Why did Reach Fail in comparison to H3/2?

And how does this effect Halo 4’s potential? What should come back and what should go? Bring all reasons to this thread. Is new better? Does a game that stays the same really lose its player base?
Thinking in popularity, Why it lost to CoD, etc.

Whats your Opinion?

Some things to consider are:

  • Changing the core gameplay with introduction of AA’s/bloom/Melee/Movement speed/Bad maps/weird spawn system
  • No ranking system similar to previous titles
  • Not following Master chief’s campaign (Not saying it should have but this campaign was undoubtably less popular)
    -others?

get rid of armor lock ability, especially for core gunplay.

Halo Reach had amazing ideas. However, Bungie’s execution was absolutely abysmal. If you look at Halo 4, it has many of the same ideas Reach had: More serious campaign, a deeper progression system, greater player freedom (AA/loadouts), grittier feel. Halo 4 sounds amazing, but like Reach, it all comes down to execution.

It lost basically because COD has too much of a stronghold on the Game market.

> Halo Reach had amazing ideas. However, Bungie’s execution was absolutely abysmal. If you look at Halo 4, it has many of the same ideas Reach had: More serious campaign, a deeper progression system, greater player freedom (AA/loadouts), grittier feel. Halo 4 sounds amazing, but like Reach, it all comes down to execution.

OMG! You understand! I am amazed and impressed, as I thought that level of rational thinking was lost in this community!

You are right, this game will be decided on how well its systems are executed and implemented.

The changes implemented in Reach just changed what i call the “surface” level of the Halo formula but without changing the “under layer” to compensate these new changes.

The fact is that all they did was (unless you were new to the game or have been a series casual) was bring imbalance to the sandbox (poor implementation of new ideas) and extremely long kill times (which also helped players with short attention spans migrate to black ops or other games). The population pre holiday season was quite evident of this since it struggled to keep up 60000 players on a good day.

Take away Bloom and AAs and what you’ve got is still a Halo game (to be specific, a slower Halo 3 with more gimmicks). It took MLG and the TU to make the game faster in respects to fast kill times and balance (though once again, most of the sandbox was stripped because most guns were too similar and not viable in terms of usefulness. Hopefully this doesn’t happen in Halo 4).

Financially, this game was hit, so it didn’t fail at all. It definitely failed the competitive crowd with one ranked playlist, terrible default settings, uninspired map designs and bad implementation of new ideas.

There are so many reasons. But I’m going to respond with. This is the wrong forum for this, put this in the reach forums.

> Halo Reach had amazing ideas. However, Bungie’s execution was absolutely abysmal. If you look at Halo 4, it has many of the same ideas Reach had: More serious campaign, a deeper progression system, greater player freedom (AA/loadouts), grittier feel. Halo 4 sounds amazing, but like Reach, it all comes down to execution.

Honestly, this is exactly right. Reach sounded good on paper, but it failed to execute (funny how Halo 4 is looking like the opposite). The reason for this was b/c most of Bungie’s Senior members were finishing up ODST at the time most of the ground work was being laid for Reach.

No Ranking, system was a big part in my mind …

Also a new playing system with AA’s / a huge change from past halo’s

In my view, it did not. Halo Reach had a major disadvantage compared to Halo 2/3: at the time of their release, Halo 2 and 3 were practically the only major shooters with online multiplayer were Halo. There really wasn’t much competition.

Now, we have almost 5 times as many titles and about 5 times as many shooter, and now, more and more game have multiplayer capabilities with every game being XBL enabled.

Besides that, I can still find a match relatively quickly, and the game is fun to play. To me, that’s a success.

I will say Reach is better than the other non halo FPS that are out. But as a halo game it disappointed me the movement speed was slow it felt like you could barely jump and I didn’t enjoy the maps.

Just my opinion.

I didn’t like how everyone died, it was stupid and pointless. I was mad that Bungie wanted them to die, that they bothered creating all these characters just to kill them all off for no reason.

How is Reach a failure?

Reach sold about the same as Halo 3 if not more, recieved similarly high critical acclaim and awards, and is played by hundreds of thousands of people to this day. It was flawed but far from a failure in the eyes of the public, the media, and MS.

> How is Reach a failure?

How is not a failure? No other Halo title to date has received as much indignation as Reach, just look at the numbers in terms of longevity compared to halo 3, and the obvious outcry from the community.

> > How is Reach a failure?
>
> How is not a failure? <mark>No other Halo title to date has received as much indignation as Reach</mark>, just look at the numbers in terms of longevity compared to halo 3, and the obvious outcry from the community.

Is that your final answer?

Halo2sucks.com. Ever heard of it? Halo 2 was easily the most controversial Halo title. Halo 3 had its share of hate to, in part attributed to BR spread. The hate toward Reach is nothing new.

> I will say Reach is better than the other non halo FPS that are out. But as a halo game it disappointed me the movement speed was slow it felt like you could barely jump and I didn’t enjoy the maps.
>
> Just my opinion.

Fun facts:

  • The movement speed in Reach is equal to the movement speed in Halo 2
  • The jump height is about the same or greater than Halo CE.

What are the “things” that made Halo:Reach fail?

I love the game, I don’t like the updates.

Numberless factors.

Reach out of the box was almost unplayable for some …

And with Each update 343I does it gets better in my mind …

Also from a competitive side look at what MLG has had to change /take out just to keep it on the circuit…

The game had really good ideas on paper - but in most peoples minds, they did not work the way Bungie had in mind .

I think 343i has learned from what Bungie did and its, trying to fix all of it for Halo 4 …

But there will probably still be a Title Update — as almost all halo games have had 1 or 2 .

Reach’s campaign followed the path of H3 instead of giving the player proper freedom to utilize it’s assets.

Let > = ‘transition to’, not ‘greater than’

Invisible barriers > ten second countdowns
Teleporting durable NPC friendly AI > invincible teleporting NPC friendly AI
somewhat effective friendly AI > incompetent friendly AI
Game killing off AI (I assume this exists)
friendly AI kill stealers (it’s not as bad as the S117 missile Pelican but it’s still annoying)
Linear checkpoint system
Fighting vehicles on foot = suicide > fighting vehicles on foot = less riskier but only because fighting in a vehicle = suicide
Enemy aggression increase > enemies have more advantages than player

I would have almost preferred H3 if I hadn’t played it but I don’t. I hate it and see it as Reach’s progenitor. Who is victim and who is foe? To me, the victim is Reach. The signs were in H3 but we didn’t see it.

Reach didn’t fix much. It added. It didn’t change enough. It didn’t cast off what made H3 (and sometimes H2) a less ideal experience. It couldn’t properly restore CE. That’s why it failed.

CE marines were never so bad, CE Elites and Jackals were never so cheap, CE vehicles weren’t that easily destroyed when piloted by the player, CE Hunters were never so lax.