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[Juan]

Back from the Arena: I swear Halo 5 is meant to frustrate players.

They give you "great" abilities like Sprint, Clamber, Thruster, Slide, but now, they are punishing you for using them.

If you use the Sprint, you can't recharge your shield. Yeah, I guess it's okay. But now, you will be shown on the Radar if you use it and you won't if you just walk. But the map is meant to be crossed with Sprint in mind as they are bigger than ever before. But if you do this after a firefight, you have to choose between camping and praying for your life, or you will try to move without sprinting to not be seen but the arena is more open and you will have bigger chance to get shot, or you run away and you will be visible on the radar AND your shield won't recharge.

So, 343 is now punishing you (even more) for traversing the map with a mechanic they designed the game with in mind? They are punishing you for playing the way the game was first intended to be played?

Plus, as a casual myself since Halo 4 (as I didn't play MLG settings since the end of Halo 3), my muscle memory is to look on the bottom left of the screen to use the Radar. It's something we have been (somehow) trained to use since Halo CE, so instead of keeping my eyes on the map, I check the radar often to see if something is around.

But now, I feel safe if I don't see thing, but I have to remind that maybe, it just means that someone is walking and not using Sprint/Clamber/Slide/Thruster in my area. But I'm not trained to this... And I get doomed by this...

As this point, just remove the radar entirely so I won't ever bother looking for it during the game. DOOM 2016 doesn't have a radar and it's perfectly fine.

I know some of those changes are there for balance purpose, but in the end, why giving us abilities if it's for punishing us when we're using them?

Edit: Quoted Akai because he ended up being at the end of the last page:

Honestly, I know that I (and lots of others) would just appreciate more and deeper settings/customization for Custom Games.

If you could for example toggle between hitscan/projectile or adjust RoF, Aim Assist, Bullet Magentism, Projectile Speed, Damage etc. etc. it would help a lot. You need to double down on these settings, especially now that we have a Custom Game Browser. Lots of these things are already implement, but not open to us.

I still don't understand why they added the individual weapon customization at the end of Halo 4's lifetime, when they didn't even use (or re-use) it once.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I still don't understand why they added the individual weapon customization at the end of Halo 4's lifetime, when they didn't even use (or re-use) it once.

*cough Warzone and REQ based weapon variants as well as developer tuning of weapons.

 

[Akai__]

*cough Warzone and REQ based weapon variants as well as developer tuning of weapons.

It was a feature that they added to be able to tune weapons server side. They showed a demo on Forge Island of a Plasma Pistol doing 1 shot kills and a Fuel Rod doing zero damage in the same match. You can't customize weapon damage individually like that in Custom Games. No shit that they can create new weapon variants and use developer tools to do that.

 

[Trup1aya]

Back from the Arena: I swear Halo 5 is meant to frustrate players.

They give you "great" abilities like Sprint, Clamber, Thruster, Slide, but now, they are punishing you for using them.

Snip

This is the nature of Sprint and to a lesser degree, all of the Spartan Abilities. It's one of the reason many feel they can never work in Halo.

When you try to design maps around the inclusion of Sprint as a basic mechanic, it means you are ALWAYS being punished for something, whether you are using it or not:

As you mentioned, the maps are stretched for Sprint and Clamber. So if you aren't using the abilities, you are sacrificing your ability to traverse the map as its intended. You are an easier target. You can't make certain jumps, and you can't pressure spawns or counter such pressure as quickly as your opponents can.

If you DO use sprint and clamber, you have to sacrifice some of your awareness and your readiness, simply to traverse the map in the way it's designed. Additionally, with sprint you sacrifice your ability to recharge your shields.

With thrust, they bump up AOE damage and assists to counter. They even have magnetism on grenades. So if you are forced to use thrust to win a battle, you have to spend the next for second under able to counter the next attack.

They included the Ability Tracker because Radar tacked on an extra punishment to regular movement. This meant that the best course of action was to crouch in the corner (with autos). It was the only way to play while avoiding punishment.

The real solution is to stop adding mechanics that inherently penalize one's every action.

Replace sprint with an increased movement speed, increased FOV, and a run animation that doesn't restrict shooting

Replace clamber with maps that allow you to jump, crouch jump, and spring jump everywhere

Replace thrust with a powerful strafe

The nature of all of these abilities is that they actually take at least as much power from the player as they give. Remove them and instead, enhance mobility free of charge - Then there's no need for the developer to program punishments into the mechanics - not with the radar, not with the sheild system, not with the ability to shoot.

Instead, the only punishment would be when one player outplays another.

 

[Fuchsdh]

When you try to design maps around the inclusion of Sprint as a basic mechanic, it means you are ALWAYS being punished for something, whether you are using it or not:

---

They included the Ability Tracker because Radar tacked on an extra punishment to regular movement. This meant that the best course of action was to crouch in the corner (with autos). It was the only way to play while avoiding punishment.

You're penalized because while you are invisible on motion trackers, you're moving incredibly slow and can get outplayed.

