Learning from the fail of reach. What should 343 bring to halo 4?

Games Other Halo
1

I honestly think the only good thing that came from halo reach was assassinations. I think 343 needs to go back to the drawing board. They should start with the halo 3 setup and add to that rather than taking things from reach. I’m going to post some of my ideas. <mark>But, what new changes do you think should come to halo 4?</mark> The halo franchise needs this to be a good game or halo will become less and less relevant.

  1. New Level System. Bring back ranked and social. Place snipers, swat, BTB, objective, team slayer, and lone wolves in the ranked playlists. Do a level system from 1 to 50 again. The levels reset at the end of a 2 month period. This way the boosters will be held in check. Also, the players won’t have to derank. I think at the end of the two months their should be armor rewards for reaching certain levels. Rewards should be a special thing. It shouldn’t be something you just play alot to earn. The player rating can stay I just think the level system should be back. That way you get a team and individual rating.

  2. The aa’s are a good ideas i just feel like they implemented the wrong things. I didn’t like any of the AA’s beside sprint. Here are a few new AA’s that they could possibly add. The AA’s need to be subtle things that don’t change the game significantly. Players should have a limited amount of uses per life too.

a. add something like a the power slide

b. add a quick boost or quick strafe instead of a jetpack.

c. add a charge jump that allows you to jump slightly higher.

d. add some sort of thermal vision. Make the time you can use it very short. I just find on BF the thermal scope allows you to take out campers.

e. This is a joke. Make it where your AA’s don’t charge if you are sitting still. Make a camping penalty lol.

  1. Absolutely no bloom- There are other methods to prevent spamming. Add recoil or just make weapons shoot slower. Randomness has no place in video games.
2

> I honestly think the only good thing that came from halo reach was assassinations.

So the radically-improved Forge, the largest canvas map in the entire series, the brand-new gametype scripting engine that allows bugfixes to be released without Title Updates, the drop-out Campaign, the Firefight customizations, and the improved netcode… all mean absolutely nothing?

Reach is very, very far from being the best game in the series, but calling it a “fail” is hardly warranted.

3

Seems like every Halo game since CE has its detractors who call it a failure and I find it hard to take any of them seriously, especially when they talk as if they have greater insight on Halo games than anyone else.

No bloom is hardly a new idea. It’s probably been the single most criticized aspect of Reach, so if 343 doesn’t understand how people feel about it by now one more post about it online isn’t going to help. Sorry, but I’ve been watching people whine about bloom for over a year now and it’s gotten really old.

“There are other methods to prevent spamming. Add recoil or just make weapons shoot slower.”

The beauty of bloom is that it doesn’t prevent spamming, it just penalizes you when you spam at a distance. If you’re close enough to an enemy you can fire rapidly without penalty because any shot in the expanded reticle will still hit him.

“Randomness has no place in video games.”

This is just silly. Video games are full of randomness, and bloom doesn’t introduce any more of it. Your shots always land inside the circle defining the reticule. They don’t land inside or outside at random. The reticle blooms in a consistent manner every shot. How is that random?

I understand why people don’t like bloom, but don’t try to make it sound as if there is something inherently flawed in it. You just don’t like having to discipline yourself to pace your shots and think about when you can shoot again. It requires more from you than something like imposing a slower firing rate.

If you don’t like bloom just say so. Don’t try to dress up your dislike with some attempt to make it sound as if your dislike it based on some great immutable truth about how video games should work.

As for what I would like to see in Halo 4, my issues with Reach are in the campaign. I’d like to see what I expect we’ll get: an epic story centered around an iconic hero, not a tragic story centered around a group of misfits I wouldn’t hire to fix my toilet. Noble team in Reach is pathetic. Nothing they do impresses me with their abilities.

