Megalo & Updating/Fix Gametypes (Informative)

Games Halo 5: Guardians
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This thread is going to be explaining the current gametype scripting system, called Megalo, and how it impacted Halo 4’s gametypes, and what 343 can and possibly will do for Halo 5. This is meant as a learning guide for the community to understand the hardships it is to write scripts from scratch, and for the 343 devs to understand the community better, and to improve upon their scripting.The OP will be broken up into 2 sections: the Setup section, and the Improvements

section. Setups section will focus on explaining to the community why certain aspects of gametypes can never come to life due to aspects of the game engine itself are presented to the player. The Improvements section (2nd post) will be community-wide suggestions for improvements, on top of one’s I’ve accounted myself that would help the system out as well.

So, read on if you’re ready.

Megalo: Setting up the Gametype

Megalo is known as the scripting system and logic that 343 uses for writing their gametypes. Halo: Reach was the 1st Halo game to use this scripting logic in order to define a definite amount of interactions the system can handle between players, objects, timers, etc and letting those things interact with each other and the physical engine of the game.

The first thing the community needs to realize, is there’s limitations to this system. Only so much data can be introduced and read via the scripted part of a gametype, which therefore limits the amount of things the 343 devs can do with a gametype. To put into perspective, Invasion from Reach used up nearly the max amount of resources and space for scripting.

Initial Gametype Setup:
Each gametype has what I’m referring to as the “setup.” The setups section basically tells the engine what’s going on. It tells the player what teams are available to play as, what the Damage Boost, Speed Boost, and Overshield powerup traits do (yes, they’re actually traits), and among a bunch of other things, the gametype’s specific settings and all their language translations. I’ll be heavily discussing the gametype settings factor of the script further down This section is by far the easiest for the developers, because they already know what they plan on doing with the gametype and how they want to set it up. That’s what this section is for, and the next section involves the execution of script data that the gametype runs on.

Assigning Functionality:
The thing with the scripting is, anything and everything that will have functionality, must be assigned by the script in order to be functional. Player’s will be assigned as the immediate player being referred to in basic functions. Objects that are objective-oriented (flag stand, capture plate, etc) are assigned as GlobalObjects. Timer’s can be assigned as well.

Actions and Conditions:
Another limitation, is the fact that there’s what’s known as Actions and Conditions. This is essentially a “Cause and Effect” clause. Throughout the script, the game assigns objects variables. Those variables are called into conditions that the gametype checks in order to determine whether or not to execute an action. These actions can range from picking up a flag, to starting a countdown timer on a waypoint, and even how to handle scoring on an individual basis. There can only be so many of these Actions and Conditions in a script due to limitations. This is another reason why scripting for 343 is hard. There are conditions and actions that, in our minds, would seem easy, such as “If I’m within 3 meters of the flag, then pick it up”. While in essence this is true to an extent, it gets heavily complicated. There’s many other actions when that certain part of the script executes that must be done as well, such as adding the waypoint to the carrier, what icon the waypoint is, what the waypoint says, giving the carrier the flag carrier trait set, giving the carrier his Flagnum weapon, etc.

There can be 1 branch of conditions (easily 3, 4 or more) that can happen simultaneously to determine just 1 action. That 1 action can set a variable that is used in another condition down the road to call up other functions such as awarding medals. An example, is when a player grabs a flag and becomes a carrier, the system calls the player, for this purpose “GlobalPlayer0”. The system identifies this as a person holding a flag. Down the road, this condition is checked to award medals like flag kills, jousts, Flagsassinations, etc. When the carrier dies or captures a flag, the system “unchecks” that player as a “GlobalPlayer0”. This is a very light and shallow explanation of it, but objects, timers, and players can all be set with variables this way to interact with each other and when the script asks if something is true or false, it can execute a branched part of the script or bypass it depending on what the devs want.

Initialization and Host Migration Triggers:
These 2 things are huge factors in gameplay mechanics. Initialization Triggers set up the beef of the gametype. It sets up the callouts, the gametype name, countdown timer, the objects that need spawned (like oddballs, waypoints on objects, and timers). This is what you see happening when the blurry screen and 10 second countdown occur before a game starts on Halo 4.

