*NEVERMIND, DISREGARD THIS THREAD*

Games Other Halo
1

Disregard this thread, I was irrationally angry when I made it.

NOTE: I put this in the campaign section because I primarily play campaign (I don’t feel like paying $8 a month for MM).

Now, I know you’ve probably heard far too many subject lines just like this one, but hear me out. Reach has many good qualities, it’s just that I feel quite underwhelmed by it, especially considering how it was supposed to be Bungie’s final gift to the Halo community. It could have been so much more.

Reach’s campaign disappointed me for these reasons:

-There was little time to bond to any members of Noble Team. The only one that really felt like a full character was Jorge, and that’s stretching it.

-Frustrating deaths EVERYWHERE. I could go on and on about this, but here are the primary reasons:
-Armor-locking elites and brutes
-Bullet magnetism
-Absurd melee kills. There are times when a brute will spin around, CLEARLY MISS ME, and yet kill me anyways.
-In the Falcon gauntlet on Exodus, there are times when it’s nigh-impossible to retaliate against the banshees on your tail, and on any difficulty above normal, this can quickly become fatal.
-On Legendary and Mythic, elites will sometimes berserk upon seeing you. Often, you can barely even dent their shields before they fire off a few plasma shots and punch you in the face. I’ve had an elite come out of seemingly nowhere, berserking, and taking me from full shields to dead in approximately 2 seconds. I understand that it’s the hardest difficulty, but there should never be a situation such as this. That’s just unfair.

-Skirmishers. Just…skirmishers. They’re REALLY annoying.

-No legendary ending (unless you’re hiding something, perhaps…?)

-There isn’t much of a sense of accomplishment when you complete campaign missions after beating the game.

At first, I wasn’t bothered by these, but the cheap deaths kept racking up. The lack of satisfaction kept gnawing at me. Finally, I snapped. Thus, here I am, writing a wall of text on the Waypoint forums.

Now, I know some of these things can’t be fixed without reshaping the game beyond recognition, but here’s some things you could probably do (I don’t know anything about Reach’s code, so I don’t actually KNOW if you could do these things) that would make me happy:

-I know it would be ridiculous to remove armor lock from the game entirely, but could you at least make it so that enemies in campaign can’t do it?

-Minimize bullet magnetism to reasonable levels.

-Edit the AOE of a brute’s melee so that you can’t be killed by brutes swatting the air.

-Decrease the amount of banshees in Exodus’ falcon gauntlet.

-If there isn’t a legendary/mythic/secret ending you’re hiding from us, make one (Pleeeeeeeeeease?)

2

It wouldn’t make sense to have a legendary ending (unless its a humorous one like in Halo CE) because we already know what’s going to happen next.

3

There was a legendary ending but it was cut before release. An eagle would land on your helmet in the final cutscene.

4

> There was a legendary ending but it was cut before release. An eagle would land on your helmet in the final cutscene.

Does it do a little dance or something? Because that sounds incredibly lame, lol.

5

> > There was a legendary ending but it was cut before release. An eagle would land on your helmet in the final cutscene.
>
> Does it do a little dance or something? Because that sounds incredibly lame, lol.

Bungie never showed it.

6

hmmmm… not sure if I agree with any of your complaints personally. I’m not trying to be snarky, but a lot of what you list as “problems” are simply things I would say are challenges in the game.

Flying around new alexandria at night without getting a swarm of banshees on your tail is part of the challenge.

Elites are supposed to be insanely difficult on Legendary/Mythic. Thats the point. If they’re too tough for you, don’t play on that difficulty.

Go to theatre mode and re-watch the brute melee kill from 3rd person. I bet you’ll see he clearly did hit you.

How does an enemy going into armor lock kill you? Why shouldn’t they be able to use it? Learn how to fight against it, rather than ask for it to be removed.

Your complaints about the story are valid. I didn’t feel that way, but storytelling is so subjective. I felt like I’d spent lots of time with each character before any deaths happened, but that might be because I played on Legendary my first time through, so each level actually did take a lot of time for me to finish.

7

well it’d be a very poor business move to drastically change the campaign for any reason. its just not worth spending that kind of money on something with no profit.

what i WOULD like to see would be some side mission DLC, perhaps a new campaign taking place in other places in the game, perhaps following the other spartans fighting the covenant (i mean the spartans not part of noble team). it could also explain what exactly happened to Jun, and i think would be pretty awesome overall.

