Copying Fad Mechanics or Copying Old Ones

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

TL;DR in bold.

I have a simple question, and I want you to give it honest consideration before posting a reply. The entirety of this post is nothing more than a query; I have no agenda and I’m not trying to bash anybody or prove anything. I just have a question that I would like answered, particularly by the people who are against the new mechanics like sprint and smart link. Throughout this post, I will use the term “bare-bones” to refer to sprint-less, ADS-less, pizazz-less games (think Quake, Doom, the Bond games, etc.). I will almost certainly post opinions later on in this thread, but this OP is strictly for inquisitive purposes. So my question is this:

If Halo is copying modern military shooters by adding these mechanics, why is the same logic not applied to say that Halo would be copying the bare-bones arena shooters of yore if those mechanics were omitted? I see a lot of posts around here saying that Halo is copying CoD by adding things like sprint and pseudo-ADS, but why would the old gameplay not be considered copying the gameplay of old arena shooters like Doom, Quake, and Unreal Tournament? What is the distinction? Where is the line between copying and staying true to roots?

EDIT: I am placing the following section under a Spoiler tag because after receiving a few replies, I found that people were responding more to this section the the other. I do not want this section to be the focus of discussion, but I’m leaving it in the OP for reference. I would like the discussion to be more focused on “copying”, and why it’s seemingly okay to “copy” older games, but taboo to “copy” newer ones.

I understand that Halo started life as a bare-bones arena shooter and the newer games should respect that, but I also understand that that was in 2001 and a lot of time has passed since then. Looking at the games in sequence, I can also see that Bungie took pretty significant steps in evolving Halo on their own. Halo 2 was very different from CE, Halo 3 wasn’t very different from Halo (except for equipment), Halo 3: ODST was pretty much Halo 3 with better weapons (because of the removal of dual wielding), and Halo Reach was undeniably Bungie’s biggest departure from Halo’s roots (thanks mostly to the addition of armor abilities). Looking at all of that, it becomes clear that Bungie never intended for Halo to stay exactly the same, but rather a game that constantly evolved to some degree and entered new realms of gameplay to deliver a genuinely new experience with every game.

I think it’s noteworthy that of the old bare-bones shooters that Halo “grew up with”, Halo is the only one left (excluding the new Doom reboot). Halo was the only bare-bones shooter to survive the rise of modern military FPS games, consistently releasing new titles alongside modern shooter juggernauts like Call of Duty and Battlefield. But I have to wonder why this is. Why did Halo survive and the others didn’t? Is it because Halo was truly the epitome of bare-bones shooters so there was no need for any others? Or could it be because Halo evolved to stay relevant in an ever-changing market? Of course there is no definitive answer to that question one way or the other, but I think it’s worth considering that perhaps Halo’s evolution is actually what kept it from dying out alongside the other bare-bones shooters.

So back to the original question: If Halo 5 is copying the gameplay of modern FPS shooters by adding these mechanics, why would omitting those mechanics not be considered copying the gameplay of old bare-bones arena shooters? How is “copying” defined, and who gets to decide when the word is applied?

2

Great post! I agree! People chastise Halo for copying modern shooters but then they want them to copy old school shooters or copy older Halo titles because they think they know better or because they are “true” or “old school” Halo fans.

The fact is that unless we are working at 343i, we really don’t have a right to dictate what Halo should be.

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> 2533274810150284;1:
> If Halo 5 is copying the gameplay of modern FPS shooters by adding these mechanics, why would omitting those mechanics not be considered copying the gameplay of old bare-bones arena shooters? How is “copying” defined, and who gets to decide when the word is applied?

Halo began as pretty much a copy of those bare-bones shooters. Every game has its roots somewhere. The answer to all your questions is hence pretty clear: Halo is just a crippled console version of old-school shooters that only innovated in FPS storytelling and aim assisting mechanics which made shooters more viable on consoles. Its achievements were nothing more or nothing less than that.

The problems people have are rooted deeper than the definition of “copying”.

4

This is an amazing post, and I agree! If Halo were to not evolve it would truly “die” because it doesn’t change itself, this, at least for me, would make Halo very boring to me. However Halo 5 seems to really change the Halo story and multiplayer, and after playing the beta I really liked the multiplayer and so did others. If 343i or Bungie kept doing the same thing in every Halo game they made, or made it like the originals, a lot more people would probably dislike the game more than now.