Host Migration. We all know this as the dreaded blackscreen when the host leaves, host changes, or when the hosts’ connection falls enough behind in sending/receiving client data that it can stop the game entirely. I beleive this is because the script is ran from the host box, only. Now, the trigger here is usually used to copy data from clients and store them in the system to “hand off” to the next host. A lot of times it doesn’t work 100%, but it works well enough in most cases. The less scripting a gametype has, the easier it is for the Migration hand-off to occur without issue.

Finalizing:
Take everything I put above with a grain of salt. If this didn’t make your head wanna twirl, just imagine what 343 does DAILY. Not only is it daily, but it’s also 50 times harder than how I explained how it works. I left out a bunch of details not only for the community’s sake of understanding, but for 343’s sake in that it doesn’t become a blown-out WikiLeaks case. This portion was intended for the community to understand the hardships 343 works on when dealing with the gametype. The GAMETYPE. The “easiest” thing that the community thinks 343 has to deal with, isn’t so easy.

I explained a lot of major areas, and not only does 343 have to guarantee that it works, but that there’s no overlapping problem areas. No areas of the script that break, don’t function as intended, or just don’t work period. All the testing that goes into their gametypes is very time consuming, and finding the root cause of an issue may seem simple, but it could trace back through multiple areas due to how the scripting may be set up. Give 343 a break with the gametypes. It was their first run at it and for that, they did very well with things not breaking.

To cover that last sentence, the next post will be regarding gametypes that people claim are “breaking”, which isn’t even entirely 343’s fault. I’ll also cover issues the community has been forthcoming to 343 about fixing. This deals primarily with the Gametype Settings and missing settings players have felt empty without.

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Now that you guys have read what 343 has to deal with, you should be able to understand why there’s the possibility of a small company to let a few bugs here and there to get through. A lot of these bugs aren’t even on 343’s end, but occur due to Host Migration problems. I’ll explain below.

Fixing Current Gametypes:
People assume when something goes wrong, that 343 is to blame. I’ve seen hundreds of things that have gone wrong in gametypes. I, personally, had Grifball hard-freeze my 360 in Matchmaking. I’ve also had all 3 bases on Longbow Dominion double-down and turn into 6. I’ve had the wrong flags spawn at each base so each team gets an immediate flag capture. I’ve had every vehicle on a map spawn in twice at the start of a match. I’ve had people holding a flag or an oddball, but appear holding another weapon in place of what they SHOULD be holding.

Listen community, these problems aren’t problems entirely with the scripting. This is a host-migration issue. What people don’t understand is the ENTIRE gametype script runs multiple (more than that) times per second. These issues come up when the host leaves when the script is executing certain actions in the script. When the host leaves, the game waits a couple seconds before blackscreening. However, the gametype script has already stopped when the host left. It will pick back up where the NEW host’s script would re-start.

For example, I will explain the “Flag Carrier having an AR” glitch people see often:

When a player picks up a flag the script goes through multiple conditions and actions simultaneously. While it IS almost all at the same time, the actions still happen in a sequence and not at exactly the same time. The 2 actions that happen in order that are important here are:

[Condition]Player within radius of flag.
[Action]Player picks up flag.
[Action]Flag attaches to player’s left hand.
[Action]Player gets a Waypoint.
[Action]Waypoint icon is a flag.
[Action]Waypoint text says “Kill.”
[Action]Give player a Flagnum for the weapon.

These happen so quickly you can’t tell the difference in what happens first. Well, obviously the player has to get the flag first in order for the next actions to really matter. But what happens if the host’s scripting stops due to quitting/lag out, before the “player” receives their flagnum? The new host’s script re-starts and the player never receives the Flagnum, because the script didn’t get that far. The problem lies, in that this trigger (section) of the script only runs 1 time: when the flag is initially picked up. Almost ALL of your gametype-related glitches are due to a 1-time run scripted section that never completes before a host quits. I’ve had this in Ricochet where I scored right before a blackscreen, and no scores after the blackscreen would add points to either team.

In another case, sometimes shooting an automatic weapon while picking up a flag can cause a desynchronization and cause the AR to stay out and hold the flag at a weird angle, from other players’ perspective. However, things appear how they should from your point of view.

