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Halo 5: Guardians |OT4| You picked a helluva week to join up

TCKaos

Member
Some interesting statistics about team color and win percentages.

team_arena_winning_color.png


It's dangerous to make any strong conclusions from these results. Given that every team does not have equally skilled players in every game and that I have no idea if my sampling is representative, the best we can do is say that 343 did a reasonable job of making balanced maps in Team Arena.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Looks like if there's a color advantage it's pretty slight, given that some of those WR's don't track at all with the dominant color on a map.
 
I think the Knights feel next-to-perfect now, maybe even moreso than the Hunters. I think Hunters are a little too durable (or at least don't give you enough opportunities to damage them now) on foot, but Knights feel extremely well-balanced now. Compare:

Halo 4 Knights
- Loads and loads of shields, health
- Not very obvious rank differentiation outside of "the super glowy ones will one-shot you. p.s. sometimes the ones that don't glow will too)
- Only Knight weapon with real feedback outside of instantly dying is the Light Rifle
- Virtually immune to being instakilled by headshots until a certain amount of post-shielding health is chipped off
- Couldn't be instakilled via a headshot while roaring, which felt misleading
- Minimal vehicle physics interaction / damage feedback (outside of the mantis stomp)
- Teleport ability was telegraphed alright, but the player was basically powerless to do anything about it, and the teleport more often than not just felt like a cheap way for knights to eject from encounters as opposed to Engineers healing enemies, Elites running for cover, etc.

Halo 5 Knights
- Very clear weak spots, all of which present themselves in a progressive fashion
- Player is presented with multiple opportunities to one-shot Knights
- Shooting the exposed skull will result in an instant kill
- Physics-wise, Knights feel less "building with legs" and more "lumbering washing machine that can take a hit, rather than being an insurmountable monolith
- Very blatant audio cues to warn you of different stages of Knight engagement (roaring, "BUH HUH HUHHHHH" when you've been spotted, etc)
- Very clear rank differentiation as well as weapon feedback - you can quickly glean whether the Knight is carrying an Incineration Cannon, Scattershot, etc.
- Knight ranks / weapons make them feel like they actually serve important, separate roles, rather than "universal lumbering instakill machine"
- Higher-ranking Knights (esp. Battlewagons with Incineration Cannons) feel very traditional Hunter-esque in that they're less "bullet sponge infantry" and more "mobile weapons platform"
- Knights that fire Incineration Cannon mortars feel very CE Wraith-esque, but more vulnerable
- Knight weakpoints feel CE Hunter-ish except more intentional, namely being able to shred them in seconds using the Needler (or even quickly with Hailstorm)

I think the Soldiers will probably see a similar level of improvement come Halo 6.
 
Yes, Knights got one of the biggest improvements to an enemy from one game to the next in this series in my opinion. Soldiers need a similar upgrade because they are kind of dull. I think if they want to make Soldiers way more interesting to fight and feel like they actually respond to your shots, I think they should look to Binary Domain's robot deformation stuff and implement some of those ideas for the Soldiers.

If Brutes return in Halo 6 I kind of hope that every type of Brute AI is represented in some way. Halo 2 berserker Brutes, the main army feel of Halo 3 Brutes and Brute Chieftains, and finally the weak, almost impoverished feeling Brutes from Reach. Honestly the Brutes have ever been consistent in the games for some reason.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Yes, Knights got one of the biggest improvements to an enemy from one game to the next in this series in my opinion. Soldiers need a similar upgrade because they are kind of dull. I think if they want to make Soldiers way more interesting to fight and feel like they actually respond to your shots, I think they should look to Binary Domain's robot deformation stuff and implement some of those ideas for the Soldiers.

If Brutes return in Halo 6 I kind of hope that every type of Brute AI is represented in some way. Halo 2 berserker Brutes, the main army feel of Halo 3 Brutes and Brute Chieftains, and finally the weak, almost impoverished feeling Brutes from Reach. Honestly the Brutes have ever been consistent in the games for some reason.

Halo Reach Brutes really felt like an afterthought. There's no particular reason they should have been there, canonically, and since they changed the Needler to compensate for the fact that you can't super combine on shields, Brutes were a cakewalk to fight.
 
Halo Reach Brutes really felt like an afterthought. There's no particular reason they should have been there, canonically, and since they changed the Needler to compensate for the fact that you can't super combine on shields, Brutes were a cakewalk to fight.

