People tend to think Reach was an unbalanced, random, abysmal halo game that should have not been made. I understand why some would think this but myself, a loyal halo fan since CE, believes it was a great game. I do not think it was better than the previous halo games, but it doesn’t deserve the hate it recieved and is still recieving. Reasons I liked reach are competitive playlist like arena slayer and mlg, one dominate weapon-determines who was most skillful post no bloom update, and decent arena style maps.
I stress the importance of the arena and mlg playlist since they were extremely well balanced. It was you, your dmr, teammates, and grenades to keep you alive; if you died, it was most likely your fault. The complete removal of AA and no bloom would have made it a halo game to rival 2/3, but I feel bungie needed to try something new to evolve the series. My point is Reach was a great game if played after the TU which removed bloom and sprint and in competitive playlist. On the other hand, I believe Halo 4 suffers from a number of things that made Halo great. The introduction of multiple precision starting weapons has done no good for the franchise. I believe no matter what you do to the dmr, it will still dominate the br since the br requires you to land all of your 5 bursts to get the kill. Simply the world is not big enough for the br and dmr. I also believe the recurrance of AA is a bad move. I believe me and another person are not on equal terms when we have different AA, perks, or whatever. It tends to frustrate me knowing someone bested me because I was illequiped in a particular situation. The combination of the domination of the dmr at all ranges, AA and perks is sufficient to drastically reduce the skill gap of halo and if that wasn’t enough, the maps are terrible. I believe these are the reasons some may consider halo 4 a failure. I dont consider it a failure, it is a good game, but I believe it is a step in the wrong direction. There is no doubt in my mind halo needs to evolve, but it is not this. I am just lucky I do have to determine, experiment, or guess what halo needs. That is a very difficult task, and I wish 343i the best. Of course this is all my opinion. I know how you all get sometimes.
Additional thoughts:
Flinching is a terrible addition. There was nothing wrong with descope.
Sprint is counter productive. Some maps are so big it requires you to use sprint, but running into an enemy while sprinting puts you at a disadvantage. I would love to keep it in game because I know a lot of people like it, but remove it from throwback, please. 343i do it for ME. lol
Ranking system would be great addition. No real down side to having it.