Title Update Discussion

Games Other Halo
201

The entire problm with AL is the duration. it needs to go from 6 seconds to 3. Its supposed to live through a Rocket shot or a ghost spllattering not an air strike. The EMP should be taken away on people but stay to vehicles.

Also a few weapons need buffed. AR, PR, Focus Rifle etc.

Bloom should be like the magnum.

and melees should be 3 melees or just take longer to double melee.

If you think of it bleed through is worse than no bleed through.

If one person had no sheilds and the other had almost no sheilds and they meleed, they would both die. Its different here.

Melees are to strong in this compared to the weapons.

Those are some of my thoughts…

202

There should be a way to edit the amount of battery in weapons that run on batteries. You should be able to set a laser to 50/100 battery if you want to place it on a map but it would be too strong with all four shots.

203

No- just no.

I’m not one of those “OMG its perfect don’t change it!!!” but most of the suggestions always seem extreme or mis focused to me.

Bloom- Yes, in my opinion its perfect, yes it primarily affects the DMR and Magnum. But without it these weapons would need a serious nerf to not become OP (yes I hated the H3 BR, it was a “beat everything gun”- there is no denying that.)

AL- The only changes that I will ever 100 % agree to on the AA is removing the crap that takes away shilds/semi-freezes you when you melee someone in AL. Those are the only two things that are entierly obsured and uneccessary (and not the EMP when it runs out but the sendback damage effect is what I mean).

Banshee- I think its evasive abilities are fine, there needs to be incentive for players to use the main guns instead of the instint kill/vehicle tracking bomb. Maybe make the banshee bomb only usable on locked on vehicles.

Custom game options- I hated all of those stupid “Infection varients” that spawned games like Ice Cream man and Duck hunt… Yet I feel to be fair those options should return. HOWEVER things like altering bloom and such would only give way to even worse MLG varients.
When I say worse I mean MLG went the completly wrong way when altering the core physics of reach in order to basically try to make it like Halo 3. I get H3 MLG was great but this is Reach now, pro it up by making cutom maps and different/no loadouts but changing the physics and actual mechanics is just a bad/poor move. MLG is about being competative and pro, your bragging rights are moot when you play only gametypes that are COMPLETLY different from the normal settings that basically ake it a different game. (BTW I’m not anti-MLG, I just hate what they have tried to do in Reach)

204

> Also a few weapons need buffed. AR, PR, Focus Rifle etc.
>
> Bloom should be like the magnum.
>
> and melees should be 3 melees or just take longer to double melee.
>
> If you think of it bleed through is worse than no bleed through.
>
> If one person had no sheilds and the other had almost no sheilds and they meleed, they would both die. Its different here.
>
> Melees are to strong in this compared to the weapons.
>
> Those are some of my thoughts…

I disagree about the AR/FR/PR needing a buff. I hear this a lot, but can use them fine in all circumstances. Honestly if the AR was buffed it would be OP, if you can’t use it effectively as it is then it’s your aim that’s at fault, not the gun, sorry. Due to the hitscan on it, it’s still pretty damn effective making kills even at reasonable range, for a full auto weapon with a wide bullet cone and decently sized clip, it couldn’t get any more powerful without it just becoming too easy to use and only serving to level the playing field further.

I TOTALLY disagree about no melee bleed being better than having it. People say that having no bleed nerfs melees, but the fact is that it doesn’t, it makes them more important. Because of the fact that there is no bleed, shooting at all before you melee serves NO purpose unless you do enough damage to entirely remove shields, which is only really an issue from decent range onwards. No bleed KILLS melee CQB, because it means that as soon as you’re in range to melee before the enemy can take you no shields (which is a large range considering how long it takes most starting weapons to remove shields and how quickly sprint can close a gap between players even from reasonable distance), you have to. If you don’t and choose to continue shooting, you’re screwed, if they land the first melee then you’re behind in the forced two melee kill cycle, even if you’re shooting, and they’ll kill you.

