I love Halo 4. I’ve played Halo since the early days of Halo 2, and I believe 4 is easily the best of them all. And though I occasionally, say, rage against the flinch mechanic when I get sniped by some guy even when I’m pinging him continuously with my BR, I’d rather be playing this than Halo 3 or any other Halo game.
All this talk about “what went wrong” and “what 343i needs to do to fix it” is misguided, because it assumes there is something inherently broken with the game. There isn’t. The game is good, and it continues to be refined and improved, largely thanks to Bravo.
But it’s true the population is declining. In a way this is unavoidable, since Halo simply isn’t as culturally dominant as it used to be. However, I firmly believe that 343 is missing out on a huge draw factor in not making skill ranking visible. There was nothing more exhilarating in Halo 3 than edging out the enemy at the last second in Team Slayer and seeing your 38 go to a 39. 343 made a big step in the right direction in reintroducing skill based 1-50, but they didn’t go all the way. These rankings need to be next to a player’s name in the game itself.
343, you’ve shown yourselves to be highly solicitous and willing to give the players what we want. I’ve never seen a company so dedicated to its fans. So I have hope that you will hear me when I of beg you this: please release an update that makes CSR visible in game.
Too little, too late. It would be nice but it won’t fix the population. H4 needs a major overhaul in a lot of areas if it wants to bring people back but 343 hasn’t shown any remote interest in doing so.
I don’t think it’s correct to say 343 has no interest in overhauling H4. They’ve made sweeping changes in the past–the weapon rebalancing, the baseline movement speed increase, the diversification of the Team Slayer playlist, the introduction of CSR, etc. If that were really what the game needed, they would probably do it.
Why do you think the game needs to be completely reworked? A lot of effort has already been made towards making this game play like earlier Halos, and it hasn’t had much overall effect. I don’t believe, say, removing sprint and flinch would do anything other than make some people happy and some unhappy.
> There was nothing more exhilarating in Halo 3 than edging out the enemy at the last second in Team Slayer and seeing your 38 go to a 39.
For you. I like skill ranks as much as the next guy, but what kept me playing Halo 1-Reach for so long was the simple fact that it was fun, whether ranked, social, or a LAN custom game with friends. Halo 4 is just not fun to a lot of people, especially people who enjoyed the original Halo games for what they were.
> H4 needs a major overhaul in a lot of areas if it wants to bring people back but 343 hasn’t shown any remote interest in doing so.
From what I can tell, the majority of Halo’s fanbase has given up hope of Halo 4 becoming a better Halo game (like stated above). Nothing short of a 4GB TU that adds descope, removes flinch, disables sprint (but can be toggled in custom games), adds all previous gametypes, custom gametypes and Forge options back, and makes Legendary BRs plus descope minus flinch and sprint the default matchmaking gametype would give Halo 4 even a small boost in population. And we all know 343i isn’t going to debase their artistic interpretation of Halo for the sake of a matchmaking population on par with previous Halo games.
> …makes Legendary BRs plus descope minus flinch and sprint the default matchmaking gametype would give Halo 4 even a small boost in population.
This would severely cut population, not boost it. I love Legendary BRs, but this mindset is exactly what I claim is misguided. Such a change caters to skilled, competitive players–though not even all of them agree on various “essential” changes like removal of sprint–and history has shown that such changes give no lasting boost to the population.
Fiddling with settings isn’t a bad idea at all. I’m just claiming that we as a community and 343 together need to have a different mindset if we want Halo to make a comeback. The game should be fun to play, but players also need to feel like there’s a reason for playing.
> This would severely cut population, not boost it. I love Legendary BRs, but this mindset is exactly what I claim is misguided. Such a change caters to skilled, competitive players–though not even all of them agree on various “essential” changes like removal of sprint–and history has shown that such changes give no lasting boost to the population.
What makes you think only skilled and competitive players enjoy those settings? Same starts and BRs were the premier settings for both Halo 2 and Halo 3, the most popular games in the franchise. I think it’s safe to say that “casual” Halo players enjoy those settings too–perhaps even more so.
I definitely agree that skill ranks provide a reason to keep playing. However, I also believe that the number one incentive to play a game is that it’s fun. In order to draw more players to itself, Halo 4 needs to become more fun to them.
> What makes you think only skilled and competitive players enjoy those settings? Same starts and BRs were the premier settings for both Halo 2 and Halo 3, the most popular games in the franchise. I think it’s safe to say that “casual” Halo players enjoy those settings too–perhaps even more so.
Good point. Maybe I’m underestimating the appeal of more stripped-down settings to “casuals.” But it seems like loadouts and armor abilities are a big draw for a lot of newer players, and playlists like Throwdown which aim to streamline the game end up having a dedicated but substantially smaller population.
> But it seems like loadouts and armor abilities are a big draw for a lot of newer players
On the other hand, the overall Halo matchmaking population (encompassing all Halo games) has nosedived since custom loadouts and Ordnance were introduced. So does Halo 4’s Infinity settings attract mass amounts of players or drive them away?
> playlists like Throwdown which aim to streamline the game end up having a dedicated but substantially smaller population.
