--//In Depth Analysis of the "Problem"

Games Other Halo
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Hello all! My name is Valky and like many of you I am a Halo fan. Fan might actually not be able to encompass my love for anything Halo related, but I seem to be going errant. This topic will be just like 90% of the other topics here on “Waypoint” regarding the “brokeness” of Halo 4. Now if you’re sick and tired of reading these types of topics I suggest you do one of two things: 1. Stay off of the Waypoint Forums (it seems to be the only posts on here) or 2. Stay off the Internet. Many of us (new to the franchise or veterans) can come to agree that this game, a beautiful game might I add, just does not seem…right. But what is right nowadays in FPS? What is an FPS? These are just some things to think about as I attempt to voice my thoughts on the subject matter that we all love/hate…Halo.

Now first off I would like to begin my discussion on the idea that is “Halo”. Halo was the magnificent work and ideas of college aged kids who had an admiration for video games. They believed in getting drunk, eating pizza, and playing video games on a Friday night with their buddies on a couch at school/home. Now these geniuses cared for video game development so much because they LOVED every aspect of what a video game was. They poured countless hours and sacrifices into developing an amazing game. Halo. An FPS like none other for its time. FPS were generally supposed to be played and built for PC platforms, never had they been put to the test on Microsoft’s new platform the XBOX. I mean sure we had Perfect Dark and Golden Eye for the Nintendo 64 before Halo but those games just did not feel right. Might I remind any and all viewers who ever got their hands around a N64 controller and attempted to aim, shoot, and strafe at the same time in Golden Eye might remember that this was impossible. So starting right there we see Halo becoming the foundation for ALL FPS SHOOTERS TO COME. It laid down the expectations, the systems, the “way things work”.

Halo’s multiplayer was soon figured out to be the birth child of generations of video games to come. Rarely had we seen the competitive/casual side of gamers come out while playing any sort of shooting game. Being able to pull of a headshot from across Blood Gulch and stand up and stare your victim in the face and say “What!” in either a playful or serious taunting tone was seen by Bungie to be the selling point for Halo and FPS games to come. It was addicting. It was addicting to be able to see after the game who did better than who. Who came out on top and claimed victory. That’s what made Halo such an amazing game to play multiplayer on. Everything worked well. It was simple.

Simple…I am going to return to this word later in my analysis but as for now let’s fast forward into Halo 2 (greatest FPS ever created and I will defend this statement to the day I die). Enter Xbox Live/Matchmaking. With the birth of new technology enabling players across the globe to connect via the Internet and go head to head against one another in the Halo world made Halo 2 the forefather of FPS online play. Now we saw players being able to log countless hours playing with their friends on their friends list (Halo 2 did it first, the 360 copied) or Clan (R.I.P) more and more. People were sucked in. Coming home from school in 6th grade I jumped online with my friends and we began to make the greatest memories of my childhood. Halo 2 (CE included) did that. It defined a generations childhood, more or less. How many times do you remember having EPIC assault games on headlong? Or down to the wire Shotty Snipe matches on Lockout? That’s what Halo 2 did to gamers, it honestly DEFINED their childhood. Halo 2 did not change drastically from Halo CE. Noooooo the only thing that changed (Multiplayer aspect) was the introduction of dual-wielding, extended vehicle usage, health removal, a few more weapons, and other minor changes. Bungie knew they had created a revolutionary game with CE that in order to enhance the Halo experience and keep the COMMUNITY happy was to make improvements, but improvements that did not make their players question what game was in their disk tray.

Halo 3, the end of the Halo franchise, in my honest opinion. Bungie knew that in order to create an amazing game, one that truly grasps hold of gamers attention they had to improve upon Halo 2 but again, slightly. Halo 3 (as well as Halo 2) sold an estimated 2.5 million copies on launch day ALONE. Bungie knew it, the have created a franchise that forever will be loved by the community as long as they themselves love it. And damn do I miss the days of the Bungie community. The forums, the online shop (post Katrina “Fight the Flood” t-shirt anyone?) just everything about Bungie’s community made being apart of Halo that much more serial. I digress, Halo 3! Halo 2’s multiplayer added more improvements to the behavior of the game that now appealed to both the competitive players, as well as the casual gamer. By introducing two areas of matchmaking social and ranked, Halo 3 was able to sit well with all varieties of players. Custom games now were able to be customized even further with the introduction of Forge. Halo 3 montages skyrocketed on video sites like YouTube with the introduction of the Theater system. MLG had always had Halo in their game list but they noticed an opportunity to expand everything. Halo 3 and MLG was a match made in heaven. Players like Strong Side, Naded, Neighbor, Walshy, Ogre 1 and 2, Snipedown, etc. allowed for players to watch their “heroes” do amazing things with a BR or Sniper. Halo 3 just allowed players to enjoy the game more! With the addition of great maps like Guardian, Narrows, Forge Maps the ideal arena for competitive gaming was set. Call outs were optimized, weapon spawn timers, map control etc. were geared into a lot of players minds. Halo 3 brought that. They brought what other games like CoD had been struggling to do.