In certain networking conditions, it’s not uncommon for the system to get confused by something in the script, or some in-game object or player not registering correctly, which is why flags may reset after a blackscreen, in-game timers completely starting over from the beginning of the game, and yes, even flags spawning in opposite bases.

343 can try to update their Host Migration triggers in their gametypes in order to reflect networking issues people face more frequently in order to support and correct the issue if possible when the networking condition is met down the road. This is how 343 tried to update/fix Dominion/Extraction capturing and being shot would cause a player to be “stuck” after a successful capture or if prematurely trying to stop capturing.

Updating Gametypes (Gametype Settings):

We all have had that issue. A gametype setting doesn’t work. Or a gametype is missing a setting. Or we need this. We need that. Want. Want. Want. We’re this far and I personally feel we should be ashamed at how we’ve treated 343 as a community. We complain and cry about simple, petty things. A lot of things, yes, are issues that need addressed, and that’s where I’m at here.

  1. This part is for you on improving your gametypes.

"Gametype Settings DON’T WORK!"
This outcry, is because of how your scripting is set up. All of your in-game settings WOULD work, but simply, the condition that checks if an in-game setting is set to something is simply omitted. Instead, your “broken” settings for these listed below, are just hard-scripted into the gametype with no condition to check for what the setting is set to:

-Waypoint for Last Man Standing & Flag/Ball carriers (always on)
-Grifball’s timers for Arming (always instant) and Disarming (never)
-Dominion’s Base Points Frequency (always 5 seconds)
-Oddball Kill and Carrier Kill Points (always none)

"[Insert gametype] is missing [insert setting]!"
This is an issue, mainly with gametypes that have transitioned over from Reach to Halo 4 that are lacking options that should’ve been:

-Flood’s various weapons-related settings are gone.
-Capture the Flag’s various side-related functionality (1-flag/Neutral) are gone.
-Missing classic gametypes entirely (Assault, Race, etc).

Updating the Gametypes for Halo 5:
Halo 5, as of right now, is still on track for release later this year. However, with it being an Xbox One exclusive, I’m almost betting the Megalo script system would be updated to handle far more things in a gametype than what Halo 4 can today. With that, I assume more options would be able to be user-defined, and more actions can be added for gametype-specific settings that players have been moaning about for a good amount of time.

-Fixing Capture the Flag to conserve all 5 Flag modes (include Speedflag/3-Flag)
-Allowing the flag as a Single-Use weapon, rather than just an attached object.
-Allowing the dropping of a flag.
-Disallowing automatic pickup.
-Letting players dictate the radius of capturing hills/flags/goals based on “size” of the object the label is assigned to.
-Allow “progressive” objective spawns. (Capture a flag and if another flag return point has 1 for spawn sequence, then spawn the next flag there until captured, then spawn it at item with spawn sequence 2. If there’s no 2, revert to 0. Extraction and KoTH do this correctly already). Can be independent of flags and/or capture plates.
-Re-integrate Assault with all of it’s settings.
-Allow spawning the Flag or a Ball as a Vehicle or Weapon properly. (Can’t as they are considered objects, not weapons).
-Combine Regicide, Juggernaut, and VIP (all 3 are essentially the same with some minor trait setting differences) into 1 gametype, if possible. Regicide needs an option for “King Determination” based on making the new King the person who killed the King (Juggernaut) or random (VIP). Allow for 1-sided Regicide games.

I’ll follow up with more as the community responds.

Edit: I’d strongly prefer if you haven’t seen this app, to do so:

https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst180701_Custom-Game-Option-Browser.aspx

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I’m guessing you’ll explain why what seemed to work well enough in Reach is not working at all in Halo 4? We had Invasion in Reach. We had Race in Reach. We had Assault in Reach. We had AI that worked as a team in Firefight in Reach.

What’s going on?

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> I’m guessing you’ll explain why what seemed to work well enough in Reach is not working at all in Halo 4? We had Invasion in Reach. We had Race in Reach. We had Assault in Reach. We had AI that worked as a team in Firefight in Reach.
>
> What’s going on?

Due to the new format of Halo 4, those gametypes would’ve had to either be roughly converted and updated, or re-written from scratch. With 343 taking the helm over a system they weren’t entirely familiar with, and making new gametypes of their own (Extraction/Dominion), they probably just didn’t have the time for those gametypes. The re-wrote Capture the Flag from scratch to run off of their new vision of the gametype, so that took time to playtest and bug-find. Dominion almost didn’t even make the cut.

