Constructive Criticism on Halo 5 Beta

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Hola all,
So after putting a couple hours of game play into the beta, I have decided to make this post, forwarding my concerns and such. Even though my personality has caused those hours of gameplay to be rage inducing and agitating, I will try my best to make these points as unbiased as possible.

Cons:
Over Powered Weapons:
The weapons in the beta feel too powerful, to the point where the shield is effectively useless, as you’re dead within a second or two of being seen. Especially if you are double teamed or more, it’s practically impossible for the average player such as myself to play the game lone wolf. The assault rifle seems especially OP, with it’s slightly longer range and better accuracy than usual, which is quite irritating to be honest; plus the prophet’s bane, that thing is way too powerful, between it’s seemingly increased lunge radius and it’s player speed boost.

Team Balancing:
Now i’ve been told that no-body else has seen this, but it irritated me when I spotted it (even if it was just a glitch). I was playing a 4v4 match on Truth, when we lost a player due to lag, we were losing at the time, then suddenly one of the better players from the opposing team randomly switched to our team. Usually this wouldn’t be a complaint, but I feel that player’s pain, as TF2 has a similar team balancing system… it’s extremely annoying when you’re having fun with friends, doing good, them BAM, all of a sudden you’re on the other team with your stats reset…

Texture Shading:
I feel that for the most part, the game is too dark, and since there is no options/settings to change in the beta, we can’t exactly change that. Character customization is especially annoying, as it’s way too dark to tell exactly what shade the color you chose is.

Missing Grenade Indicator!:
The grenade indicator icon was an awesome addition to Halo 4! it actually gave you a tad bit more situational awareness while in combat. I see no reason as to why it had to be removed, especially since every 12 year old on a games console these days knows how to do nothing but spam grenades into the area before running in.

Winning Team’s Animation:
That “come at me bro” thing is super obnoxious, I know that they’re aiming for a more competitive game, but christ f*** it is infuriating, even if you win it just looks so silly.

Pros:
Spartan Abilities:
Now i’m an old fashioned Halo player, so I love the classic game play. But even so, I love this, the spartan abilities give the game that perfect fast paced edge that Halo has always needed in my opinion, it’d work awesomely if not for the OP weapons and useless shields. Not to mention how awesome they will be for Machinima if Theater mode is in the final product.

============================================================================

Unfortunately the cons far out-way the pros for me :confused: which sucks, but hopefully most of my concerns will be ironed out.
Thanks for reading folks.

2

Well, I’ve just played a few matches myself. I’ve been brutally reminded again as to why I suck at fast-paced games…it’s down to a terrible reaction time…but anyway…

Overpowered weapons–True, the shield does feel like it’s barely present in Halo 5. I’m pretty sure this is a result of trying to balance everything with the Halo 1 pistol. Personally, I think this is a mistake–the Halo 1 pistol has always been considered to be a power-weapon. Even in Halo 1, it made every other weapon essentially useless. I’m a big fan of the idea of having the entire past Halo sandbox just thrown together for Halo 5, so I’d like to see the Halo 1 pistol be a much rarer, powerful weapon on maps, and the weak Halo 2/3 pistol be the much more common variant.
I think the weapons should be rebalanced around this idea. It would also allow for the return of dual-wielding, if desired [as OP as the weapons are now, it’s never going to work]. See my thread “Innovation in Halo / Gameplay Ideas for Halo 5” for further details–I’ve made several rather detailed posts as to what I’d like to see in Halo 5.

Actually, it’s not just the Halo 1 pistol it’s balancing–its Sprint. Now, Master Chief always looked like he was running back in Halo 1, 2, and 3, so I never understood sprint. He’s not walking, he’s already moving at top speed. We need a way to slow him down–that’s what I think. Remember, most things in Halo are oversized–the Spartans and the Elites are huge compared to the regular Marines. Those tiny little Grunts? They’re 4 foot six–1.38 metres tall. Don’t look that tall, do they? Our perspective on distance and height, and thus our perspective of velocity is seriously skewed in Halo.