I don't really buy your whole framing here. You can view almost any game mechanics through this lens. If I'm laning in Dota, I'm not scouting around. If I'm scouting, I'm not farming creeps. If I'm farming creeps I'm not coordinating ambushes. Any player choice has drawbacks, the same way your choice of guns, grenades or melee was inherently a choice against one mechanic and for another.

 

[Trup1aya]

You're penalized because while you are invisible on motion trackers, you're moving incredibly slow and can get outplayed.

I don't really buy your whole framing here. You can view almost any game mechanics through this lens. If I'm laning in Dota, I'm not scouting around. If I'm scouting, I'm not farming creeps. If I'm farming creeps I'm not coordinating ambushes. Any player choice has drawbacks, the same way your choice of guns, grenades or melee was inherently a choice against one mechanic and for another.

Regarding camping with ARs: Prior to SA tracker camping was inarguably OP and penalty free. Not moving gave you free information about everyone else, while they knew nothing about you. There was NO punishment - It's not like you have to stay crouched once you start a shoot out. by the time someone figures out where you are, you've already gotten several shots into them because they were on radar. Once you start shooting them, there's no need to crouch anymore. they know where you are and your gunshots are on radar anyway. So the slow movement penalty never comes into play.

Regarding trade offs: Sure, there is a tradeoff when deciding What to use in gun-grenade-melee trifecta. That's core to what makes halo, halo and shouldn't go anywhere.

But a ton of additonal mechanics have been added, that force compromises where there were previously none. I'm arguing that these compromises are unnecessary and they create problems without solving any. Just compare compromises made for basic operations in H2 vs H5

H2- you can move at top speed and attack simultaneously
H5- if you move at top speed you can't attack

H2- you can move at top speed in any direction
H5- you can only move forward at top speed

H2- you can regain your shield while moving at top speed
H5- you have to move at sub-optimal speed to regain shield

H2- you can platform in any direction whilst engaging enemies in any other direction
H5- many jumps are made for sprint and clamber, and as a result limit you to facing one direction, and force you to put your gun down

H2- AoE damage and weapon aim assists tuned to a single movement speed, which equals strafe speed. So dodging is matter of strafing - a mechanic that is always available
H5- AoE damage and weapon aim assists tuned to account for thrust and sprint, so not having thrust available or not sprinting puts you at a heightened risk of damage.

Previously the decision was guns or melee or grenades. And that decision had no bearing on your ability to heal, look, run, dodge or platform in any direction, at any time. there are obvious balancing reasons why you would only be able to use one damage method at a time.

Now it becomes (guns or melee or grenade)(platform forward) (run forward(or heal) or dodge).

Understanding why top speed should be limited to forward motion, or why dodging should limit your ability to deal damage or shield regen should be limited to slow movement isn't as obvious. Why? Because these are arbitrary limitations and halo gameplay flowed exquisitely without them.

The addition of these Abilities is, in effect, punishing you for performing actions that were once penalty free while also hamstringing multidirectional movement and platforming.

Beyond that, to actually balance how these abilities work on maps, they've programmed additonal compromises to counter problems introduced by the movement mechanics (increased magnetism on everything, massive melee lunge, health tied to sprint, the ability tracker etc)

 

[User 73706]

I agree with the idea that movement options should be omnidirectional when possible (ex. sprint or clamber), although that obviously necessitates the balancing to make sure they work properly.

I do think there are certain cases where "restricting" movements on a directional basis could work, like, maybe you can only walljump while sprinting, and sprinting necessitates you to keep moving or it kicks you out, so as a result you're "forced" to keep moving to scale a surface rather than being able to sit in a corner and spam it.

 

[Madness]

I don't envy 343. How can you possibly please everyone.

You please the people most likely to buy the game and play for the long run. Most of the people who loved H4 and talked nonstop of how great it was never played it beyond a month. People here who said H5 was their favorite Halo of all time or since Ce or 2 never touched the game beyond 6 months. People who disliked H4 or H5 never even came back to the series or tried it and stopped.

I would not use people who like H5 as a metric for how to make H6. I would use people who played H5 in spite of what they didn't like and ask them what they could improve. There are again a lot of bonehead duh decisions for what was missing from H5 at launch. They have a fixed a lot since launch. But something like campaign challenges and even campaign checkpoints are missing. Didn't even touch campaign more than once. I liked breakout but all that time and resources and even developers going to paintball ranges to make a shit mode that forgers could have made in a day all for no one to play.

343 needs to stop hand holding every aspect of Halo. Some of the best modes were made by fans. Some of the best competitive MLG maps and modes were made by pros or MLG on the fly. Yet 343 needs to have their players test things for months and weeks,why? Look at how long them it to get infection,something forgers had done and it wasn't a fraction as fun as in the past. Even SWAT in H5 is ten times less satisfying than it was in H4 or Reach.

Series is pretty much dead. Little mindshare and hype. I often use my younger cousins and his friends as barometers of hype. They're all in currently on Overwatch, PubG and now Destiny 2, Halo is something they wouldn't even play if free.

