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Halo 4, One Year Later: What Happened?

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FyreWulff

Member
Well, it''s been about a year since Halo 4 released.

Halo 4 was 343's first full go at their own Halo title since Bungie left the Microsoft umbrella to go work on Destiny.

The reception of Halo 4 was thus. A graph of Halo 4's peak population, every day, for the last year:

ObFnbQh.png


(all graphs in this post provided by www.halocharts.com , by the way )

Hmm.

Let's go over the major events in Halo 4's run. Here's the big overview:

PmG3gKo.png



The First Two Weeks

In the run up to Halo 4's release, Microsoft seemed interested in getting as many people to play the game as possible. So they took the early perk unlocks from the LE and told people that everyone that played within the first two weeks would get the perk unlocks too. This sets the stage for a fairly big blow to this game, but it's not the first one.

OpIYxu1.png


A week into Halo 4's life span, Black Ops 2 releases. And half of Halo 4's population vanishes, never to return. November 12th - a whole six days after the game releases - is the last day Halo 4 will see more than 300k peak population. It won't take much longer - ten days after release - for Halo 4 to see the last time it goes above 200k, on November 16th.

14 Day Buy and Play

Everyone who has gotten their codes for the first two weeks either redeems them or hands them out. People that wants the perks use the code for themselves. A lot of people, including many GAFers, HBOers, and other Halo communities toss the codes to people that want them, since they're not too interested in the perk system. The population continues downward.

veEM5YC.png


And then.. the Crimson Map Pack release happens. And something hilarious happens: everyone with the specializations code can download Crimson as if they have the map pack. For free. What? WHAT? Yep. Seems in their rush to get the specializations code out, Microsoft forgot that the software key that unlocked the specializations was the same one that unlocked the map packs for free download. Awwwkward. Okay, it's a fuck up though, they'll just fix it right?

Well, they did. But they did it in the worst way possible. Absolutely the WORST handling of a mistake I have seen, and destroyed absolutely any pretension in my mind (and other's minds) that 343 had any autonomy from Microsoft. So what did they do?

Lie through their fucking teeth.

They goofed. We understand humans develop games, so whatever. Patch it up. In less than 24 hours, we went from 343 employees, Microsoft employees, and Xbox Support acknowledging it was a fuckup to Microsoft outright pretending it was not actually a mistake at ALL. They invented a fake program called "14 Day Buy and Play" that supposedly ran at Halo 4's release (the term didn't even exist until that day), sent it out as a press release, and Kotaku and most other gaming sites happily regurgitated it as legitimate. So not only had Microsoft fucked up, they then proceeded to tell us no, they didn't screw up, they meant to do it all along.

They then issued a patch a week later that fixed the bug and took the free Crimson map pack away from the people that redeemed it. Hrmm, for something intended, strange they had to patch the game to end the trial period.

To make it even worse, 343 could have at least poked fun at the whole thing, or acknowledged the screw up was a screw up and they were letting people play it for a bit before taking it away. Instead, they posted the 14 Day Buy and Play press release directly on their website. With a straight face.

343 lost a lot of good will on that day, with a lot of people. It definitively set the tone people treated 343 with after that.


Boltshots R Us

Halo 4 trucked along. At this point, players were getting frustrated. Big, annoying balance issues were identified, such as the DMR being overpowered and the go-to weapon for ranged kills, and the Boltshot being the CQB weapon above all others.. Content share was completely broken; you couldn't search for files nor could you initiate a download from the website. The game had menus and UI for it, but none of it worked. Along with a lack of campaign films and Forge features being dropped from Reach, this kneecapped the content creation arm of the community.

They would finally fix file search and tagging in late January, 3 months after release. These features worked day 1 in Reach.

Finally, 343 addressed the Boltshot with a title update on Feb 21, a couple of days before the Majestic map pack:

RGmEkjE.png


The title update + Majestic caused a minor uptick in Halo 4's population (the missing days were due to issues recording the numbers). Between the announcement of Majestic and the week after Majestic's release, Halo 4 would lose another 20,000 peak players.


Tune It Up

In late March/early April, 343 issued another title update. This title update implemented support for death indicators in game (previously relegated to a perk) and the ability for 343 to deploy weapon tuning via embedding the weapon data inside gametypes, allowing them to rebalance guns without a title update. And thus began what was a critical mistake by 343: sticking to the script and not acting like they were bleeding out players.

