Halo Wars 2 「Constructive Feedback」

Games Halo Wars Series
1

I’ll start of by saying I’ve played a lot of Halo wars, I obtained the General Rank twice both on my older account and my newer account (this one); with that said I’ll go over some feedback that I think needs to be addressed.

  • ComplicationThe beta seems to have had the game take a major change from what Halo Wars was originally suppose to be which was a simplified RTS. The game now as of the beta really scares me. You know have to accumulate I’ll call them ‘Generator Points’ in order to research things which in my opinion is completely ridiculous. The game also has been stripped of it’s field armory (UNSC pad that governed increase population, increase class special e.g. Capt. Cutters Mac Blast going to 4x, increase turret size, and I think increased movement speed) the field armory provided a strategy cash drop where if you’re in a long game you can save up and spend into what the armory provides and if I were cutter I’d have my quad Mac blast ready to go. All in all the game has gotten way more complicated than it’s predecessor and that should NOT HAPPEN.

  • Field of View/ViewThe field of video is weird too, on Halo wars I was able to zoom out a whole lot more which allowed me to get a good view of the battle from a perspective of a General over seeing the battle while providing critical intel/strategic advancement points. The game as it is now which I know it’s a BETA, scares me in this aspect too. It felt extremely clunky moving around the map in-comparison to how it was on Halo Wars and on top of that my field of view was extremely restricted thanks to not being able to zoom out all the way or zoom in all the way if needed.

  • Combat and UpgradesThe Combat and upgrade portion was extremely frustrating and led me to the question; why did you change it when it worked? The best option Halo Wars 2 had was to pretty much keep the same old Halo wars gameplay which worked perfectly giving the RTS mind set to anyone playing without being so complicated. The way it’s setup now as I said before results in having to wait even longer to amass enemies which makes the gameplay seem it’s going to be all about the long game. In Halo Wars if I wanted to rush out a group I could build towards that and get a decent size army in 7 mins and an overwhelming one in 14, in this game as it is now it’ll take me 12+ just to get a decent size that is still decked out in low upgrades (will cover that shortly). The upgrades in the game needs to return back to it’s roots of Halo Wars, you’d have to level for example the Spartans all the way from hijack to spartan laser to increase they’re effectiveness without having to use generator points in order to achieve that which made the game simple but fun. Upgrades also require your main base to be upgraded to it’s 3rd level or so in-order to access some of the upgrades for your barracks which shouldn’t work that way in the first place.

  • SummaryThe game as it is now needs major and I mean MAJOR improvements before I get hyped for it because after playing it I’m definitely not purchasing it. They need to return to it’s roots and just put more classes in the mix with the old make some improvements to usability. Keep what worked before and improve upon that rather than building a different game that is too complex’d and annoying to hold a short to long battle.

2

I totally agree on the FOV problem. I feel like I was way to close to the ground when I was zoomed out. It was disorienting.

3

Yeah I really hope they fix that problem because as it stands now I’m extremely worried about this game but thankful that it’ll be released next year where it’ll give it enough time to be changed into the game I expect it to be. They really need to go back to the original Halo War style of gameplay and add new things without messing it up. Sure Halo Wars needed some improvements so why not administer them for Halo Wars 2 but keep the solid gameplay going.

4

Yes, not like halowars. I would have already preorder but unsure changed to much mechanics of the game…

5

I feel the biggest mistake made is the domination points addition. The demand to protect your team’s tickets make a rush playstyle essential to winning or at least holding your own. If you try and turtle and build up defences you’ll just have the game end by proxy when your tickets inevitably expire.

6

HALOWARS NEEDS ITS ORIGINAL CONTROLS BACK, such as LT for speeding up the curser across the screen, and LB FOR SELCTING ALL TROOPS IN GAME.

7

FOV definitely needs work. I want more of a birds eye view. And the original HW controls need to return. You’ve got the time 343i.

8

> 2533274858920664;6:
> HALOWARS NEEDS ITS ORIGINAL CONTROLS BACK, such as LT for speeding up the curser across the screen, and LB FOR SELCTING ALL TROOPS IN GAME.

These are in the game (Hold RB for all units, press RB for local units, and LB speeds up the cursor) The control scheme should be easy to get used to or modify so legacy players can play seamlessly

I agree with most of the OP’s points. I’ve played 2.5 (the .5 game was my first match which hard froze at 8:34 and didn’t register as a placement match) and it was all with Cutter. But, here are some things I like and things I would change.

Things I like:
I like Marines being built out of the base instead of warthogs from HW1 - I think that makes a nice balance and is great counter play to rushes. It also allows great counter play to someone who wants to boom/quick expand* (More on this later)
I like the large field of battle which can make for some great sneak attacks. Scouting is going to be more important I feel in this game.
I like the Infantry unit diversity. Each unit seems to have a role and performs it well. The counter units REALLY counter this time.

