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Halo |OT3| Remember Reach?

Gui_PT

Member
We're a new team. We're making changes. You can't try them yourselves yet. There is no other way to state it. We can't guarantee you'll like the changes, but we can state unambiguously that we think you'll like them, because most of these changes are things we would be (naturally) afraid of on paper, but found they worked great when implemented, so we're in a lot of ways, similar to you guys in terms of expectations, but with the comparative luxury of having tried and experienced them.. Ergo we have to politely request trust and keep feeding more and more information. And we have to ask for trust. If in the end, you decide it's not fun, or not the game for you, that request will still have been a polite request for patience while we roll out information. You don't have to trust us, but we still have to ask. It's manners.

Video and gameplay will go a long way to making people's minds up, and that will happen, but right now, all we have to work with is that.

I remember you guys on a vidoc saying how cool and fun Armor Lock was!

NEVAR FORGET!
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
Well if you look at the armor abilities announced, they seem very tame. I say the biggest offender is Camo but we still have to see how it's implemented in Halo 4. It will also depend on the maps. I'm sure some AAs will be preferred on some maps vs other maps. I do think it's important to be able to see a player head on and know which armor ability he's got in his back pocket. Maybe a color banded stripe or badge on his armor or something.
I agree, camo is worse than armor lock at times. I also agree, you should know what AA your enemy has at all times.

Honestly, who gives a fuck how skeptical there are? They're all gonna watch the videos coming out of E3 and be like "oooh so it's like Halo Day 1 in 343 We Trust fuck CoD lulz". No need to blow their load trying to appease knee-jerk reactions from Halo fanboys and MLG tryhards.
E3's what, 3-4 months before Halo 4's launch? you'd think they'd show something by then. It'd give a lot of people more to go on than just "trust us", including a large number of people here.

Without drawing too sharp a judgement, that video really is worrying.
What I really want to hear from 343 is what the over arching philosophy is on armor abilities. What are the boundary conditions that determine their creation and implementation and balancing? There was nothing discussed in this video that distinguishes Reach's approach to armor abilities from Reach's, except players now have sprint at all times. Bungie had these same aspirations, the choice of load out being one of give and take, of different abilities offsetting one another. And then we run into a pack of team armor lock or team camo and reach for the eject button.

I see what you did there.
And yes, I want more background info on 343's approach to armor ability design.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Maybe something along the lines of putting your reticle over a player and then the HUD signals which ability that player has.

So if the player has jetpack, you aim at the player and a little jetpack symbol appears near the reticle.


IDK
How about you hold the back button to check the score and next to each players gamertag, theres a symbol representing the AA they have.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
To be fair with my experience, I hardly ever encounter a team using one ability.

I was making a very slight exaggeration for effect. In some ways, the mix is worse.

The very fact that armor lock has been removed means 343 is (hopefully) applying a different thought process to the design of AA's. I'd like to hear more about how that thought process is going to yield different results than what we got in Reach.

This is not a rant or anything, it's a polite request.
 

Homeboyd

Member
Maybe he did. Maybe it got cut from the video. Maybe there are stuff theyre not ready to talk about yet. Also, what are the usual gametypes we're used to?

I got, CTF, Slayer, assault and king of the hill.
Those are the ones I'm referring to in addition to SWAT, snipers, etc.. which aren't exactly standard gametypes but certainly ones Halo players should be "used to"... especially considering Frankie already mentioned Team Snipers.

I'm not complaining or anything.. in fact I was responding to someone else's comment about why he only mentioned CTF which I agreed was an odd thing to mention by itself.

It would be the same if he said "oh by the way, we're bringing Slayer back." Yeah, we know..? I get the part about him wanting to tease about the changes coming to CTF in particular, but we know there will be changes coming to Slayer as well (as we saw the points system in the reveal vids).

Basically, just talking about nothing at this point since there's nothing to really talk about.
 

Falagard

Member
I have a lot of concerns about that video. Forerunner vision sounds like a ridiculous idea no matter how you spin it. It sounds like something that was put into campaign and then rolled into multiplayer just because it was possible.

I also don't care if the multiplayer feels the same as campaign, I want it to be as good as it can even if that means diverging from the features available in campaign.