I’d assume since Ricochet was being worked on, that 343 has already been working on the gametypes for Halo 5. I’m also assuming everything the community has been wanting fixed will be, and features that were lost will be available, as well as classic gametypes making a return, and current offerings being expanded with this new system.

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This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

TL;DR.

Please bring back invasion if possible.

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As someone with programming experience, I think I understand most of this. For those of you asking for 64 player games in Halo 5, this is why it doesn’t work. Halo 4 was already barely able to handle 8v8.

> I’m guessing you’ll explain why what seemed to work well enough in Reach is not working at all in Halo 4? We had Invasion in Reach. We had Race in Reach. We had Assault in Reach. We had AI that worked as a team in Firefight in Reach.
>
> What’s going on?

Combination of several factors, the simplest answer I would give is time constraints in keeping with the release date, as well as more data transfer than previous games.

In short, games are becoming increasingly complex but the old infrastructure used to support Halo Reach couldn’t support everything 343 wanted in Halo 4. Programming is a very complicated and meticulous process and takes a lot of work to do. Things like Invasion which may have been planned to be in Halo 4 didn’t make it because 343 didn’t have time to adapt it to work in Halo 4 before the release date.

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> Megalo is known as the scripting system and logic that 343 uses for writing their gametypes. <mark>Halo: Reach was the 1st Halo game to use this scripting logic</mark> in order to define a definite amount of interactions the system can handle between players, objects, timers, etc and letting those things interact with each other and the physical engine of the game.

So, I’m still confused. Did 343i use a different Megalo or something? Did Bungie understand it better?

And I’m not buying the time thing. They wasted a lot of time and energy “fixing” Reach. Also, if Halo 5 was to be on an entirely different platform, why not just use Reach’s code for 4 and put all the “new stuff” effort into 5?

8

> > Megalo is known as the scripting system and logic that 343 uses for writing their gametypes. <mark>Halo: Reach was the 1st Halo game to use this scripting logic</mark> in order to define a definite amount of interactions the system can handle between players, objects, timers, etc and letting those things interact with each other and the physical engine of the game.
>
> So, I’m still confused. Did 343i use a different Megalo or something? Did Bungie understand it better?
>
> And I’m not buying the time thing. They wasted a lot of time and energy “fixing” Reach. Also, if Halo 5 was to be on an entirely different platform, why not just use Reach’s code for 4 and put all the “new stuff” effort into 5?

Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3’s gametypes all ran directly off the game engine, rather than being separate, from what I’ve heard. Bungie originally created the Megalo system when Reach was in the works. Obviously, since the transition from Reach to Halo 4, the Megalo system has been updated significantly in that time frame. It can handle more objects, variables, and physically do much more in a gametype than it could in the past. That’s why I believe Halo 5’s Megalo scripting will be even moreso improved upon than 4’s. I doubt many more actions and conditions would come of it, but I’m almost guaranteeing a stability improvement, and maybe even a simplification of the process on their end when creating the gametypes.

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Thanks for the info. I really enjoy understanding the way the game works!

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> Thanks for the info. I really enjoy understanding the way the game works!

I wish you weren’t the only one. That’s the thing about this thread. It’s to help the COMMUNITY understand the work 343 has to do for just a “simple gametype,” when it’s not even THAT simple… and here we are, with just a couple people in just under 24 hours replying to it. It goes to show how selfish this community is to not only want want want, but to not even care enough to see things and understand things from 343’s point of view.

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> That’s the thing about this thread. It’s to help the COMMUNITY understand the work 343 has to do for just a “simple gametype,” when it’s not even THAT simple…

I understand and agree that too many people ignorantly ask for things not knowing or caring what it takes to fulfill those requests. But what I’m still wondering is why some of these problems, particularly the ones brought about by network issues, didn’t exist in Reach?

The biggest question I want to ask is why did 343i not have the foresight to know they weren’t going to be able get everything necessary done on time and make Halo 4 more receptive to updates? That way, even if they couldn’t get everything done by launch, they could at least implement Campaign Theater, new gametypes, custom game options, and etc. over time.