Kat poses a greater danger to me than she does to the enemy if she’s driving a vehicle. My teammates are invulnerable, which seems kind of stupid, and it has them up in front of me on a regular basis blocking my ability to see and shoot enemies, expect of course in The Package when they go into Armor Lock every time a jackal shoots at one of them.

I think the whole team thing was poorly conceived. Are spartans elite super soldiers or not? If they are, they should perform like elite super soldiers, not idiots who can’t drive and use shotguns as if they are DMRs.

4

Halo fans have always been critical because we have high standards. The previous halo titles were easily fixable and there were fairly quick title updates to fix what problems were there. WAYYYYYY more people despise reach than any of the previous halo titles. It is n’t even close. Halo didn’t fall from the top of gaming just because call of duty is so popular. Reach just wasn’t good. Halo should be at second place on the most played list and the population should at least be comparable to call of duty. I played halo since the beginning. Reach is by far a piece of trash compared to the previous titles. Just because you like reach doesn’t mean the majority agrees with you. Look at the population of the arena. It is a damn joke. It is pathetic.

5

I would definitely like to see a ranking system be implimented. It keeps the tryhards, like myself, and the casuals have fun. This way it should be a close/equal game. In my opinion, I prefer having the really close games (it doesnt matter if I lose knowing the other team was good) than destroying a team that I shouldnt have been matched up against.

As for bloom, I don’t mind the way it works at the moment. I do prefer having a steady reticle with the same fire rates. I like fast paced gameplay and have found that the bloom, in Reach at least, slows down the games and it is much easier to stay alive.

Its cool with all the armour that you can choose, but it doesnt really affect me what the spartan looks like. If people want new armour, they should have more customizations available.

6

no just just no way 1-50 Discorages online MM play AA if anything need to be buffed exluding Armorlock which is fair now and no bloom would = fail 70% bloom is balanced

7

> > I honestly think the only good thing that came from halo reach was assassinations.
>
> So the radically-improved Forge, the largest canvas map in the entire series, the brand-new gametype scripting engine that allows bugfixes to be released without Title Updates, the drop-out Campaign, the Firefight customizations, and the improved netcode… all mean absolutely nothing?
>
> Reach is very, very far from being the best game in the series, but calling it a “fail” is hardly warranted.

Sir, you do bring up good points, and while I won’t necessarily call Reach a fail, it is too far away from the basic formula of previous Halo titles.

The Netcode is glorious. Love it. It is my hope that they continue improving the netcode so that campaign and firefight isn’t laggy when you have friends playing with you. I applaud Bungie for their efforts on that front.

Forge on the other hand, is okay. I’m not a forger, but I have been on some pretty amazing maps. However, the overall bland color scheme, the screen-lag, and the lack of diverse environments to forge on (rather then just one massive map), take away from the experience as voiced by members of this gaming community. Forge World was a great concept-on paper. And what I mean by that is yes, it is cool to have a map that is big enough to offer some kind of diversity in scenery, and allows you to have large constructions such as race tracks, but from what I’ve read by people, more diverse environments would have been better. Rather then one MASSIVE map, it probably would have been cooler to have five smaller maps, each diverse in their own way, with different forge pieces and colors, and then maybe have a big map (a quarter to half the size of Forge world). There was so much work put into Forge World, and the community does acknowledge that fact, but it seems like the resources that were poured into Forge World could have been put to better use, especially in the suggestions that I made which are simply reiterations of what I’ve read on multiple forums by many gamers, not just on B.Net or on waypoint.

Assassinations are pretty cool, and I hope that they carry this forward. I think they need to work on it though, I don’t want to get caught up in an assassination every time I go to backsmack another player, and while I realise that the game provides for a regular one hit kill from behind, the times I have completed such a manuever are few and far between. But it is a really cool feature, and I love hearing people’s reactions when I do it, especially when it’s from a “ninja”.