A9AzOG4.png


No, you're not reading that wrong. It took 343 two months to actually deploy a weapon tune update from the moment it became possible, when the original point of the update was that they could make changes instantly. They would lose 20,000 people in this time period. What did they spend it doing? Hyping up a Community day where they flew out people from the community so they could 'reveal' the weapon tune update on a big, advertised stream. Even though the update was in gametypes and could be shared with the community immediately, we had to wait for MS's marketing department to get their rocks off before we could feel like 343 was actually trying to salvage the sandbox. In a sensible world, the weapon updates would have been thrown in a beta playlist and updated weekly, with the community day just being a nice thing to celebrate the final version. 343 seemed to be intentionally ignoring their dire situation and did not act like they needed to address huge problems immediately. Because..


Stability Perk

The weapon tune update actually did legitimately address a lot of issues with the game. Halo 4's weapon tune update actually stopped the bleeding, and stabilized Halo 4's population.

w6TLRet.png


A whole six months after the game came out. Six months of people showing 343 what was wrong with the game, that they could have all identified within the first two months. Unfortunately, 343 never seemed willing to deviate from their marketing and support script. People were walking out the door as 343 said "Trust Us", and didn't come back.


Soon after this, 343 would release the Bullseye Map Pack, which was 2 maps. One was a remake of The Pit from Halo 3! Yay! The population didn't get boosted at all. It also introduced armor that could be bought with Real Money Only and they dug in even more on perks, after backlash from the community over them. Then promised those perks would become available to everyone else, which still hasn't happened.

qnFb2RP.png


The Game of the Year Edition, which released at a reduced price point and includes all of the game's DLC, came out somewhere in the chart. See if you can find it.

It's in the second population valley from the left

Some points I didn't have a good way to write up or didn't care to:


* Halo 4 lasted a whole two entire months in the Top 3 of the Xbox Live activity chart. Halo 3 didn't fall out of the Top 3 until Halo Reach released - 3 years after it's release. Halo Reach didn't fall out of the Top 3 until 343's title update for the game after they took over the game, 12 months after release.


* Roughly a year after release, Halo 3 had a 1.1 million peak population day. Reach had a 900,000 peak population day after the same amount of time. Halo 4 clocks in at 20,000 peak for it's annual checkup.


* 343 attempted to require the Majestic DLC for Team Slayer. The DLC requirement took the playlist from the top 2 in population to almost the bottom. They removed the DLC requirement afterwards and removed the DLC requirements from their weekly playlists after the first weekly playlist struggled to maintain over 150 players in it. Keep in mind the Majestic map pack was included in the map pass...



I imagine a lot of people have a lot to say about Halo 4, I'll follow up later with my breakdown of gameplay and breakdown of campaign. Thought I'd start the thread off with an overall recap. The storm approaches.
I'm talking about HaloGAF

Reference Material

Campaign Screenshots

Dawn
http://imgur.com/a/uVdoj#0

Requiem
http://imgur.com/a/yxFDj#0

Forerunner
http://imgur.com/a/FybUX#0

Infinity
http://imgur.com/a/LYst8#0

Reclaimer
http://imgur.com/a/N8hox#0

Shutdown
http://imgur.com/a/fA2VM#0

Composer
http://imgur.com/a/uiK8d#0

Midnight
http://imgur.com/a/RH2te#0

Character Studies

Master Chief
http://imgur.com/a/Ja0OE

Cortana
http://imgur.com/a/bb1KO

Lasky
http://imgur.com/a/PPYZY

Marines
http://imgur.com/a/3HzX2

Medics
http://imgur.com/a/DLkAr
 

MIMIC

Banned
* Halo 4 lasted a whole two entire months in the Top 3 of the Xbox Live activity chart. Halo 3 didn't fall out of the Top 3 until Halo Reach released - 3 years after it's release. Halo Reach didn't fall out of the Top 3 until 343's title update for the game after they took over the game, 12 months after release.

*bows*

Incredible that the game lasted that long.
 
It makes me sad to see my favorite game franchise in this state.

However, part of me is hopeful that 343 can bring it around, just the fanboy in my, I guess.
 

Santiako

Member
They made Halo of Duty to catch the CoD crowd, but the CoD crowd went back to CoD and the Halo fanbase was alienated, thus losing everyone in the process.
 

BearPawB

Banned
I really liked the Halo 4 campaign. Multiplayer launched with too few maps. Too many matches on that symmetrical white map, which I liked, but was all anyone played.

