Anyone else get this feeling when playing the beta? This is completely separate from whether or not you like the gameplay changes (I haven’t really played enough games yet to judge if I do), but I feel like the Xbox controller does not have enough buttons to have easy access to every available action.
Originally, with Halo 1 and 2, the 4 ‘main’ buttons you needed were shoot (RT), grenade (LT), melee (B), and jump (A). I always found it annoying that you had to take your thumb off the right thumbstick to jump or melee, as often, you would want to be able to adjust where you were looking while doing those actions. Halo 3 and onwards fixed this because the 360 controller had the left and right buttons. By using the Bumper Jumper layout (my favourite), you could have all 4 of those main actions accessible without having to move your thumbs. Halo 4 introduced sprint as a 5th main action, but I was fine having that mapped to A, as you only needed to press it once to toggle, and it was not necessary to be able to adjust your look direction while doing that.
Now with Halo 5, there are yet another 3 ‘main’ actions you want easy access to; the thruster pack/ground smash, grapple, and aim-down-sights. Before, since only a few scoped weapons need ADS, and you generally wouldn’t be switching between ADS and normal view as quickly and often, it was fine having it mapped to the thumbstick. Now though, as they are making Halo more of an LT RT game, you really want ADS mapped to LT like it is in almost all other games. That pushes grenades up to one of the shoulder buttons. And…then what? What do you use that last shoulder button for? Jump? Then you don’t have quick access to melee or thruster pack, both of which you want to adjust your look direction while using. No matter which button layout I use, I always feel like it’s a struggle to do everything that I want to do smoothly.
Obviously, this is a limitation of the controller; not much 343 can do about that. But maybe it’s an indication that they are trying to cram in too many features. Just my 2 cents. What do other people think?