8

> Flying around new alexandria at night without getting a swarm of banshees on your tail is part of the challenge.

I was actually talking about the on-rails section in Exodus, right before the missile batteries. When you fly over the warthogs engaging the wraiths, a bunch of banshees swarm in on you. Since you’re not in control of the falcon itself, there’s no way to evade. It also seems near impossible to land a hit on any of them. It just feels like my life is being left up to a random number generator.

Same thing goes with the berserking elites on higher difficulties. You can try to evade them, but they home in on you like some sort of heat-seeking missile. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen too often, but it’s enough to draw my ire.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, there shouldn’t be situations where the player’s life is completely dependent on whether the game is feeling generous or not.

> Go to theatre mode and re-watch the brute melee kill from 3rd person. I bet you’ll see he clearly did hit you.

Admittedly, I never did go into theatre mode to check this. It just seems so…incorrect from a 1st-person view, y’know? Either way, I probably should get around to checking that.

> How does an enemy going into armor lock kill you? Why shouldn’t they be able to use it? Learn how to fight against it, rather than ask for it to be removed.

Were you ever just about to get a splatter, but had your enemy AL at the last moment, killing you? Admittedly, this isn’t actually a cheap death, but it feels very frustrating. As bad as it feels in multiplayer, it just feels 10 times worse to me when a computer-controlled character does it.

When I made the OP, I was pretty angry. Now that I’ve calmed down, I realize some of the things I’ve said were hyperbolized. Still, I would very much appreciate it if 343 could do these things.

9

The best character development throughout the series follows like this:

Halo Wars
Halo3: ODST
Halo: Reach
Halo 3
Halo 2
Halo: CE

The Chief’s and Johnson’s true characters have evolved from the novels, comics and discussions about them. Other than being a man of few words, or man of badass words, there is MUCH less character-development in the original trilogy compared to the other titles.

Search your feelings, you know this to be true.

10

> The best character development throughout the series follows like this:
>
> Halo Wars
> Halo3: ODST
> Halo: Reach
> Halo 3
> Halo 2
> Halo: CE
>
> The Chief’s and Johnson’s true characters have evolved from the novels, comics and discussions about them. Other than being a man of few words, or man of badass words, there is MUCH less character-development in the original trilogy compared to the other titles.
>
> Search your feelings, you know this to be true.

Callin’ BS on this. Halo: Reach characters were bland as crap (excluding Jorge), they were nothing but cardboard cut-outs. Throw a ways. Heck, Guilty Spark had more character than all of Noble combined (excluding Jorge)!

And Arbiter had good character development in Halo 2. Seeing him go from a fanatical zealot bent on redemption to having his faith shaken then going full on heretic after seeing how the Prophets and the Brutes betrayed the Elites. That was a character. What did Noble do better than the Arbiter in terms of character development? Not a damn thing by comparison.

11

> > The best character development throughout the series follows like this:
> >
> > Halo Wars
> > Halo3: ODST
> > Halo: Reach
> > Halo 3
> > Halo 2
> > Halo: CE
> >
> > The Chief’s and Johnson’s true characters have evolved from the novels, comics and discussions about them. Other than being a man of few words, or man of badass words, there is MUCH less character-development in the original trilogy compared to the other titles.
> >
> > Search your feelings, you know this to be true.
>
> Callin’ BS on this. Halo: Reach characters were bland as crap (excluding Jorge), they were nothing but cardboard cut-outs. Throw a ways. Heck, Guilty Spark had more character than all of Noble combined (excluding Jorge)!
>
> And Arbiter had good character development in Halo 2. Seeing him go from a fanatical zealot bent on redemption to having his faith shaken then going full on Zealot.That was a character. What did Noble do better than the Arbiter in terms of character development? Not a damn thing by comparison.

12

nobody can fix the sinking ship…

13

> The best character development throughout the series follows like this:
>
> Halo Wars
> Halo3: ODST
> Halo: Reach
> Halo 3
> Halo 2
> Halo: CE
>
> The Chief’s and Johnson’s true characters have evolved from the novels, comics and discussions about them. Other than being a man of few words, or man of badass words, there is MUCH less character-development in the original trilogy compared to the other titles.
>
> Search your feelings, you know this to be true.

