In the update they mentioned putting in an outline intensity / thickness slider. They mentioned it giving control to the player. That you could choose the opacity for yourself. What good does this do? Why would anyone give themselves a huge disadvantage like not seeing bright outlines around your opponents, meanwhile they turn theirs up so you glow? I feel most people just want them removed altogether. So they don’t feel like they are exposed and glowing while peeking a corner or doing recon from some flora.
If they are going to give us an intensity or color slider, couldn’t it be for the oddball? That red/blue flashing kind of makes my eyes ache if I look at it.
Edit: Outlines/lens flare also bleeds into weapon balancing but is not the biggest factor. Being able to hide instead of glowing allows for getting first shots on opponents more consistently. So ambushes with the bulldog would potentially out perform the base AR start. The same with ranged weapons like the BR, Commando, etc. The lens flare takes away the element of surprise at range and locating the shooter.
They said you can wind the outlines to zero. So if you don’t want them you don’t have to.
Both for team-mates and enemies.
The bit they showed on screen still had the names of your team-mates so you know who not to shoot at. I’m assuming something still appears when they are behind walls - there is no way you’d give up that info (where your team-mate is, what they are holding, which direction they are looking, etc).
edit. Sorry. Re-reading your post you were more concerned that your opponents were using the outlines to spot you. Well, of course they are. If you don’t want to be seen then stay behind cover.
As for flora. I’ve always disliked it when players change their colours to suit the map. White on snow. Green / Brown in forests. Yellow on deserts.
I prefer Red vs Blue, but the Outlines don’t really bother me. The one small thing that does annoy me though is sometimes when enemies are super close, I still can’t really tell if they are friendly or not. I even have the outline color changed to neon green so maybe the color sticks out more.
There’s always been color advantages in previous Halo titles whether it was player choice or not, and it absolutely has been annoying.
Blue blends in better on Covenant and Snow maps, Red works best on sand/rocky maps.
While this remains true for outlines, at least they’re hyper saturated and not working in conjunction with map lighting and shadows.
We can even look further at “pay-2-win” cosmetics in other titles like the “Roze meta” in Warzone where the skin unintentionally gave players advantages in dark buildings and shadowed areas, or how various skins for clothes and armor in Rust are perfect for camouflage during various times and in specific biomes in game. Even Overwatch has some tricky skins that work well within map design even with outlines as a standard mechanic.
Both armor default team coloration and outlines have their advantages and disadvantages. In all honesty if it were functional I’d absolutely be in favor of player choice to determine what they’d rather see. Personally, I prefer outlines from a competitive standpoint.
Part of it is the increasing complexity of game graphics.
In the good old days of 16 colours and two-tone textures (yes, I’m exaggerating) then a red or blue spartan stuck out like a sore thumb.
Now we’ve got high resolution graphics, extremely busy backgrounds, and complicated multi-textured/coloured spartans. And it’s not just coatings - it’s all the bits and bobs attached to chests and helmets.
At a distance it’s hard to see a Spartan who is not moving.
Which is much like real life. But this is not how you want a video game to play. At least not Halo.
I’ve said this in topics before, how do people not see enemy players on their screen? The outlines do not change anything unless your sight is impaired.
If you think you can creep across my screen or hide behind something with part of you poking out, and I won’t see you then you are sorely mistaken. It’s been that way for 15 years and an outline won’t change that.
Whoever came up with this, let’s make them look like a beacon obviously doesn’t play any PvP let alone Halo.
Get rid of this asinine decision and go back the the Red and Blue. I didn’t buy this game to play dress up, and 343 needs to get that crap idea that players “need to play dress up” Out of their head.
If 343 wants to play with Barbie and Ken dolls, then they are in the wrong business seeing how they can’t make a game anyways.
I’m excited that this opens the door for “hardcore” modes with no outlines or HUD besides your crosshair. Something kinda like Battlefields old hardcore mode. Or L4D’s “realism” mode
Should just be off for enemies, and on for friendlies. That alone will allow you to quickly and clearly identify who’s who. And I do like being able to see what friendlies are doing through walls.
It’s not a visual impairment issue, but a stimulus/cognitive issue. The eyes process virtual differently to real life environments.¹ To the eyes looking at a screen it is all flat/near sight and highly detailed. So some players can feel overwhelmed by the level of detail in modern games. It takes a lot of mental attention to be able to parse enemies from environment. The outline simplify some of the detail, helping the brain distinguish enemies from environment.
1.It is why we see a rise in myopia, because the eyes are becoming strained from over use in near-sight. This is why you should take regular breaks to exercise eyes focus in med-long range.
The more things change they more they stay the same on Waypoint. Reeks of the ‘if you don’t like sprint don’t use it’ argument. Same goes for the people that think outlines don’t provide any intrinsic gameplay advantage.
You can have great senses and spot people regularly, point is you still have to be engaged to spot them. During gameplay there’s many times an arm or a leg or something that would briefly be visible, usually at a distance and when it is in your peripheral vision, that would go unnoticed. The outline system removes that subtlety, it removes any doubt in the same way the hitmarker or radar debate does. I could squint to the point my vision is hazy and still always see where people are with outlines, that’s the difference, it removes any doubt…and it looks ugly as sin.
More than anything ranked shouldn’t have outlines and should be forced RvB, but the financial motive of selling team skins stops this from happening. Whether it’s player collision, medals, gamechat, matchmaking, stat tracking or BTB in general., why does Halo / 343 always use poor reasoning to turn a simple and desirable feature into such an ugly, needlessly complicated and incompetent mess?
Given the fact that it’s the same people replying to the topics that is not even 1% of the player base, let alone the community. Sorry, not sorry, but what you said doesn’t mean deadly squat.
Also, given the fact that the BP/shop is pretty much all 343 offered knowing how much 343 lied to the player base customization. Of course there are going to be complaints.