5

Very good post

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> 2533274825830455;3:
> > 2533274810150284;1:
> > If Halo 5 is copying the gameplay of modern FPS shooters by adding these mechanics, why would omitting those mechanics not be considered copying the gameplay of old bare-bones arena shooters? How is “copying” defined, and who gets to decide when the word is applied?
>
>
> Halo began as pretty much a copy of those bare-bones shooters. Every game has its roots somewhere. The answer to all your questions is hence pretty clear: Halo is just a crippled console version of old-school shooters that only innovated in FPS storytelling and aim assisting mechanics which made shooters more viable on consoles. Its achievements were nothing more or nothing less than that.
>
> The problems people have are rooted deeper than the definition of “copying”.

Holy crap, I went to class with the intention of typing this and when I got back and I see you’ve saved me the trouble.

7

Good post. 10/10 I would rate again.

8

Very right when you day halo is the only bare bone to survive, no doubt about it. I think what people have a problem is with taking the “popular” aspects of un skilled games and placing them into Halo. For example many competitive players have problems with sprint but I’m fairly certain no competitive players have a problem with shooting power ups/power weapons from a ledge to aquire the weapon or power up (a halo CE move). Imo I think 343 is actually trying to build off halo CE in many ways and feels like combat evolved in so many ways with adding modern features to stay relevant by that doesn’t mean it makes it less competitive by any means.

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> 2533274810150284;1:
> If Halo is copying modern military shooters by adding these mechanics, why is the same logic not applied to say that Halo would be copying the bare-bones arena shooters of yore if those mechanics were omitted?

It is. That’s not the point. Like tsassi said, Halo began as a slightly modified clone/copy of Quake and consorts. But the identity of Halo is the gameplay that resulted from it, not the fact that it’s plagiarizing and every future release should be a plagiat as well.

Let’s say, the company “Drinks, Co.” releases a product called “Refresher”, that is clearly a ripoff of Coke, but with a slightly modified formula. But to numerous people it tastes better than OG Coke.
Now, after ten years, Fanta suddenly became more popular than Coke, so Drinks, Co. changes the formula to be a ripoff of Fanta instead. Some people start calling this “modernization” and “keeping up with the industry”. So why are other people angry? After all, “Refresher” was a ripoff from the start, just a ripoff of something different. But it still stayed true to its roots by ripping off current trends, amirite?

> 2533274810150284;1:
> Halo 2 was very different from CE, Halo 3 wasn’t very different from Halo (except for equipment), Halo 3: ODST was pretty much Halo 3 with better weapons (because of the removal of dual wielding), and Halo Reach was undeniably Bungie’s biggest departure from Halo’s roots (thanks mostly to the addition of armor abilities). Looking at all of that, it becomes clear that Bungie never intended for Halo to stay exactly the same, but rather a game that constantly evolved to some degree and entered new realms of gameplay to deliver a genuinely new experience with every game.

I’d argue that Halo 1, 2 and 3 played very much alike. Gameplay-wise, there was almost no change between 2 and 3, and even the additions from CE to 2 were marginal. Regardless, ODST and Reach do not factor into this discussion because they were spinoffs. You not only play as a different character, you’re not even playing as a Spartan-II, so obviously gameplay is expected to be different. Nowhere inside the actual game is it saying “Halo: Reach”, only “Reach”. Bungie did this intentional to distinguish the game from the core series, the franchise name was merely printed on the cover by Microsoft to capitalize on brand recognition. And the only reason that ODST was called “Halo 3: ODST” is because it started out as a DLC. I won’t even touch upon sales or population numbers, because it doesn’t matter: Regardless how ODST and Reach would have performed, they were spinoffs, just like Halo Wars, and we “knew” the next true numeral would again use the gameplay from the core series.

We could not have been more wrong. Hence why we are so disappointed now…

> 2533274810150284;1:
> Why did Halo survive and the others didn’t? Is it because Halo was truly the epitome of bare-bones shooters so there was no need for any others? Or could it be because Halo evolved to stay relevant in an ever-changing market?

