SOps vs FF

Games Other Halo
1

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to get peoples opinion on the new Spartan Ops game-type in Halo 4, more specifically in relation to the game-type that it replaced - Firefight.

It’s basically a survival-game in a closed map. The players fight several waves of enemies until their 5 lives run out. It’s basically space invaders - FPS style. A play-till-you-die game.

Bungie brought the basic feature of Horde mode into the Halo universe. The covenant AI preformed well in the sandbox setting. Bungie also added vehicles to FF, which was awesome. Additionally, in Reach, load-outs were added, which further supplemented the experience.

It was a great game-type:
+You could enjoy it with ANY number of players.
+You got to fight EVERY enemy in the game…in each match!
+With limited lives and limited ammo, it was a CHALLENGE every time.

Now, FF has been canned and replaced with Spartan Ops. SOps is a closed-map, wave-based game-type, like FF. It also has campaign elements like plot, dialogue, friendly marines/scientists and…button-pushing.

I know it sounds like a match made in heaven. However, one thing is still missing - CHALLENGE. You have infinite lives and, therefore, infinite ammunition/grenades. It is IMPOSSIBLE to lose a match of SOps. This makes it less fun for me.

Which sounds more EPIC to you?

-A small group of spartans face infinite waves of covenant in a battle to the death!

-A large group of covenant face infinite waves of…two guys…who press buttons…in a battle to the…pelican.

That’s my opinion in an enormous nutshell.
What are your opinions???
Which do you prefer?

2

Halo 3: ODST Firefight vs. Halo: Reach Firefight vs. Halo 4 Spartan Ops
Winner: Halo 3: ODST

Halo: Reach Firefight vs. Halo 4 Spartan Ops
Winner: Reach Firefight is awesome because of all of it’s custom options, but it was no fun spamming the fire button online in Matchmaking. That is why I like Spartan Ops a lot better than Reach Firefight, and now it’s actually starting to feel like a 2nd campaign.

3

challenge wise
FF>SPOP

Having fun and epic moments wise
SPOP>FF

4

> challenge wise
> FF>SPOP
>
> Having fun and epic moments wise
> SPOP>FF

Hm… really? I can’t say that I’ve ever had an epic moment in FF. It’s always such a grind. Maybe it’s cuz I play on legendary, but I just never really have those “OMG NO!” or “OMG YES!” moments.

5

I kinda dont think they’re in the same category. but, if 343 continues to put forth what they showed in ep. 6, I can confidently say SO>FF

6

Halo 3: ODST Firefight

  • Wave Based
  • Focus on Survival

Halo: Reach Firefight

  • Wave Based
  • Focus on Scoring mainly - Arcade

Spartan OPs

  • Campaign structure
  • Focus is mainly on the Narrative.

ODST Firefight was epic because it focused on survival, you had limited ammunition so you had to pick up weapons from the covenant every now and then, not to mention you were playing as ODST’s.

Halo Reach’s Firefight was fun because we were playing as Spartans, we had armor abilities, a custom user interface which let us craft our firefight experience, ordiance drops and being able to replenish ammo from UNSC weapons. Also, Generator Defense was introduced and we also had Firefight Versus.

Spartan OPs is fun because it follows the events post Halo 4. Every enviornment you play on Spartan OPs is different on a varied extent - sometimes your playing on either a map from the campaign or multiplayer. Each episode that comes out has a CG episode you can watch along with 5 missions. There are objectives, the mode allows for players to use thier custom loadouts at times, also there is expanded use on vehicles, along with some easter eggs as well. Additionally the first season of Spartan Ops is 10 Episodes along with 50 missions.

Basically, Halo 3: ODST is the most challenging cooperative mode to date. Halo Reach can be challenge, but people were spoiled on Arcade fight to some extent, along with features that weren’t widely used, Halo Reach’s Firefight hasn’t really lived up to its potential matchmaking wise. Spartan OPs, while its great having a cooperative mode focus on the Campaign instead of follow the “survival mode” as other video games have, it doesn’t have as much of a challenge as the previous cooperative modes of Halo. Spartan OPs is fun and has so much potential, but with Legendary now being standard, its very apparent that we need Harder objectives. In Spartan Ops, you could have faild Episode 5 Chapter 1 if players didnt’ know how to defend the generators, but that was it. You play through the other missions without really being able to fail them. Spartan OPs should have more varied objectives, to introduce a challenge to players. I know its suppose to be like the campaign, but that doesn’t mean we shold lose the potential to fail operations. Mass Effect does this to a good extent, if you fail an objective you fail the mission. Additionally Spartan Ops can use a Scoring Mechanic as well.

