Why I think Warzone Firefight Feels Bad

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

BIG READ BELOW! HAD TO BE SPLIT INTO TWO PARTS.

TL DR for the 343i Knights: I’m a Bungie Fanboy that doesn’t know what he’s talking about and should get a good ribbing.
Sadly there isn’t a TL DR for normal people.

Something I want to make clear before I start is this isn’t a thread about the additions in this update but that WZFF is a terrible placeholder for firefight. I personally love the Grunt Goblin, the lore and concept of the temple units and I’m pretty indifferent to the wasp. I like the idea of a cheap air unit but I feel like it’ll be abused in normal Warzone. I haven’t gotten a real chance to see it in PvP action so take that with a grain of salt. I like the update to the Warzone bosses expect the coloring is still annoying to me. I expected my Elite Ultras to be white again not red and didn’t expect Blue Prometheans again. Not really sure what it even means in terms of lore but onto the list.

  1. It follows 343i’s golden rule of change it for the sake of change.

Firefight’s old formula was basically “Hold this position from AI forces.” The skulls and random enemy order mixed it up and allowed for varied play. With WZFF there is still variety but why take away the hold the fort scheme? The moments where you do hold the fort feel pretty lazy. enemies will spawn literally from every angle and most of them will ignore all danger just to rush the base.

  1. TOO MANY PROMETHEANS!

It’s hard to say 343i doesn’t listen. They’ve reworked the Knights from teleport spamming monsters into well designed mini bosses then took away the Watchers ability revive them and the ability to make crawlers out of dirt. Then you gave the teleport to Soldiers…why? They’re far smaller then knights, making it harder to hit them at longer ranges. They somehow have stronger melees, that are from my experiences undodgeable unless you’re behind them. You they appear in greater numbers and more often making so you always have to deal with it and as icing on the cake, they speck English and have plenty of time to -Yoink- talk. Then you give them human weapons too…SAWs, Hydras, Warthogs and whatever the plural for Mantis is just for the giggles. Do you know how terrifying it is to watch a Spartan get trapped by 8 soldiers, all with SAWs pretending their clone troopers reenacting Order 66? I can only watch that happen so many times 343i, please stop with this.

They also made it so that Watchers can now heal every Promethean unit, including bosses like The Warden Eternal. What’s even wrose is that in campaign it was manageable because you always aw where they we’re but in WZFF they’ll hide or get stuck on rocks then pop out at the last second and completely negate four minutes of damage at a seconds notice.

Lastly, I’m not sure if this is a bug or if the AI is smarter then I think but, Crawlers when attached by precision weapons tilt their heads back. The common man wouldn’t think much of this but the reason why this is painfully not worth is that their mouths are not all their weapon points but their source of damage. When they tilt their heads back they can still fire with unnatural precision but they also hide their weak spot. This was in Halo 4 as well so i’m not sure if it’s intentional or not but, stop it. BAD DOG!

  1. It feels soulless

I was worried while playing the BETA because the gamemode seemed like one of those quickly tacked on features. Sort of like how some games that have amazing simple player experiences add MP that just feels off and unfinished. It was a BETA and assumed that’s what the feeling was, turns out it was the mode itself. While the Sangheilios map flows pretty well the others don’t seem to fit. Especially Fortress since the sound doesn’t even play during the intro besides Palmer’s voice. It kind of makes me feel like when that was play tested someone said’ “Eh, nobody cares.” I guess they we’re kind of right seeing as how I seem to be the first person to bring it up…wait…does that make me nobody :frowning:

  1. The Boss Adds

I’m more of an old school gamer and I feel a boss should be the battle not his minions. Each boss battle is littered with seemingly endless adds. What makes this worse is typically those ads are high ranking enemies like Knights or Elites so they take quite alot to put down. Even worse is how the bosses when a percentage of health is reached spawn even more adds. Even form time to time wave five will have two boss waves for reasons unknown. My team and I spent 4:50 seconds fighting a grunt goblin and his escort of Promethean Knights only to discover that there we’re two Hunter Devastators that we’re the actually boss and even worse they too had a heavy escort.