Because it is one of the very few ones to even try holding on to its core. Half-Life hasn’t released a title in over a decade (and probably never will again), Unreal Tournament did the same thing that Halo is doing now, namely adapt to a market it doesn’t even need to compete with, and died out. Quake at least lived on as a F2P game.

I could just as well ask you: How many “bare-bones” franchises retained their core gameplay in the last ten years and died because of that? And how many died rather because they were alienating their core audience by mutating and failed to gain a new one? I can guarantee you, if the answer to the first question isn’t zero, it’s pretty damn close to that.

10

To be completely honest I think the main frustration with sprint, ADS, loadouts in H4 etc all comes from one thing, and that is that when we were playing the original games the fans felt like the gameplay / shooting / movement worked so well that we had that foundation set and that there was really no ceiling on this game and that the innovations were going to come in other ways to bring halo to its fullest potential, and I think where 343 got confused about making halo the best it can be is that a halo that tops CoD on the player charts is not the best Halo.

For the record I am only against smart scope if they keep the left trigger re-scope advantage in, that is bush league for us who play with the traditional thumb click style, if they do fix this then my opinion on smart scope just goes back to “meh, still just fixing what wasn’t broken”

I do not like sprint because I feel like it could be implemented in a way that is a happy medium for old school / new fans, and that is instead of a button press / instant full speed gun down system to have it so that moving forward for 3-4 seconds increases you to sprint speed and you can still hip fire (strafing and ADS would take you out of sprint speed) I think this concept eliminates a lot of the issues with sprint while still keeping it (and the fast pacing sprint brings) in the game

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> 2533274801176260;9:
> > 2533274810150284;1:
> > If Halo is copying modern military shooters by adding these mechanics, why is the same logic not applied to say that Halo would be copying the bare-bones arena shooters of yore if those mechanics were omitted?
>
>
> It is. That’s not the point. Like tsassi said, Halo began as a slightly modified clone/copy of Quake and consorts. But the identity of Halo is the gameplay that resulted from it, not the fact that it’s plagiarizing and every future release should be a plagiat as well.
>
> Let’s say, the company “Drinks, Co.” releases a product called “Refresher”, that is clearly a ripoff of Coke, but with a slightly modified formula. But to numerous people it tastes better than OG Coke.
> Now, after ten years, Fanta suddenly became more popular than Coke, so Drinks, Co. changes the formula to be a ripoff of Fanta instead. Some people start calling this “modernization” and “keeping up with the industry”. So why are other people angry? After all, “Refresher” was a ripoff from the start, just a ripoff of something different. But it still stayed true to its roots by ripping off current trends, amirite?
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274810150284;1:
> > Halo 2 was very different from CE, Halo 3 wasn’t very different from Halo (except for equipment), Halo 3: ODST was pretty much Halo 3 with better weapons (because of the removal of dual wielding), and Halo Reach was undeniably Bungie’s biggest departure from Halo’s roots (thanks mostly to the addition of armor abilities). Looking at all of that, it becomes clear that Bungie never intended for Halo to stay exactly the same, but rather a game that constantly evolved to some degree and entered new realms of gameplay to deliver a genuinely new experience with every game.
>
>
> I’d argue that Halo 1, 2 and 3 played very much alike. Gameplay-wise, there was almost no change between 2 and 3, and even the additions from CE to 2 were marginal. Regardless, ODST and Reach do not factor into this discussion because they were spinoffs. You not only play as a different character, you’re not even playing as a Spartan-II, so obviously gameplay is expected to be different. Nowhere inside the actual game is it saying “Halo: Reach”, only “Reach”. Bungie did this intentional to distinguish the game from the core series, the franchise name was merely printed on the cover by Microsoft to capitalize on brand recognition. And the only reason that ODST was called “Halo 3: ODST” is because it started out as a DLC. I won’t even touch upon sales or population numbers, because it doesn’t matter: Regardless how ODST and Reach would have performed, they were spinoffs, just like Halo Wars, and we “knew” the next true numeral would again use the gameplay from the core series.
>
> We could not have been more wrong. Hence why we are so disappointed now…
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274810150284;1:
> > Why did Halo survive and the others didn’t? Is it because Halo was truly the epitome of bare-bones shooters so there was no need for any others? Or could it be because Halo evolved to stay relevant in an ever-changing market?
>
>
> Because it is one of the very few ones to even try holding on to its core. Half-Life hasn’t released a title in over a decade (and probably never will again), Unreal Tournament did the same thing that Halo is doing now, namely adapt to a market it doesn’t even need to compete with, and died out. Quake at least lived on as a F2P game.
>
> I could just as well ask you: How many “bare-bones” franchises retained their core gameplay in the last ten years and died because of that? And how many died rather because they were alienating their core audience by mutating and failed to gain a new one? I can guarantee you, if the answer to the first question isn’t zero, it’s pretty damn close to that.

