> 2533274977253120;1721:
> > 2533274870849236;1720:
> > As a gameplay mode, sure. As the core mechanics of the game, no. Those mechanics are stale and old and had their place. If halo 1-3 (the mechanics of movement) was so good, go play it, there is nothing wrong with doing that. The mindset you are putting forth is like the new star wars movies: “let’s make it exactly like the first one”. Making a halo that is itself a halo clone wont Cut it. There is alot to work with with the current halo 5 system, and most fans would be pleased if it were added to, not stripped away.
>
> I was one of the unlucky people who started the series with Halo 4 (even though I still like the game and will defend it at times), but even I prefer the gameplay mechanics of the original trilogy. Halo CE and 2 had satisfying weapons and didn’t have sprint to restrict your weapons. The movement speed from those games were fast enough. Although I agree Halo 3 was kind of slow and the weapons just felt very nerfed. Otherwise, it was simple and straight-forward.
>
> Considering the amount of people who prefer the same opinion, I wouldn’t say that “most” fans would be pleased with your outcome. Just because the mechanics are old doesn’t mean it’s bad. Doom (2016) had the classic no health regen, no reloading, item pickups, and fast movement speed and the game was praised as the best shooter in years. Just though doom did remove reloading, it added
>
>
> > 2533274977253120;1721:
> > > 2533274870849236;1720:
> > > As a gameplay mode, sure. As the core mechanics of the game, no. Those mechanics are stale and old and had their place. If halo 1-3 (the mechanics of movement) was so good, go play it, there is nothing wrong with doing that. The mindset you are putting forth is like the new star wars movies: “let’s make it exactly like the first one”. Making a halo that is itself a halo clone wont Cut it. There is alot to work with with the current halo 5 system, and most fans would be pleased if it were added to, not stripped away.
> >
> > I was one of the unlucky people who started the series with Halo 4 (even though I still like the game and will defend it at times), but even I prefer the gameplay mechanics of the original trilogy. Halo CE and 2 had satisfying weapons and didn’t have sprint to restrict your weapons. The movement speed from those games were fast enough. Although I agree Halo 3 was kind of slow and the weapons just felt very nerfed. Otherwise, it was simple and straight-forward.
> >
> > Considering the amount of people who prefer the same opinion, I wouldn’t say that “most” fans would be pleased with your outcome. Just because the mechanics are old doesn’t mean it’s bad. Doom (2016) had the classic no health regen, no reloading, item pickups, and fast movement speed and the game was praised as the best shooter in years. Just sayin’.
>
> That is an inverse comparison, and is counter intuitive to your point. Doom(2016) added more mechanics than its predecessors not stripped them away (reloading was changed) it never had auto health regen in the first place. Starting at halo 4 is a horrible place to start. I believe that is genuinely what everyone is sore about. They have it in their minds that any mechanics added after the original trilogy is inherently bad. The slow movement speed of the original is too sluggish. Like being a turtle with the reflexive awareness of a scorpion but trapped in your slow stone body to move along with your mind. It worked awesome in its day and those mechanics gave the groundwork to what we have. People are making these arguments over nostalgia, they think they want to stay trapped in the past rather than building from it. ( there is the master chief collection, I dont see why playing that is such a no no for those that want the old mechanics) seriously, do you honestly believe removing the depth halo 5 added and bring back the days where bumper jumper like mario and map glitching was the meta style of play… do you really believe a facelift on an old , but great game, will be well received in the long run? ( not in the short term). I remember when everyone moaned that sprinting was not in halo 3, it was added in reach, got mixed reception, then 4 happened- it was clear that the complaining against sprint was merely because it was in 4. You said you started at 4; I bought halo ce when it first came out, when I was in high school. I have seen the trends on forums on halo. It is a fact , that when bungie gave into fanbase complaints rather than constructive reasoning that adds to the game-it always got thrown right back in their face. Watering it down, will end the franchise irregardless of the current nostalgia fever.
Srry ig that sounded heavy handed btw. But there is a difference between collective “yes” mentality, nostalgia and creative critical thought.
> 2533274870849236;1720:
> Those mechanics are stale and old and had their place.
Spartan Abilties are old and stale and had their place.
> 2533274870849236;1720:
> If halo 1-3 (the mechanics of movement) was so good, go play it, there is nothing wrong with doing that.
If Halo 5 was so good, go play it. There is nothing wrong with doing that either.
> 2533274870849236;1720:
> Making a halo that is itself a halo clone wont Cut it.
So, you would agree that the mechanics of Halo 5 can’t stay?
> 2533274870849236;1720:
> There is alot to work with with the current halo 5 system
There is even more to work with if we accept that any mechanic from Halo 5 can be removed.
> 2533274870849236;1720:
> and most fans would be pleased if it were added to, not stripped away.
[citation needed]
<mark>This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.</mark>
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.
> 2533274825830455;1724:
> > 2533274870849236;1720:
> > Those mechanics are stale and old and had their place.
>
> Spartan Abilties are old and stale and had their place.
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274870849236;1720:
> > If halo 1-3 (the mechanics of movement) was so good, go play it, there is nothing wrong with doing that.