Game is fun, but yeah, no staying power
 

2San

Member
Well the MP is shit, they chased shitty CoD mechanics and now they are paying for it. Gears Judgment had similar issue's. The drop off in that game was even worse afaik.
 

Jibbed

Member
It tried to be something it wasn't, and in the process people just lost interest.

There's a reason why Halo 3 stayed in the top 3 on XBL for 3 years straight.
 

WJD

Member
I could write a thesis on my issues with Halo's current direction but, if I were to try and express its problems as simply as possibly: a complete lack of understanding about what made Halo great in the first place and an almost comprehensive removal of all those features.

That said, I have irrational faith 343 know to a degree the majority of issues the core fan base had with the game and will strive to bring Halo back to its former glory with 5. Please guys, prove me right.
 

Into

Member
Great OP, i thought you were just gonna post one graph or 2-3 sentences, but you went into detail.

I just lost interest as soon as day 4 when i played it. Its just not as good as the Bungie ones, some of the changes they made is not necessarily what i want in a Halo game, and it seems most Halo fans agree. Not everything Bungie did was perfect or great but they seemed to understand their own series better than 343.
 

Marjar

Banned
I actually really enjoyed the campaign, which was the only reason I bought the game.

But I can understand the frustration with the multiplayer. And after that trailer with Chief in an anime cloak... yeah I'm a little skeptical about where they're going with this.
 

LevityNYC

Banned
I liked it. I thought the multiplayer was awesome.

I dont understand the hate.

The new enemies in the single player were pretty shitty.
 

Gaz_RB

Member
Nice OP. Really good overview of the situation. I've been playing Halo since CE and only played Halo 4 for a few weeks, but this is depressing. Definitely shows that Bungie has some magic when it came to multiplayer and managing a community. Sad to to see such a great franchise fall behind like this.

There were indeed a lot of issues and negatives in the multiplayer to me, and that stopped my friends and I from really latching onto the game like we did for 2 and 3. However, I could start to see the decline of the series in Reach. It really started to lose the magic of 2 and 3 with that release.The rise of Call of Duty/ Battlefield on consoles didn't help too much.

It's interesting though, I'm not sure if it was the similarity to past Halos that people were getting tired of that drove the playerbase down, or if it was the changes that were enacted. Back when Halo 2 and 3 were out, there weren't as many solid multiplayer experiences out, so maybe it wasn't so much that Halo was so amazing, maybe it was just that there wasn't much else good to play. By the time Reach came out, that had changed a lot.

We'll see if 343 can turn it around with Halo 5.
 
Heh, i actually really enjoyed the opening levels of the campaign.

As for multiplayer: Not like 3/Reach ergo not Halo. I think another thing, honestly, is that people are just fed up with the gen and not that interested in playing online much. Didn't MS recently suggest more people now spend time in services on the Xbox platform than in games? Obviously this doesn't directly tie in with people being bored of the gen, just that trends are shifting to what the console was used for.

I think Halo 5 will see a closer return to form but nothing like 3.
 
Without Bungie I think this series could well be done. Halo 4 was not a good game.

Would lay money on Halo 5 being the least successful Halo game to date.
 
I'll tell you what happened.

They lost track of what the series excelled at. Simplicity.

They lost track of catering to the top percent of the competitive crowd. Creating a watered down competitive game where the skill level never goes beyond casual.

They lost track of how to tell a story without needing to read a book to understand its intricacies.

They lost track of providing cutting edge features out side of the main game.

They lost track of how to interact with their community with honesty and humility. It's okay to say we screwed up.

Which makes me more sad then ever, because Frankie, David Ellis and Co are good people.
 

Haunted

Member
I liked the campaign.

Played as much MP of it as I did with 2, 3, ODST and Reach
- none
.


So since the SP was great, I guess the MP wasn't up to par.
 

Nibel

Member
I hate the whole "It's like Call Of Duty"-propaganda but fuck me man; this is exactly like Call Of Duty instead of Halo

Halo Reach was so fucking fantastic :(
 

Waaghals

Member
I'm mostly interested in SP, and on that end I only have one complaint: The very linear corridor levels.

It reminded me of Halo 2 in that sense: pretty, amazing cinematics and limited freedom in campaign. For what it's worth I consider H4 much superior to Halo 2 in SP.

I rarely play MP, so I have no opinion on that matter.
 
Halo 4 wasn't a bad game, it just wasn't a very good multiplayer game. I forgot all about that Boltshot, and those random drops... Ugh.

