The downward trend of Halo and how to stop it.

Games Halo Infinite
1

After reading the Update news i was mildly happy.
The description of implementing new mechanics and guns seemed very carefully thought out.
That helped a little bit to calm down my general skepticism about the clear downward trend of Halo games since Halo 3.

I loved Halo 2 & 3.
Reach was the first little disappointment.
Although i played it for 2 years, the DMR, jetpack and mapdesign wasnt mine.
Halo 4 was ok. But not as great as Halo 2&3.
I despised Halo 5 from the moment i saw the first trailer and never played a single game of it.
So naturally i am skeptic for the next one.

What do you identify as the big 3 things that are responsible for Halos dowward trend and how to stop it?

Mine would be

  • Map Layout
    Solution: less tube like maps. more “open space” for flanking, overview and team shot possibilities - Map Design
    Solution: less boring (especially inside). Less grey like reach. More rafiness, locations to hold instead of just a room with walls&obstacles - faster gameplay (sprint / thrusterpack / reload time)
    Solution: go back to original H2/H3 Gameplay. Give us more time in combat instead 1sec duels aka who misses first dies.
2

> 2533274793250636;1:
> After reading the Update news i was mildly happy.
> The description of implementing new mechanics and guns seemed very carefully thought out.
> That helped a little bit to calm down my general skepticism about the clear downward trend of Halo games since Halo 3.
>
> I loved Halo 2 & 3.
> Reach was the first little disappointment.
> Although i played it for 2 years, the DMR, jetpack and mapdesign wasnt mine.
> Halo 4 was ok. But not as great as Halo 2&3.
> I despised Halo 5 from the moment i saw the first trailer and never played a single game of it.
> So naturally i am skeptic for the next one.
>
> **What do you identify as the big 3 things that are responsible for Halos dowward trend and how to stop it?**Mine would be
> - Map Design - Map Design - faster gameplay (sprint / thrusterpack / reload time)

1: Continuation of Reach-esk mechanics into H4, single handily brought franchise down into irrelevancy
2: Bad developer that fails to understand what made Halo special and unique, continual disappointments
3: Trend-Chasing and over-modernizing, Halo has taken the track to being just like every other AAA hitmarker, sprint, slide and clamber shooter out there ( even throw in open-world campaign ) and has lost a lot of it’s appeal to older and classic fans ( while failing to grab new ones )

3

I actually liked most of the changed Halo 4 brought. I liked sprint since reach, I liked the armor ability system, I liked the speed increase of gameplay. However, 343s art design is so disgusting. It’s like they wanted Spartans to look like they were wearing scrap metal on a suit stolen from the crisis series. And the enemies… disgraceful what they did. The made elites onto essentially Lizard brutes. They made the bridlike jackels into dinosaurs, the grunts actually look cooler but their armor is terrible.

Over all by big 3 are
Art design
Enemy design
And 343s story telling and attempt to change the focus from chief to that crappy locke character. (Although buck is goat)

4

> 2533274793250636;1:
> and how to stop it?

Just like to emphasis this with everyone on this thread. Don’t want to turn this into a ranting thread, so please feel free to point out what you don’t like or consider a “downfall” but offer a solution to fix it.

5

> 2533274927740213;4:
> > 2533274793250636;1:
> > and how to stop it?
>
> Just like to emphasis this with everyone on this thread. Don’t want to turn this into a ranting thread, so please feel free to point out what you don’t like or consider a “downfall” but offer a solution to fix it.

your right, forgot that.
editet my post

6

Especially with Halo 4, for me and many friends, it was really dissaapointing. But when Halo 5 came, it was a mess. I play Ego-shooter games on Console because I’m too slow for it on PC and also games like CoD is way too fast for me. That’s why I really loved Halo, especially 3 and Reach. It was “slow” compared to other FPS games but seems to be more tactical. I also never had a problem without sprint, I always thought I’m a big Spartan, I walk fast.

Since 5 Halo is for me a Twitch-shooter and were there not the layout of Halo - I would have glassed the entire pla… - I mean, wouldn’t even had bought that game.