That is an amazing post, I hope people actually read it and try to understand it!
Love that analogy!

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> 2533274810150284;1:
> If Halo 5 is copying the gameplay of modern FPS shooters by adding these mechanics, why would omitting those mechanics not be considered copying the gameplay of old bare-bones arena shooters? How is “copying” defined, and who gets to decide when the word is applied?

You’ll find that very few original ideas ever see the daylight anymore, and “copying” is used in a negative manner in order to put emphasis on the users dislike of a feature because he/she believes it is only used due to it being popular.

Halo copied a plethora of shooters back in 2001, that’s however not to say it didn’t create its own identity at the same time.
A good copy with alterations generally do a better job than a bad copy with few alterations.

I personally do not dislike something being “copied”. What I however dislike when something is “copied” is when the reasons barely are for gameplay.
Please do not turn this into a sprint thread, however, i343 hasn’t really put out any other reasons for sprint than immersion and gamers expecting it, I’d also argue the SS/ADS visuals are in there for that exact reason. I’d however be fine testing “a copy” of Prey’s multigravitational system for the environment.

> 2533274801176260;9:
> > 2533274810150284;1:
> >
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274810150284;1:
> > Why did Halo survive and the others didn’t? Is it because Halo was truly the epitome of bare-bones shooters so there was no need for any others? Or could it be because Halo evolved to stay relevant in an ever-changing market?
>
>
> Because it is one of the very few ones to even try holding on to its core. Half-Life hasn’t released a title in over a decade (and probably never will again), Unreal Tournament did the same thing that Halo is doing now, namely adapt to a market it doesn’t even need to compete with, and died out. Quake at least lived on as a F2P game.
>
> I could just as well ask you: How many “bare-bones” franchises retained their core gameplay in the last ten years and died because of that? And how many died rather because they were alienating their core audience by mutating and failed to gain a new one? I can guarantee you, if the answer to the first question isn’t zero, it’s pretty damn close to that.

Well, in case you aren’t aware, Unreal Tournament is being developed with the Unreal Engine 4, and it’s quite close to what the original UT was in terms of gameplay and weapons. If you download the UE4 engine you can download UT 2015 for free and play it even though it’s still in Alpha. Fans are helping on the development from ideas to actual content to implement into the game. The only differences mechanically I remember, haven’t played it in a while, are a short wall run and a slide mechanic, the disc gun is also missing, other than that it’s pretty much identical except for graphics.

There have also been rumors about a new Quake game, going gameplay wise back to the original Quake, or atleast drawing heavily inspiration from it. Perhaps we’ll see something about it if Doom does good.

13

I strongly disagree with the notion that Halo Ce is a “slightly modified version of Quake”.
If Quake is Sprite, then Halo Ce is Mountain Dew.

> Or could it be because Halo evolved to stay relevant in an ever-changing market?

Except none of Halo’s “evolutions” pre-Reach had anything to do with conforming to modern trends, so I don’t see how it can be argued that they kept the game relevant.

> Where is the line between copying and staying true to roots?

As someone already pointed out the roots are a pre-established thing and any changes aren’t made with the purpose of copying Quake but with the purpose of copying the original Halo titles.

I see people asking for the removal of sprint, but I’ve seen very few people if anyone asking for the removal of reloading, holding nine weapons at a time, etc.

> You’ll find that very few original ideas ever see the daylight anymore, and “copying” is used in a negative manner in order to put emphasis on the users dislike of a feature because he/she believes it is only used due to it being popular.

Does Halo really benefit from an ADS animation? In some cases the things are only here because they are popular elsewhere.

14

There have been a few posts here with some very engaging responses to my OP, so I won’t quote them all here because I feel like it would waste a lot of space in this post. I’m talking about the posts made by Tsassi, Naqser, and Celestis. Thank you guys for actually taking the time to write out some thoughtful responses to my OP.