>
> If Halo 5 was so good, go play it. There is nothing wrong with doing that either.
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274870849236;1720:
> > Making a halo that is itself a halo clone wont Cut it.
>
> So, you would agree that the mechanics of Halo 5 can’t stay?
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274870849236;1720:
> > There is alot to work with with the current halo 5 system
>
> There is even more to work with if we accept that any mechanic from Halo 5 can be removed.
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274870849236;1720:
> > and most fans would be pleased if it were added to, not stripped away.
>
> [citation needed]
I play halo 5, proudly. I never said that future installments should be just like 5. It should be more than 5. Your citations can go all the way back to gamefaqs, gametrailers. The masses always, always complained despite bungie caving in in some things. Sprint is the prime example. The citation that is needed is that if the whiners (not constructive critics that may want to make the game as rich or even richer with different mechanics) got the halo 1-3 mechanics game that is just less and watered down, would it satisfy.? If you played the original trilogy on their release dates as an adult( old enough to know) and have seen the halo fandom in action, you would know how laughable that notion is. It’s like watching a bunch of kids wanting the ouya , thinking it will be the newest fad, when it’s just a rehash of the old, and rehash us a very generous compliment to it.
> 2533274870849236;1722:
> I remember when everyone moaned that sprinting was not in halo 3
Please provide links supporting this claim…
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> It’s still a boat that’s intended to go across water. It shares most of it’s design with it’s former self, and most parts are actually the same. Not to mention, Theseus is standing next to the boat holding a sign that points to the boat, and says “this is my boat”.
Except he isn’t. The guy Theseus sold his ship to is standing next to a ship that has some similarities to the original, holding up a sign saying “Theseus Ship”. It might be, it might not be. He could have taken the original and added some replacements, he could have taken a completely different ship and added some of the original parts, or he could just have burnt down the original and claim a different ship to be Theseus’. We don’t know. All we know is that this guy bought the original at some point and things changed to how it was before. It’s everyone’s own prerogative to decide how far he trusts this guy…
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> Halo 5 shares most of the weapons from Halo CE
Technically true (most weapons have been replaced with other iterations of themselves, but I still count that as the “same weapon”), but also irrelevant. Weapons (and vehicles, etc.) are to shooters what Powerups are to Jump’n’Runs. The 3D-Mario games and the 2D-Mario games (and 2.5D, if you want to make that distinction as well) share a large set of powerups, yet play completely different and thus belong to different series within the larger Mario franchise.
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> it shares motifs and imagery, it shares characters
Also irrelevant. This also applies to the Halo Wars series, yet they don’t even belong to the same genre. They’re just set in the same universe.
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> and it shares vehicles.
Forza has a Warthog. That doesn’t make it a Halo game. See “weapons” above.
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> It shares a story,
See “motivs”/“characters” above.
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> it shares a genre
Ah, this is the bread and butter of the discussion right here. Are they the same genre? That depends how far in-depth you go. They’re both shooters, that’s right. First person shooters, even. But that’s basically where the similarities end. There are more than just one type of FPS, after all. Arena shooters (Quake, UT) play differently than Tactical shooters (CS) or than Hero shooters (Overwatch) and differently than plenty of other types out there which may and may not have their own name. To me, recent games have crossed the line of no longe being in the same genre because I define “genre” more complex than “First Person Shooter”.
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> I think an argument that “Halo 5 is not Halo” must either be a disguise placed on a weaker sounding but more honest statement of emotion, or really thoroughly contextualized. To make a claim that some specific variation on something has crossed the line to make it something else, when by most accounts majority has stayed the same, you really should provide the empirical formula upon which you’re forming that judgement, or sparing that, just the angle you’re going at it from.
Well, I thought I was already pretty clear on what I’m basing my own perception on: Earlier games already completely changed the movement while H5G additionally completely changed the gunplay. There really isn’t that much more left that it could change from the original, to be honest. Vehicle handling? Removal of Shield Recharge? (Oh wait, that one already happened, sorta.)
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> I fundamentally don’t understand how it’s useful for me to say “Halo 2, Halo Reach and Halo 5 are not Halo games” without adding that my objective method of judging this is “For a game to be a Halo game, one must be in control of Master Chief the whole time”. Giving that context allows other people to agree or disagree based on an actual understanding of what the argument entails, and makes it go from a thinly veiled emotional statement to an argument that can be challenged.
I absolutely agree. Statements out of context don’t contribute to anything. That being said, that’s still a valid conclusion to draw, and I think both myself and PianoGlint34697 were pretty clear what this conclusion is based on: Changes in movement and gun handling, i.e. gameplay.
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> It’s just a bad argument.
Again, it’s not an argument. It’s the conclusion to the argument.
> 2533274956613084;1711:
> Also I wasn’t claiming Halo 5 was balanced, just that CE was unbalanced, and that Halo 3 (and I would argue Halo 4 without loadouts and armour abilities) were much more balanced games, at least in 4v4 / 8v8 settings. I would also say that the CE Magnum being as powerful as it was, and 4v4/8v8 spawns being so broken meant that, even compared to Halo 5, CE is a pretty unballanced game.