I’m more a fan of slower FPS and that was made Halo in the past so awesome for me. Nowadays it’s just widely-open maps and fast reaction gameplay. Well what is it good for if the main members of the Halo Community are those who actually love the story, the lore and are simple casual players? The e-sport aspect in Halo is really low and shouldn’t have at all more attention than the casual community

7

Yeah ‘fixing’ is subjective nowadays I think, and 343i’s certainly not going to just revert everything that’s happened since Reach just to appeal to the original fans that despise said changes and concepts. Less because “They don’t care / They don’t understand” but because there’s been several whole generations over of players since CE/2/3, and they’d like to keep Halo open to everyone, which includes the ‘Modern FPS’ base. After so many years, I’d like to think that there’s more of those than there are OG Halo fans.

I’d been playing CE since a few weeks after it released, but I’m not terribly opposed to change either. Halo 5 was almost a good ground there, but there was a bit too much focus on competitive play and not enough for casual play until very very late in the game’s lifespan.

8

> 2533274850869596;7:
> Less because “They don’t care / They don’t understand” but because there’s been several whole generations over of players since CE/2/3, and they’d like to keep Halo open to everyone, which includes the ‘Modern FPS’ base. After so many years, I’d like to think that there’s more of those than there are OG Halo fans.

I hate being this guy but I really hate the ideology of what you said. I fully understand it and in some ways actually agree with it.
But I can’t help and look at other games that stepped away from the “Modern Shooter” (Titanfall/Halo 5) mechanics and their doing amazing as far as continues playability.

CS:GO is still hitting over 1 million players on Steam (Yes I know its an old game) but as far as gameplay mechanics go its about as simple as it gets. The next “Modern shooter” is either PUBG or R6S. Which even still are basic gameplay style games.
But Twitch viewership most top watched games aren’t any games that resemble that “titanfall” gameplay

On True Achievements Xbox gameplay chart it shows more people play MCC than they do Halo 5.

Halo was the one who started trends and turned into a trend follower with arguably Reach. They’ve shown us they listen with going back to the roots as far as art style goes. But as far as gameplay for multiplayer. Well we’re all just gonna have to wait and see our first match to make final judgment.

9

> 2533274832360281;8:
> > 2533274850869596;7:
> > Less because “They don’t care / They don’t understand” but because there’s been several whole generations over of players since CE/2/3, and they’d like to keep Halo open to everyone, which includes the ‘Modern FPS’ base. After so many years, I’d like to think that there’s more of those than there are OG Halo fans.
>
> I hate being this guy but I really hate the ideology of what you said. I fully understand it and in some ways actually agree with it.
> But I can’t help and look at other games that stepped away from the “Modern Shooter” (Titanfall/Halo 5) mechanics and their doing amazing as far as continues playability.
>
> CS:GO is still hitting over 1 million players on Steam (Yes I know its an old game) but as far as gameplay mechanics go its about as simple as it gets. The next “Modern shooter” is either PUBG or R6S. Which even still are basic gameplay style games.
> But Twitch viewership most top watched games aren’t any games that resemble that “titanfall” gameplay
>
> On True Achievements Xbox gameplay chart it shows more people play MCC than they do Halo 5.
>
> Halo was the one who started trends and turned into a trend follower with arguably Reach. They’ve shown us they listen with going back to the roots as far as art style goes. But as far as gameplay for multiplayer. Well we’re all just gonna have to wait and see our first match to make final judgment.

It’s like a “for better or for worse” sort of deal I guess. They want it to appeal to everyone but no matter what they do, it’s still going to leave SOMEONE behind. Right now I think they’ve found a good compromise spot and aren’t going to back down from that, especially not this late in development. They’ve got the half-and-half graphic style, they have Equipment like Halo 3 without a large swath of built-in abilities, it’s not too wildly far in either spectrum.

At this point it’s pretty much a “Take it or leave it” for people if they want to bother continuing with Halo or not but I guarantee that no matter what happens, even if Infinite ends up surpassing Halo 3 in popularity, there’s still going to be a section of players who will condemn it as having killed the franchise and how it’s even worse than Halo 5. 343i’s just in a position where they simply can’t please everyone :confused:

As for population/playing, well I’m one of those folks that doesn’t have to see a game be in the Top Three for it to be considered ‘healthy’. MCC’s got crossplay now too so there’s that going for it as well. If 343i ported Halo 5 to Steam and worked in cross-platform play you could bet that its population would pick up considerably as well. Plus, the MCC is six games in one (CE, 2, 3, ODST, Reach, 4…) while Halo 5 is just one game.

