The Multiplayer Experience. . .

Games Other Halo
1

I’ve been playing the series since the first Halo came out. I’ve loved them all, some more than others for different reasons. As i enjoyed playing all the campaigns, i was mainly in it for the multiplayer experience.

TL;DR - Halo 4’s multiplayer experience needs to ditto Halo 2’s.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Pure nostalgia. Nuff said.

Halo 2 - In my mind this was the greatest console game ever made.

Halo 3 - Forge (MUST have)

Halo ODST - Firefight

Halo: Reach - Overall pretty solid game with some minor setbacks…

Halo 4 - As most know the new 343 division has taken over. The question is what are they going to do with the game? Will they have any new features or will they just improve the current systems?

This all brings me to what i would like to see in Halo 4 and what would make the sexiest most polished off game. Halo 2, in my opinion, was pretty much almost perfect. I loved pretty much everything about it. Everyday i would get home from school and get on Xbox Live and play with my friends for hours. Every time we had a sleep over we would play all night. For me there were several things that made the game so great and what distinguishes it from most other games.

  1. The Leveling System - Levels 1-50 for each game-type. No ranks. No experience. No credits. Just you and your level. My average was about a 29 and my best was a 32 due to modders (they were the worst thing in Halo 2, haven’t heard much complaining about them in the newer games). Whenever my friends and i saw someone level 35 or higher we knew 1 of 3 things. 1. They were really good, and we were about to get raped. 2. They were a modder and we were still about to get raped. 3. Their modder friend boosted them up and (depending if they were with that friend or not) they were about to get raped. Over time anyone can become a general or 10th prestige. In Halo 2 if you want that -Yoink!- ring you had to be a bad -Yoink- or a modder.

  2. Clan Game-type - Best game-type ever? Get together with you friends, make a freaking awesome clan name, and play some other clans in anything from 3v3 to 6v6 (correct me if i’m wrong). Once again, this game-type was plagued with modders.

  3. Post Game Lobby - Perhaps my favourite thing. No time limit. The ultimate -Yoink- show. Every single person talking -Yoink- and yelling into their mics. Me? I’d be laughing the whole time at the carnage going on. Keep the no time limit thing but maybe add in a party-up option for those that want to make some friends. Leave whenever you want.

  4. Equipments/Armour Abilities - Equipments weren’t my favourite things but they grew on me
    over time, and without them the controller would have a few empty buttons :confused: Armour Abilities on the other hand i despise 100% hands down the 2nd worst thing in Reach (right behind the DMR at #1). I would definitely like to not see the armour abilities again. Ever. I’d be perfectly fine with seeing the equipments again though. Everyone loves throwing the power drain at a warthog :stuck_out_tongue:

  5. Battle Rifle/DMR - Battle Rifle > DMR

(6+7 are more funsie driven things for me)

  1. SWORD CANCELING!!! - Honestly, who didn’t love doing this in Halo 2? Breaking out of maps and Yoink! around in custom maps was one of the most fun things to do with you friends. It would be awesome to see some easter eggs or something when you break out too :wink:

  2. The Brute Shot - Yup, but with a twist. Bring the Brute Shot from Halo 2 back (the one that dips when you shoot it, instead of going straight forever). I have a lot of favourite things from Halo 2 but my absolute FAVOURITE thing to do was play Troy on Coagulation. Also, i love the skill that was involved with shooting it, it made you think a little harder than the other one.

Please remember i’m not talking about the campaign or custom games. I’m strictly talking matchmaking. Thank you.

That’s pretty much it, i did leave many other things out like vehicles, weapons, etc. . . i just want to cover what i thought was a strong foundation for the game. I would love to see everyone’s opinions and feedback on this. Finally, i leave you with this picture, if this does not give you a hard on, then you truly don’t understand or see the perfectness that is… Halo 2.

http://i4.lulzimg.com/i/a0e2b839.jpg

Note: this is all my opinion, so i hope nobody gets offended or butt hurt from reading this.

Edit: 10/11/11 - Title change “The Halo i once loved (and still do). . .” to “The Multiplayer Experience”
Edit: 11/28/11 - Added TL;DR

2

I strongly agree with every point you made.

3

I just think that Halo 2 was the golden era of Halo, therefore the things from the OP should be in Halo 4.

