Halo 4 Inquiry

Games Other Halo
1

My feelings towards 343 weren’t at their best after Halo Anniversary left out Johnson’s line in the Autumn’s hanger at the start of the game.
I started to feel an actual sense of hate towards them after Halo 4, due to their multiplayer ‘changes’ that ‘improved’ the gaming experience.
To be honest, unless they make some serious changes, I may not stay any longer, but honestly, I would like to see how other people actually feel about this subject, rather than seeing the youtube responses that mostly consist of trolling rather than actual opinions about the game.

Just select an option that describes your feelings towards the game plus a comment either supporting the game and getting mad at me or standing against it, I don’t really care which side you take, I just want to hear the opinions of others.

2

I personally love the game.
I can’t say much to support the game as the changes must outrage long time Halo players. I started Halo at the end of Halo 3’s life cycle.

3

I thought Halo 4 was pretty alright just in general, yes it definitely needs a fixing here and there and here, also there.

The Campaign felt fresh and good, better than Halo 3 in my opinion. It definitely gave some more personification to John, and finally makes people see Spartans as humans rather than super warfare soldiers with giant suits that are all craving bloodlust and jumping off a building to smash a tank for thrills.

Spartan Ops was pretty good for a secondary campaign that kind of feels longer, introduces your Spartan as part of the universe, and also gives you freedom with what guns you want to start off and your perks about your character. Even if it takes a bit of copy+paste, the cinematics are nearly as good as Campaign, and the story is good.

Sadly they lack theatre mode and hardly have any replay value with the really low population.

Multiplayer needs tweaks, a lot more playlists that favor to the ranked or social and to the infinity and legendary players., and DLC playlists that aren’t being rotated. Atleast they are getting on that, but would have been better sooner.

Forge and Custom games, I’m not going to get on because just of reasons we already know. (They are decent but need to get fixed but sadly this is all we can hope for in Halo 5)

It’s good/alright, but it does have its flaws.

4

I voted “Halo 4 was a great game.” I Really don’t think another halo game will take ODST’s spot as the best halo game. I’m judging halo 4 as a whole and not just the MP.

There really isn’t much that i don’t like about halo 4. In fact it would be far easier to make a list of what i disliked about halo 4. To me 343 managed to keep the core halo feel around while adding new additions to the game. Which is what i typically expect out of a halo game anyway. I honestly believe people focus on the new mechanics too much to the point that they miss out on seeing the actual halo gameplay in every game.

I think POD can stay as long as it gets edited to removing all of the really powerful PW’s out (like rockets IC FR etc) and putting those on the map to fight over. I think custom loadouts can stay as well as long as we lock the secondaries and nades to pistols and frags. The tactical/support packages i’m indifferent on. I enjoy them as it changes things up slightly and defines a players style more. But i wouldn’t care if they were gone. Though you have to admit being able to fly out of a vehicle is pretty darn fun.

Sprint can stay but for BTB only as it actually -Yoink!- BTB play. Every other playlist it should be absent. I have nothing against sprint but with it gone it will really free up maps for better design and bring back power positions. Plus i really don’t enjoy having to sprint around from start to finish every match.

Those are really the only topics i feel like posting about as i’d have too much to type. But i can say for sure i want instant spawns gone. And hopefully a better looking sniper rifle in halo 5. But i’m done rambling. I have faith that due to our feedback and the bonuses of the next gen console halo 5 will really be something worth playing.

5

Halo 4 is not a bad game, but it is easily the worst of the series. The stats say it all really, 95% + of the original population has left within 6 months of the games release, so Halo 4 definitely isn’t a great game in most players opinion.

6

I could pretty much have voted for both “Halo 4 is a great game” and “Halo 4 is the worst game in the series” (though I’ve enjoyed it more than Reach).

IMO they are all great games despite their problems (of which Halo 4 may have had the most).

None of my core playlists have personal ordnance, so when I do feel like playing some IS I enjoy calling in my ordnance for power weapons, and having it random just adds to the fun - I completely understand why those who would rather play solely IS and BTB might not like PO.

I’m fine with sprint - its only con in my eyes is that maps are designed around it, but I’m pretty fond of a lot of the smaller maps so again that’s not an issue.

Active camo may be annoying, but I rarely come across it (I figure it is most prevalent in btb?), and I have so much fun with my hologram so I’ll gladly put up with the rest of the AAs just to have that.

