Changes/improvements and a quick thought on sprint

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Love the beta; I think 343 deserves a lot of praise for the new things they are implementing that in a lot of ways bring Halo a step forward, while also combing them with suggestions from the community. Weapon balance is surprisingly sturdy for a beta, especially with the Hydra which I had thought could be extremely too powerful. It really seems more like a slightly stronger brute shot.

In general I don’t think much needs to be changed to improve the gameplay in Halo 5, but here are some suggestions…

  • Reduce grenade damage radius. I like the they are powerful, but I think they are just slightly too powerful in how far away you can be damaged by them. I’ve found that even thrusting to what seems like a safe distance reduces my shield to about 1/2 charge. I don’t think that they should be completely nerfed, but a slight reduction can go a long way in maintaining their effectiveness, while not allowing nade spamming a general area to become a common tactic used.

  • Brighten up some of the colors. In the darkest parts of Empire and Eden I have had trouble being able to see blue team spartans coming at me. It is usually once they have started firing that I can differentiate them from the colors on the map. This is also an issue in the “Spartan Hub”, all of the colors just seem muddied and not as vibrant as they maybe could be.

  • De-ranking?. I have been put in games where I have preformed well, gone even or positive, yet I’ve still been given a quite large reduction in my rank because I was in a team of new players to the beta and we lost. On the other side of that, I have been put on a well balanced team and I have had games where I go 17-7 or 24-3 and only go up in my rank slightly. It seems like you are punished much more than rewarded. Given that I do not know all of the small details about how the game calculates competitive rank, I admit that I cannot give reasons why this is the case.

  • Perhaps a better solution to this would be a grace period of about 2-3 games where you are able to have a few not-so-great games without being punished. As we know, much of Halo is based around team work, and if the team is not working together then the chances of winning are reduced. Even with spartan chatter,a team of random players cannot maintain map control unless they are moving as a unit. A player should not necessarily be punished for being put on a team where this is the case.

2

Extremely fair and well thought out post.

3

Def. agree. The game seems very polished.

One major thing I’d like to see is weapon and grenade adjustments/tweaks. At the very minimum, I hope they nerf the aim assist (bullet magnetism variant if you wish).

I’d really like to see this game go popular over at Gamebattles and MLG again but in the current state, I don’t think it will last too long.

4

Quick update:

  • Include ammo pickup sounds. Whenever I walk over or past a weapon and pick up ammo, I am thrown off by not hearing a sound indicating that I have done so. When it is silent, I feel that it throws off awareness and causes a player to focus their attention on something that should not need to be focused on.

  • Reduce light emitted from Prophets Bane and Energy Sword. Especially with the PB, the light it distracting and often distorts vision for a little over half of your screen. I understand that adding this lighting effect is meant to nerf the use of the swords a little bit by not making it as easy to see enemies. But just reducing this a little bit can be helpful for the player, while still not allowing the power weapon to become too powerful.

5

Agree with all points aswell as the update.

Nice to see more actual feedback and suggestion rather than a rage post, sprint shatstorm, or list of commands.

6

hit the points i agree with as well. frag grenades are little ridiculous just need a minor tweak. gameplay is pretty sweet.

7

Update 2:

Team kill in final version. I don’t know what 343 has said about team killing in the final version, but I hope that it remains in tact as it has in previous titles. I enjoy the fact that betrayals are a factor in the gameplay and as a part of team scoring, I would hate to see that gone.

Add a “no sprint” playlist. I have normally been a fan of sprint, and I still think that the game functions well with it. I do enjoy using it. However, after watching Ninja stream his “no sprint” gameplay I can’t go on without acknowledging that the game functions quite well without it. Thrusting still keeps the game fresh, but playing without sprint adds a whole different and fun feel to it. It would benefit the longevity of the game, and the community as a whole, if 343 did offer a playlist of no sprint gametypes.