However, I fear I may not have been very clear in my OP. I’m really focusing it more at the “anti- fad mechanics” folks than at the “anti-evolution” folks. That is to say, I’m picking a single facet of the “anti- Halo 5” mentality and honing in on it. I really want to know why it’s okay to “copy” older games, but why it’s not okay to “copy” new ones. Avoiding the whole “should Halo change its gameplay or stay the same” discussion, I just wanted to specifically target the claims about Halo “copying this or that”, and why some people seem to think that the original Halo games weren’t just “copies” of other popular games themselves.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned the “staying true to roots” part, because I think that may have detracted from what I was actually trying to get at. I’m going to make some edits so I only talk about “copying”, because I think “evolution” would be better served as a different discussion altogether.

15

Really great post, you make some precision points.

"it becomes clear that Bungie never intended for Halo to stay exactly the same, but rather a game that constantly evolved to some degree and entered new realms of gameplay to deliver a genuinely new experience with every game."

This is something that people often forget. I think a lot of Halo traditionalists cling to the idea that Bungie could do no wrong, but the reality is that Bungie made plenty of changes to the formula over the course of 5 games. Some changes were well-received, and some not so much. Their intention was, nevertheless, to evolve the franchise in meaningful ways. 343 has simply taken over that mantle, and one could argue that they have shown more love to the Halo universe as a whole than Bungie ever did. Definitely a thought provoking post, though!

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> 2684064956505966;10:
> To be completely honest I think the main frustration with sprint, ADS, loadouts in H4 etc all comes from one thing, and that is that when we were playing the original games the fans felt like the gameplay / shooting / movement worked so well that we had that foundation set and that there was really no ceiling on this game and that the innovations were going to come in other ways to bring halo to its fullest potential, and I think where 343 got confused about making halo the best it can be is that a halo that tops CoD on the player charts is not the best Halo.
>
> For the record I am only against smart scope if they keep the left trigger re-scope advantage in, that is bush league for us who play with the traditional thumb click style, if they do fix this then my opinion on smart scope just goes back to “meh, still just fixing what wasn’t broken”
>
> I do not like sprint because I feel like it could be implemented in a way that is a happy medium for old school / new fans, and that is instead of a button press / instant full speed gun down system to have it so that moving forward for 3-4 seconds increases you to sprint speed and you can still hip fire (strafing and ADS would take you out of sprint speed) I think this concept eliminates a lot of the issues with sprint while still keeping it (and the fast pacing sprint brings) in the game

No im sorry that sprint thing would not work at all as it would slow down something that doesn’t need to be slowed down especially since you suggested it being 3-4 seconds . In real life many people can be still and take off at full speed and stay at full speed until they decide to slow down.

The ads thing is canon and has always been in the helmets of spartans maybe not in the previous games that weren’t canon gameplay wise but in the books etc.

Honestly try the game out after launch , rent it, play it at someone you know house. You guys are assuming you know how it will play when we are months away from launch anything can change though I don’t expect much will.

I will say this though 343 if you take out any of these features to cater to a minority of vocalist I will not be buying any of your halo games. You spend hours working on features that many like then take it out because of a few. If you do this that means you don’t have much confidence in yourselves as developers and are afraid to try new things. You won’t have a vision anymore, you don’t need to be bungie, halo is YOUR game you can do ANYTHING that you want to do with it.

You guys want to know why many people dislike cod? Because its the same thing over and over again just like halo ce-3, reach imo was a good step , halo 4 I didn’t like as they did way too much and I had a similar opinion of cod ghosts.
What I’ve seen from halo 5 looks good, it seems you guys are going back to the arena style halo while adding a few things that are evolving it, that is NOT a bad thing.

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> 2533274819302824;13:
> > You’ll find that very few original ideas ever see the daylight anymore, and “copying” is used in a negative manner in order to put emphasis on the users dislike of a feature because he/she believes it is only used due to it being popular.
>
>
> Does Halo really benefit from an ADS animation? In some cases the things are only here because they are popular elsewhere.