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So here is where my “rant” turn towards Halo 4 and the defected child in the franchise known as “Reach”. Bungie parted ways with their beloved community of Halo fans world wide with the release of Halo Reach. This is where I pinpoint the downfall of the “Halo Empire”. Bungie tried to incorporate new things that had never been really seen or understood in FPS/Halo games. Sure CoD had their perks and BF had their loadouts, but Halo had…well Halo had an SMG/AR and a bunch of targets!! With AA, new game mechanics, health making an unwanted return, bloom, and a cR reward system Halo’s online play was destroyed. Bungie took what the previous Halo games had done so successfully and flip what they had done over. The world went from seeing an amazingly easy, simple, addicting game franchise turn into what I like to describe as a Hydra. For those who do not know what a Hydra is it is a nasty beast commonly depicted as having the body of a dragon and 5-7 snake heads. Now the trick to the Hydra is once you cut off one head, two more grow back in its place so you will forever have a big problem on your hands. Now Reach and H4 is a Hydra. By introducing AA and custom loadouts players now have so many directions they could go. Jet Pack Assault rifle? Active Camo DMR!? This idea just made Halo into something it should never have become.
Halo and its maps/vehicles/weapons were created to handle just one sort of linear track that all players were “forced” to follow. Starting a match as equal to the teammate to the left of you and the enemy across from you just made Halo that much more fun. With Reach and Halo 4 it punished the new players from not being able to have these advantages such as secret perk dealing with a certain specialization, or a weapon that a beginner might not have access to. This created such a strong divide between the PLAYERS and the players. And that had never happened in a Halo game before. Sure there were things in previous Halo games that could be acquired in a match to give you or your team an edge. For example the equipment in Halo 3 could be acquired and used once to benefit you or your team. Unlike AA, equipment could only be used once then would re-spawn at set intervals. In Reach/4 AA can be used an unlimited amount of times but have a cool down timer. Okay I see what you’re trying to do 343…but that is not Halo.

Halo 4 introduced perks or “tactical packages”. This was just blasphemy to everything Bungie had done to define Halo to be different from other rival FPS on the market at the time. Now here enters the argument that I head all the time and quite frankly it is not the direction I am going to go. “Halo 4 is like CoD!!!” No, children, it is not like CoD at all. Yes It introduced a perk system, yes it introduced different customized load outs but the way Halo “works” is nowhere near that of CoD.

Halo had always been defined by its SIMPLICITY (told you I’d come back to it). The idea of having a new rocket launcher spawn at this location at this set interval of in game time made it easy for players to know what was going on in the game. It made the players mind more acute to in game actions than ever before. Halo 4…destroyed this! Halo 4 introduced this thing I don’t know if you guys have heard of it or not, Ordinance Drops? Yeah…that thing where if you get enough points by running around doing random “odd jobs” you can call down a Spartan Laser or Binary Rifle to your feet…? Yep this breaks what Halo is. In previous Halos all players (relatively skilled players) knew what was going on where and when on the map. If they were gunning in a Warthog on Valhalla and their teammate controlled the Spartan Laser then they could concentrate on the task at hand rather then having to worry about a red line appearing on their screen. Now in H4, we will use Ragnarok as an example, if I’m piloting a Banshee around the map, lets say four minutes into the game, and I know for a fact my teammate had rushed top mid in the beginning of the game to acquire and secure the Laser I would feel more comfortable flying around and therefore be a little more aggressive. But oh wait! This thing called ordinance drop allows any player to acquire a weapon (randomly selected for them in a set of 3) that could take me out. The game has become tailored towards the weak. No more can we see any sort of map control (and this is all speculated happening in the standard matchmaking playlists 343 currently has out). No more can we see tactical pushes to acquire the flag knowing when and what spawn where. Now I feel like almost every match played on Halo 4 is just a crazy fest of shooting, running, and armor “abilitying” (haha). There isn’t any structure anymore. Try to remember the last game you played in H4…agree (or disagree) with me that you for the most part had no idea what A. Your Teammates were doing, and B. The weapons cache of your enemies.