Over-speedy gameplay–now this is just me being a little selfish because my reaction time sucks–or rather, when I play video games, I play for fun–I don’t want to spend any effort in getting tense or surfing on an adrenaline rush–I just want to have fun at my own pace. The Spartan abilites–as I elaborate on further down–are great. But in prior Halo games, I was methodically aiming for the head, firing a round, adjusting my aim, firing a round, rinse and repeat. In the Halo 5 Beta I have no time to do that–I can just about hope to center my weapon in the general vicinity of the enemy’s head, spam bullets, and hope the enemy player dies. When I play solo for the Legendary campaigns and Spartan Ops, it’s the same thing–methodically taking out one enemy after the other, pop back in to cover, let the shields recharge, pop out and take care of another enemy or two–not wildly spamming bullets and grenades and hoping that I don’t die.

Team balancing–no issues here. Remember this is a Beta. One glitch I saw in my second match was the return of the randomly dancing Spartan corpses.

Texture shading–huh, here I was thinking that there was something wrong with my screen. Yes, the character customization screen was definitely difficult to see–but the gameplay seemed to be its usual bright, cheery self. Gamma settings, never forget those.

Missing Grenade indicator–I never liked the indicators to begin with. Not only can I see the grenade flying at me, I could see these animated grenade indicators moving around my HUD and distracting me from the grenade itself in Halo 4. When encountering those grenade spammers, it was even worse, because there would be half a dozen grenades coming towards me, as well as the indicators. In short, I find the grenade indicator to be distracting from the actual grenade itself.

Winning Team’s animation–the idea is to further identify with your avatar. You’ve won, you’re cheering, and on screen you have your avatar cheering along with your teammates. The armour is supposed to be customized to a degree that you can instantly identify your Spartan. When the enemy team wins, you are supposed to focus your anger on those enemy avatars, and if they stick around for the next game then you know the “face” of your enemy and you can exact your revenge.

Spartan Abilities–I like these abilities too. They provide a more immersive experience, and more fluid gameplay. Missing a jump because Spartans can’t grab hold of things? Being unable to slide because crouching instantly kills momentum? Really, things like moving faster [or slower], sliding on the ground, and grabbing hold of a ledge to clamber up are things that a regular person should have no trouble doing, let alone a Spartan. The smart-scope is just a visual overhaul of what we’ve had for UNSC weapons since Halo 1–making use of the smart-link and the technology in the helmet–and the rest make use of that previously useless thruster pack we’ve been lugging around since Halo 1. It’s not just machinima–it really does give you a sense of…oh, this is what it feels like to be a Spartan.

3

Over powered weapons
I disagree, I feel like all weapons are designed to fit a roll. SMG is a better close quarters gun than the assault rifle, assault rifle is meant as a weapon to use while closing the distance between an enemy, pistol is for when you’re caught reloading or you’re reloading and trying to get that kill. Sniper is for long distance combat, even though it has a rather niche’ role on Empire. Prophets bane is alright imo, you just got to keep your distance to avoid not dieing, quit running at the enemy and immediatly go back once you see it (maybe throw a grenade at your feet?)
Also I Think its less of a OP weapons problem you have but TTK-being-too-high problem, I do admit spawning into a 2v1 is hopeless, you have nearly no time to escape. That’s a spawn issue though, I hope 343 implements equipment like a bubble shield or something to counter it. TTK = Time To Kill

Team Balancing - I hate this as well, that being said its better than having a lopsided 2v4.

Texture shading - there is a serious problem with spartan colors, they all look a little too similar and each color has a too much blue, yellow looks greener than it should and purple looks lighter green than it should.

Missing grenade indicator - me I don’t care about that too much, never cared for it.

Winning Team Animation - I kind of agree, but I also agree with Astronaut (Who is one of the only people offering constructive and rationale feedback here) that it’s meant to aggravate the enemy team. This game is designed to be played competitively and intensely, they want that rush of adrenaline and Dope when you win, and want that other team to want to kill you.

Spartan Abilities - I also like this, even though a lot of old guard fans who deliberately hate on this game and don’t even give it a chance by refusing to adapt. This is meant to add to the fast pace, to lessen the CoD aspect of this (even though AW has it) because Halo 4 had a lot of just sprinting around to find someone to shoot, here we have Map control, power weapons to be dominated, with the return of the competitive aspect and more opportunities to outplay people.

4

Overpowered weapons
To be honest 4vs4 slayer is the wrong gametype to be trying to play lone wolf. First couple games I was just thrusting about the place like a moron going for close up kills like I did in Halo 4. It doesn’t work, nor should it really. It is a team game. That said I have survived being outnumbered several times. The kills are quick but doesn’t feel too quick really. AR needed some seriously love after previous games. It shouldn’t be completely worthless like it used to be. A slight reduction of range would be ok but the fact is a BR or DMR will still beat it at range. Honestly even the pistol will. As for the sword… it is a power weapon. Controlling it should enable the team to get more kills.

