Drawing attention, and appealing to casuals

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

I’ll admit it. I’m a part of the competitive community, and frankly I don’t need much to get excited about another Halo game.

Well what do I want? The usual stuff the competitive community wants (I don’t think I need to explain what that is lol).

However that’s not the focus of this thread, what I’m going to illiterate is that Bungie/343 ignored the vast potential of alternative game modes, and unwisely chose to appeal to the masses by joining the pack in regards to game play, rather than give us something new and exciting.

SPACESHIP SHOOTERS

It’s essentially a dead genre, but Halo: Reach excited us all when they showed us a well made section of the campaign taking place inside a “Sabre Starfighter.” When the game came out, and people finally got to this part of the campaign, they must of been incredibly excited about a radical new direction they thought Halo was taking. However, after just a couple of minutes, you’re plopped back onto your feet, and unless you wanted to replay the same part of the game, you’d never again venture back into your Sabre, as it wasn’t in multiplayer at all.

WHY?!

People get angry all the time in our community when our developer hints that they want to appeal to casuals, however NO ONE WOULD HAVE COMPLAINED ABOUT SPACESHIP MULTIPLAYER! Halo: Reach could have been SO much more than what it was, which should be frustrating to any Halo fan, especially because Bungie was so close to achieving it. But they didn’t chose to make spaceship multiplayer a thing, and instead they tried to appeal to casuals by adding the now hated mechanics of armor abilities, and bloom. What a disaster!

It’s because of those two mechanics, that people look at appealing to casuals in severe disdain, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Does anyone really think it would have made a difference to casuals if they couldn’t use a Jet Pack, if they got Sabres in return? For those of you who’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at the vast amount of different space craft that the UNSC and the Covenant have, you should understand the incredible potential that this had. Halo: Reach could have been the next Battlefront! What else could possibly appeal to casuals more? In my opinion, if Halo: Reach didn’t have Bloom and Armor Abilities, and it had spaceship multiplayer; Halo: Reach would have been the dominant title on XBL until the release of Halo 4.

In Halo 4, we were again teased with brief spaceship combat in the Halo 4 campaign, but we never got to have it in multiplayer. 343 Industries ignored the vast potential that this has in appealing to casuals, and instead followed Bungie’s route of appealing to casuals by giving them familiar game play in the on foot combat. If you’ve checked Halo Charts recently, you understand that the strategy back fired tremendously, as Halo 4’s population fell rapidly after launch, because in trying to appeal to casuals, 343 alienated their core audience. Now currently Halo 4 can’t even crack the top 10 games on XBL, and anyone showing support for 343 wanting to appeal to casuals is viewed as essentially a heretic (especially by the competitive community that I’m apart of). This has fractured the community, which has done untold amounts of damage to the Halo community on the internet.

343, when attempting to increase the size of your audience, please do not fundamentally change the core game play that made the Halo series popular in the first place. Give us new things like spaceship multiplayer that would not only appeal to casuals, but would make your core, existing audience incredibly excited, and ready to purchase the new game you’re making.

2

The topic title is pretty misleading. A more appropriate one would be “Give us space combat multiplayer,” I think.

3

I think Bungie wanted to do it, but they dropped a great many things both in campaign and multiplayer because they didn’t have time.

It’s possible that 343i was saving space combat for SpOps, and that whole thing got canned.

We know that multiplayer space combat is not impossible. It’s been done. 343i might be a little gunshy about doing something different these days. A little encouragement here might help.

4

I feel like This should be shared

There is nothing wrong with trying to appeal to casuals, they could of done things like decreasing you chances of getting power weapons with ordnance as you got higher in level so it’s like taking off the training wheels.

5

Spaceships?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP0hxFMpdEg&t=17m10s

But in all seriousness, I feel like space dogfights were one of the few good parts of Reach that Bungie didn’t really capitalize on. It would be great if 343i could though, especially for MM. The whole concept of Halo’s shields/health system would still be present, just in the form of space vehicles.

6

> I feel like This should be shared
>
> There is nothing wrong with trying to appeal to casuals, they could of done things like decreasing you chances of getting power weapons with ordnance as you got higher in level so it’s like taking off the training wheels.

Did you read the OP at all?

Not once did he mention whether or not catering to casuals was an issue or not but rather explained that the lack of implementing and expanding upon the space combat that was introduced in Reach was unacceptable and that instead of trying to change the core mechanics, they should add to them instead.

I’m sorry if I’m coming off as condescending, but you (and everyone) should always read the original post prior to posting in any thread whatsoever.

7

Your name ironic
Inspires cater casuals
Pros use Eighty Nines

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> > I feel like This should be shared
> >
> > There is nothing wrong with trying to appeal to casuals, they could of done things like decreasing you chances of getting power weapons with ordnance as you got higher in level so it’s like taking off the training wheels.
>
> Did you read the OP at all?
>
> Not once did he mention whether or not catering to casuals was an issue or not but rather explained that the lack of implementing and expanding upon the space combat that was introduced in Reach was unacceptable and that instead of trying to change the core mechanics, they should add to them instead.
>
> I’m sorry if I’m coming off as condescending, but you (and everyone) should always read the original post prior to posting in any thread whatsoever.

I was really tired at the time when I read the post so I probably misread it, my bad :frowning:

9

> The topic title is pretty misleading. A more appropriate one would be “Give us space combat multiplayer,” I think.

He uses spaceships as an example (if a heavily used example)

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Edited by Moderator - Please do not flame/attack others.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Screw the casuals, they have so many other ‘casual’ shooters they can attend to. That goes same for some MLG idiots who only want to play with overpowered Battle Rifles, no covenant weaponry, no vehicles and stripped down maps.

The gaming industry has been ruined because companies have been trying to cater for casual gaming and hoarding money because they B/S the game so that they can release it faster. Hard core games don’t exist anymore. Enough with all the idiots who boast on Street Fighter 4 only for them to get completely flattened on 3rd strike and then complain about the difficulty curve because they can’t put the effort to learn the game mechanics, properly. Have you ignored the ignorant and actually finished Ikaruga on hard mode? Have you completed all Master mode Grand Prix in F-Zero GX? Have many times did it take you to complete the Biolizard the first time in SA 2? Or the Boost Guardian in Metroid Prime 2? Compare Legendary difficulty of Halo Reach to Halo 4. See the difference between a game that wants everyone to join in and be happy and the latter which wants to make you it’s *****

343i this means you too. Fire the employees with no skill, no finesse no creativity. Be daring to try new things but build on the original concept. Right now your Sony trying to create in house games on Toshiba hardware.