Custom Classes take Halo to a whole new level of strategy. Having a role or a niche on your team makes you feel important and adds that depth of what a player does on a battlefield, whether it be a medic, marksman, support, CQB, or driver. This makes teamwork the absolute key to victory as a team with a strong balanced team of weapons, armor mods, and AA’s stronger than a team of poorly balanced team with no roles or fulfillments. If weapons are tuned perfectly, then TF2 gets blown outta the water in my book.
not when its based around personal preference.
> not when its based around personal preference.
Elaborate good sir.
Don’t compare the game to TF2. In TF2, I know what class you are when I hit or hold tab and you changing your class is posted in the game feedback from what I remember (of TFC at least).
In Halo, it isn’t so.
> > not when its based around personal preference.
>
> Elaborate good sir.
because its not about strategical advantage, its about choosing your weapon and ability based of what suites your personal play style and personal play stye has little do with strategy because it how you choose to play individually, the abilities just enhance it.
a big problem with designing a sandbox around preference is balance, its impossible to balance a sandbox around preference because everyones preference is different from camping in the corner all game to charging in hard and everything inbetween, there is an endless amount of ways to play the game so balance around this is impossible and ultimately leads to a poorly balanced sandbox, you will get 1 super class that will dominate over everything else.
the way preference is balanced is based on how they stack up against other preferences, rocker paper scissor balancing, this just doesn’t work in halo because halo is about teamwork and strategy not how you choose to play, the way to play is working with your team and finding different strategies to out play the other time while adjusting your strategy on the fly to adjust to what the other team is doing, preference balancing destroys all of this because its “if you want to you can”, if i want to be walking tank then i can, if i want to fly above everything ignoring the entire map i can.
these problems can and have been brought up in reach, 343i said they’ve learnt from reachs mistakes but it honestly doesn’t look like they have but instead are continuing the mistakes that were made.
strategical balance isn’t done based on how effective it is compared to its counter parts, its based on what you can and cannot do with it to gain different advantages and uses and dis advantages to it, so if every team decides to use the same class then the stacked disadvantages against a team using a combination for maximum effect will cost them the game and get destroyed.
Halo 4’s loadout system(NOT class system) is more tuning the engine than swapping out the engine for a new one or whatever the -Yoink- Frankie keeps repeating.
Also, load-outs is not a requirement for teamwork in FPS games lol, it helps define roles sure but Halo never had “Set” roles that was the beauty of it. You could be any role you wanted you just had to find the tools to do so on the map. You could be the shotgun guy, sniper, assault, support player, and objective player all in one life if you found the tools to do so on the map.
> big problem with designing a sandbox around preference is balance, its impossible to balance a sandbox around preference because everyones preference is different from camping in the corner all game to charging in hard and everything inbetween, there is an endless amount of ways to play the game so balance around this is impossible and ultimately leads to a poorly balanced sandbox, you will get 1 super class that will dominate over everything else.
Yet somehow Blizzard managed to balance Starcraft II.
> the way preference is balanced is based on how they stack up against other preferences, rocker paper scissor balancing, this just doesn’t work in halo because halo is about teamwork and strategy not how you choose to play, the way to play is working with your team and finding different strategies to out play the other time while adjusting your strategy on the fly to adjust to what the other team is doing, preference balancing destroys all of this because its “if you want to you can”, if i want to be walking tank then i can, if i want to fly above everything ignoring the entire map i can.
Wut?
You can use teamwork and strategy if your only options are rock, paper and scissors to outplay your teamates and react to the evolving situation.
> so if every team decides to use the same class then the stacked disadvantages against a team using a combination for maximum effect will cost them the game and get destroyed.
If someone throws rock all the time, he’s easy to beat.
> > > not when its based around personal preference.
> >
> > Elaborate good sir.
>
> because its not about strategical advantage, its about choosing your weapon and ability based of what suites your personal play style and personal play stye has little do with strategy because it how you choose to play individually, the abilities just enhance it.
>
> a big problem with designing a sandbox around preference is balance, its impossible to balance a sandbox around preference because everyones preference is different from camping in the corner all game to charging in hard and everything inbetween, there is an endless amount of ways to play the game so balance around this is impossible and ultimately leads to a poorly balanced sandbox, you will get 1 super class that will dominate over everything else.
>
> the way preference is balanced is based on how they stack up against other preferences, rocker paper scissor balancing, this just doesn’t work in halo because halo is about teamwork and strategy not how you choose to play, the way to play is working with your team and finding different strategies to out play the other time while adjusting your strategy on the fly to adjust to what the other team is doing, preference balancing destroys all of this because its “if you want to you can”, if i want to be walking tank then i can, if i want to fly above everything ignoring the entire map i can.
That is exactly why the custom loadout system fails in some games, there is always a super class or people just pick their preferences and then never bother to venture out. In the Arena sub-genre or games like CS/Shadowrun with a budget system, you are forced to change you’re playstyle and use different weapons or you are at a huge disadvantage.