Tac/Support - I rarely even notice my own tbh, so I certainly don’t notice anyone elses to get annoyed by them.

I’ve never forged a map in my life and not played customs since H2 so those don’t get me down either.

I realise I haven’t really said what I like about Halo, but those are most of the major common complaints people have about the game, and since they don’t negatively impact my experience, why wouldn’t I like Halo 4?

7

> My feelings towards 343 weren’t at their best after Halo Anniversary left out Johnson’s line in the Autumn’s hanger at the start of the game.
> I started to feel an actual sense of hate towards them after Halo 4, due to their multiplayer ‘changes’ that ‘improved’ the gaming experience.
> To be honest, unless they make some serious changes, I may not stay any longer, but honestly, I would like to see how other people actually feel about this subject, rather than seeing the youtube responses that mostly consist of trolling rather than actual opinions about the game.
>
> Just select an option that describes your feelings towards the game plus a comment either supporting the game and getting mad at me or standing against it, I don’t really care which side you take, I just want to hear the opinions of others.

I enjoyed halo 4 initially,but got bored after unlocking all the stances I wanted. Came back after csr, got bored @ 40 and realized its not rank but just another level. Came back again after TU and the games " balancing" had broken it beyond repair, the weapon balancing was fine to begin with. The first mistake was putting br and dmr in the same game, the second mistake was pandering to the h3 nostalgists and buffing the br and nerfing the dmr ( not to mention the ridiculous ar class buff) now the game to me us not fun or balanced, all for what seems like an attempt to not only reduce the skill gap but remove it completely. News flash 343 competitive skill based play built this series and is what kept players like me playing h3 and even reach long past its shelf life.

8

If Spartan Ops can be played offline, or without a Gold membership, Halo 4 would be in my top 5 of Halo games, with Halo 2, 3, 3 ODST and Reach

9

indifferent. For me, there’s some really good things about the game, and some really bad things about the game. I see major strength in the storyline and spartan ops, but see some downsides in multiplayer and customs. Overall, the pros and cons outweigh eachother for me, so at the end of the day when I think whether or not it’s a good game I just go, “meh, it’s fun.”

10

The voting topic is a little vague.

There are basically four aspects to H4, Campaign, Spartan Ops, Multiplayer and Forge.

Campaign was okay - it was visually gorgeous - but had quite a few annoyances such as weapons disappearing within 12 seconds if you drop them and turn around, some of the race parts (the trench in the Ghost when the didact’s ship flies off, flying down the Trench on the Didact’s ship etc.) were just annoying, the Mammoth end mission where you get the target locator to destroy the Gravity Well device (you can aim anywhere and hit it) and no Theatre mode at all.

Spartan Ops was pretty good, especially the second half - but still it lacked many of the features of FireFight such as scores, showing medals, skulls, limited lives, more variability and Theatre mode. Also getting some of the achievements is ridiculous (like the number of Crawler Snipers you have to kill). One HUGE detractor is you can not play SPOps offline and have to have an XBL Gold account.

Multiplayer I gave up on June 6th and went back to Reach - mainly because of Lag, but the randomness and proliferation of power weapons are also significant factors. Of my 1400 H4 war games, 70% are lagged by 0.5+ seconds and that just makes it zero fun. It’s the lack of connection filters and the abysmal host selection methodology. I now play Halo Reach which picks the best player in a game for host based on their connection (No Host History carp like H4) and has connection filters like “Good Connection”. Only 5% of my H4 BTB games ever lag as badly as H4 did 70% of the time - so if I play 20 BTB games, in Reach I get 1 bad lag game and in H4 I get 14 bad lag games. I play 3 other multiplayer titles and NONE of them Lag as bad as H4 does. And the only reason I stuck with H4 was because each update or DLC release, I vainly hoped they would fix this Lag mess - but after 9 months of hoping - I abandoned H4 just as 343 has abandoned us players.

Forge I don’t build with, but I have read quite a few posts from people that have had serious issues with it compared to Halo Reach and earlier Halo titles, such as aligned objects suddenly separating when you save them, lack of fine alignment and other issues too.

So for me it’s below “meh” and after having played and still owning all the Halo FPS games since CE came out on the Mac, I have serious doubts if I will be buying H5 and an XBox one (that’s $620 USD folks for XB1, H5 and an XBL Gold account). I may switch over to Destiny, if it proves to be as good as it seems for multiplayer in the E3 Demos. Frankly, I do not trust 343 to deliver a good game experience.