I like Spartan OPs more then I do Firefight because of its narrative. Trying to survive in an enclosed area in Firefight is fun to a certain extent but to me its been done to death in the industry in multiple games I love. I like Spartan Ops because its different, may not be as much of a challenge, but that can and will change in the future.

7

> I kinda dont think they’re in the same category. but, if 343 continues to put forth what they showed in ep. 6, I can confidently say SO>FF

I certainly agree that ep 6 has been an improvement.

Why not simply make SOps campaign style, with checkpoints? The infinite lives mechanic is simply mind-numbing.

No challenge = No sense of accomplishment

8

> I like Spartan OPs more then I do Firefight because of its narrative. Trying to survive in an enclosed area in Firefight is fun to a certain extent but to me its been done to death in the industry in multiple games I love. I like Spartan Ops because its different, may not be as much of a challenge, but that can and will change in the future.

You say the FF-style has been done to death. I can’t completely agree with that. GoW 3 newest Horde mode introduced several new mechanics to the game that allowed several different styles of play and increased replayability. 343i could have done that.

I agree with you - a large part of the SOps draw is the narrative. But if narrative is the ONLY quality aspect of the game, doesn’t it have ZERO replay value?

This could be a challenging game-type using checkpoints (like campaign) or a lives cap (like FF). But it’s not. Here’s why:

It would be harder for 343 because they would have to BALANCE the game. As it stands, they are just making short campaign missions that are extremely difficult (on legendary). You are fighting lots of enemies with insane weapons, health and shields. To counter the over-inflated difficulty, the player is given infinite lives. It’s actually really lazy game designing, and there is no challenge.

Instead of making a few good campaign mission, they are churning out 50 missions of VERY LOW quality.

9

Firefight, no contest.

10

> > I like Spartan OPs more then I do Firefight because of its narrative. Trying to survive in an enclosed area in Firefight is fun to a certain extent but to me its been done to death in the industry in multiple games I love. I like Spartan Ops because its different, may not be as much of a challenge, but that can and will change in the future.
>
> 1.
> You say the FF-style has been done to death. I can’t completely agree with that. GoW 3 newest Horde mode introduced several new mechanics to the game that allowed several different styles of play and increased replayability. 343i could have done that.
>
> 2.
> I agree with you - a large part of the SOps draw is the narrative. But if narrative is the ONLY quality aspect of the game, doesn’t it have ZERO replay value?
>
> This could be a challenging game-type using checkpoints (like campaign) or a lives cap (like FF). But it’s not. Here’s why:
>
> It would be harder for 343 because they would have to BALANCE the game. As it stands, they are just making short campaign missions that are extremely difficult (on legendary). You are fighting lots of enemies with insane weapons, health and shields. To counter the over-inflated difficulty, the player is given infinite lives. It’s actually really lazy game designing, and there is no challenge.
>
> Instead of making a few good campaign mission, they are churning out 50 missions of VERY LOW quality.

Point 1. The only reason I say Firefight has been done to death is after playing multiply such as Gears of War 2 and Gears of War 3, Mass Effect 3 mutiplayer, Left 4 Dead Survival (horde was based on general video game survival modes), that zombie mode in Red Dead Redemption, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Onslaught mode and others. While each on their own introduced a variety of ways to play, to its core it was about surviving.

Even though Spartan OPs doesn’t have this awesome survival element to it, it has continously provided a variety of ways to play that rival that of the campaign to an extent.

Point 2. Spartan OPs doesn’t have much replay value besides whatever achievements you haven’t unlocked and commendations and experience. Even worse, without a scoring mechanic, you can’t really beat your personal best. I personally just replay it to not die as much on legendary.

I do somewhat agree with you on the extent about 343i and making Spartan Ops Challenging. Legendary seems like the basis of the challenge for Spartan Ops as a it currently stands, without a limited pool of lives or without more challenging objectives or even a scoring mechanic or actual challenging - less grinding commendations, the only main challenge to Spartan OP is the difficulty its set on.

-Random thoguht, how interesting would it have been to actually find skulls in Spartan Ops, have like an easter egg play and have the difficulty of the mission toned up beacause of said skull. Just a random thought.

