Halo Needs a Major Dust Off

Games Other Halo
1

So I was on the forums today and I noticed this one guy who made a really good post
in that post I saw a line that I really liked. It motivated me to state my opinion on a larger scale, making a new topic.

"we didn’t like the gimmicks. We liked the simplicity of Halo. And the things you are adding now seem to be tarnishing everything we grew to love of the main series."

This motivated me to state my opinion on a larger scale, making a new topic.

Halo is about being simple, yet fun in the way that you’re not stressing about your K/D ratio and stats, but the game still catering to the more competetive side because there was a skill gap
Im saying that Halo has gone wrong in two major ways

New things
The new things are the main problem. They complicate the game and take away from it’s simplicity-
At first I fell in love with the way Frankie said Halo 4 would be developed.
" Taking a deep breath, and huge step backwards - and just shaking off that blanket of “crap”. "

Backtracking to the core of the game and moving the series forward from there
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it happened.
things like AA’s, “Perks”, Spartans Ops, Extremely Undue depth of Spartan personalization - I mean cosmetics? I’m all about it, but customizable loadouts, Introduction of Spartan IV’s - does anyone even feel that Spartans are that special anymore? Anyone feel like, “Wow a Spartan?” makes sense anymore? - It’s all just so messy.

The second things I don’t like is the competitive side - I like playing competitively and showing off stats and what not, but that seems to be all people care about - stats, credits, jackpots. . .
Too often do I notice someone’s playing of the game is simply based around getting credits from challenges, and I hate it.

What should they do?
Go back, and I mean WAY back. Back to the beginning - to the game everyone loved.
Halo: CE

Halo: CE is easily to best game in the series, IMO.
Simple and fun to play - no stats, but people who wanted to play competitively could do so because there was a skill gap
No auto aim
No bloom, except for pistol (which sort of helped balance it)
You couldn’t just shotgun rush people
Tank didn’t beat everything
Even the rocket launcher wasn’t ridiculously easy to pwn with
You could actually turn around and kill someone who got the jump on you

You couldn’t just run up and double pummel spartans. It was 3 hits, and the mellee was fairly easy to dodge, though I admit that the fact that the spartan really put their back into in was abused

I don’t know how Halo got to this wrecked point that seems broken beyond repair, but If they weren’t focused on competing with CoD, etc., I think things could go back to normal.
People were easily fooled by the E3 reveal (Which I personally thought was lackluster)
Too many are thinking “Halo 4 is s00 hardcoor, OMG, MASTER CHEIF”, and I’d agree that many of Reach problems seems to have been fixed, but we cant be blindsided by what was sugar-coated at E3.

What’s your opinion on how 343 has changed Halo?

Halo 4 Is still not what many of us really wanted, and I know it’s not what I did

2

Have you played Halo CE?

Touch a vehicle, like, with your pinky finger, and you die instantly.

3

> Have you played Halo CE?
>
> Touch a vehicle, like, with your pinky finger, and you die instantly.

Im not saying the game was perfect, but it had the LEAST flaws and complaints

4

It had the least complaints because it was the first game in the series.

Ever since then and everyone has been expecting every other Halo game to be an exact clone, and then flame the devs for trying something different.

In my opinion Halo 3 would be the prime candidate for a good Halo game. Remove all the Armour Ability crap except for Sprint which would increase the speed of the gameplay, and reintroduce a 1-50 ranking system based off of not credits, but a value like the Halo Waypoint’s BPR.

Also have no bloom for any weapon, only spread on weapons such as the Assault Rifle, etc.

5

Another one of these threads? Give it a rest!

6

Are you one of these people who are stuck in the past too?

What’s wrong with evolution?

Halo CE wasn’t the best. The only great thing about it was the story telling, MP sucked compared to the others.

I agree with a few of your points, Spartans arent that special anymore.

Did you not like the dual weilding and the vehicle jacking introduced in H2?

Also what’s wrong with customisation? I mean turning your multiplayer character into its own unique(ish) person is much better than 4 green twins running around. Right?