Well, the original argument was by PianoGlint34697 that: “It was a fair and balanced game that was enjoyed by all.” While I don’t disagree thar CE could certainly have been balanced better, the point (as far as I understood it) ultimately was that recent games have been even worse and that he wants no part of that. So in the end it was always a comparison, not an absolute statement. (Unless that happens to be where he draws the line between balance and imbalance, but I can only speculate on that.)
Which, by the way, I absolutely agree with, and also disagree on Halo 4, even when taking out loadouts and armor abilities. (Also, ordnance drops.) And it’s for the same reason I said CE is more balanced than H5G: Sprint. A game with sprint can never be as balanced as a game without because of the already mentioned issue with escapability. As long as you cannot shoot while sprinting, a winning player can never both pursue and finish off a losing player that’s running away. The mechanic itself already creates an inherent imbalance in gameplay favoring one player over the other. Even without all CE’s flaws (of which there have been many), at least all players were fundamentally equal at all times (except maybe ping and host-advantage).
> do you honestly believe removing the depth halo 5 added and bring back the days where bumper jumper like mario and map glitching was the meta style of play… do you really believe a facelift on an old , but great game, will be well received in the long run?
Yes. If the classic mechanics are introduced correctly and effectively, then I grantee it will be well received by both critics and fans alike. This is why I made the Doom comparison. In a time where COD clones reigned supreme, one developer (id Software) stepped up and made a sequel/reboot to a beloved franchise, bringing back the old but gold gameplay in this new generation. Doom (2016) showed us that bringing back old mechanics can work incredibly well with new titles if it’s in the right hands.
Also, what do you mean by “bumper jumper like mario” and “map glitching”? The Mario comparison makes no sense, and map glitching/exploiting is in any FPS game I can think of.
What about throwing away all Spartans abilities and reducing movement speed and sprint max speed by 10%?(Taking halo 5 as a base). It feels better, more tactical and more classic.
> 2533274801176260;1727:
> Ah, this is the bread and butter of the discussion right here. Are they the same genre? That depends how far in-depth you go. They’re both shooters, that’s right. First person shooters, even. But that’s basically where the similarities end. There are more than just one type of FPS, after all. Arena shooters (Quake, UT) play differently than Tactical shooters (CS) or than Hero shooters (Overwatch) and differently than plenty of other types out there which may and may not have their own name. To me, recent games have crossed the line of no longe being in the same genre because I define “genre” more complex than “First Person Shooter”.
So, in response to this and everything above it, I wasn’t saying that a game having Halo vehicles or weapons or themes immediately a makes a Halo game. It’s so much more complex of a definition than that. Is Unreal Tournament a Halo game? On the gameplay side (as far as I know about UT), it’s pretty similar to some of the early Halo games. I think most people would agree it’s not. Even if that example falls flat to you because you’re a lot more educated on UT than me, just entertain the idea - if a Call of Duty game had all of the things you value in a Halo game on the gameplay frontier, would you label it a Halo game, all other things remaining the same? If you would, then I think we’re at an impasse here. I think that a Halo game is the sum of it’s parts, and that would imply you believe that “Halo game” is merely a label used to more clearly define games with a specific gameplay design in multiplayer. I cannot understand how that would be a useful way to use the term, but live and let live I guess.
(For the record, I would say that Halo Wars is closer to being a mainline Halo game than UT, thus proving in my mind that, to me, the intricacies of claiming a game is a Halo game are much more complex than just the gameplay)
If you still wouldn’t label UT or your imagined COD game as a Halo game, then implicitly there’s something else that goes into defining whether a game is a Halo game. Will adding Spartans make UT a Halo game? Does it need to have a Spartan pitted against an alien race to be a Halo game? Does it need “Halo” in its name to become a Halo game? If so does CE miraculously cease to be a Halo game as soon as you change its’ name to “Big Zappy Ring:C-C-C-Combat Breaker”? Surely not.
What makes up a Halo game is an incredibly complicated list of prerequisites, and they can’t all be hard rules either, if you want the Original Trilogy to all count as Halo games.
If Sprint is specifically the antithesis of Halo, then whenever you’re making or concluding an argument with “X is not Halo”, that should be more clear. As far as I’m concerned it’s also pretty useless to say something like “Halo 4 is not Halo because of [super specific thing]”, because the whole point in having this discussion with other people (apart from perhaps the faint belief that 343 might trudge their way to the end of an 87 page waypoint discussion and decide to walk back the last 9 years of decisions they’ve made), is to persuade them that certain things should not be in the franchise, or at least convey to them an empathy for the position that Sprint has no place in Halo. And it’s so much more effective to do that if instead of saying “Halo 4 was not a Halo game at release because of the Boltshot”, you say: “Halo 4 was not a Halo game at release because the loadout system allowed a shotgun to be everyone’s secondary weapon, and that severely reduced the usefulness of power weapons, thus deviating from the series’ focus on map control”.
> 2533274801176260;1727:
> Again, it’s not an argument. It’s the conclusion to the argument.
