Right so playing this now on Series X with M&K, am enjoying it, but Oddball, oh boy.
Why is it the Oddball takes 2 hits to kill someone now? Never used to be like that since Halo 2 , come one 343, make it a 1 hit kill like in every other Halo game please! this 2 hit BS makes it pointless being the carrier if you don’t have a team mate or 2 with you to help.
Lol I screamed profanities the first time I didn’t 1 hit KO a guy with the ball. I hope they tune it up so it’s closer to what we were shown in that one trailer where you hit with the ball and their lifeless corpse flies over the horizen.
This is true, why they changed the 1 hit to 2 is beyond me.
2 hit objective kill was ordinarily the competitive setting in previous games like Halo 3, so for some reason 343 decided it was better to apply the competitive setting everywhere.
343 replied to this design choice on Reddit:
It’s not quite accurate that either of those objects have always been One-Hit-Kill across history, but more importantly precedent is only a small piece of the puzzle.
Of course, it’s annoying to come into something with a certain expectation, have it unmet, and then feel like you need to re-learn something “needlessly” BUT it’s more important that we put forward the best gameplay experience we can with the data and resources we have.
I tried OHK on both of those objects for a while, as well as several other iterations in the vein of [give the objective carrier more power fantasy] – because naturally players ask for the primary thing the game tells them to do to be packed full of personal reward. It makes sense, and even though I didn’t end up with OHK in the end, it’s still a valid design path to go down.
Anyways, the net result of OHK for either item tends to increase snowball-size too much – the team with the objective-advantage has an easier time completing their goal and their opponents feel the task of rubber-banding the scenario back in their favor too difficult or too far and few between.
Add to the puzzle that OHK is also somewhat dependent on levels and it’s an even messier problem – levels with lots of hard-angles, for instance, add a bunch of power to one-hit-kill and pretty much in the least fun way.
If I could sum the feedback and data for OHK in very short terms: objective carriers tend to report having a better time, but overall matches are less compelling or fun.
I’m going to end up making this post too long but I’m trying to keep it short –
OHK tends to make being the objective-carrier more personally rewarding or fun for 1 player while hurting the experience for the other 7; for teammates your assistance with the main goal is less important, and opponents’ efforts can feel too futile.
So, I went with something more indirect –
In CTF, you can “Contest” the flag’s automatic-return by standing within the visible boundary. This means that if you need to hot drop it and fight that you don’t need to manage the flag’s return-state at the same time. In the past you could lose track of the return time and make a major mistake in letting the flag return home because you were too busy managing the firefight. I personally feel this added too much mental interference within carrier-decision-making. Ideally this makes dropping the flag for a fight a lighter and more comfortable decision to make.
In Oddball, the skull has a quicker melee so almost any melee vs melee fight should favor the flaming skull. Ideally this means camping a doorway is less cheesy, but chaotic skirmishes lean a bit toward the objective carrier.
Not that these are perfect solutions, S-tier gameplay design, or anything like that – just wanted to share some of the journey and insight.
In essence, I’ve intentionally chosen to emphasize teamwork rather than deliver lots of power-fantasy to the objective carriers. Maybe it was the wrong choice. Maybe it skews too far toward hardcore team-work. Maybe there’s a middle-ground somewhere not yet discussed here… hrmmmmmm
The intent is to cultivate the game for a long time, though, so please don’t take away from this “it can’t or won’t ever change”
I disagree with this sentiment. Holding the ball puts you at a disadvantage already: no long distance attacking, less mobility (no sprint). The OHK was the balance to this. My alt suggestions for balance other than faster melee:
-OHK remains, no melee lunge a la combat evolved
-2HK, ball carrier moves at sprint speed default
-2HK, ball carrier gets slight overshield
I would suggest One Hit Kill in social, where hardcore teamwork is less likely to develop, but keep Two Hit Kill in ranked modes where hardcore teamwork is more of an expectation.
This all hinges, of course, on the expectation that they will segregate objective gametypes and slayer in the future, so that when you get into an objective game, all players are working unified toward accomplishing the objective. If the current state of playlists remains unchanged, it should be One Hit Kill across the board to balance out the fact that some players do not want to, and will not, play the objective.
