Halo is in decline, and here is why! (MEGA)

Games Other Halo
259

> People like COD because it is fast-paced and easier to pick up, has a ton of customization, perks, progression system, killstreaks, etc. and it definitely explains why certain changes were made in Halo 4, e.g. faster pace, unlockable weapons, perks, custom loadouts, ordinance, etc.
> The changes make perfect sense, but if you still don’t believe it, then there is nothing else I could say to convince you to understand this.

If faster pace was a key factor in the design decisions behind Halo 4, then why the large maps? Why the large enemy proximity influencer? Why not make smaller maps and do away with sprint? Sprint doesn’t help you engage any faster really. It is only useful to cover large distances on vehicular maps.

faster pace doesn’t explain OD at all, and OD is the single most destructive factor for competitive game play.

I think people like CoD because they don’t enjoy fire fights. I watched the first video and the fire fights don’t exist in that video. that is exactly why i won’t waste my time with CoD. What fun is it to shoot a guy and have them drop without being able to engage you in the fire fight?

The second video talks about JIP as a key reason for popularity. But JIP is the key reason I don’t like Halo MM or for any game. So his argument is biased. If he likes JIP he concludes most people do to. That isn’t proven.

In all honesty, you are using biased opinions as facts to back up your position. I don’t know why people like CoD, but I am increasingly convinced it is because they can shoot the other guy and not worry too much of getting shot back. That is exactly what I find boring. I want an engaging fire fight. The futuristic body armor of Halo makes that believable and leverages it big.

The biggest reason people got pissed at Halo 4 is loss of map control and the reward system is random, not skill based. Period. End of story. Look at all the posts and you see this recurring theme over, and over, and over again.

Honestly, the second video is really a poor analysis. It’s popular because it is popular… really?

260

> Even if you went backwards the decline would still progress to a dismal ending for Halo because it’s gone through an actual life cycle. It was new and innovative, Imaginative and groundbreaking, then reduced to the standard and now the good old days.
>
> In the mean time the XBL population has been conditioned away from oriented team play. Bravo and MM team could tweak and prod playlist until the cows come home and as demonstrated competitive lobbies are passed over by the brunt for BTB and slayer because really how is a next generation Random or Casual supposed to survive or protect their perceived stats when actually facing groups who understand team play. You’ll note the various STOP QUITTING IN THROWDOWN posts that fly in from time to time. Trust me those are going to evaporate due to the easier path of lone wolfing on Ragnarok .
>
> Randoms and Casuals will simply move to games that provide them the safety of self sustainable attributes if you go all Halo 3 on Halo 5 because it won’t click with them. The uneducated competitive will simply say good riddance and then wonder why they’re not finding matches very fast, while games like Destiny and Call Of Duty will pull vast amounts of Populations and 343 is building MMOs or Mario Kart games to keep Microsoft’s hand in clothing and toy retail markets.
>
> Going backwards is not the answer and neither is adopting another Developer’s style. Following is not leading nor is it art or imaginative. You must go forward, you stop saying NO as a community and 343 needs to stop thinking as caretakers to a Museum and simply go AWESOME in all things while focusing on team oriented mechanics.
>
> If you release a 2007 game on a Next Generation console you might as well be Rebellion trying to cash in on the golden age of Alien Versus Predator Gold when compared to hungry Developers pushing the boundaries of the new tech.
>
>
> Gotta go Awesome people. You gotta say forward and you gotta say “Yes” we can do that, 24 players on the map , no we say 200 players on the map. Scorpion Tank, Nope we say Megatron on steroids. AAs no we say Special Grenades that make AAs look like cute neon farts. DMR or BR…we say DBR and it’s thirty friends who want you to love them.

I thought this was going to be a long and educated post…

turns out it’s just a really long post.

261

Load outs need to go ordinance should only distribute the three Aa,s in throw down or allow you to scope your ordinance drop of a primary , a grenade , and an AA out of a list created by the community while the rest become pickups on map. Go back to classic halo settings with these changes halo 4 fixed. Everyone basically gets what they want without completly destroying what each group wants.

