To All of Those Who Bought Halo 4, I'm sorry.

Sorry for your impatience and misplaced feeling of betrayal that is.

> What is wrong with what he said? All of it is true. The casuals are slowly turning every game into an easy killing everyone gets a trophy type of game.

Here we are. The day I knew would come. The day where people blame the changes in “their” game on casual players.

I’ve spent time on the forums of dozens of different games and whenever a sequel comes out that made a few mechanical changes to the gameplay, this is the argument you can bet money that you will see.

It is an inane argument. At least 90% of the playerbase of any game is made up of “casual” players. The definition of “casual” seems to be dynamic and changes to fit a specific person’s description of such. A “casual” player is always someone who plays the game less hours a day than you do, or hasn’t been a fan as long as you have. It isn’t fair to blame the majority of the playerbase because they are the ones that buy the game in the first place. They are the ones that provide the money for games like these to even exist. If you want to blame “casuals” for messing up your game, feel free to fund the entire creation process of the game yourself so that everything is made to your liking.

In other words, stop blaming “casuals” for the destruction of games. The game wouldn’t exist without them, the population of Halo wouldn’t be a fourth of what it is without them, and without them you wouldn’t play because everyone would be the same skill level as you are or better. Times change, games change, and clinging to a feeling of nostalgia will not help you adapt to what the future holds.

> When Halo 2 came out, I used to check back on Halo CE to see what people thought of the game. Well, it turns out many of the people there said they felt betrayed because of the new unbalanced mechanics. “The magnum sucks now! IT WAS HOW I PLAYED! Now the stupid default gun can kill people in 4 shots! BROKEN!”
>
> When Halo 3 came out, I used to check back on Halo 2 to see what people thought of the game. Again, it turns out many of the people still playing Halo 2 said they felt betrayed because of the new unbalanced mechanics. “Stupid BR is now the best gun in the game and I don’t like dieing so fast! Everything moves too fast and now there is no room for hardcore players, casuals are moving in!”
>
> When Halo: Reach came out, I used to check back on Halo 3 to see what people thought of the game. Once again, it turns out many of the people still playing Halo 3 said they felt as if Bungie has let them down and betrayed them because of the new unbalanced mechanics. “No more BR? Now we have a stupid DMR with bloom that takes skill out of the equation and replaces it with randomness! Not to mention the armor abilities that slow down the game. If you don’t have armorlock, you can’t win!”
>
> And now, with Halo 4, I can look on these forums and see people complaining once again about the mechanics of the game. They complain about how they are unbalanced, they complain about how they feel betrayed and unheard, and they complain about how they wished all of these issues would be fixed. Apparently 343i, the company who is implementing a TU earlier than any other Halo game, doesn’t care about the issues their game has. Apparently they will NEVER fix any of the issues present and are only in this for the money. It has been a total of 2 months and we have people listing all of these problems.

If you don’t like the new changes, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you feel 343i didn’t specifically cater to your needs. I’m sorry you believe that because this game has been out for just two months and 343i took a vacation that 343i is obviously not listening to the community. I’m sorry you think this game is a failure because it isn’t an HD copy of Halo 3.

However, know that you are only entitled to your opinion. That’s all. Nothing else. You can scream that the community obviously hates the game, but you must realize that this is a delusional view of things. Less than 1% of the entire Halo 4 community uses these forums. When someone has fun with a game, they play it. When someone wants to complain about it, they visit the forums. Since the hourly population of Halo 4 is usually inbetween 90k-110k, I’m assuming that the 500-1k hourly population of the forums is in the minority.

You may also believe that you were cheated out of the money you payed for this game. Well, not only are you in the minority with that opinion, but you have non to blame but yourself if you were skeptical. You could have rented the game when it came out to get a feel of it and see if it was what you wanted. You could have let a friend buy it and played with him to see if it was everything you imagined. You could have even waited for reviews of the game to poor in from professional critics and Youtube channels. In any case, you bought the game and you got what you payed for.

Feel free to voice your opinions, but please, don’t pretend as if this game is ruined or the creators have betrayed your trust just because changes were made that you don’t like. It is inherently obvious that tens of thousands DO like it, even if you are not one of them.

P.S. I wanted to post this in the color blue which is easier on my eyes to read, but in order to cater to the “casuals” of the forums, I will post it in default color. Sorry hardcores.