4

I agree with what the OP said 100%. Halo 2 was the best game, so many good memories. I hope 343 reads what the OP is saying.

5

I really do agree that Halo 2 was the “Gold Era” of Halo. I only brought up 5 things, all of which i could’ve talked about for a lot longer. There are still so many more things that could be talked about (which most are on this forum, glad to see it).

I’m new to the forums if you guys couldn’t tell, but a thing i keep seeing a lot is people wanting to remove both the Equipments and the Armour Abilities. If we look back to Halo 2, it was a regular Xbox game (not 360). The controller had a different design than that of the 360 model, there were no bumpers on it. With the integration of the bumpers on the controller they were able to do a lot more with their games, and so they added the equipments. In Halo 4 i highly doubt that they’re going to get rid of both the Equipments and the Armour Abilities, the controller would become slightly naked and empty. I think what we can expect to see is either one of the two systems come back or… a whole new system altogether (which could be fun, but there’s always a chance it won’t become a hit). If i had to choose a system i would go with the Equipments, bring them back and just polish them off, i felt they brought a lot to the game, they were always fun to use, whenever i died with an equipment on i would hate myself about it forever but every time it happened it would help me get a little better. For me, it also brought a certain randomness to the game, when you engage someone in combat you don’t know whether or not they have an equipment, so it’s something you’re always thinking about. While we’re here, i would like to see Trip Mines with a bigger role in games with vehicles (i’ve always want to throw one at an incoming warthog, or throw one down early and get a kill from it later).

Also, another thing that i would just die for to see… Are you guys ready for this one?!?

Ready?

…

SWORD CANCELING!!! - Honestly, who didn’t love doing this in Halo 2? Breaking out of maps and -Yoinking!- around in custom maps was one of the most fun things to do with you friends. It would be awesome to see some easter eggs or something when you break out too :wink:

(Does anyone know if you can edit posts or not?)

Thanks for the feedback so far guys! Couldn’t thank you enough, 3 replies strong!

6

> I strongly agree with every point you made.

Indeed. Except for point number 4. AAs and equipment are horrid for competitive play and just because you have more buttons doesn’t mean you need to do something with 'em. Look at the keyboard. How many ‘buttons’ does it have? A ton of 'em! Does a PC game use all of them? No.

Button combos where also fantastic. Another thing I like about Halo 2 was that in social playlists every time you found a player (whilst searching in MM) you could talk to them whilst you were still searching for more. It was great. In Halo 3 and Reach you need to wait till the parties full before you can talk to anyone.

7

> > I strongly agree with every point you made.
>
> Indeed. Except for point number 4. AAs and equipment are horrid for competitive play and just because you have more buttons doesn’t mean you need to do something with 'em. Look at the keyboard. How many ‘buttons’ does it have? A ton of 'em! Does a PC game use all of them? No.
>
> Button combos where also fantastic. Another thing I like about Halo 2 was that in social playlists every time you found a player (whilst searching in MM) you could talk to them whilst you were still searching for more. It was great. In Halo 3 and Reach you need to wait till the parties full before you can talk to anyone.

I feel exactly the same way about the Armour Abilities and Equipments (i really do), however i think the likelihood of getting rid of both of them altogether is highly unlikely. If they were to make Halo 4 a complete remake of Halo 2 (kinda like with the Combat Evolved Anniversary about to happen, and with some more maps and stuff…) i would honestly have absolutely 0 complaints. I would fall in love all over again.

How would you feel if they brought back just the Equipments, but they left them out of Team Slayer? Keep them in social to have a little fun every now and then? So (just thought of this) maybe having something like a Hardcore Slayer gametype? I don’t want to get to in depth about gametypes right now, but that was just a thought.

You just got me jumping up and down in excitement right now because i almost forgot about talking to people DURING the search for a party in matchmaking. Definitely definitely DEFINITELY MUST bring this back! :smiley:

8

Halo 2. Best multi-player console game ever made. Owning some bz’s in Halo 3 right meow. :wink:

9

Yeah, Halo 4 will be Awesome, I know 343i won’t disappoint the millions of people who will buy it.

10

If i had to use 4 letters to describe the potential of Halo 4, it would be SWAG.

