrong; I love playing Halo 4. Either way, this raises my doubts of the quality and service of future 343i titles. Why should I buy more games from a developer who can’t design a game to accept new DLC for multiple online game modes?

Different engines have different capabilities.

Every main Halo game has used a modified version of the previous game’s engine; in fact, I have seen images of Halo 1-era reference frame boxes hidden outside of Halo 4’s maps. As for 343i’s competence? They patched assets into the game’s standard multiplayer mode, something which has literally never been done before in this franchise’s decade-plus history. That they could not get that patch to work in Spartan Ops is not an indicator of incompetence, but merely of the limits of working in uncharted territory on a seven(?)-year-old platform.

> FYI, it doesn’t matter if I had 1,000TBs of RAM, Skyrim has a fatal flaw where when the game hits 3.1GBs (or is it 3.2GBs?) of system RAM, the engine crashes. The 360 has 2GBs of system RAM,

The 360 has 512 MB RAM – just under one sixth of the “lethal limit” supported by Skyrim’s game engine (which you got right on your first try – good memory). Skyrim’s PC modding capabilities are certainly impressive but have no relevance to the matter at hand. Given the memory differences, it’s not a valid comparison.

You don’t have to like what’s going on with the DLC, but there is no reason to doubt the explanation that’s been given. There are plenty of actual issues to discuss, such as the lack of a Marketplace disclaimer on release or (AFAIK) the continued lack of a disclaimer. No need to create new issues where there aren’t any.

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…I love halo, do not get me wrong. however… the lack of clarification on the actual product page on xbox.com, or a note on the market place, or in game store, could be considered false advertising.

personally? I dont care…I spend all my time in wargames anyways, so its not a deal breaker for me, though I have a british friend who wont stop hissing about it… yes…I said hissing.