I know that I am not the first to say this, but it is something that must be said by many. The “CSR” ranking system was announced 3 days after site traffic peaked in response to the bulletin that stated that no such thing would be in the game at launch. 343 listens, and like the competitive crowd, we shall make ourselves heard.
My Halo 4 experience was much like that of others on this forum. After a long day of monotone lectures and hasty note-scribbling, I traveled to my local electronics retailer to pick up my reserved copy of Halo 4. I was delighted, like a child in a candy store. I frolicked happily home (note: I did not actually frolic), threw off my uncomfortable articles of formality, installed the second game disc, and prepared to open my mind to a whole new world of possibilities.
What I got, in defiance of expectation, was quite different. A quick peruse through the menus evoked sadness when I noticed that many an old gametype had been axed, seven of them, in fact. At that moment, I knew that gone were the days of action-packed Invasions, tactical Assaults, challenging and fantastic Races, and the myriad of minigames that depended on the minor gametypes of Stockpile, Headhunter, and Juggernaut. Unsurprisingly, VIP had not been brought forward from Halo 3, either, leaving its fans in the dust as well. After seeing this poor list of gametypes, I worried for all of the fan-favorite customs that could never be, and then I remembered, “Infection’s still here!” With this brief light of assurance that things could turn out for the better, I jumped into the game options for Flood, and what did I find?
It almost drove me to tears. In an odd, quite pathetic way, it broke my heart to see that Flood was not Infection at all - that imposter’s game did not deserve a title with such ethos as Infection. Many, a great many, of the settings in Flood I found to be concrete, intangible, including the ability to alter the zombie loadouts. I began running through a list in my mind of how many beloved minigames that small alteration had taken from the community. The custom game options in Halo 4 pale in comparison to its predecessor. Locked settings, removed gametypes, and missing toggles that, at least in a Halo game, ought to be there, all of these severely restrict the variety of custom games possible in this new game.
I understand, 343, that the competitive community is important, and that it is vital that the casual player to be catered to as well, but there’s a substantial population that you’ve completely missed. It is a population neither mutually exclusive to casuals or competitives, though likely outnumbers the latter, that have been so let down by the feature cuts to Halo 4 that some have been driven back to Reach and Halo 3 because of them. This is a day and a half after the US launch, and already this population is up and arms, not because of an exploit or a slight oversight in regards to balance, but because of what seems to some of them as a downright betrayal of one of Halo’s most beloved features - customization.
They are the Custom Gamers.
We are the Custom Gamers.
I am a Custom Gamer.
And neither they, nor we, nor I, will stand idly by as one segment of Halo’s fanbase gets promised the gems they’ve sought and another is left with naught but dirt and stone.
The request is thus: That, at the very least, the customizability, the custom game options themselves, are upgraded to the level of Reach. The means, namely, that there are no more locked settings. Flood loadouts can be customized, weapons on map can be enabled for all gametypes, and nothing is left at “True”, “False”, “Enabled” or “Disabled” and grayed out, unable to be changed. Many players in the custom games community would also enjoy seeing the Race and Assault gametypes return that were never given an explanation as to why they were gone at all.
The following is a list of Gametypes from Halo 3 and Reach, played by,and loved by, many, that are no longer possible with the restricted settings:
> Fat Kid (a.k.a. Fat Man or Fat Guy)
> Zombie Ghosts
> Ghost Busters
> Garbage Day (a.k.a. Garbage Man)
> Race / Rocket Race
> HaloBall
> Hockey
> Grab & Hold
> Cops & Robbers (a.k.a. Teachers & Students)
> Stockpile / Speedpile
> Purple Bunker
> Scopeless
> Duck Hunt (a.k.a. Shooting Gallery)
> Search & Destroy: Halo Edition
> Safe Havens
> ENEMY AC-130 ABOVE!
> Halo-on-Halo
> Tetris
> Juggernaut / Astronaut / Ninjanaut
> Cat & Mouse
> Tremors
> Break the Floor (a.k.a. Hobo Heights)
> Escort Package
> Invasion Slayer / Spartan Skirmish
> Assassin’s Creed
If you can think of more now-impossible gametypes or you know of a creative method to work around these new restrictions, leave a comment with details.