One of the main reasons why Halo has been failing over the years is because from Halo 4 and up they all feel Competitive 1st, Casual 2nd, Fun 3rd and everything is basically the same experience with minimal changes here and there. For example
Halo 4 - The Multiplayer experience had Loadouts and a horrible weapon progression system but gameplay experience was basically BR Starts most of the time. You had a choice to use other weapons but those weapons weren’t even close to as powerful to the BR which lead to everyone using it all the time. Which literally canceled out all levels of that Casual experience.
Halo 2 Anniversary - The Multiplayer experience in this game was a complete let down at the very beginning and to date. The weapons don’t deal out the same experience from the original Halo 2 Classic Xbox version in the slightest bit. Anything that’s not for HCS damage wise is ridiculous weak to the point no one going to use it. Then the big Casual thing in Halo 2 multiplayer was Dual Wielding, but that is more of a light show and less of a damage one. Then the Battle Rifle was basically taken out of Halo 4 and reskin for H2A which yet again dominate the battlefield all the time.
But what made things even worse was the Elite experience wasn’t kept in design for the maps or weapons. The door ways, ceiling, and cover doesn’t work with Elites. The Melee Attack doesn’t even land half the time and the Energy Sword lunge distance is shorter for Elite players then Spartan players.
343 had a perfect opportunity test things out with players by making it so Headshot damage isn’t effective on Elite players because there body frame is wider which would easily lead to more players using the Elites like in Halo 3. But since they didn’t do anything of the such Elite players die extremely fast to the point its rare to come across one to date. Then biggest problem was all the maps from the past weren’t even remade and to this very day still has a lack of content.
Halo 5 - In this Multiplayer experience 343 tried to make everyone feel like a super soldier but as a Spartan with updated mechanics for a Modern Halo game. In some most ways this was ok at least in my opinion. But I know for most fans that like H3 and Reach and nothing else will disagree. While the weapon experience was fun, and all the weapons were useful for killing. But the game was setup to be competitive all the times which lead to overtime the Magnum becoming OP and the casual thing not so much anymore.
Halo 5 Warzone was a good idea and a interesting way to expand the casual community with a new mode that could become something amazing with a completely different level of gameplay that wouldn’t effect the experience for arena multiplayer. But unfortunately it was done with competitive gaming in mind which is what killed the mode. Which is why it wasn’t as successful as it could have been.
But that’s enough of the past.
The thing is that Halo as the potential to be a amazing shooter at the top of the latter again. But making the game where it pays more attention to competitive gameplay more than casual is literally not going to work for most people in the shooter genre. Call of Duty literally does just the opposite and it’s the reason why so many people play the game. Having a place for everyone to enjoy brings more people to the game not less.
So by having only Arena gameplay experience with that same UNSC Armory dominating everything else gameplay and not making things make since in the game isn’t going bring people to the game but push them away. Halo can still have Arena Multiplayer but it needs another mode to play that’s a completely different gameplay experience.
Am I never mentioned cuts or resource management inbmy initial argument so thats explicitly false.
I think you may have not read the comment I referred to before you responded.
I am actually in favour of the reduction although i feel it was handled poorly when we consider what was cut and what was replaced, particularly in relation to the marketing rhetoric around the game.
But also you misunderstood the reduction was not why people use it as an argument for the competitive design philosophy. Rather its how they built the sandbox that took the place of prior games’
Which in its design is pretty clearly built to be more viable across the board.
Why would it be a “competitive” decision to choose adds a new dimension to the game with a more unique option as opposed to a “legacy” which adds nothing outside of some aesthetic variety at best? Keep in mind that Unique =/ Inherently competitive or viable.
It isnt particularly unique nor is there any new dimension.
They wanted to specify existing elements by tying them to particularly weapin sets. They made the bounce trait once found in multiple weapons in a single sandbox and tied it to one weapon. They layered the ubiquitous in halo trackingnprojctile on it.