11

I would like to say Halo 4 is the best in the series but 343i messed up on so many things. A lot of convenient features in Reach were not added in Halo 4. To name a few: Saved file browser searches, precision editing (hold crouch to move slowly in forge), theater mode in campaign, and matchmaking preferences.

12

At least as far as Multiplayer is concerned, it is a terrible terrible terrible Halo game.

The only way in which Halo 4 could be considered a success (outside of initial sales) is if 343 was just trolling.

13

I liked the Campaign especially. Cortana’s death was just so strong and emotionally filled.

For Multiplayer, it’s awesome but flawed in some ways.

Spartan Ops, well… I can’t tell what to say about it other than it’s kinda repetitive in terms of locations.

Overall, it was great but flawed even though I am still pleased with 343 has done with Halo 4.

They did an amazing job.

14

No local filter/good connection search
Poor netcoding
Downgraded forge
Downgraded theatre
No in game rank
Complete lack of custom games options
No file share system for first six months of launch
Poor multiplayer experience (subjective but considering 320,000 people left I believe its fair to say)
Spops was a failure (hence not making a season 2)

You tell me how it stacks up compared to previous games

15

I’ll try to keep this brief for everyone’s sake, my view is that Halo 4 is a decent game. How it rates as a Halo games I don’t really care about because judging a franchise according to it’s own standards is a pretty empty and pointless process. At any rate, Halo 4 succeeds in several key areas but is held back in a few others (with the positives outweighing the negatives by a fair margin.)

Positives:
-Feature tweaks like loadouts and JIP solve some pretty serious problems this series has been trying (and failing) to address since Halo 2.
-The maps are generally more dynamic than those seen in previous games or in other series.
-The writing the campaign was great, so was the musical score.
-SOPS gives up a good volume of co-op content.
-The sandbox is probably as balanced as it has ever been in this series. Semi-automatics still dominate and power weapons are still as stupid a thing to have in a competitive FPS as ever but these issues are of less impact than previous Halo’s. An AR is no longer just an extroverted suicide, it can be useful tool in combat. It’s not quite the center of the experience, but player initiative has a considerable role in combat.

Negatives
-Co-op and the campaign are frustratingly linear.
-In the same vein, BUTTONS!
-Multipalyer is still, well, Halo multiplayer. Vehicles and infantry rarely mix well and certain parts of the sandbox are given far too many liberties (ex. sniper, DMR, rocket, incinerator cannon, ect.) while other parts fall well into obscurity (concussion rifle, sticky detonator) with little other justification than “that’s how bungie did it.”
-In the same vein, the health model still doesn’t really fit with either gameplay or sandbox. In some respects we have a little too much (standard infantry combat) but in others (against power weapons, vehicles, promethean knights) what we have is woefully inadequate. What this results in is a very haphazard experience where some parts of gameplay empower while the other sections undermine that with stupid, unavoidable deaths. It highlights how this franchise is still struggling to discover what it really is, a serious military shooter or a sci-fi playground. 343 could commit to either one (it doesn’t really matter) and have a much better game than this.
-In general then it’s still too much like Halo. Despite the fresh start, despite what the campaign tried to achieve, we’re still loaded down with all the baggage of the past franchise. Now if you’ve accepted the shape of Halo as holy doctrine and at any rate it doesn’t do that much to ruin Halo 4 but it does considerably cut off the growth 343 can achieve in Halo 5 given that 4 set a distinctly conservative tone and direction.

16

> The only way in which Halo 4 could be considered a success (outside of initial sales) is if 343 was just trolling.

That actually made me laugh IRL.

17

I will say this to each part of halo 4. Which I say halo 4 to be a very good game.

Campaign: Story is excellent and very good. It feels like halo CE all over again and has some elements from halo CE. I also like how chief actually has a personality and the death of Cortana made me sad.

Multiplayer: It’ ok it has good things in it but a lot of bad things with it.

spartan ops: It had a good story and expanded the universe a bit more. Episodes 1,2,3,6,7,10 were to me the best episodes.

Forge: I don’t really forge so I can’t really say anything bad about it.

Theater: I’m sad they couldn’t put theater in campaign and spartan ops due to development time. :frowning:

Over all a great “rushed game”.