So, where will Infinite leave us? Well, like I said - there’s going to be people who will absolutely hate it for one reason or another. There’s going to be people who feel it’s just “okay”. And then there’ll be people who love it. We’ll just have to wait and see. But as someone who genuinely enjoyed every Halo’s multiplayer from CE to 5, I don’t feel I’ll be among the ones who feel Infinite ‘failed us’. Will it have its shortcomings? Undoubtedly. But I don’t believe it’ll be a failure either.

10

> 2533274832360281;8:
> > 2533274850869596;7:
> > Less because “They don’t care / They don’t understand” but because there’s been several whole generations over of players since CE/2/3, and they’d like to keep Halo open to everyone, which includes the ‘Modern FPS’ base. After so many years, I’d like to think that there’s more of those than there are OG Halo fans.
>
> On True Achievements Xbox gameplay chart it shows more people play MCC than they do Halo 5.

It’s worth keeping in mind that MCC is also receiving new updates while H5 hasn’t gotten an update in some time. Prior to the recent content updates MCC was well below H5.

11

> 2533274927740213;10:
> > 2533274832360281;8:
> > > 2533274850869596;7:
> > > Less because “They don’t care / They don’t understand” but because there’s been several whole generations over of players since CE/2/3, and they’d like to keep Halo open to everyone, which includes the ‘Modern FPS’ base. After so many years, I’d like to think that there’s more of those than there are OG Halo fans.
> >
> > On True Achievements Xbox gameplay chart it shows more people play MCC than they do Halo 5.
>
> It’s worth keeping in mind that MCC is also receiving new updates while H5 hasn’t gotten an update in some time. Prior to the recent content updates MCC was well below H5.

Right, always worth noting that updates keep people’s interest alive. I remember when it started to get hard to find SOS matches in Monster Hunter and then all a sudden HEY GUYS NEW UPDATE! and suddenly everyone’s back. Rinse and repeat until Fatalis and they mention “Okay we’re done now”. and its back to being somewhat dry. Except for on PC, but there’s no crossplay so…

12

Edit please ignore.

13

> 2533274927740213;4:
> > 2533274793250636;1:
> > and how to stop it?
>
> Just like to emphasis this with everyone on this thread. Don’t want to turn this into a ranting thread, so please feel free to point out what you don’t like or consider a “downfall” but offer a solution to fix it.

Stop trend chasing and listen to the community that supports mcc and is triple the size of h5. The same one that tried to prevent it in these forums when they switched from Bungie to 343. From what I’ve seen so far looks like they were forced to based on numbers anyways. The game looks fresh so Im optimistic. Free to play was a really good decision and I think was best against titles that are competing these days. Hoping for actual ranks that show Ive gotten champ 66. Wouldd be nice to know the diamond Im playing is actually a champ 1 highest rank.

14

The closer Infinite would resemble Halo 3, the better. Halo is still the only game that provides this kind of FPS gameplay, so why try to be anything else?

15

> 2533274793250636;1:
> After reading the Update news i was mildly happy.
> The description of implementing new mechanics and guns seemed very carefully thought out.
> That helped a little bit to calm down my general skepticism about the clear downward trend of Halo games since Halo 3.
>
> I loved Halo 2 & 3.
> Reach was the first little disappointment.
> Although i played it for 2 years, the DMR, jetpack and mapdesign wasnt mine.
> Halo 4 was ok. But not as great as Halo 2&3.
> I despised Halo 5 from the moment i saw the first trailer and never played a single game of it.
> So naturally i am skeptic for the next one.
>
> **What do you identify as the big 3 things that are responsible for Halos dowward trend and how to stop it?**Mine would be
> - Map Layout
> Solution: less tube like maps. more “open space” for flanking, overview and team shot possibilities - Map Design
> Solution: less boring (especially inside). Less grey like reach. More rafiness, locations to hold instead of just a room with walls&obstacles - faster gameplay (sprint / thrusterpack / reload time)
> Solution: go back to original H2/H3 Gameplay. Give us more time in combat instead 1sec duels aka who misses first dies.