I agree that melee needs to be nerfed, but no bleed doesn’t actually do that, it just makes meleeing once you’re in range more important and makes CQB even more clunky. If you want to nerfs melees, do just that and reduce the damage done by them. Ideally I’d like to see a 75% damage modifier on all melees (so it’ll take 3 melees to kill like you said) but WITH melee bleed through, that way double melees will be gone, but shooting before you melee and not just sprinting around mashing the melee button like you’re playing tekken will actually be worth it. No melee bleed together with the kill trade window makes CQB in Reach the most clunky and dull it’s ever been in any Halo game.

> There should be a way to edit the amount of battery in weapons that run on batteries. You should be able to set a laser to 50/100 battery if you want to place it on a map but it would be too strong with all four shots.

Yeah that’d be sweet, agreed. Dubs on Countdown highlights this: the Shotty only has one clip but the Sword is full because the charge can’t be changed, which just makes it so much more dominant in that gametype than the Shotty. Less than ideal imo.

Continued due to character limit, 7500 chars? Really? Even the most tight forums I’ve seen have 10,000

205

> No- just no.
>
> I’m not one of those “OMG its perfect don’t change it!!!” but most of the suggestions always seem extreme or mis focused to me.
>
> Bloom- Yes, in my opinion its perfect, yes it primarily affects the DMR and Magnum. But without it these weapons would need a serious nerf to not become OP (yes I hated the H3 BR, it was a “beat everything gun”- there is no denying that.)
>
> AL- The only changes that I will ever 100 % agree to on the AA is removing the crap that takes away shilds/semi-freezes you when you melee someone in AL. Those are the only two things that are entierly obsured and uneccessary (and not the EMP when it runs out but the sendback damage effect is what I mean).
>
> Banshee- I think its evasive abilities are fine, there needs to be incentive for players to use the main guns instead of the instint kill/vehicle tracking bomb. Maybe make the banshee bomb only usable on locked on vehicles.
>
> Custom game options- I hated all of those stupid “Infection varients” that spawned games like Ice Cream man and Duck hunt… Yet I feel to be fair those options should return. HOWEVER things like altering bloom and such would only give way to even worse MLG varients.
> When I say worse I mean MLG went the completly wrong way when altering the core physics of reach in order to basically try to make it like Halo 3. I get H3 MLG was great but this is Reach now, pro it up by making cutom maps and different/no loadouts but changing the physics and actual mechanics is just a bad/poor move. MLG is about being competative and pro, your bragging rights are moot when you play only gametypes that are COMPLETLY different from the normal settings that basically ake it a different game. (BTW I’m not anti-MLG, I just hate what they have tried to do in Reach)

OK, bloom - Why do people keep saying this? The bloom fix I am asking for would not make the DMR more powerful, that is not what I want, I want consistency. Currently the DMR bloom intermittently rewards spamming, the bloom is too generous if anything. Bullets are too likely to fall at the centre of the reticle even at full bloom, which means that often enough spammed shots will still land exactly on target, this makes the DMR more powerful than it should be in terms of the purpose of bloom, ie. to force pacing for the desired results. But worse than this, it isn’t even consistent in doing so, it doesn’t consistently reward spamming or consistently punish it. Pace consistently and you’ll get out shot by someone who spams and gets lucky plenty of the time (and if you don’t think it’s plenty then you really need to look in to it more), spam consistently and you’ll win sometimes and lose sometimes, exactly the same input each time with the output defined by an over focus on random chance. If you actually watch the video I linked you’ll realise that the bloom change it’s suggesting will make the DMR, if anything, less powerful, because it will consistently work in a way which punishes spamming and forces range dependant pacing. Hell, make it fire once every two minutes at max RoF if you want, as long as it’s consistent and I can know that if a guy beats me in a battle it’s cause he had a better combination of aim and pacing, rather than the roll of the dice deciding that this time he gets to spam 5 shots and have all of them hit whilst I’m pacing away, using the gun as it was supposedly designed to be used.