It may sometimes be the conclusion to an argument. But here, in the example I was responding to, it is the entire argument, unless you count “It was a fair and balanced game that was enjoyed by all” to be the argument backing the conclusion, in which case, I just find that to be an immensely weak way of laying out an argument, because, to me, Halo 5 is, at least 90% of the time, a balanced game, and is, to me, 95% a fair game.
> 2535420143768310;1684:
> This Halo is not Halo, Halo isn’t sprint or ADS, it isn’t being able to groundpound or jetpack. It was a fair and balanced game that was enjoyed by all.
I don’t see anything in the above quote that is more argument than “This Halo is not Halo, Halo isn’t sprint or ADS, it isn’t being able to groundpound or jetpack”, which seems to be an argument based on this vacuous definition of Halo, or alternatively, an argument that specific gameplay mechanics can never work in a Halo game, which is still weak, and almost entirely meaningless without further argumentation. I guess the argument could be that Sprint, ADS, groundpound and Jetpack make a game unbalanced, but there’s still no evidence here, so it’s still an argument with no meaning.
> 2533274801176260;1727:
> Even without all CE’s flaws (of which there have been many), at least all players were fundamentally equal at all times (except maybe ping and host-advantage).
What do you mean “Even without all of CE’s flaws”. If in your mind, a perfect game is a balanced one, any game is obviously going to be balanced without its’ flaws. Halo 5 is perfect without its’ flaws.
Even if you disagree that the spawning system in CE made the game unbalanced, you’ve got to at least admit that it wasn’t necessarily fair. With very few exceptions, whenever you die in Halo 5, it’s because you’ve played poorly. The opposite cannot be said for getting kills (because of Sprint and thrust you may not get a kill that you would in another Halo game), but I think neither can be said for CE, at least at a casual to average level. It’s possible to exploit the mechanics of CE spawns without even knowing you’re doing that. And I sort of anticipate a response claiming that this just points to a higher skill ceiling, not an unfairness in the game, but I think it’s at least intuitive to people that there is a point where a mechanic in a game is poorly explained and complicated enough that it does make a game unfair.
Imagine a shooter where the damage of every shot is based on dice rolls, and every dice roll is conjured from a deterministic random number generator that seeds itself on player inputs. Each player could be using the same weapon, in an empty room, where after one kill is achieved, they swap sides and the game starts again. This is obviously “”“balanced”"", but I don’t think it’s fair, and I even more strongly doubt that it’s fun to constantly lose because of poor dice rolls, when the game hasn’t made crystal clear that it is deterministic, and that it’s based entirely on the movements you make from the start of the round.
I see the spawning system in CE like this. Sure it allows for some high level plays, but I’ve personally never found it fun or fair. Whereas, while Halo 5 does rip you off with spawns sometimes, 95% of the time it feels like it hasn’t done so. In CE, the spawn system creates an inherent imbalance, against the person respawning, that I would argue is much greater than the imbalance Sprint introduced. For the second immediately following your spawn, you’re not equal at all to any other player on the battlefield, and CE makes this relevent by consistently spawning you in locations where you can get instantly killed. The system’s general disregard for grenades also creates a massive imbalance where you can essentially guarantee kills on some maps by just lobbing grenades at spawn zones after a team has been wiped. Sure, these imbalances can be exploited by higher level players to great effect, but they’re fundamentally imbalances.
I don’t even think a truly balanced game is by itself a good thing. Look at the constant balance tweaks that Blizzard does to Overwatch. I think these tweaks are indisputably improving “balance” more often than not, but people are consistently up in arms about meta being destroyed. In order to have gameplay depth, you kind of have to introduce imbalance. I don’t think anyone would enjoy a game where every player was fundamentally "equal at all times". The whole point of weapon pickups is to break that equality. Same with grenades. There’s an argument to be made that there’s at least a visual cue on enemy players indicating which weapons they’re in possession of, but what about grenades? Can you tell in any Halo game if a player has stickies, apart from watching them walk over the stickies? Definitely not easily. This is imbalance. A sticky grenade can turn around a fight. Yet it’s not really an issue. The moment to moment balance shifts stop the game being bland.
Would Sprint be okay if you picked up items on the ground that charged your Sprint?
However I still believe that the spawn system in Halo CE manages to single handedly make it the least balanced Halo game of the lot (at least, as far a game goes in its totality, including gametype variations, that, for example, aren’t Infinity Slayer in Halo 4).
[Also sorry moderators, the total character count between these two posts is a fair bit over 7500]
> 2535436974294570;1729:
> What about throwing away all Spartans abilities and reducing movement speed and sprint max speed by 10%?(Taking halo 5 as a base). It feels better, more tactical and more classic.
I think you’re forgetting that sprint is inherently an ability, arguably the most detrimental addition to Halo’s core gameplay. Sprint can’t stay if we are going to get classic movement. The gun has to be up at all times. There needs to be one fast base movement speed.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> And I sort of anticipate a response claiming that this just points to a higher skill ceiling, not an unfairness in the game, but I think it’s at least intuitive to people that there is a point where a mechanic in a game is poorly explained and complicated enough that it does make a game unfair.