The adds are crazy and need to be toned down. Even in normal hunt missions I’ve seen players unable to kill targets because they’ve been forced into a fight by massive numbers of another enemy type.

  1. The Boss Aim Assist.

In Halo’s past AI had some pretty unreal aim assist. With this, 343i clearly looked back at the past game and said “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!” I saw A Warden fire his death ball, a teammate dodge the ball and watched the ball do a full 180 and come back to kill my teammate. I instantly busted out in laughter screaming, "HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT THAT!?!?!? Eternal

End of part 1

2
  1. Warden (deep breathe) ETERNAL!

Please go away. I was done with you after Sangheilios, I was super done with you after you we’re the boss to every Warzone match, I quite Halo 5 after you we’re the boss twice for a warzone map and now you’re back with even more cheeky moves. I’m actually considering NOT buying Halo 6 because I fear the Warden will actually be the boss of EVERY MISSION!

  1. General Balance

The Balance of WZFF seems to be around powerful reqs and 8 players. The moment any of those fails means game over. The sad part about that is I remember 343i members talking about how they wanted WZFF to be playable without using reqs. I thought “Wow, how generous of them.” and in the BETA it seemed to hold up, but now it’s clearly not the same way. This isn’t a topic that enrages me like the others but makes me kind of sad. Mostly because it seemed like an innocent thing to do but was for some reason taken out. It also makes it near impossible for new H5 players to jump into WZFF or players who’re just not as good at the game as others. It feels like it punishes the weak for being weak and I’m not a fan of it. While I consider myself a hardcore gamer, I constantly play with my…let’s just say girlfriend, niece, and father. Even some of my closest friends are drifting from gaming and this only hurts any time they’d ever want to hope back in. I’d wish there was a type of hardcore and normal WZFF for those unable to keep up with the top of the line models suck as myself.

  1. Snipers are Almost Useless

Promethean shrug them off, most Covenant bosses have tons of cover or vehicles and sniper requires patience, patience costs time, which is a valuable resource in WZ FF. I’m the kind of person who thinks that all playstyles should be welcomed. If my sniper bros can’t play then there’s an obvious flaw in the overall gamemode.

  1. The Timers (Respawn and countdown)

I understand making the gamemode harder as it goes along and punishing death but death in WZFF already has a steep price. You’ve likely just lost a high power weapon, vehicle or boost, lost a foothold and an extra gun. Those are some of the greatest prices in PvE, with that being said, is it really so hard to lower the spawn timer on wave 5? It feels like you’re knee capping a crucified man.

The countdown timer just feels tacked on. Lives would work so much better. Three lives per person, gain an extra life after each wave, after a wave is completed those who’re out of lives can respawn for another try. Bring back the Hero medal.

  1. No Custom Games

As with normal Warzone there is no way to grab a group of friends for a game night and play against the Unngoy Onslaught. What makes this even worse is that fact that Warzone FF is exclusively online just like the other Warzone matches. So if you don’t have gold or when the servers get shutdown eventually you’ll never be able to enjoy it on your own.

  1. Losing Doesn’t Feel Like Your Fault

With all that I’ve listed above, whenever a game of WZFF end no one ever feels like it was their fault if they lost it feels as if you’ve been cheated out of a win. I’m the kind of guy who says “The person with 15 deaths was critical to the team, he was the tank.” If he hand’t been sucking up those bullets, I might of been sucking them up and I certainly can’t have that. but coming out of WZFF I just feel robbed if I lose. They’ve been times where I’ve lost because an enemy’s death animation takes too long, an elite threw a plasma grenade as if I was playing Halo Reach or just by random unaccountable -Yoink- like a Phaeton spawning behind my sniper nest or an elite mid weapon change somehow fires his fuel rod gun and swings his sword at the sametime. Really, this happens, be careful charging those crazy -Yoinks!- they’re taking weapon swapping to Micheal Bay levels.

