MLG is the staple in competitive Shooter gaming. And while Shooters are limited in their ability to be truly competitive compared to, say, RTS or Fighters, what little shooters have to grasp on to MUST remain in-play.
MLG has seen the Halo series through from start to finish. And it is inarguable that every Halo game thus far has brought something truly competitive to the Halo MLG sandbox. Every game, that is, except Halo Reach.
Halo CE offered MLG the first competitive sandbox. While still flawed in several ways, players spawned with the Magnum, a great competitive weapon, and Power Weapons such as the Sniper, Rockets, and Shotgun made the game a perfect balance of control and skill.
Flaws included were massively overpowered grenades that you spawned with 4 of. And an unfortunate lack in truely competitive maps.
Halo 2 threw away some of what made Halo CE so competitive. The staple weapon (now BR) was unfortunately a skill-lacking weapon, it had extremely heavy aim assist, and hitscan. In order to reach a competitive level using the utilitarian weapon, players had to learn and exploit glitches to separate pros from noobs. As well, several new “noobier” power weapons came into light, the Halo 2 Plasma Pistol was all but overpowered and required zero skill to use, and the Energy Sword was like a Shotgun you didn’t have to aim to kill with. Not to mention strafing became all but useless.
Halo 2, however, did add something new to the competitive sandbox. The Grenades and Melee were both modified heavily. Grenades became something of a handy tool for dealing damage around corners, or stripping shields at the beginning of the fight. And Melee was actually HANDY. Useful for more than just instant-kill backsmacks, they could be used for “burst damage” to end a fight. And only proved more useful when the BxB, and later BxR glitches became popular. Halo 2 also had a slew of FANTASTIC competitive maps such as Midship and Sanctuary that also made all the difference.
Halo 3 added a few new features that were fantastic. But also screwed up in alot of ways. Great additions were the changes to grenades, you could now only hold up to 4 total grenades instead of 8 in competitive multiplayer, this decreased grenade spam phenominally. And the kill time on the BR’s 4 shot was no longer either too fast, but wasn’t too slow either. Bullet Travel Time was a FANTASTIC method of separating good and bad players. It allowed Strafing to become useful again as it was in Halo CE. Forge was another fantastic feature that allowed MLG to create great competitive maps, and expand their variety.
But Halo 3 hat it’s downfalls too. It suffered from very terrible spread on the Battle Rifle, and a poor hit registration. These led to extremely bad inconsistencies that lead to even the most skilled players seeming to score more 5-6 shots than 4 shots. Melee was somewhat overpowered too, though not so noticeably in MLG as default.
And then we came to Reach. In Reach hitscan, which never should have come back, did. Grenades were made more powerful, AND were tacked with an aim-assist algorithm that causes a substantially increased amount of “Random Grenades” that actually hit or kill their target, without proper skill or aiming taken into account, as well as decreasing the delay between throws making them much more spammable than before. Reticle Bloom was absolutely awful, and most are glad to be rid of it, though now we are seeing that with Hitscan it becomes a story of “who shot first?”. Camo and Overshield were screwed over, thank goodness that problem was solved. The Melee system is set so it either has to be overpowered, or practically useless. Etc: And the list continues.
All Reach has done is remove many aspects of the Competitive environment. What we really need to see is:
A Precision weapon WITH Bullet Travel Time, but WITHOUT Spread/Bloom.
Grenades without any aim assists, that are just strong enough to drain the shields of a shielded opponent, or kill an unshielded one. And a slower time between throws.
A Melee system that benefits either Melee-Shoot, or Shoot-Melee, NEVER Melee-Melee. There should basically be a longer delay after a Melee before you can Melee, than before you can Shoot.
Symmetrical, Arena maps designed specifically for competitive play.
Skill reliant Close, Mid, and Long range power weapons, that are not useful outside of intended range.
Forge (So they can get rid of pointless weapons, and create good maps.)
A few tips for current Reach MLG:
1: Only spawn players with ONE grenade, and for the love of god cut the number of grenades on the map in like half. There are WAY too many.
2: Use 80% bloom. Zero Bloom + Hitscan = broken.
3: Melee damage 50% + Bleedthrough