Why I/ We complain

Games Other Halo
1

I wrote this before in a thread but I wanted to put this out so people would brand everyone who complains as an idiot.

Listen I have no problem cutting 343 some slack but here’s my problem with most of the arguments used to defend them on this website
[/li]- Its their first game - Listen and listen carefully. Just because this is 343’s first game doesnt give anyone including them the right to be exempt from any critisms.I can give you 10 new studios who’s games were judged more Harshly/fairly (e.g dishonoured) becuase they werent making a Halo game. The fact that 343 is getting a free ride while not addressing some of the genuine concerns of the community(there are If you really look)is very sad.

  • It will get better- Honestly speaking this statement is neither proven nor earned by 343i, while its fun to have faith it is also important to look at what its front of you and say will the community be happy with this for the next 10 years . Wheather or not they will prove themselves is still undecided and I will not give 343 the benefit of the doubt however I will still give them one more chance with Halo 5 out of fairness.
  • Go back to playing Bungie’s games if you want those features- This is probably the most startling of all the arguments for 343i because when it comes down to Halo 4 has less content than its predassosors. Hell for a tripple A first party title (Microsoft’s most expensive game), its really pathetic in all honesty (there I said it) however I can undestand if they had to cut content because of the limited size of the xbox.[/list]

Im gonna be honest here and say some hurtfull things. The only reason why Halo 4 exists today isnt because Frankie loved Halo nor is it becuase fans clamoured for it, its because Microsoft still thinks there’s a lot of money in this franchise. (and looking at the merchendising , Mountain Dew , Pre-orders and consols sold they werent wrong.) The only thing thats keeping Halo 4,5 and 6 from being a shameless money grab is 343i and how much effort they put into the game and I think thats why we’re being harsh with them. We understand this, 343i understands this why cant you ?

Lastly I will ask all the (for lack of a better term ) Fanboys of 343i to try to be impatial and look at the game from other peoples percpective. You may not have used custom games,you may not have liked campaign theatre and scoring, you may not have used forge that much and yes you may not have even liked firefight but that doesnt mean other people didnt . Bungie has never once limited what people could do or restricted how or what people could play (You can only play spartan ops If you have gold even by youself and you cannot edit certain game functions-dropping the flag) .Dont be afraid of your favourate game being critisized or critisizng something you love because thats the only way it will improve.

Anyway My complaints include
Campaign

  • Campaign being too short- New characters not having any depth in campaign- Overrelliance on Terminals to tell Forerunner story- Elites undercharacterised in campaign- Armour abilities copy pasted from multiplayer.No campiagn only designed abilities- Promethean weapoenery too similar to human weaponery and too grounded. No special campaign only weapons- Lack of variation in promethean population.Although admittedly this will probably improve as time goes on- Boss fight- Perfect example of inexcusable laziness or peharps hopefully result of tight schedual
    Spartan Ops
  • No skull options- Requires xboxlive gold membership to play by yourslef or split screen- Combat basically the same as multiplayer again - Gruntpocalypse
2

It feels like they did a rush job and made change for the sake of change and now they are being bashed for it.

Seriously speaking and maybe using an already used statement, but if a formula is working you don’t mess with or change the formula, you improve on it.

Perfect example is the User Interface. Halo:Reach for however horrible the game play was / is has a great almost perfect easy to use easy to understand UI. WTH happened with Halo 4’s?

3

> It feels like they did a rush job and made change for the sake of change and now they are being bashed for it.
>
> Seriously speaking and maybe using an already used statement, but if a formula is working you don’t mess with or change the formula, you improve on it.
>
> Perfect example is the User Interface. Halo:Reach for however horrible the game play was / is has a great almost perfect easy to use easy to understand UI. WTH happened with Halo 4’s?

you know what the sad part is ? My little brother has actually gone back to playing HALO REACH (yes that game) because of the reach UI and the options you get in firefight.

4

First off, most of the issues people see with the game are not just opinions, but they are mostly Microsoft’s fault anyways. They are the money-grubbers, not 343. Also, most of you (not OP in particular) don’t realize that some of Bungie’s team are part of 343. Like, for instance, Frankie. Yes, Frankie has a large hand in halo still.

Now, let me respond to OP. I agree about the custom game options. It’s almost offensive to me, at least, that they have taken much of what made customs awesome, away. Give them time to take in feedback, and I’m sure they will address some of those issues.