11

I’d like a take on Mass effect 3’s wave based multiplayer. Much like firefight, you fight through waves of increasingly difficult enemies. Every couple waves the teams must complete a certain objective for bonus xp or credits. And after 10 rounds the match ends. A key incentive allowed players to gain even more rewards if the missions were played on harder difficulties.

Whatever mode 343 prefers in the future, I think the most important mechanic that needs to be there is the ability to fail. Currently there are no checkpoints, infinite respawns, and no consequences for playing recklessly. And without any chance of failure, there’s no feeling of accomplishment after beating a hard spartan ops mission.

12

I prefer spartan ops.
It advances the story, post launch content.
Reach firefight is arcade firefight.

13

I like spops, just for story and objective based gameplay.

but the death system should be changed though, as there is almost no penalty for dying

14

Honestly i feel that spartian ops as much more to offer than firefight from odst or reach. Spartian ops is like a second campain but it is your spartain and your loadouts. firfight is more of like survival and get boring after a while because it feels the same ecpeccially in reach because there was unlimited ammo and you could have unlimted lives so there was almost no point in trying at all. In all honesty spartian ops is the campain after the campain. Plus for a lot of people narritive is very important to the halo story and narritive is what halo is half about, so theres actually a story and characters you grow attached to in some cases (master cheif or even maybe your own spartian).

15

> Honestly i feel that spartian ops as much more to offer than firefight from odst or reach. Spartian ops is like a second campain but it is your spartain and your loadouts. firfight is more of like survival and get boring after a while because it feels the same ecpeccially in reach because there was unlimited ammo and you could have unlimted lives so there was almost no point in trying at all. In all honesty spartian ops is the campain after the campain. Plus for a lot of people narritive is very important to the halo story and narritive is what halo is half about, so theres actually a story and characters you grow attached to in some cases (master cheif or even maybe your own spartian).

I understand that a lot of people like the narrative. That’s great!

The CG movies are well made, and you can get most of the narrative just by watching them. I guarantee more people at 343i are working on the CG movies than the actual Spartan Ops missions.

SOps is basically a rushed, cookie-cutter campaign. Recycled levels, repetitive gameplay, no challenge and buttons…oh my god THE BUTTONS. The narrative is an excuse to make 50 permutations of the same shoddy mission.

Personally, that’s a tough pill for me to swallow. But hey that’s me. If you guys like it, fine.

I just wish it hadn’t replaced FF…

16

> I like spops, just for story and objective based gameplay.
>
> but the death system should be changed though, as <mark>there is almost no penalty for dying</mark>

Dying is a good thing in SOps. It means you get more ammo and grenades!

17

I like spops way more than firefight. Halo 3 ODST’s FF was very fun but fighting buggers 2-4 waves of a round was enraging, especially because I’m not one to use automatic weapons. Reach’s FF was terrible. At least ODST had some randomness in wave structure whereas Reach was all static. I liked that buggers were taken out in Reach FF but skirmishers were their replacement. I have yet to find someone who likes fighting skirmishers. Spops is a different experience, it’s much more objective based than random fighting with no back story. Episode 1-5 may have been ridiculously horrible, but episode 6 is a huge upgrade to spops and I enjoyed it very much. Honestly, it’s quite surprising to see how many people liked FF in Reach, ODST was understandable because the maps and gameplay was enjoyable for me.

18

I like Spartan Ops more than Firefight in Reach. I know that Firefight was fun, but it got repetitive after a while. I know that Spartan Ops can become like that too, but I play Spartan Ops for the story not the killing and survival. Of course I do my best to not die because I really dont like dying, but in firefight it got to the point of getting smashed.

I like being able to choose my own guns and play style because it really makes me feel like its me fighting these missions instead of just playing. I wish though that there was more than button pushing and a pelican, but I believe these new episodes are moving in the right direction. Firefight survival was fun, but I like the new direction it is going.

19

Being a person who enjoys the Halo universe outside the multiplayer aspect, I find SpOps highly enjoyable. However, the lack of challenge is somewhat irritating. I think they should make the ranked games Heroic with a pool of 10 or so lives to encourage cooperation.

As for Firefigtht, I enjoyed all iterations of it, but I am really intrigued by what SpOps has to offer. All it needs is more mission variety and a higher level of challenge.

Here’s hoping ep 7 is awesome

20

I like Spartan Ops more mainly because it makes the game feel more realistic. Instead of having unlimited rockets all the time you have to work with what you have depending on the mission. Plus extra story is always good. Halo has a lot more badassery than just Master Chief (although most of it stems from him).