 

[VincentMatts]

You please the people most likely to buy the game and play for the long run. Most of the people who loved H4 and talked nonstop of how great it was never omwyed it beyond a month. People here who said H5 was their favoritr Halo of all time or since Ce or 2 never touched the game beyond 6 months. People who disliked H4 or H5 never even came back to the series or tried it and stopped.

I would not use people who like H5 as a metric for how to make H6. I would use people who played H5 in spite of what they didn't like and ask them what they could improve. There are again a lot of bonehead duh decisions for what was missing from H5 at launch. They have a fixed a lot since launch. But something like campaign challenges and even campaign checkpoints are missing. Didn't even touch campaign more than once. I liked breakout but all that time and resources and even developers going to paintball ranges to make a shit mode that forgers could have made in a day all for no one to play.

343 needs to stop hand holding every aspect of Halo. Some of the beet modes were made by fans. Some of the best competitive MLG maps and modes were made by pros or MLG on the fly. Yet 343 needs to have their players test things for months and weeks,why? Look at how long them it to get infection,something forgers had done and it wasn't a fraction as fun as in the past. Even SWAT in H5 is ten times less satisfying than it was in H4 or Reach.

Series is pretty much dead. Little mindshare and hype. I often use my younger cousins and his friends as barometers of hype. They're all in currently on Overwatch, PubG and now Destiny 2, Halo is something they wouldn't even play if free.

I dunno if i agree that Halo is dead. I think most people are waiting for it to be great again to jump back in and unfortunately, i dont think 343 have it in them. They dont get it. They dont understand that halo isnt just a name, its a certain type of play, it looks a certain way, it sounds a certain way, it plays a certain way.

The Halo 343 make doesnt look like halo, doesnt sound like halo and with those trash AI characters with squad orders, it doesnt play like it either. They dont understand that they cant just change everything and keep the name and expect people to keep coming back and loving it.

All those aspects i mentioned are the reason i loved halo, and 343 changes everything but the main character. Hell, they even did that in 5. Theyre clueless. The fact that they dont know this by now just doesnt give me hope.

 

[Samurai G0SU]

the only way im going to jump back into h5 at this point is if i get an xbox one X this year and they provide some substantial upgrades with their "4k update"

otherwise i'll probably until the next halo comes out for when i play halo again.

 

[El Txou]

I agree that they can improve a lot, but I believe that competition also has a lot to do with this. I love Halo 5, I am one of those guys another gaffer mentions that we buy, love it, the stop playing before 6 months, but I hace played till this day, level 141. But I not only love Halo 5, well the multiplayer, they can really improve the campaign, I also love Halo 2 and Halo 3. And of course Halo 2 and 3 feel more balanced, they have half the complications. But Halo 5,even with everything they have added, feels more balanced than Reach and Halo 4, almost as Halo 2, but with a incredibly fun, in my opinion, set of Spartan abilities. Yeah, they punish you if you use them wrong, or if the other player is more skilled. If you spam sprint, you will die, after a encounter, you either walk and find a place to wait it out, or walk towards an area that gives you protection, just like Halo before 5. If you spam Spartan charge you will fail, also ground pound and thrusters can only help you in some situations, they are not that powerful. But if used skillfully, at the right time, they can be great to have. Yes there are some further complications, it is less floaty, clamber, walking speed in different directions, although I don't see them as big issues, problems. They have grounded Halo in reality a little bit more, it is their vision,honestly, I prefer that approach while still making you feel like a super soldier.

Like I said before this is simply my opinion, and I perfectly understand where the complaints are coming from. People have different preferences, I play with another 10 people Halo, and the consensus is the multiplayer is the best it's been since Halo 2 and 3,just as good or even better. But Campaign needs serious work, warzone needs a serious rework, and we need a classic firefight mode. 343 has a tall order for Halo 6,they have written themselves against the wall in 5 with the campaign, and the new Halo multiplayer is very divisive, people like me love it, and continues to play a lot to this day, and other people hate it, and want to go back to the Halo Master Chief Collection days, a classic arena shooter with today's technical capabilities, akin DOOM 2016. It will be hard to please everyone, if not impossible. I just hope what we discuss here helps them make the best game possible, I love Halo.

 

[BizzyBum]

Halo 6 needs a battle royale mode.

 

[op_ivy]

jem and i. the only two that still play and enjoy halo. whats up bud?

 

[wwm0nkey]

Halo 6 needs a battle royale mode.

Eh MS doesn't need Halo to do it now that they are helping develop the Xbox version of PUBG

 

[Fata1moose]

jem and i. the only two that still play and enjoy halo. whats up bud?

I played for the first time in 4 months the other night It was only one game of Extermination, which is a pretty fun mode.

 

[BizzyBum]

Eh MS doesn't need Halo to do it now that they are helping develop the Xbox version of PUBG

Yeah, true. Though if you think about it a Halo universe BR would be pretty damn sick.