However, I do like the fact that he says they're trying to make AAs to counter each other.

I also like that they're polishing the multiplayer modes, clearer objectives, supporting actions added to objective modes (I'm not sure what this means yet for sure - perhaps simply vehicular support, controlling areas, opening gates, things like that).

I await further details, Frankie. I expect them tomorrow.
 
In less then 50 days, we'll have a bunch of gameplay videos from E3, that will either confirm all our worst fears or the trust was misplaced. In the end, nobody is gonna remember this speculation phase, waiting for tidbits of tidbits of info from Frankie/Ellis and wondering how AAs are gonna improve/fuck up Halo this time around.
 

Havok

Member
How about you hold the back button to check the score and next to each players gamertag, theres a symbol representing the AA they have.
It would be nice, but you're not going to want to hold the back button before you start an engagement multiple times in a match to make sure that you aren't running into any surprises, are you? The jetpack in Reach has a nice, unique visual profile that makes it easy to see that someone has it, and something like that could provide what would otherwise be a clumsy mess of UI.
 

Arnie

Member
We're a new team. We're making changes. You can't try them yourselves yet. There is no other way to state it. We can't guarantee you'll like the changes, but we can state unambiguously that we think you'll like them, because most of these changes are things we would be (naturally) afraid of on paper, but found they worked great when implemented, so we're in a lot of ways, similar to you guys in terms of expectations, but with the comparative luxury of having tried and experienced them.. Ergo we have to politely request trust and keep feeding more and more information. And we have to ask for trust. If in the end, you decide it's not fun, or not the game for you, that request will still have been a polite request for patience while we roll out information. You don't have to trust us, but we still have to ask. It's manners.

Video and gameplay will go a long way to making people's minds up, and that will happen, but right now, all we have to work with is that.

Do you think Armour Abilities (including sprint) were a good addition to the Halo sandbox in Reach?

If so, what specifically do you think they added that you'd like to preserve in Halo 4?
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
We're a new team. We're making changes. You can't try them yourselves yet. There is no other way to state it. We can't guarantee you'll like the changes, but we can state unambiguously that we think you'll like them, because most of these changes are things we would be (naturally) afraid of on paper, but found they worked great when implemented, so we're in a lot of ways, similar to you guys in terms of expectations, but with the comparative luxury of having tried and experienced them.. Ergo we have to politely request trust and keep feeding more and more information. And we have to ask for trust. If in the end, you decide it's not fun, or not the game for you, that request will still have been a polite request for patience while we roll out information. You don't have to trust us, but we still have to ask. It's manners.

Video and gameplay will go a long way to making people's minds up, and that will happen, but right now, all we have to work with is that.

Haha I'm pretty sure you and David posting here is what's keeping me sane. As long as you guys are having a blast playing it, then I still believe.
Although the wait for more info/footage is killing me.

And trust me, I'm gonna be playing the hell out of this. I'm not much of a fan of Reach, but it's still better than its competition. I think Halo 4 will be better than Reach. I don't see 343 making the same mistakes that were made with Reach. Armor Lock's death supports that idea.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
There's still the problem of everyone in each team spawning with them. On their own AAs aren't that bad (even in Reach) but with everyone spawning with them it becomes extremely annoying. I've said it numerous times already, had they put them on the maps as pick-ups it would've solved so, so many problems. But no, they decide to make the same mistake Bungie did with Reach.
I think that's proven to be true with certain AAs. Obviously we play MLG where AAs are pick ups and that works great. However, those were for Evade, Jetpack and at a time Armor lock. It's going to depend on how they're implemented im H4. There will be new maps, new AAs all together. We all have sprint. We can't either way for sure but I do you bring up a valid concern.
 

MrBig

Member
Eddie Smith put some of his CEA art back up on his site, and there are two pieces I hadn't seen before

eRgkv.jpg


Fi6NH.jpg
 

Falagard

Member
OuterWorldVoice said:
most of these changes are things we would be (naturally) afraid of on paper, but found they worked great when implemented

See the problem is that the changes in Reach sounded even better on paper than what we've heard of Halo 4's changes... and they were almost unanimously bad.

