In recent weeks I have been thinking a lot about Halo and the Xbox One.
As we all know the Xbox One is roughly $100 (£80) more expensive than it’s main competitor the Playstation 4. At present Halo has a diverse selection of players from all ages, backgrounds and playstyles. Halo at present has a large following of younger players and also extremely casual minded players.
With the Xbox One being a more expensive console there is potential that a core demographic of Halo may not purchase the game. Allow me to give a real world example or two, younger gamers who are on a budget, or more casual players who are not “die hard” Halo fans may decided to purchase a PlayStation 4 because it’s cheaper.
Simple fact is due to the price of the new console there will be a change in demographic. Halo 3 for example when it first came out had a very different demographic in comparison to itself towards the end of it’s lifetime, that can be attributed to the many price drops in the Xbox 360 console in it’s lifetime.
<mark>A different demographic calls for a different game</mark>
In recent years we have seen massive growth in competitive gaming, Halo’s biggest competitor Call of Duty has recently produced a game with undivided competitive support, and I think we can all agree weather we like it or not that CoD is experiencing unprecedented success.
<mark>A competitive game is fun for casual players too, a casual game is hated by competitive players.</mark>
Just looking at the size of Halo’s competitive community and giving some statistics.
Halo 3 in 2008 sold 256 team passes to MLG events in under 24 hours.
Today MLG no longer supports the game and AGL struggles to sell 50 team passes.
The same can be said for competitive Halo the world over.
<mark>There are a million games that are fun to play casually but only a select few are fun to play competitively.</mark>
Announced features like Dedicated Servers and 60fps are a start but there is massive demand for a couple of other additions:
[/li]- Spectator Mode
Halo returning to it’s roots in terms of gameplay
4sk BR from the release would be good
Hitscan must stay
Descope must return
Static weapon spawns
Competitive support, eg: A competitive director
Real hardcore competitive events like CoD XP, Global Challenge and the -Yoink!- gaming thing are laughed at by the dedicated competitive community. Especially due to the online advantage of host.
> > [/li]1. Hitscan must stay
[/quote]
God, no.
[/quote]
It would probably be only for certain weapons. Carbine, BR, SMG, Sniper Rifle, because canonically, they have really fast projectiles. Or maybe make them just that, really, really fast projectiles.
Call of Duty isn’t popular for its features. It’s based on lone-wolf gameplay, meaning teamwork and strategy are not required. Actually, if you tried to work with your team and strategize in CoD, you’d get the same end result as you would if you didn’t.
Halo is, by design, completely different. Halo requires teamwork and strategy, including elements like positioning/flanking, map control, on-map pickup control, and team-shooting (2+ players shooting at the same target). Unlike CoD, 4 players can accomplish much more working together and coordinating than they can apart.
CoD is more popular than Halo because any mindless gamer with a controller can pick it up and play the game the way it was meant to be played. CoD gives out perks and weapons to allow players to play however they want to without regard to what the team is doing. Halo requires communication and sacrifice for the good of the team–for examples, not TKing the person who got the Sniper Rifle first, grabbing the oddball even though it will probably cost me a death, and not being verbally abusive to encourage productive communication.
Halo doesn’t need to change; it will always have followers as long as it continues to require strategy and teamwork. However, people will leave it for other mindless games because it’s easier to be selfish than to work with a team–especially if Halo tries to pretend it’s mindless when it’s not.
Halo is, by design, completely different. Halo requires teamwork and strategy, including elements like positioning/flanking, map control, on-map pickup control, and team-shooting (2+ players shooting at the same target). Unlike CoD, 4 players can accomplish much more working together and coordinating than they can apart.
I agree, but honestly believe me when I say I know Halo, I have a very impressive competitive placement.
If we have hitscan, then we need reduced aim assist and bullet magnetism compared to the level we have in Halo 4, it’s FAR too easy to hit people in Halo 4, and that’s made the skill gap smaller and made average killtimes much closer to optimal killtimes, which has increased the pace of the game and in my opinion made the gameplay suffer. It feels less tactical.
With 60fps and dedicated servers (plus a few basic bullet physics computations in the cloud) I think projectile based netcode could work much better in Halo 5 than it did in Halo 3. Bullet spread however should be gone completely from precision weapons like the BR.
Either way, aim assist and bullet magnetism is much too high as is.
No way I hate descoping, hated it sense the first game. If anything have the option to turn it off or put it in some other gametypes. If there’-Yoink!- scan then the aim assist needs to go (which it already needs to go).
Completely agree with the OP. All the things we want most likely won’t happen and I honestly doubt that Halo will ever be as popular as it once was. That being said, in-game CSR and a separation of ranked/social playlists with Infinity settings in social ONLY would be a fantastic start. Things like JIP, AA’s, Ordinance, and Custom loadouts should be kept out of ranked with those CSR playlists being as simple as possible (think Legendary slayer with BR/DMR starts).
I’ll take that compromise since it will satisfy both casual and competitive players.
> In recent weeks I have been thinking a lot about Halo and the Xbox One.
>
> As we all know the Xbox One is roughly $100 (£80) more expensive than it’s main competitor the Playstation 4. At present Halo has a diverse selection of players from all ages, backgrounds and playstyles. Halo at present has a large following of younger players and also extremely casual minded players.
>
> With the Xbox One being a more expensive console there is potential that a core demographic of Halo may not purchase the game. Allow me to give a real world example or two, younger gamers who are on a budget, or more casual players who are not “die hard” Halo fans may decided to purchase a PlayStation 4 because it’s cheaper.
>
> Simple fact is due to the price of the new console there will be a change in demographic. Halo 3 for example when it first came out had a very different demographic in comparison to itself towards the end of it’s lifetime, that can be attributed to the many price drops in the Xbox 360 console in it’s lifetime.
>
> <mark>A different demographic calls for a different game</mark>
> In recent years we have seen massive growth in competitive gaming, Halo’s biggest competitor Call of Duty has recently produced a game with undivided competitive support, and I think we can all agree weather we like it or not that CoD is experiencing unprecedented success.
>
> <mark>A competitive game is fun for casual players too, a casual game is hated by competitive players.</mark>
>
> Just looking at the size of Halo’s competitive community and giving some statistics.
>
> Halo 3 in 2008 sold 256 team passes to MLG events in under 24 hours.
> Today MLG no longer supports the game and AGL struggles to sell 50 team passes.
> The same can be said for competitive Halo the world over.
>
> <mark>There are a million games that are fun to play casually but only a select few are fun to play competitively.</mark>
>
> Announced features like Dedicated Servers and 60fps are a start but there is massive demand for a couple of other additions:
>
> [/li]- Spectator Mode
> - Halo returning to it’s roots in terms of gameplay
> - 4sk BR from the release would be good
> - Hitscan must stay
> - Descope must return
> - Static weapon spawns
> - Competitive support, eg: A competitive director
> - Real hardcore competitive events like CoD XP, Global Challenge and the -Yoink!- gaming thing are laughed at by the dedicated competitive community. Especially due to the online advantage of host.
For number 8 oh yeah a lot of people including my friends on Reach and me had a good time when they tryed to replace MLG. We knew from the start if MLG doesn’t support it, their must likely no competitive gameplay.
I’m surprised no one mentioned clan support. How hyped would Halo 5 be if you told your friends to get the game so you can roll together as a clan? That would definitely pull more people in, even if they all end up being KSI members.