Halo 4 - A game for casuals AND competitives.

Games Other Halo
1

When 343 said they were designing this game for competitive AND casual players I was excited, but scared at the same time.

From what I’ve seen in gaming, games that are designed for competitive play only usually have a competitive audience and grow a casual audience through things like Custom Games and fun, casual gametypes. (Halo 2-3)

Games that are designed for Casual play usually have a strong casual following, but competitive players are turned off and can’t play it without getting mad and throwing a few controllers. (Reach, COD)

But could 343 pull off the impossible? Could they make a game that has all of the great competitive aspects of the original trilogy while adding casual aspects from other shooters and Reach?

Now that news of a possible invisible ranking system has come out, I think I can finally answer that question.

It seems as if every competitive aspect that is being added to this game is being drowned out by stupid, nonsensical additions. Not that there are many competitive aspects being added in the first place. But what HAS been added for competitive players so far?

Maps
So far we have only been shown 3 maps and two of them (Longbow and Adrift) are undoubtedly made for casual play. The one map we have left, Haven, has potential. It is a smaller map, symmetrical, it looks beautiful, there isn’t much in the way on the map, etc.

But the map has one problem, and it isn’t even necessarily a problem with the map, so much as the game itself: It is the smallest map in the game.

This is just plain stupid. 99% of competitive maps are as small, or in some cases, smaller than this map. So this means we are being shipped a game with one Competitive map. I sure hope Forge maps won’t be as bland this time around, because it looks like I’m going to be spending a lot of time on them.

Weapons
This isn’t so much of a Competitive problem, as much as a nostalgic one.

Everyone in Halo 2 and 3 looooved the BR, so much so that it may have overtaken the entire sandbox. Bungie didn’t like this so in its last Halo releases (Reach and ODST) it was left out completely.

But rejoice! 343 is bringing it back for Halo 4!

There’s only one problem: it is incredibly underpowered compared to the other starting weapons. You’ve all seen the stats before so I won’t even bother showing them, but how could they make everyone’s old favorite weapon almost useless compare to weapons like the Carbine, which is historically much weaker?

Even the AR is powerful this time around, something that will make every competitive player cringe.

And you can even spawn with a Noob Combo! Just set your primary to Carbine and your secondary to PP and equip some stupid AA and you’ll be -Yoink!- off players who are better than you in no time!

AA’s/Perks/Loadouts
One of the main things that killed Reach for many Competitive players was the new inclusion of AA’s and Loadouts. I for one was oblivious the first time around as to how much this would affect gameplay. Obviously I learned my lesson.

The only logical thing to do with these in a Competitive aspect would be to trash them and pretend they never existed, maybe bring back Power-ups. Can you imagine how awesome map-specific power-ups would be? They could do the same things as AA’s (to a lesser extent) but still promote map movement. That would be ideal to ANY player, competitive or casual.

But 343 didn’t do that, they decided that they could do a better job at balancing them. This certainly threw me for a loop when I heard this. How could a 2-year-old company do a better job at balancing AA’s than a 20-year-old company with 10 years of experience working with the series?

Badly, it would seem. The AA’s so far announced are Hologram (still useless), Thruster Pack (evade but actually somewhat better), Hardlight Shield (the Riot Shield in COD fit into the Halo universe), and last but not least, Promethean Vision.

Now Promethean Vision is a special dose of stupidity. It lets you see through walls.

But you are probably saying “But Batman and Blacklight can do it, why can’t Halo?”
First of all Batman isn’t even a multi-player game, never mind a competitive one, and Blacklight ISN’T Halo. Almost EVERY pro who has used it has said it is OP, but that won’t stop some people from saying that it isn’t, even though they haven’t played it (I’ll save fanboyism for another thread, as this one is getting lengthy).

“But it stops camping!” Oh does it really? You know all those corner campers? Imagine if they had an ability to see people coming from yards away, even if they are crouch-walking. To combat this, the non-campers would need to use PV too. tada! Now everyone is using one ability. So much for choice.

Ranking system
This was my last glimmer of hope at a Competitive Halo game that carried me through the past weeks, and now it appears that even THIS was made for the Casual player.

If there is no visible rank, there is no way for a player to know if his team is even or not, he has to trust that the untested developer made a perfect ranking system.

If there is no visible rank, there is no need to get a good rank, so no one will play ranked playlists anymore. I am still of the firm belief that the playlists in Halo 3 were perfect and if this is true, half of them will be useless.

“But it stops boosters and trash-talkers!” No it doesn’t. The thing about -Yoinks!- on the internet is no matter how hard you try to get rid of them, they will always be there. And in trying to get rid of them, you only upset the fans who try to play fair and nice.

In Reach there was no ranking system (or at least, not a good one) so what did the cheaters do? They Credit farmed. They used the Target Locator, the save glitch, and Gruntpocalypse to get ranks that other people worked hard to try to achieve.