Bloom? Didn't sound bad on paper. I played Shadowrun and thought it was okay. Armor Lock - a little OP but sounded like it could make for some fun gameplay if implemented properly. Sprint? Sure, that'd be fun. A precision weapon like the DMR sounded good. Jetpacks? Never liked the idea personally, knew that they'd break map flow.

Put them altogether and Reach was amazingly frustrating to play.

And those were with ideas that sounded good on paper. I'm extra frightened of ideas that sound bad on paper.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
It would be nice, but you're not going to want to hold the back button before you start an engagement multiple times in a match to make sure that you aren't running into any surprises, are you? The jetpack in Reach has a nice, unique visual profile that makes it easy to see that someone has it, and something like that could provide what would otherwise be a clumsy mess of UI.
I don't think it will be that difficult. You have like 10 seconds before the game starts to memorize which guy has what. You also see that screen automatically each time you die. I also think it's another communication skill that would work in competitive play. You're on respawn and you call out that Snipedown changed his loadout to feature Hologram now. It makes a difference immediately on how you play the rest of the match. How you play against Snipedown.
 
We're a new team. We're making changes. You can't try them yourselves yet. There is no other way to state it. We can't guarantee you'll like the changes, but we can state unambiguously that we think you'll like them, because most of these changes are things we would be (naturally) afraid of on paper, but found they worked great when implemented, so we're in a lot of ways, similar to you guys in terms of expectations, but with the comparative luxury of having tried and experienced them.. Ergo we have to politely request trust and keep feeding more and more information. And we have to ask for trust. If in the end, you decide it's not fun, or not the game for you, that request will still have been a polite request for patience while we roll out information. You don't have to trust us, but we still have to ask. It's manners.

Video and gameplay will go a long way to making people's minds up, and that will happen, but right now, all we have to work with is that.

As someone who works in software development I find it extremely hard to believe that a requirements document full of ambiguous features would have gained approval. What im trying to ask really is, if the features worried you so much on paper, how the hell did they get to implementation stage?

I haven't been doing it long, but I just don't see any possible way a PM would ever say, "Oh I hate the sound of all of those features, here's a budget for development to throw them in anyway".

Its hard to trust when all we have to look at seems so bad and the official line seems so blurry.
 

Arnie

Member
LAST NIGHT'S episode, man? Seriously? For fuck's sake.

Honestly, after I posted it I realised it could be a spoiler but by then I'd been quoted. Really man, I apologise, and for what it's worth the episode was so great for a multitude of other reasons that when it's done I'm sure you won't be pissed off I spoiled that specific scene.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
I think that's proven to be true with certain AAs. Obviously we play MLG where AAs are pick ups and that works great. However, those were for Evade, Jetpack and at a time Armor lock. It's going to depend on how they're implemented im H4. There will be new maps, new AAs all together. We all have sprint. We can't either way for sure but I do you bring up a valid concern.
I think especially now with everyone having Sprint people will start abusing AAs more. Right now people pick Sprint 90% of the time. Sprint is not nearly as offensive (as much as I hate it) as the other AAs. With Sprint being default I can see AAs becoming a lot more overwhelming than in Reach. Can you imagine if people could not choose Sprint in Reach? (forget about MLG for a second) Jetpack and Active Camo everywhere. That doesn't exactly sound appealing.

Now, I obviously haven't played Halo 4 yet and we only have a tiny bit of information but fact is that AAs will be abused more. To what extend? That remains to be seen.
 

Myyke

Neo Member
I think we have to come to the realization that Halo players like us are a dying breed or at least a smaller community. We also aren't the only Halo community. I do hope and it seems that 343 is taking us into consideration about how they design the game and what features there are. But none of us can deny that there are other audiences that need to be tapped into. I think we can also agree that Classic Halo gameplay or classic FPS just isn't appealing to the mass in this day and age, unfortunately.

Well said, something that some people in here seem to forget sometimes.
 

heckfu

Banned
I think especially now with everyone having Sprint people will start abusing AAs more. Right now people pick Sprint 90% of the time. Sprint is not nearly as offensive (as much as I hate it) as the other AAs. With Sprint being default I can see AAs becoming a lot more overwhelming than in Reach. Can you imagine if people could not choose Sprint in Reach? (forget about MLG for a second) Jetpack and Active Camo everywhere. That doesn't exactly sound appealing.