That’s the reason why I think WZFF is just bad. I’m very open to criticism for those who want to try to convince me, you’re welcome.

P.S. If you see any errors I miss, feel free to notify me so I can change them.

3

Too much Bullet Sponge design. Promethean soldiers are ultimately unsatisfying to kill because they just absorb bullets. Part of the fun of fighting elites is that there are ways to strip the shields and use damage multipliers to kill them fast. What’s more damage is IMMEDIATE and APPARENT as bullets strike the shields they light up. Firing at a soldier reminds me of stabbing cake batter. The knights have some nifty weak points which make them much more interesting but even then they’re still bullet spongey. Crawlers have a super irritating head hitbox and the warden eternal is just a massive bullet sponge with a couple of special attacks, just the pinnacle of bad boss design - very disappointing that they have to copy paste this boss everywhere both in campaign and Warzone and now Firefight.

Balancing a game for 8 players using powerful REQs and Vehicles is hard but I feel like there HAS to be more interesting ways of doing it rather than UP Health and UP damage on the enemies. Alot of that could be accomplished with improved AI. Imagine if a knight was scary not because he took 4 and a half clips of AR fire from 3 people to put down, but because he takes cover and pops out to fire devastating barrages of Incendiary Cannon fire. Or stalks forwards and tries to engage you in close combat with it’s scattershot. There’s a place for straight baseline buffs but the AI needs to be SMARTER to be more interesting, I feel.

4

why write all this when you know 343 won’t read this or change anything

5

> 2533274846637118;4:
> why write all this when you know 343 won’t read this or change anything

It’s hard to say they don’t listen after the release of firefight, the removal of armor abilities, and the addition of playable elites… oh wait they haven’t added that yet despite it being the most requested and backed update to Halo but that’s a different topic. One good reason is that a few weeks ago a 343i member did drop the bass on a guy who said they never come to the site. It was kind of cool to see a member pop from the shadows like that and I’d rather voice my own opinion then suffer in silence then be upset if change never happens.

6

> 2533274805962294;3:
> Too much Bullet Sponge design. Promethean soldiers are ultimately unsatisfying to kill because they just absorb bullets. Part of the fun of fighting elites is that there are ways to strip the shields and use damage multipliers to kill them fast. What’s more damage is IMMEDIATE and APPARENT as bullets strike the shields they light up. Firing at a soldier reminds me of stabbing cake batter. The knights have some nifty weak points which make them much more interesting but even then they’re still bullet spongey. Crawlers have a super irritating head hitbox and the warden eternal is just a massive bullet sponge with a couple of special attacks, just the pinnacle of bad boss design - very disappointing that they have to copy paste this boss everywhere both in campaign and Warzone and now Firefight.
>
> Balancing a game for 8 players using powerful REQs and Vehicles is hard but I feel like there HAS to be more interesting ways of doing it rather than UP Health and UP damage on the enemies. Alot of that could be accomplished with improved AI. Imagine if a knight was scary not because he took 4 and a half clips of AR fire from 3 people to put down, but because he takes cover and pops out to fire devastating barrages of Incendiary Cannon fire. Or stalks forwards and tries to engage you in close combat with it’s scattershot. There’s a place for straight baseline buffs but the AI needs to be SMARTER to be more interesting, I feel.

I agree with this even if I’ve never had the experience of stabbing cake batter before.

7

> 2533274805962294;3:
> Too much Bullet Sponge design. Promethean soldiers are ultimately unsatisfying to kill because they just absorb bullets. Part of the fun of fighting elites is that there are ways to strip the shields and use damage multipliers to kill them fast. What’s more damage is IMMEDIATE and APPARENT as bullets strike the shields they light up. Firing at a soldier reminds me of stabbing cake batter.

This, so much this. Automatics are worthless against Prometheans because they don’t have a knock-back effect like it would on a Grunt or Jackal. My beloved AR doesn’t cut it too well against constantly teleporting Soldiers. I tried to raise this issue in the beta feedback but I’m not surprised it was overlooked.