> Halo 4’s loadout system(NOT class system) is more tuning the engine than swapping out the engine for a new one or whatever the -Yoink!- Frankie keeps repeating.
>
> Also, load-outs is not a requirement for teamwork in FPS games lol, it helps define roles sure but Halo never had “Set” roles that was the beauty of it. You could be any role you wanted you just had to find the tools to do so on the map. You could be the shotgun guy, sniper, assault, support player, and objective player all in one life if you found the tools to do on the map.
Now it’s still kinda like that, except that you can spawn with it. I like to think of it more like Battlefront 2’s system. In Star Wars Battlefront 2, you could be the engineer, the sniper, the regular foot soldier with his/her rifle by their side, the heavy soldier with rockets, the specialist with weapons that are more like power weapons for those classes (they are earned through getting a certain number of points per kill, and are balanced by not being too overly powerful), and you can be the hero with a lightsaber and the force, which balances out by having a time limit replace the health system. Basically, you can choose to be this sort of person based on preferences, and it takes skill and teamwork to pull through, weather you are just killing the enemy team, conquering command posts, or capturing a flag. This same princible is being used for Halo 4, except that you can choose what goes in your loadout, instead of it being preset.
> > big problem with designing a sandbox around preference is balance, its impossible to balance a sandbox around preference because everyones preference is different from camping in the corner all game to charging in hard and everything inbetween, there is an endless amount of ways to play the game so balance around this is impossible and ultimately leads to a poorly balanced sandbox, you will get 1 super class that will dominate over everything else.
>
> Yet somehow Blizzard managed to balance Starcraft II.
its my understanding that starfcraft is based and designed around strategy.
> > the way preference is balanced is based on how they stack up against other preferences, rocker paper scissor balancing, this just doesn’t work in halo because halo is about teamwork and strategy not how you choose to play, the way to play is working with your team and finding different strategies to out play the other time while adjusting your strategy on the fly to adjust to what the other team is doing, preference balancing destroys all of this because its “if you want to you can”, if i want to be walking tank then i can, if i want to fly above everything ignoring the entire map i can.
>
> Wut?
>
> You can use teamwork and strategy if your only options are rock, paper and scissors to outplay your teamates and react to the evolving situation.
it doesn’t matter if you combine them for strategy, a team using the same loadout could still counter it because its equally as effective, they’re just better players skill wise, nothing about strategy and teamwork changes.
> > so if every team decides to use the same class then the stacked disadvantages against a team using a combination for maximum effect will cost them the game and get destroyed.
>
> If someone throws rock all the time, he’s easy to beat.
not exactly, in a rock paper scissor game sure, but rock paper scissor is just an example, analogy that explains it easier, it really balanced against each other so they’re just as strong and weak to each other, so rock could be paper and paper could be scissors just as effectively etc…
> Halo 4’s loadout system(NOT class system) is more tuning the engine than swapping out the engine for a new one or whatever the -Yoink!- Frankie keeps repeating.
>
> Also, load-outs is not a requirement for teamwork in FPS games lol, it helps define roles sure but Halo never had “Set” roles that was the beauty of it. You could be any role you wanted you just had to find the tools to do so on the map. You could be the shotgun guy, sniper, assault, support player, and objective player all in one life if you found the tools to do on the map.
Firstly, loadouts can turn into classes, just depends on your preference. And you failed to get the point out of my post.
> > Halo 4’s loadout system(NOT class system) is more tuning the engine than swapping out the engine for a new one or whatever the -Yoink!- Frankie keeps repeating.
> >
> > Also, load-outs is not a requirement for teamwork in FPS games lol, it helps define roles sure but Halo never had “Set” roles that was the beauty of it. You could be any role you wanted you just had to find the tools to do so on the map. You could be the shotgun guy, sniper, assault, support player, and objective player all in one life if you found the tools to do on the map.
>
> Firstly, loadouts can turn into classes, just depends on your preference. And you failed to get the point out of my post.
Classes infers much more defined roles and differences between choosing a class. A class system is like one used in Tribes where there is a Pathfinder and a Infiltrator class and there is large differences between choosing each one and each one(Speed,abilities,heavy weapons vs light weapons) has different skill-sets.
I see you’re point, load-outs could enhance strategy and such but mostly they are in H4 to let players tune their starting load-outs and choose preferences more easily I guess you could say.
> No they don’t. All players should start out completely equal at the start of the match and let individual skill and teamwork take over from there.
Think of it like a chess game where anything that’s not a pawn is an AA. Both sides have them. You don’t know which one the other guy is going to use until they use it. Whoever uses them better wins. Some people think all they need is the Queen. Others know better.
Point is, in every Halo: Reach match everyone does start out equal. You start with what you think will help you win, and when the bullets start flying you were either right or you need to think of something else.