262

What do you think all the updates are for? Or all the improved responses

263

> > In my own personal opinion…it would be this - Halo and COD are two of the same kind of games in general that the compete for the same players more or less. There is a nich of these players that were typically Halo fans or COD fans. So…you had a fan base that liked COD for their reasons and then people who liked Halo for other reasons. COD is more about a sneaky, wait and hide, realistic type of game for casual gamers to play on. It’s fun, and honestly it plays nearly identical to Halo in movement and so forth. I actually loved playing Modern Warefare 2…but after about a month I become bored with no ratings…in addition to other things but that’s another story.
> >
> > In the end, people chose each game for different reasons. The highly competitive player base is not playing Halo 4 right now…so where have they done? Maybe they’re playing BO2 because honestly that game is better than halo4. Now that neither game is based on competitive play…COD is just way better and it hurts me to say that as I’ve played more hours of halo than you can imagine.
> >
> > So basically COD had already grabbed that nich of players that enjoy that type of game. When Halo 4 decided to go after COD’s player base…they were going up a great game…and one that is actually better than halo when halo ignores the competitive aspect that attracted so many players. It’s not easy to just grab all the players from a COD franchise that has a grasp hold of it’s own fan base.
> >
> > That is the reason I would give you. Just my opinion…
>
> Watch these videos :
> Why Is Call Of Duty So Popular?
> Why is Call of Duty so Successful & Popular?
>
> People like COD because it is fast-paced and easier to pick up, has a ton of customization, perks, progression system, killstreaks, etc. and it definitely explains why certain changes were made in Halo 4, e.g. faster pace, unlockable weapons, perks, custom loadouts, ordinance, etc.
> The changes make perfect sense, but if you still don’t believe it, then there is nothing else I could say to convince you to understand this.

Allow me to help point out the flaw in your logic though. The question you are not asking yourself is "why did so many people play Halo over COD then? Obviously the reason must be because they liked Halo over COD. With that being said, one could logically assume that their were things that people liked in Halo that was not present in COD…perhaps those things were removed from Halo 4 compared to previous halos…such as competitive play. I hope this helps to explain the flaw in your logic…altough at first glance it makes sense…I’d Expect 343 to be smarter than this but the reality is not everyone is all that smart in the business world.

264

Funny how this game hasn’t had any players near the 60k number benchmark since March 9th. Pretty sad. This game is dying. :frowning:

265

> Funny how this game hasn’t had any players near the 60k number benchmark since March 9th. Pretty sad. This game is dying. :frowning:

Obviously.

266

Halo is declining? Oh no…It can’t be…

267

> Funny how this game hasn’t had any players near the 60k number benchmark since March 9th. Pretty sad. This game is dying. :frowning:

Oh, goodness gracious no! That can’t be true…!

268

> Funny how this game hasn’t had any players near the 60k number benchmark since March 9th. Pretty sad. This game is dying. :frowning:

I’m so shocked! /sarcasm… What were 343i frelling expecting? That we’d all just tow the line? Sorry, I played Halo because it was Halo, not BF3, not COD, not every other 1st person shooter out there these days (copying the successful franchise does not guarantee success, in fact it more often than not ends in FAIL). The fact that we’ve been told; sorry, wait for H5 for forge to get an overhaul, flinch is in & descope won’t be returning, no matter how much of the community wants it & custom games? Still got zilch on that front, probably not wanting the riots they’ll get when they finally say; sorry, again we say, wait for H5…

Well sorry 343i, I’m out & so too is our entire games night group. Three of the most recent joiners bought 360’s for practice in the last two months, guess which Halo title none of them purchased 343i?

269

> Funny how this game hasn’t had any players near the 60k number benchmark since March 9th. Pretty sad. This game is dying. :frowning:

Australia last night, approx 9pm. 4x4 slayer… approx 1200 players
big tem slayer,…approx 1800 players. that is pretty pathetic even for a country our size. Lag seems to be one of the main issues over here. But it seems ms and 343 don’t give a damm about any country outside of the u.s.a.

270

You make very good points.

What they need to do for Halo 5, which is what I hoped Halo 4 was going to be is, like you said go back to there core.

I believe the core for Halo is Halo 3.
Remove loadouts and AA.

And have all AA as new equipment. Maybe perks can stay or go. Not a big game changer but AA are.

Some of the Equipment will be a once use is gone, just like Halo 3. But other equipment (jetpack, invis etc), you get a 30 sec or longer timer to use.

And having a True Skill ranking system, and option to Prefer Good Connection.

These changes would make Halo, Halo again.

271

Halo 5 needs to increase player count. We have been playing Halo with a max of 16 players for 10 years.

The thing I like most about Halo and why I play is BTB and the vehicles.

I love to see maps as big as maps on BF3 with 32 - 64 players in BTB.

Now that would be Awesom.

You could block of part of these maps, and use small segments to give you your 4 v4 maps.

Halo 5 needs a lot of hard work. Halo 4 is good but not great. C’Mon 343, you can do it.