As for your list:

  1. The campaign is roughly the same length as the other games. Also, quality, not quantity.

  2. I do think the characters are somewhat lack-luster.

  3. It’s hard to squeeze in much more than they did, because of the limited size of the discs used on the Xbox 360.

  4. Well, the focus of the story is not on the Covenant, it’s on the Prometheans.

  5. And if they kept some exclusive to campaign people would complain about that, instead.

  6. Exactly the same reason as above.

  7. There is a decent amount of variation, and we also get to keep all of the familiar enemies. I don’t see how more new enemies is a bad thing.

  8. When I saw the last mission, I was hoping to see something similar to the fight with Tartarus. However, it would’ve been unrealistic to do a boss fight, considering the power of the Didact. He would probably decimate Master Chief.

As for Spartan Ops, well, give them time. We’ve only seen 3 out of what, 10 episodes? And there will be more seasons…

5

Answer to this thread:

It’s all about opinion.

6

But Bungie has restricted what people could do and play in previous titles. In ODST, for example, there was no matchmaking for Firefight. Don’t have any buddies that want to play Firefight with you? Tough nuts. Sack up and plan alone. And die endlessly.

Anything beyond local or system link co-op in Halo 3 led to horrendous lag. Another issue that went unattended by Bungie.

Halo 2 required downloadable content for a number of popular playlists, further restricting the player population.

No Halo title to date has allowed for Custom Game searching among the community.

Halo: Reach restricted Elite model fans to using them when playing only one playlist or one Slayer gametype. Halo 2 screwed Elite enthusiasts with unfairly proportioned hitboxes.

Bungie never made Firefight Versus a matchmaking reality.

Halo 2 removed the fan favorite pistol and assault rifle. Halo: Reach removed the fan favorite battle rifle. Halo 3 removed machine gun control for the Scorpion MBT and gave it to passengers.

Vehicles became destructible in Halo 2. There has not been a non-Race playlist yet that allows for indestructible vehicles as Halo: Combat Evolved offered.

So to say Bungie hasn’t had moments where fans were restricted in what they could do seems a little… untruthful.

7

If they made a Halo 2 clone like you guys wanted then it would gain few sales. You are the minority believe it or not.

8

This community is small in terms of the consumer base. Have you looked to see if other forums / players has similar concerns. If not, then there you have it. I wouldn’t listen to a small community either. Plus, the way some of the folks disrespect 343i, I would find it hard to take people seriously as fas as throwing a bone on some nice to have items. Gsshhhh!

9

I would have gladly waited another year for them to correctly test and fix most of the bugs in the game before they released it. In that time they could have also made us more maps. But instead their greedy a$$es are going to have everyone buy a map pack one month after the games release.

10

> 3. It’s hard to squeeze in much more than they did, because of the limited size of the discs used on the Xbox 360…

Like I said in the OP Im completely fine with it if this is the reason why so much content was scrapped or removed . Its the other side of that coin which Im not okay with

> 4. Well, the focus of the story is not on the Covenant, it’s on the Prometheans.

But there is still a basic amount of characteriation which is to be expected of any Halo game regardless of wether its a new trilogy… The best games always have minor characterisation even with unimportant characters. Its the attention to detail which helps like for example seeing the didact talk to Jul’mdama. Its true that while the elites werent the focus of the story, they were still a huge part of it.

> 5. And if they kept some exclusive to campaign people would complain about that, instead.

If people had complained they could have added the weapons in as an update but designing everything from multiplayer upwards has never been good for the franchise (Just look at Halo reach). Im not saying everything should be desgigned for campaign , all Im saying is that Designing all weapons and abilities with multiplayer in mind severely limits how much imagination on can put into design (Im pretty sure that if Halo 1, and 3 were designed for multiplayer then we would have weapons like the needler, plasma pistol , energy sword and gravity hammer.

> 7. There is a decent amount of variation, and we also get to keep all of the familiar enemies. I don’t see how more new enemies is a bad thing.

Strictly speaking the new enemies arent the problem, the problem is after 3 levels you pretty much knew ho to handle them. It became
almost monotonause fighting them. Kill the watcher 1,2 Kill crawlers 3,4 Kill Knight 5,6. Rinse and repeat

> As for Spartan Ops, well, give them time. We’ve only seen 3 out of what, 10 episodes? And there will be more seasons…

I actually agree with this somewhat but if it doesnt improve by the time my gold membership runs out, then its not worth paying for.

11

> Answer to this thread:
>
> It’s all about opinion.