Texture shading
Clearly just a beta issue as you can see how flat things look in the spartan hub.

Missing Grenade indicator
Hadn’t noticed it. Always felt cheap to me in shooters but in Halo you can justify it due to the heads up display and suit tracking stuff like that. Would make the thruster more tactical to avoid them if it showed indicators but I kind of like having to get out of the way without the game prompting me.

Winning Team’s Animation
Agreed. The whole thing feels a little like that with all the Spartan’s talking like they just finished a day of surfing and are trying to scam on ladies in a bar. Doesn’t bother me that much but does seem a little stupid.

Spartan Abilities
This is what Halo has been missing. Halo CE and 2 feel very slow to me after playing them in the MCC. On big maps if you didn’t have a vehicle you were in for a long and boring walk, on small maps it often comes down to corridor crawling. Halo 3 equipment I never really liked that much. Reach and 4 abilities did make things just too crazy and unpredictable. Having all the abilities available in 5 adds a great level of strategic play and makes the game far more mobile and enjoyable.

5

I’ve been on the beta all day, played just under 50 matches and:

Overpowered weapons: I agree the Assault Rifle is too OP, it needs to be nerfed a tad, the SMG feels too powerful but it is a on map spawn so it’s okay I guess, Prophets Bane, I personally love it, and it always scares the **** out of me when someone comes around the corner and say’s HELLO and murders me, that’s also one way to die that I have no problem with.

Shield: The shield does feel a bit weak

Team Balancing: I’ve had no problems

Texture Shading: Yeah the menu’s need to be brighter but the maps are beautiful

Grenade Indicator: I don’t miss it, because the grenades seem a lot more visible than they die before and the spartan call outs tell you if an explosive is headed your way

Winning Team Animation**:** I really like it

Spartan abilities: No problems with them at all it add’s the speed Halo’s been lacking for so long

Overall this beta is making me feel more excited than I was for Halo 2’s Anniversary Multiplayer NOT CAMPAIGN but it’s the second most exciting thing I’ve played in all my years of gaming, and that’s saying something.

343 your on to something here, don’t go off track, and this will be the best Halo multiplayer ever…

6

> 2533274855768280;1:
> Hola all,
> So after putting a couple hours of game play into the beta, I have decided to make this post, forwarding my concerns and such. Even though my personality has caused those hours of gameplay to be rage inducing and agitating, I will try my best to make these points as unbiased as possible.
> =============================================================
> Cons:
> Over Powered Weapons:
> The weapons in the beta feel too powerful, to the point where the shield is effectively useless, as you’re dead within a second or two of being seen. Especially if you are double teamed or more, it’s practically impossible for the average player such as myself to play the game lone wolf. The assault rifle seems especially OP, with it’s slightly longer range and better accuracy than usual, which is quite irritating to be honest; plus the prophet’s bane, that thing is way too powerful, between it’s seemingly increased lunge radius and it’s player speed boost.
>
> Team Balancing:
> Now i’ve been told that no-body else has seen this, but it irritated me when I spotted it (even if it was just a glitch). I was playing a 4v4 match on Truth, when we lost a player due to lag, we were losing at the time, then suddenly one of the better players from the opposing team randomly switched to our team. Usually this wouldn’t be a complaint, but I feel that player’s pain, as TF2 has a similar team balancing system… it’s extremely annoying when you’re having fun with friends, doing good, them BAM, all of a sudden you’re on the other team with your stats reset…
>
> Texture Shading:
> I feel that for the most part, the game is too dark, and since there is no options/settings to change in the beta, we can’t exactly change that. Character customization is especially annoying, as it’s way too dark to tell exactly what shade the color you chose is.
>
> Missing Grenade Indicator!:
> The grenade indicator icon was an awesome addition to Halo 4! it actually gave you a tad bit more situational awareness while in combat. I see no reason as to why it had to be removed, especially since every 12 year old on a games console these days knows how to do nothing but spam grenades into the area before running in.
>
> Winning Team’s Animation:
> That “come at me bro” thing is super obnoxious, I know that they’re aiming for a more competitive game, but christ f*** it is infuriating, even if you win it just looks so silly.
> ===========================================================================
>
> Pros:
> Spartan Abilities:
> Now i’m an old fashioned Halo player, so I love the classic game play. But even so, I love this, the spartan abilities give the game that perfect fast paced edge that Halo has always needed in my opinion, it’d work awesomely if not for the OP weapons and useless shields. Not to mention how awesome they will be for Machinima if Theater mode is in the final product.
>
> ============================================================================
>
> Unfortunately the cons far out-way the pros for me :confused: which sucks, but hopefully most of my concerns will be ironed out.
> Thanks for reading folks.