The argument here is reasonable, but I don’t agree with the conclusion that it’s “unfair”. Core mechanics of a game should be clearly explained (and really, I’d argue that how the spawn system in any game works should be well documented to the players somwhere, which is of course something no game does). However, even if they are poorly explained, they’re poorly explained for everyone. The people who figure it out are just willing to go a bit further in trying to understand how the game works. A feature that can be abused by anyone who knows about it is not unfair by my definition.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> Imagine a shooter where the damage of every shot is based on dice rolls, and every dice roll is conjured from a deterministic random number generator that seeds itself on player inputs. Each player could be using the same weapon, in an empty room, where after one kill is achieved, they swap sides and the game starts again. This is obviously “”“balanced”"", but I don’t think it’s fair, and I even more strongly doubt that it’s fun to constantly lose because of poor dice rolls, when the game hasn’t made crystal clear that it is deterministic, and that it’s based entirely on the movements you make from the start of the round.
I wouldn’t describe that as unfair. Assuming the pseudo-RNG in question is adequate—i.e., effectively unpredictable to any human—then what it is is simply random, and game generated randomness is bad, because players have no control over it, and therefore there is no depth to it.
On the other hand, if for sake of the argument it’s a really sloppy “random” number generator which uses an algorithm for which a human player can reasonably control the input, then again I don’t think it’s unfair, but I do agree that it can be really unfun. The reason it is unfun is that the players naturally expect the encounter to be about skills that are immediately visible such as aim strafe. When it is in fact partially determined by the players’ ability to abuse this hidden algorithm, the expectations of the players are betrayed, which makes them feel betrayed by the game. In this case, informing players about this algorithm wouldn’t necessarily change the situation, since it’s so ingrained in the heads of players what skills are “supposed to be” relevant in shooting encounters that they’re going to think “what a dumb game”.
The situation you are describing here is undeniably unfun, but I don’t see anything unfair in it, and consequently it’s quite possible to describe why it is unfun without invoking any notion of fairness.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> I see the spawning system in CE like this. Sure it allows for some high level plays, but I’ve personally never found it fun or fair. Whereas, while Halo 5 does rip you off with spawns sometimes, 95% of the time it feels like it hasn’t done so. In CE, the spawn system creates an inherent imbalance, against the person respawning, that I would argue is much greater than the imbalance Sprint introduced. For the second immediately following your spawn, you’re not equal at all to any other player on the battlefield, and CE makes this relevent by consistently spawning you in locations where you can get instantly killed. The system’s general disregard for grenades also creates a massive imbalance where you can essentially guarantee kills on some maps by just lobbing grenades at spawn zones after a team has been wiped. Sure, these imbalances can be exploited by higher level players to great effect, but they’re fundamentally imbalances.
If you’re talking about the balance of the power of a respawning player relative opponents who are alive, I can see why you would be using the word “balance” here.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> I don’t even think a truly balanced game is by itself a good thing. Look at the constant balance tweaks that Blizzard does to Overwatch. I think these tweaks are indisputably improving “balance” more often than not, but people are consistently up in arms about meta being destroyed. In order to have gameplay depth, you kind of have to introduce imbalance. I don’t think anyone would enjoy a game where every player was fundamentally "equal at all times".
The issue I have with the term “imbalance” in this context is the misconception that “balance” = “equality”. Even by the standard meaning of balance in statics, a set of unequal weights can be balanced by appropriate distribution. In analogy, balance in games is not about things being equal, but about things being distributed such that the desired gameplay is achieved (which, note, is subjective). If you think about balance in this way, you can preserve the term “imbalance” for when things are not how you’d like them to be. I also think it’s a much more fruitful perspective on balance in game design.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> [Also sorry moderators, the total character count between these two posts is a fair bit over 7500]
Exceeding character counts is totally a valid excuse for multi-posting if the content is relevant and constructive.
> 2779900484279609;1732:
> > 2535436974294570;1729:
> > What about throwing away all Spartans abilities and reducing movement speed and sprint max speed by 10%?(Taking halo 5 as a base). It feels better, more tactical and more classic.
>
> I think you’re forgetting that sprint is inherently an ability, arguably the most detrimental addition to Halo’s core gameplay. Sprint can’t stay if we are going to get classic movement. The gun has to be up at all times. There needs to be one fast base movement speed.
That is my solution If we keep sprint. Otherwise, if we go back to classic movement, we need to increase just the base movement speed by a little. Actually, the base movement in halo 5 is pretty good and I think its ideal. Not more than this. Its halo after all, not doom. I love both options, I dont have a problem wiith either choice.
> 2533274956613084;1730:
> Even if that example falls flat to you because you’re a lot more educated on UT than me, just entertain the idea - if a Call of Duty game had all of the things you value in a Halo game on the gameplay frontier, would you label it a Halo game, all other things remaining the same?
My list of requirements is quite thorough, but yeah, any game that plays exactly like some other game is essentially that other game in disguise. 3D Dot Game Heroes is a Zelda game in all but name. Yooka-Laylee is a Banjo-Kazooie game under a different title. (Almost to a fault.) At the very least, it’s more of a Banjo-Kazooie game than Nuts&Bolts is.
