Even Halo Wars 2 has an established formula

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

I was playing the Halo Wars 2 beta, and it got me thinking about something.
The reason Halo 5’s gameplay feels clunky and doesn’t really work as well as other Halo games is because it’s not really an established formula. It’s just random, “Bad–Yoink-” abilities put together. And this is why it just feels like it’s all over the place. There’s no established formula.

When you open the Halo Wars 2 beta, it gives you a small tutorial. In that tutorial, it tells you its established formula: Vehicles beat infantry units, air units beat vehicles, and infantry units beat air units. They say it’s a “Rock-Paper-Scissors” rule. That’s the established formula in Halo Wars 2, and it WORKS! It’s a fantastic game, it flows well, and it’s overall fun.

In Halo CE-3, the established formula was weapons, grenades, and melee. You can hear more about it in this Halo 3 ViDoc, which goes into more detail behind the design choices in Halo 3’s sandbox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbtKbtuX7fs
But this WORKED. It was cohesive. The game fit together very well, and as a result, was very addicting and very strategic!

Let’s look at one more game: Call of Duty. Yes, Call of Duty may be casual’s paradise and many of you hate it just because, well… It’s CoD. But Call of Duty has an established formula: TTK (Time To Kill), Weapons, and Weapon Behavior. This is Call of Duty’s formula. And it works. And as a result, it’s a cohesive and addicting game for millions of people. The new CoD games are DRIFTING from this formula, starting to add more random variable (Thrusting, wall-running, etc.) and it’s obviously -Yoink!- MANY people off. They want to go back to Modern Warfare 2 days where it was just. about. the. formula. Just look at the reception for Infinite Warfare. Lol. They’re kind of going through what Halo fans went through with Halo Reach/4.

In Halo 5, the formula is…? Weapons, grenades, melee, ground pound, slide, sprint, thrust, spartan charge? No. These are just abilities thrown into the mix, which introduce WAY too many random variables. There’s no formula. And while it can be fun, it just doesn’t WORK the way other games work. It lacks a certain cohesiveness. And it completely negates some of the things we loved about the previous Halo’s, like map design (Ever noticed the lack of man-cannons, teleporters, and vehicles in Halo 5 maps?).

But anyways. Thoughts? Opinions?

2

You sir have crafted one of the most well thought out and constructive statements I have heard on Waypoint. (not being sarcastic). I could not agree more. I loved the original trilogy because it built on the previous Halo while maintaining the core formula. Halo 5 is fun, but lacks the cohesiveness of the sandbox if you get what I’m trying to say. I wish there were less random variables.

3

I dislike Spartan charge and am not too keen ground pound but overall i think H5 plays very smoothly and is a lot of fun. Remove those two abilities and ill be happy (although pretty happy already apart from server issues).

On a side note though, i do like GP for use in custom games and parkour maps.

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I think Halo 5 has one of the best gameplay mechanics.

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> 2533274936843840;4:
> I think Halo 5 has one of the best gameplay mechanics.

It is BALANCED, but I prefer the normal h1-h3 abilities.

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> 2533274793616507;1:
> IIn Halo 5, the formula is…? Weapons, grenades, melee, ground pound, slide, sprint, thrust, spartan charge? No. These are just abilities thrown into the mix, which introduce WAY too many random variables. There’s no formula. And while it can be fun, it just doesn’t WORK the way other games work. It lacks a certain cohesiveness. And it completely negates some of the things we loved about the previous Halo’s, like map design (Ever noticed the lack of man-cannons, teleporters, and vehicles in Halo 5 maps?).
>
> But anyways. Thoughts? Opinions?

Ground pound and Spartan charge are just forms of melee. Essentially The formula is now Weapons, Grenades, Melee, Evade, and vehicles. Evade contains sprint (when used defensively, thrusters, slide). And I have new for you evade has been in every halo from a good strafe to Gandhi hopping. H5’s map design has a lot of issues, but you make a lot of assumptions to assume it has anything to do with evasion.

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> 2535462360297076;5:
> > 2533274936843840;4:
> > I think Halo 5 has one of the best gameplay mechanics.
>
>
> It is BALANCED, but I prefer the normal h1-h3 abilities.