Also to go alongside the Ordinance Drops where in the hell are my weapons on the map!? If I’m playing BTB Slayer (excuse me Big Team Slayer) on Ragnarok and I’m staying back a little picking people off at a distance with my DMR I SPAWNED with and I’ve gotten a nice spree going and OH LOOK I ran out of ammo…what to do what do do!! THINK THINK!! Oh look a dead enemy/ally! Let me run over there and see if he has ammo…oh WHAT! The gun disappeared! Apparently 343’s matchmaking system thinks that if a weapon falls to the ground after being swapped of dropped due to death, within like 15 seconds the game says to itself “Oh guess none needs/wants this Binary rifle that guy just died with…better just make it disappear!” Countless times have I found myself in a tough situation which could have been remedied if the weapon my enemy/teammate dropped would not have disappeared so spontaneously. On top of that, the system which DOES drop down weapons on the map (non personal) is bugged or glitched or something. I never receive notifications of locations of weapon drops, I never see any, and quite frankly I think that this "system needs a huge overhaul. 343 needs to put constant weapon spawn timers on the weapons set in the map. I’m getting very annoyed of going midway through a match, running out of ammo, having a hefty spree, and just running around looking for a damn weapon to use.

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Halo was not meant to be played this way…OH REMINDS ME! Played! This is a quick problem I’ve come to notice…uhmmm playing…how does one do that? Oh I know! We go to Matchmaking and pick a playlist to play! I’d really love to play some FFA…oh you don’t have it? What about some BTB Objective? Oh don’t have it either…what about Team Snipers that’s always fun, oh what’s that? You say you only made it available for three days?! So wtf can I play?..intro voiceSLAYER REALLY 343…your playlists are absolute garbage…I do not want to have to back out of a lobby of great players because I’m getting tired of playing Oddball eight times in a row. I’m tired of having to always change everything I’m doing to go play some other objective game type. Throw them into each other. Take out ordinance drops in BTB and establish a finite weapon spawn system. That would increase the game speed to these key areas making them highly contested areas! Halo 2/3 did this perfectly!! Headlong had four areas where the majority of the action was focused due to the necessity of the weapons being spawned there. Rocket launcher, Beam rifle, sword, and sniper walkway. Locations like this would force teams to fight to control these areas and by doing so control the power weapons and therefore sticking to their given objective. I’m getting fed up with objective games just having absolutely no form of “movement” there just isn’t a system in place which makes objective games enjoyable. 343 needs to understand that their playlists, their weapon drop system, and their maps just DO NOT SUI WHAT HALO IS ABOUT.

Maps, briefly. If I get Complex one more time for Oddball, Slayer, etc. I’m going to just suffer time and time again. Complex, way too big for any of the game types in 343. All tactical control is always locked to the top of the main building with the highest vantage point in slayer. Oddball is locked down in one of the two bunkers on I believe the Blue side. Abandon, a terrible map which is a giant cluster of madness in any game mode it is played on. Meltdown, what is going on in this map!? Caves all over the place, different levels, not sure what is ever going on this map. If I can’t see my teammates SPARTANS then I’m lost and have no clue what to do. Awful awful map. Longbow, two words TOP BASE.

I understand I have gone on for quite a while and many of you guys wont ever read what I have to say and I understand and respect your decision but I urge you to look at it and provide any feedback you might have on this brief analysis. I say brief because I did not get into several aspects I would have liked to. Please feel free to discuss.
RIP Halo
Cheers,

Valky

P.-Yoink!- me up anytime you’d like to chit chat or play. GT: The Valkyrion. I’m always down to talk about Halo in general and play.

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I agree halo 1-3 were awesome, reach sucked so does h4, this game is no longer the halo that it used to be, The vast majority of the people that loved halo hate this game which is why it is a miserable failure. I also agree with complex, I hate it yet it is available in every game type… and the playlist is garbage.