AL - I maintain that you should have to be good with it to gain significant benefit, as it is all you have to do is just manage to press the button as soon as you see danger and you’re fine. The fact that it activates quick enough to take effect in the time taken to melee from lunge range is just silly, sorry. It should require strategic use, not just be yet another way to clunky-fy CQB, increasing the activation time even slightly would help this massively, just a fraction of a second so your fist has to have hit the floor before it takes effect, so it’s not an ‘I ****ed up’ button. I also agree that nerfing duration would help, but I think the activation time is much more damaging in the pinch of the moment, which is where it’s exploited more often. It’s like the Halo equivalent of pulling out a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card and saying ‘ah ha’ to win a CQB battle even though you were the worse player.

Continued again…

206

Banshee - Sorry, but how does having infinite banshee tricks encourage use of the plas guns at all? If anything it only reinforces the abuse of the bomb, as tricking about and bombing is by far the most effective way to use it. Either it should be less nimble (nerf the tricks) or less powerful in terms of damage dealing, preferably both. I’d like to see a slight nerf of the bomb range, take away the homing so that to get the power you actually have to have decent aim as opposed to just pointing in the general direction of an enemy and pressing your kill button, but also a nerf on trick use. I don’t see how making it so that you actually have to be good and use tricks carefully rather than just being able to spam them and have it work is a bad thing. It’s like a fighter game where button bashing is more effective than learning the actual combos, it’s just broken, and the only people who defend it are those who just button bash either way, basically the people who are bad at the game itself but are rewarded by an inherently imbalanced mechanic.

Custom game options - Ok, I really don’t see your point here. How on earth can you object to having more customisation for custom games, things which don’t affect MM at all, thus don’t affect you at all unless you let them. If you hate things like Duck Hunt (which, tbh, I didn’t really like either), don’t play them. Other people do enjoy them, and seeing as you and others are in NO WAY forced to play them, what is your objection to their existence? You’re coming off as one of those people who enjoys the game a certain way and refuses to accept that others disagree and have a right to that opinion, to the point at which you object to the mere existence of other ways of playing even though they don’t affect you in the slightest unless you let them by joining the games. There is literally no downside to adding extra custom game options in terms of affecting the community, all it does is cater to other tastes and the decision of whether to do it or not can only really depend on whether the demand for it balances against the effort required to implement it.

I also really disagree with your point about changing the physics being a definite bad move, and really resent this common assertion that whatever Bungie give us is inherently the best possible way of playing the game. Bungie were not aiming to make the most competitive Halo game possible when making Reach, and fair enough. The competitive community is not the majority, and they wanted to make a game that was as enjoyable as possible for the wider audience. That was the best possible direction they could have taken for the franchise and the audience, and they pulled it off very well. However, when turning that same game to a competitive application, certain decisions with the mechanics become less suitable and so are changed, things like this are why we are given custom game options.

Sorry, but I’ve just had this discussion too many times, and it generally boils down to this:

Person 1 - I’d like these certain custom game options to enjoy the game in a slightly different way and use it for a slightly different purpose.

Person 2 - No, I enjoy the game this way and you will too.

Person 1 - Why? The things I’m asking for won’t affect you in the slightest, it’s just a way for me and likeminded individuals (of which there are many, we may be in the minority but we are a numerous, dedicated and longstanding part of the community) to enjoy the game the way we choose and one which is more suited to our desired application.

Person 2 - No, the way I enjoy the game is inherently and objectively better. There is no subjectivity at play here, I enjoy the game a certain way and you shall be forced to play it that way too. Why? Not really sure, I just dislike those who enjoy the game played in a different way and object to them being able to do so even though I’m not forced to suffer it in the slightest. It just helps me sleep at night.