Halo 6 should be just like halo 5, accept it, halo won’t be a slow game again.

ps. The thing I hate of halo 5 is you die so fast

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> 2533274880633045;6:
> > 2533274793616507;1:
> >
>
>
> Ground pound and Spartan charge are just forms of melee. Essentially The formula is now Weapons, Grenades, Melee, Evade, and vehicles. Evade contains sprint (when used defensively, thrusters, slide). And I have new for you evade has been in every halo from a good strafe to Gandhi hopping. H5’s map design has a lot of issues, but you make a lot of assumptions to assume it has anything to do with evasion.

No. Assassinations are a form of melee. Ground pound and spartan charge are in their own class of abilities because they can be performed anywhere.

And I do assume that H5’s map design has to do with sprint, because look at it. They’re designed around the abilities. What were the main purposes of man-cannons, teleporters, and some vehicles? To simply navigate the map faster. Now that you can sprint, there’s no need for them. There are a couple of man-cannons in some warzone maps, but that’s just because Warzone maps are GIANT. They aren’t normal arena sized maps. Therefore, they’re able to put them there, because you can’t just sprint across a Warzone map that easily.

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I missed the part where you said HALO WARS 2 BETA KILLED HALO…surely that was in there…wait…no? Better wake up fast

Looking forward to trying HW2 when I get home today

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> > 2535462360297076;5:
> > > 2533274936843840;4:
> > >
>
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> Halo 6 should be just like halo 5, accept it, halo won’t be a slow game again.
>
> ps. The thing I hate of halo 5 is you die so fast

And Halo was never “slow.” Ever watch Halo 3 or Halo 2 e-sports? Or even just played Halo 2 or 3 BTB? Very fast paced and exciting. In my opinion, at least.
Kind of like how Counter-strike is. There’s no abilities or anything, but it’s very fast paced.

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> 2533274873873545;9:
> I missed the part where you said HALO WARS 2 BETA KILLED HALO…surely that was in there…wait…no? Better wake up fast
>
> Looking forward to trying HW2 when I get home today

It’s fun, man! I’m enjoying the heck out of it. It has its bugs, but it is a Beta, after all. Haha.

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> 2533274793616507;11:
> > 2533274873873545;9:
> > I missed the part where you said HALO WARS 2 BETA KILLED HALO…surely that was in there…wait…no? Better wake up fast
> >
> > Looking forward to trying HW2 when I get home today
>
>
> It’s fun, man! I’m enjoying the heck out of it. It has its bugs, but it is a Beta, after all. Haha.

I don’t normally play those type games so I’m going in with an open mind

13

After reading that what I have to say it “Ravioli ravioli give me the formuoli”

Now in seriousness, comparing rts to fps isn’t a good idea basically because yes halo wars has a rock paper scissors type play almost every rts has this however halo 5 has this too but within gun play warthog counters foot soldiers, banshee counters warthog, tank counters banshee, invis/good soldier counters tank, and so on with others. In rts units are your fps guns they are what you are playing with however things like spartan charge, sprint, ground pound and other player based mechanics would be better compared to the button mapping of rts how easy is it to get to this group of units or how fast can you get to a late game building to get a new army premade while you assault a base.

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<mark>This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not flame or attack other members. This includes stat-flaming.</mark>

OP is a SR 26, highest ever rank being gold 2, with only 122 games played.
Halo 5 has a formula, and it works pretty well. While I agree the learning curve may be harder for many players, I can tell you 343 certainly didn’t just throw stuff in. I suggest playing more of the game (reach at least SR50…) And familiarize yourself with how fluid the movement mechanics really are.
Try this movement formula: Run, slide, jump (as the slide ends), thrust.
Pro tip: never waste time throwing a grenade when you can see the enemy and easily shoot 3 shots in the same amount of time it take to finish the grenade throw animation.

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> OP is a SR 26, highest ever rank being gold 2, with only 122 games played.

ONLY 122 games played? That’s plenty of time to get familiar with a game’s mechanics. I was MVP in the majority of my matches, and I also spent time playing casually, kicking back, and fooling around. I’ve also spent a lot of time playing it at a friend’s house. And you’re forgetting about campaign play time, which I’ve played through multiple times. Once through my account, and once, again, at a friend’s. Believe me, I am very familiar and I play very well. I stopped playing simply because it got stale for me.

I understand the idea of having a certain amount of time put into a game to have to understand it, but I’m pretty sure I’m well across that line.

16

But even in HW2 there are the exceptions to the rule. Enemy throws tanks at my infantry? I can build anti tank infantry. Enemy throws infantry at me? Anti infantry infantry. Enemy heros/spartans approaching? Anti hero infantry.