> 2533274956613084;1730:
> If you would, then I think we’re at an impasse here. I think that a Halo game is the sum of it’s parts, and that would imply you believe that “Halo game” is merely a label used to more clearly define games with a specific gameplay design in multiplayer. I cannot understand how that would be a useful way to use the term, but live and let live I guess.
It’s a necessary but not sufficient requirement. It’s also not limited to multiplayer but extends to campaign gameplay as well. That being said, neither story, characters, world or theme are any criteria in my opinion. I’ve played too many games where each release is set in its own completely independent universe to still count something like that as relevant. Some of my favorite titles fall in that category: Grandia and Grandia II have nothing in common besides gameplay and level design, not the story, world or characters, not the graphics or art style, not even the music (maybe except some jingles like in the main theme or when you rest at inns), but it’s clear as day they’re direct sequels.
> 2533274956613084;1730:
> If Sprint is specifically the antithesis of Halo, then whenever you’re making or concluding an argument with “X is not Halo”, that should be more clear.
At least me, personally, I have been always very explicit that I count gameplay consistency as one of the utmost criteria. Both consistency across multiple titles, but in this case I’m referring to ad-hoc changes in rules in the middle of the game: Sprint disabling your shooting, or weapons suddenly behaving differently because you zoom in. As such, sprint and ADS are the two singlemost mechanics I want gone from future games.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> What do you mean “Even without all of CE’s flaws”. If in your mind, a perfect game is a balanced one, any game is obviously going to be balanced without its’ flaws. Halo 5 is perfect without its’ flaws.
A perfect (multiplayer) game must necessarily be balanced, but not every balanced game is automatically perfect. I just wanted to point out that CE wasn’t perfect but still had flaws, even outside the “balance” discussion.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> It’s possible to exploit the mechanics of CE spawns without even know you’re doing that. And I sort of anticipate a response claiming that this just points to a higher skill ceiling, not an unfairness in the game, but I think it’s at least intuitive to people that there is a point where a mechanic in a game is poorly explained and complicated enough that it does make a game unfair.
I actually haven’t decided for myself whether or not I count CE’s spawn system a flaw or an underlying mechanic that needs to be learned. So at least myself, I’m not going to argue with you on that, as I’m still on the fence. All I can say so far is that plenty of games have mechanics that are never explained anywhere but are crucial to the meta. Pokémon’s EV/IV-system comes to mind.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> I don’t think anyone would enjoy a game where every player was fundamentally "equal at all times". The whole point of weapon pickups is to break that equality.
Chess? Go? Any board game ever?
After considering, I think you misunderstood what I meant to say in the first place, possibly through bad wording on my part. I’ll try to explain:
Taking chess as an example, what I refer to as “equal at all times” is that all rules apply to all players the same way throughout the entire game. Each figure moves according to its own ruleset independently of when or where it is moved. Touching an enemy figure with your own will always defeat that figure, whether it’s the second turn or the 200th, regardless of where the figures are placed, what they are, how many a player has left, how far it is moving from its initial position within one round (i.e. its “speed”), etc.
Coming back to Halo: Obviously weapon pickups are going to give players certain advantages but these advantages are fought-after on the battlefield, are non-recharging and thus of limited use (as to distinguish them from limited but recharging abilities) and can be taken from you if you can’t use them properly. They’re not given automatically.
Sprint allows player A to just negate player B’s victory at no fault of B’s gameplay and without requiring any complex skill by A to use or skill to obtain said mechanic in the first place. If Halo were chess, sprint would be a random mechanic that saves certain pieces from being taken. Even when both players have access to the same ruleset, the player that is weaker will inevitably benefit more from it than the other one, because he comes into that situation of having a piece taken more often, thus creating an imbalance.
I emphasized “at all times” so explicitly to preemptively take care of the inevitable “but everybody has access to sprint” counterargument…
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> Would Sprint be okay if you picked up items on the ground that charged your Sprint?
Not as long as sprint still disables shooting. Other than that, you’re describing speed boost: An item you pick up that lets you go faster.
> 2533274956613084;1731:
> However I still believe that the spawn system in Halo CE manages to single handedly make it the least balanced Halo game of the lot (at least, as far a game goes in its totality, including gametype variations, that, for example, aren’t Infinity Slayer in Halo 4).
And I still believe that even with such a spawn system, the game is still better balanced than any sprint-Halo was or even could be. In order to get spawn-trapped, you need to have made an error at least once so as to get killed, while sprint has negative effects even on a hypothetical perfect player.
halo infinite must focus on hardcore gamers and not casual. That was the problem of halo 4 and 5. They tried to copy things from mainstream games( call of duty) and mix them with halo recipe. It is clearly obvious that halo 5 mechanics were influenced by cod advance warfare which launched one year earlier. It was a trend that has already died. Even CoD games got rid of those exo suit abilites and returned to classic movement. We need to find what made halo unique and keep it that way. If classic movement is the way then we should bring it back.
