When I first heard Halo 4 was being developed by 343i, I had faith in them to reinvent the franchise and fix all the problems that Bungie had created with Reach. Even though Reach was a bad game, I could still sit down and play it for a few hours and have fun, with a few frustrations here and there (Armour lock/Bloom/OP Grenades). But with Halo 4, it really seems like 343i hasn’t listened to the community at all and tried to appeal to the casual mass (e.g. CoD fans). Things like killcams, loadouts, perks, ordnance drops (care packages), instant respawning, etc. I wanted to love this game, but there are so many things missing from this game, it’s like a stripped down version of Halo 3.
One of the biggest problems of this game is the playlists, so many gametypes are missing. Where’s Objective Big Team? where’s Doubles team? Where’s regular Team Slayer? Where’s Team Snipers? Where’s Grifball? Where’s Multi-Team? Where’s Rocket Race? Where’s VIP? The list goes on and on. Now onto maps, but this has to be the worst launch of maps in any Halo game. There is only 2 good 4 v 4 maps, Haven and Solace. Complex and Abandon have to be one of the worst maps ever designed, even Swordbase and Isolation are better than these maps. Adrift is meh, nothing special, a haven for Promethean Vision. But even so, Haven and Solace and nothing special, compared to maps like The Pit, Guardian, Midship, Beaver Creak, these maps absolutely take a dump on Solace and Haven.
Now onto Big Team. 343i has butchered this playlist. How have they not realised that the DMR doesn’t fit Halo, it promotes camping and spawn trapping. In my opinion, they should reduce the range of the DMR, and make it the same range as the BR, this would eliminate most of the problems in Big Team. The Big Team maps are also all mediocre. Exile is the only half decent map, but it’s incredibly unbalanced. Why does one team spawn with a Gauss Warthog and the other doesn’t? Ragnarok, terrible map, why bring back Vahalla, another unbalanced map. Vortex, rubbish. Meltdown, terrible. Longbow, incredibly boring and terrible map flow, plays the same every time. Camp at middle base and hold it (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz).
Now my biggest problem with this game is that they eliminated every element of the “Arena” shooter aspect of Halo. Nobody starts with the same weapon any more, there are no weapons on the map, besides random weapon ordnance, which is one the worst ideas ever introduced, I don’t know what they were thinking. On top of that, there is no regular “Team Slayer”, only Infinity Slayer. No offence 343i, but Infinity Slayer is terrible. No weapons on map, random weapon spawning and ordnance drops, another terrible idea. It’s essentially a care package from CoD. Roll the dice and hope you get a Incineration Cannon, oh look another Needer and pulse grenades… While the whole enemy team get Incineration Cannons and Binary Rifles, that’s well balanced and fair. I know this is a long read, but bare with me.
Now onto weapon balance. 343i definitely need to hire some new weapon designers/balancers. In fact, I spoke to the 343i employee who balanced the weapons at the Halo 4 Black Beta event in Sydney. If I could speak to him now, I’d have a lot more to say. For example, Carbine is useless, Light Rifle is mediocre. Suppressor, why would I ever use this garbage! Storm Rifle, meh. Assault Rifle, decent for a Semi-Auto. Battle Rifle, decent weapon, but compared to DMR, which has a faster kill time and has more range, there’s zero reason to use the BR, I know how to aim at close range, it’s not any more difficult with the DMR compared to BR.
Now, secondary weapons. The Magnum, a well balanced secondary weapon, that should be the only secondary weapon. The Plasma Pistol, why is this a secondary weapon… This weapon is a second tier power weapon. The ability for every player to stun vehicles is a joke… Any half decent player can take down vehicles in mere seconds, including the Mantis. The Boltshot… What were you thinking 343i… Did you even test this weapon? This weapon is the exact reason why you have a “PUBLIC BETA”. This weapon proves that your internal testing is a joke. How is it balanced that every player spawns with pocket shotgun. This gun has more range than a Scattershot, which I might say is this most inconsistent weapon ever in Halo. If both the Plasma Pistol and Boltshot were second tier power weapons that on the map, I’d be happy. The Boltshot would be the new Mauler. But now, vehicles are useless because of the PP and Plasma Grenade combo and now players just run away, bait you in, then “BAM”, bolt-shoted.
Now I could talk about all the problems with Custom games, Forge and Theater, but there are plenty of other threads that have already stated what I’ve stated. Also, Spartan Ops is rubbish. Mediocre story telling with repetitive game play/objectives and environments. This is not ground breaking or the next step for Halo. You have the creator of “-Yoink!- Zombies” on your team, get him re-inventing Firefight, which I must say, is disappointing not to see in Halo 4. That is just my thoughts on Halo 4, an incredible over hyped and disappointing game. Halo has so much potential and I’d thought due to 343i all being such Halo fans, they’d know how to create the perfect Halo game, but sadly, they chose to appeal to the mass audience, the casuals, the CoD drones. If I was you 343i, bring back the Arena shooter aspects of Halo, but more! Look at games like Quake, Tribes and Unreal Tournament, these games are your inspiration, not Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honour. Listen to your fans, they are the ones that will help you.
I didn’t even mention how terrible Instant respawning and Join in session is, two god awful ideas they introduced. Get rid of these two. I don’t even need to specify.
Oh and the ranking system, how could I forget!? No competitive ranking system at all, great job 343i! Instead, we get a Battlefield like ranking system. Spartan ranks, real original! Seems like a lot of thought went into this. All we went is a 1 - 50 system, but more! The system worked well, but it had it’s flaws, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. You have over 300+ people working on this game, did it not cross your mind that we wanted a ranking system? Do you even read these forums? Obviously not.
Another thing I forgot, no region filters, not good connection search? Every game I join is US host and I live in Australia. This make the game almost unplayable. Come on 343i, this should be a given. Even Halo 3 had search preferences.
INB4 you’re terrible at the game. I’m actually very good at Halo 4, I believe my K/DR is 2.4, but in all honestly, I don’t give a damn about K/DR, I just play the game for fun, which is hard with all these problems.
TL/DR
Read it.
Love, a disappointed Halo fan.
