I am not here to -Yoink!- balance or complain about the CODification of H4, I believe these are artistic design choices of the developers. However there are some inconsistency and subtle annoyances I have observed with the game, which i can put down to inexperienced developing or lack of play testing…
Cross-hair return lag after sprint
There are 3 main ways that a player comes out of sprint: sprint to run transition; sprint-jump to run transition; and sprint to zoom in. In the later two transitions there is a second period where the player can shoot but does not have a cross-hair.
Hardlight Shield movement inconsistency’s
When using the Hardlight Shield the player usually slows down in look sensitivity and movement speed. When the player releases the shield there is a transition period where the camera is changing from 3rd person to 1st person, in this time the player is still slowed. This is fine. However when the player sprint jumps with the shield and releases the shield on landing there is an extended “slow movement and sensitivity period” whilst in 1st person view.
Also sometimes when using the Hardlight Shield i have been able to run and look at normal/fast speed.
Self-damage indicators
Many players of halo games, including me, play with controller vibrations off. This helps improve accuracy. Usually in firefights players dont look at their shield indicator, so instead rely on experience and visual/audio ques to gauge their remaining shield in battle. In H4 the audio/visual damage indicators are more subtle than in previous halo games this causes people to not realize when they are being shot at. This results in players feeling very numb when playing. Also it is near impossible to tell what weapon you are being shot by.
Auto Sentry death animation
I regularly kill the auto sentry and observe a delayed death with no death animation. It just disappears.
ammo famine
For the starting weapons i often find myself with no ammo at all and no way to get more without suicide. I appreciate you have done this so people have a realistic need for the extra ammo perk. But with dead players weapons disappearing quickly in comparison to other halo’s and no scattered non-power weapon spawns around the map it becomes quite ridiculous, especially in BTB where there’s a higher Bullets Fired:kills ratio.
A way of remedying this without altering the balance of the ammo perk would be to allow for ammo to be supplied with the grenade orbital drop option. So a player with the ammo perk would presumably get more power weapons from Orbital Drops.
Jet Pack noise
The Jetpack is extremely quiet when an enemy player is using it. I dont know how the Jetpack is balancing in the game, but it seems to be very popular.
General sound problems
I think the sound of Halo 4 has many problems, weapons sound very good from a 1st person view, but are very quiet when anyone else is shooting. The ghost is very quiet, this seems to be the reason why so many people are getting splattered by it. Also many other vehicles are quiet.
Above head name indicator for enemy teams
When I first played Halo 4 i thought everyone i was playing against must have had very big TV’s because i seemed to have been spotted very easily by the enemy team. After playing a few more games i realized that this was actually because when an enemy is within about half the screen size from your cross hair a large, red, opaque sign pops up showing the players name and a triangle showing where they are, this is a total give away of where the enemy is. Halo has never been about camouflage but this is ridiculous, it reduces the need for good spacial awareness and enemy observation skills, which is a skill that is required in all good FPS games, it is also a great immersion breaker. This is especially a problem in BTB.
Post Carnage Battle Report
In halo Reach when looking at the PCBR, player that remained in the party where bright and players that had left the party where dulled.
end.