Or do you prefer CoD style (where they have not changed anything core to the game in like 10years)

Also, what the guy above me said anoint no bloom just spread when you fire full auto

7

> > Have you played Halo CE?
> >
> > Touch a vehicle, like, with your pinky finger, and you die instantly.
>
> Im not saying the game was perfect, but it had the LEAST flaws and complaints

It also had the least precedent. It had the Bungie fanbase, and Marathon for precedent.

I was a huge fighter on the side of “Reach will rock” back when it was in pre-release. I was all for these new things, then Reach crashed and burned. I will openly admit it’s the weakest installment in the Halo series for trying to do too much too fast.

At the same time, Halo 4 feels more like Halo despite adding more on. You can still have a lot of complex mechanics while resulting in simple gameplay. It all comes down to a fine-tuned weapon sandbox, balance in all the little things, and so forth.

I’m sorry I’m giving you such a poor basis for my arguement, I’m actually kind of tired of fussing on these forums for the day so I’m about to take a break and go play me some Halo. :stuck_out_tongue:

However, I feel that Halo 4 resembles more of the original trilogy than it does Reach, and after E3 I am more than ready to receive this game as the next big step for the series.

8

> No auto aim

Are you talking about Halo pc?

> You couldn’t just shotgun rush people

Yup, sprint is for noobs.

> Tank didn’t beat everything

But tank drivers getting killed by snipers was silly.

> Even the rocket launcher wasn’t ridiculously easy to pwn with

Yes it was.

> You could actually turn around and kill someone who got the jump on you

Why its better to most shooters.

9

It’s a game, calm down. You’re not gonna be living off of it.

10

Dude, this is 2012, come 2013 a whole new generation of games are going to be coming into play. Halo needs to move forward not stay back in the past. If it does stay in the past, it’ll get boring. I was telling this to some kid in a YouTube comment the other day. "Look at COD, its the same -Yoink- different game. If Halo was like that, it’d get boring fast and Halo would’ve already lost the COD Vs Halo war. Yes there will be “perks” you can use with the Spartan IV’s but don’t you people remember when Frankie said that multiplayer was going to tie in with the current canon of Halo 4 meaning these are a new generation of Spartans which were created by a different scientist to be more advanced? Thats the reason why 343I is giving all these options to the Spartan IV’s

This was only a E3 build and many of the MLG people like Walshy and Bravo were impressed with the work 343 has done so far. There was a lot of positive comments on the forums afterward as well. Have you taken a look at this weeks bulletin yet? BS Angel even states that they are going to be doing more stipped down version of Halo pressumably meaning there will be a Halo 3 like playlist. They are going to give veteran players a chance to play Halo how they want to play it. Even Bungie themselves said they were impressed with 343.

But as far as E3 goes, that was only an E3 build, give it time. We still got till November and they’ll be announcing a lot more stuff in due time.

11

> > Have you played Halo CE?
> >
> > Touch a vehicle, like, with your pinky finger, and you die instantly.
>
> Im not saying the game was perfect, but it had the LEAST flaws and complaints

I think the biggest problem is that with the first game/movie/or book of a potential series is that those who like that game/movie/or book will continue to be interested while others will dismiss it. As time moves on to the next installment there will inevitably be changes made which will interest a new group of people while some “originals” or “true fans” will dislike the changes while others will embrace them.

Unfortunately the longer a series continues the more changes will be added causing the same things to happen over each installment over time. Which is why if someone like me says, “Well I like it so far and right now I plan on getting it near release,” or if I’m okay with some additions, they would probably say I’m terrible and point out my K/D ratio. Basically I’m just sayin’ this is common and those who really don’t like it can choose not to deal with it. It sucks but coming online to force opinions on others isn’t right either.

12

> What’s wrong with evolution?

Evolution goes hand in hand with natural selection, you can’t say something is wrong with it, it’s just the way it is.

I believe what you are really asking, is what is the problem with the way the game is evolving.