8

> 2533274800438887;7:
> > 2533274805962294;3:
> > Too much Bullet Sponge design. Promethean soldiers are ultimately unsatisfying to kill because they just absorb bullets. Part of the fun of fighting elites is that there are ways to strip the shields and use damage multipliers to kill them fast. What’s more damage is IMMEDIATE and APPARENT as bullets strike the shields they light up. Firing at a soldier reminds me of stabbing cake batter.
>
>
> This, so much this. Automatics are worthless against Prometheans because they don’t have a knock-back effect like it would on a Grunt or Jackal. My beloved AR doesn’t cut it too well against constantly teleporting Soldiers. I tried to raise this issue in the beta feedback but I’m not surprised it was overlooked.

You know that is also a great point, Prometheans don’t flinch unless you’re using a power weapon and even then it has to be a instant kill weapon for other Spartans. That oculd be a huge reason as to why they just don’t feel right to fight. But their inability to feel is kind of the point of them right?

9

most of the 1st post i disagree with. this is not ODST and the firefight is not ODSTs. i get that was a fun firefight. this one is also fun.

i love all the minions the bosses have. without them, the bosses would have to be even BIGGER bullet sponges to make it any harder. sometimes the minions go a little overboard. that should be looked at. but the fact that we’re not just fighting a single bad guy is a good thing.

10

> 2535468547991460;9:
> most of the 1st post i disagree with. this is not ODST and the firefight is not ODSTs. i get that was a fun firefight. this one is also fun.
>
> i love all the minions the bosses have. without them, the bosses would have to be even BIGGER bullet sponges to make it any harder. sometimes the minions go a little overboard. that should be looked at. but the fact that we’re not just fighting a single bad guy is a good thing.

That’s a big point for me, it certainly isn’t ODST but why should it distance itself so much? WZFF doesn’t feel like it’s in the FF family it feels like it’s a neighbor while Spartan Ops felt like someone down the street. These of course doesn’t make it so the gamemode isn’t fun, I played the hell out of Sops and WZFF surely can have it’s moments but for the most part the things on the list keep breaking it for me.

I also strongly believe that a boss fight should be a BOSS FIGHT unless the boss is specifically a horde. If a boss can’t manage on their own then maybe it’s not a good design. As I said in my post about the Grunt Goblin, it was such a hard fought enemy that we actually thought it was the final boss but then two hunters surrounded by Knights spawned in the finale 10 seconds after we killed the Goblin.

The goblin is a joy to fight, 3 wardens camping in our own bass is not since the only way to fight him is to just stay away and shoot.

Just an example of three changes they could of given Warden to make him more of a boss instead of just tweaking his abilities. These are mostly number changes as well so they don’t have to remake the Warden in half a week.

  1. Lower the hit box on his sword.

This would encourage more close up engagements and give you a grander feel for the battle. It’s always cooler to dodge a 15 foot sword then it is to hide behind a rock.

  1. Give him old boss troupes.

Make him ramp up his melee attack speed, make him always return fire and give his powers numbers increase (I.E 1 face laser becomes 3) the more his core is popped. Give him lower health but points of no interest by making him vulnerable after ability uses. Alot of bosses through out gaming have been about “Don’t attack him then, attack him now.” Mario is a good example, don’t attack Bowser when he’s attacking you wait for the refractory period. If you attack him while he’s standing around he’d have strong defense but while or shortly after he’s attacked, the defensive stat would go away.

Adds should mean an obvious boss weakness that they’re compensating for. Have troops always on his flank protecting his back but greatly increase the amount of damage he takes from his core being hit.