For a second I actually thought they were a new race entirely until I saw the Spikers.


BRUTE!

Different but I can still tell its the same species, with shaved hair


What the hell are you?


Glad Halo Wars 2 seems to have gotten it right. Now THATS a Brute.

 
It is hard for me to resist making fun of the new mech grunt boss every time I post anything. It isn't that the boss is uncool, but that it doesn't really address any big needs. It won't improve the servers. It won't stop full teams from ruining the solo experience. And it won't help the arena/slayer playlists at all. The once every month or two map remixes don't feel satisfying at all knowing there is a bounty of good forge maps just rotting by the wayside.

Anyway, I like the Knights in halo 5. They are indeed much improved. Also I've hated the hunters ever since halo 2. They were fun in CE, but turned into brute-esque meatbags in every subsequent halo game. Yawn.

I have had only 5 weapon certs left to unlock for over a week now. Put in some serious hours the past few nights to hopefully get the good stuff before the new update puts a bunch of additionnal and repetitive weapons certs into the game. And as I could have predicted. The game didn't give me anything until finally last night. What did it give me? The didacts signet... the least useful weapon cert I have left. Thank you based 343. Very unlikely I'll get prophets bane, nornfang, whispered truth, or oathbringer in the limited playing time I'll have available before the update hits now. Sigh...

But now my armor is dope -_-
 
I give up. I can't solo matchmake any more. It's absolutely infuriating to be stomped on by an enemy team who has absolute coordination while my own team couldn't give less of a shit.

It's not fun. It's not fair. It's just sad. No effort has gone towards improving the solo experience. No word has been made on if there's even an intention of making the game tolerable to play solo.

Arena at this point is just pubstomp city. And I think Arena is a lot more fun than Warzone, so that stings particularly badly.

idk man, my aim never feels comfortable with this game. Feels like it never will and im quite sad.

I don't like how aiming works in Halo 5, either. It feels too loose, and at the same time, too sticky. It's really bad.
 
idk man, my aim never feels comfortable with this game. Feels like it never will and im quite sad.
I maxed out my aim acceleration and that made a major difference. If you feel like you are fighting the controls then you are probably fighting the acceleration. And every time I think I should not set my sensitivity any higher I find out that it actually feels good. So I'm going to periodically increase the sensitivity each time I play. Right now I'm at 5 acceleration 6 sensitivity. Playing a lot of swat made me realize my twitch reflexes weren't bringing the reticule to the target quick enough, so my shots were coming up short. Then I'd play wz and slayer and the same higher settings felt much better in those playlists as well.
 
Hey guys I just wanted to say very quickly that everything was solved in the good way we decided to remain as good friends and I'm happy for that now I'm better, thank you very much again for all your support!
 

Calm Killer

In all media, only true fans who consume every book, film, game, or pog collection deserve to know what's going on.
Hey guys I just wanted to say very quickly that everything was solved in the good way we decided to remain as good friends and I'm happy for that now I'm better, thank you very much again for all your support!

Woot!
 

Cranster

Banned
For a second I actually thought they were a new race entirely until I saw the Spikers.


BRUTE!


Different but I can still tell its the same species, with shaved hair



What the hell are you?



Glad Halo Wars 2 seems to have gotten it right. Now THATS a Brute.

I still prefer the Halo 2 versions of Brutes, they weren't pushovers and those berserk attacks were literally brutal.
 

Nowise10

Member
I still prefer the Halo 2 versions of Brutes, they weren't pushovers and those berserk attacks were literally brutal.

If you didn't have a carbine or a BR when fighting Halo 2 brutes they weren't fun in the slightest. Those two weapons were literally the only way to kill them in Halo 2, specially if they were berserk.
 
Happy to hear it. Take care of yourself, bud. The bad times don't last.

Thank you :)

For a second I actually thought they were a new race entirely until I saw the Spikers.


BRUTE!


Different but I can still tell its the same species, with shaved hair



What the hell are you?



Glad Halo Wars 2 seems to have gotten it right. Now THATS a Brute.

Et Tu Brute? yeah they look completely different on Reach I'm happy to see their return on Halo Wars 2
 

TCKaos

Member
So I don't know if you guys still have Halo: Custom Edition installed, but SPV3 Part 1 has been released.

