Hello!
Here is my feedback so far with tech demo.
Pros -
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Gameplay feels solid and responsive. Simple things like movement and jumping, felt really nice. In most cases when we interacted with the map it rarely gave us issues.
I think the only time controls felt off were during CTF moments like trying to drop the flag. At times it would not register that I was trying to pickup/throw the flag. More over Aiming also gave me issues until I tweaked out some setting on the menu. (so that’s more or less my bad, however, I normally try to avoid changing default control settings). The combat flow that we all know and love is here and we loved it. Throw nades, shoot a few rounds and smash face at the end! Good stuff.
One of the coolest aspects of gameplay I ran into was like a chase mechanic that I believe players are creating awesome tense moments of cops/robbers chases. Those who abuse the tunnel’s on the Live Fire will agree to this surely. The hit and run fights were epic and equipment help elevate this to new heights. -
Equipment. Here I feel for the most part Equipment was a blast to use and figure out. I understand when 1st taking on the grappleshot for example I would use it normally for getting in and out of fights and beating players to key locations on the map. However naturally later you would Snatch the flag from a dangerous drop point, or steal a over shield from a foe ready to camp the location. I believe while I really like the drop shield most people would agree the time to deploy is still rather slow. In most cases I rarely saw this item being chased, or used at all. Am sure something about the drop shield needs a little bit more work. The rest were fine and tons of fun to use. I saw some really awesome uses even for old favorites like the cloak. I can’t wait to see what players do in the full game and make incredible gaming moments.
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Maps. I really enjoyed all the maps here none of them felt boring or stale at all. I come from the vanguard beta and level design was a major problem there. Behemoth was a real stand out for here as it reminded me of some classic larger mirror maps from the older halo series without feeling over bloated. However, my friends will go to the grave saying Bazaar was the best map as it reminded them of the classic tight halo 2 maps. Please don’t take this the wrong way but Live Fire was my least favorite as it felt unbalanced, stronghold on this map made that pretty clear. Yet as a slayer map it was great and did grow on me. On a humorous note: Why is a spartan dying to a foot of water when jumping off certain parts of this map? Recharge, was another map that quickly grew on us. The mad dash to the OS at the bottom is wonderful and the trolls that wait for you at the hammer spawn had us laughing.
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Personal A.I. Am not sure why this was not added sooner. The AI companion you get to personalize is pretty awesome and shocked us on how much it grew on us. We really dug the cheerful quips as you make some power plays. I found myself talking back to it as so as my friends which stopped making fun of me after awhile. While it adds to the world and immersing the player. I really appreciated the positivity that is sorely missing from FPS titles these days. We really hope you expand on this concept, add more voices later on, and give the AI some other task to perform.
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Visuals. I thought graphics were great here and is gonna be a great showcase for the Xbox this winter. Particle effects, shadows, lighting, textures everything really popped here and looked way better then the 1st tech build that we saw in the summer.
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Music. Too good. Keep up the good work. No complaints here.
CONS-
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Radar. I know, I know. give me a minute here to explain. While I heart the classic radar brought back here. I feel this was a missed opportunity to really come up something more interesting here. Like for example have the Personal A.I. show you the map with one arm as a cooldown? Something just a bit more exciting to reward players who don’t use it and players that do have to sacrifice mobility or screen space? It would also be great to have a teammate be dedicated scout to use the radar to make call out to other teammates as well. I might be alone on this but am curious to see what other fans think about this subject. Do we really need a radar in every modern FPS?
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Game modes. We really enjoyed strongholds but I feel this mode is not enough to bring new players in. Sure it does create some great tug o war battles but in some maps like live fire it can bring large frustrations. CTF and team slayer will always be awesome but one of the main highlights to a new series in a major franchise is adding some new hooks on game modes. Lets take Battlefield 2042 for example, while am not a fan of the series I can admit the new mode called: Portal. Really caught my eye. The mode may crash and burn out but at least they are coming up with something new and most importantly willing to take that risk. With forge getting delayed this does worry me and plenty of others.
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Some weapons. Don’t get me wrong I really had fun with the sidearm and Commando. However there were some weapons that just didn’t click with us. Weapons like the needler. I agree this should be a strong pick up but it felt really inconsistent. Some times destroying foes and other times felt like none of the needles landed. Moreover the plasma Rifle was painful to use. The rate of fire and the time to travel to our target was… underwhelming. The plasma pistol was decent yet the sounds on the pistol were extremely low, like a whimper compared to the others. I believe it is time for the plasma pistol to get some sort of redesign?
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Party system/Menus. At times the game felt like it froze when sending out invites or when a match was canceled. The queue system would freeze too, forcing my team to disband to remake a room. People also pointed out that the banner was covering the joining teammates and yes, it does. Please move the banner. Next point to bring up was the menus? My screen would flicker when going through some menus at random? I did confirm that my friends all had the same issues as well. (PC/X/S) While we at this subject the main menu feels really bland compare to most games and even the MCC. I hope this is just a place holder for the real game. I don’t know why but this gave me Gears 5 early days vibes and that’s not good.
. Over all I was extremely surprised the Tech demo was so much fun. I cannot wait to try out BTB later this weekend. Keep up the great work 343!! I look forward to providing more feedback soon!