The way Halo is advancing is interesting to me because I love it when companies try new things, even if it takes a turn for the worst. So far I have thoroughly enjoyed the beta and I like the way they’ve ‘balanced’ sprint.
Halo 3 was my first halo and my first FPS and what fascinated me was the story, I was only 10/11 years old then and I was terrible at it but god almighty I loved it. On my birthday I got my own xbox and my brother let me have his Halo 3 and I played it everyday. I eventually was allowed Live, going into matchmaking, getting my -Yoink- handed to me but I never cared, I slowly got better and started winning. I fell for the covenant weapons more than the human ones and I managed to unlock all pieces of the elite’s armor sets. But something always bugged my little mind. Why can a super soldier only walk everywhere. That was the only thing that ticked me off.
Then Reach came out. tThat was when I became very, very good at halo. The armor abilities seemed wonderful to me. I only used sprint and evade simply because jetpack didn’t feel useful to me, armor lock was a noobs tactic, camo was nooby. The only time I used camo in reach was on Invasion Spire during the second phase, and that was it. With sprint I could run straight into battle, I’d run past the power weapons, I never really needed them. The kill times were lower but the extra mobility made it more fun for me.
You’d think with me love of mobility I’d enjoy cod but with the lack of color and all the enemies looking the same the story was to dull to follow so I couldn’t get into it.
With halo 4, sprint was permanant, I liked that, however with the loadouts I was skeptical, until I realized I could start with a Storm rifle and a Carbine. But I didn’t like the thrusters, they just sucked. I always used hologram and on BTB hardlight shield. A common loadout I saw was BR+Boltshot+plasmas+thrusters, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a noobier loadout before.
In games, mobility and sandbox are usually the top priorities for me when it comes to core movement gameplay. Lost planet 2. pretty slow but the sprint was fast and the grapple hook was fun to use, I played constantly and even hunted for the fire gunsword. Armored Core For Answer, holy moly the speed in that was incredible, flying through air in giant mechs fire oversized tank rounds or launching a barrage of bullets with monster SMGs.
Halo MCC I actually stopped playing the multiplayer for a while, not because of server issues but because of the constant BR starts, it felt like there was no sandbox in the game. Thats changed now which is good, I get more normal gamemodes. Yet I still always run for plasma kit.
Now the beta. Sprint, Not much to say other than I kept dying on the first day because of my habit of running constantly, killing, then running to the next battle I could find, forgetting my shield needed to recharge. I have had to change my style a little to work around that which I’m okay with.
Thrusters, they’re actually useful now, I remember on H4 when players would jump, thrust backwards and try to assassinate me, they failed 100% of the time simply because I knew it, yet I attempted it once on the beta and successfully got it once on the beta.
Smartscope, my only dig at this is when a weapon actually gains accuracy when scoping, the reticle needs to remain the same size and if the weapon has bloom, to keep the bloom rate.
Spartan charge, not hugely useful, like at all, interesting, but useless. The amount of times I’ve missed an assassination 'cus of it makes me ask 343i to remove or change the button to use it.
Floating while scoping, I found to be useful at times, and with the option the press the sprint button while aiming in the air to active it, players who are against don’t need to ever use it.
Ground pound, pretty nifty little ability. Had a few kills with but died most of the time trying to use it xD.
Clamber, need to be able to shoot while doing it because you are vulnerable for a very short amount of time but that time can mean life and death when entering an area.
With the DMR being 5-shot kill its hard to counter the BR unless you’re at the right range, but with the maps being small it’s difficult to gain that range advantage.
The AR works just fine to me, though its smartscope is a little to accurate without bloom, if someone if being shot at range and the have a ranged weapon they can just turn around and get one hit one the AR user, kicking him out of SC and gaining the range advantage.
The SMG, Remarkable little thing but I didn’t use it enough in slayer to get a good idea on its balancing requirements.
Lightrifle could use a ever so slight increase in fire rate when zoomed, only slight.
Rocket launcher. the new design does look more practical when it comes to combat (carrying spare cartridges instead of huge barrels) but you just can’t get rid of the beautiful rocket launcher that has been relatively unchanged cosmetically since the first game.
The Hydra, makes me reminisce on the plasma launcher mayhem from reach. Works reasonably well.
Magnum, Now looks more like a sidearm more than a hand cannon, feels strong if you can get the hits which isn’t hard to do.
Something I noticed while playing Breakout. The spartans (when watching another player) actually lift the gun higher to aim down its sights. I have never seen an FPS do this.You can sometimes see it in 3rdPS. COD and battlefield, you could stand next to a buddy, ask them to ADS and the character wont change, but in the beta you could tell when someone was scoping because the gun raises from chest/neck height to neck/head height.
I just hope we get another beta to play around with plasma weapons.