For me the biggest problem was the emphasis on the competitiveness of the franchise. Halo 5 is a sweatfest and its not very enjoyable trying to relax because nothing about Halo 5 has any degree of chill.

But I dont know how to fix that. What I do know is that the map design is feeling rather cluttered but devoid of extra routes. Ground vehicles and people on foot need more paths and walkways that vehicles cant interfere with (especially Banshees). And whilst we’re on the topic of vehicles: Not every map needs a Banshee and I’m sick of dealing with them.

Trying to defeat banshees is just plain boring because nobody worth their weight in salt will allow you to board them and they will use effective cover against attempts to shoot them down if they know how to move.

**Lets please introduce a UNSC flying vehicle to either A. Replace Banshees in non-BTB/Heavies gametypes or B. To counter the Banshee dominance. The Hornet and Falcon although fun had some problems. The Falcon especially because the chin gun was too OP for multiplayer but the pilot had zero offensive options and could only move the Falcon (which moves far slower than a Banshee) out of harms way. This results in no one even taking Falcons anymore because whats the point?**The easier target gets shot down first.

16

> 2535465841210047;15:
> Halo 5 is a sweatfest and its not very enjoyable trying to relax because nothing about Halo 5 has any degree of chill.

i feel the same.
Part of the problem is of course the increased speed of

  • running / sprinting / climbing / thruster packs - radical reduced reload speed - clustered map design that creates a narrowness - even the sound feels more overwhelmingAll that adds up to an atmosphere of unforgiving pressure.
    I believe that is one reason why casuals left the game very fast and more or less only the top competitive players still plays.
    And i blame the obsession of too much action. I think the goal was to approach CoD fans.

But Halo never was a fast paced game until Halo 5.
Although Halo 4 was a little bit fast than its predecessor, its still had the overall Halo vibe.
The difference between Reach and Halo 5 is indisputable and is responsible for the decrease of players.

17

> 2533274793250636;16:
> > 2535465841210047;15:
> > Halo 5 is a sweatfest and its not very enjoyable trying to relax because nothing about Halo 5 has any degree of chill.
>
> i feel the same.
> Part of the problem is of course the increased speed of
> - running / sprinting / climbing / thruster packs - radical reduced reload speed - clustered map design that creates a narrowness - even the sound feels more overwhelmingAll that adds up to an atmosphere of unforgiving pressure.
> I believe that is one reason why casuals left the game very fast and more or less only the top competitive players still plays.
> And i blame the obsession of too much action. I think the goal was to approach CoD fans.
>
> But Halo never was a fast paced game until Halo 5.
> Although Halo 4 was a little bit fast than its predecessor, its still had the overall Halo vibe.
> The difference between Reach and Halo 5 is indisputable and is responsible for the decrease of players.

It also feels like map control matters less in Halo 5 because as long as you can pop off, it doesnt matter where you’re at.

plus just get a Phaeton and you’ll basically never lose.

18

> 2533274927740213;10:
> > 2533274832360281;8:
> > > 2533274850869596;7:
> > > Less because “They don’t care / They don’t understand” but because there’s been several whole generations over of players since CE/2/3, and they’d like to keep Halo open to everyone, which includes the ‘Modern FPS’ base. After so many years, I’d like to think that there’s more of those than there are OG Halo fans.
> >
> > On True Achievements Xbox gameplay chart it shows more people play MCC than they do Halo 5.
>
> It’s worth keeping in mind that MCC is also receiving new updates while H5 hasn’t gotten an update in some time. Prior to the recent content updates MCC was well below H5.

That’s absolutely false.
In the last few years I’ve checked the “most played list” on XBL regularly (read: roughly once per week) and while both games were consistently in the lower half of the Top 50, the number of times I’ve seen H5G outperform MCC in, say, two years before Reach’s release (i.e. the start of MCC’s regular updates) I can count on one hand. Most of the time, H5G wasn’t even on the Top 50. Ironically, it was exactly those “updates” that kept H5G afloat, as soon as those stopped, that game was pretty much dead in the water.
Unfortunately, Xbox doesn’t archive their lists, so it’s pretty much impossible to confirm years later. I can provide sources from TrueAchievements news on XBL population from that time period, but those are problematic as TA never released how their data is obtained.

