I’m a little bummed. I was very optimistic about the game coming into it with the reveals that 343 had shown prior to the beta, but the game just honestly feels nothing like Halo. Hate to say this, but Halo 4 felt WAY better than this game. It’s a shame, because I think this game has a lot of the right mechanics and core pieces right, it just simply feels off.
I have to agree.
a
Yeah i deleted it after 3 games
Ding ding ding ding ding, its round 4!!!
I can’t quite pinpoint what it is about this game that I don’t like. I think it’s a combination of the horrendous control schemes and the clunky movement? Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s damn near impossible to get headshots now? I dunno…
It feels halo to me. just not 2004 halo.
It honestly feels like an evolved spartan.
Agreed.
It’s obviously different, but it still feels like halo. I feel that too many people want a carbon copy of Halo 2. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good game. The problem is that continuously pushing out Halo 2’s will lead to less successful releases. But pushing out a game that is too different from its roots (Halo 4) will lead to a decline in the old fanbase. You have to appreciate that 343i is trying to tow the line of too much and too little change.
Feels like halo. You just don’t know what halo is.
> 2533274900925596;10:
> It’s obviously different, but it still feels like halo. I feel that too many people want a carbon copy of Halo 2. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good game. The problem is that continuously pushing out Halo 2’s will lead to less successful releases. But pushing out a game that is too different from its roots (Halo 4) will lead to a decline in the old fanbase. You have to appreciate that 343i is trying to tow the line of too much and too little change.
Like I said, I honestly don’t mind the changes that they are implementing. The new abilities don’t bother me at all. But the gun play just feels completely off. Not to mention the fact that the opening music is nothing like previous Halos. Halo has established a brand, as whether or not people want to accept it, the chanting monks and music from previous games is as much a part of that brand as anything. The game has a completely new character, and it just doesn’t feel like Halo anymore. it certainly doesn’t feel like Halo CE or Halo 2 (which I’m not calling for), but even Halo 4 felt like a sibling in the same franchise. This game is completely different from them all.
> 2533274892061674;12:
> > 2533274900925596;10:
> > It’s obviously different, but it still feels like halo. I feel that too many people want a carbon copy of Halo 2. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good game. The problem is that continuously pushing out Halo 2’s will lead to less successful releases. But pushing out a game that is too different from its roots (Halo 4) will lead to a decline in the old fanbase. You have to appreciate that 343i is trying to tow the line of too much and too little change.
>
>
> Like I said, I honestly don’t mind the changes that they are implementing. The new abilities don’t bother me at all. But the gun play just feels completely off. Not to mention the fact that the opening music is nothing like previous Halos. Halo has established a brand, as whether or not people want to accept it, the chanting monks and music from previous games is as much a part of that brand as anything. The game has a completely new character, and it just doesn’t feel like Halo anymore. it certainly doesn’t feel like Halo CE or Halo 2 (which I’m not calling for), but even Halo 4 felt like a sibling in the same franchise. This game is completely different from them all.
Well stuff like gunplay feeling awkward or “off” is what the beta is for. If enough people complain about the issue I’m sure it will be changed because I agree that movement seems a bit clunky and kill times are bit fast.
Here we go. Halo 4 is better than Halo 5? Just like Reach was better than 4? And 3 was better than Reach? And so on?
> 2533274845095818;14:
> Here we go. Halo 4 is better than Halo 5? Just like Reach was better than 4? And 3 was better than Reach? And so on?
No, that’s not at all what I am saying. I hated Halo 4. I’m simply saying that I could pick Halo 4 up and immediately recognize it as a Halo game by the way that it moved. It might have even been a modified version of the Reach engine. This game feels completely different to me. The running, the jumping, the shooting all feels very alien to me for some reason. It could very well be better than Halo 4 (as it should be), but it doesn’t immediately feel like a Halo game when first playing, IMO.
> 2533274838030818;11:
> Feels like halo. You just don’t know what halo is.
It feels nothing like Halo. Ive played more Halo then you.
No one seems to be able to pinpoint EXACTLY what makes Guardians’ Beta feel not like Halo, and I was part of that group… I knew something was off, it just wasn’t right, but I couldn’t tell until now what was wrong with the game.
