Sales of COD games have been diminishing with each release for a few years now. Games like Titanfall, Destiny, and H4 that come from the COD tree of MP are coming out to much fanfare but failing to retain online population.
It’s been years of these sprint around, aim down iron sights games. People are growing tired.
So, why are people still argueing that Halo needs to incorporate these mechanics to stay relevant? Why incorporate mechanics that the industry is growing tired of? 343 is playing catch up in a race that is already over.
This is the perfect time, the true dawning of the current gen, to drop the tired mechanics of sprint, ADS and the like…not add more.
Let me ask you this, are you wanting to return to the day with odd zoom mechanics, no sprint, just running around with 2 dimensional gunning? FPSs will evolve however the formula honestly has reached a peak. I do not see it evolving without cross genre hybrids. Maybe it is time for the arena halo to end at halo 6 an possible halo FPS rpg or something, perhaps with Elites as characters and play and entire series that way, and honest look at the FPS market will tell you as a whole it is stagnating, not because of innovation issues. It is simply because there are limits to the amount of things you can do in an Arena style FPS.
Titanfall was truly a breath of fresh air IMO. Bots in the game with Mechs truly made for a very fun experience. Especially in the objective based modes. However, as mentioned above, its becoming very difficult to introduce innovation with FPS these days.
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> > It is simply because there are limits to the amount of things you can do in an Arena style FPS.
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> I wouldn’t say there are limits; it’s just nobody is happy with anything that 343 could do.
What 343 has done was innovate, truth is and I will get flamed. Gamers do not want innovation, or at least have no idea what they want. When someone changes something to a franchise, they hate. Look at Reach, halo 4, and now halo 5. Before anyone says anything, I agree developers innovate the wrong way a lot of times. However, there have been games that innovated good things but were tossed away because of people saying “it is not true to X”. Look at games like ShadowRun, Tribes, and Planetside to name a few. They have a good fanbase, however they are highly niche games. Reason why, they are not the traditional FPS. It is a sad cycle that the developer have been abusing sadly.
Time and time again I see people complain that they are innovating in the wrong direction. However, no one has given an example of how it could evolve in that direction. Truth is gamers don’t know what they want. If they do, usually that game exists, they just refuse to see it.
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> Time and time again I see people complain that they are innovating in the wrong direction. However, no one has given an example of how it could evolve in that direction. Truth is gamers don’t know what they want. If they do, usually that game exists, they just refuse to see it.
That is the sad truth, sadly the developers job is to figure out what they want. However, due to the fact money is a motivator and requirement, so because of the amount of hostility gamers show to new things. They are usually afraid to try out new things.
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> That is the sad truth, sadly the developers job is to figure out what they want. However, due to the fact money is a motivator and requirement, so because of the amount of hostility gamers show to new things. They are usually afraid to try out new things.
Yep, it’s a constant balancing act and battle between what the developers think the players want, what the players claim they want, what the players actually want, and how far the publishers are willing to allow the developers to go based on all of those variables.
More often than not, they get it wrong and/or are not allowed to take a new idea far enough to make it viable, but players themselves aren’t helping by constantly flaming. The real way to help developers make a game that you want to play is to, yes, make mention of the things you don’t like (civilly), but more importantly, to list out improvements/things you WOULD like to see instead.
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> > > It is simply because there are limits to the amount of things you can do in an Arena style FPS.
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> > I wouldn’t say there are limits; it’s just nobody is happy with anything that 343 could do.
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> What 343 has done was innovate, truth is and I will get flamed. Gamers do not want innovation, or at least have no idea what they want. When someone changes something to a franchise, they hate. Look at Reach, halo 4, and now halo 5. Before anyone says anything, I agree developers innovate the wrong way a lot of times. However, there have been games that innovated good things but were tossed away because of people saying “it is not true to X”. Look at games like ShadowRun, Tribes, and Planetside to name a few. They have a good fanbase, however they are highly niche games. Reason why, they are not the traditional FPS. It is a sad cycle that the developer have been abusing sadly.
