I’ve already made a similar post to this but I’ll keep making more to try and get at least some attention to these issues, because it’s currently making ranked an unplayable experience. Which really sucks for competitive players as a whole. I know this is a sea of text, but dear not. There is a TL;DR at the bottom.
Don’t get me wrong. The game looks, sounds and runs near-flawlessly. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s a true Halo 3 successor (mostly due to the issues listed below), but it is a solid foundation. But these issues are really making the experience unpleasant, as a competitive player.
I’ll kick start the list with the issues that don’t necessarily impact ranked play.
-
1- Customisation was sold to us on a Lie. The customisation in this game is awful. Simple as that. The armour core system is not good. In-fact, it’s pretty awful for player expression and identity. Apparently, you can’t use the Commando helmet on any core you want, even though it’s own description states it can be used with ay Mjolnir system. I don’t know whats gone wrong there but that seems like a bit of misinformation to me, unless it is true, in which case it’s likely an attempt to keep pushing the already invasive and predatory microtransactions (Thanks Moneysoft).
-
2nd part to this, armour coatings are a potentially neat idea which has been catastrophically executed. Having armour coatings change the finish on your armour (as the name implies it will) sounds kinda cool, but limiting colour choices to presets is completely moronic, especially when Halo Reach (The game this customisation model is based off) has a better and more expression-friendly colour picking system. Why not just expand on that 343? Why not let us change individual panel colours? Again, likely attributed to Moneysofts philosophy of ‘Rinse Players Of As Much Money As Possible’ tm.
-
2- Fiesta is absolutely terrible. The main reason for this is how the weapons are distributed throughout the teams. From what I gather, theres a limit to how many of a certain weapon can be in a teams hands at any given time, so you end up having one team spawn with usable weapon combinations that aren’t completely awful, and the other team spawns with AR’s and Disruptors every single time. It’s one-sided Every Single Time, and it just isn’t fun because the chaos of MCC fiesta just doesn’t exist. The issue also worsens the weapon balancing issues (which I’ll cover shortly).
-
3- The maps are really not that great, at least for 4v4 modes. BTB isn’t as affected, as it’s quite difficult to go wrong with a big map for big battles, but my god are most of the 4v4 maps bad, and all of them are a little forgettable. This is especially applicable to zone and asset-control modes. Streets is the worst offender for these modes. Every single zone is completely enclosed, with not one of them being an open area. It makes it next to impossible to hold a zone when your teammates don’t know the first thing about the game, and when the other team just spam grenades. One-Flag on launch site is the single worst mode, next to fiesta. That map, being the only one to host one-flag, is incredibly one-sided. If you are defending, its a guaranteed win, unless you are doing something properly wrong. You do not stand a chance on offense. Ever.
-
4- AR & Sidekick are very very strong weapons, especially the sidekick. This is an area of contention for people, but they are objectively badly balanced weapons in their current state. The Sidekick is more effective than the AR at all ranges, due to the ability to spam it at close/mid with 0 punishment to bloom, and it’s lack of damage drop-off at long range. The only weapons to outshoot it at long ranges are sniper weapons and the BR. The AR outguns the BR at close/mid ranges, which relegates the BR to long-range use. But if I’m engaging at long range, I’d just use a sniper or the Sidekick if I can’t find a power weapon pickup. So why is the BR even considered a power weapon in quickplay/BTB? It’s almost useless in those modes, because the AR and sidekick do its job better and you start with them. There’s little-to-no incentive to pick up any power weapons besides the Hammer, Sword, Skewer and Snipers, because the AR and Sidekick are too strong to start with. There is no reasonable excuse anyone can make for these being balanced. They are amoungst the shortest TTK weapons in the game, yet you start with them. ???
-
4- Overall weapon balance isn’t quite there. Examples include: Commando, Pulse Carbine, Disruptor, Shock Rifle, Mangler and Plasma Pistol. Commando is next-to-useless, with it’s measly damage and really quite bad recoil/bloom pattern. Disruptor has very little tactical usage anywhere, mostly because its incredibly hard to utilise the bleed damage when pitted against other weapons. Shock Rifle isn’t so bad, its got good utility at range, but if you’re at range you may as well use the sniper or stalker rifle, because they are just better. Mangler is okay to a point. The bonus damage from being a banshed weapon is kinda cool, but I think it applies too much damage from a shot, so it’s really easy to cheese with it. But I suppose you can just keep range and they’ll have a harder time of it (it’s a grey area one). The plasma pistol is completely useless. There just is no place for it to be utilised, besides close quarters, where you’ll be immediately outgunned by Sidekick and AR. The rest of the weapons suit their roles well and maybe just need some very minor tweaks to damage or bloom patterns.
