So far between this and the technical beta back a few months ago, I can honestly say this game needs so much work. Im going to cover my thoughts, but overall, I am ultimately disappointed in the game play for multiplayer.
1.) **Guns have no power behind them. ----**Every gun in this game seems to do relatively the same damage, and the amount of effort it takes to kill somebody seems so time consuming its almost impossible to chain kills at time. The AR is the only gun that seems to be relatively consistent in all ways, where as its a point and shoot gun, the bullets seem to do the same damage as long as your in reasonable range, which is how the AR has always behaved.
The pistol seems like it can be a hit or miss, where it takes 100 bullets to kill somebody, or 5. I feel like the only affective times I land those quick kills are whenever its the team chaining on somebody, which I don’t think is overall really good gameplay in my opinion. I find myself layering shots, getting hitmaker after hitmaker and not even breaking shields at times. And this relatively goes to every precision gun in the game. I feel like I am shooting BB’s rather than bullets, and its rather frustrating that the only dependable weapon in my arsenal seems to be a grenade. I also don’t know how some feel, but I also feel like I have to literally lead my shots, which never was a Halo mechanic.
2.) Long range fighting doesn’t exist. ---- This kind of ties in with the guns have no power behind them, but it seems the bullets scatter from very long ranges on precision weapons, or have damage drop off. This ultimately kills any farther gun play and it forces me most of the time to say screw it and attempt to get close to continue guns fights. The game needs consistency behind precision weapons. I never struggled so much with killing people on Halo Reach, 4, or 5. And it seems they went back to Halo 3 days where the gun play was mostly close range combat, which in my opinion is devolving, not evolving.
3.) Clunky clunky clunk. ---- Everything I do in this game feels so slow and clunky it makes me feel like I have bricks on my feet. Running feels much like Gibraltar from Apex. The sliding is useless as well. It takes 25 minutes to initiate and finish a slide I often ask myself what is the point in even inserting this in your game. Not to mention, picking weapons up, putting on equipment, it all feels slow and frustrating. The time it takes me to pull out a rocket launcher and use it during contested fights for weaponry makes me realize the only way to play it is hope you kill everyone aiming at you, or your pretty much guaranteed death.
Even swinging a weapon like the gravity hammer you have to wind up in a very slow animation. I see no point in slowing down a super spartan.
4.) Lag Spikes. — Yikes between FPS dropping and server side lag( which is reasonable because this is a beta) it can almost feel unplayable at times. I hope this is addressed. I have a pretty powerful computer that shouldnt experience these issues on all LOW settings but I somehow do. They need to fix the performance on this game drastically.
5.) Starting weapons. — Im not entirely sure how others feel, but the AR and pistol should not be your starting loadout. The BR has always been a much more fun weapon to use, and the new pistol is honestly just obnoxious to use at times. I think Halo is at its best when you promote high precision gunplay and movement, and the AR and Pistol do not do it for me.
Overall, I feel that this game has a bright side if they cover these issues. I get the nostalgic feel they’re going for with the slowness and the close quarter combat, but I don’t think this environment works anymore with how games are today. It needs to be fast paced, weapons need to feel like they hurt from all ranges, and it needs to have that Halo feeling. I am curious as to what other people think, but overall, I have not had a very fun time with gunplay. It seems so unsatisfying and I hope they address it.