A little back story here, I’ve been playing Halo competitively for quite some time now, and enjoy the franchise very much; Past the multiplayer, into the lore and story of the games I’m a huge fan, and it’s the one thing I can say I’m a nerd for. This is a series I know just about everything about, and have been having fun in MM since 2004’s Halo 2 launch at midnight. I’d like to say I’m one of the few that defended Halo 4 (I know… I know) and how it too was a Halo game, but now as a die-hard fan I’ve lost faith somehow in Guardians as many of you seem to have also.
There’s several key things wrong with the gameplay, but before I get into that I must say Guardians is quite a good shooter, but as a Halo game it’s hands down the worst in my (Pre-release, Beta phase) opinion. The fluidity of movement, the gelling of the abilities, and gunplay are all solid, and I’d even go as far as to say it’s near innovative with how it deals with movement in an FPS and its balancing. Thus far I’ve only had good things to say about it, but none of these are my opinions on it as a Halo game. Putting this beside Halo 2 it’s pretty terrible. Halo is best known for its slow methodical, well thought out gameplay - creating those killer strats that would win your team the match, and holding the key positions with good callouts and weapon timings was absolutely critical to the match… Now our characters are yelling those callouts, the announcer is counting the weapons, and the maps are chaotic with no true tactics available past reactionary strats or blind charging.
Kills times are faster than ever, not because we’re getting any better, but because the guns have faster fire rates and longer ranges. The BR for example seems to be firing twice as fast. Now, there’s an actually good reason for this, and it’s based on a new problem that only became evident in Reach, but far more so in Halo 4. In past games we were sluggish suits of armor slowly dragging ourselves through the maps as if we didn’t know how to move our legs faster than a slow jog, but now we’re metaphorical supermen that can go full sprint for as long as we want while still wearing armor that weighs tons; This has introduced the need for all the weapons to have faster fire rates as we can go from a firefight to cover in less than a second, and a running enemy across an open area is no longer as easy a target as before because of how fast they can move from the open to cover. So how would you logically fix this? Make the guns more accurate, which is why in Halo 4 we saw the additional bullet magnetism, and higher fire rates to most of the weapons so that they could hit those quick moving targets faster. Surely this is logical, and I do see the sense in it, but it caused more problems than it solved. For one, it removed some of the skill required to kill players due to the added aim assist/bullet magnetism, and it also made it so that people were being killed faster, and as we all know Halo players don’t want things to be faster. In turn all of this removed many layers of the famous skill gap that Halo has so openly showed for many years now.
Through all of this, the faster movement speeds are what affect Halo the most. We know faster movement means you need quicker kills times, but it also means the maps need to be bigger. You all remember Warlock, Midship, Elongation, Backwash, and Lockout right? Well we can’t have maps like them anymore, and the reason being is the faster movement speeds. If you added the sprint from Halo 5: Guardians onto an original sized Midship you would literally be across the map in a couple of seconds. Pink tower to big would be like nothing, thus they had to increase the size of the map. We know Midship as an iconic figure of Halo 2 Pro play because of how matches played out, and how the strats would have to adapt in a match. Surely chaotic, sometimes amazing, Slayer was fast paced because of how the map was designed. It’s now familiar to us, and being on this wonderful map again is almost a case of Deja Vu because of how similar it is, yet how vastly different it is at the same time. The callouts are the same, weapons drops are similar, so what could be wrong? It’s the size. Truth is almost three, perhaps even four times larger than the original Midship, and this causes problems. There needs to be more cover, breaks in the sight lines, paths jutting from new areas to make the pathing more bearable again. It all adds up to something that doesn’t feel quite right, but it’s playable. Add in the thruster pack, clambering, and slam ability and you’ve got something that plays pretty well but is again too fast paced for a Halo game, something that people have been complaining about for two years straight in Halo 4.