Now, I obviously haven't played Halo 4 yet and we only have a tiny bit of information but fact is that AAs will be abused more. To what extend? That remains to be seen.

a3543349-155-Proud-of-You.gif
 

Havok

Member
I don't think it will be that difficult. You have like 10 seconds before the game starts to memorize which guy has what. You also see that screen automatically each time you die. I also think it's another communication skill that would work in competitive play. You're on respawn and you call out that Snipedown changed his loadout to feature Hologram now. It makes a difference immediately on how you play the rest of the match. How you play against Snipedown.
You're right, and I should have been more clear. I like the idea but want an additional visual layer on top of it so you don't have to check a menu even though you are able to and it would be easier to in many cases. You can check using that when not in combat or when respawning, but then in addition you can scope on a guy from across the map, see some contraption on his player model, and be able to say "oh, he's got cloak and is going this way here" even if you don't know which particular guy it is. This is probably less useful in an MLG setting where the team is shouting information into each others' ear holes all game and where you're more aware of which enemy player is which.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Do you think Armour Abilities (including sprint) were a good addition to the Halo sandbox in Reach?

If so, what specifically do you think they added that you'd like to preserve in Halo 4?

Personally? I liked them, except Armor Lock, but always felt like the ambiguity and randomness of what I could be encountering was scary. Like, will I get a game full of holograms? Will I only be fighting Jetpackers? Etc. Of course I say that as someone who uses Sprint, almost exclusively. If it were rock, paper, scissors, I always used rock, no matter what.

Halo 4 will feel different. For lots of reasons.
 
When he was talking about the features he mentioned split screen would be 4 player local and 2 player online. That's a step back in functionality yet he talks about it like it is being preserved. What gives?

That struck me as odd too. At least 2 player online is still confirmed. You cannot play Reach with 3 or 4 players online for anything other than a complete laugh.
 

Falagard

Member
Personally? I liked them, except Armor Lock, but always felt like the ambiguity and randomness of what I could be encountering was scary. Like, will I get a game full of holograms? Will I only be fighting Jetpackers? Etc. Of course I say that as someone who uses Sprint, almost exclusively. If it were rock, paper, scissors, I always used rock, no matter what.

Halo 4 will feel different. For lots of reasons.

What reasons? Come on, we're all friends here.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
As someone who works in software development I find it extremely hard to believe that a requirements document full of ambiguous features would have gained approval. What im trying to ask really is, if the features worried you so much on paper, how the hell did they get to implementation stage?

I haven't been doing it long, but I just don't see any possible way a PM would ever say, "Oh I hate the sound of all of those features, here's a budget for development to throw them in anyway".

Its hard to trust when all we have to look at seems so bad and the official line seems so blurry.

"Paper" is not a literal term. Implementation and tools can be instantenous, or quick and iteration is constant. Nobody writes a list fo features and puts it on the production slate. They try, test, prototype, hone and implement. And LOTS of things do not make the cut either as ideas, or after failed prototyping. That's just how it works.
 

Arnie

Member
Personally? I liked them, except Armor Lock, but always felt like the ambiguity and randomness of what I could be encountering was scary. Like, will I get a game full of holograms? Will I only be fighting Jetpackers? Etc. Of course I say that as someone who uses Sprint, almost exclusively. If it were rock, paper, scissors, I always used rock, no matter what.

Halo 4 will feel different. For lots of reasons.

OK, thanks. I guess my distate for them stemmed from my belief that Halo should be about pure player parity from the get go, with any advantage plundered from around the map. I remember having a discussion prior to Reach, in fact around the Morello leak, where I explained my distaste at not knowing exactly what my opponent was capable of. I didn't like that one person could do something completely unexpected, and untelegraphed. I guess in that respect sprint won't be as much of an issue for me.

That's how I've always seen Halo, and it's why I personally can't gel with Halo 4 on paper. I'm openly hoping the game does play great, and I'm rooting for it 100%, but I want to be as critical beforehand as I can be, because last time it felt like I'd been punched in the gut when I finally got my hands on Reach.

At least this time, if the game does have a similarly sour punch then at least my gut is tensed tight and ready for the blow.
 