As far as glitch fixing and what-not, I can assure you that the process of fixing some of the biggest glitches that I know is not being implemented. Case in point: PRESSURE PUSHING. And there are tons more of these types of glitches, and I will say this: the attempts by software companies to patch glitches only leads to more glitches, so why even bother trying to implement that sort of thing, unless it is something that is absolutely cheating. I don’t think the aforementioned glitch is cheating btw.

Now that my post is crossing over into the other aspect of the game’s mechanics, I don’t think I have to point out the obvious flaws of the game, because they have been beaten to death in the forums with posts like:

"OMG teh DMR suks so baaaaaaaaaaaad"
or
"AMOR LOCK MAKES ME RAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!! I’M GONNA GO PLAY COD!!!"
or
"I HATE BLOOM, BUNGIE YOU RUINED HALO!!"

But what I will bring up is the theatre system and the saved gametype/files/footage feature. I don’t need to save thousands of clips, or maps, or gametypes. I have good game footage, and I do use it, by capturing it and uploading it to youtube. But I don’t need THAT much file space. It’s cool that it was thought of, and implemented, but they sacrificed theatre mode features such as bringing multiple people into theatre to showcase your gameplays, funny moments, etc etc. And it is my belief that they dropped the ball with recommending messages to friends. If you want to send a file to just ONE person, you have to send it to everyone on your friends list. I think a quick select and deselect feature for your friends list would have been better. I’m not going to argue the points of theatre mode not being something that is or isn’t necessary for a Halo title, but it’s become a standard feature, much like windshield wipers are on a car, and even though dealerships still itemize the wipers, it’s not a feature that the car comes without, so that same concept can apply to Theatre mode and Halo.

You had a very well thought out reply, and I agree that Reach isn’t an abismal failure, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a success either.

8

> I would definitely like to see a ranking system be implimented. It keeps the tryhards, like myself, and the casuals have fun. This way it should be a close/equal game. In my opinion, I prefer having the really close games (it doesnt matter if I lose knowing the other team was good) than destroying a team that I shouldnt have been matched up against.
>
> As for bloom, I don’t mind the way it works at the moment. I do prefer having a steady reticle with the same fire rates. I like fast paced gameplay and have found that the bloom, in Reach at least, slows down the games and it is much easier to stay alive.
>
> Its cool with all the armour that you can choose, but it doesnt really affect me what the spartan looks like. If people want new armour, they should have more customizations available.

I too would like to see a ranking system implemented. 1-50 in H3 was flawed, ok, but it wasn’t terrible. And the fact is that kids who were envious and jealous of generals and had to show off to their friends really drove the market for boosters and what not.

The same kids that complain about the boosters in Ranked playlists are the same ones that bought 50’s. They created the market, but complained about the good players that were good enough to win the games regardless. Sorry kids, but your past sins go hand in hand with that problem.

I think the 1-50 system should be a bit more comprehensive, or maybe not. There’s an old saying, if you over think the plumbing, it’s gonna be that much easier to stop up the drain. Keep things simple. If a player wins 20-30 games in a row in matchmaking, and by win I mean hands down wins, by skill, and comes in first place EVERY game, then yes, they should get to a high rank in order to play with other players who are high ranks. You can’t stop people from making new accounts, or deranking, that’s a people problem not a game problem.

The armor is cool, but I liked how H3 had it so that you had to get achievements to unlock armor. Some of the achievements were pretty hard too, and to this day I have all but two of the achievements, and I probably will never get them because of the level of difficulty. Does that frustrate people? Sure, but it’s a CHALLENGE. Challenge yourselves, step up and get the job done, you are only letting yourself down if you don’t achieve it. Besides, Armor permutations don’t do anything in Halo. If they did, then yes I think there would and could be an arguement for unlocking armor, but it’s always been a “gee whiz, this is pretty cool” sort of thing. Hayabusa, Recon, EOD, etc, those armors were hard to get (for a lot of people, I had no problem getting them on MULTIPLE accounts), and they were supposed to be difficult.