With all the complaining about Sprint in Halo games, it’s actually not a bad addition to the games, and has been been handled well before in the series, and what they’re doing to it now (Some of what they’re doing to it) is very good as well. When sprint was first added in Halo: Reach people complained that it was a get out of jail free card, but there was one key thing that was good about it that balanced it out a little. There was a break in the sprint, and for a few seconds you stopped running to let the ability recharge for however long it took. It was just long enough to break up how powerful sprint was, and made it so we could have smaller maps, while still allowing for that added boost of speed. It wasn’t perfect though, and that imperfection was made far worse in Halo 4 with the mobility perk. Mobility made it so there wasn’t that few second long wait to continue running, and so they took away its only balance past the weapon buffer… It was now an unadulterated get out of jail free card. Through this we were no longer allowed the previously small arena maps we so dearly loved, and there was nothing to break up how quickly you could get around a map. Now, this same exact mistake was carried over once more into Guardians, but with actual balancing. Making the shields not recharge if you sprint is genius, but it’s still a “Get Out of Jail Free Card” because there’s no longer any weapon buffer, and there’s no stopping you from running forever, which in turn makes the maps bigger. Add in everything else and we have a smorgasbord of insanely fast movement abilities that all in all are far too unbalanced.
Faster kill times, quicker movement, hand holding combat announcements, oh my. Surely there is more to it than that? You’d be right, there are a few key psychological tricks that might be messing the game up too. We’re used to a very bold ascetic to Halo, the iconic weapons, the wide spanning vistas, small maps, ect. With weapon redesigns, and ascetic changes it takes away from Halo’s original feel of a mysterious action packed game. There’s also the changes to the way animation looks with the added fidelity to gameplay, so it’s all a bit sleeker and at 60 FPS, which we’re not used to quite yet in a Halo game. Next up would be the game start/end cinematic. Finally the scope-in redesign is something no one in the community ever asked for, and definitely changes the way the game feels.
For the record though, I enjoy Guardians, but as a Halo game it’s not enjoyable.
> 2533274892061674;6:
> I can’t quite pinpoint what it is about this game that I don’t like. I think it’s a combination of the horrendous control schemes and the clunky movement? Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s damn near impossible to get headshots now? I dunno…
Saying you can’t get headshots… this is due to much less auto aim than before. My only response: get good.
I would quickly like to note that I’m not bashing 343i in any way whatsoever, and if you even dare say I’m nostalgic I will have to slap you with a fish… Don’t make me do it, because I will.
[Because I ran out of space in my last post, I’ll continue a little bit here]
The way I believe 343i can fix the game would be to re-add the weapon buffer to sprint (How long it takes to pull up your gun), and make it so there’s a 3-5 second wait time after a predetermined amount of time sprint. This would make it so there wasn’t endless sprint, and that sprint wasn’t just a way of getting out of a fight. Maybe make it back to the way it was in Reach where it had to charge before you could use it. A few other changes I would personally make would have to be rebalancing of the weapons, making kills times longer, and changing the scope-in animation… I’d also make it so you can’t aim with weapons that don’t have direct sights, or that haven’t had scopes in past games cough AR and SMG cough.
> 2533274843688196;17:
> No one seems to be able to pinpoint EXACTLY what makes Guardians’ Beta feel not like Halo, and I was part of that group… I knew something was off, it just wasn’t right, but I couldn’t tell until now what was wrong with the game.
>
> A little back story here, I’ve been playing Halo competitively for quite some time now, and enjoy the franchise very much; Past the multiplayer, into the lore and story of the games I’m a huge fan, and it’s the one thing I can say I’m a nerd for. This is a series I know just about everything about, and have been having fun in MM since 2004’s Halo 2 launch at midnight. I’d like to say I’m one of the few that defended Halo 4 (I know… I know) and how it too was a Halo game, but now as a die-hard fan I’ve lost faith somehow in Guardians as many of you seem to have also.
>
> There’s several key things wrong with the gameplay, but before I get into that I must say Guardians is quite a good shooter, but as a Halo game it’s hands down the worst in my (Pre-release, Beta phase) opinion. The fluidity of movement, the gelling of the abilities, and gunplay are all solid, and I’d even go as far as to say it’s near innovative with how it deals with movement in an FPS and its balancing. Thus far I’ve only had good things to say about it, but none of these are my opinions on it as a Halo game. Putting this beside Halo 2 it’s pretty terrible. Halo is best known for its slow methodical, well thought out gameplay - creating those killer strats that would win your team the match, and holding the key positions with good callouts and weapon timings was absolutely critical to the match… Now our characters are yelling those callouts, the announcer is counting the weapons, and the maps are chaotic with no true tactics available past reactionary strats or blind charging.