And as for trash-talking, who’s to stop them from trash-talking during/after the game? If only there was a magical button you could press so you would no longer have to hear them…

Oh wait there is. It’s called the mute button.

Now that I mentioned a portion of the Casual aspects added to the game (and I left out things like Weapon Drops, Killstreaks, Sprint etc.) I am left with just one question:

What Competitive aspects have been added to the game?

The fact that I am drawing a blank and have for a long time is not good. At least Reach TRIED with things like the Arena.

And as for the “Vanilla Halo” playlists, I don’t feel like either playing on maps that don’t fit Vanilla Halo gameplay or maps that are just grey remakes. When I hear “Vanilla Halo” I look to the Classic Playlist in Reach, as that is so far the best indication of what this might be, and those playlists didn’t fare so well.

I may be pessimistic and slightly cynical, but either way things are not looking good for competitive Halo.

And it’s a shame too, the Campaign looks great, Spartan Ops looks fun, I was kind of expecting more from Forge but it still looks good.

And if you made it this far (which I don’t expect many of you will), know that I tried to like Halo 4, I tried to give 343 a chance. But with these new changes, I don’t see any way I can like this game, or at least the multi-player.

Disclaimer: I do not speak for the entire competitive community.

2

summary please

3

Gamers aren’t easily split between “casual” or “competitive” and many peoples definition of what defines a “casual” is usually along the lines of, “Someone who isn’t competitive”.

4

> summary please

tl;dr
343 claimed to have made Halo 4 for Casuals AND Competitives, but I feel as if they have failed at this, as the majority (if not all) of additions and changes to Halo 4 have been much more aimed towards the casual audience.

5

> Gamers aren’t easily split between “casual” or “competitive” and many peoples definition of what defines a “casual” is usually along the lines of, “Someone who isn’t competitive”.

They are merely popularized words to describe the two main styles of play. They may have subgenres, but those are the general terms.

It may be slightly stereotypical but it makes it easier to get a point across.

6

> > summary please
>
> tl;dr
> 343 claimed to have made Halo 4 for Casuals AND Competitives, but I feel as if they have failed at this, as the <mark>majority of additions</mark> to Halo 4 have been much more aimed towards the casual audience.

Additions to an already competitive game.

7

> > Gamers aren’t easily split between “casual” or “competitive” and many peoples definition of what defines a “casual” is usually along the lines of, “Someone who isn’t competitive”.
>
> They are merely popularized words to describe the two main styles of play. They may have subgenres, but those are the general terms.
>
> It may be slightly stereotypical but it makes it easier to get a point across.

Two main styles of play? That doesn’t make sense as one of those styles of play is not really playing at all.

8

> > > summary please
> >
> > tl;dr
> > 343 claimed to have made Halo 4 for Casuals AND Competitives, but I feel as if they have failed at this, as the <mark>majority of additions</mark> to Halo 4 have been much more aimed towards the casual audience.
>
> Additions to an already competitive game.

*Additions and Changes.

Is that better?

They have changed the Golden Triangle to a wierd Pentagonal or possibly hexagonal shape by now, that isn’t competitive in the slightest, even though it started out as competitive.

9

It will be better than Reach competitive wise, that is enough for me to at least give it a chance. Look at what we did with Halo 3 a average competitive shooter out of the box, we can do the same with H4 which has potential to be a good competitive game(Without ordinance drops and with streamlined loadouts).

10

> > > Gamers aren’t easily split between “casual” or “competitive” and many peoples definition of what defines a “casual” is usually along the lines of, “Someone who isn’t competitive”.
> >
> > They are merely popularized words to describe the two main styles of play. They may have subgenres, but those are the general terms.
> >
> > It may be slightly stereotypical but it makes it easier to get a point across.
>
> Two main styles of play? That doesn’t make sense as one of those styles of play is not really playing at all.

Either you play to win (competitive) or you play to -Yoink- around and have fun (casual).

There are subgenres of this and things inbetween, but it would be easier to say “Competitive and Casual” then “Competitive, Casual, people who are only competitive on Guardian, people who are only casual in Action Sack, people who are only casual with their friends… etc. etc.”

I could max out the character count trying to describe all of the individual styles of play and still not be finished and not get my point across or I could use two words. Which one is better to you?

11

> > summary please
>
> tl;dr
> 343 claimed to have made Halo 4 for Casuals AND Competitives, but I feel as if they have failed at this, as the majority of additions to Halo 4 have been much more aimed towards the casual audience.

thank god I didn’t have to read all that was in the OP

as for the whole them aiming more towards casuals than competitive players I’m ok with it, I mean the vast majority of the people who play the game are going to be casuals so the idea that they should give 50/50 is kind of wrong.

as long as they give competitive players something that will appeal to them I’m sure it’ll be just fine for both worlds.