I would say that’s more because of the atmosphere rather than the settings themselves. Team Throwdown consists not only of competitive gametypes, but competitive players as well. I’m sure that unskilled or casual players don’t want to constantly get matched with players who are skilled and trying very hard to win.
Halo 3’s Team Slayer and Social Slayer playlists had nearly identical gametypes and maps, yet Social Slayer was more popular. Why? I think it was due to the lack of ranks, and therefore the lack of “tryhards.” I think that most players want to relax when they play games, not be harassed by teammates for not trying as hard as they are.
That’s not to say I don’t think there should be in-game ranks; I do. I think that a lack of a social/ranked divide was one of Halo 4’s big flaws–you have skilled and unskilled, casual and competitive, trolls and tryhards all in one umbrella, and it frustrates all of them (well, except the trolls). However, again, you can’t bring back players this late in a game’s life. The time to make these changes has long past (although 343i did say that in-game ranks wouldn’t fit into the game’s UI, or something to that effect, which is why they’re visible only on Waypoint).
> All this talk about “what went wrong” and “what 343i needs to do to fix it” is misguided, because it assumes there is something inherently broken with the game. There isn’t. The game is good, and it continues to be refined and improved, largely thanks to Bravo…
There’s something inherently wrong with this statement.
The game is better, but not good. You still have to take into account the other factors beyond War Games.
-Custom Games is still an abomination.
-Forge, as a system, has received no attention besides a token map.
-Spartan Ops, while it had best intentions, was and still is a complete failure in my opinion. Absolutely no support has been devoted to improving the gameplay.
All of these factors have burnt through Halo’s player base and the bulk of the damage was done months and months ago. Due to 343’s favour of damage control over actually doing something significant about it, the damage is irrevocable. People have moved on to other games.
Beyond War Games, Halo 4 has really nothing going for it. That said, even War Games isn’t stellar. DLC as we know it is worthless. Which presents little reason for anyone outside to invest in the game and bares little incentive for players, who bought the maps and left, to return.
Rotational playlists don’t help either. Was a complete joke to begin with.
…and you really think some numbers next to the players gamertag is going to change anything?
The time where CSR could actually change anything has long been and past.
Perhaps I should have been more clear: I’m talking specifically about the online, matchmaking War Games component of Halo 4. (Hence my posting in this forum.) This is the core of Halo when it comes to sustainable population and player base.
I agree that something needs to be done about DLC, but I’m not sure what.
> …and you really think some numbers next to the players gamertag is going to change anything?
Yes, absolutely! It could have done far more good if it had been there from Day 1, but it can still have a significant impact. It’s plain that CSR matters to people–just look at how many complaints are cropping up about the Team Slayer CSR reset.
> Perhaps I should have been more clear: I’m talking specifically about the online, matchmaking War Games component of Halo 4. (Hence my posting in this forum.) This is the core of Halo when it comes to sustainable population and player base.
>
> I agree that something needs to be done about DLC, but I’m not sure what.
>
>
>
> > …and you really think some numbers next to the players gamertag is going to change anything?
>
> Yes, absolutely! It could have done far more good if it had been there from Day 1, but it can still have a significant impact. It’s plain that CSR matters to people–just look at how many complaints are cropping up about the Team Slayer CSR reset.
I knew you were talking about the War Games component. My reference to other aspects of Halo 4 was to highlight how universally the player base has eroded.
…and no, displaying CSR in-game at this stage will not have a significant impact. It has no impact on the game itself and best serves only a slice of the community.
343 already gave the community it’s own competitive playlist with Legendary Slayer and while it made some people happy it failed to attract the community of players that left.
Why would CSR succeed where an entire playlist failed?
> > …makes Legendary BRs plus descope minus flinch and sprint the default matchmaking gametype would give Halo 4 even a small boost in population.
>
> This would severely cut population, not boost it. I love Legendary BRs, but this mindset is exactly what I claim is misguided. Such a change caters to skilled, competitive players–though not even all of them agree on various “essential” changes like removal of sprint–and history has shown that such changes give no lasting boost to the population.
>
> Fiddling with settings isn’t a bad idea at all. I’m just claiming that we as a community and 343 together need to have a different mindset if we want Halo to make a comeback. The game should be fun to play, but players also need to feel like there’s a reason for playing.
For the record, I never said what’s in that quotebox.
I think they’re saving all the good changes and revamps to Halo multiplayer to Halo 5. Just keep giving them your feedback and hopefully they’ll listen.
Really they need to focus on optimizing their game engine so frame-rate issues aren’t a problem and make it so everyone has the same base FPS regardless of hardware. As it is now older xboxes lag behind as much as 1.3 seconds on the base maps (Haven, Adrift, Solace) and all the other maps its about 1.5-1.8.
People are sick of playing the same old maps but unfortunately with equal skill the person with the newest hardware wins. Splitscreen on any map that generates textures has a FPS drop to almost 10. Makes it really choppy and unplayable.
> I think they’re saving all the good changes and revamps to Halo multiplayer to Halo 5. Just keep giving them your feedback and hopefully they’ll listen.