It is not innovative in any form of the word. There are changes from the halo formula but not innovative every single new feature in Halo 5 has been seen in another title one way or another. Thrusters Halo 4, Clamber and slide (like assisted movement) has actually been added to most modern FPS now, the ground pound has the same feel as the super charges in Destiny not the same but similar instead of shooting out that instantly kills enemy you fly towards them. I could go on. And I don’t know about the other games you are saying but Tribes definitely has mechanics that no other shooter uses the glide to say one you know instantly you are playing tribes by the feel. The first 3 Halos had this “Halo” feel because they kept to the same formula and it is successful. But we do not want the same game!!! But, even though Halo 2 and 3 had the same fundamental gaming mechanics nobody has argued they are the same game, the fans want a game that has a similar change. Keeping the halo feel but introduces some changes to make it feel fresh.
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> It is not innovative in any form of the word. There are changes from the halo formula but not innovative every single new feature in Halo 5 has been seen in another title one way or another. Thrusters Halo 4, Clamber and slide (like assisted movement) has actually been added to most modern FPS now, the ground pound has the same feel as the super charges in Destiny not the same but similar instead of shooting out that instantly kills enemy you fly towards them. I could go on. And I don’t know about the other games you are saying but Tribes definitely has mechanics that no other shooter uses the glide to say one you know instantly you are playing tribes by the feel. The first 3 Halos had this “Halo” feel because they kept to the same formula and it is successful. But we do not want the same game!!! But, even though Halo 2 and 3 had the same fundamental gaming mechanics nobody has argued they are the same game, the fans want a game that has a similar change. Keeping the halo feel but introduces some changes to make it feel fresh.
You’re proving his point - innovation is difficult if not impossible.
Not one place in your post do I see any suggestions for what those changes should be that could “make it feel fresh.” Do you not see that’s what they’re trying to do? What changes are “fresh” and what changes are “breaking the halo feel”? If you can define that, you, sir, win the prize.
The thing that none of us can define is exactly what the “halo feel” is, and that’s the problem. Halo 2 and Halo 3 were very, very similar. So few changes they may as well have been the same game with new maps and graphics. I personally didn’t like Halo 3 that much, while I really enjoyed Halo 1 and 2. Halo 3, to me, seemed too similar to Halo 2 but with worse map design.
CoD has franchise fatigue because there isnt much to do on CoD. You just log onto TDM. When that get stale and you really wanna “spice things up”; you can play Domination. All in all on CoD its the same exact experience every time.
Why did Halo retain so many players in the past?
Many great base playlists; Team Slayer to Team Snipers to BTB. Lots of very fun variety.- Custom Games! Fat kid; Tower of Power; jenga; Cat and Mouse; ect.- A forge community; tons of different things one could create! I would make MLG maps to zombie maps for hours.- Theatre mode led to many funny machinimas and incredible montages.- An incredible ranking system that completely enticed players to wanna wager just one more match to get to that 50!With such incredible variety; its hard for the game to become stale; even after 3 solid years.
Halo doesnt need gimmicks or anything to modernize and stay fresh. Its got an abundance of playability; hell i didnt even mention The campaign in my list lol; thats usually any games main selling point; in Halo thats just another feature ha.
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> Time and time again I see people complain that they are innovating in the wrong direction. However, no one has given an example of how it could evolve in that direction. Truth is gamers don’t know what they want. If they do, usually that game exists, they just refuse to see it.
They’re the ones getting paid to develop the game, not us. They should come up with new stuff, not us.
I’m not so sure if I’d call removing all modern FPS mechanics and reverting back to a 2004-style of Halo gameplay “innovative” … not that it wouldn’t be welcomed, it’s just not innovation.
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> Let me ask you this, are you wanting to return to the day with odd zoom mechanics, no sprint, just running around with 2 dimensional gunning? FPSs will evolve however the formula honestly has reached a peak. I do not see it evolving without cross genre hybrids. Maybe it is time for the arena halo to end at halo 6 an possible halo FPS rpg or something, perhaps with Elites as characters and play and entire series that way, and honest look at the FPS market will tell you as a whole it is stagnating, not because of innovation issues. It is simply because there are limits to the amount of things you can do in an Arena style FPS.
I don’t necessarily want those things.
