My Two Cents Regarding Halo 4 Multiplayer

Games Other Halo
1

First off feel free to criticize my opinions as much as you want, i’ll enjoy reading the posts.

Okay, let me start this off straight away by saying that the most important thing for 343i to do for Halo now is to buff the population.

You might be wondering how can they do this? To which I answer “a number of ways”
These are:

  • Wide scale advertising leading up to Halo 4, thus building hype so that more people buy the game, if the advertisements are good enough 343i may even manage to convince some of the people lost during Reach to buy Halo 4.
  • 343i needs to make absolutely clear what things are being removed from Reach (things being kept and added should obviously be kept under wraps or used in advertising) This is so that people who left Halo due to disappointments such as (opinionated) bloom, armour lock etc will feel like they can come back ‘safely.’
  • Via reveals in advertisements reveal things which were removed from Halo with Reach which may be coming back. For example, the return of the BR would most definitely bring back at least a truckload of fans/players. Another example is equipment, if 343i decides to remove AAs all together.
  • Keep of further improve on Reach’s netcode (Reach has very, very good ping and latency consistency.)
  • Keep hitscan weapons. Hitscan weapons are far less dependant on connection and as a result balance the game more evenly. The sniper should stay hitscan no matter what - I believe that if the BR is brought back it should be hitscan like it was in Halo 2.
  • 343i Should NOT care nearly as much about pleasing the ‘casual’ community, because honestly… look how that turned out. (Reach was ranked 9th most played multiplayer game on the xbox 360 for September behind Black Ops, Fifa 11, Modern Warfare 2, Fifa 12, Gears of War 2, Super Street Fighter IV and Dead Island)

-Most Importantly-
Try to stick as close as possible to Halo 3 and Halo 2’s multiplayer. When in doubt remove the extras and take the game back to the last success. A quote from the film, ‘Secret Window’: “No Bad Writing” comes to mind.

I will add more things as I think of them.

tl;dr
With Halo 4 343i should carefully consider what to keep and what not to keep from Halo Reach. They should also try to make Halo 4’s multiplayer more similar to Halo 2 and 3’s than Reach, and should have wide spread advertising campaigns to inform the people of these changes and bring back players who left because of Reach as well as, of course, encourage new players to play Reach.

2

No comments or opinions at all?

3

i can agree with quite a bit of what you’re saying but as far as making the MM/FF similar to Halo 2 & 3 respectively, i dont quite agree. In fact in my opinion i feel the should break away entirely and create something entirely new. Something better than anything out there. Lets face it, if gaming tech. doesnt advance neither does the gaming.

4

Buff the population? Are you kidding me? Halo is one of the most bought game franchises ever, it won’t need anymore advertising that it has had before.

5

> Buff the population? Are you kidding me? Halo is one of the most bought game franchises ever, it won’t need anymore advertising that it has had before.

Are you kidding? Halo 4 NEEDS more advertising then any of its predecessors. Reach flopped, and Halo 3 was released 4 years ago. People need to know that the series isn’t over, and its essentially being reborn. It’s stupid to say this game doesn’t need more advertising.

Also as to your opinion I agree, Halo should stick to it’s roots. Ranking system should be 1-50, br or equivalent should be in the game, and the overall mechanics should be similar to what made the game so much fun years ago.

6

I have to agree with PoK3R FaC3D on this one. Reach wasn’t well recieved by fans. They need a really good advertising strategy similar to / if not bigger than Halo 3.

- Jason Garwood

7

A game designed for the Competitive audience will allow Competitive players to have their fun, while Casuals always find a way to make the game fun. However, it doesn’t work the opposite way. A game geared towards the Casual audience CANNOT be enjoyed by competitive players.

Look at Halo 3 and Reach. Halo 3 was the Competitive game. Reach was the Casual. It’s easy to see which one did better. Initial sales will always be highest on casual games. Competitive games allow the game to maintain a steady population.

And no, Halo 4 definitely needs to go back to the roots of what made Halo Halo. I buy Halo to play Halo. I don’t buy Halo to play Team Fortress 2. If I wanted to play Team Fortress, I’d buy TF2. If you want a change of gameplay, nobody is stopping you from playing a different style of game. Just leave our Halo alone.

8

> Buff the population? Are you kidding me? Halo is one of the most bought game franchises ever, it won’t need anymore advertising that it has had before.

I’m playing Reach at the moment and there are:
2441 people in Teem Slayer
373 in Squad Slayer
244 in The Arena
482 in Rumble Pit
1529 in Living Dead
1716 in SWAT
533 in Team Snipers
95 in Team Objective
262 in Double Team
391 in Multi Team
329 in Invasion
1278 in Big Team Battle
56 in Co-op Campaign
207 in Score Attack
256 in Firefight Doubles
40 in Firefight Limited
390 in Firefight Arcade
288 in MLG
189 in Action Sack
455 in Grifball
106 in Premium Slayer
and 601 in the TU Beta

Which mean that there is currently a TOTAL of 12,161 people playing Reach, compare that to when I used to play Halo 3 and there were 10,000 people in Social Slayer 2 years after the game was released.

Now lets go over to CoD shall we? Halo’s main competitor:
Modern Warfare 2 a gamer released prior to Halo Reach currently has 30618 people online. Black Ops, which released almost at the same time as Reach has 148,633 people online right now.

Remember this; Halo 3 was THE TOP of the xbox LIVE charts WELL after it’s release - finally being brought down by Modern Warfare 2.

YES. That means that Halo 3 was played MORE than Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 1 - The critically acclaimed “BEST COD GAME” was consistently beaten by Halo 3 for the number one spot on the xbox LIVE player charts.