 

[jem0208]

jem and i. the only two that still play and enjoy halo. whats up bud?

Haha, seems like it.

S'all good though. I'm looking forward to seeing what the weapon tuning update is like.

 

[CyReN]

Ghost is leaving 343i.

 

[Trup1aya]

jem and i. the only two that still play and enjoy halo. whats up bud?

I haven't played in months. Not because I don't enjoy it, just lack of time.

I wanted to play this weekend, but they swapped extermination for rock and rail 😒

I'll carve out time for the weapons tuning

 

[Madness]

Ghost is leaving 343i.

Went wasted in whatever role they had. Testing weapon changes or casting a few times while they pushed a sub-par Strongside on us over and over. I had thoughts with the Halo Channel and pro team ans how twitch is used we would see regular inside the studio playtests and tournaments, 343 vs the world regular matches, none of it came to fruition. 343 Pro Team was blown away in some UK tournament and they didn't do it again. What is neighbor even used for?

 

[belushy]

Ghost is leaving 343i.

Ill say the old friend is probably Walshy. I can see Ghost joining First Strike Games.

 

[Juan]

Too bad to se Ghost leaving, I appreciated him since he liked Halo CE a lot. Who are still in the Pro Team @343?

I wonder if they will stop overtesting stuff before doing update now.

So, I did my 10 games to get a rank in the Arena, got Platinum 4, so I guess I'm not a so-bad player at Halo 5, I would say middle class, but I really didn't have fun during those game, on top of what I said in my previous post, players were really mean.

This game has just become a parody of itself. Spartan abilities are here to encourage player mobility, but most of the player I encountered were camping on every corner they could find...

I don't know what to say to be honest lol. Once again, I wanted to give Halo 5 another chance, once again I was disappointed. I will still keep Halo 5 on my Xbox One until the balance update and the Halo 3 Anniversary playlist, to give them a try, but after that, I think I will delete it once and for all and hide it from my library.

I just want to forget this game ever existed.

 

[wwm0nkey]

Yeah, true. Though if you think about it a Halo universe BR would be pretty damn sick.

I'd play it

 

[ZeezbruhTV]

Still waiting on BC, still "soon"...

 

[Prinz Eugn]

I'm playing right now

 

[jelly]

Got around to watching Fall of Reach, that stop motion animation film. Guess it's a pretty straight forward introduction for newcomers and gets on with it. Felt like I was watching Enders Game featuring Wayne Rooney though but on the plus side, it's easy to follow just very much deja vu. I did like the art style especially the science, planets, military 'Polished navy is still a little clean and boring, never like that side of Halo in any media', the production was nicely done. They seem to have new Godzilla Jackals and new rifle though, elites were nice and imposing but the media doesn't lend itself to the battle. No Fall of Reach but I kinda guessed that with the running time. It's a light introduction but think it's quite approachable if they ever do a bigger TV series or film series, I haven't been convinced by live action yet but this still makes me think it would cool if they nail the look and threat. Overall, it was okay for what it is.

 

[BizzyBum]

Actually, is it possible to create a budget BR mode in Forge?

I played some custom map called DayZ once and it was pretty huge. If it were possible to generate random weapon spawns on map it could be feasible.

 

[Juan]

Actually, is it possible to create a budget BR mode in Forge?

I played some custom map called DayZ once and it was pretty huge. If it were possible to generate random weapon spawns on map it could be feasible.

What makes PUBG really good (to me) is the death barrier that is randomly placed on the map and which decreases in size each time to force the player to move.

I didn't dig a lot into Forge options, but I don't think you can do something like this. PUBG forces players to move around and get closer to each other each time, so without that, BR on Halo wouldn't be really fun. I tried DayZ map thanks to the Custom Browser, but I never found it was really fun, since it's just freely moving around, get kill and unlimited amount of life.

 

[FyreWulff]

Can we still not modify soft safe/kill zones via scripting? could just make people come inwards that way

 

[BizzyBum]

We need answers, nokyard!

 

[jem0208]

What makes PUBG really good (to me) is the death barrier that is randomly placed on the map and which decreases in size each time to force the player to move.

I didn't dig a lot into Forge options, but I don't think you can do something like this. PUBG forces players to move around and get closer to each other each time, so without that, BR on Halo wouldn't be really fun. I tried DayZ map thanks to the Custom Browser, but I never found it was really fun, since it's just freely moving around, get kill and unlimited amount of life.

You could definitely use the scripting andto kill barriers to achieve this.

 

[User 73706]

Can we still not modify soft safe/kill zones via scripting? could just make people come inwards that way

Couldn't you just place a kill barrier over the whole map and use safe zones that decrease in size to reduce the survivable area? That is, spawn in smaller safe zone, and once it's in you despawn the old larger safe zone.

 

[NOKYARD]

You can't script soft kill volumes in Forge. They are baked in much like lighting.

I just tried to trick the script engine by welding decreasing radius safe volumes to 4 blocks which despawn/respawn on timers.