Person 1 - Funny, I thought it was MLG players who were supposed to be the unreasonable ones. Perhaps you should stop focusing on the tryhards that give MLG a bad name and don’t really represent the dedicated, reasonable following at all, let alone the actual pros and high level AM players, and take a look at yourself. Live and let live, try it.

207

I want to add maneuverability.

Base player speed and Jump height: I feel that these are two factors that really give Halo its feel and should be included in a TU, however small changes they are it would be felt an appreciated.

208

This thread is constructed and organized brilliantly and this should be seen by anyone working on any update for reach.

209

> Please fix the issues in multiplayer. Bungie sooner ignores the issues than fix and take pride in the game and instead squeezing out as much money as they can (two map packs within 6 months and no TU even though its more than asked for by the community).

Bungie isn’t making the defiant map pack thats all 343 buddy. besides Bungie has been making patches and playlist updates since the beginning.

210

> I think you suffer from fanboy syndrome and can’t admit when a game needs tweaking.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Really? Cause I would say fanboy syndrome is when you whine incessantly about a video game you claim is unplayable, yet you continue to play it.

Reach is fine as is and does NOT need a fix 343i.

Lock this thread and move on, before this turns into the next Bungie Forums.

211

This game does need more than only a TU. The whole gameplay mechanics should be changed.

212

> This game does need more than only a TU. The whole gameplay mechanics should be changed.

Bloom needs to be tweaked - bigger expansion size, faster reset.
Movement speeds should be slightly buffed.
Ideally, a balanced BR (or equivalent) would be added, but this is unlikely.
AL needs to be shortened to a half-second timer, shield drain should be removed, no EMP, no melee straight off exit, no insta-killing vehicles, only one activation before 10-second recharge.

213

> I want to add maneuverability.
>
> Base player speed and Jump height: I feel that these are two factors that really give Halo its feel and should be included in a TU, however small changes they are it would be felt an appreciated.

Tbh I agree, but how much of an issue this really is for the vanilla game is subjective. I think the custom game options cover allowing for preference, and I don’t consider the choices with movement speed balancing an actual problem like AL/Banshee balance etc., just a thing that I personally would have done differently. You also have to consider that increasing the base speed only makes things like the DMR arguably more nerfed, albeit slightly. If pace of use is forced more consistently with a bloom fix, and base speed is increased, the window for kills in the context of playspace design/scale is reduced. In short, its easier to get away.

I think jump height is more of an issue than base player speed tbh, as there are soooooo many jumps on maps which just should be possible for even reasonable flow just aren’t. Whack on 110% jump height and everything just falls in the place, the ledge from shotty up to sniper on Asylum, the rocks around turret on Tempest, it feels like all the maps were designed with 110% in mind but the game itself inexplicably has 100%. I’d much rather see jump height modified as a base trait than player speed, but tbh I still don’t know how essential I consider either. I’m more for increased customisation for preference and fixes for key balance issues, though I do see your point.

However, I would like to see (as others have said here too) the increased movement options integrated a little better. Any use of 120% and higher base movement speed reduces strafe response drastically, the acceleration/deceleration time makes direction changing feel very ‘drifty/skatey’. The responsiveness of short strafing is actually better on 110% movement speed than it is on 120%. I know this has been an issue since H3, and maybe rooted in to the movement engine, but if it could be fixed then I would love to see it done because it would make 120% movement infinitely more viable for things like competitive purposes. Considering the Classic playlist is reportedly going to use 120% movement speed, this is even more of an issue imo as it affects something that will be in MM in a Bungie created/endorsed context.

> This thread is constructed and organized brilliantly and this should be seen by anyone working on any update for reach.

Thank you :).