Long write up but I agree 100% too bad 343 aren’t true oldschool halo fans

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This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not flame or attack other members.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

I also will defend halo 2 as being the greatest Console FPS of all time, foreverrrrrrr.

You just had to be there to experience it, it was literally a game changer.

Agree with pretty much everything you posted and can tell you are a hardcore halo fan and care about the franchise.

Very well said.

P.S. Haters are going to post tl;dr but ignore it since they are illiterate and probably couldn’t read a paragraph if they put their minds to it.

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> I agree halo 1-3 were awesome, reach sucked so does h4, this game is no longer the halo that it used to be, The vast majority of the people that loved halo hate this game which is why it is a miserable failure. I also agree with complex, I hate it yet it is available in every game type… and the playlist is garbage.
>
> Long write up but I agree 100% too bad 343 aren’t true oldsvchool halo fans

Thank you very much for your response. And to add on to it the idea of party chat and people coming together in game to “strategize/talk/meet” is all but lost. The older crowd of Halo fans have now moved away from this abomination and the newer crowd of players, those who started with Halo 3/Reach have come in.

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>

Haha thank you for your post! I strongly urge you and anyone else who wants to remember (or learn what they missed out on) about Halo 2 to check out this thread over at Bungie’s forums (http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=74855630)

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to be 100% honest… i just saw the wall of text and i was like “WTH. IM SURE THIS GUYS AINT LYING” SO I THANKED UR POST

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I will read this later… Started then realized I have had a little too much to drink to give decent feedback :stuck_out_tongue:

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I miss the SMG. The new recipe definitely needs some work. Im hoping they will tweak the formula for h4 until we get something that feels like Halo again.

EPIC RANT.

They do need to get back to the “Simple”. This game is too -Yoinking!- pretty for them to blow it.

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I can remember so many intense ctf games on coagulation and waterworks, assault on headlong :slight_smile: The good ole’ days when halo took skill and wasn’t filled with all this gimicky -Yoink-. One day the developer will realize what made halo popular and bring it back to the basics.

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Daddywentduuduu, haha yes I understand it might be a little much and intimidating but I hope enough people read this to honestly understand where 343 went wrong with this franchise. The franchise is up for analysis, granted Halo 4 was the reason for this topic in the first place but it is the FRANCHISE we all dearly love and miss.

PPF Elite, thank you my friend! Come back any time and check it out!

Ten Lovingly, agreed, and yes hopefully 343 does update the -BLAM!- :wink: out of this game…more or less wont because they disregard their community.

The Ninja Style, OMG Waterworks CTF was always EPIC. I will never forget the assault matches I had on that map! All that work and firepower to get a bomb into that tiny room…SOOO FUN!!

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Reading that hurt my eyes but it is true. I didn’t have Xbox Live during Halo2 days so i have no idea what that was like. I played the campaign though (not like it matters) My first halo 2 online game (in 2009) i got a triple splatter in a warthog on CTF (no idea what map)

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I completely agree with everything stated.

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Read it all and agree with nearly everything that you put forward. Every since 343 seized control of this franchise, they’re doing whatever they can to make their buck. I find myself literally playing 3 games of online matchmaking every other week and just shutting my Xbox off. There is no more drive to win games and rank up. You get medals for everything, which makes them feel useless. There isn’t any community feeling when I play this game.

I agree about ordinance drops. There is no point to map control. It’s all about knowing your enemy movements and what weapon they have, that way you know when to push for the objective. Since everyone can spawn with a Plasma Pistol in BTB, it makes driving vehicles around very stagnant.

Bungie put Community first and gameplay after words. 343 has flipped the formula and as a result you have tons of communities just wondering what the heck is going on. No one knows if their features of playlists are going to get updated anytime soon.

I have been playing online since Halo 2 released and the direction that Halo has taken has driven me away from it. I’m not buying any DLC for Halo 4 or any other future Halo games. This is someone who has been at launch for all the Bungie release games, played online, did the vidmaster recon challenges, posted actively on bungie.net creating huge conspiracy threads, posting in the Optimatch Forum over vigorous debates, participated in HaloCharts tournaments, always participated in Bungie Day festivities over the years, and just got online regularly with a bunch of friends to have a good time. But what this game is doing right now isn’t Unifying anyone. We’re all just sitting here waiting for the next big thing to happen. “Old” Halo as we know it, won’t be coming back.