Really, when you look at 343i’s history with releases, nearly every release has had major bugs that have taken way too long to resolve or are still unresolved. Halo 4 had issues like File Share not working at launch. The Halo 4 August 19 TU (the day before the Champions Bundle released) broke lots of stuff that they didn’t fix until four months later, except DLC achievements which are still broken. The Spartan Assault Hydra TU broke cloud saves. Spartan Assault’s achievements on Xbox One don’t work. And we were told Spartan Assault would release on the Xbox 360 in December, and then in January, and it’s now January 22 and we still haven’t heard anything. I’m assuming they’re waiting as long as possible before releasing it because they’re still bug-fixing even at the last minute, and I’m sure they’ll still be bug-fixing even after it’s released.

I don’t know if its incompetent programming, bad management, inaccurate estimations of completion dates, not enough testing time, or unrealistic deadlines from higher-up, but I want it to stop. I’m willing to wait if it means I get something that works.

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Everything on this page makes sense. Its about time somebody pointed this out to the community. I agree with most of the conclusions on this page. As somebody with programming experience, I can understand the difficulty in making everything work.

HOWEVER:

I’m still don’t think this merits complete forgiveness for 343i. If the system was making bugs easy to create, then they should have spent more time improving Megalo or bug testing. They should not announce release dates until the are certain that everything will be complete in time for release. I would prefer a highly polished game to an early one.

NEVERTHELESS:

Good effort. I understand the difficulty, and I wouldn’t want to step into 343i shoes (at least not as far as programming is concerned). And I hope the reason for the lack of updates is a dogged fixation on making Halo Xbox One as good as possible.

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> > > Megalo is known as the scripting system and logic that 343 uses for writing their gametypes. <mark>Halo: Reach was the 1st Halo game to use this scripting logic</mark> in order to define a definite amount of interactions the system can handle between players, objects, timers, etc and letting those things interact with each other and the physical engine of the game.
> >
> > So, I’m still confused. Did 343i use a different Megalo or something? Did Bungie understand it better?
> >
> > And I’m not buying the time thing. They wasted a lot of time and energy “fixing” Reach. Also, if Halo 5 was to be on an entirely different platform, why not just use Reach’s code for 4 and put all the “new stuff” effort into 5?
>
> Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3’s gametypes all ran directly off the game engine, rather than being separate, from what I’ve heard. <mark>Bungie originally created the Megalo system when Reach was in the works. Obviously, since the transition from Reach to Halo 4, the Megalo system has been updated significantly in that time frame. It can handle more objects, variables, and physically do much more in a gametype than it could in the past.</mark> That’s why I believe Halo 5’s Megalo scripting will be even moreso improved upon than 4’s. I doubt many more actions and conditions would come of it, but I’m almost guaranteeing a stability improvement, and maybe even a simplification of the process on their end when creating the gametypes.

So what you’re saying is that Reach used Megalo, and since then Megalo has been improved.

What I’m experiencing is that stuff that seemed to work in Reach is not working with Halo 4’s “improved” Megalo. I’m willing to bet that Halo 4’s multiplayer would have worked better with Reach’s unimproved Megalo.

Players were upset with Reach due to the loss of in-game visible ranks and the inclusion of AA’s and loadouts, but I’m not aware of any serious complaints about forge, theater, file share, custom games or matchmaking (lag). In fact, I recall that eventually they were able to address weapon balance issues on the fly without a TU.

I can appreciate your effort in attempting to explain that video games are difficult to produce. I don’t think anyone that bothers to come to the forums, even just to lurk, thinks it’s easy. Anyone that does should be writing their own games.

It just looks to me like 343i chose to ignore what Bungie did because they thought they could do better, so we got a game that superficially performed like Reach using different methods. That’s the thing about programming, there’s a million ways to do the same thing, and it’s not always easy to find the unintended consequences when you do something different. Reach multiplayer has armor effects and skulls. Halo 4 does not. Is it because they were unpopular, or because it’s impossible with the “improved” code?

I guess what I’m saying is if Megalo now is better than it was with Reach, it’s not showing.