I personally hate the over exaggerated bloom in Reach, and it is over exaggerated, and doesn’t really fit in with the way the weapons were designed. A single shot weapon shouldn’t have that much kick, not on a weapon that is supposed to be a utility weapon such as the DMR. The pistol can be somewhat understood, but I personally think they have the mechanics for both weapons backwards. The DMR should be a four shot weapon, and the pistol a 5-6 shot weapon at close range. The DMR is more powerful then the BR when you think of the logistics of the rounds being used. The BR needed 12 shots in three round bursts four times to kill a player (if the fourth burst awarded a headshot), and the DMR only requires five rounds (if the fifth round lands a headshot). That’s impressive, but poorly implemented. The pistol should not be packing the same kind of punch per shot as the DMR, a weapon that is designed to be effective at medium ranges, and if you know ballistics, then you would agree, because a weapon that is effective at longer range requires more firepower, which is provided by the rounds, and implemented by the design of the weapon. Reach is hit scan, which means when your target reticule is red and you fire, the weapon doesn’t lose power over range, and none of the Halo’s have really done that, but in the case of the Pistol vs. DMR argument they shouldn’t be equals.

My apologies for going on a rant about ballistics and firepower, but I feel they are pertinent to this thread, and they are relevant to the game’s mechanics.

As far as the sniper goes, leave it alone LMAO. It works, and it’s been a friend to me in all of the Halo titles with the exception of H3’s sniper which was affected heavily by latency, and the fact that my eyes aren’t so great so I tend to miss shots LMAO.

9

There are dozens of good things that came from Reach that need to be kept for future Halo games. But I do agree, there are many things that were good in theory but did not work out too well.

10

> Halo fans have always been critical because we have high standards. The previous halo titles were easily fixable and there were fairly quick title updates to fix what problems were there. WAYYYYYY more people despise reach than any of the previous halo titles. It is n’t even close. Halo didn’t fall from the top of gaming just because call of duty is so popular. Reach just wasn’t good. Halo should be at second place on the most played list and the population should at least be comparable to call of duty. I played halo since the beginning. Reach is by far a piece of trash compared to the previous titles. Just because you like reach doesn’t mean the majority agrees with you. Look at the population of the arena. It is a damn joke. It is pathetic.

Agree’d, and I have to piggy back on what you are saying because Reach did get away from the formula that made Halo a success.

I’d hate to toot Call of Duty’s horn, especially since I consider myself a long time Halo fan, and a recent call of duty fan, but the call of duty franchise has got some things correct. For starters, they don’t really change the mechanics of the game from each title. It’s a system that works, and it rewards good and bad players. They add things to each title, but those aren’t game altering changes or additions that make the game damn near unplayable. The Battle Rifle in Halo was a tried and true utility weapon spanning two titles that was loved by a lot of players. It was just tricky enough to warrant some skill with the weapon, and it was just easy enough to allow anyone to pick it up. In H2, it worked, and it worked great especially with Hit scan. In H3, it was just as effective, sometimes not so much against elites in swat game types, but it had mechanics to it that forced you to learn how to use the weapon, but still allowed you that cushion to not have to become a master with it if you wanted to get some kills. Even the H3 Assault Rifle wasn’t that bad. When used with different combinations it became a very effective weapon. At high level lone wolves, the good players knew how to use the AR effectively, and I can tell you that it was used to it’s fullest degree.

Reach rewards campers who overuse CQB weapons such as the sword and the shotgun. I can’t count how many times I’ve run into players who rely so heavily on those two weapons for an edge, and maps such as countdown reward those players in an almost sickening manner.

Now I know, I know…if I want to play with weapons used in H3, why don’t I just go play H3? Right? Well it’s simple, H3 lacks the modern netcode, and the modern nice things that Reach has. Not to mention that H3’s matchmaking right now reflects the internal contents of a colostomy bag: it’s all poop.