272

> Halo 5 needs to increase player count. We have been playing Halo with a max of 16 players for 10 years.
>
> The thing I like most about Halo and why I play is BTB and the vehicles.
>
> I love to see maps as big as maps on BF3 with 32 - 64 players in BTB.
>
> Now that would be Awesom.
>
> You could block of part of these maps, and use small segments to give you your 4 v4 maps.
>
> Halo 5 needs a lot of hard work. Halo 4 is good but not great. C’Mon 343, you can do it.

I find the opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I love my fair share of BTB, but Halo 4 really failed on creating that run and gun type of shooter with small maps. It needs to have the competitive side of it for the BTB side to also work.

273

> You make very good points.
>
> What they need to do for Halo 5, which is what I hoped Halo 4 was going to be is, like you said go back to there core.
>
> I believe the core for Halo is Halo 3.
> Remove loadouts and AA.
>
> And have all AA as new equipment. Maybe perks can stay or go. Not a big game changer but AA are.
>
> Some of the Equipment will be a once use is gone, just like Halo 3. But other equipment (jetpack, invis etc), you get a 30 sec or longer timer to use.
>
> And having a True Skill ranking system, and option to Prefer Good Connection.
>
> These changes would make Halo, Halo again.

Dude,

No one can agree on what the core is.

Many are unified in that the game is -Yoink-. Fair enough.

The problem moving forward is that there are a multitude of suggestions how to make the game better.

For 343i simply enact your personal changes will lead to a -Yoink!- of -Yoinking!- from those with divergent ideas.

That is why the only option for 343i is to follow THEIR vision on what Halo should be.

Hopefully they produce something that a lot of people like, otherwise it will die like so much bother series.

274

Good post by OP.

I think one of the most disappointing statistic is the fact that it took 6 months to implement Ranks. The Halo community has been asking for a good ranking system since Halo Reach. However 343 decided not to listen. To top it off the ranks are not going to be visible in game.

I expect the trend of decline to continue until 343 cleans up their act and starts to listen to their fans.

275

I just really, really hope they drop all this modern shooter bs they seem to be obsessed with and take Halo back to its fundamentals. No more custom loadouts, ordinance, armor abilities, perks, etc. They need to go back and look at Halo 2 or 3 as a base and then look at what <mark>new</mark> (ie. not ripped from other games to try to force mass appeal) features they can come up with that complement that base. For example, when Halo 3 added equipment it was a perfect complement to the play style of Halo. They were implemented in a very balanced, arena way and didn’t change the focus of the game too much.

276

I’ve always said this: since this is 343’s first proper game, it’s bound to not be as good as Bungie’s Halo games. Has the damage with 343’s Halo 4 been too much to the franchise? This remains to be seen, but I don’t fully believe so. I will say this to them though: you need to learn from a lot of mistakes when it comes to Halo 5. They need to sit down and have a hard think, and also listen to the community. Read (more of) what we are saying. Participate more in topics if possible. Be clear with the community. Be understanding of the community and don’t always do what you yourselves perceive as best. Take sensible ideas and thoughts from the community and throw them into the pot of (proper) consideration. Sooner or later if you keep doing what you think is best and just brush aside the thoughts of the community on such matters, you’ll eventually just piss everyone off and drive fans away. What you then have left is a watered down product. Is Halo 4 the end of the franchise? Not quite, but what happens with Halo 5 will be, I feel, the true judgement day for the Halo franchise. When you come to Halo 5 343 (although I’d wager I’m somewhat late considering how you are most likely working on it right now), remember this old adage: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

277

> I’ve always said this: since this is 343’s first proper game, it’s bound to not be as good as Bungie’s Halo games. Has the damage with 343’s Halo 4 been too much to the franchise? This remains to be seen, but I don’t fully believe so. I will say this to them though: you need to learn from a lot of mistakes when it comes to Halo 5. They need to sit down and have a hard think, and also listen to the community. Read (more of) what we are saying. Participate more in topics if possible. Be clear with the community. Be understanding of the community and don’t always do what you yourselves perceive as best. Take sensible ideas and thoughts from the community and throw them into the pot of (proper) consideration. Sooner or later if you keep doing what you think is best and just brush aside the thoughts of the community on such matters, you’ll eventually just piss everyone off and drive fans away. What you then have left is a watered down product. Is Halo 4 the end of the franchise? Not quite, but what happens with Halo 5 will be, I feel, the true judgement day for the Halo franchise. When you come to Halo 5 343 (although I’d wager I’m somewhat late considering how you are most likely working on it right now), remember this old adage: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

The fact we are talking about Halo 5 with only 6 months into Halo 4 life cycle is by far the saddest part of the experience.

I still believe there is lots that can be done to improve the Halo 4 experience and that should be the focus.

278

I agree, the skill gap needs to be widened by a lot. The game is in dire need of it and as you explained, it’s seen in the population.