you say your a old fashion halo player and you actually LIKED grenade indicators???

7

FLINCH

Why is there still flinch? Weren’t you guys explicit when you said flinch is out, de scope is in? instead we now have BOTH which is not only limited, but shows a lack of honesty on 343 part.

DESCOPE

Yes we wanted this back, Yes it IS back BUT. now there is a delay on when you can scope back in, the sniper rifle already has a horrible scope time, and furthermore since a single bullet from the ar, which is now a PINPOINT accurate weapon will de scope enjoy getting kicked out of scope the second your in it now.

RECOIL

Why were recoil mechanics added to ALL guns? Did the scientifically enhance super soldiers wearing 1000 pound power armour skip on arm day, and if these weapons recoil for them, they must be IMPOSSIBLE for a non augmented soldier to fire right?

SMARTLINK SCOPE

“Its not ads” Except it IS ads, especially on the ar, which is now a valid threat at all ranges,it’s a starting weapon which is s’posed to be a weapon that will work until you come to a better weapon, right now it is a jack of all trade, master of none, it presents far to good of a threat against all other weapons, including the sniper rifle (giving the pinpoint accuracy and ability to descope on one shot)

NETCODE

The net code for the beta is horrendous, i mean, seriously, it makes battlefield 4 look good, i should not get hit by a single ar shot, and suddenly die in .2 seconds later, Halo has always been a game where skill prevail, where even if you get shot you CAN turn around and present a valid threat to your attacker, right now, you might as well start thinking about your next move if you get shot first, cause you will die.

KILLTIMES

Is it just me, or are kill time SIGNIFICANTLY faster then even halo 4(which had the fastest kill of all halo) this is NOT a good thing, halo has always been fast pace action, but slower pace combat, where combat takes several seconds to complete with non power weapons, this made power weapons all the more important for their ability to instantly kill, it also allowed skills to prevail over reflex, which set it aside from other shooters. While not 100% accurate, i have always classified halo (and other FPS) into two types, Twitch shooters (where first shooter generally win and twitchy caffeine drugged sugar excited children have the advantage) and skill shooters (where a player skill will allow them to overcome all obstacles) halo 5 FEELS like a twitch shooter, and not a skill shooter.

SMART SCOPE +PRECISION WEAPONS

Ok got smart scope out of the way, this is feedback numeral 2, smart scope on precision weapons. Namely the visual obscurity that happens when scope on precision weapons (ala the DMR) and the time to scope on the sniper rifle, the sniper rifle should not take a half a second to scope in, this makes a logical sense if it was a “ADS” first person shooter where they need to bring the scope to the shooter eye, but it’s not its the so called smart scope which is the camera linked to the spartan HUD, when we press the button, the change over should be instant.

HIT MARKERS

Now i asked this back in halo 4, but what is the point of visual hit markers? What purpose does a hit marker serve? Seriously 343 can you answer that? a player should know when they score a hit with a gun, i mean they had to aim the gun at the player and pull the trigger,didn’t they? the ONLY thing i see hit markers doing, is turning explosives into a echo location device ? Allowing you to throw it around blind corners, wait for the explosion and if you get a hit marker, it means there is a enemy behind that corner. I simply don’t understand the fascination with hit markers in this generation of games, and i find they make no sense logically, canonically, and game play wise.

SEARCH TIMES

Game search times are WAY to long 'Nuff said.

LOCKED INTO SEARCH MENU

At no time should a game lock you into the search for player menu, until a game is finalized with two even players, players should be able to back out of that menu.

KICK TO MENU

There are several annoying “kick to menu” errors while searching for a game.