P.P.S. My last P.S. may have contained some snarky sarcasm.

90% of gamers in an average game are casual, I’ll give you that. But if you think games like quake are made up 90% by casuals, you are just plain wrong. Casuals gamers don’t make up the majority in competitively designed games.

Maybe Halo 4 is made up of 90% casuals because it caters to them, doesn’t mean all the other Halo games were.

And there is absolutely no excuse. You could easily satisfy both types of gamers. Different gamemodes, different playlists, etc.

> The forums are the minority.

The forums have players that both love and hate the game.
Players outside the forums both love and hate the game.

There are thousands who hate the game but don’t even bother to use the forums.
Likewise, there are thousands who love the game and don’t use the forums.

This argument is irrelevant.

Post of the week right here.

I am terribly sorry for posting criticism and giving my opinion on the game, how foolish of me.

Honestly, you would think these forums are run by the USSR. “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE HALO 4!”

All these wall of texts telling people who dislike the game to “put up or shut up” is getting ridiculous. At least the hater threads get to the point.

> I am terribly sorry for posting criticism and giving my opinion on the game, how foolish of me.
>
> Honestly, you would think these forums are run by the USSR. “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE HALO 4!”
>
> All these wall of texts telling people who dislike the game to “put up or shut up” is getting ridiculous. At least the hater threads get to the point.

Haha, your exaggerations amuse me.

> 90% of gamers in an average game are casual, I’ll give you that. But if you think games like quake are made up 90% by casuals, you are just plain wrong. Casuals gamers don’t make up the majority in competitively designed games.
>
> Maybe Halo 4 is made up of 90% casuals because it caters to them, doesn’t mean all the other Halo games were.
>
> And there is absolutely no excuse. You could easily satisfy both types of gamers. Different gamemodes, different playlists, etc.
>
>
>
> > The forums are the minoriy.
>
> The forums have players that both love and hate the game.
> Players outside the forums both love and hate the game.
>
> This argument is irrelevant.

This post was ludicrous nonsense.

Tell me, in a competitively built game like Quake, was much of the playerbase made up of players who just enjoy playing a few games to have fun? Were they all trying to make it into the top 1% of the world? If you believe the majority of players in Quake (Myself being one of them!) were mostly noncasual gamers, you are absolutely insane. Again, in nearly every game in existance, casuals make up the majority and popular games are always mostly populated by casual players.

CoD is mostly populated by casual players. Halo: CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo: Reach were populated by mostly casual players. <mark>Every popular game that is enjoyed by millions is made up of mostly casual players.</mark>

If you believe my argument is irrelevant, you may be suffering from denial.

> Players outside the forums both love and hate the game.

The absolute majority of those players enjoy the game. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be playing the game. This isn’t speculation, this is an undeniably obvious fact. Unless of course you believe that the majority of the population of Halo 4 is made up of masochists.

> > I am terribly sorry for posting criticism and giving my opinion on the game, how foolish of me.
> >
> > Honestly, you would think these forums are run by the USSR. “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE HALO 4!”
> >
> > All these wall of texts telling people who dislike the game to “put up or shut up” is getting ridiculous. At least the hater threads get to the point.
>
> Haha, your exaggerations amuse me.

Says the guy who made a thread a few days ago saying MLG should handle the game…

I don’t even. It’s like you finally realize the game isn’t perfect, but then you go back to bashing “haters” again anyways.

> I am terribly sorry for posting criticism and giving my opinion on the game, how foolish of me.
>
> Honestly, you would think these forums are run by the USSR. “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE HALO 4!”
>
> All these wall of texts telling people who dislike the game to “put up or shut up” is getting ridiculous. At least the hater threads get to the point.

I suppose that part where I said that it was fine for you to post your opinions fell out of my post due to some anti-Purplemonkieste wormhole. My mistake.

Your reading comprehension must be out of this world.

> Were they all trying to make it into the top 1% of the world?

That’s not what competitive means, try again. Well, at least when the word is used as slang.

> The absolute majority of those players enjoy the game. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be playing the game.

Nevermind, I worded that wrong.

I meant “people”, as several people outside the forums hate the game and either didn’t buy it or don’t play it.