Not every critisism is a matter of “opnion” though

12

> If they made a Halo 2 clone like you guys wanted then it would gain few sales. You are the minority believe it or not.

Please rise for the “These are the sort of people who I wrote this thread for and didnt even read the OP” award

13

> > Answer to this thread:
> >
> > It’s all about opinion.
>
> Not every critisism is a matter of “opnion” though

Well, I didn’t read all he complained about, but here’s one example for you:

“They removed gamemode -> I <- liked, now game sucks.”

14

> Well, I didn’t read all he complained about, but here’s one example for you:
>
> “They removed gamemode -> I <- liked, now game sucks.”

Like I said not all things should be disregarded as opnion , that most certainly but again not all complaints. And also just because they are opnion doesnt mean they shouldn’t be looked at.
I hate this new gametype- opinion
My game keeps loosing my loadouts- not opinion -should be looked into straight away
Spatan ops spawns tiny enemys- not an opnion- funny but should be looked into and turned into a skull.

15

Agree with the OP.

Hadn’t really considered it until reading some of the responses but I can actually see myself going back to Halo Reach to play Firefight and probably a little multiplayer too.

16

I think this whole fiasco is really people figuring out who there really were. . .

A Halo fan. . .

. . . or a Bungie fan

17

> But Bungie has restricted what people could do and play in previous titles. In ODST, for example, there was no matchmaking for Firefight. Don’t have any buddies that want to play Firefight with you? Tough nuts. Sack up and plan alone. And die endlessly.
>
> Anything beyond local or system link co-op in Halo 3 led to horrendous lag. Another issue that went unattended by Bungie.
>
> Halo 2 required downloadable content for a number of popular playlists, further restricting the player population.
>
> No Halo title to date has allowed for Custom Game searching among the community.
>
> Halo: Reach restricted Elite model fans to using them when playing only one playlist or one Slayer gametype. Halo 2 screwed Elite enthusiasts with unfairly proportioned hitboxes.
>
> Bungie never made Firefight Versus a matchmaking reality.
>
> Halo 2 removed the fan favorite pistol and assault rifle. Halo: Reach removed the fan favorite battle rifle. Halo 3 removed machine gun control for the Scorpion MBT and gave it to passengers.
>
> Vehicles became destructible in Halo 2. There has not been a non-Race playlist yet that allows for indestructible vehicles as Halo: Combat Evolved offered.
>
> So to say Bungie hasn’t had moments where fans were restricted in what they could do seems a little… untruthfull.

I will concede and say indeed I was overzelous when i said Bungie never restricted how people play online, and further more I will concede that there was a lot that Bungie didnt or only acknowledged letter on.

However to I would argue that limiting online playlists populations by releasing ONline updates seems like an oxymoron would you say . Unless people play online game offline. I would also argue that using the first time Firefight was implimented as a point is not really in your favour because people complained about that and the issue was resolved in Halo reach.So infact what your saying in a way is complaining does help if the devs listen to feedback.

But while most of the original trilogy was more trial and error than anything, I would argue that 343i inability to take what worked in the Bungie’s game and successfully implement them in a new ways is the most concerning
Halo 4 seems like I step forward and 2 steps back

18

It’s sad that people complaining spend more time here on the forums, than those that are kicked back having a blast playing the game. Bad representation on the Halo community if you ask me. More people will be found here complaining than giving 343 a pat on the back.

Go to any forum for any game, it’s going to look the same (unless you go to barbie land or viva pinata adventure forums).

19

> I think this whole fiasco is really people figuring out who there really were. . .
>
> A Halo fan. . .
>
>
> . . . or a Bungie fan

Does it have to be either? Why do you have to a 343 fan to be a Halo Fan. As a halo fan I want the best of both worlds. I want 343’s technicall mastery , mixed in with Bungie’s imagination , universe building skills and vehicle sections.

Its good to recognise were 343i surpassed Bungie but it is also good to recognise were Bungie is Better.Only then can they make a game which combines both good aspects.

20

> It’s sad that people complaining spend more time here on the forums, than those that are kicked back having a blast playing the game. Bad representation on the Halo community if you ask me. More people will be found here complaining than giving 343 a pat on the back.
>
> Go to any forum for any game, it’s going to look the same (<mark>unless you go to barbie land</mark> or viva pinata adventure forums).

Well at least Barbie land was a good game. The creators of Barbie Land never changed the core mechanics of what made Barbie Land, Barbie Land. No that I have ever played Barbie Land…