The whole assembly was deleted by the game at the start of the round, and was still gone after loading it back in Forge.

 

[jelly]

Reading the last page about 343 and Halo, if there is big issues that just made more problems, got them nowhere and player retention went down fast, would it be safe to assume they might make drastic changes, that's two games in a row now, third time lucky with the current thinking, that wouldn't make much sense would it if there is still obvious problems that can only be rectified by big changes so why would 343 continue down this path unless it's a few tweaks away from being the best thing since sliced bread and going by some comments here, small tweaks aren't sufficient, major game play changes like sprint, abilities, map design, game types need rethought.

Is it inevitable that 343 carry on much the same or is it obvious that they are going to tear it down and do something else?

 

[Juan]

Is it inevitable that 343 carry on much the same or is it obvious that they are going to tear it down and do something else?

At this point, there are 3 things I'm pretty sure 343 Industries won't change with Halo 6 compared to Halo 5:

1/ Spartan abilities
2/ Art direction
3/ the way they tell a story

And without that, well, I'm not sure I will buy the next Halo to be honest. In fact, if the Master Chief Collection had the Halo 3 ODST firefight, I would be done with the Halo saga and would end up playing with the MCC for the rest of my life.

You could definitely use the scripting andto kill barriers to achieve this.

Apparently not, too bad, the radius property can't be scripted. :'/

 

[Trup1aya]

Reading the last page about 343 and Halo, if there is big issues that just made more problems, got them nowhere and player retention went down fast, would it be safe to assume they might make drastic changes, that's two games in a row now, third time lucky with the current thinking, that wouldn't make much sense would it if there is still obvious problems that can only be rectified by big changes so why would 343 continue down this path unless it's a few tweaks away from being the best thing since sliced bread and going by some comments here, small tweaks aren't sufficient, major game play changes like sprint, abilities, map design, game types need rethought.

Is it inevitable that 343 carry on much the same or is it obvious that they are going to tear it down and do something else?

Nothing's really obvious to me.

I literally have no clue which way they'll go.

I know what I'd like them to do - go back to the days when there was no need to compromise between movement and shooting. I think it made for simpler, less cumbersome controls and made it easier to balance weapons and design maps.

But I understand why they'd like to build off of H5 - despite the series weakest sales, they made a ton of money and for the first time in 343 history, earned themselves a sizable, vocal set of fans who appreciate the changes they made to the formula.

There's risk involved with either approach. Honestly, I feel like there's good stuff in every Halo game, that could be used to create the ultimate title. But it would take some humility to understand why some of the new gameplay elements stunt it's potential and truly seek to understand what made the old games tick.

 

[Cranster]

At this point, there are 3 things I'm pretty sure 343 Industries won't change with Halo 6 compared to Halo 5:

1/ Spartan abilities
2/ Art direction
3/ the way they tell a story

And without that, well, I'm not sure I will buy the next Halo to be honest. In fact, if the Master Chief Collection had the Halo 3 ODST firefight, I would be done with the Halo saga and would end up playing with the MCC for the rest of my life.



Apparently not, too bad, the radius property can't be scripted. :'/

I wouldn't say thats the case, Brian Reed is no longer an employee at 343i which means that whomever got hired on as the Narrative Director will have an influence on how the next story is told. As far art direction there are 343i employees who are not happy with the art direction in Halo 4 and 5 and you can see that with Halo Wars 2 which is hopefully a sign that 343i is starting to revert to that old art style.

 

[Madness]

Eh I think Halo is in tough as long as MS has the series. Obvious by now they are too corporate and dominated by suits to develop quality software. This hardware pivot is only because they have been blown away to the point of irreleblvance this gen. But just take a look at what they are doing with tbeir IP's. Fable now some card game. Perfect Dark, Banjo, Kameo and Conker dead. ReCore wasn't that good. They let the Ryse IP die with whatever Crytek doing. Sunset never got a sequel. Crackdown 3 delayed into oblivion with little hype and looks like shit. Sea of Thieves is a simple MMO. Scalebound cancelled.

Seriously. Almost all senior leadsership at 343 and MS Studios are suits with little to no time in the trenches. Someone like Josh Holmes at least was from EA making games in the 90's and responsible for stuff like NBA Street and Def Jam. People like Bonnie and Kiki and formerly Dan Ayoub all MS suits. Dan Ayoub almost singularly in charge of MCC as producer, goes from tweeting daily and interviews to silent on twitter and then re emerges as promoted to studio head for Halo Wars 2. Do Satya and Phil and even Bonnie not realize how much MCC effed Halo? How it was tracking as highly sold on Amazon, caused people like me and many others to purchase Xbox Ones, caused former pros, casters, many industry figures to eagerly await launch night. We still haven't gotten a break down of what happened. In the end, corproate turnover and MS culture means Halo will not be what we want it to be. Look at their insistence on how they run HCS and sticking with ESL instead of going hat in hand to MLG. No wonder Bungie left and is thriving. No wonder Insomniac went back to Sony and is making Spider-Man.