11

I agree with everything you posted. I think that H3 was still a really good Halo but nowhere as good as H2. And Reach is the worst of the Halo’s due to AAs and Bloom.

12

I honestly think that Halo 2’s campaign was the best but Halo 3’s multiplayer and forge were the more refined of Halo 2’s

13

In my opinion Halo: Combat Evolved had the best campaign.

Halo 2 had the best multiplayer, nothing comes close to it.

Halo 3’s addition of the Forge was brilliant. The addition of more gametypes, such as Infection was a must need. I admit a lot of my time in Halo 2 was in custom games with full parties playing Zombies and messing around. Always hated it when you killed someone and they never switched teams :stuck_out_tongue:

All in all, i play these games for the multiplayer. Yes i do the campaign when i first get the game, i love the lore of the series and can’t get enough of it. In the long run, however, i think i speak for everyone when i say that the multiplayer experience is what drives the us all, thus making it the most important thing.

I feel that they should really just take the Halo 2 multiplayer experience and polish it over and over again. With all the newer features they have produced, such as Forge, Theater, and Firefight. I see no reason why this game couldn’t revolutionize the way it did when Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 came out.

14

This post is full of so much win. I am completely with you in that an exact remake of Halo 2 would make me extremely happy. So while that won’t happen, the least we can hope for is that Halo 4 takes a ton from Halo 2, the best online MP of the series.

Not sure which thing I agree with most out of all of your points either, I am in huge favor of the H2 rank system, but the gameplay was also so awesome too!

15

For me the optimal Halo game would be:

Halo 3 weapons, but with the post TU Halo 2 BR, pre-TU Halo 2 pistol, and a more accurate version of the Halo 1 AR.

Halo 2 ranked playlists, and the exact same ranking system, because as long as you didn’t cheat, rank was literally a reflection of how good you were at the game.

Halo 2 clans! Why did they get rid of this?! Terrible decision. Terrible terrible terrible…

Halo 3 equipment, get rid of the armor abilities from Reach.

Halo 3 vehicles (though I still want to see the Sniper Rifle do some serious damage to vehicles)

Halo 1 frag grenades. I liked it better when they did more damage, but the objective was to get the grenade where you wanted it to be, and get it to completely stop moving before it blew up. Rather than the whole bounce it to where you want it to blow up philosophy.

Reach armor customization!

And if we could take Forge to a whole new level than it already is, that would be absolutely insane!

16

halo 1 frag was only balanced because how fast u can kill ppl with magnum

17

I agree with every point you made, especially the Armor Abilities VS Equipment. I’d bring back equipment, and leave AAs on Reach.

And yes, bring back the Clan system. It should have never been removed.

Halo 3 vehicle health, please.

18

> halo 1 frag was only balanced because how fast u can kill ppl with magnum

Not really, they do the same damage as a Reach grenade, they just had a slightly wider blast radius, because their fuse time was just slightly longer.

Once again, the trick with the Halo 1 frags was not to try and bounce them off the floor to where you wanted them to go. The fuse didn’t start until the grenade was completely immobile.

I would also love it if you could throw grenades like you did in Halo 1, as in, not throwing them like a girl.

19

I agree with all of this except the AA/Equipment argument. Both of them shouldn’t be in Halo 4. They’re unnecessary additions and as well as random factors.

Just give me my gun, a grenade and my wits please.

But yeah, Halo 2 had the best MP, BY FAR. It’s no coincidence that Halo isn’t as popular as it was back then, the games have steadily declined and strayed from it’s roots.

Look at CoD for example, it gets bashed because it’s released every year. But does it fundamentally change what makes it so popular? The core gameplay mechanics. No. Which is why it’s so popular. Why change something that’s so successful?

Halo 3 and to a larger extent Reach did change the core gameplay mechanics. The result was less satisfying gameplay than CE and Halo 2.

20

I hate AA’s, and i never really used equipment much so to me both of these could stay out of Halo 4 and i wouldnt care

To make Halo 4 great for me they just need-

Halo CE’s awesome style campaign, (and this song)
Halo 2’s Multiplayer, Music
Halo 3’s Community (IMO it was just so fun), Theatre
Halo 3: ODST’s firefight
Halo: Reach’s Armoury, Forge