> > When it comes to online experience “flop” is a very subjective term. If you happen to be just a regular gamer who doesn’t really care about anything than just playing, the game was most likely very enjoyable to you, and the experience was mainly good. On the other hand, if you’re a competitive gamer who understands the gameplay of Halo, the online experience was most likely rather unpleasant to you. What comes to the general gameplay experience, I’d say it was mediocre, maybe a bit above average, but a flop it wasn’t.
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> Well I was/am both. First I was playing more competitive and after I get bored I played regular or casual. I don’t want to insult the Halo community, but let’s be honest… Halo 3 players > Hao Reach players. I enjoyed it, to take the road to 50, because you had opponents which were equal to your skill-level. Ofcourse the 1-50 system wasn’t perfect, but it was mostly enjoyable. I don’t like Halo Reach’s multiplayer anymore… It was good for the first year, but then I don’t know what happened then.
That’s the problem, you can’t just first be a competitive gamer and then start playing compeltely casually. Trust me, I have tried. I can try to play for the sake of playing, not caring about how I perform. In fact, that’s easy. But no matter how hard I try, I just can’t stop noticing the problems in the balance and skill of the game. When you know there is a problem somewhere, you can’t just be without noticing it every time. On the other hand, a person who doesn’t know about it or understand it will live happily, never noticing it.
> The game still moves considerable numbers and is deemed a commercial success by Microsoft, guaranteeing the continuation of the Reclaimer trilogy. Due to its further alterations to the Halo formula (whatever that may be), Halo 4 engenders as much or more rancour among hardcore fans as has Reach, leading to their mass exodus from the online servers. In their absence, the remaining players–who are either new to the game, casual gamers, or gamers who simply do not mind the changes–engage in a new era of Halo multiplayer that is dominated by the idea of “fun”. They have a blast; word spreads, and soon other players migrate to the servers, all intent upon enjoying themselves to the utmost. Meanwhile, the departed hardcore have found a new game to play, and within a matter of weeks, they have begun to apply their microscopes of criticism to that game in the very same manner, complaining ad nauseum about the most minute changes. They return to Halo 4 en masse, and the fun once again stops.
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> Alternatively, here’s a more likely scenario:
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> The hardcore gamers complain as they always have and yet continue playing the game because, let’s face it, they have nothing else to do.
That’s a very naive view. I fail to understand how I as a hardcore gamer could ruin your fun. I may complain about problems of the game, but unless you are in the same boat with me and notice them, do you really have to care? Nothing in this world is forcing you notice our problems. If you don’t notice them, good for you. You still have to ability to have fun in the game, us it before it vanishes. Don’t care about what we say unless you feel the same way.
When you started playing Halo, you chose the most competitive console shooter. That was most likely an unconcious choice, but I don’t really see what’s the point of complaining about other players having a different way of having fun. Surely, you could just ignore us as the subjects of our complaints really doesn’t have much to do with the ability to enjoy the game.
In the end, your alternative scenario is rather correct. Even with Halo’s decrease in gameplay depth, the game still manages to be the only console shooter on the market that requires substantial amounts of skill to play. That shows how bad the situation actually is for the competitive community. We just can’t jump into another game because they’re even worse than what Halo has become. You just have to learn to ignore us or understand us, but don’t complain about our way of having fun. We have complete right to do it as it’s not really hurting anyone, or more accurately, it shouldn’t hurt anyone.