 

[Cranster]

Eh I think Halo is in tough as long as MS has the series. Obvious by now they are too corporate and dominated by suits to develop quality software. This hardware pivot is only because they have been blown away to the point of irreleblvance this gen. But just take a look at what they are doing with tbeir IP's. Fable now some card game. Perfect Dark, Banjo, Kameo and Conker dead. ReCore wasn't that good. They let the Ryse IP die with whatever Crytek doing. Sunset never got a sequel. Crackdown 3 delayed into oblivion with little hype and looks like shit. Sea of Thieves is a simple MMO. Scalebound cancelled.

Seriously. Almost all senior leadsership at 343 and MS Studios are suits with little to no time in the trenches. Someone like Josh Holmes at least was from EA making games in the 90's and responsible for stuff like NBA Street and Def Jam. People like Bonnie and Kiki and formerly Dan Ayoub all MS suits. Dan Ayoub almost singularly in charge of MCC as producer, goes from tweeting daily and interviews to silent on twitter and then re emerges as promoted to studio head for Halo Wars 2. Do Satya and Phil and even Bonnie not realize how much MCC effed Halo? How it was tracking as highly sold on Amazon, caused people like me and many others to purchase Xbox Ones, caused former pros, casters, many industry figures to eagerly await launch night. We still haven't gotten a break down of what happened. In the end, corproate turnover and MS culture means Halo will not be what we want it to be. Look at their insistence on how they run HCS and sticking with ESL instead of going hat in hand to MLG. No wonder Bungie left and is thriving. No wonder Insomniac went back to Sony and is making Spider-Man.

Riding the coattails of Halo and going multiplatform helps. Bungie is run extremely corporate now though compared to when they were owned by Microsoft. Back then Bungie employees would have rather released free DLC content rather than sell them for a cost, now those same employees are defending the nickel and diming they are pulling when it comes to shaders. Halo is better off in the long run with 343 Industries as they were the ones who cared enough to continue the franchise when Bungie didn't!

 

[Trup1aya]

Eh I think Halo is in tough as long as MS has the series. Obvious by now they are too corporate and dominated by suits to develop quality software. This hardware pivot is only because they have been blown away to the point of irreleblvance this gen. But just take a look at what they are doing with tbeir IP's. Fable now some card game. Perfect Dark, Banjo, Kameo and Conker dead. ReCore wasn't that good. They let the Ryse IP die with whatever Crytek doing. Sunset never got a sequel. Crackdown 3 delayed into oblivion with little hype and looks like shit. Sea of Thieves is a simple MMO. Scalebound cancelled.

Seriously. Almost all senior leadsership at 343 and MS Studios are suits with little to no time in the trenches. Someone like Josh Holmes at least was from EA making games in the 90's and responsible for stuff like NBA Street and Def Jam. People like Bonnie and Kiki and formerly Dan Ayoub all MS suits. Dan Ayoub almost singularly in charge of MCC as producer, goes from tweeting daily and interviews to silent on twitter and then re emerges as promoted to studio head for Halo Wars 2. Do Satya and Phil and even Bonnie not realize how much MCC effed Halo? How it was tracking as highly sold on Amazon, caused people like me and many others to purchase Xbox Ones, caused former pros, casters, many industry figures to eagerly await launch night. We still haven't gotten a break down of what happened. In the end, corproate turnover and MS culture means Halo will not be what we want it to be. Look at their insistence on how they run HCS and sticking with ESL instead of going hat in hand to MLG. No wonder Bungie left and is thriving. No wonder Insomniac went back to Sony and is making Spider-Man.

Interesting take but

1: sea of thieves looks awesome
2: HCS issues are due to 343 not MS
3: Bungie is worse than 343 when it comes to corporate BS. Way worse. It sad what happened to them.

 

[Juan]

Riding the coattails of Halo and going multiplatform helps. Bungie is run extremely corporate now though compared to when they were owned by Microsoft. Back then Bungie employees would have rather released free DLC content rather than sell them for a cost, now those same employees are defending the nickel and diming they are pulling when it comes to shaders. Halo is better off in the long run with 343 Industries as they were the ones who cared enough to continue the franchise when Bungie didn't!

Well, most of the people who made Halo are now long gone from Bungie, so I wouldn't call the actual Bungie the Bungie which made Halo.

 

[CyReN]

Riding the coattails of Halo and going multiplatform helps. Bungie is run extremely corporate now though compared to when they were owned by Microsoft. Back then Bungie employees would have rather released free DLC content rather than sell them for a cost, now those same employees are defending the nickel and diming they are pulling when it comes to shaders. Halo is better off in the long run with 343 Industries as they were the ones who cared enough to continue the franchise when Bungie didn't!

I'm sorry but lol. I wish 343i was kicking ass and taking names but they have just been riding off the hype of Bungie that gamers have just moved on. Halo is now the Sonic of shooters, there is no more excitement with the IP anymore.