It includes The Pillar of Autumn, Halo, Truth and Reconciliation, The Silent Cartographer, The Silent Cartographer Evolved, and Assault on the Control Room.

I've previously played Truth and Reconciliation and The Silent Cartographer/Evolved, so I skipped right on ahead to Assault on the Control Room, and God damn it was fucking awesome.

I'll do a full write up or make a video later, but the level felt pretty neat with all of the new sandbox elements up until the final act. Sure, the whole time I was taking out upgraded Grunts and Elites and Jackals and even Brutes with my silenced BR and SMG. I got to field some new weapons like the Particle Carbine (a Carbine that uses battery and heat instead of standard ammo) and the Shredder (Brute Needler that acts like a supercombining Spiker) and even a Void's Tear that a Zealot dropped. I shit myself when those weird Revenant-like things from the original Mac World trailer showed up when you finally hit the ground about what would normally be mid-way through the level.

Everything seemed to be progressing normally until after clearing an interior section of the level an elevator took me further downwards. I thought it odd, since you're supposed to get to the overhang where you can flip the Banshees next to the Control Room, but I figured that maybe I was remembering it wrong. I wasn't wrong. The entire next 30 minutes or so took place over a completely original final act with original encounters on new terrain with a bunch of the new sandbox stuff. It was fucking incredible, both as a mod and just on its own. There was even an original score that was actually really really good.

I'll stream it a bit later if anyone wants to watch. It was easily a 10/10 Halo experience and probably one of my favorite campaign levels of any Halo game, period. It was straight-up professional dev quality, and good dev quality to boot.
 
New achievements have been added for Warzone Firefight. 8 Achievements for 250G
Drop A Quarter 10G - Complete a mission in Score Attack with at least 10,000 points.
Up For A Challenge 20G - Reach 50,000 points in Score Attack with a Skull multiplier of x2 or higher.
Party Hearty 25G - Complete a mission in Score Attack co-op, with all participants scoring at least 200,000 points.
The Hare 20G - Beat the par time of a mission in Score Attack.
The Tortoise 50G - Complete a mission in Score Attack with at least 500,000 points.
Not Your First Rodeo 40G - Successfully complete 5 Warzone Firefight matches.
Tour of Duty 60G - Complete a Warzone Firefight match on 6 unique maps.
Dangerous Game 25G - Earn a Mythic Boss Takedown in a Warzone Firefight match.
 
I think the Knights feel next-to-perfect now, maybe even moreso than the Hunters. I think Hunters are a little too durable (or at least don't give you enough opportunities to damage them now) on foot, but Knights feel extremely well-balanced now. Compare:

Halo 4 Knights
- Loads and loads of shields, health
- Not very obvious rank differentiation outside of "the super glowy ones will one-shot you. p.s. sometimes the ones that don't glow will too)
- Only Knight weapon with real feedback outside of instantly dying is the Light Rifle
- Virtually immune to being instakilled by headshots until a certain amount of post-shielding health is chipped off
- Couldn't be instakilled via a headshot while roaring, which felt misleading
- Minimal vehicle physics interaction / damage feedback (outside of the mantis stomp)
- Teleport ability was telegraphed alright, but the player was basically powerless to do anything about it, and the teleport more often than not just felt like a cheap way for knights to eject from encounters as opposed to Engineers healing enemies, Elites running for cover, etc.

Halo 5 Knights
- Very clear weak spots, all of which present themselves in a progressive fashion
- Player is presented with multiple opportunities to one-shot Knights
- Shooting the exposed skull will result in an instant kill
- Physics-wise, Knights feel less "building with legs" and more "lumbering washing machine that can take a hit, rather than being an insurmountable monolith
- Very blatant audio cues to warn you of different stages of Knight engagement (roaring, "BUH HUH HUHHHHH" when you've been spotted, etc)
- Very clear rank differentiation as well as weapon feedback - you can quickly glean whether the Knight is carrying an Incineration Cannon, Scattershot, etc.
- Knight ranks / weapons make them feel like they actually serve important, separate roles, rather than "universal lumbering instakill machine"
- Higher-ranking Knights (esp. Battlewagons with Incineration Cannons) feel very traditional Hunter-esque in that they're less "bullet sponge infantry" and more "mobile weapons platform"
- Knights that fire Incineration Cannon mortars feel very CE Wraith-esque, but more vulnerable
- Knight weakpoints feel CE Hunter-ish except more intentional, namely being able to shred them in seconds using the Needler (or even quickly with Hailstorm)

I think the Soldiers will probably see a similar level of improvement come Halo 6.