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> > > > Megalo is known as the scripting system and logic that 343 uses for writing their gametypes. <mark>Halo: Reach was the 1st Halo game to use this scripting logic</mark> in order to define a definite amount of interactions the system can handle between players, objects, timers, etc and letting those things interact with each other and the physical engine of the game.
> > >
> > > So, I’m still confused. Did 343i use a different Megalo or something? Did Bungie understand it better?
> > >
> > > And I’m not buying the time thing. They wasted a lot of time and energy “fixing” Reach. Also, if Halo 5 was to be on an entirely different platform, why not just use Reach’s code for 4 and put all the “new stuff” effort into 5?
> >
> > Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3’s gametypes all ran directly off the game engine, rather than being separate, from what I’ve heard. <mark>Bungie originally created the Megalo system when Reach was in the works. Obviously, since the transition from Reach to Halo 4, the Megalo system has been updated significantly in that time frame. It can handle more objects, variables, and physically do much more in a gametype than it could in the past.</mark> That’s why I believe Halo 5’s Megalo scripting will be even moreso improved upon than 4’s. I doubt many more actions and conditions would come of it, but I’m almost guaranteeing a stability improvement, and maybe even a simplification of the process on their end when creating the gametypes.
>
> So what you’re saying is that Reach used Megalo, and since then Megalo has been improved.
>
> What I’m experiencing is that stuff that seemed to work in Reach is not working with Halo 4’s “improved” Megalo. I’m willing to bet that Halo 4’s multiplayer would have worked better with Reach’s unimproved Megalo.
>
> Players were upset with Reach due to the loss of in-game visible ranks and the inclusion of AA’s and loadouts, but I’m not aware of any serious complaints about forge, theater, file share, custom games or matchmaking (lag). In fact, I recall that eventually they were able to address weapon balance issues on the fly without a TU.
>
> I can appreciate your effort in attempting to explain that video games are difficult to produce. I don’t think anyone that bothers to come to the forums, even just to lurk, thinks it’s easy. Anyone that does should be writing their own games.
>
> It just looks to me like 343i chose to ignore what Bungie did because they thought they could do better, so we got a game that superficially performed like Reach using different methods. That’s the thing about programming, there’s a million ways to do the same thing, and it’s not always easy to find the unintended consequences when you do something different. Reach multiplayer has armor effects and skulls. Halo 4 does not. Is it because they were unpopular, or because it’s impossible with the “improved” code?
>
> I guess what I’m saying is if Megalo now is better than it was with Reach, it’s not showing.

It’s better at handling things is what I was stating. The main thing is the change in the Engine itself that Halo 4 runs on. The changes from Reach is what internally broke some things when it came over to Halo 4.

The 1 thing I can think of off the top of my head is the “Progress Bar” only works in certain situations in Halo 4, like arming a site in Extraction or taking a base in Dominion, because the bar is now tied to those objects. So it wont work as a filling bar to show a Flag’s return status when standing on it, etc.

It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a problem with their scripting, but the changes in the game engine from Reach to 4 is what broke some things. It’s not a problem specifically on OUR end, because 343 comes up with the official gametypes, so it’s on them if they decide to fix things that broke or not. With what we were handed at release, certain things like that didn’t need fixed because they weren’t being utilized.

343 more than likely also had to fix a bunch of broken in-game mechanics and settings that Megalo referred to but were broken just to fit their needs at the time. The progress bar I mentioned wasn’t released used extensively in Reach bar CTF flag-returning and arming bombs in Assault. We don’t have Assault, and Grifball doesn’t utilize arming, so my guess is Grifball’s arm timer not working due to the setting condition being left out of the script, was intentional since the progress bar doesn’t work when arming, either.

Regarding the Reach weapon-balancing stuff, there was still a TU in Reach to allow the weapon-balancing settings in the first place, just like in Halo 4. Both games needed a TU in order for the weapon-tuning to work via the script of each gametype put on. (Yes, the TU weapon-balancing settings per gametype are scripted in). I assume Halo 5 will already allow weapon-tuning settings to work per gametype without another TU.

I understand where you’re coming from about 343’s stance on the changes from Reach. Halo 4 is 343’s first major game release, and they have to put their own gameplay elements to separate themselves from Bungie. While some changes were bad in a lot of peoples’ opinions, I still regard Halo 4 as one of the better Halo titles. I thoroughly enjoy all the games…in their respective times. Each game I’ve seen is an improvement over the last, but there will always be things changed that people in the community won’t agree with. It happened from 2 to 3, and from 3 to Reach. So I’m not surprised at the looks 343 has gotten from people, but I still hear quite a bit of people enjoy Halo 4, including myself. Would I change certain aspects if I could? Most certainly. Am I going to let those aspects I don’t agree with deter me from playing? It won’t.

