Sprint and AA's Make Halo 4 a Failure?

Games Other Halo
1

Based on what I have seen so far, certainly not. Let me preface this by saying that my two favorite games in the series were Halo: CE, then Halo 2. I ADORE those games, and some of my best gaming memories come from throwing down in LAN parties during the CE days, and pulling all nighters on the BTB and Team Slayer playlists in Halo 2. Those games were monsterously competitive, and very fast paced.

Halo 3 was amazing as well, but between 3 and Reach, Reach takes the cake. Going from Halo 2 to Halo 3 wasn’t all that drastic. Reach, like Halo 2 however, dared to change things up. It tried new directions and had some great ideas at its core, but they were poorly implemented at launch.

The first thing I would address is the MLG community. Did they have to change some settings in Reach to make it more competitive? Yes. Did they have to eliminate most of the weapons in the sandbox? Yes. But did they eliminate AA’s? Not completely. And guess what? Did MLG change the settings in Halo 3 to make it more competitive? Yes. Did they eliminate most of the weapons in the sandbox? Yes. In Reach, even though you can’t spawn with crap like evade and jetpack, it’s still there on the map, and in some variants, you can still spawn with sprint.

Second: I’m frankly amazed at how people talk about the older games like they’re not relics of the past, and yes, this is coming from somebody who still places Halo: CE and Halo 2 at the top of his list for all time favorite games, not just in the Halo series, but ever. However, these two games were developed and released before games like CoD and Gears became huge, allowing players to sprint in the battlefield. Halo: CE in and Halo 2 were revolutionary games on the consoles, keeping in mind that Halo didn’t prove that FPS could work, it only proved it could work on the consoles, because Bungie nailed the control scheme, and found the perfect balance between skill and assisted aiming. Halo is not the only game to do things that take the FPS franchise further, CoD has done it, Battlefield has done it, (and even though it’s third person) GoW has even had it’s own influence on shooters this generation. To blatantly ignore the contributions and influence all these other shooters have had on games today, is ignorant at best, and would make Halo 4 a relic before it even hit the shelves.

Overall, I’m trying to say that AA’s shouldn’t be looked down upon just because Bungie poorly implemented them in Reach. It was the first game with AA’s, I would have been surprised if they actually nailed it. And just because Halo revolutionized console FPS when it was released, doesn’t mean the mechanics of the old games are outdated by today’s standards, and once again, that is coming from somebody whose two favorite games of all time are Halo: CE and Halo 2. Just wait for the game to come out, then we can pass some real judgement.

2

AA’s ruin Halo.

Sorry, its the truth.

3

> AA’s ruin Halo.
>
> Sorry, its the truth.

Why? That’s not valid without a good reason.

This is only an opinion and not a fact. In my opinion, armour abilities are good in the game because they add more variety, allow for me to adapt my play style during the game to help my team in different scenarios and allow me to specialise to suit a play style I like. Notice the reasons I added, which are my honest opinions by the way.

What’s even worse is the mass amount of judging on 20 seconds of footage. You are honestly going to tell me that you will judge a game on such little knowledge of it? Not to mention the fact that you can just go and play Halo 3/2 Vista/CE/CEA if you really don’t want those features. Play custom games if it bothers you that much! They will generally give you the option whether to have armour abilities or not. Don’t say that you won’t because you have to have rank because ranks are just shiny stickers. The argument that you also want to get ranks to unlock stuff is valid, but then you could just play the classic playlists.

Halo 4 is trying to cater for a wide variety of people, let’s wait for more footage and information to be released before making rash decisions.

4

343 said that if you get shot while your sprinting you slow down. I think sprint is fine now since they said that.

5

> AA’s ruin Halo.
>
> Sorry, its the truth.

Sorry, it’s an opinion. Not the truth. -_-

With the Title Update, Armour Abilities are fine and Reach is a lot more fun. I enjoy the unpredictability and change.

I like to think of some Halo players like this: Cavemen who won’t accept the existence of fire.

6

It all depends on how they are done. If the armor abilities are actively disrupting the classic grenade, melee, strafe-out-shoot battles, then armor abilities will again likely be received poorly by the community.

Most of the Halo 3 community disliked what bubble shield did to game play, and Armor Lock is basically a recharging bubble shield. It’s a easy-out button that slows the game down. Invisibility used to be a power-up worth fighting for, but it only gave a short lived advantage. Providing a recharging invisibility to an entire team was a simply terrible decision and only encouraged people to camp and play slower. Jet Pack ruins map design & flow, where players used to vie for position to control key line-of-sight locations, now jet pack provides players the ability to gain line-of-sight randomly. Map structure and geometry begins to become fairly meaningless.

Reach’s problems were only compounded by bloom, slow strafe speed, large hitboxes, and high auto-aim/aim-magnetism.

7

Sprint and AAs could be balanced. Armour perks can’t be, and I like how the vast majority of people keep forgetting about these. Sprint and AAs can be dealt with, at least to a degree, but when you get game play affecting bonuses based on how long you’ve played the game, that’s crossing the line.