They removed the stun trait from plasma as a reason to create a new sub class that is built to replace power drain, incendiary, promethean nades, splinter cannons as area denial and group devision tools.
Legacy provided these options already.
Further legacy had the avenue for the most interesting and unique avenue to updare the weapon sandbox.
Dual wield. Explicitly cut for being too hard to balance.
Because balance was prioritised over fun.
Ill directed you to the aforementioned comment on that.
Please take the time to read that shiuld you wish to reply.
I also do not think the where and what do we cut argument is a good one at face value but thats actually a whole other topic in my mind than what we are discussing here.
For some reason when I made that last comment I had it in my head I was responding to the person who replied to me and not you so for that I apologize. More or less it was just expanding on what I said to littlefatmonkey.
That being said you have still not demonstrated that the sandbox decisions 343 made regarding what gets kept vs what gets cut is motivated by a desire to be more “competitive” or to even reduce redundancy. For example, it is true that 343 cut the promethean weapons like the pulse grenade and replaced them with shock nades to fill a similar area denial role, but that is not an inherently “competitive” change, its just a change.
This is once again my problem with this discussion, some people look at 343’s decisions and decide they must be made with “competitive” gameplay in mind because of one offhand quote.
Cutting some feature for balance like dual wielding, which was done back on ODST/Reach under Bungie was not done for “competitive” reasons. Reach was demonstrably not a game designed with “competitive” gameplay in mind.
I don’t know why you seem to think balance is somehow antithetical to fun or that balancing is inherently “competitive” as opposed to an effort to allow more people to use and enjoy all parts of the sandbox more often.
Ok so ill respond to this properly later but first I just want to point out my initial statement because I think you still may have missed it under your comment beginning with
There is a lengthy comment replying to General fox by me.
In that I provide an explanation for at least the qualia. That i believe to be at the core of this issue.
Less so about a bias in 343i than it is, a trajectory in the evolution of halos design that appears to correlate with the series diminished impact on the market.
Where essentially competitive isnt just used in the definition of being pro play but more the philosophy of where the fun is found.
As I do believe competitive viability was a major goal in later halos sandbox design where fairness as it where became more and more important to designers.
This was even seen in comments by bungie employees who felt reach went too far in removing fun for fairness.
Regretfully the prediction that I made back in November of 2021 seems to have come true.
“After playing the beta and flights and reading through some of the posts here; I’m lowering my expectations for Halo Infinite. The PvP gameplay is OK and Big Team Battle is good. But like the other Halo games, Halo Infinite PvP still feels dated. Now I’m sure that when Dec 08, 2021, comes around there will be a huge spike in the Halo player base. But this surge will probably drop-off relatively quickly as players return back to games that feel more contemporary. Again, leaving Halo only to a select few. Sadly, it would appear that some here would prefer that way.”
Halo Infinite “World Premiere” of one re-do map at Halo Esports…, and casual players be damn_d.
FYI, A while ago I did a word count on the 343i’s March 2022 “CLOSER LOOK: HALO INFINITE’S RANKED EXPERIENCE” post and the word skill or skills was mentioned 72 times. The word fun only 5 times…
What you believe and what actually happened are two entirely different things. If your definition of “competitive” in the context of Halo somehow includes Reach and later games then you really need to reevaluate how you use that term. It makes the term useless at best if not actively detrimental when discussing the issues both the game and the franchise have.
If you want to see an example of this you only have to scroll up a ways to see people making the frankly absurd claims that Halo 4 was somehow designed with “competitive” gameplay being the primary concern.
What specifically makes you think that later Halo sandboxes are being designed in a more “competitive” way that sets them apart from past games. Because the only consistent difference between Bungie and 343 balancing has been that some weapons, have been generally more lethal in 343 era games compared to Bungie era games, ex bullet hoses like the SMG or AR.
What specifically do you think changed in Reach that was meaningfully targeting “fairness” over “fun.”
I also still find this idea that balance or fairness is somehow incompatible with fun rather silly. You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.