Pretty much agreed. Only things I'd change about Proms as a whole is further improving their visual differentiation (you're right that it's much better now, but it could still stand to improve. Colors would be nice.), and giving them more vehicles. At the moment all they've really got is the Phaeton.

And soldiers definitely need better hit feedback, and moar warthogs.

Brutes and their whole weapons and vehicles need to return.

Also agree with this.

Frankly, a lot of the complaints with the factions as they currently exist are probably going to be academic; I think we're going to get largely remixed factions moving forward. Prometheans will just be one component of the Cortana's forces, and we'll probably get a crack at the Banished as well.
 
Nah you can totally avoid the spartan charge. If you get killed by one it is because you put yourself in that situation because you didn't have situational awareness. Most people dodge spartan charges than get killed by them etc.

/s
Spartan Charge isn't OP and isn't difficult to avoid death from in most situations. I'm sure 343's intentions weren't to have it lock-on around corners like that lol, which is not the norm in my experience. That's not to say it doesn't happen obviously, but nothing to weep about.
 

Montresor

Member
New achievements for Halo 5!!!!

Yes!!! I'll have to reinstall the game now, hahaha.

New achievements have been added for Warzone Firefight. 8 Achievements for 250G
Drop A Quarter 10G - Complete a mission in Score Attack with at least 10,000 points.
Up For A Challenge 20G - Reach 50,000 points in Score Attack with a Skull multiplier of x2 or higher.
Party Hearty 25G - Complete a mission in Score Attack co-op, with all participants scoring at least 200,000 points.
The Hare 20G - Beat the par time of a mission in Score Attack.
The Tortoise 50G - Complete a mission in Score Attack with at least 500,000 points.
Not Your First Rodeo 40G - Successfully complete 5 Warzone Firefight matches.
Tour of Duty 60G - Complete a Warzone Firefight match on 6 unique maps.
Dangerous Game 25G - Earn a Mythic Boss Takedown in a Warzone Firefight match.


How difficult will these new achievements be?
 
New cheevos!!

And I still have the base ones to do :(
No friends :(

Drop me an invite sometime. I need the following cheevos, so we can work on whichever ones you also need.

  • Fire Drill
  • Enemy of my Enemy
  • Maverick
  • Savior
  • No Witnesses
  • Preying Mantis
  • Kraken Lackin'
  • Emergency Boarding Procedures
  • Worms Don't Surf
  • Rolling Thunder
  • Harbinger
  • Prison Break
  • Double Stuff
 
Spartan Charge isn't OP and isn't difficult to avoid death from in most situations. I'm sure 343's intentions weren't to have it lock-on around corners like that lol, which is not the norm in my experience. That's not to say it doesn't happen obviously, but nothing to weep about.

I have had this discussion so many times now. It's so stupid easy to 2 shot and melee an enemy if they do it. If you're weak enough for my charge to kill you then obviously you had taken damage from elsewhere.

The power that most weapons dish out now dwarfs anything I can do close range with melees so when people complain I counter that the player shooting will win in the majority of situations. Hell I can get three bursts in before they even hit in most cases and can pop the headshot as we recoil back and before they can shoot.

The melees needed something new considering how quick the gameplay is now. Alongside ground pound I think they're both very balanced. You still won't beat a good sharpshooter but you will have more strategies. Hell I love thrusting and then just using the charge as a secondary boost to avoid shots. It's just another way for an experienced player to move around in some cases, so I hope it's never removed in future iterations.
 

BizzyBum

Member
New firefight achievements seem pretty easy.

I'm probably just going to ignore score attack, though. Playing the campaign twice (once on Normal, again on solo Legendary) is enough for me.
 
I need most all the coop ones still...





Hasn't it been in the past two weeks?

Yeah community doubles as a temp playlist doesn't really count. But to be honest I didn't even know it existed so thank you for letting me know! I guess I may as well go get a real opinion about it now.
 
I have had this discussion so many times now. It's so stupid easy to 2 shot and melee an enemy if they do it. If you're weak enough for my charge to kill you then obviously you had taken damage from elsewhere.