I’ve stuck with Halo for over 10 years now. It’s sad to see it take the direction it’s going. Fool me once, shame on you 343. Fool me twice, shame on me. I won’t be fooled twice.

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Oh my to big of a headache atm so ill read it later. You really went all out op didnt ya? But from the little bit ive read so far i agree.

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Thank Crazed, Steve, Spawnling, and Spider for replying. Like I said before I know it is a lot but I urge you to read it, if you hadn’t already.

> I have been playing online since Halo 2 released and the direction that Halo has taken has driven me away from it. I’m not buying any DLC for Halo 4 or any other future Halo games. This is someone who has been at launch for all the Bungie release games, played online, did the vidmaster recon challenges, posted actively on bungie.net creating huge conspiracy threads, posting in the Optimatch Forum over vigorous debates, participated in HaloCharts tournaments, always participated in Bungie Day festivities over the years, and just got online regularly with a bunch of friends to have a good time. But what this game is doing right now isn’t Unifying anyone. We’re all just sitting here waiting for the next big thing to happen. “Old” Halo as we know it, won’t be coming back.
>
> I’ve stuck with Halo for over 10 years now. It’s sad to see it take the direction it’s going. Fool me once, shame on you 343. Fool me twice, shame on me. I won’t be fooled twice.

Spawnling…might as well hand me a tissue because you almost made me cry. I honor your commitment to the franchise that once was. Bless you.

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I also don’t really have anything to add, I’d just like to say that everything here is a plus. I did read it all and am happy to see the loyalty that has carried over from Bungie to keep Halo 4 alive… for a little bit.

Was a good read Valk and Spawnling

As was said, the game is kind of… lost it’s attraction. After a few Infinity matches I lose interest. So sad, I literally only got my Xbox to play Halo games. I have a few extra but rarely play. I had more fun playing Halo 3 campaign with an old friend then I’ve had on 4 the entire time I’ve had it, with or without a friend. The grunts aren’t even a chuckle anymore… Yeargh

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Agreed.

I’ve been doing this online multiplayer thing since H2. I’m a bit older, so I was 25 when it dropped, but it was amazing. Myself, my younger brothers, and all our buddies were in a clan, and owned.

I have to admit I was a little bummed when H3 came out, expecting H2 with better graphics. There were no more clans, lobby chat was declining, other elements that made H2 such a success weren’t there. Proximity voice was nixed, for awhile. But it became a very fun game and when compared to the last two Halo outings, was a worthy successor. It was for the most part true to the Halo multiplayer expectations.

Halo: Reach killed it for me. Jetpacks? WTF?? Armor Lock? I hate you!!

With H:R being such an abomination. I’m not sure what we were supposed to expect with H4. I heard tell it was being developed by true Halo fans with an affinity for H2 and the multiplayer was being reworked after the poor reception of H:R. And then we got what we got. A decent, fun, playable game, that seems to be an amalgam of all sorts of newer FPS games, but with a Halo skin.

I can see how this can be frustrating for long time Halo fans. Every time a new Halo release came out, I anticipated the awesomeness and characteristics that made H2 such a grand experience. And every time I was let down. More and more, again and again. So should we be surprised that Bungie and now 343i aren’t building on the great community based concepts of the earlier Halo games? Or should we be shaming ourselves for repeatedly expecting something greater than what we are given? I would argue for the former, because it seems to be a general consensus among people I talk with who remember the early Halos, that the franchise has drifted far and away from what made the originals so great. One would think they would want to recapture that, instead of just becoming a CoD also-ran. H4 should have been great, but it ended up just being good. So unfortunately I’m resigned to playing this game, and generally enjoying it, but being disappointed by knowing how much better it could have been. And believe me, I’m most likely not pre-ordering H5 for the first time in the history of the franchise.

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Herbet, could not agree more. The franchise has passed on, and what 343i said they would do, what they proposed they would do did not happen. It just has come to my attention in the past two months of playing this game and seeing all the flaws with it that 343i is in just for the money. They released a game with several SEVERAL broken parts. In any business, releasing a product with defects that should have been fixed during the project’s “3 year timeline” is unacceptable. Thank you for your feedback and the dedication you showed to Bungie.