I’ve said, and a lot of people have agree’d with me, had they just incorporated things from H3 into Reach, instead of redesigning the game, Reach might have stood a chance against two CoD titles, Gears of War 3, Skyrim, and a few other titles. But as it stands, not even CEA will is enough to re-invigorate Halo right now.

And I must apologise to the people that have had their first experience with Halo be Reach. You have no idea what Halo has been, and how far it’s gotten away from it’s core gaming mechanics. I’m sorry, but Reach is only a Halo by title, otherwise it would have been just considered an updated version of shadowrun.

11

> As for what I would like to see in Halo 4, my issues with Reach are in the campaign. I’d like to see what I expect we’ll get: an epic story centered around an iconic hero, not a tragic story centered around a group of misfits I wouldn’t hire to fix my toilet. Noble team in Reach is pathetic. Nothing they do impresses me with their abilities.
>
> Kat poses a greater danger to me than she does to the enemy if she’s driving a vehicle. My teammates are invulnerable, which seems kind of stupid, and it has them up in front of me on a regular basis blocking my ability to see and shoot enemies, expect of course in The Package when they go into Armor Lock every time a jackal shoots at one of them.
>
> I think the whole team thing was poorly conceived. Are spartans elite super soldiers or not? If they are, they should perform like elite super soldiers, not idiots who can’t drive and use shotguns as if they are DMRs.

This. You just took all the words right out of my brain.

12

good thread.
long story short get rid of bloom already…

13

I just played full bloom today for the first time in a while today. It was honestly laughable how dumb it was

14

Remove the Credit system.

Make the ranking up system like the arena ranking.

Unlockable armor need to be unlock by unlocking achievements like what they did on Halo 3.
“So the game will have great replay value or better, Co-op achievements like the (annual achievement)”

Separate playlist CTF, Oddball, etc Playlist.

No recoil or Bloom.

Less jumping.

No sprint.

More Forge map. “DLC’s are sometime non-affordable and Forge has so much to offer but only a handful created map are only being played”

15

343 would be lucky to replicate the fiscal success and the longevity that reach has enjoyed, it will most likely remain in the top 20 if not higher until the release of 4. Not many games enjoy that kinda success, just saying =/

16

this is halo. That comment should be reserved for a game like crysis. Halo should be top 5 no matter what. In all honesty it should be top 3

17

> I just played full bloom today for the first time in a while today. It was honestly laughable how dumb it was

LOL, I played it yesterday and I honestly did not understand how I put up with it for a whole year. Default bloom is 100% garbage.

18

> 343 would be lucky to replicate the fiscal success and the longevity that reach has enjoyed, it will most likely remain in the top 20 if not higher until the release of 4. Not many games enjoy that kinda success, just saying =/

According to some forumites, if isn’t #1, then it isn’t even worth having on the top played list.

19

Fail of Reach?

No Bloom? - Gameplay

New Ranking System? - Matchmaking

No Armour Abilities? - Gameplay

Right. Who wants to discuss about the Campaign, Forge, Firefight, Custom Games and Theater sides of Halo 4? Who wants to discuss possible stories and links that Halo 4 and the Reclaimer Trilogy may offer us? Anybody?

Wouldn’t it be nice to discuss something different from Gameplay and Matchmaking for once?

20

> > 343 would be lucky to replicate the fiscal success and the longevity that reach has enjoyed, it will most likely remain in the top 20 if not higher until the release of 4. Not many games enjoy that kinda success, just saying =/
>
> According to some forumites, if isn’t #1, then it isn’t even worth having on the top played list.

I could say the same in terms of forumites obliviously accepting mediocrity.

Comparing apples to oranges (say halo reach to dead island) sure Reach is great.

Now apples to apples (reach to every halo game before it) and you begin to see the disappointment.

Some people are ok with completely abolishing a successful formula in place of a few shitz and gigglez(lol bloom, lol AA’s, ). Some people are old school.