FRIENDLY FIRE

This needs to be enabled, friendly fire has been a staple and game play influence feature since halo 1. It significantly impacts the way halo is played because of the risks associated with mindless grenade spam, and shooting. It needs to come back, do NOT i say again DO NOT continue to hold player hands by giving them no FF, and other noob friendly design as game play decisions.

WEAPON PICKUP DIAGRAMS

Please return weapon pickup diagrams, so we now what weapon we are picking up at a glance, instead of having to read a sentence to find out, already had it where i picked up the WRONG weapon from a enemy kill (he dropped Prophets bane, and a BR, i ran over the sword to get it and ended up getting his stupid br instead)

8

> 2533274794052092;7:
> FLINCH
> DESCOPE
> RECOIL
> SMARTLINK SCOPE
> NETCODE
> KILLTIMES
> SMART SCOPE +PRECISION WEAPONS
> HIT MARKERS
> SEARCH TIMES
> LOCKED INTO SEARCH MENU
> KICK TO MENU
> FRIENDLY FIRE
> WEAPON PICKUP DIAGRAMS

Good grief. I agree and fully support everything you have said about this beta, especially when it links to the practicalities of Spartans battling it out. Everything.

In fact, being a Spartan or Elite is one of the unique things about Halo. A 1,000 pound [450kg] suit of Mjolnir armour isn’t going to flinch because of a couple of bullets, especially when the shields are preventing the bullets/plasma/needlers/spikes from impacting on the armour anyway–all the kinetic energy and heat is dispersed as light.

This is slightly off-topic, but that does mean we’ll have to get rid of the funny Elite head-bob animation when shot, too. Thinking about it, if the advanced “plasma-like” rounds actually have a little mass as well, but lower velocities, then it explains why they are so effective against shields, and not armour–the heat has to be dispersed by the shields, as well, on top of the kinetic energy. The armour itself is actually pretty effective at dealing with extreme temperatures–or hazardous environments, which is why plasma rounds don’t work as well as bullets against the armour. Not sure why Spartans bleed in gameplay, though–their suit is completely sealed, unlike Elites.

Anyway, concerning aim-down-sights…I’m okay with the visual redesign, but I’m not too happy about it, because it is aim down sights. I don’t think 343 industries truly understands what the difference is. With a smart scope displaying the feed from your weapon to your HUD, theoretically a Spartan could be sprinting forwards, and firing a weapon behind them at an enemy whilst zoomed in. THAT is the difference between aim-down-sights and smart-scoping. Good luck illustrating that through gameplay though–it would be better to show it in a cutscene.

Killtimes are definitely too fast…although I’ve already complained about those in my previous post. Weapon pickups I had problems with–for some reason I never saw the weapon until I saw the line of text, possibly due to the colour palette, or some other lack of a clear distinction between the weapon and its immediate surroundings and then I had to double check the text to make sure that I was picking up the weapon I wanted–definitely need an image. Netcode–I don’t know too much about this, but there were multiple occasions where a sniper rifle shot clearly went through the geometry of the map to kill me, as well as occasions were I would be hiding behind a wall, and the killcam would show that I was actually in a different position, clearly exposed.

Hit markers–in campaign I frequently turn scoring on, because I want to know if the enemy is dead or not yet. If the enemy isn’t dead yet, then I haven’t hit them enough times yet. In short, I’d like a death flag so I know that I’ve killed my enemy, but not an unnecessary and frequently confusing visual hit-marker–we already have one due to the shields flaring.
If you truly want some way to tell whether or not you’ve hit a hidden enemy or not, the sound of their depleted shields or recharging shields should serve as an auditory hit marker.

Search times, kicks to menu, and being locked into the menu are hopefully just beta issues.

THEATER MODE: For crying out loud, this should be obvious. If you include killcams, why not Theater mode? They use the same principle, don’t they? It’s always interesting for the player to be able to save clips and see the action from a different angle. Not only that–it’s bragging rights for 343 industries. The visuals in the beta are gorgeous, and I was hoping to be able to explore the maps and admire the scenery and all the hard work that people put into making this Beta without people shooting at me whilst I’m doing it. Seriously, the visuals are so compelling I don’t want to fight, I want to explore for a bit so will you quit shooting at me. On another note, if you get distracted like I am with this new gameplay, you’re instantly dead, so there is no time to even take a couple of seconds to admire the scenery in the Halo 5 Beta–so all the fancy visuals are wasted effort. This same logic applies to campaign theater as well, so I hope 343 industries remembers that, too.