I think that the biggest reason why halo reach failed (halo wise) was because it didn’t appeal to either side of the community as much as it should’ve, even if halo 4 JUST caters to one side of the community (most likely casuals) it would probably do better than reach did.

12

Good post, I feel the exact same way about Halo 4.
I guess we’ll just have to make do with statting in multi team. ):

13

> > > > Gamers aren’t easily split between “casual” or “competitive” and many peoples definition of what defines a “casual” is usually along the lines of, “Someone who isn’t competitive”.
> > >
> > > They are merely popularized words to describe the two main styles of play. They may have subgenres, but those are the general terms.
> > >
> > > It may be slightly stereotypical but it makes it easier to get a point across.
> >
> > Two main styles of play? That doesn’t make sense as one of those styles of play is not really playing at all.
>
> Either you play to win (competitive) or you play to -Yoink!- around and have fun (casual).
>
> There are subgenres of this and things inbetween, but it would be easier to say “Competitive and Casual” then “Competitive, Casual, people who are only competitive on Guardian, people who are only casual in Action Sack, people who are only casual with their friends… etc. etc.”
>
> I could max out the character count trying to describe all of the individual styles of play and still not be finished and not get my point across or I could use two words. Which one is better to you?

That’s still a shallow way of looking at it. Like a competitive player can’t have fun or a casual player can’t play to win.

Frankly this whole thing is ruined with the word “casual” since a real “casual” wouldn’t be posting on this forum, wouldn’t pre-order any games, and thier total game count can be counted on one hand. They only look at games as something to pass the time while they wait for the bus.

14

> That’s still a shallow way of looking at it. Like a competitive player can’t have fun or a casual player can’t play to win.
>
> Frankly this whole thing is ruined with the word “casual” since a real “casual” wouldn’t be posting on this forum, wouldn’t pre-order any games, and thier total game count can be counted on one hand. They only look at games as something to pass the time while they wait for the bus.

To quote myself:

> They are merely popularized words to describe the two main styles of play. They may have subgenres, but those are the general terms.
>
> It may be slightly stereotypical but it makes it easier to get a point across.

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“But it stops boosters and trash-talkers!” No it doesn’t. The thing about -Yoinks!- on the internet is no matter how hard you try to get rid of them, they will always be there. And in trying to get rid of them, you only upset the fans who try to play fair and nice."

THIS.

16

> “But it stops boosters and trash-talkers!” No it doesn’t. The thing about -Yoinks!- on the internet is no matter how hard you try to get rid of them, they will always be there. And in trying to get rid of them, you only upset the fans who try to play fair and nice."
>
>
> THIS.

That’s really what pissed me off the most about this whole ranking system thing. They keep trying to fight unwinnable battles at the price of their fanbase.

17

Good post. And thanks for posting.

Still, you are wrong. It still competitive; not like Halo 2, but much more competitive than Reach, an even more than Halo 3, at least in the sandbox balance.

19

> Good post. And thanks for posting.
>
> Still, you are wrong. It still competitive; not like Halo 2, but much more competitive than Reach, an even more than Halo 3, at least in the sandbox balance.

Just out of curiosity, how do you think this?

Can you please elaborate? I would really like another opinion on this, because I don’t see how this game will be competitive at all.

And I appreciate your polite manner. It is hard to come by around here.

20

I disagree that it won’t be competitive, or its competitiveness is reduced. I look at some of the gameplay seen at RTX, as well as stories that came out. It seemed that more casual players pretty much got dominated by those who actually take the game seriously. Like the match between Roster Teeth team and those other Random Dudes. Pretty much one sided domination. And the matches between the MLG actually looked fair and competitive- no cheapness involved (beside Promethean Vision).

Thats just an opinion though. We really won’t know until this game hits mass market. But the people playing it all seemed to have unanimous praise so optimism may not be unwarranted.

21

> I disagree that it won’t be competitive, or its competitiveness is reduced. I look at some of the gameplay seen at RTX, as well as stories that came out. It seemed that more casual players pretty much got dominated by those who actually take the game seriously. Like the match between Roster Teeth team and those other Random Dudes. Pretty much one sided domination. And the matches between the MLG actually looked fair and competitive- no cheapness involved (beside Promethean Vision).
>
> Thats just an opinion though. We really won’t know until this game hits mass market. But the people playing it all seemed to have unanimous praise so optimism may not be unwarranted.

Rooster Teeth may make a living on playing video games, but they are historically known for being terrible at video games.

And we’ve only seen a few games so far and the people who played it only got to play a few games, I liked Reach the first game or two, then it got really old, really fast.

And I can’t even fathom a competitive game that employs killstreaks. They really need to show off more gametypes because Infinity Slayer looks awful to almost any competitive player.