Hi, I’m a Halo veteran who has played it and for a very long time. There wasn’t much i disliked about Halo 3, and there was quite a bit I hated about Reach. I also actually dislike Halo 2 anniversary in some ways, mostly because it’s too old for an xbox one controller. Anyways, now that you know what I’ve liked and disliked, here is my impression on the Halo 5 Beta, along with comparisons to other Halo’s.
HALO 5: First off, and the most important to me overall because it dictates gunplay, is the concept of Strafing. Strafing has been effective in all halo games it seems up to Halo 4, and even Halo 2 Anniversary. When you give a person a controller that’s trying to be as effective as a mouse and keyboard you start having problems. I can strafe in halo 3 on the MCC and have it work, Halo 5 does not let you do this due to thick Aim assist, which is also a very bad thing for Halo in general. Here are some things You should know before reading my opinion.These are also MY DEFINITIONS that I think is easy to understand
Aim assist: This is when your aim point gets sticky when hovering it over an enemy.
Bullet Magnetism: This is when your bullets don’t go DIRECTLY where you’re aiming, and sometimes can actually slide out of your reticle.
Strafing: This is when you move left and right in random or strategic motions so the enemy must have his reticle move on you constantly.
Hitscan: This is when your bullets instantly hit what you’re aiming at.
Spread: This is when your bullets go at AN ANGLE when shot and loose their accuracy as they travel.
Bloom: This is when your reticle gets bigger as you shoot, and the bullets basically move around randomly, BUT STILL TRAVEL IN A STRAIGHT LINE. BTW I hate bloom.
Auto Aim: This is like Metroid Prime or Borderlands, where your reticle actually locks on to enemies.
So here is a common scenerio, me and another guy meet eachother, I have a BR and he has an AR, he shoots first and is constantly pelting me while I get every shot with the (supposably) harder to use weapon, and I die very fast, this was a battle in the main red base of Truth where I was on the other side of the circular platform and he was opposite. I was also strafing during this fight. This should not happen. Any other Bungie Halo game would give my answer, because the assault rifles are not good at medium to long range, and haven’t even been decent until Reach, which is Bungie’s worst Halo game. This is because in Halo 3 the AR had immense Spread and not much bullet magnatism. Anyways, most Halo players already agree the AR is OP in Halo 5.
Here is another not hard to describe scenario, one guy shoots me when I have my back turned and is using a BR, I turn around after his 1 shot and get 2 shots off on him and then die. I was strafing after and before I turned around, and I also had a BR. Because strafing is not effective in this game it was literally impossible to even go up against an average player and have the downside, this happens way to often in this game, and is because of multiple things.
First: The BR along with every weapon in the game has too much friggin Aim assist, bullet magnetism, and no spread. This means that his reticle is very easy to move around my body, get every shot in or close to it, and because the game along with every halo game besides my favorite, (Halo 3) has immense bullet magnetism towards the head, he can easily pull off a headshot that takes almost no skill. This happens to me constantly, and means that to do good, you should just camp behind cover constantly.
Second: The thruster pack never helps you strafe, because you can’t shoot while doing so and it’s too easy to put your reticle right back on the strafer. This also makes it only useful for beiing annoying, because you can instantly move back behind cover and camp easier.
Third: Power weapons are mostly for the noobs, so if you want the game to be competive but fun, then have more than one type of power weapon on the map, sometimes there are weapons that counter other weapons, and usually those are the power weapons that are smartly placed on the map. Something Halo 5 is instantly lacking is the amount of weapons period, there just isnt that much going on throughout the game, and it gets stale.
Fourth: Sprint is used in games for either escaping or for getting past bad situations, the way they have sprint in this game makes it almost worthless unless you have the sword, so either don’t have sprint and make the base player speed more, or have sprint and have it like it should be. In my opinion I honestly think sprint is at least one of the worst additions to Halo ever, but I know some people like it, so it’s a hard choice to get rid of.
Fifth: THE DMR :O. The DMR is a weapon which I have never liked, partly because until reach MLG it was completely broken. Bloom is a terrible arena concept, and introduces randomness to the game. The problem with Halo 5 DMR is the huge amount of aim assist at long range, making it very annoying in game. All they need to do is give it a ton of recoil, or take away a lot of aim assist. ITS NOT HARD 343.
There is way more stuff I could put down, but I’m sick of typing. Anyways I hope this helps some people understand Halo 5 Beta.
-Cheaptastic