The power that most weapons dish out now dwarfs anything I can do close range with melees so when people complain I counter that the player shooting will win in the majority of situations. Hell I can get three bursts in before they even hit in most cases and can pop the headshot as we recoil back and before they can shoot.

The melees needed something new considering how quick the gameplay is now. Alongside ground pound I think they're both very balanced. You still won't beat a good sharpshooter but you will have more strategies. Hell I love thrusting and then just using the charge as a secondary boost to avoid shots. It's just another way for an experienced player to move around in some cases, so I hope it's never removed in future iterations.
I think the range and width are a little too much, but yeah I hope they don't remove it either. It just needs some tweaking.
Yeah community doubles as a temp playlist doesn't really count. But to be honest I didn't even know it existed so thank you for letting me know! I guess I may as well go get a real opinion about it now.
It's pretty good. I'd love to see more Forge maps in other playlists too.
 
Yeah community doubles as a temp playlist doesn't really count. But to be honest I didn't even know it existed so thank you for letting me know! I guess I may as well go get a real opinion about it now.

This is a GAF-ass post lol

"Well, turns out the thing I was bitching about not existing does, in fact, exist, so lemme check that out and I'll get back to y'all."

Not trying to throw any shade, I just found it hilarious.
 
Community Doubles has been a fun way to warm up instead of the usual Tilt-For-All
1.0
My routine involves playing a bunch of warzone assault until I get really annoyed. That's when I finally switch over to slayer and swat.

As long as I'm trying to grind through req packs, wz assault will continue to be my most played playlist. I thought it was hard to resist the temptation to buy req packs online before, but now that I'm closing in on finishing golds the temptation is unreal. I have 21 reqs that aren't helmet/armor reqs. Would really be nice to finish those out before the 29th, but it's just not gonna happen, even if I did spend some money on a few packs. Arg... 10 gold packs should get me halfway through or pretty close. But that's roughly 10 hours of playing time without the help of boosts.
 
Drop me an invite sometime. I need the following cheevos, so we can work on whichever ones you also need.

  • Fire Drill
  • Enemy of my Enemy
  • Maverick
  • Savior
  • No Witnesses
  • Preying Mantis
  • Kraken Lackin'
  • Emergency Boarding Procedures
  • Worms Don't Surf
  • Rolling Thunder
  • Harbinger
  • Prison Break
  • Double Stuff

Hunt the Truth
Fire Drill
Enemy of my Enemy
I Thought I'd Lost You
On My Mark
Maverick
Savior
Take a Hike
No Witnesses
No Knock Raid
Preying Mantis
Kraken Lackin
Emergency Boarding Procedures
Death from Above
Worms Don't Surf
Tank Still Beats Everything
Rolling Thunder
Harbinger
Prison Break
Icy Cool
Double Stuff
One for All
All for One
My Rules

SO MANY

I also need to get the co-op cheevos done :(

We need to play together!

I need most all the coop ones still...

Hasn't it been in the past two weeks?

Together :p
 
This is a GAF-ass post lol

"Well, turns out the thing I was bitching about not existing does, in fact, exist, so lemme check that out and I'll get back to y'all."

Not trying to throw any shade, I just found it hilarious.

Sadly my Doubles partner got his ass banned until midnight for quitting too much. So MCC Doubles it is.
 

JackHerer

Member
So after taking a month or two off from playing Halo 5 I cam back to it over the weekend, putting in a few hours a day again. One thing I've noticed is that the lag/servers is bad more often than not. Feels downright terrible far too often.

On the flip side, I realized why I played this game so much. This magnum + how tight the spartan abilities are make this one of the best Halo games as far as core gameplay.
 
So i'm pretty decent friends with that Chris Puckett sound alike, if youve been on twitch at all you might of heard of him. Here he is commentating our game vs. Snakebite. Mildly funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GynyRIPydlA

I go -5, pls ignore!

I love this guy, always looking for him on twitch, not only is his random commentary hilarious but I love his play style... His Spartan charges are the best!
 

Welfare

Member
Arena is garbage when someone quits objective. Fucking hell, twice in a row it has happened.

Edit: So playing with mostly Diamonds and high Platinums, the final game puts me with all Golds and I get Platinum 2? That made no sense.
 
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