> 2535436974294570;1736:
> halo infinite must focus on hardcore gamers and not casual. That was the problem of halo 4 and 5. They tried to copy things from mainstream games( call of duty) and mix them with halo recipe.
Didn’t they try to focus on the competitive players while making H5? They just forgot that their whole base game with spartan abilities and sprint doesn’t work well competitively.
> It is clearly obvious that halo 5 mechanics were influenced by cod advance warfare which launched one year earlier. It was a trend that has already died. Even CoD games got rid of those exo suit abilites and returned to classic movement.
This is one of the reasons I have a little hope left for Halo. Maybe 343 has realized their new mechanics just aren’t working and they reverse course.
> We need to find what made halo unique and keep it that way.
We know. This thread has all the information one would need to deduce what made it unique. One base movement speed, gun always up, equal starts, power weapons/equipment on the map to be fought for.
> If classic movement is the way then we should bring it back.
Say it loud!
> 2533274977253120;1728:
> > do you honestly believe removing the depth halo 5 added and bring back the days where bumper jumper like mario and map glitching was the meta style of play… do you really believe a facelift on an old , but great game, will be well received in the long run?
>
> Yes. If the classic mechanics are introduced correctly and effectively, then I grantee it will be well received by both critics and fans alike. This is why I made the Doom comparison. In a time where COD clones reigned supreme, one developer (id Software) stepped up and made a sequel/reboot to a beloved franchise, bringing back the old but gold gameplay in this new generation. Doom (2016) showed us that bringing back old mechanics can work incredibly well with new titles if it’s in the right hands.
>
> Also, what do you mean by “bumper jumper like mario” and “map glitching”? The Mario comparison makes no sense, and map glitching/exploiting is in any FPS game I can think of.
The doom(2016) introduced new mechanics and was not in any designed in the process you see as apparent. It changed from doom 3 , yes but added more. Perhaps you mean switched back to the old and added more to it? That is what happened with doom. Not to sound altruistic but there is no example of gaming sequels ( shooter genre)that introduced fewer mechanics and was a long term success ( not by sales on launch day but by continued support beyond that). Take uncharted 4- they took out all the mechanics from the previous installments and called it a sequel. It is a very vacant game online now and its unlikely another uncharted with multiplayer will ever be made. Id got fired because they wanted to make it essentially doom with a facelift and it fell hopelessly behind schedule .I believe you are hung up on how sequels are so simmilar to originals. The is a difference between adding to an old system and watering down. Let’s say you want to get rid of spartan charge: what is it going to be replaced with? If adding something new, it’s not a watering down move, it’s a change. Doom added and added and doom eternal added even more mechanics, proveds my point. Bumper jumper is a control scheme . In 1-4 to remain competitive, one would have to jump and crouch at the same time to minimize the target area of the head from certain weapons. The advanced movement in 5 minimized that. When you got up in rank high enough, everyone and I mean everyone, jumped and crouch jumped like mario every 10 seconds. It really is not fun unless you like mario with guns and that’s cool I guess, but it’s just a no go for many and those will not buy the game. Will it sell? Yes I agree. But it will be the last, no doubt. Other franchises have gone through this. Killzone did this, uncharted did this, they watered down their previous installments and called it upgrades. Their residual income post launch was nothing because people stopped playing it online. Uncharted 3 had a higher population out of most of sonys games and it went to nothing: too many wanted 4 to play like the original but yet, none of those players stayed committed despite getting the uncharted 2 clone they clamored for. The same will happen if halo went in the reductionist direction. Every game that has done so has suffered a hit in multiplayer as a result and there are no exceptions to this. It may even be a science.
Okay so first off, @tsassi,
> 2533274825830455;1733:
> The argument here is reasonable, but I don’t agree with the conclusion that it’s “unfair”. Core mechanics of a game should be clearly explained (and really, I’d argue that how the spawn system in any game works should be well documented to the players somewhere, which is of course something no game does). However, even if they are poorly explained, they’re poorly explained for everyone. The people who figure it out are just willing to go a bit further in trying to understand how the game works. A feature that can be abused by anyone who knows about it is not unfair by my definition.
I suppose I’m willing to grant you that. Unfair was probably a poor choice of words, but I think it actually does feel unfair, at the very least.
> 2533274825830455;1733:
> On the other hand, if for sake of the argument it’s a really sloppy “random” number generator which uses an algorithm for which a human player can reasonably control the input, then again I don’t think it’s unfair, but I do agree that it can be really unfun. The reason it is unfun is that the players naturally expect the encounter to be about skills that are immediately visible such as aim strafe. When it is in fact partially determined by the players’ ability to abuse this hidden algorithm, the expectations of the players are betrayed, which makes them feel betrayed by the game. In this case, informing players about this algorithm wouldn’t necessarily change the situation, since it’s so ingrained in the heads of players what skills are “supposed to be” relevant in shooting encounters that they’re going to think “what a dumb game”.
I’m happy you addressed this case, because it’s what I was trying to set up with that example. I think you’re right about betrayed expectations, and it makes me think I should have added that the game will feel unfair to people who don’t understand that it’s not actually a game about shooting, but a game about experimenting with different repeated actions to manipulate the random number generator.