I really wish there was btw, I miss the days of being proud to be a Halo fan - now people think you're weird. Hopefully Halo 6 can finally make a positive swing for the series.

 

[Madness]

Riding the coattails of Halo and going multiplatform helps. Bungie is run extremely corporate now though compared to when they were owned by Microsoft. Back then Bungie employees would have rather released free DLC content rather than sell them for a cost, now those same employees are defending the nickel and diming they are pulling when it comes to shaders. Halo is better off in the long run with 343 Industries as they were the ones who cared enough to continue the franchise when Bungie didn't!

Riding off what coattails. I guarantee you hundreds of thousands of 8 year olds playing D2 right now don't even know what Halo is. They don't know who Marcus Lehto was, Jaime Griesemer, Marty O'Donnell, or the numerous old Bungie ancients. If anything 343 is riding off of Bungie coattails.

Bungie did give Cold Storage free and it was MS who forced them to charge for DLC just like they forced Epic to charge for the 2nd Gears map pack so they could profit. I don't blame Bungie for nickel and diming. It is the nature of the industry. Every dev including Rockstar is doing it. You think Halo 6 won't include even more microtransactions than Halo 5 had? In H5, even to get your old logos you used you had to either play and pray to RNGesus or shell out dough to get emblems.

Bungie finished the fight. Judging by the sales of D1 and D2 versus H4 and H5. I would say they were right not to continue anymore. You think they wouldn't have wanted to keep the Halo IP? Maybe revisit one day after Destiny had run its course? 343 cared to carry on the franchise because it is a way to make money for MS. It is why we have Gears 4 after Epic no longer wanted to continue. It is why we are now on Forza 7 soon. Aside from Frank and Sketch, no one who even worked on Halo in any form pre-343 is there right. And judging by how many leave, most join 343 to ship a Halo, slap it on their resume and move on.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

Bungie finished the fight. Judging by the sales of D1 and D2 versus H4 and H5. I would say they were right not to continue anymore. You think they wouldn't have wanted to keep the Halo IP? Maybe revisit one day after Destiny had run its course?

Thank goodness this didn't happen. Not playing a new Halo after Reach would have been a terrible fate.

343 cared to carry on the franchise because it is a way to make money for MS. It is why we have Gears 4 after Epic no longer wanted to continue.

And thank goodness for MS to continue with Gears because 4's multiplayer is really good. I haven't put this much time into a Gears multiplayer since the first one, and I enjoyed them all.

And Crackdown 3 looks fun!

 

[Juan]

Thank goodness this didn't happen. Not playing a new Halo after Reach would have been a terrible fate.

Herf, to be honest, even with how much I loved Halo 4 after it was patched, I would rather have preferred to see this franchise end with Reach than what we got with Halo 4 and Halo 5.

 

[Cranster]

Riding off what coattails. I guarantee you hundreds of thousands of 8 year olds playing D2 right now don't even know what Halo is. They don't know who Marcus Lehto was, Jaime Griesemer, Marty O'Donnell, or the numerous old Bungie ancients.

Let's be honest, alot of 8 year olds thought Master Chief was named "Halo" back in the Bungie era. Outside of the Bungie logo though most kids don\t know anything about the developer of Bungie, all they know is that they get to shoot and loot girnd.

If anything 343 is riding off of Bungie coattails.

Touche. But they were created to manage Halo so it comes with the job. What is Bungies excuse?

Bungie did give Cold Storage free and it was MS who forced them to charge for DLC just like they forced Epic to charge for the 2nd Gears map pack so they could profit. I don't blame Bungie for nickel and diming. It is the nature of the industry. Every dev including Rockstar is doing it. You think Halo 6 won't include even more microtransactions than Halo 5 had? In H5, even to get your old logos you used you had to either play and pray to RNGesus or shell out dough to get emblems.

It's Bungie's hypocrisy I have an issue with and their tojan horse way of how they handled shaders in Destiny 2. Say what you want about 343i but atleast they were always honest and upfront about what the REQ system entailed in Halo 5. Let alone customization options are not one time use!

Bungie finished the fight. Judging by the sales of D1 and D2 versus H4 and H5. I would say they were right not to continue anymore. You think they wouldn't have wanted to keep the Halo IP? Maybe revisit one day after Destiny had run its course?

Maybe, maybe not. But they in the end wanted to be indepent to work on a sci fi shooter instead of having to work on an excisting succesful sci fi shooter franchise. Let alone they never went back to Myth or Marathon.

343 cared to carry on the franchise because it is a way to make money for MS.

So your just going to disregard people like Frankie and Bonnie Ross whom actually care about the franchise to continue working on it? Okay.

It is why we have Gears 4 after Epic no longer wanted to continue. It is why we are now on Forza 7 soon.

If the dev teams enjoy working on hose franchises wtf does it matter?

Aside from Frank and Sketch, no one who even worked on Halo in any form pre-343 is there right. And judging by how many leave, most join 343 to ship a Halo, slap it on their resume and move on.