No I wouldn’t say it really benefits, but in terms of gameplay, it’s the same. I myself dislike the change because I see it as an unnecessary visual alteration from a perfectly fine system, according to me only done to attract and make comfortable an audience who in the first place might not be interested in Halo, but due to visual changes can imagine themselves playing it. I’m not really for players who are in it for the visual flare and not the gameplay, can you consider yourself a genuine fan or to have genuine interest if what raises your eyebrow after 6 Halo games is the implementation of ADS, or what happens to be popular at the time being?

I also pointed out later in my post that I’d argue SS/ADS is in Halo 5 because it is popular elsewhere, or rather the same reason sprint is in, because of immersion and gamers expecting it.

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> 2533274810150284;14:
> I really want to know why it’s okay to “copy” older games, but why it’s not okay to “copy” new ones.

Okay, I think now I understand the gist of the question. However, I’d like to point you to Ramir3z77 post, as he already basically answered it.

Thing is, it’s not the “copying” that’s the problem. It never was. As was already mentioned, back in the day, it was possible to hold dozens of weapons at a time in a Mary-Poppins-bag somewhere on the player. However, nobody was ever asking for Halo to adapt this “feature”, and I really don’t think that if 343 oder Bungie or anyone were to shoehorn this into Halo, the disapproval would be any less than to “fad mechanics”.

Halo CE was a product of its time, and whatever it copied from its competitors, there’s nothing that can be done about that now. However, what resulted from this process was something that resonated very well with the audience and created an identity for itself. I can’t talk for anybody else, but my goal is to preserve this identity, not to remove modern mechanics from the face of the Earth. I’ve said multiple times, if 343 had chosen to make an entire spinoff-series with “fad mechanics” that follows Marines or ODSTs, I’d be all for that, regardless of whether or not they’d be copying from CoD or Titanfall oder Far Cry or Santa Clause.

But for the core Halo series, I want, nay, I expect core Halo mechanics.

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> 2533274795123910;17:
> > 2533274819302824;13:
> > > You’ll find that very few original ideas ever see the daylight anymore, and “copying” is used in a negative manner in order to put emphasis on the users dislike of a feature because he/she believes it is only used due to it being popular.
> >
> >
> > Does Halo really benefit from an ADS animation? In some cases the things are only here because they are popular elsewhere.
>
>
> No I wouldn’t say it really benefits, but in terms of gameplay, it’s the same. I myself dislike the change because I see it as an unnecessary visual alteration from a perfectly fine system, according to me only done to attract and make comfortable an audience who in the first place might not be interested in Halo, but due to visual changes can imagine themselves playing it. I’m not really for players who are in it for the visual flare and not the gameplay, can you consider yourself a genuine fan or to have genuine interest if what raises your eyebrow after 6 Halo games is the implementation of ADS, or what happens to be popular at the time being?
>
> I also pointed out later in my post that I’d argue SS/ADS is in Halo 5 because it is popular elsewhere, or rather the same reason sprint is in, because of immersion and gamers expecting it.

Like frank mentioned in an old interview ss/ads is canon. Many things they are adding to halo 5 have always been in the lore. Smart scope was always a feature of the spartans helmets in the lore bungie just didn’t put it in the old games. Sprint is a natural human movement. In the halo canon spartans armor was always high tech and it would evolve after each generation of spartans so seeing the addition of thrusters is also canon. Clamber its just another normal human movement. The spartan 2s may have been able to just jump over ledges but spartan 4s are not genetically modified beings like the spartan 2s and even spartan 2s needed to climb over objects they couldn’t jump over. Also about thrusters I don’t know if people are expecting it to be like cod aw or titanfall but its a fact that the thrusters don’t play like it does in these games at all.
Halo’s core mechanics were uncanon and I see no issue with them adding in things that are canon.

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> 2533274874192460;16:
> The ads thing is canon and has always been in the helmets of spartans maybe not in the previous games that weren’t canon gameplay wise but in the books etc.

Oh Christ, you again… -.-

Get your facts straight! Spartans don’t ADS. Not in the games. Not in the books. Not in the comics. Not in the movies.
ODSTs don’t either and as far as I know, neither do regular marines. What they use instead is Smart-Link, which is a digital connection that projects a live camera feed onto the soldier’s visor.

Oh, and on a side note: The games hold higher “canonoicity” than the other media. So even if all the books, comics and movies were to claim that Spartans ADS (which is never mentioned anywhere), the games would still overwrite that piece of information.