NOTE: If there is anything in the above that is not true, player statistics were all checked on the spot, but other than that, should any information I have given be false post this failure below. - A lot of this is from memory.

9

> Look at Halo 3 and Reach. Halo 3 was the Competitive game. Reach was the Casual. It’s easy to see which one did better. Initial sales will always be highest on casual games. Competitive games allow the game to maintain a steady population.

Current day example: Super Street Fighter IV is STILL on top of the xbox LIVE player charts - above Reach.

10

> First off feel free to criticize my opinions as much as you want, i’ll enjoy reading the posts.
>
> Okay, let me start this off straight away by saying that the most important thing for 343i to do for Halo now is to buff the population.

To varying degrees, I agree and disagree. I agree in that a larger population means faster matchmaking times and a greater likelihood of good match-ups. On the other hand, I don’t believe a game needs a huge population to be successful.

> You might be wondering how can they do this? To which I answer “a number of ways”
> These are:
> - Wide scale advertising leading up to Halo 4, thus building hype so that more people buy the game, if the advertisements are good enough 343i may even manage to convince some of the people lost during Reach to buy Halo 4.

This goes without saying. Each Halo game has had a larger marketing campaign than past titles. Believe it or not, Halo Reach had the largest marketing campaign of any Halo game to day. 343 and Microsoft want Halo 4 to do well, so a large marketing campaign is a given.

> - 343i needs to make absolutely clear what things are being removed from Reach (things being kept and added should obviously be kept under wraps or used in advertising) This is so that people who left Halo due to disappointments such as (opinionated) bloom, armour lock etc will feel like they can come back ‘safely.’

Just to note, bloom has been in Halo since CE, but moving on.

> - Via reveals in advertisements reveal things which were removed from Halo with Reach which may be coming back. For example, the return of the BR would most definitely bring back at least a truckload of fans/players. Another example is equipment, if 343i decides to remove AAs all together.

This sort of stuff, again, goes without saying. As we get closer to release, the contents of Halo 4 will become very clear.

> - 343i Should NOT care nearly as much about pleasing the ‘casual’ community, because honestly… look how that turned out. (Reach was ranked 9th most played multiplayer game on the xbox 360 for September behind Black Ops, Fifa 11, Modern Warfare 2, Fifa 12, Gears of War 2, Super Street Fighter IV and Dead Island)

Where did you get this information. I just checked, and in September, Reach was Number 4 only because Gears 3 released last month.

> Most Importantly-
> Try to stick as close as possible to Halo 3 and Halo 2’s multiplayer. When in doubt remove the extras and take the game back to the last success. A quote from the film, ‘Secret Window’: “No Bad Writing” comes to mind.

This another Yes and No area for me. Honestly, don’t disregard Reach’s multiplayer all together. Reach is highly successful. To date, it is still outselling Halo 3, and still have a high online population considering all it has to compete with. Halo 4 needs to look at every Halo shooter, and see what worked, what didn’t, and what can be added to make a fresh experience without breaking the Halo formula.

11

> > Buff the population? Are you kidding me? Halo is one of the most bought game franchises ever, it won’t need anymore advertising that it has had before.
>
> I’m playing Reach at the moment and there are:
> 2441 people in Teem Slayer
> 373 in Squad Slayer
> 244 in The Arena
> 482 in Rumble Pit
> 1529 in Living Dead
> 1716 in SWAT
> 533 in Team Snipers
> 95 in Team Objective
> 262 in Double Team
> 391 in Multi Team
> 329 in Invasion
> 1278 in Big Team Battle
> 56 in Co-op Campaign
> 207 in Score Attack
> 256 in Firefight Doubles
> 40 in Firefight Limited
> 390 in Firefight Arcade
> 288 in MLG
> 189 in Action Sack
> 455 in Grifball
> 106 in Premium Slayer
> and 601 in the TU Beta
>
> Which mean that there is currently a TOTAL of 12,161 people playing Reach, compare that to when I used to play Halo 3 and there were 10,000 people in Social Slayer 2 years after the game was released.
>
> Now lets go over to CoD shall we? Halo’s main competitor:
> Modern Warfare 2 a gamer released prior to Halo Reach currently has 30618 people online. Black Ops, which released almost at the same time as Reach has 148,633 people online right now.
>
> Remember this; Halo 3 was THE TOP of the xbox LIVE charts WELL after it’s release - finally being brought down by Modern Warfare 2.
>
> YES. That means that Halo 3 was played MORE than Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 1 - The critically acclaimed “BEST COD GAME” was consistently beaten by Halo 3 for the number one spot on the xbox LIVE player charts.
>
> NOTE: If there is anything in the above that is not true, player statistics were all checked on the spot, but other than that, should any information I have given be false post this failure below. - A lot of this is from memory.

There’s a lot you don’t seem to understand.

  1. Halo Reach has a lot more competition than any Halo game to date, and for it to still peak at 70,000 active users a day, that’s a hell of an accomplishments (few other games can make this claim).

  2. COD4 was very different from later COD titles. COD4 was the last true competitive game. MW2 comes along, and it was made for the casual player (which is why it and Black Ops sold so well and have to highest online populations).

  3. Halo 3 wasn’t consistently number 1. Seriously, go back and look up the numbers. Halo 3 was sometime at the top, sometime beaten by a new game or COD 4. After MW2 released, it was shoved permanently to number 2. Halo Reach held the Number 2 slot when it released, but lost the MW2 and Black-Ops (again, both of these cater to the casual player, a population that far out-numbers the competitive).