8

What a bunch of crap. If CoD and Battlefield are using these things, that’s reason enough for Halo not to use them. Forget the debilitating effect they have on gameplay. Halo should be trying to separate itself from the other big FPSs. Reach already tried to grab those other audiences and failed miserably. Change for the sake of change is never a good thing.

> Overall, I’m trying to say that AA’s shouldn’t be looked down upon just because Bungie poorly implemented them in Reach.

There. Is. No. Good. Way. To. Implement. Them.

> And just because Halo revolutionized console FPS when it was released, doesn’t mean the mechanics of the old games are outdated by today’s standards, and once again, that is coming from somebody whose two favorite games of all time are Halo: CE and Halo 2.

I don’t care what your favorite games are. That doesn’t give you any credibility. All you’ve proven is that you’re completely oblivious as to why those games worked.

> Just wait for the game to come out, then we can pass some real judgement.

No. I don’t need to. I’ve seen this movie before, I already know the ending.

9

> What a bunch of crap. If CoD and Battlefield are using these things, that’s reason enough for Halo not to use them. Forget the debilitating effect they have on gameplay. Halo should be trying to separate itself from the other big FPSs. Reach already tried to grab those other audiences and failed miserably. Change for the sake of change is never a good thing.

And I suppose releasing the same game over and over and over again for 10 years is the better solution? It’s not like somebody is holding a gun to your head and telling you you’re not allowed to play Halo 3 if you still want to.

And btw, the only two things Reach, CoD, and BF ACTUALLY have in common is the fact that they’re all first person shooters, and you can sprint. That’s it.

> There. Is. No. Good. Way. To. Implement. Them.

Again, Reach was the first game to try and implement AA’s. Some of them we’re great ideas at their core, but poorly implemented. To honestly base your opinion of any future prospects of AA’s, based solely on Bungie’s one failed attempt to put them in a game, is ludicrous at best.

> I don’t care what your favorite games are. That doesn’t give you any credibility. All you’ve proven is that you’re completely oblivious as to why those games worked.

I played Halo: CE quite competitively. And while I was never really all that “good” so to speak at Halo 2, I was decent, and I logged over 5,000 games into it on XBoxLive. I assure you I am well aware of what made those games work. They were none the less, products of their own time, and are outdated by today’s standards.

> No. I don’t need to. I’ve seen this movie before, I already know the ending.

Oh so you’ve played Halo 4? How is it?

10

> AA’s ruin Halo.
>
> Sorry, its the truth.

Amen

11

> AA’s ruin Halo.
>
> Sorry, its the truth.

Based on what exactly? Map control is still crucial. Sprint and Jetpack do not eliminate this factor, they add to it if anything.

Shoot, nade, melee, strafe formula is still intact. The removal of bleedthrough, the much faster cooldown rates between melees, and the addition of strafe acceleration disrupt this element of Halo, and are far more detrimental to overall gameplay than AA’s.

> Sorry, it’s an opinion. Not the truth. -_-
>
> With the Title Update, Armour Abilities are fine and Reach is a lot more fun. I enjoy the unpredictability and change.
>
> I like to think of some Halo players like this: Cavemen who won’t accept the existence of fire.

Hit the nail right on the head. I didn’t really think Reach was all that great until 343I released the TU.

12

Armor Abilities are direct descendants of Halo 3 equipment. Lets be honest: Halo 3 equipment was a bit flakey; some of it ended up being redundant or useless (notably: the motion tracker jammer, or landmine). I personally hated the energy drainer because it messed with vehicular gameplay as much as the Sp’laser did. But, admittedly, some equipment was also quite useful to gameplay.

Compared to Reach’s AA, Halo 3’s equipment was pretty redundant. AA’s had more straight forward uses, combined some of Halo 3’s equipment and pickups, and generally improved upon the equipment concept. While the big argument tends to be about specific abilities such as Armor Lock, I don’t see very specific critiques very often about others, which brings me often to the conclusion that the people who don’t like the abilities probably don’t know what they want from AA’s, or never liked them to begin with.

AA’s are probably going to be in Halo now; they add to the gameplay and a majority of the fanbase either likes or doesn’t mind them. I personally think placing some of them on the map as pickups wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Others like sprint also wouldn’t be a bad starter ability.

I’ve said it other places, but it’s not like gametypes can’t already be tweaked to remove AA’s (Reach has some playlists like this). 343 isn’t going to remove an entire feature of the games, they’re more likely to adjust or redo them.

The good thing about these games is that we’re allowed to choose what we like, edit game types we like, and make maps we want. We do not have to play what everyone else plays. And, besides, if there is ever a huge problem things can be updated. Every online Halo game (minus ODST) saw major updates to improve on things people either disliked or was broken. There are not many games that allow the amount of customization as Halo 3 and Reach offer, and I can’t imagine Halo 4 will have less features than those two games have now.