The definition im using it in is in the context of game design.
That is competitive design: were the goal of design is characterized by capitalising on the players need to win and auxiliary design functions to support this core goal by maintaining a fair playing field that subverts loss aversion.
As it was thought to me in university.
This definition is also essentially the one used by hardy lebel in his finding the fun paper.
How does it make the term useless?
It seems perfectly functional to me.
As it does a good job of outiling the intent and philosophy of a design at its most fundimental level.
In this regard, yes halo 4 was designed to be competitive.
Not to be mistaken for contest design.
Where the rhetoric implies designing around fairness and making a game built to be an actually competition or sport like in nature.
Well what I know to be true of the trilogy because those who designed have stated outright is that weapons were simply built to be fun to use. Balanced primarily for campaign. Outside of one or 2 outliers in CE and 3.
And as you state weapons in the 343i era have trended towards higher lethality.
Likely due to them wanting them to be viable for the MP suite which in prerelease materials we see feature far more attention than they had prior.
Likely due to the market having become hyper focused on online fps and single player content starting to become less important to publishers.
Similarly weapons became more accurate and ease of use was raised across the board.
Accessibility being a big design trend post cod4s rise to power to let players feel immediately gratified in mp.
This isnt needed as much in sp where difficulty options and tutorialisation allow for a slower on ramp and this more distinct handling in the weapon sandbox, an observation made famous by quake3s designers and the necessity of bots to serve as the on ramp over homogeneity in handling.
Well first of all we have the infamous “dont tell sage, cause hell nerf it.” Phrase.
Sage hated dual wield because of how it effected balance and made it hard to make those guns fair as for them to be usefull one handed he felt they became op duel wielded.
Specifically for pvp.
Similarly the weakening of vehicles across the board a trajectory that has since continued.
The over all weakening of power weapons. Particularly focus beam.
However reach had a larger role to play and that was how it changed the core GGM triangle by giving players a new element that was entirely designed around empowerment of the player in favour of choas creation as seen in halo 3.
The design chose to give added viable player traits in AAs
Halo 3 added a new sub pillar also but did so with risk reward interactive map elements that werent analogous to the playstyle encouraging perks and loadouts of cod/reach but rather object that fundimentally changed how all players interacted with a space or engagement and could easily result in a player that used it getting killed by reault.
It wasnt geared towards victory.
Whereas reach has a competitive goal orientated design philosophy.
I never stated that.
Simply that when the design goal is focused on competitive the resultant game will differ greatly from one whose not.
And when you have a market filled with competitively designed fps games subverting that trend in favour of a party game deaign will make you stand out from the crowd and attract a player base that your contemporaries do not.
You can read and watch interviews with all the relevant deaigners and see yourself that the goals they had are almost foreign in concept to todays convential wisdom.
Honestly its what makes studying their work so enthralling as it side steps souch of what many today would dub “good design principles” so elegantly as to be mistaken for sharing said principles.
Off the top of my head, there was the brief removal of various trick jumps from many of the maps. The Comp. scene didn’t like this because the trick jumps were both skillful and fun to pull off. But 343 removed them because of map balance.
343 refuses to bring back playable Elites. It’s pretty well know that Elite hitboxes really screwed over competive Halo back in the day, but fans still want them back. There’s a few reasons 343 should bring them back.
Fans think they’re cool.
Certain game modes aren’t reasonably possible without them (Invasion & Elite Slayer for example).
They could make money with a Sangheli armor core if they wanted.
Overall map design favors 3 Lane struture rather than some more unorthadox set ups. Think Cold Storage from H3.
I think several people here have provided some very good points as to why 343 is too competitively focused, we can’t do anything if you choose to ignore them.
to the point no one going to use it. Then the big Casual thing in Halo 2 multiplayer was Dual Wielding, but that is more of a light show and less of a damage one. Then the Battle Rifle was basically taken out of Halo 4 and reskin for H2A which yet again dominate the battlefield all the time.