I’ll answer that first by addressing the notion of evolution. Any mutations or differences that are gained by an individual or community which reflects positively on the species will tend to be carried along. This in return allows for the advancement and success of an entire race. This is similar to how something is introduced to a video game and carry on later in the series. Think of the addition of multiplayer to Halo 2, the introduction of the carbine in H2, forge and theatre in H2, etc… These are all great advancements that almost come as a surprise, almost a stroke of luck, like a mutation almost.

There is, however, another way a race can “evolve” or more accurately, “progress/advance”, and that is to acknowledge their surroundings or advance technologically. Ever hear of the phrase, “monkey see, monkey do”? This was one of the first intellectual advancements of primitive beings. A more intellectual ‘caveman’ thinks “if I put this rock to this stick, I can hit harder”, This was ingenuity(and technological advancement)-doing something different, creative, and outside the box; IMO,the hardest thing to do (also the MOST important). Next comes the “monkey see, monkey do”. Some more primitive ‘caveman’ watches the smart ‘caveman’ make the hammer, so he does what he sees and makes one himself! Another caveman comes by and sees the both made hammers, “oh my, you’re both so smart!”, they say… but are they really? or is one just copying the other and reaping the rewards of having to do no hard work.

This, my friend, is what is wrong with the evolution of Halo (more notably Halo 3->Halo: Reach and Halo:Reach–> Halo 4). The aren’t evolving in the traditional sense, nor are they evolving in the sense of ingenuity. They are evolving in the dumb, mindless sense as I explained above: copying. You know, there are millions of organisms out there which have virtually remained unchanged for MILLIONS of years, (oh, how I wish Halo did the same), but you know what? they aren’t the powerfull ones, and they sure aren’t the ones chosen by natural selection to advance.

The powerful ones are the ones that do what they can to get bigger, and stronger. The ones who are sometimes ingenious, or sometimes steal ideas. They are the ones who reproduce, or attract followers; they build in numbers, are collect strength.

The problem I (and many competitive friends of mine… and as seen by tweets… much of the MLG population) have with 343i (and the evolution of Halo), is that they are trying to evolve too fast. They are building the strength in numbers any way they can. This is accomplished by listening to the majority (most gamers), not the minority (competitive gamers). And most of all, this is accomplished by virtually taking everything the most successive game franchise has… and STEAL it like the dumb caveman did. And you know what’s worst of all? Any random person (new gamer) who walks by wouldn’t know the difference, only the revolutionary game designers who first made Halo what it was in Halo: CE, and all of the fans who were there from the beginning, will know. Too bad those revolutionaries quickly took a tumble a few years after launch.

Halo:CE was INGENIOUS. It was different. There is nothing wrong with evolution, but there is something wrong with taking the lazy path, and the intelligent path. The problem is that 343i doesn’t want to put the effort in to come up with a really genius idea, if they can get just as far (in terms of gaining fans) by copying CoD.

On a side note, I’m still going to play the crap out of Halo 4. It looks really nice, and despite the decrease in POV, I think it’ll still be the best game of the year. Yes, I made that massive analogy, but hey, at the end of the day I’m going to need to play a video game… and that game sure as hell won’t be CoD. 343 are doing some good things, I just wish they were a little more creative and did something new and exciting like Halo started out being, or at least keep the originality. Many people are over-exaggeration and flipping out about Halo 4, and I can understand… but the people who are complaining are the hardcore, competitive fans. And all I can say to them is that unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do.

We are the minority, friends. There’s not much we can do to fight off the millions of gamers who prefer the ‘pick-up and play’ style that CoD is. There is nothing appealing to a game with a MASSIVE learning curve like Halo for the new gamer, and that’s what 343 wants to make. They want a more approachable game than Halo started out as, and that’s to the detriment of our competitive gaming scene.

13

yawn

Report and move on.

14

> it had the LEAST flaws and complaints

You know why? Two reasons. Because there wasn’t any dreaded nostalgia blinding people before the game. And because it was the most bland and simple out of the series.

You what would happen if Halo regressed back to that primitive style? The Halo series would die.