Things I don’t like (Right now…I’m still gonna test a ton and these may grow on me).
Having 2 resource pools. I know traditional RTS players we’re looking for this, but I had a hard time managing it in my first couple games. My first game my build looked like this - SP, SP, Gen, SP, SP. I figured that would be pretty standard. It took me forever to get enough Power to do anything. I ended up quick expanding 3 times and my third expansion was all generators. I think the rate of return for Generators needs to be either increased or the power requirements Decreased - If this mechanic is kept at all.

I would propose that this mechanic be removed. in WC3 or SC2, you can actively move Peons/Workers to and from Wood/Gas and Gold/Minerals. In all of my games, I felt that I had way to many Base slots devoted to Econ. But my last match, when I cut back on Econ, I couldn’t meet my production. I’d need to test this, but it seemed like I needed 4 bases, Which I can manage, but I wasn’t able to micro my units as effectively as I could in HW1

Secondly, I also had issues with seeing what benefit Cutter had being my chosen leader. It’s possible I’m still just a noob and I can’t figure out how to use leader powers, but that is something to note.

Things I am not sure about
I think it’s pretty cool that the tech level is upgraded at the base, but I don’t like how I must increase tech level to increase my base size. Also, 1 Tech 3 base costs less than 2 Tech 2 bases (which put you at tech 3) in terms of Generator power, but I don’t see any other reason to increase your base to Tech 3 - maybe I didn’t notice it.

I’m also not sure how much of an advantage PC gamers will have over console. Keyboard/Mouse seems like it’s gonna be much faster…but we won’t know that until we test and I’m guessing the Devs are aware of that worry as well.

I’m on vacation the rest of the week so I’ll be putting a lot of time in.

HW was a good game and a good Console RTS. I felt it was well-balanced and delivered the experience I expected when I bought the game. I’m hoping that that formula continues here. I guess in short - I’m asking that this game not become C&C or SC2 but instead remain what it is and improve in it’s niche.

9

Not only does there need to be a FOV option but other options as well. Like scrolling speed, brightness, and screen bounds.

10

Not only does there need to be a FOV option but other options as well. Like scrolling speed, brightness, and screen bounds.

11

Halo Wars 2 is good. RTS are meant to be complicated, challenging the mind.

This Beta is one of the most simplified RTS’ in existence and it has diversity complexity and actually requires strategy.

Your feedback is basically saying… “I don’t want to learn… just dumb it down and make it bland, tasteless and without any flavor whatsoever”

I strongly disagree with all of your points. RTS games need complexity, thought and strategy. Otherwise it wouldn’t be Real Time Strategy. It would just be Real Time Spam.

Ty for your time.

12

So far I love Halo wars 2, its not to complex but still complex enough to make it hard and more mentally tasking. it has the perfect level of depth to cater to both the hardcore and casual audience. I would prefer to be able to scroll across the screen faster and give signals to my teammate like you would in a moba so I could ping a location with a brief message like danger or help or im coming kinda thing.

13

I agree. I thought Wars 2 would be and I would have been happy with - Halo Wars the way it was with bugs mainly path finding fixed, new maps, factions (flood/forunner), leaders, abilities, upgrades, units etc etc. improved graphics. Perhaps a bunch of minor other changes… But overall have it look, feel and play like the original. I’ll keep playing it for now and hope it grows on me, it’s too early to turn against yet.

14

I have been play this beta for a while now here and heres is my list of problems:

  • When a team mate leaves the game for connection problems or the game freezing their should be an option to rejoin that match or it should not count as a loss unless they quit
  • The unit space that a unit take up is messed up it shouldn’t be 3 units for 1 marine
  • The healing for cutters commander power would some times heal your troops and there’s time where it won’t do nothing at all or that animation would show up and nothing would happen
  • Troops that were just made already have loss of health (bars that were not filled in red or blue)
  • Snapping back to your base would have black holes in your base for about 10 seconds and would go back to normal
  • When targeting an enemy the shooting animation would not show up at times so it looks like the troops are just sitting there doing nothing
  • Alerting your teammate with an ai voice should come back when you ping parts of your base to ask for resources or when you ping the enemy base to attack
  • Bigger unit cap the unit cap right now is 80 if you upgrade but that still small when you have marines taking up 3 units spaces
  • Load times for starting a match takes a while
15

Halo Wars 2 getting more complex is good thing, in fact it should become even deeper, HW only worked because there were no other options at the time and as RUSE proved, a more complex gameplay formula is just straight up superior to HW’s RTS lite, especially when it comes to the PC market, where people actually know what a good RTS is.

Like i get that this community is passionate (toxicly so) but it is small, very small, if they actually want to get decent sales they have to bring Halo Wars gameplay to a level comparable to other PC RTS games, and frankly, getting a more complex game where you actually have to think instead of just spamming a particular unit can only make the game better.

And again, appealing to your experience or skill with the game is a fallacy, it strengthens your arguments in no way whatsoever.

16

I love the fact that the flamethrower or now hellbringer units are great for rushes and destroying buildings like the cyclops on halo wars, and the cyclops is so good in battle and just looks overall badass. I feel that the air units like the hornet are to weak and I think the nightingale, which reminds me of the falcon should have a small gun but not do a lot of damage. A medic upgrade for the marines would be awesome to. I also like the change in design of the scorpion, cyclops and warthog. It has many problems with the servers crashing, main menu glitches and even random match quittings but for a beta with the current gameplay mechanics and units its a solid beta and I hope that more units get added to the game before it launches.

