WARNING: Slightly Long Read Ahead.
I’ve played Halo since 2001, probably put well over 2,500 hours into it over the years, something I’m not proud of. Well, as a halo veteran, I prefer this radar range over the previous Halo games and I’ll explain why, so please keep an open mind. First off, I don’t get why people say get the radar “fixed” as if the motion sensor is “broken”. Broken implies it doesn’t work as designed to. It does work, just not the same as previous Halos. In the past Halo games, you could win by watching your radar 60% of the time, and looking at the screen 40% of the time.
In short, 18 meter radar encourages:
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team work and communication - intelligence - map and situational awarenessLarger radar eliminates the importance of those. Still, for players who don’t want to bother with none of the above, it increased the “hints” it gives players such as:
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Spartan chatter (callouts for teammates who don’t want to talk) - enemy hit markers (you know where the enemy is when using grenades/splash damage weapons) - player hit markers (you have a general direction of where you are taking damage from) - audio specific hints (ground pound: you know someone is above you, shoulder charge: you know someone is sprinting toward your direction) - carnage report (lets you know who has what weapon and how many players on each team is on the map) - service tags above players (if yellow, you know your teammate has encountered an enemy)Radar should only be used in close range encounters, why watch your radar at medium range? Just look at what’s going on around you on the screen and listen to the audio cues instead of watching the corner of your screen.
The biggest counter argument is how the Spartan Charge eliminates the usefulness of radar. It’s not supposed to warn you against Spartan charges. Spartan charges was never meant to be on radar, it was meant to exploit the radar’s range taking on the risk that if a Spartan charge fails, the player would be completely vulnerable. In more competitive levels, a player would get a good enough read on the other player to predict if they would Spartan charge or not. Lower level competition simply Spartan charge hoping to get rewarded. because since its lower level of competition, other players don’t know how to react or prepare for a Spartan charge.
Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Designer, Quinn DelHoyo, stated that…
> “Lesser skilled players never looked at it, the higher skilled players always looked at it, and the top level players did both as they quickly learned the maps and understood where everyone was by a quick glance at the radar. The radar has now become less of a motion tracker that sees through multiple rooms and is now more of a combat tracker that promotes engagement. If someone shows up on your radar, they are REALLY close and a fight is about to go down. This is something that we feel is in line with our equal starts philosophy where everyone at all skill levels and competition will be playing the same game”
My final note is, if all the previous Halo games had 18m radar and Halo 5 had 25m radar. People would bash it as being too easy to spot an enemy and favors camping because now you can prepare for someone coming from farther away. Also, what’s the point of having increased Spartan movement abilities when radar is large enough to negate such abilities? It’s also very ironic that Halo 4 was shunned as being too casual and takes less skill, but now Halo 5 is being hated on for being too competitive and requires some teamwork. You don’t have to adapt, you have to just use your brain a little more.