That's not a fault with 343i (every studio has this problem), if somebody wants to leave they can do that. I don't see you pointing fingers at Ghost for basically doing the exact samething either.

 

[NippleViking]

Riding off what coattails. I guarantee you hundreds of thousands of 8 year olds playing D2 right now don't even know what Halo is. They don't know who Marcus Lehto was, Jaime Griesemer, Marty O'Donnell, or the numerous old Bungie ancients. If anything 343 is riding off of Bungie coattails.

This whole post is crazy.

Current Bungie was absolutely carried by their past pedigree, and the big marketing bucks Activision pumped into it. It certainly wasn't Destiny's critical reception that propelled it into popularity.

And how present Bungie charges its players is downright offensive. Arguing that Destiny has been more wallet and consumer friendly than Halo 5 is downright crazy. It has arguably the most egregious and invasive monetization scheme in the console space. It's not just 'nickle and diming'. It's nickle and diming microtransactions, plus season pass, plus annual expansions, wherein major constraints are placed on in-game progression and access to past content if you're not paid up.

Lets not shit up this thread too much though.

 

[Madness]

Herf, to be honest, even with how much I loved Halo 4 after it was patched, I would rather have preferred to see this franchise end with Reach than what we got with Halo 4 and Halo 5.

Yep. Completely bastardized and ruined whatever I had envisioned about the universe, the characters and enemies and locales and things like the Forerunners for good. I love this series so much, I would have also, now in hindsight seeing what H4 was, how H5 launched and the story, that it all ended with Reach.

This whole post is crazy.

Current Bungie was absolutely carried by their past pedigree, and the big marketing bucks Activision pumped into it. It certainly wasn't Destiny's critical reception that propelled it into popularity.

And how present Bungie charges its players is downright offensive. Arguing that Destiny has been more wallet and consumer friendly than Halo 5 is downright crazy. It has arguably the most egregious and invasive monetization scheme in the console space. It's not just 'nickle and diming'. It's nickle and diming microtransactions, plus season pass, plus annual expansions, wherein major constraints are placed on in-game progression and access to past content if you're not paid up.

Lets not shit up this thread too much though.

What else can we talk about? The Soon™ of the Halo 3 forge Halo 5 playlist and supposed weapon tuning, something we've known about for weeks with no change.

 

[Trup1aya]

This whole post is crazy.

Current Bungie was absolutely carried by their past pedigree, and the big marketing bucks Activision pumped into it. It certainly wasn't Destiny's critical reception that propelled it into popularity.

And how present Bungie charges its players is downright offensive. Arguing that Destiny has been more wallet and consumer friendly than Halo 5 is downright crazy. It has arguably the most egregious and invasive monetization scheme in the console space. It's not just 'nickle and diming'. It's nickle and diming microtransactions, plus season pass, plus annual expansions, wherein major constraints are placed on in-game progression and access to past content if you're not paid up.

Lets not shit up this thread too much though.

Let's be real here, Bungie's pedigree and Activision's marketing might have gotten people to buy Destiny 1, but the reason that alone didn't keep people coming back, day after day, DLC after DLC. People liked the gameplay, ALOT, critical reception be damned. A ton of people played it that never had any connection with Bungie prior. D1 was a long lasting success because a lot people found it fun.

Halo 4 sold 10 million copies, but lost its playerbase in 2 weeks. It was a Halo game in name only. If that's not riding on coat tails, I don't know what is. If Halo 5 was ,instead, reskinned as a new IP, would it have sold even 5 mil? How many bought it because it was the next installment of Halo rather than because they were confident in its quality?

But yeah, i agree, Bungies business practices are shit now.

 

[RedSparrows]

jem and i. the only two that still play and enjoy halo. whats up bud?

Me too! Although I never play with Gaffers. Been a fan since CE and love most of 5, so resent the tone that H5 lovers should stfu. Halo isn't a behemoth not simply due to gameplay design, it is many other factors. And as long as it develops and releseases, fine by me. I don't give a shit if people play PUBG or D2 more. Neither give me what Halo does.

As for trade offs, i think it plays exqusitely with them. Can't convince me I am some dullard for thinking so, and it doesn't mean I can't also enjoy H2/3 etc on MCC. I simply don't get the tone in here: when I play Arena i generally have a great time, and no other shooter hits those buttons. I can point to a list of gripes I have, but i can also point to the highs that i encounter far more often. It is what it is for me.

Edit: i find also a weird tension between old Halo and the modern market as it is perceived. The mega successful games above don't offer the same competitive, strictly balanced arena experience we, i thought, loved. Other styles of game should coexist, sure, but we cannot then damn 5 for adding in well implemented changes (tradeoffs that do mostly work, actually) to move with the genre but retain unique gameplay, and then act as if H2 was the pinnacle and imply a reversal would somehow be more successful. Good luck with that. Campaign is where you will have more luck with such an attitude, but again I don't feel like H5 assaulted my grandma, unlike true Halo fans...