15

> I understand where you’re coming from about 343’s stance on the changes from Reach. Halo 4 is 343’s first major game release, <mark>and they have to put their own gameplay elements to separate themselves from Bungie</mark>. While some changes were bad in a lot of peoples’ opinions, I still regard Halo 4 as one of the better Halo titles. I thoroughly enjoy all the games…in their respective times. Each game I’ve seen is an improvement over the last, but there will always be things changed that people in the community won’t agree with. It happened from 2 to 3, and from 3 to Reach. So I’m not surprised at the looks 343 has gotten from people, but I still hear quite a bit of people enjoy Halo 4, including myself. Would I change certain aspects if I could? Most certainly. Am I going to let those aspects I don’t agree with deter me from playing? It won’t.

Separating themselves from Bungie should not ever have been part of the equation. From where I sit it looks like it was always about being perceived as being better than Bungie at making a Halo game than just making a Halo game. I’m a Bungie fan, but I’m more a Halo fan. I don’t care who makes the game as long as each new release works at least as well as the previous one. Features introduced in Halo 3 (Theater, Forge, Custom Games) became part of the package in Reach, which was just a spinoff. These things aren’t working as well as the previous game and we’re being asked to respect the fact that this is the developers first game? They had a pretty damn good game to start with. Was it necessary to redo everything just to make a point?

I like Halo 4 too, but if you can get past AA’s and bloom and really look at how well Reach performs in it’s entirety, from campaign to custom games, you have to admit that Reach is a pretty remarkable product, and to not use it for the last title for the Xbox 360 was just wasteful. Outside of Spartan Ops, I don’t see anything going on in Halo 4 that’s significantly different from Reach. I hate to think that we got a game (Halo 4) with so many issues because 343i had a problem with using Bungie’s work. I don’t want to find out that Halo 5 ended up not living up to it’s potential because a lot of time and energy went into reinventing the Reach wheel to make Halo 4 when that effort could have gone into Halo 5 from the start. A game that’s going to be released on a new platform with a different infrastructure deserves that kind of attention.

Reach’s population issues had nothing to do with the way the code was written, and it’s not Halo 4’s real problem either (although 4’s lack of functionality compared to Reach is a factor). I don’t care if they use Megalo or Megabloks to make Halo 5 as long as the focus is Halo, not Bungie, and the goal is that anything carried over from the previous games works at least as well as it did before.

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> This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.
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> *Original post. Click at your own discretion.
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> TL;DR.
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> Please bring back invasion if possible.
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My apologies. Was tired and hypoglycemic.

This thread indeed raises important points. We can’t just ask for 32 vs 32 battles and open world levels. It has to work.

Best of luck to 343 Industries on Halo: Xbox One.

Ψ

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> > This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.
> >
> >
> > *Original post. Click at your own discretion.
> >
> >
> >
> > TL;DR.
> >
> > Please bring back invasion if possible.
> >
> >
> >
>
> My apologies. Was tired and hypoglycemic.
>
> This thread indeed raises important points. We can’t just ask for 32 vs 32 battles and open world levels. It has to work.
>
> Best of luck to 343 Industries on Halo: Xbox One.
>
>
> Ψ

I would think Halo 5 would support 12v12. 16’s are pushing it. id prefer 12 because it heavily lightens the load on the engine while expanding on current offerings. Im just ready to start hearing details.

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Thanks. A good read and explaining the difficulties of creating playlist.

As many problems seem to occur with Host Migration. Having dedicated servers for Halo 5. Should fix most problems we see today.

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> Thanks. A good read and explaining the difficulties of creating playlist.
>
> As many problems seem to occur with Host Migration. Having dedicated servers for Halo 5. Should fix most problems we see today.

Without the need for host migration, it should actually SAVE 343 time because they won’t have to save parts of in-game data for the migration via script. This in turn would save space as well that could be used towards other resources.

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Thanks for the post OP I learn a lot from this thread. Also we as a community should consider more thinking of what we want and what can be done.