>
> Kills times are faster than ever, not because we’re getting any better, but because the guns have faster fire rates and longer ranges. The BR for example seems to be firing twice as fast. Now, there’s an actually good reason for this, and it’s based on a new problem that only became evident in Reach, but far more so in Halo 4. In past games we were sluggish suits of armor slowing dragging ourselves through the maps as if we didn’t know how to move our legs faster than a slow jog, but now we’re metaphorical supermen that can go full sprint for as long as we want wearing armor that weighs tons; This has introduced the need for all the weapons to have faster fire rates as we can go from a firefight to cover in less than a second, and a running enemy across an open area is no longer as easy a target as before because of how fast they can move from the open to cover. So how would you logically fix this? Make the guns more accurate, which is why in Halo 4 we saw the additional bullet magnetism, and add higher fire rates to said weapons so they can hit those target faster. Surely this is logical, and I do see the sense in it, but it caused more problems than it solved. For one, it removed some of the skill required to kill players due to the added aim assist/bullet magnetism, and it also made it so that people were being killed faster, and as we all know Halo players don’t want things to be faster. In turn all of this removed many layers of the famous skill gap that Halo has so openly showed for many years now.
>
> Through all of this, the faster movement speeds are what effect Halo the most. We know faster movement means you need quicker kills times, but it also means the maps need to be bigger. You all remember Warlock, Midship, Elongation, Backwash, and Lockout right? Well we can’t have maps like them anymore, and the reason being is the faster movement speeds. If you added the sprint from Halo 5: Guardians onto an original sized Midship you would literally be across the map in a couple of seconds. Pink tower to big would be like nothing, thus they had to increase the size of the map. We know Midship as an iconic figure of Halo 2 Pro play because of how matches played out, and how the strats would have to adapt in a match. Surely chaotic, sometimes amazing, Slayer was fast paced because of how the map was designed. It’s now familiar to us, and being on this wonderful map again is almost a case of Deja Vu because of how similar it is, yet how vastly different it is at the same time. The callouts are the same, weapons drops are similar, so what could be wrong? It’s the size. Truth is almost three, perhaps even four times larger than the original Midship, and this causes problems. There needs to be more cover, breaks in the sight lines, paths jutting from new areas to make the pathing more bearable again. It all adds up to something that doesn’t feel quite right, but it’s playable. Add in the thruster pack, clambering, and slam ability and you’ve got something that plays pretty well but is again too fast paced for a Halo game, something that people have been complaining about for two years straight in Halo 4.
>
> With all the complaining about Sprint in Halo games, it’s actually not a bad addition to the games, and has been been handled well before in the series, and what they’re doing to it now (Some of what they’re doing to it) is very good as well. When sprint was first added in Halo: Reach people complained that it was a get out of jail free card, but there was one key thing that was good about it that balanced it out a little. There was a break in the sprint, and for a few seconds you stopped running to let the ability recharge for however long it too. It was just long enough to break up how powerful sprint was, and made it so we could have smaller maps, while still allowing for that added boost of speed. It wasn’t perfect though, and that imperfection was made far worse in Halo 4 with the mobility perk. Mobility made it so there wasn’t that few second long wait to continue running, and so they took away its only balance past the weapon buffer… It was now an unadulterated get out of jail free card. Through this we were no longer allowed the previously small arena maps we so dearly loved, and there was nothing to break up how quickly you could get around a map. Now, this same exact mistake was carried over once more into Guardians, but with actual balancing. Making the shields not recharge if you sprint is genius, but it’s still a Get out of Jail free card because there’s no longer any weapon buffer, and there’s no stopping you from running forever, which makes the maps bigger. Add in everything else and we have a smorgasbord of insanely fast movement that all in all is far too unbalanced.
>
> Faster kill times, quicker movement, hand holding combat announcements, oh my. Surely there is more to it than that? You’d be right, there are a few key psychological tricks that might be messing the game up too. We’re used to a very bold ascetic to Halo, the iconic weapons, the wide spanning vistas, small maps, ect. With weapon redesigns, and ascetic changes it takes away from Halo’s original feel of a mysterious action packed game. There’s also the changes to the way animation looks with the added fidelity to gameplay, so it’s all a bit sleeker and at 60 FPS, which we’re not used to quite yet in a Halo game. Next up would be the game start/end cinematic. Finally the scope-in redesign is something no one in the community ever asked for, and definitely changes the way the game feels.
>
> For the record though, I enjoy Guardians, but as a Halo game it’s not enjoyable.
Soooooooo… You like it so far?