214

> > Also a few weapons need buffed. AR, PR, Focus Rifle etc.
> >
> > Bloom should be like the magnum.
> >
> > and melees should be 3 melees or just take longer to double melee.
> >
> > If you think of it bleed through is worse than no bleed through.
> >
> > If one person had no sheilds and the other had almost no sheilds and they meleed, they would both die. Its different here.
> >
> > Melees are to strong in this compared to the weapons.
> >
> > Those are some of my thoughts…
>
> I disagree about the AR/FR/PR needing a buff. I hear this a lot, but can use them fine in all circumstances. Honestly if the AR was buffed it would be OP, if you can’t use it effectively as it is then it’s your aim that’s at fault, not the gun, sorry. Due to the hitscan on it, it’s still pretty damn effective making kills even at reasonable range, for a full auto weapon with a wide bullet cone and decently sized clip, it couldn’t get any more powerful without it just becoming too easy to use and only serving to level the playing field further.
>
> I TOTALLY disagree about no melee bleed being better than having it. People say that having no bleed nerfs melees, but the fact is that it doesn’t, it makes them more important. Because of the fact that there is no bleed, shooting at all before you melee serves NO purpose unless you do enough damage to entirely remove shields, which is only really an issue from decent range onwards. No bleed KILLS melee CQB, because it means that as soon as you’re in range to melee before the enemy can take you no shields (which is a large range considering how long it takes most starting weapons to remove shields and how quickly sprint can close a gap between players even from reasonable distance), you have to. If you don’t and choose to continue shooting, you’re screwed, if they land the first melee then you’re behind in the forced two melee kill cycle, even if you’re shooting, and they’ll kill you.
>
> I agree that melee needs to be nerfed, but no bleed doesn’t actually do that, it just makes meleeing once you’re in range more important and makes CQB even more clunky. If you want to nerfs melees, do just that and reduce the damage done by them. Ideally I’d like to see a 75% damage modifier on all melees (so it’ll take 3 melees to kill like you said) but WITH melee bleed through, that way double melees will be gone, but shooting before you melee and not just sprinting around mashing the melee button like you’re playing tekken will actually be worth it. No melee bleed together with the kill trade window makes CQB in Reach the most clunky and dull it’s ever been in any Halo game.
>
>
>
> > There should be a way to edit the amount of battery in weapons that run on batteries. You should be able to set a laser to 50/100 battery if you want to place it on a map but it would be too strong with all four shots.
>
> Yeah that’d be sweet, agreed. Dubs on Countdown highlights this: the Shotty only has one clip but the Sword is full because the charge can’t be changed, which just makes it so much more dominant in that gametype than the Shotty. Less than ideal imo.
>
> Continued due to character limit, 7500 chars? Really? Even the most tight forums I’ve seen have 10,000

That is why the AR PR needs buffed absoulutley nonone uses their guns in MM. There is no point when you could just melee. Im shooting somone and I die from getting punched? This AR is supposed to rip through people and it does nothing.

215

> That is why the AR PR needs buffed absoulutley nonone uses their guns in MM. There is no point when you could just melee. Im shooting somone and I die from getting punched? This AR is supposed to rip through people and it does nothing.

If the melee system is broken (which it is) then fix the melee system, don’t buff the AR to the point of it being OP to fix something which it only affects by proxy.

If mechanic A is broken to the point of being OP, why overpower and also break mechanic B to fix that, when you can just fix mechanic A?

The AR is supposed to have damage balanced to how hard it is to use and limited to a reasonable effective range considering RoF, bullet cone and clip size (whilst also taking in to account the fact that it’s hitscan). The AR DOES rip through people as it is, you can only make guns so powerful before you have to stop and just tell people to get better at aiming, otherwise those that can aim exploit the hell out of it and wider weapon sandbox balance goes to hell just for the sake of people who aren’t great at the game being able to make a kill. That’s what’s known as a crutch.

I use the AR extremely effectively to beat pretty much all weapons (except close range power weapons, obviously, which tbh I can still beat if the person isn’t good with them) at close-ish range. I can even make kills on fully shielded opponents from noticeable range simply by doing something that few people even seem to consider: burst firing. If you just hold the trigger and sweep back and forth in the direction of your opponent, is it yours or the gun’s fault that you’re not getting the kill before the clip runs out? I even use it as a very effective clean up weapon even at semi-longer ranges, again by burst firing and actually expecting aiming to be a pre-requisite of getting kills.

