Though I’m not currently happy with Halo 5’s direction, I will concede that I have a significant bias going in. It’s entirely possible that I’ll warm up to some of the new features, if they’re implemented well. However, there’s one design decision that I can’t see myself changing my mind on, and that’s the so-called ‘Spartan Chatter’. For those that don’t know, our Spartans now talk and call-out important events, such as notable kills, power-weapon spawns, etc. In my opinion, it’s a fairly redundant and distracting feature, and I feel as though it will ultimately be more annoying than helpful. The announcer is already an effective way of verbally rewarding the player for significant in-game feats, and I highly doubt there’s many people that will get any significant boons from being shouted at by the Spartans. Perhaps this is too far-reaching, but I also feel as though this feature insults our intelligence. It’s as if the game doesn’t anticipate that we’ll know when something is happening or when we did something good, so it compensates by insatiably pointing out obvious things to the player. It doesn’t help that the actual dialogue is very typical and doesn’t really sound like anything we’d be hearing from the super-soldiers tasked with defending the whole of humanity. Plus, this could be a potential editing nightmare for any Machinima makers out there. At the very least, I think it’s something that we should be able to disable. I don’t see Spartan Chatter accomplishing anything that the announcer or on-screen cues can’t, anyway.
That’s my bit. Am I missing something, here? Are there any legitimately compelling reasons to have this around? What do you think?
I think that it would be quite useful because I don’t usually find a team who are all talking to eachother, letting each other know what’s going on. So I think that the Spartan chatter replaces this. It might come in handy when you are being chased and you don’t realise until a fellow Spartan shouts out and warns you
It’s so you know what your team are doing when thye don’t have mic’s. It seems to have a lot of potential IMO, and I hope there is enough customization so we can all sound different. However people should be able to mute it for them if they want to.
I don’t know if it belongs in Halo. It kind of feels like hand holding. In Battlefield 4 there were soldier shout outs and it gave away your position so everyone hated it.
I mean I don’t see why it would be a big a deal imo. This is a feature that I guess should have the option of being disabled. I do however like it more when games sound more crowded if that makes sense. I don’t like shooters that are completely silent aside from the gun effects and whatnot. I love ambient noises and sounds that make the games feel more real. I think Spartan chatter is a great way of having a multiplayer not sound so empty. It would also be nice to know what teammates who don’t communicate are doing and I think that’s the main purpose of the chatter. Chatter would also be a cool way to include custom voices option from Reach.
I think it will be best if players have them muted whenever they want.
However, when I am alone, I think it’s a good addition so long as they give off useful information, with the occasional Good job here and there. Players aren’t as sociable as we were 10 years ago. Without communication, Halo can be a difficult game to play. It can work.
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> It might come in handy when you are being chased and you don’t realise until a fellow Spartan shouts out and warns you
That’s what the motion tracker is for. I only see Spartan Chatter being valuable in niche circumstances, like in a game mode where the motion tracker is disabled - though, in that case, Spartan Chatter renders to deprivation of situational awareness completely moot.
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> I think it will be best if players have them muted whenever they want.
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> However, when I am alone, I think it’s a good addition so long as they give off useful information, with the occasional Good job here and there. Players aren’t as sociable as we were 10 years ago. Without communication, Halo can be a difficult game to play. It can work.
I think that’s the general take-away, here. Some people are going to get a use out of it, and others will not. The freedom to enable/disable it at any given time seems like a perfect solution that will keep both sides happy.
Depends how chatty they are. If it’s just call outs for things like grenades, then it might be fine. If they start dealing out praise or taunts, then I’ll have a problem. These are supposed to be our Spartans, and any time they say something we wouldn’t, that sense of ownership will be lost.
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> I mean I don’t see why it would be a big a deal imo. This is a feature that I guess should have the option of being disabled. I do however like it more when games sound more crowded if that makes sense. I don’t like shooters that are completely silent aside from the gun effects and whatnot. I love ambient noises and sounds that make the games feel more real. I think Spartan chatter is a great way of having a multiplayer not sound so empty. It would also be nice to know what teammates who don’t communicate are doing and I think that’s the main purpose of the chatter. Chatter would also be a cool way to include custom voices option from Reach.
It certainly isn’t a big deal for everybody, but like anything in this ballpark, it’s subjective. Whereas some may find that it’s helpful and seamless, others will feel as though it is contrived and unimmersive. Obviously, I’m with the latter. It isn’t a game-breaker, but it is something that can cause varying degrees of annoyance. That’s why I think it should be optional.
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> Depends how chatty they are. If it’s just call outs for things like grenades, then it might be fine. If they start dealing out praise or taunts, then I’ll have a problem. These are supposed to be our Spartans, and any time they say something we wouldn’t, that sense of ownership will be lost.
That’s another concern I forgot to raise. I don’t want to meticulously customize my Spartan to every last detail, only to be reeled back when he/she starts saying things that I don’t want to communicate to others.
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> > 2533274848539555;12:
> > Depends how chatty they are. If it’s just call outs for things like grenades, then it might be fine. If they start dealing out praise or taunts, then I’ll have a problem. These are supposed to be our Spartans, and any time they say something we wouldn’t, that sense of ownership will be lost.
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> That’s another concern I forgot to raise. I don’t want to meticulously customize my Spartan to every last detail, only to be reeled back when he/she starts saying things that I don’t want to communicate to others.
My feelings exactly. That was one of my biggest problems with Reach. They kept pushing the whole “this Spartan is you” angle, but every time Noble 6 opened his mouth I thought “no it isn’t”.
I’m not a fan of it. As you pointed out the announcer already talks to you when you do something great. And in halo 5’s case, tells you when the power weapons are coming in. The 2 things It actually does are: 1) letting you know if an enemy is around the corner since they DO yell out grenade if one lands near them and 2) When they picked up a power weapon.
The latter is nice. Because before there would be no way of knowing who has it without someone telling you. This way at least I know someone on my team has it. The former is something i’m not okay with because as of right now there is no known way to prevent it.
I also find it annoying that the game tells you “POWER WEAPONS IN 10” out loud followed by “SNIPER IN 10” out loud. Or whatever PW is there. It’s redundant not to mention annoying when the constant clicking of their walkie talkie, normal spartan chatter, and the announcer are all talking at once.
I only have one very small problem with it and that’s it might get in the way of machinimas but if we can disable it I will it will be a good addition.