Are you being serious? Halo Reach characters were awful, the only one I remotely cared about was Jorge
When Keyes turned flood form, I cared.
When MC had to punch him in the face, I cared.
When Johnson died, I cared.
343 was also a very well drawn character, and he’s a damn robot!!
I never read any of the Novels, but of course your going to get more character expression through those mediums- games can’t go on a poetic journey for a good two hours in a cutscene!

14

> > Flying around new alexandria at night without getting a swarm of banshees on your tail is part of the challenge.
>
> I was actually talking about the on-rails section in Exodus, right before the missile batteries. When you fly over the warthogs engaging the wraiths, a bunch of banshees swarm in on you. Since you’re not in control of the falcon itself, there’s no way to evade. It also seems near impossible to land a hit on any of them. It just feels like my life is being left up to a random number generator.
>
> Same thing goes with the berserking elites on higher difficulties. You can try to evade them, but they home in on you like some sort of heat-seeking missile. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen too often, but it’s enough to draw my ire.
>
> Basically, what I’m trying to say is, there shouldn’t be situations where the player’s life is completely dependent on whether the game is feeling generous or not.
>
>
>
>
> > Go to theatre mode and re-watch the brute melee kill from 3rd person. I bet you’ll see he clearly did hit you.
>
> Admittedly, I never did go into theatre mode to check this. It just seems so…incorrect from a 1st-person view, y’know? Either way, I probably should get around to checking that.
>
>
>
> > How does an enemy going into armor lock kill you? Why shouldn’t they be able to use it? Learn how to fight against it, rather than ask for it to be removed.
>
>
> Were you ever just about to get a splatter, but had your enemy AL at the last moment, killing you? Admittedly, this isn’t actually a cheap death, but it feels very frustrating. As bad as it feels in multiplayer, it just feels 10 times worse to me when a computer-controlled character does it.
>
> When I made the OP, I was pretty angry. Now that I’ve calmed down, I realize some of the things I’ve said were hyperbolized. Still, I would very much appreciate it if 343 could do these things.

RE: Exodus “on-rails” falcon: There isn’t actually anything random to those sections… Yes, they can be difficult on the higher difficulty levels, but the banshees always swarm in the same pattern from the same directions. This means you can predict where and when they will show up, and deal with them.

Re: Beserking Elites: They have never been a problem for me. They only go beserk when you attack them, and going beserk is itself a predictable behavior. You might not know exactly when they will go beserk, but you should know exactly what they will do if the go beserk. If you can predict their actions, you can counter them.

RE: Survival dependant on random elements. There actually isn’t a single point in the campaign where survival is dependant on luck (except for a couple areas on Mythic). You can play through the entire campaign on Legendary without relying on any luck to survive.

RE: Enemies with armor lock: I’ve actually never been killed by an enemy with armor lock in the campaign. I guess I just play enough multiplayer that I learned never to rush an enemy head on without giving myself enough time and space to stop if they lock.

15

I’ve got an AL death by an damn Brute. He destroyed my Ghost when I was attacking from behind while he was engaged with the rest of Noble. Was on Legendary however.

I give you the combination of any 2 Trilogy titles gives you character development. But with each one on their own, na.

I’m glad you felt sad for removing Keye’s implant. I however never felt such sentiments. I thought it was cool I just plunged my fist into what I could gather was at least a friend, maybe a mentor, whose voice gave me the initial confidence to take an empty Pistol on a mission. And whose actions of enacting a side protocol out of obvious curiousities and without reserve led to these actions I just partook in.

As I said, the other media forms created the characters, the games introduced them to us. The discussions of them made them real. We don’t have the same in-depth material on Noble yet. It’s coming but it’s not here.

16

While things like character likability are heavily opinionated, i’m pretty sure most people didn’t really feel too bad over kat’s death or emile’s death, nor did they really care about what happened to jun. Those characters clearly had more to them, but never really saw that, except for maybe jorge and carter. Emile had like a dozen lines in the entire game, none of them truly memorable… he just made some puns and died. Kat was an -Yoink- to you for the first mission and stoic for the next five until new alexandria, when she finally began to warm up to 6, but then she died. Jun was with you for ONE mission, and then vanished and presumably died.

they were bland… nothing stood out about them. we’ve seen their character archtypes a hundred times before, and they didn’t really do anything with them to break the mold. when they finally got some character development they instantly died.