Constructive criticism thread; top 3 issues!

Games Other Halo
#1

Forums are a jungle - figured we could create a thread, with each person listing their top 3 issues that prevents them from having fun in MP…the point of this is to truly let 343i know what needs to change and NOW. The whole ‘you killed Halo, 343’ isn’t really that helpful in the long run.

My top 3 issues for Halo 4 MP

  1. Matchmaking needs filtering: we need the option to connect to a game either: Fast, Language, good connection, skill, etc. Also, no cooperative search option. if I want to play campaign with three other dudes or dudettes, and my friends are all in school or work at the time, why no option to seek out others, like in Reach?

  2. OP weapons: Blotshot, DMR, incinerator cannon, etc - all create an unfair advantage in the game…they need a lot of work, and another huge factor I dread MP in its current incarnation

  3. LAG in MP, co-op Campaign and Spartan ops - this is becoming a serious issue for me, and may have to do with the total lack of localization in matchmaking, but its bad enough it made the top 3 for me on its own

Let’s here your top 3 issues that need immediate addressing?

#2

  1. making random ordinances LESS random (lower chance of better power weapons)

  2. Death X’s

  3. Don’t start games unless it is actually 4 v 4

#3

In descending order based on importance:
(Please read the issue names as being shouted by an audience of enthusiastic people between the ages of 8 and 21 for maximum effect)
(I find it enjoyable to read the text under them in Danny DeVito’s voice, but Christopher Walken is acceptable)

  1. CUSTOM GAMES OPTIONS
    We’ve got 162 pages about this ridiculousness already, and I’m getting tired of repeating myself.

  2. COMMUNICATION (possibly deserves #1)
    343i is not communicating with us whatsoever.
    They’ve been communicating with kissasses on Twitter just fine, but the moment anyone offers criticism, they go quieter than a rock in a pile of clay.

  3. MAPS
    I find the matchmaking maps painful to play, and it seems that a pretty big portion of the community shares these feelings.
    The forge maps are even worse. Forgers NEED two things: good maps, and a decent item roster.
    Halo 4 has neither of these things, and this paired with the lack of custom games functionality has crippled several forging communities.

#4

My top 3

  1. The No Skill Kill - this is where you are totally owning a guy and instead of them even firing a shot they run up to you and place a sticky on your face.

*I have loved CQC in every halo game. This has turned me into a -YOINK-ing sniper/DMR.

  1. Vehicles are crap - Thanks to being able to spawn with stickies vehicles are no longer a threat. I pride myself on being able to take a frag explosion and use it to my advantage and land on my wheels 80-90% of the time. All my driving skill is now useless when I get in and the enemy team goes LOLOLOLOL and unleash a salvo of stickies, 8+ stickies is hard to doge and if you do they at least go close enough that you die.

  2. Wheelman specialization does not stop my last complaint.

#5

  1. Double Team (Currently announced)

  2. Smaller maps, Forge versions are fine. (Semi-announced)

  3. Allow unique spartans in Flood, not lime-green team.

I’m a lucky and pretty well off child.

#6

A) Give players the option of turning JiP OFF. This way they can either hop into a game immediately, or they can wait for a fresh one.

B) Randomness, if you’re going to copy CoD, at least do it right. Let us choose our OWN ordnance packages so I can stop getting Pulse Grenade / Needler / Speed Boost in over half of my packages. It’s honestly like the more -Yoink- I’m kicking, the more the game’s coding tries to slow me down by giving me crap ordnance options. I’ve even tried the requisistion perk for several matches. NO HELP!
If my starting 3 options are garbage, the reroll always chooses garbage again! I unlocked requisition because I was expecting better chances at the GOOD power weapons, so far all it has done is switched out the Needler for the Concussion Rifle, Shotgun, or Scattershot.

Again if you’re going to copy CoD, do it right. Let players choose their packages, and depending on how strong something is, it takes more points to unlock it, this way the players can choose if they want to play short term for a lot of weaker bonuses, or play long term for the stronger ones, and prevents players like me from constantly getting Needler as their option, while other players get Incendiary Cannons.