15

halo was about the fair off spawn starts. halo was about simplisity halo was about blah blah blah. WRONG. if your talking about halo as a whole its the STORY that made halo halo. now if your talking about what made halo MP halo MP. its the GOLDEN TRIANGLE. a symbol of balance. melee, grenades, guns. everything else in MP were details etched in the triangle. but didn’t control break or shape the triangle.

every shooter has melee grenades and guns. but why halo has a GOLDEN triangle is because they each balanced eachother out. one can kill the other in the same amount of situations. and halo reach and 4 still have this triangle. if this is the first your hearing about the triangle then id like to think you really don’t know halo MP at all.

16

I can understand where you’re coming from but there has been improvement/innovation in subsequent games. 343 can see this which is why they’re working from Reach.

However, these improvements are easily overlooked by the prevalence of unwelcome factors.

So I agree that Halo needs to be cleansed. But that shouldn’t be a complete regressing, as much as I’d love for that to happen. CE had faults too.

> Have you played Halo CE?
>
> Touch a vehicle, like, with your pinky finger, and you die instantly.

Whenever that happens to me, it’s often because of Ghosts.

Otherwise, it’s useful when trying to splatter enemies since I don’t get slowed down when colliding with them and it’s a guaranteed splatter. Many times in subsequent Halo games, I drive at full speed and only end up splattering half of the enemies. The rest take damage or lose their shield.

> Did you not like the dual weilding and the vehicle jacking introduced in H2?

I don’t about the op but I consider dual wielding good and bad. While it feels great to dual wield SMGs and plasma rifles to drop shields, it is disappointing how affected the needler, pistol, and plasma rifle were because of this.

As for vehicle jacking, that was a welcome addition imo.

17

I NEVER ASKED FOR ARMOR ABILITIES.

DID ANYONE? NO

Developers try to copy market trends (like in all markets) and that’s how HALO GOT AA’s.

CONSUMERISM - shiny and new, must buy.

Halo simpler is better. I don’t want an Armor Lock, Promethian Vision, Jetpack, or ANYTHING ELSE besides a GUN.

18

Every franchise has to change eventually. You don’t see Mario games made the same way anymore do you? Halo lasted a decade before it had to change. Most games don’t last 5 years before people get bored with it.

A lot of Reach’s problems are getting fixed with Halo 4. Our only concern should be: what new problems arise? Things like AAs overall aren’t the problem, it’s which ones? Anyway, if Halo 4 fails, I would bet that Halo 5 and 6 will be much more like classic Halo.

19

You guys aren’t hearing what I’m saying - or rather understanding what I’m typing. . . whatever

Im not saying it should go back to Halo CE, Im just using Halo CE as and example of what a good Halo game is as it was the defining title. Simple and fun, with a smaller competitive side.
Im saying that 343 is making the game complicated with all these sorts of additions, etc.

Now I’m not saying that the game won’t be great, cause I’m sure it will, but I’m saying it doesn’t look like Halo, and even though I haven’t played it, according to MLG’s it feels more like Call of Duty and barely like Halo
(Watch the whole video, they don’t sugarcoat anything)

If they went back to the roots (Halo 1, 2, 3), they could build it up using THEIR OWN IDEAS.
That brings me to another point: Does anyone one else notice how unoriginal 343i is compared to Bungie?
Bungie always had their own ideas.
Did you ever notice Reach being anything like CoD? I don’t know why people say it was, cause it wasn’t. . .
Sure, Reach was in fact the worst Halo game if you compared it to the other games, but it was overall a good game.
Bungie knew where to take the series. They didn’t seem like they were in it for the money, unlike 343.

It felt like they really wanted to improve the Halo universe, and I wish they still made the games

20

> I NEVER ASKED FOR ARMOR ABILITIES.
>
> DID ANYONE? NO
>
> Developers try to copy market trends (like in all markets) and that’s how HALO GOT AA’s.
>
> CONSUMERISM - shiny and new, must buy.
>
> Halo simpler is better. I don’t want an Armor Lock, Promethian Vision, Jetpack, or ANYTHING ELSE besides a GUN.

If Halo doesn’t move forward, it will be no better than Call of Duty or any other FPS.

Halo needs to evolve, or it will die.