Point is, you don’t have a count of people who like/dislike the game, therefore saying anything is the ‘minority’ is a fallacy.

You are looking at the population of the game, but you aren’t looking at the amount of players who don’t play the game as well.

> > I am terribly sorry for posting criticism and giving my opinion on the game, how foolish of me.
> >
> > Honestly, you would think these forums are run by the USSR. “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE HALO 4!”
> >
> > All these wall of texts telling people who dislike the game to “put up or shut up” is getting ridiculous. At least the hater threads get to the point.
>
> I suppose that part where I said that it was fine for you to post your opinions fell out of my post due to some anti-Purplemonkieste wormhole. My mistake.
>
> Your reading comprehension must be out of this world.

Maybe do a tl;dr next time. Wall of texts often intimidate your common forum goer.

> > Were they all trying to make it into the top 1% of the world?
>
> That’s not what competitive means, try again.
>
> Um…yeah?
>
> That’s my point.
>
> I’m referring to the people outside the forums who don’t play the game / didn’t even buy the game because they dislike it.

I see.

You have both a dynamic definition of competitive and a firm belief that since Halo 4 isn’t #1 in the charts your second point is proven.

I can’t argue with speculative “facts”. I don’t know what you believe the actual number of players would be if the game was perfect, but that all relies on complete speculation. Never have I seen such an incredible case of tunnel vision and flat denial.

> > > I am terribly sorry for posting criticism and giving my opinion on the game, how foolish of me.
> > >
> > > Honestly, you would think these forums are run by the USSR. “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE HALO 4!”
> > >
> > > All these wall of texts telling people who dislike the game to “put up or shut up” is getting ridiculous. At least the hater threads get to the point.
> >
> > Haha, your exaggerations amuse me.
>
> Says the guy who made a thread a few days ago saying MLG should handle the game…
>
> I don’t even. It’s like you finally realize the game isn’t perfect, but then you go back to bashing “haters” again anyways.

I have never bashed “haters” in all my time on these forums, I bash the idiots that go along making completely ludicrous reasons for why the game is broken.

Then I made my sarcastic statement because of how you ignore this guys entire post and then bash him bash him because you think he’s a blind fanboy.

Your reply completely contradicts your initial post because you go ahead and bash everyone that enjoys the game.

I edited my post. I meant ‘people’ or ‘gamers’, not ‘players’.

To me (and from what I witness when people use the word “casual” and "competitive) a competitive player is someone who devotes time to a game or someone who plays skillful games, and a casual is someone who hops from game to game or enjoys easy and laidback games.

Quake would be a competitive game, Mario Party would be a casual game.

> > > I am terribly sorry for posting criticism and giving my opinion on the game, how foolish of me.
> > >
> > > Honestly, you would think these forums are run by the USSR. “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE HALO 4!”
> > >
> > > All these wall of texts telling people who dislike the game to “put up or shut up” is getting ridiculous. At least the hater threads get to the point.
> >
> > I suppose that part where I said that it was fine for you to post your opinions fell out of my post due to some anti-Purplemonkieste wormhole. My mistake.
> >
> > Your reading comprehension must be out of this world.
>
> Maybe do a tl;dr next time. Wall of texts often intimidate your common forum goer.

Perhaps you won’t be so quick to jump on others before you’ve read the entire post.

If you fault me for posting a wall of text, I suppose I can’t do anything but take that critism.

> I edited my post.
>
> To me a competitive player is someone who devotes time to a game or someone who plays skillful games, and a casual is someone who hops from game to game or enjoys easy and laidback games.
>
> Quake would be a competitive game, Mario Party would be a casual game.

This is a dynamic view of “casuals” and “competitives”. If you change definitions to fit your beliefs, I really can’t win an argument with you.

I could devote years of my life to Mario Party to become the best there ever was. Any game can have both casual and competitive players.

> In other words, stop blaming “casuals” for the destruction of games. The game wouldn’t exist without them

^^^

This is all you need to know. Yep. Right up there.

The wanna-bes and tryhards are such a small percent of the population catering to them would be huge mistake for Halo to do or ANY game to be honest.

Name one game on the Xbox that has a nonexistent cough cough “casual” base and it thrives and is amazing to play?

I can’t think of one.

