I’ve played Halo since Halo: CE around 2001-2002. I have bought every installment since. All of them excluding Halo CE and Halo 2 on the day they came out. In fact, the only games I currently own (haven’t sold off) are just Halo games for my Xbox and Xbox 360.
I’d like to begin before people decide this post isn’t worth reading or their time, that I am 100% a Halo player. I’m not JUST a casual player who plays customs, makes forge maps, and plays BTB slayer all day. (There is nothing wrong with that btw). And I’m not just an MLG player who plays only BR starts, or wants everything to be one way or the highway. (There is nothing wrong with that either).
I’ve done it all, In past Halo’s I’ve messed around in forge, played griffball, had a blast playing custom games. I’ve been in the biggest of clans, I’ve run clans. I’ve gone from making machinima and montages to competing in local tournaments. I’ve had MLG teams, I know what it means to practice 8+ hours a day, and I also know what it means to just enjoy one Halo match after a long day of work.
My point is that I’m not a niche Halo player and that I can confidently say that I know in general terms what it feels to be like on both sides of the community (Competitive vs Casual).
So where do I stand on Halo 4? Well, it is complicated. From just a general stand point, I think the game is close to phenomenal. I don’t think people are giving this game enough credit just for its pure potential.
I’m going to ignore just for the sake of length, the faults of Halo 4 that deal with custom games and forge. Some people have articulated their arguments well enough, and I believe 343i acknowledges the limitations they gave the custom/forging community well enough.
The potential Halo 4 has is absolutely amazing. I truly believe that this game is better than Halo 3 and Halo Reach at its core. The mechanics , the flow, everything is a step up from the previous Halo games. Now on the outside to most of us, the game might not be as fun or it might not seem like it is a step in the right direction. I can understand that, but I think the problems with Halo 4 are mainly things on the surface.
Just imagine Halo 4 with these things in place:
1. A visible CSR system (in-game)
To combat cheaters/boosters, there are many ingenious ways of going about it that have been stated on the forums.
2. The Halo Reach matchmaking UI.
I think it was a step in the wrong direction to change the way Halo matchmaking looked like. The UI in Halo 4 does not display the information most Halo players want to see, I don’t like the player cards lined up like a poker hand. The other systems that Halo 2, 3, and Halo Reach had were elegantly simple.
3. Having ranked and social playlists.
This system is just a perfect way of appealing to both casual and competitive players.
4. Fixing join-in-progress (JIP).
As it stands now, JIP does not give a fair chance for players to rank up to their best ability. JIP could work, but only if we were to split matchmaking into social and ranked playlists. JIP would belong in the social playlists, and not in the ranked playlists. This would be a step up from Halo 3’s matchmaking.
5. More smaller maps compared to bigger maps.
I understand BTB is the most popular playlists right now, but that doesn’t mean all of a sudden the Halo community has changed and said “We like BTB more now”. BTB has always been popular in past Halo’s, and it is only the most popular now because of low overall population. If the original population we saw when Halo 4 first came out were to come back, we’d see a better distribution of what Halo player’s like. I would assume, as in the past Halos, that Team Slayer would be the most popular. One of the reason’s why I believe those players left, was because of the lack of small map variety. We should not forget that Halo is an arena 4v4 shooter at its core. I’m not saying that we can’t have BTB or big maps, it is that we should have those only after we have a sufficient number of small maps.
These are just a few things, most are matchmaking related, and some are not possible to fix for Halo 4 but for Halo 5 (such as the UI system and the in-game ranking system). I’m confident though, that 343i knows this and will plan accordingly for Halo 5.
I would just like to mention a few other things about the way Halo has been going in general. We’ll talk about the elephant in the room. Armor abilities. I’m going to be honest, I strongly believe that Halo Reach is the worst Halo game out of the entire series and it is mostly attributable to bloom and armor abilities. Both of which I believe Halo 4 has addressed and has greatly improved upon. Bloom is basically not existent, and armor abilities have been more balanced.
The discussion however, is whether armor abilities should stay in future games. In my opinion, they should go with the exception of sprint. I can deal with sprint, I can accept this change. And I understand if people like other armor abilities and think they should stay. I’m really not going to delve too far into this, as this is a tough decision 343i will have to make. Though, given what we’ve seen on the trajectory, I don’t think the overall Halo community has wanted/accepted armor abilities and I would be happier if they were gone, rather than expanded upon in the future.
Another thing I’d like to address is load outs. I don’t think this has a place in Halo either. The more we can distinguish ourselves from CoD, the better. There just isn’t enough content to make load outs meaningful because of balancing issues. Halo has always been a game about starting off even with your opponent, and from pure skill and teamwork acquiring the weapons you want. I think it should stay that way.
Finally, I’d like to say something that hasn’t been popular around here, but I think needs to be said. I’ve noticed a lot of people here who are caught up in what I believe is ‘fluff’… and by that I mean things that aren’t really core to what Halo is. I’m not a fan of over customization and here’s why. I think when you start making a game that has so much customization, it starts to distract people from what actually matters to a lot of us, and that is core gameplay/core matchmaking. I don’t think we need all these different types of armor permutations, etc. To me, it is silly and something that only a very young niche crowd might appreciate (which isn’t what Halo should be geared to, it is a mature 18+ game). I highly doubt 343i will cut back on customization, but I truly believe that it has been more of a distraction and has made the community worse off.
At the end of the day, I applaud 343i. We’ve read about their struggles setting up a studio, and we know that this is their first Halo. Honestly, the game is in good hands. These people care about the game, they want it to be the best it could be (what else could they possibly want?).
TL;DR
Halo is moving forward, just look at the next patch that is coming soon in June. It is an amazing patch that is going to bring this game toward that phenomenal state. To think that 343i doesn’t recognize, or acknowledge many of the obvious problems I’ve stated would be ridiculous. They are going to do better in Halo 5, but they’ve done a good job on Halo 4.
Thanks for reading.