Moving to the issues that directly affect competitive play.
-
5- Not having collisions is terrible and it makes melee play very very scuffed. It is very frequent to perform what should be a successful melee on someone, but you phase through them and somehow miss, then they get a backsmack on you. This also happens with the sword and hammer when duelling. There have been countless times where the hammer has just simply missed as I’ve phased through someone, then they get a successful hit on me from behind (somehow). This makes the combat inconsistent and not very enjoyable at close ranges. The inconsistensy is the worst when it comes to grenades. Because for some daft reason, you can still bounce grenades off allies, yet you can’t collide with enemies? What? Bizarre choice there if I’m honest.
-
6- Team balancing is broken out the wazoo. I sincerely have no clue how it has been done this badly. I get that the ranked playlist is new and it’s still trying to settle people into ranks, but why am I being teamed up with Rank 1’s, who have absolutely no idea how to play as a team or around objectives, and being put against competent players who actually play as a team and around objectives? It is unbearably frustrating to go 24-8 with 3 mins on oddball hold and still lose the damn game because no one gave me any support. Or be half way to a flag cap and no one helps me out and we end up losing 4-1. It is boring, frustrating, and mind-numblingly frequent. I can have 17 games in a row like this, then get 1 balanced if not unbalanced (towards my own team) game. Then it’s straight back to losing. I get that we want new players to come to Halo, but this game simply does not reward players who play correctly and play well. This was also an Issue in MCC. That game died a quick death, especially on the ranked side of things. This is the biggest gameplay issue I’m seeing at the minute, and it makes ranked borderline unplayable. Its at the point where you can tell who will win the game simply based off the intro sequence at the start of each match. This REALLY needs fixing. This also happens in quickplay and BTB, and it’s almost every single game. It’s not fun for returning players who have a modicum of skill and gamesense, and it probably isn’t fun for players who are new but have some general skill within shooters. It’s not difficult to get it right and 343 consistently fail to do so.
-
7- The gameplay overall just doesn’t feel tight enough. The TTK is stupidly low, making reversals almost impossible to attain, combine that with an advanced movement system that is a little clunky, it makes for inconsistent and floaty game/gunplay. Half the time I fail to climb ledges because I’m 0.02 degrees off the trigger point, or it just simply doesn’t register the climb request. It’s caught me out quite a few times and I don’t understand why it’s this inconsistent. The aim on MKB doesn’t feel quite right either, it’s difficult to explain or say exactly what causes it, but there is something off about it. It just doesn’t feel robust enough. I’ve heard that Gamepad users are having a tough time too, so it may very well be a deep-rooted issue with how aiming is executed on both inputs, but I can’t say for sure.
Thoughts on this are welcome, and views from both new and veteran players are gonna be important, but I stand by there being absolutely no reason for the Sidekick being as powerful as it is. Anyone saying it’s balanced is objectively incorrect.
TL;DR
1- Armour Cores & Coatings MUST go. They are a low-effort way of pushing microtransactions.
2- Fiesta is terrible, due mostly to bad weapon distribution. Extremifies the badly balanced weapons faults.
3- The maps are not brilliant, not designed well for asset/zone-control modes. Launch Site 1-Flag is god-awful.
4- AR and Sidekick are far too strong to be starting weapons. They invalidate most weapons at close/mid-range and Sidekick somehow rivals the BR at Long ranges, making the BR almost useless in BTB & Quickplay.
5- No collisions ruins CQC and makes melee incredibly inconsistent. But grenades still get blocked by allies(?)
6- Team balancing is Still completely broken, even after the numerous issues with it in MCC. Applies to all modes of play, especially the ranked playlists.
7- Overall, the gameplay does not feel very tight. Combination of clunky climbing and strange aim behaviour. Aim behaviour seems to be weird on both MKB and Gamepad from what I’ve seen and experienced.