> > I edited my post.
> >
> > To me a competitive player is someone who devotes time to a game or someone who plays skillful games, and a casual is someone who hops from game to game or enjoys easy and laidback games.
> >
> > Quake would be a competitive game, Mario Party would be a casual game.
>
> This is a dynamic view of “casuals” and “competitives”. If you change definitions to fit your beliefs, I really can’t win an argument with you.
>
> I could devote years of my life to Mario Party to become the best there ever was. Any game can have both casual and competitive players.

It’s the definitions a wide variety of people use. There isn’t really one single definition for casual and competitive.

I avoid using the terms “good players” and “bad players” because that’s offensive and not entirely accurate, but that’s basically what my argument boils down to.

Bad players like easymode games, good players like to be challenged. Heck, bad players become good players by being challenged. Instead of demanding the game becomes easier for you, why not just try to get better? When games cater more and more to bad players, they just start lacking substance. This is a trend games seem to have.

And considering Mario Party, much like this game, is based a lot on luck, that’s a bit arguable.

The game shouldn’t have to become more dumbed down and more imbalanced just so bad players can feel good about themselves. It should become more deep and skillful, giving meaning to improvement. I mostly don’t judge by population, I judge by quality instead.

> > > I edited my post.
> > >
> > > To me a competitive player is someone who devotes time to a game or someone who plays skillful games, and a casual is someone who hops from game to game or enjoys easy and laidback games.
> > >
> > > Quake would be a competitive game, Mario Party would be a casual game.
> >
> > This is a dynamic view of “casuals” and “competitives”. If you change definitions to fit your beliefs, I really can’t win an argument with you.
> >
> > I could devote years of my life to Mario Party to become the best there ever was. Any game can have both casual and competitive players.
>
> It’s the definitions a wide variety of people use. There isn’t really one single definition for casual and competitive.
>
> I avoid using the terms “good players” and “bad players” because that’s offensive and not entirely accurate, but that’s basically what my argument boils down to.
>
> Bad players like easymode games, good players like to be challenged. Heck, bad players become good players by being challenged. Instead of demanding the game becomes easier for you, why not just try to get better?
>
> And considering Mario Party, much like this game, is based a lot on luck, that’s a bit arguable.

Since there isn’t a set definition for “casuals” and “competitives” they should never be used as derogatory, or complimentary terms. Therefore, any huge threads or posts claiming the oh so hated dev of this game is completely catered “casuals” can be rendered invalid. And any post/ thread hating on competitives can be treated the same.

This whole casuals vs competitives thing that has been going on in the gaming community is completely ridiculous.

> I avoid using the terms “good players” and “bad players” because that’s offensive and not entirely accurate, but that’s basically what my argument boils down to.
>
> Bad players like easymode games, good players like to be challenged. Heck, bad players become good players by being challenged. Instead of demanding the game becomes easier for you, why not just try to get better? When games cater more and more to bad players, they just start lacking substance. This is a trend games seem to have.

That is a very dangerous view. You see, your opinion of players decideds whether or not they are good or bad players. The worst player in Halo could watch other players blow themselves up and believe that they are a better player than that.

Bad players are bad. They play bad and that’s it. Everyone gets better with practice, but bad players are not a population of 3 year olds who just want to win. Bad players are inexperienced players. Good players are experienced players. There are good players who only want to win.

You have serious tunnel vision my friend. The world isn’t that simple, and this isn’t what it basically boils down to.

> > In other words, stop blaming “casuals” for the destruction of games. The game wouldn’t exist without them
>
> ^^^
>
> This is all you need to know. Yep. Right up there.
>
> The wanna-bes and tryhards are such a small percent of the population catering to them would be huge mistake for Halo to do or ANY game to be honest.
>
> <mark>Name one game on the Xbox that has a nonexistent cough cough “casual” base and it thrives and is amazing to play?</mark>
>
> I can’t think of one.

Uh Happy Wars Duh? (Sarcasm)

OT: Halo 4 can cater to casual and hardcore gamers, I dont see why they cant. Have a competitive and a non-competitive/casual playlist. Honestly I get people on my team who are absolutely horrible and not up to par with my skill level. Those people who play to have fun should have their own playlist. I am not trying to bash anyone, just stating my opinion.

P.S. Happy Wars is a pretty awesome game.