19

> 2533274793250636;1:
> After reading the Update news i was mildly happy.
> The description of implementing new mechanics and guns seemed very carefully thought out.
> That helped a little bit to calm down my general skepticism about the clear downward trend of Halo games since Halo 3.
>
> I loved Halo 2 & 3.
> Reach was the first little disappointment.
> Although i played it for 2 years, the DMR, jetpack and mapdesign wasnt mine.
> Halo 4 was ok. But not as great as Halo 2&3.
> I despised Halo 5 from the moment i saw the first trailer and never played a single game of it.
> So naturally i am skeptic for the next one.
>
> **What do you identify as the big 3 things that are responsible for Halos dowward trend and how to stop it?**Mine would be
> - Map Layout
> Solution: less tube like maps. more “open space” for flanking, overview and team shot possibilities - Map Design
> Solution: less boring (especially inside). Less grey like reach. More rafiness, locations to hold instead of just a room with walls&obstacles - faster gameplay (sprint / thrusterpack / reload time)
> Solution: go back to original H2/H3 Gameplay. Give us more time in combat instead 1sec duels aka who misses first dies.

I actually love Halo: Reach, cinematically and visually I enjoy it the most (especially the military style/focus,) with Halo 3 being a close second, since it is a bigger/more epic story. At least for me, I don’t think the issue lies solely with gameplay/mulitplayer and balancing, and much moreso with art style and intent of the developers. I’ll provide a list, and my solutions as well.

1: Art Style: An attempt to flip one of the key factors in the halo series, the forerunners being gone. This was a massive change, and made the big beautiful empty haunting rings become these weirdly bright and fancy looking places… this alone was the biggest issue I had with Halo 4 and 5. In my mind, reverting to an older art style and more inert forerunner structures will help this a lot, but the return of the flood would be a huge key factor in this as well.

2: Story changing instead of continuing: The world of Halo under bungie grew massively from its origins with Fall of Reach and CE. Yet, it always felt like it was still true to its core, and every book and game had a similar feeling to the original. I think that there is now less emphasis on the whole future space navy and more focus on a character who was intentionally not an in-depth character. I think in this case, I would like to see Master Chief take a smaller role, simply as a player avatar again. I would like to see supporting characters like Lasky and the Arbiter step up to do more emotional lifting, and I would like to see a story that returns more to the gritty, against all odds, desperate future space navy that we all loved.

3: Catering to the largest possible market of casual players.

This is one big sensitive point for me. Everything 343 is doing seems to be focused on the kind of casual gamers who pop in and play a game for a few months after it comes out, but who play a lot online and get the kind of statistics they are looking for (and purchase a bunch of stupid skins etc…) They seem to be ignoring the long time die-hard fans, removing classic features and weapons and gravitating towards seasonal content and lots of little multiplayer cosmetics etc.

I think the core of a Halo Game, especially an open world one, should be the campaign. I think that campaign should be designed to build on previous Halo offerings, and be an immersive experience in the universe. Multiplayer maps can be built from the campaign. It seems like everything is framed in terms of the sandbox, multiplayer, and balance. Some weapons are simply unbalanced… a shotgun is OP in close quarters, and a sniper is OP at long range. Maybe just let that be?

20

I keep hearing “Player count dwindled!” as a sign that a given Halo title is bad or dead or both - but even though some of these games weren’t “Halo 3 at its utmost peak” levels of population it was still what I’d consider ‘healthy’. Maybe as a result I have what others may be considering to be lower standards, but as long as I can find games more or less reliably it doesn’t matter to me if the game’s not consistently in some Top 5 Most Played Games in the World list or anything. Halo 5’s current population shouldn’t be surprising, given its age. I can still get games in Big Team and most ‘social’ playlists easily though - but Warzone’-Yoink!- and miss. Shame, since its the only thing in 5 that comes close to what I loved most about Halo 4, and that was Dominion.

Granted yes, I remember Halo 4 searches not being the best (outside of Big Team anyway) and Halo 5 comes/goes, but to me back then it was less population that was my concern and more that P2P meant a lot of games ended up blackscreening or kicking me out. Today though, anytime I filter by “Halo 4 Only” in the matchmaking composer or go into Halo 4 Squad I can find games pretty much back to back at any given time. Things have changed since the original 360 release I guess.