The AR is literally perfectly balanced as it is if you ask me. Even with melee bleed reintroduced, if melee damage were put at 75% across the board then the dreaded AR smash of H3 wouldn’t rear its ugly head again.

216

I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said. Good post.
To add I would also like to see a buff to certain vehicles. The Warthog isn’t what it used to be.

Also, I loved your bit where you talked about the Person 1 VS Person 2 Scenario, because it’s so true!

217

> I should never see my OWN GUN fire after I have died and get the kill

The tracer isn’t the bullet. It is always rendered after the shot registers. Latency showing your shot being off doesn’t matter. Your shot hit where you shot it. If latency had the player out of that position at host, but in position on your screen, then you will miss.

But I have experienced this with Halo 2 and 3. Sometimes connections were so bad to host that I could run into my bullets… remember those days?

218

> > I think you suffer from fanboy syndrome and can’t admit when a game needs tweaking.
>
> LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
>
> Really? Cause I would say fanboy syndrome is when you whine incessantly about a video game you claim is unplayable, yet you continue to play it.
>
> Reach is fine as is and does NOT need a fix 343i.
>
> Lock this thread and move on, before this turns into the next Bungie Forums.

how can you say this game don’t need a TU? Do you really think it’s perfect?

Stats speaks for itself, Reach has a low population compare to previous halo game. And part of this are due to:

  • AA as loadout
  • Bloom
  • Ranking system and that your rank mean nothing else than you just play the game a lot
  • AL
  • Lack of good maps (for me, this problem is partially solve with the Noble Map Pack and the upcoming Defiant Map Pack)
  • Vehicule combat

And I don’t think this game is unplayable, but as I love Halo and Reach, I think this game can be better. And it will come with a fix and a TU. Hopefully, 343i is listening.

219

> > What needs fixed, exactly?
> >
> > Bloom and Armour Lock aren’t “broken” to start with. It’s just your perception of them.
>
> the problem with bloom is it rewards spamers and punishes people hwo pace their shots, only people who pace their shots win if you are shooting across the map.

Thats what it’s meant for. The expanding part shows where the bullets can possibly land. If your enemy is close enough to where their body still takes up the entire/most of the expanding part then you’re good. It’s meant to “punish” players for spamming at long range.

It’s not broken. Players should not have to be forced to pace their shots in every range, it would turn Reach which is already at a slower pace than every Halo game into an even slower game. What would be the point of letting the player spam the trigger if it’s supposed to be impossible for your rounds to hit anything via this method?
The actual point of this is to add a layer of skill to the gameplay. Players need to learn at what pace to shoot each gun as what ranges. This is why Reach is less popular, it takes more skill to play which makes it less accesible and less fun to many players.

220

> > This game does need more than only a TU. The whole gameplay mechanics should be changed.
>
> Bloom needs to be tweaked - bigger expansion size, faster reset.
> Movement speeds should be slightly buffed.
> Ideally, a balanced BR (or equivalent) would be added, but this is unlikely.
> AL needs to be shortened to a half-second timer, shield drain should be removed, no EMP, no melee straight off exit, no insta-killing vehicles, only one activation before 10-second recharge.

If you want the BR, go play Halo 3. We don’t need the BR in Reach, or anything similar. We have the DMR. I actually like the DMR over the BR. It just feels so damn powerful. What needs to be fixed is how bloom works.

Also, you’re making AL so useless with the changes. AL is used to survive massive damage. I’m fine with it killing a ghost if you run into someone in AL. Here is what I believe would make AL still useful, yet make it more fair.

-No sticky nullifying. You get stuck, you die.
-No shield recharge
-2 uses per charge(Like Evade)
-Half to be in AL for at least half a charge to gain EMP effect.
-No more 360 view/Able to snap around when you come out.
-No frosting.