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> 2533274793616507;15:
> > 2533274814988883;14:
> > OP is a SR 26, highest ever rank being gold 2, with only 122 games played.
>
>
> ONLY 122 games played? That’s plenty of time to get familiar with a game’s mechanics. I was MVP in the majority of my matches, and I also spent time playing casually, kicking back, and fooling around. I’ve also spent a lot of time playing it at a friend’s house. And you’re forgetting about campaign play time, which I’ve played through multiple times. Once through my account, and once, again, at a friend’s. Believe me, I am very familiar and I play very well. I stopped playing simply because it got stale for me.
>
> I understand the idea of having a certain amount of time put into a game to have to understand it, but I’m pretty sure I’m well across that line.

Although it’s true 122 games is enough to become familiar with the basic fundamental uses of each mechanic, it’s not nearly enough to understand the full scope. I’m 90% sure there are paths and routes that you haven’t even seen or learned how to get to yet. Many of us play at least about 150 games per month. Meaning many of us are well over the 1,000 games mark. Campaign isn’t anything like Multiplayer, again, all you learn from it are the basics. And let’s not forget your competitive rank, it’s certainly too low for you to have experienced any hardcore/top tier/competitive gameplay.

What do you mean by MVP? Because there is no medal for that… And I’d also like to add that playing in the gold rank tier is a lot more easy than playing in Diamond/Onyx/Champion ranked tiers. Have you ever played against an Onyx player?

Did you know: shooting someone with a pistol 2 times and them using a melee won’t kill them, but shooting them twice with a DMR and then using a melee will kill them? Even though it takes the same amount of shots (5) to kill someone with either weapon.

Did you know: Thrusting off the corner of certain object/structures will launch you into the air higher than a normal jump, making it possible to reach certain locations faster/easier/or unreachable by any other method?

These are just a small taste of the formulas you may be unaware of. So like I stated before, I suggest you spent more time playing so you can fully understand the fluidity of the game and it’s mechanics. If you’d like, I can help you learn more of the game and show you the difference.

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H5 plays great… your opinion is it’s “clunky” … H5 plays smooth IMO. Also there isn’t many ways to change the formula of a rts… while fps can be changed and tweaked a lot more.

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I’d like to also add that OP hasn’t had enough time to use every weapon in the game. So there’s that too…

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> 2533274814988883;17:
> > 2533274793616507;15:
> > > 2533274814988883;14:
> > >
>
>
> Although it’s true 122 games is enough to become familiar with the basic fundamental uses of each mechanic, it’s not nearly enough to understand the full scope. I’m 90% sure there are paths and routes that you haven’t even seen or learned how to get to yet. Many of us play at least about 150 games per month. Meaning many of us are well over the 1,000 games mark. Campaign isn’t anything like Multiplayer, again, all you learn from it are the basics. And let’s not forget your competitive rank, it’s certainly too low for you to have experienced any hardcore/top tier/competitive gameplay.
>
> What do you mean by MVP? Because there is no medal for that… And I’d also like to add that playing in the gold rank tier is a lot more easy than playing in Diamond/Onyx/Champion ranked tiers. Have you ever played against an Onyx player?
>
> Did you know: shooting someone with a pistol 2 times and them using a melee won’t kill them, but shooting them twice with a DMR and then using a melee will kill them?
>
> Did you know: Thrusting off the corner of certain object/structures will launch you into the air higher than a normal jump, making it possible to reach certain locations faster/easier/or unreachable by any other method?
>
> These are just a small taste of the formulas you may be unaware of. So like I stated before, I suggest you spent more time playing so you can fully understand the fluidity of the game and it’s mechanics. If you’d like, I can help you learn more of the game and show you the difference.

  1. What do you mean by MVP? Top player in the match.
  2. Have you ever played against an Onyx Player? Yes. Multiple times.
  3. Did you know: shooting someone with a pistol 2 times and them using a melee won’t kill them, but shooting them twice with a DMR and then using a melee will kill them? Yes. I also know they both take 5 shots to kill.
  4. Did you know: Thrusting off the corner of certain object/structures will launch you into the air higher than a normal jump, making it possible to reach certain locations faster/easier/or unreachable by any other method? Yes. This is even easily demonstrated through the Halo 5 previews before the game even released.

Like I said, I’m well-aware of the mechanics. These things you mention are all just strategies. They have nothing to do with knowing the mechanics or the formula. The formula is the formula.