> 2533274825830455;1733:
> The issue I have with the term “imbalance” in this context is the misconception that “balance” = “equality”. […] In analogy, balance in games is not about things being equal, but about things being distributed such that the desired gameplay is achieved (which, note, is subjective).
I was only using that definition for balance because I thought @Celestis was, but since I misunderstood the phrasing to not just be “There is an imbalance when one player is sprinting”, I would agree that “everything has to be the same on both sides all the time” is not really a useful notion of balance because even a game like tic-tac-toe, connect four, or chess doesn’t follow this, since all of these games, statistically, provide an advantage to the starting player.
Now to @Celestis:
> 2533274801176260;1735:
> I actually haven’t decided for myself whether or not I count CE’s spawn system a flaw or an underlying mechanic that needs to be learned. […] All I can say so far is that plenty of games have mechanics that are never explained anywhere but are crucial to the meta. Pokémon’s EV/IV-system comes to mind.
I’ll grant you pretty much everything above this. Especially since a lot of it is personal opinion. “At least me, personally, I have been always very explicit that I count gameplay consistency as one of the utmost criteria” - I think that’s also a very fair position to hold. You weren’t the one I was primarily trying to argue against however. Anyway, I think the point about the EV/IV system is interesting, and I want to clarify why I think it’s different from the spawns in CE:
Unless you’re versing an opponent with Pokémon that are otherwise identical to yours, and using the same moves, and doing this over ten samples and collecting the data, the casual player that goes through the game, catches all the legendaries, then perhaps plays against a friend a few times, is really unlikely to notice the EV/IV system. And even if they knew, the casual player probably doesn’t care. The fact that this whole facet of the game was so infrequently visited by casual players even led Gamefreak to add both ways to visibly see the EVs/IVs on any Pokémon, and actively change them in a really basic way with the weird features they added in X/Y (not a fan).
Contrast this to Halo CE though: I doubt you could get through more than two games in matchmaking as a casual player without feeling like you’ve been spawned really unfairly a few times. It is a mechanic that disproportionately affects casual to average players.
> 2533274801176260;1735:
> Sprint allows player A to just negate player B’s victory at no fault of B’s gameplay and without requiring any complex skill by A to use or skill to obtain said mechanic in the first place.
I want to get back to this one a bit later, so I’ll put it here for reference (because I’d like to preserve the order of the original post).
> 2533274801176260;1735:
> > 2533274956613084;1731:
> > Would Sprint be okay if you picked up items on the ground that charged your Sprint?
>
> Not as long as sprint still disables shooting. Other than that, you’re describing speed boost: An item you pick up that lets you go faster.
So I don’t really understand the issue with this imaginary conception of Sprint, and I can only think it comes down to disliking any mechanic that forces you to lower your gun, which is fair enough. So I’d like to change this a bit. Imagine Sprint orbs on the map. Players can pick up, say 5 of them, and each one provides a second of Sprint. This version of Sprint is like the similar one, in that to activate it you press down the left swivel, but unlike the current one because it allows you to sprint with your gun out, and allows you to move in different directions. Is this okay now? A player needs some level of skill in order to get these sprint orbs (presumably one would be able to acquire them by killing someone else too), but they still provide the get out of jail free card in combat, provided the attacker has less sprint time. The way I see it this hurts perfect players in pretty much the same way that sprint does, but it does so in a way that you could excuse in the same way that you’d excuse plasma grenade pickups if someone were to subject them to great scrutiny. Would your view change significantly if players started to automatically get them simply by getting a kill, rather than by picking them up from the ground? I’d be kind of interested to know.
> 2533274801176260;1735:
> In order to get spawn-trapped, you need to have made an error at least once so as to get killed, while sprint has negative effects even on a hypothetical perfect player.
Now, onto this and the quote I saved up there before it. You’re right, getting spawn trapped does generally require at least one error. However, I would argue that a game allowing you to die in a way that feels unfair is significantly worse than a game not allowing you to get a kill in a way that feels unfair, if you see what I’m saying. In CE, the fact that spawn trapping is possible, means that when you die once, you are at risk of getting spawnkilled again. Hence the punishment that dying and being spawnkilled places on all non-perfect players, is so large that, out of the two options, I’d much rather a game that has a 1/5 chance of ripping off someone who has made a perfect play, than a game that has a 1/30 chance of punishing any play with spawntrapping. I think the other thing is, if I get spawntrapped, I blame the game. If someone runs away with one shot of health left, I’m much more inclined to blame myself.
> 2533274803493024;5:
> > 2535449076192416;1:
> > There is absolutely no way this game won’t have the classic gameplay
>
> That’s purely speculation. Making assumptions like this is goofy at best.
>
>
> > 2535449076192416;1:
> > the oldest of Halo fans have adored! I am so pumped for this!
>
> I think the first part of this statement is biased based on the second part. There are plenty of older Halo fans that like the new mechanics.
I’m one of them
I enjoy the old halo movement but playing h5 for the last 3 years wants to keep me moving fast.