17

The one thing that needs to be done is to have a higher unit count so players can build bigger armies. It is pretty much the same as the first Halo Wars, but with modifications to how much population a unit has.

18

I started playing halo wars 2 beta for about 10 hours and I just want to say that it’s different (in a good way) . i dont understand why there’s people on here stating that halo wars 2 doesn’t feel like what a halo game. honestly, it’s still feels like a halo wars game ; it’s just the fact you guys shove so many good features in the game more than halo wars 1.

Pros-

(1) the graphics- ya ya graphics don’t mean anything in gaming, but I got to admit that it’s spot on for next gen consoles.
(2) explosive details- unlike halo wars 1 , halo wars 2 sure has alot of good effect when you send your vultures to mega barrage into a base and see that smoke clouds going on and what not.
(3) coming out both xbox one and windows 10- now dont get me wrong it’s alot easier to play the game on the console since it only has couple buttons to push, but im the type of guy that wants to play rts on my computer and use my mouse to easy scrolling on the map and pressing buttons on units . to me im more comfortable playing on the computer unless i’m lazy then I would just play on my console as im on my bed lol.
(4) command point feature- instead of selecting on captain cutter; for example and only do mac blast and odst drop, there’s more than those 2 feature like cyclops drop , turret drop and the best one the close air support. that’ll be a good thing to use especially the fact if your base is under attack and you use it on your last resort.
(5) new units - I’m satisfied with the new units in this game and looking forward to see more of them when the actual game comes out. i already have a favorite unit and that is a jack rabbit!!! halo wars 1 the warthog were and still is my favorite unit. they’re cheap and you can make so much of them and they maybe weak by themselves , but in pack , they sure can pack a punch. well the jackrabbit does the same thing and they’re more fast and best part is that they have drones to heal them. they’re fast to build and cheap to buy them.

Cons-

(1) not able to see your teammate’s circle thing on the map to see them scroll around- many people dont have a problem with it but when i want to know what they’re doing , i would want to look on that mini map and see instead of them pinging on that location.
(2) Population cap- the pop cap on halo wars 2 increase from 40 to 80 , however; the units you get cost alot more than on halo wars 1 . i mean warthogs now are what ? 5 pop instead of 1 ? if that’s the case then maybe you should increase it to either 100 or 150 population cap.
(3) not cross platform- why in the hell this game isn’t cross platform for xbox one and windows 10 ? if you guys manage to do minecraft in cross platform then im sure you can do same with halo wars 2. what if im not a big fan of halo wars 2 on the console but am on the pc and my friend is the opposite and we wanted to play with eachother ? if you guys done that , ill guarantee you that you’ll make good sales on the game on both xbox one and pc.
(4) the power limit- i’m honestly not a big fan of that at all the fact that you need to build like 5 reactors to increase the speed of the power. what i like about halo wars 1 is the fact once you get a reactor, it stays the power level unless you’re building a uber unit then that’s when you upgrade . i’m used to it now its that id rather prefer not having to wait till you reach the power you need.

other than the cons, i believe halo wars 2 will succeed the moment it comes out in stores . just add a little tune up and it shall do the trick !!! looking forward buying halo wars 2

19

> 2533274857649818;14:
> I have been play this beta for a while now here and heres is my list of problems:
> - When a team mate leaves the game for connection problems or the game freezing their should be an option to rejoin that match or it should not count as a loss unless they quit
> - The unit space that a unit take up is messed up it shouldn’t be 3 units for 1 marine
> - The healing for cutters commander power would some times heal your troops and there’s time where it won’t do nothing at all or that animation would show up and nothing would happen
> - Troops that were just made already have loss of health (bars that were not filled in red or blue)
> - Snapping back to your base would have black holes in your base for about 10 seconds and would go back to normal
> - When targeting an enemy the shooting animation would not show up at times so it looks like the troops are just sitting there doing nothing
> - Alerting your teammate with an ai voice should come back when you ping parts of your base to ask for resources or when you ping the enemy base to attack
> - Bigger unit cap the unit cap right now is 80 if you upgrade but that still small when you have marines taking up 3 units spaces
> - Load times for starting a match takes a while

it’s beta its going to be lagging and be slow and have lack of glitches in the game. but i also agree on you about them chaning the population cap

20

I have already paid my $80 for this preorder, and I intend to keep it that way. That being said, I completely agree with the OP, and wrote my own novel making many of the same points.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/38bd6e2ebbb14e5b9b359bb029588800/topics/make-hw2-feel-more-like-hw1-or-lose-fan-following/e2fbdfb9-42e6-44e7-9c36-f2bc4bd6199e/posts

I think they really should have taken Halo Wars to the next level, but as it stands now, they don’t even have the very basic core functionality right yet. Hopefully 8 months is enough time to fine tune it and get it there.