C) Fix the weapon balance.
Loadout weapons are supposed to be WEAKER than power weapons.
The needler isn’t a -Yoinking!- power weapon. Sure you can get an easy kill with it, but with the flight time you’re most likely to start firing, die as a result from their hitscan DMR, and then get the kill from the grave as the needlers finally blow up. The only way you’re going to use the needler without dying is if either:

A) The player you’re killing is a bad shot (In which case you didn’t need the power weapon anyway)
B) You get the drop on the player and are able to start firing before they do (Again, in which case you wouldn’t need the power weapon anyway)

Fix your dang concussion rifle, that thing was decent in Reach where there where a lot of CQC inside buildings (Players head hits ceiling), and you could actually lock the player down. Very little of the CQC enviroments give the concussion rifle what it needs to stun lock the enemy player, making it virtually worthless.

Make the Boltshot a Mauler, where they can do a charged shot to drop your shields, then a quick melee to kill you. This means that they have to be 3 feet away from you, rather than 9 to score the kill, and would actually mean the CQC power weapons like Shotgun and Scattershot, the POWER WEAPONS, would then outperform the loadout weapon Boltshot.

Doesn’t need a whole lot of philisophical debate, just stick to the one core concept, that POWER WEAPONS SHOULD ALWAYS BE STRONGER THAN STARTING WEAPONS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE NICHES. That’s all, it doesn’t have to be complicated at all.

#7

Ah, I love seeing threads like these.

A) BR Buff/SLIGHT AR nerf: Im a BR guy and I feel like the BR is fairly underpowered in quite a lot of situations. I really hate the recoil on the BR and wish it was more steady like the Halo 3 BR. As for the SLIGHT AR nerf, Im glad its now a useful weapon but I feel like in range battles DMR wins and up close the AR wins leaving the BR fairly vulnerable. There may be a better way to solve this issue, I just want the BR to feel like it is worth using.

B) More symmetrical maps with predictable weapon drops: Theres not much more to say that that. The maps don’t give me a Halo vibe for the most part, other than Haven and Adrift. Some maps are very good but others just don’t feel like they being in a Halo game. I miss the skill of learning maps as well as weapon spawns.

C) Competitive Ranking system: Im going to leave this one open depending on the CSR system works will determine if this point is fixed. I know I already sound like a Halo 3 fanboy, but a system similar to the 1-50 would be ideal.

As I’ve said many times, I do have a Halo 3 bias, I just feel things were implemented correctly in that game and Halo 4 has the potential to be the best Halo it just didn’t implement things the way it should have. Also, Customs needs to come alive again. Im big on customs/forging and I miss them.

#8

I hope to be constructive with my criticism on what is a beautiful game and not just vent about the few major problems here, let’s see how it turns out…

  1. The MM is unbalanced. I liked Halo MM because everybody starts with an even footing. Counter counts down, everyone starts with the same weapon and has the same chances at the power up/weapons and vehicles. I was worried when Reach put in AAs, but soon realized that since everybody had access to the same loadouts in any given match that it was still an even match (despite AL). This is not true with H4LO where it rewards experienced players with advantageous loadouts over someone who is just starting the game, and rewards a player who is already doing well with a power weapon, tipping the balance towards an obviously already winning player. The reason I hated COD is this very same imbalance.

  2. The loadouts are OP. People complain that the Boltshot is OP. I think it’s just fine the way it is. It just doesn’t belong in a starting loadout as it is a power weapon. But the Carbine, BR, DMR, PP, Light Rifle, and Plasma Grenades don’t belong in the loadouts as well. It was a problem in Reach continues to be a problem now. I guess this goes hand in hand with the random weapon drops. If there wasn’t this lazy system of handing out weapons/weapon placement, then maybe the game would be more balanced and fair and we would have a reason to explore the maps and not create a mosh pit in the middle.

