As a long-time Halo fan, and someone that stuck through the catastrophe that the last couple years have been, I need a moment to rant.
I started way back in the days of Halo 1, having get-togethers of 6 or so friends with multiple Xboxes linked up. Then came Halo 2, which I only briefly got to experience online while playing with others. Then, came Halo 3. I played the hell out of Halo 3. It was, to me, the most fun all-around (possibly because I never experienced the matchmaking aspect of Halo 2 to its fullest potential). The campaign for Halo 3 was incredible. I still occasionally go back to it. The same can be said of Halo 1 and 2 (though the “boss-fights” in 2 were a bit silly and felt forced). The matchmaking system in Halo 3, though markedly frustrating for me at times (especially at its onset. I thought I was good because I could beat my friends. Little did I know how wrong I was). However, it was frustrating for the right reasons. I was always trying to find ways to get better at the game, whether it was learning jumps, or clever routes, or playing Octagon and BR Dome. And people talked. They always talked. Almost every game you went into, 3/4 of the people in it would have a mic, because team-work and winning were what the game was about. Team-work was how you ranked up, to try and get your 50 (Something I never did attain in Halo 3).
Then came Halo: Reach. The campaign was was my least favorite of the predecessors (including ODST), but as that isn’t what I am here to rant about, I’ll start with firefight.
Firefight in ODST was amazing. You faced an unrelenting wave after wave of enemies, scrounged for ammo, and had to come up with strategies to stay alive. Getting the Endure achievement with three of my friends, and fighting non-stop for hours and failing, multiple times, was one of my most memorable Halo experienced. Reach bastardized this. We never got a firefight mode that compared. We got casual firefight, very casual firefight, and generator defense (did anyone even play this?). Unlimited ammo, limited enemies, and no teamwork.
Then came Matchmaking. The pace was hilariously slow, thanks to reduced movement speed/weapon bloom/armor abilities. Weapon and map control was broken thanks to the jetpack. Almost every map was bad, and the ones that became player favorites (like Countdown) were still just slightly less bad than the others. Hence the reason it was known as Crouchdown and Campdown. And you know what I heard from the Gamebattles crew, as well as half the people in the forums? Adapt. I did. I stuck with it, and changes were made. Bloom was reduced, making gameplay much better. Armor lock was nerfed. New forged maps were added. The matchmaking system was updated so you wouldn’t go into Big Team by yourself and get spawn-killed by Gamesager and his banshee. But none of this made the game feel as fun as Halo 3 had been. The only thing that did was playing with my team in Squad Slayer. We routinely would run up against some of the best teams in Reach. We would almost always play on Countdown. And we didn’t always win, but it was always fun. We worked together to try and topple giants, and that was a great feeling…until, they, of course, removed Squad Slayer…
Then came Halo 4. I wanted to like Halo 4 so much, and I did for a while. People complained about the Boltshot. Yes, it was way over-powered. But I took the advice of the community trolls from Reach and adapted, and sure enough it was nerfed. Then it was the Beam Rifle: nerfed. But the funny thing about Halo 4, is what has led me to the place I am now is not so much the in-game mechanics (though there are 2 I will get to in a minute). I have no real problem with the armor abilities, loadouts, and unlimited power weapons (though I would love to see weapons on the map come back and have ordinance limited to non-game-changing weapons). The game just isn’t fun for me, and here is why:
Nothing in this game encourages team play. This is, I believe, why Halo 3 had such an amazing community that talked to each other, even if it was just trash talk in the lobby half the time. In Halo 3, your 1-50 rank was based upon wins and losses in your playlist. There were Social Playlists, which were also quite fun, that didn’t interfere with CSR (but win/loss was still important as winning a game got you that experience point). Halo: Reach, trashed this idea entirely and much of the community left with it. The rank influenced the way people played, which is why it is such an important concept. If you didn’t work together as a team, you would lose to a better coordinated team, and you wouldn’t rank up. And as a result of this, communication was an integral and possibly the most important aspect of the game. Which is what made it so much fun. Halo 4, to me, as missed the entire point of the CSR system by making so much of it based on individual performance. Once again, people have no reason to communicate. And it takes it one step further than that. Several people I used to play with often prefer to search by themselves, as playing with other good players might reduce their CSR because they won’t get first. And once again I can hear the forum trolls in my head telling me to get a team. But the people I enjoy playing with aren’t always online when I am, and back in the days of Halo 3 I almost always enjoyed searching by myself, because the community was there, and we worked together.
That’s the important part. I have two other details to add about in-game mechanics.
Instant-Spawn breaks the game. It is a big part of why the best players tend to hang back with a light rifle or DMR, and it encourages intelligent players to camp. I taught a couple of my friends this at the onset of Halo 4. If you push, you die. Every time. And usually by someone you just killed. It is senseless to try and hold map control on any smaller map in gametypes with instant-respawn, at least in the traditional sense. It encourages people to stay back.
And speaking of staying back, what in god’s name were they thinking with this last update? The BR update is amazing and much needed. I love the carbine buff and light rifle buff, as well as the DMR nerf. Those are all much needed. But the AR is absolutely broken now. It kills significantly faster than the BR/DMR/Carbine at far too extreme a range. If someone got the drop on me from ten feet I would get it. But I am getting killed from 30 or 40 easily with no time to even respond. From about 15 paces today I had someone kill me with an AR faster than I could fire off two bursts with the BR. They said it would take more skill to use, but given that almost every game of Regicide I played today had the winner using the AR, I know that isn’t true. AR+ Instant Spawn = ridiculous. I am not going to adapt to that. That is a game breaking mechanic.
Thank you for reading my rant. Constructive feedback is always loved. I just freaking miss the community. Playing Halo isn’t really even fun without it.