  1. Make him more active.

Nothing screams fun like shelling a target from 5 miles away as you hear the enemies echoed screams but it doesn’t feel like a boss battle when the boss doesn’t move. Warden’s stand in one area just facing lasering and vortex bombing. If he could move around and chase targets it’d increase the tension. What makes it worse is that players laugh at how they can see the strings. Warden standing there, talking the maddest of -Yoink- while being pounded by an entire armored division from afar doesn’t make him feel like an ancient machine of unrivaled power, it feels more like the ancients died off for a reason.

11

I agree that they should change some stuff.

12

The biggest problem I have with Firefight at the moment is that 5 minute round timer. I’m not saying get rid of the round timer. It does add an interesting level of difficulty to it all. Manipulating it for more breathing room might make it more accessible to others, however.

13

I’m gonna have to agree with everything.

14

> 2533274793336676;12:
> The biggest problem I have with Firefight at the moment is that 5 minute round timer. I’m not saying get rid of the round timer. It does add an interesting level of difficulty to it all. Manipulating it for more breathing room might make it more accessible to others, however.

Yeah, when I frist played it I thought the timer would be murder on any low levels trying to get into the mode. Half my team didn’t even get more then 15 kills, if a group like that got together they’d have no fun at all in WZFF.

15

thank god someone mentioned this first. Time limit kills me the most out of all of this as a hugely added insult. We had a similar situation during a boss round where we ended up blowing our asinine 5 minutes on cutting two phaetons with small arms fire (because we were only at level 3 reqs in round 2–hoo boy, carbines for days right?) and then two more phaetons arrived with no added time. Then we also have the issue of bad guys just being lost in the -Yoink!- map. Five minutes is stupidly short as it is, especially when you look at HOW MASSIVE THE MAPS ARE, but then you have to add on a thirty second respawn time? If I come in with a req, and then get owned by your sickass trio of three mythic wardens, lose my Mantis and my req points, I’ve already wasted a minute or more by the time I have to come back. If you’re trying to tell me to “git gud” you’re doing it the wrong way.

Also,make up your damn mind. Dont have prometheans on a map by default in the intro if we’re fighting covenant, and STOP giving them other weaponry. It doesn’t help us at all. I’ve been sick of ancient robots for a long time since Halo 4’s Spartan ops, but your bland -Yoink- enemy is not fun to fight anymore. They’re not even fun to kill. There’s no satisfaction in it at all, even when I take down bosses. They’re just not fun at all.

16

> 2533274793336676;12:
> The biggest problem I have with Firefight at the moment is that 5 minute round timer. I’m not saying get rid of the round timer. It does add an interesting level of difficulty to it all. Manipulating it for more breathing room might make it more accessible to others, however.

If they replaced the timer limit with life limits, it would encourage patience and precision. Right now, with the timer and unlimited lives you feel like you have rush into battle and take risks which is my least favorite way to play any shooter.

17

I don’t think WZFF is bad, I do have fun playing it and think its way more exciting than the beta was. I do share alot of your grievances though. Too many adds for high level bosses. The respawn timer doesn’t bother me, but it kills me how far away from the action it spawns you. Also it would be great if the game is more transparent about rounds with multiple phases. You take your time because you think you have a whole minute and a half left to finish a boss, only to realize there’s a second set of bosses you have to finish for that round and now only have 30 seconds to do so.

18

> 2533274808316762;16:
> > 2533274793336676;12:
> > The biggest problem I have with Firefight at the moment is that 5 minute round timer. I’m not saying get rid of the round timer. It does add an interesting level of difficulty to it all. Manipulating it for more breathing room might make it more accessible to others, however.
>
>
> If they replaced the timer limit with life limits, it would encourage patience and precision. Right now, with the timer and unlimited lives you feel like you have rush into battle and take risks which is my least favorite way to play any shooter.

The way it’s paced makes me feel like if a every slayer game started out and you only had 2 minutes. People would lose their -Yoink- rushing for power weapons and trying to get a kill up on the enemy team. It’s a terrible design, especially since we don’t have to live by a timer.