  3. Hmmmm…Forge or Vehicles? Forge or Vehicles? FORGE! WTF is with these “Forge Maps”?! Not even one close to a blank slate to work with? You HAVE to work around unwanted structures? After we’ve been given Foundry, Sandbox, and Forge World we get three cramped levels that force us to work around or include some structures that we didn’t ask for. I love the new tools and all, I just REALLY wish that my imagination wasn’t limited by all the junk in the way and asymmetrical layouts. Ugh. Can’t you just give us a GIGANTIC blank room to work with? Something we could build vertically in? Or use OUR imagination to create OUR OWN vision? We can’t even forge on Ragnarok?! I thought that’s what Forge was supposed to be about? But I guess it’s all moot if custom games doesn’t work properly…

It’s hard to spend so much time and money playing these games, reading these books, buying merchandise, and being a fan in general and to feel like I’ve had so much taken away all at once. I suppose I’ll adapt, but I don’t really want to. Remember these: http://halowiki.net/p/maps ? Remember how much FUN Halo 3 was? Each map has such distinct memories and I could really care less about the ones I play on now. This is a beautiful game, but it feels just a bit hollow. I’m hoping 343i listens and I look forward to playing Halo 5. For now, I’ll just endure and try to adapt and squint my eyes really hard so it doesn’t look so much like Call of Doody.

#9

1.) DMR and Boltshot
2.) Lack of a standard FFA playlist
3.) Lack of small maps

#10

My top three would have to be

  1. 343
  2. 343
  3. 343
#11

the main problem is that the game focuses on speed, halo is an arena shooter not a sandbox shooter, respawn times and weapons on the map exist for a reason.

spawning needs fixing, insta respawning is good in games like cod which requires no teamwork but spawning on the opposite side of the map to your team is a big problem, bring back bro spawning or spawn syncing.

dmr needs a damage reduction to 5 headshots to kill (not a fire rate reduction), the dmr and the br are two completely differrent weapons for differrent types of players, if anything i wasn’t looking forward the dmr’s return because the weapon is just horrible in every way (343 ACTUALLY TOOK THIS LITERALLY AND MADE IT MORE POWERFUL!!! sorry for the caps) and by horrible i meant it felt horrible to use, no one wants to have to time their shots, and it rewards players who don’t, the br didn’t have bloom and instead it had spread which worked perfectly.

also the forge mode is full of glitches and some of the forge objects are impractical for using magnets because they all have holes in (when you want to make a gravity area and it has holes in the forge pieces inside the gravity area leading to outer space, it doesn’t look good, the main pieces i’m talking about are Wall Colosseum and 5x5 flat blocks which are the main block you use for making flat areas since 343 provided only 1 flat area to forge on and that was the grifball court.

speaking of the maps, there are barriers that block off potential forge areas which could be useful, for example who wouldn’t want to build around the top of the mountain on impact or make a sewer map on the water in erosion? well you can’t because kill barriers. let us put our own kill barriers in the map 343, you just focus on making a beautiful and practical forging environment so that we can make some great maps.

and finally what happened to custom games? no infection (i know theres flood but still we want classic infection so we can pick our weapons and armor abilities) no race, not even vip or assault (assault was awesome 343, why did you not include assault?)

overall 343 didn’t know how big of a project they were taking on, i knew they would mess up somewhat, thankfully the forge is actually IN halo 4 and they made an effort they just don’t seem to be able to cater to what halo needs, we’re not asking for a change in the halo formula, we merely ask for a refreshing new campaign, new features and
community support, if they want to do something differrent, they should make their own game series and leave halo the way it is.

on a final note bring back the social playlist 343!!!

#12
  1. Bullet magnetism/autoaim. This game could have the perfect weapon sandbox and the best maps since Halo 2 and it still wouldn’t be all that great simply because of the lack of a large skillgap. It is too easy to aim and shoot people in this game. You have most of the weapons as hitscan (which I could be okay with) but also with aim mangetism and autoaim that puts even Halo 2 to shame.

In Halo 3, I could kill 2-3 people shooting at me at once if I knew how to BR and they didn’t.

In this game, it is all about who see’s who first because the amount of skill it takes to aim (even aiming at a strafing opponent) is minimal.

  1. Weapon balance. I don’t even need to explain myself since we all know what weapons are OP and UP

  2. Matchmaking system. Terrible JIP, awful playlists, no visible ranks, and HAVEN HAVEN HAVEN HAVEN HAVEN.

  3. I know we are only supposed to have 3 but VEHICLES belong on this list. They suck. Plain out. If you can spawn with 3 different methods to take out a a vehicle (DMR, plasma pistol, plasma grenades) then the vehicles should not take damage from small arms fire at all. They should be completely invulnerable to anything except explosives, power weapons, and grenades. The plasma pistol should only slow them down, not stop them.