I think they should really return to the H2/H3 build and start from there with mechanics that are added only because they make the game better. Not because other successful games have them.
There isn’t a limit. People simply have very limited imagination and if the game developers at 343 can’t come up with any original ideas, maybe they’re in the wrong field.
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> Time and time again I see people complain that they are innovating in the wrong direction. However, no one has given an example of how it could evolve in that direction. Truth is gamers don’t know what they want. If they do, usually that game exists, they just refuse to see it.
Innovation is very tough. Especially when you’re dealing with a long running franchise with a massive, diehard built in fanbase. That’s why most people suggest refining what is already there. After H3 there was still a lot of room to grow. Especially considering, while incredibly successful in their own right, HCE and H2 were exclusive to the original xbox. During that console generation the overwhelming majority of console gamers owned a PS2 and never played those games. The masses really only ever played Halo 3. That’s one game. Halo was not in the position of a COD or an Assassin’s creed. There wasn’t an over saturation of Halo games. People still craved Halo coming off of H3 and people still do. It’s been 5-6 years since we’ve played true, core Halo MP.
One of the biggest trends in gaming right now as well is retro. Gaming is like anything.It’s cyclical. Old school gaming is en vogue right now. There couldn’t be a more perfect time to release a core Halo MP experience.
I think the belief that Cod is dying because of the same game mechanics in each game is wrong. If anything it has what has kept the franchise going. CoD is released once a year but how many CoDs is there like 9. That is still many more games than Halo , Halo used to release once every 3 years. and in the gap of the last 3 years Halo is dying out because of the change. Think about it CoD 9 really successful games with not much change to the orignal style, Halo has had 4 successful ones over a similar time span. I think CoD is dying just because it has been over done like 9 of the same game pretty much one a year ( don’t know actual figures) but it makes sense. If CoD had done one every three years it may still be going strong. They would only be on i don’t know CoD mw 3 or something. The fact Halo has had such a rapid decline can only be due to changing the game mechanics.
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> Let me ask you this, are you wanting to return to the day with odd zoom mechanics, no sprint, just running around with 2 dimensional gunning? FPSs will evolve however the formula honestly has reached a peak. I do not see it evolving without cross genre hybrids. Maybe it is time for the arena halo to end at halo 6 an possible halo FPS rpg or something, perhaps with Elites as characters and play and entire series that way, and honest look at the FPS market will tell you as a whole it is stagnating, not because of innovation issues. It is simply because there are limits to the amount of things you can do in an Arena style FPS.
Why should an entire sub-genre be killed? There is still a huge market for it.
The problem is that 343 is trying to cater to both crowds, which attracts basically nobody, hence the Halo 4 population.
Halo should focus on being Halo. Why 343 is so adamant on separating themselves from Bungie is beyond me.
People who like COD will play COD. People who like Halo will play real Halo.
Now, Halo fans have nothing (MCC is broken)… but COD fans still have COD. It’s just sad.
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> > Time and time again I see people complain that they are innovating in the wrong direction. However, no one has given an example of how it could evolve in that direction. Truth is gamers don’t know what they want. If they do, usually that game exists, they just refuse to see it.
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> They’re the ones getting paid to develop the game, not us. They should come up with new stuff, not us.
This just sounds like you want to complain. Yes they are being paid to develop the game, but if you can’t come up with an innovative idea then you’re just helping prove it’s difficulty.
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> > Time and time again I see people complain that they are innovating in the wrong direction. However, no one has given an example of how it could evolve in that direction. Truth is gamers don’t know what they want. If they do, usually that game exists, they just refuse to see it.
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> That is the sad truth, sadly the developers job is to figure out what they want.
See this mindset right here is the issue. It’s a huge issue with most AAA game devs, not just 343. It’s why indie, crowd funding and alternative development is set to flip this industry on it’s head.
It’s not up to game developers to figure out what we want. It’s up to game developers to think up and create a focused, succinct, great game that is THEIRS.
Bungie’s main saying for HCE and H2 and somewhat in to H3 was “we make games we enjoy, and we hope you like it too”. Somewhere along the lines that stopped and it became we make games we think will sell well and 343 has picked up that torch and carried it on and it shows(Bungie carried it on into Destiny).