I have put a lot of time into Halo over the years. First playing Halo 2 at my friend’s house around Christmas of '04, it was a year before I actually had my own Xbox, and it came with Halo CE, and Halo 2. I played those games religiously for 2 years, playing both campaigns more times through than I can count, eventuall, soloing them on Legendary, playing customs with my brother and sister all the time, enjoying a couple of LAN parties, Playing Xbox Live and discovering that I’m actually not that bad, it was incredible. Then I got Halo 3 and I was treated to 3 more years of great Halo. Sure it had some flaws that were hard to ignore, but I didn’t care much it was still Halo.
Then Halo Reach came out… And everything changed. Suddenly there were blatant problems literally staring me in the face, and not the occasional problem that would pop up like in other games. I mean totally obvious things that should never have even been considered, much less actually made their way into the game. And Halo 4 has done little more than perpetuate these issues. And no, I’m not here to talk about additions like Armour Abilities, Perks, and Loadouts. I’m here to talk about changes to existing mechanics. Things that ACTUALLY frustrate you beyond reason despite the fact that they were done completely right in a previous game.
So here is my top 10 list of things that NEVER should have changed. This is my opinion and so yours may differ in some cases. Some of my points you may actually like better the way it is, some you may not care about, and others may be more important to you than they appear on my list. But I do think most of these issues can be agreed on by a lot of the community.
Also by the way this list is specifically about the state of competitive multiplayer in Halo 4, and most of all, the gameplay itself. I will not add anything that relates to Campaign, Firefight, Forge, Theatre or Spartan Ops.
5: Removing unique weapons, and adding cloned ones.
This isn’t an incredibly big deal, but it is something that really gets on my nerves sometimes. When I see a weapon removed from the caste I react one of two ways, I either react with “I’m glad they realized that weapon didn’t work”, or “I honestly can’t believe they got rid of that,I’ll miss having it around”. At the same time when they add a weapon from the sandbox, I react with either “This gun is awesome, I love it”, or “… Wow… It’s the EXACT SAME THING as this other gun.”
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about, when they removed the Beam Rifle, which had appeared in Halo 2, and 3, and they replaced it with the Focus Rifle. My reaction was generally positive because the Beam Rifle and the Sniper Rifle have very little variation to actually make them feel like two different weapons. The only real differences being that the Beam Rifle had a faster possible rate of fire, but overheated as opposed to reloading. They did the exact same damage (In multiplayer), and both had the same headshot mechanic, and aim assist statistics. This made two weapons where the playstyle was for all intents and purposes exactly the same. Pick up either one, and you got a Sniper. However, the Focus Rifle was on a level all of it’s own. It filled the same niche in the Covenant weapon sandbox as the Sniper Rifle did, it was a Covenant long range capable rifle that could kill in a single “shot”, however it applied a COMPLETELY different skill to use, as opposed to the main skill of the weapon being the headshot mechanic of the Sniper, the skill mechanic of the Focus Rifle was in maintaining constant contact with the beam, while also managing your heat.
As you can imagine, I’m pretty sad to see the Beam Rifle once again taking the place of the Focus Rifle in Halo 4. Because once again, we have the same gun in the game twice.
A few other examples I won’t go into too much detail about include replacing the Brute Shot with the Concussion Rifle, the Plasma Repeater with the Storm Rifle (And the Plasma Rifle’s replacement before it), The Grenade Launcher’s removal, the addition of the Incineration Cannon, removal of the Plasma Launcher etc. I hate to see weapons that actually play completely different from everything else removed, and I hate to see weapons that are nearly the same as something that already exists added.
4: Unnecessarily tweaking weapon behaviours
By this I mean taking a weapon that worked very well in one game, and changing it to be COMPLETELY unrecognizable, to where it’s barely even the same gun. This has happened to a few weapons in the Halo franchise thus far. And I can think of one very easy and shining example. The Plasma Rifle.
The Plasma Rifle in Halo CE was awesome, it was powerful, accurate, stunned enemies, heck it even did bonus damage if you scored a headshot against a shieldless enemy. It filled the role of a Covnenant Automatic Rifle, and it filled it well, it played almost nothing like the Assault Rifle while still filling the same niche. Then Halo 2 came around and… Well the Plasma Rifle was NEVER THE SAME AGAIN. It was downgraded to the state of being a Covenant Sidearm, as opposed to a Rifle as it’s named. It’s Accuracy was completely lost, along with it’s power, and stun. And it was effectively a Plasma Clone of the SMG. Doing almost the same thing, but with more shield damage, less health damage, and an overheat. And IT NEVER GOT BETTER. The absolutely terrible Plasma Rifle we got in Halo 2, was kept in Halo 3, and then AGAIN in Halo Reach despite the lack of Dual Wield.
Anyway, those weapons are some of the more well known ones that endured changes, but this is about Halo 4, the current state of Halo multiplayer, so which weapons are a problem in it? Well, for starters the Plasma Pistol. The Plasma Pistol in Halo Reach was perfect, everything about it. It could kill people, it wasn’t the best but it was good. That was important to it, since it could be used for more than vehicles emp’s and noob combos. Now it’s semi-auto fire is almost USELESS. The gun is practically guaranteed to overheat before you finish someone off. Another weapon that was tweaked in a way I severely dislike is the DMR. Mainly I’m referring to it’s Rate of Fire, and Aim Assist. It shoots too fast, it hits FAR too easily, I can’t even count the times I’ve headshotted someone with a blue reticle. When a gun is perfect, don’t change it. The Sniper Rifle as well. For some reason it’s easier to no scope than it is to scope shot at almost any range… And when I say easier, I mean VERY easy. Whatever happened to Halo 3’s tiny reticle, and almost no aim assist sniper? It was so good.
You want an example of a weapon tweak that was done for the better? The Weapons Tuning AR. That thing is perfect the way it is. Same goes for the Carbine. Weapon tuning proved you guys can definitely make a good set of guns.