Halo 3 is where, for me, the series peaked, multiplayer-wise. They shoud move back in that direction, instead of the one they're heading in now.
 

Kajiba

Member
It makes me sad to see my favorite game franchise in this state.

However, part of me is hopeful that 343 can bring it around, just the fanboy in my, I guess.

I'm more depressed about Gears of war to be honest.

Halo 4 was fun. Online formula is what alot people were not feeling at all.
 
Bought it shortly after launch and liked the SP, but I didn't play much multiplayer since I don't have gold anymore(only two weeks that came with the game)
 
I'll tell you what happened.

They lost track of what the series excelled at. Simplicity.

They lost track of catering to the top percent of the competitive crowd. Creating a watered down competitive game where the skill level never goes beyond casual.

They lost track of how to tell a story without needing to read a book to understand its intricacies.

They lost track of providing cutting edge features out side of the main game.

They lost track of how to interact with their community with honesty and humility. It's okay to say we screwed up.

Which makes me more sad then ever, because Frankie, David Ellis and Co are good people.

s3AoP.gif
 

Blader

Member
I liked the campaign, more so than a lot of Bungie's.

Never touched the MP though (and in fact, rarely if ever play anything online) so I can't say I care about that, the map packs, etc. Even with my complete aversion to online play and DLC, though, I can appreciate the hilarity of that fuck up.
 

Dyno

Member
Great thread! So much interesting information.

I have overwhelmingly positive memories of Halo 4 but I played it a bunch for two months and then got interested in other things. As a typical AAA type game it was worth the money for an average gamer (me) but I understand that the true experts who clan up and build long-lasting communities need much more from the title to justify the time spent.
 

flkraven

Member
Can someone compare the games-with-gold Halo 3 numbers vs current Halo 4 numbers? I would LOL if Halo 3 is beating Halo 4 now.
 
Roughly a year after release, Halo 3 had a 1.1 million peak population day. Reach had a 900,000 peak population day after the same amount of time. Halo 4 clocks in at 20,000 peak for it's annual checkup.

This is really telling.
 

Gaz_RB

Member
I'm more depressed about Gears of war to be honest.

Halo 4 was fun. Online formula is what alot people were not feeling at all.

Forreal. Gears of War 1 was a major example of gaming bliss in it's simplicity. No loadouts, no classes, no xp, and I still played it for a thousand hours. Really lost interest with 2 and 3, and of course Judgement.
 
I've never been a huge fan of Halo MP. And while I acknowledge Halo is a good franchise, I was never blown away by the SP, either. However, I am totally out of step with apparently most gamers, as I thought Halo 4 was the best in the series and is one of my favorite games I've ever played.
 

VeeP

Member
Lacked that Bungie touch.

Bungie lost that touch after Halo 3. Hell, Halo 3 had plenty of problems compared to Halo 2.

343i has fixed the game up ALOT in months. Current Halo 4 > Reach after 343i Patch > Halo Reach Vanilla.


Forreal. Gears of War 1 was a major example of gaming bliss in it's simplicity. No loadouts, no classes, no xp, and I still played it for a thousand hours. Really lost interest with 2 and 3, and of course Judgement.

Just out of curiosity, why didn't you like Gears 3 over 1?

Gears of War 1 had tons of glitches (crab walking, weapon switching, etc.), lag, connectivity issues, etc. I bought the game at launch, loved it, but it had a lot of problems.

Gears 3 fixed pretty much everything. Dedicated servers, all the weapons were useful, shotgun was still powerful & king at close range, great selection of maps, etc. The only bummer was the sawed off, but even then IMO it was the better game.
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
Good write-up. Completely forgot about the 14 Day Buy and Play; Microsoft really did pull it out of thin air.

It sucks to see what Halo has become, but I don't see it changing.
 

Jibbed

Member
I'll tell you what happened.

They lost track of what the series excelled at. Simplicity.

They lost track of catering to the top percent of the competitive crowd. Creating a watered down competitive game where the skill level never goes beyond casual.

They lost track of how to tell a story without needing to read a book to understand its intricacies.

They lost track of providing cutting edge features out side of the main game.

They lost track of how to interact with their community with honesty and humility. It's okay to say we screwed up.

Which makes me more sad then ever, because Frankie, David Ellis and Co are good people.

Nailed it.
 
Honestly, this was a very detailed post that touched on a lot of PR problems that I didn't even know about.