19

> 2535466655192531;10:
> > 2535468547991460;9:
> > most of the 1st post i disagree with. this is not ODST and the firefight is not ODSTs. i get that was a fun firefight. this one is also fun.
> >
> > i love all the minions the bosses have. without them, the bosses would have to be even BIGGER bullet sponges to make it any harder. sometimes the minions go a little overboard. that should be looked at. but the fact that we’re not just fighting a single bad guy is a good thing.
>
>
> That’s a big point for me, it certainly isn’t ODST but why should it distance itself so much? WZFF doesn’t feel like it’s in the FF family it feels like it’s a neighbor while Spartan Ops felt like someone down the street. These of course doesn’t make it so the gamemode isn’t fun, I played the hell out of Sops and WZFF surely can have it’s moments but for the most part the things on the list keep breaking it for me.
>
> I also strongly believe that a boss fight should be a BOSS FIGHT unless the boss is specifically a horde. If a boss can’t manage on their own then maybe it’s not a good design. As I said in my post about the Grunt Goblin, it was such a hard fought enemy that we actually thought it was the final boss but then two hunters surrounded by Knights spawned in the finale 10 seconds after we killed the Goblin.
>
> The goblin is a joy to fight, 3 wardens camping in our own bass is not since the only way to fight him is to just stay away and shoot.
>
> Just an example of three changes they could of given Warden to make him more of a boss instead of just tweaking his abilities. These are mostly number changes as well so they don’t have to remake the Warden in half a week.
>
> 1. Lower the hit box on his sword.
>
> This would encourage more close up engagements and give you a grander feel for the battle. It’s always cooler to dodge a 15 foot sword then it is to hide behind a rock.
>
> 2. Give him old boss troupes.
>
> Make him ramp up his melee attack speed, make him always return fire and give his powers numbers increase (I.E 1 face laser becomes 3) the more his core is popped. Give him lower health but points of no interest by making him vulnerable after ability uses. Alot of bosses through out gaming have been about “Don’t attack him then, attack him now.” Mario is a good example, don’t attack Bowser when he’s attacking you wait for the refractory period. If you attack him while he’s standing around he’d have strong defense but while or shortly after he’s attacked, the defensive stat would go away.
>
> Adds should mean an obvious boss weakness that they’re compensating for. Have troops always on his flank protecting his back but greatly increase the amount of damage he takes from his core being hit.
>
> 3. Make him more active.
>
> Nothing screams fun like shelling a target from 5 miles away as you hear the enemies echoed screams but it doesn’t feel like a boss battle when the boss doesn’t move. Warden’s stand in one area just facing lasering and vortex bombing. If he could move around and chase targets it’d increase the tension. What makes it worse is that players laugh at how they can see the strings. Warden standing there, talking the maddest of -Yoink- while being pounded by an entire armored division from afar doesn’t make him feel like an ancient machine of unrivaled power, it feels more like the ancients died off for a reason.

i think we’re actually a lot on the same page here. i made a thread saying pretty much exactly #2. i would rather have a boss where there is a strategy to beat them than you just have to unload clip after clip after clip. thats not exciting or fun. id rather have a boss where you can do some big damage when its dealt at the right moments

20

I think the two fundamental problems with it are fairly simple:

  1. The REQ system complete destroys any semblance of weapon balance and necessitates that anything balanced for the stupid overpowered weapons makes normal weapons worthless by comparison.
  2. 343’s only real approach to making things more difficult is turning enemies into practically impervious bullet sponges and making standard weapons orders of magnitude more powerful in the hands of AI than they are when players use them.

A big part of the enjoyment derived from Bungie’s PvE design was the illusion at least that you were on pretty even footing with your enemies. If they could kill you very quickly (on Legendary, for example), you could return the favor with the right strategy and sufficient accuracy. Your weapons felt lethal and so did your enemies’. Warzone Firefight completely and utterly lacks this in favor of bullet sponge fodder and tedious “bosses” that require focus fire from 8 players in overpowered vehicles to kill. It’s boring, it takes forever, and it makes it impossible for players to feel individually powerful.