Recarpo

Member
Just got to see the 4 minute video about multiplayer and such and I'm getting more excited about the possibilities. Just to hear him say a couple times they want to speed up the pace of the game is a good sign to me.
 
No other details are being offered, but we've heard from reliable sources close to Microsoft that the team may have finalized a release date for Master Chief's return: Tuesday, November 6th, 2012.
 
Brad Welch - Lead Multiplayer Designer for Halo 4

"Cool abilities"

"People are building their playstyles around the armour abilities"

...

Camo better be radically different to how it is in Reach. The radar jammer has to be the most obnoxious element because it's the one AA that affects other players abilities and not just their own.

'building their playstyle'

Yea the playstyle with camo in Reach slows down gameplay; 343 state they want to speed up gameplay. I don't see how they could balance Camo as an AA to the point it would speed up gameplay.
 
"Paper" is not a literal term. Implementation and tools can be instantenous, or quick and iteration is constant. Nobody writes a list fo features and puts it on the production slate. They try, test, prototype, hone and implement. And LOTS of things do not make the cut either as ideas, or after failed prototyping. That's just how it works.

Fair play, I should have kept in mind the workflow in the kinds of places I work would be a LOT less dynamic than somewhere that makes games, I still find it odd that something like Forerunner Vision would have been given the development time to even get to a basepoint to be iterated on, but it would be foolish for me to try and build up an argument based on my flimsy assumptions and lack of knowledge.

I find it odd, and cant quite trust, but hopefully gameplay videos will change that.
 
Very bold release date if true. Honestly, even if Halo comes out on the losing side, the thought of it going head to head with Call of Duty has me excited.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
Personally? I liked them, except Armor Lock, but always felt like the ambiguity and randomness of what I could be encountering was scary. Like, will I get a game full of holograms? Will I only be fighting Jetpackers? Etc. Of course I say that as someone who uses Sprint, almost exclusively. If it were rock, paper, scissors, I always used rock, no matter what.

Halo 4 will feel different. For lots of reasons.
ijiodwrK4eqfe.gif
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
but then you also have to remember gamer tags and at that point you don't see other players GTs until it is too late. Player aesthetics are probably the best route in terms of identification.

How about both? That's probably the best solution.

I think especially now with everyone having Sprint people will start abusing AAs more. Right now people pick Sprint 90% of the time. Sprint is not nearly as offensive (as much as I hate it) as the other AAs. With Sprint being default I can see AAs becoming a lot more overwhelming than in Reach. Can you imagine if people could not choose Sprint in Reach? (forget about MLG for a second) Jetpack and Active Camo everywhere. That doesn't exactly sound appealing.

Now, I obviously haven't played Halo 4 yet and we only have a tiny bit of information but fact is that AAs will be abused more. To what extend? That remains to be seen.

Really? I think that with everyone having Sprint, the other armor abilities will have a lesser effect on the match then they do in Reach. We saw it in MLG before v7 when everyone had sprint. You could deal with Evade easier. You could sprint away if evade puts your in a bad position and you could also give chase. Against jetpack, you could run into a building or behind a different rock more quickly. It's when MLG removed sprint but kept Evade for that short period of time that Evade became a glaring problem to most.

I also think you helped proved my point when you asked, "Can you imagine if people could not choose Sprint in Reach? JetPack and Active camo everywhere" Exactly, it would be worse than if we could choose sprint. And now it's even better that everyone does have sprint.

Makes me think about the controls though. What's the Sprint button? what's the AA button? Do you have to toggle between them? Which button is that? Is there a cool down for either? Can I use them in conjunction. Subtle details that could make a big difference.

You're right, and I should have been more clear. I like the idea but want an additional visual layer on top of it so you don't have to check a menu even though you are able to and it would be easier to in many cases. You can check using that when not in combat or when respawning, but then in addition you can scope on a guy from across the map, see some contraption on his player model, and be able to say "oh, he's got cloak and is going this way here" even if you don't know which particular guy it is. This is probably less useful in an MLG setting where the team is shouting information into each others' ear holes all game and where you're more aware of which enemy player is which.

Agreed. I think both would be a good solution. Although, I do they're not distractive, or change the hit boxes in anyway. I don't think Jetpack does, just want to be clear about that.
 
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