But IMO they were relatively irrelevant. You hit on the real reason in this paragraph right here:

Halo 4 trucked along. At this point, players were getting frustrated. Big, annoying balance issues were identified, such as the DMR being overpowered and the go-to weapon for ranged kills, and the Boltshot being the CQB weapon above all others.. Content share was completely broken; you couldn't search for files nor could you initiate a download from the website. The game had menus and UI for it, but none of it worked. Along with a lack of campaign films and Forge features being dropped from Reach, this kneecapped the content creation arm of the community.

The gameplay balance that had made Halo special was gone. In what seemed like a blatant attempt to win over people that loved COD, they incorporated this STUPID weapon unlock system for starting weapons, and the EVEN DUMBER weapon call-ins for power weapons a la COD killstreaks.

The days of map control, of fighting for position to secure the power weapons, of fighting to EARN an advantage that a more useful utility weapon provided, were all gone.

Even armor abilities, for as much vitriol as they caught from the dedicated Halo fanbase after their introduction in Reach, fit well within the ballet of skill and planning that characterized Halo games. Two players enter, the player that takes full advantage of their equipment, the environment, and leads the battle to their advantage (range, positioning, weapon selection, etc) wins the day.

It was pure. It was thoughtful. It was satisfying.

And it was gone. Replaced with randomness at every turn, undermined further by easily exploitable weapons and grenade/melee balance that ruined the once-perfect trifecta of shoot/grenade/melee. Halo 4 devolved into random shooting. Every match may as well have been Fiesta mode.

You don't need to cater exclusively to the top 1% of hardcore competitive players in order to make a great Halo, despite what many of the staunchest Halo supporters believe. You can make a great, balanced, skillful game that is both accessible and deep. But Halo 4 sure as shit was not that game.


...but the campaign and Spartan Ops were pretty damn good. And it was certainly pretty.
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
IMO the series has generelly lost it's momentum. The story was finished with Halo 3. They should have killed Master Chief at the end and then moved on to something else.
 

Hindle

Banned
They spent too much time on building an awesome engine instead of an awesome game. Now that the engine work is done, let's hope they can make an actual Halo game with 5.
 

LTWheels

Member
I finished playing the campaign last night and really enjoyed it. I think it's my second favourite after ODST. I liked the new enemies, but I would make the knights less bullet spongy. They take ages to kill if your stuck with a rifle.

I'm not really played multiplayer so can't really comment. But it is their first attempt so hopefully they can take on board everyone's complaints and feedback.

Anyway I expect Halo 5 just being 60fps will give it a different feel.
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
All I know is that they lost one game lost them an customer for their entire ecosystem. Halo was my go-to console shooter, and now that I'm not longer interested in the franchise, I've jumped ship completely.

Getting that Kickstarter "Community Evolved: A Look at the Last Decade of Halo" book is going to be a sad conclusion.
 

Jarlaxle

Member
Worst maps in the series. I feel like I've liked each successive multiplayer game in the series less and less since Halo 2.
 

Gaz_RB

Member
Honestly, this was a very detailed post that touched on a lot of PR problems that I didn't even know about.

But IMO they were relatively irrelevant. You hit on the real reason in this paragraph right here:



The gameplay balance that had made Halo special was gone. In what seemed like a blatant attempt to win over people that loved COD, they incorporated this STUPID weapon unlock system for starting weapons, and the EVEN DUMBER weapon call-ins for power weapons.

The days of map control, of fighting for position to secure the power weapons, of fighting to EARN an advantage that a more useful weapon, were all gone.

Even armor abilities, for as much vitriol as they caught from the dedicated Halo fanbase after their introduction in Reach, fit well within the ballet of skill and planning that characterized Halo games. Two players enter, the player that takes full advantage of their equipment, the environment, and leads the battle to their advantage (range, positioning, weapon selection, etc) wins the day.

It was pure. It was thoughtful. It was satisfying.

And it was gone. Replaced with randomness at every turn, undermined further by easily exploitable weapons and grenade/melee balance that ruined the once-perfect trifecta of shoot/grenade/melee. Halo 4 devolved into random shooting. Every match may as well have been Fiesta mode.
.

Agreed. Gears of War did the same thing. It lost the simplicity and balance that came from that simplicity in favor of XP and unlocks. Call of Duty 4 did that system well, I think, at least it was innovative at release. Now I can't stand that that system has found it's way into games where it doesn't belong.
 
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