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Halo 5: Guardians |OT5| Is HaloGAF irrelevant now?

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...15e2-3ae3-46d2-b402-bdc6065b8d9d/posts?page=1

Good golly they're finally, 18+ months after release, enabling party matching. Waaaaaay too late to save the average solo player who was hounded off of the game but I'll give it another spin out of curiosity. If it doesn't work out I'll continue to play MCC Halo 3 BTB going +20 every game instead. Everybody got choices

Slight fix*

Looking forward to this heavy aim update and the party restrictions. At the moment, I'm of the belief that if you have a party of 4, then you should match against another party of 4 despite skill distribution simply due to the increase in coordination and awareness. If that team of 4 isn't communicating, then tough shit. It's better than ruining the experience for the majority of Halo's fanbase (people searching without a team of 4).
 
I just need a filter/update that achieves putting me in any game available on Aussie Azure DCs. I couldn't care what I play TBH. Love party matching is a thing now but for outside the US it's another layer to wait times and not finding matches with pot luck guessing when choosing a playlist.

#TogglesAtLaunchFixThis&KeepPopulation&FingersCrossedForHalo6
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
My kids birthday gift to me finally came, didn't even know such a thing existed, lol

3pwKIxz.jpg
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
I've been having a lot of fun playing Halo 5 lately, except for solo queing and quitters. If you ever see me online in the Company listing send me an invite.
 

klaus

Member
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...15e2-3ae3-46d2-b402-bdc6065b8d9d/posts?page=1

Good golly they're finally, 18+ months after release, enabling party matching. Waaaaaay too late to save the average solo player who was hounded off of the game but I'll give it another spin out of curiosity. If it doesn't work out I'll continue to play MCC BTB going +20 every game instead. Everybody got choices

Very nice, gonna be interesting to see how much things improve - both the heavy aim and the matchmaking issues were a major setback for H5 despite its sublime gameplay. I might even try some more WZ. Makes me hopeful that H6 will have way less problems from the get go, but let's see how things turn out.
 

BizzyBum

Member
It just amazes me 18+ months after launch with a small ass population and now they put in party matching which has been begged for since the start.
 
I'll be always jump in to see updates because I love Halo and want it to succeed, but man it's a darn shame it all has to come so late.

I read that huge Halo article and I feel like I have a better understanding of how and why 343 Halo has resulted like it has. I think the main positive I see for 343 is they seem to be better at providing a more stable and professional work environment than Bungie did, where it seemed it was mostly chaos.

Was also interesting to hear Josh Holmes state that including both Arena and Warzone was a mistake. I'm assuming he means that they required 2 separate pipelines and design philosophies and that presents an asymmetrical split resource wise and Halo 5's package suffered as a result.

I hope Halo 6 continues to be a more focused game with more Arena maps, custom game options, and tighter gameplay mechanics.
 
They just need to cut off Warzone and make it a free to play MP mode with PC/Xbox cross play. Have a dedicated team to manage that while the main team focuses on building the Halo brand with mainline games. The main team will focus on narrative, characters, campaign, sandbox evolution, competitive mp, Arena and Social like actual Dev made BTB maps.
pistol starts

I think cutting off warzone to its own animal with it's own team can foster more creativity and end up where we can get more of the LORE into a Halo game. Say they make a warzone map on a planet mentioned in the books? Maybe a warzone map on an Oni restricted place? What about the glassed planet i heard about in HTT? They could build off of the current cannon and bring it to life! They dont need to restrict themselves with a copy pasta of UNSC bases. Let this team bring the HALO UNIVERSE to life and have it be something constant, alive, bringing in people from everywhere. Maybe have them incubate new Mode ideas that could be TESTED within the HALO WARZONE F2P format.

This wont really separate the population as Warzone would be free and the UI folks could essentially make Halo 6 launch F2P Warzone from a menu button within Halo 6. They kind of had this scenario in the Halo Channel (RIP).

Because when i play Warzone at this very moment, its not satisfying one bit. sure i have a lot of legendary items i could use. Some vehicles i could spam kills with, but its not as rewarding anymore like when it first launched. I had some good fun trying to play tug a war with the "Mobs", seeing if i could get both the enemy spartan or the mob points to help my team. I remember some interesting play of the week where someone snuck behind a whole team and lazered the warden at the right time to get the win.
 

Trup1aya

Member
Was also interesting to hear Josh Holmes state that including both Arena and Warzone was a mistake. I'm assuming he means that they required 2 separate pipelines and design philosophies and that presents an asymmetrical split resource wise and Halo 5's package suffered as a result.

Josh Holmes :The other area that we were very committed to early on was competitive play. For Halo 4’s multiplayer space, we took competitive and social and casual and tried to jam them together like chocolate and peanut butter, for experience that would appeal to all player types. And that wasn’t as successful as it could’ve been.

So, from the beginning of Halo 5 we started thinking about a dedicated space and series of modes for competitive players. Then we’ll have this other mode, which evolved to become Warzone—a fun, chaotic, large-scale experience. But having both of those in one game was a mistake.

I couldn't tell if he was saying that having Warzone in the same game as Arena was a mistake or if he was saying that H4s attempt to throw competitive and social players into the same redesigned approach was the mistake.

I do think it would have been really cool to have a Halo game focused on the traditional arena experience and getting it all right- then have Halo: Warzone exist as a seperate entity that perhaps share the unlock system (sort of how Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon interact with each other).

Edit: I think Gosu's idea would work really well -

My take on Warzone as a f2p halo title: it could be an evergreen with not just updates to the PvPvE modes, but also updates to Firefight, and even frequently updated co-op missions that players can bring their Req items into ala Destiny.

Then you have you regular Chief and Arena focused halo games sold traditionally.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
It's worth pointing out since Josh isn't there, it really has no bearing on where or what Halo 6 does. Personally I don't see any way they abandon Warzone given how popular and lucrative it's been.
 

Trup1aya

Member
I don't think it should be abandoned, I think it has a better chance to grow if it was seperate from the game that is released in installments.

The rest of the game also has a better chance to grow if it got the proper attention it deserves rather than having to share a pipeline.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
I don't think it should be abandoned, I think it has a better chance to grow if it was seperate from the game that is released in installments.

One thing that would be great for Warzone is factions and a war map. So basically choose 1 of 3 factions and battle it out on the maps for control over a part of a war map. The main goal would be to control the whole war map and win a war. Basically, steal ChromeHounds system for WarZone
 

link1201

Member
I hope they can expand warzone to be more like bf conquest in terms of size with Scorpio. I would love a more "war zone" feel. With the falcon or the equivalent making a return.
 
I also think they shouldn't RELY on the income of Warzone so that they need to bundle it in with Halo Mainline moving forward. That would indicate they are not confident of the Characters and narrative. that should be a red flag on a operational lead standpoint. They must re-evaluate their approach to re-build the Halo brand. We all can agree here it is on a boat that could tip over at any moment. It's not DAD yet, but i do not think any of would be surprised if they paused development on halo come 2020 and not release a new halo game until 2025 - if mind share still wanted this to exist.

You guys see the age demographic of xbox one owners? Mainly 25-35 yr olds who probably grew up with halo. Not that many young kids who would keep life to this franchise as they grow older. I'm afraid i assuming that once our age demographic gets too old to give 2 shits about video game franchises, this franchise may die with it.

I also believe 343i and MS seen this and attempted to be ahead of the curve by introducing new characters like Team Osiris. Unfortunately, they did not flesh out their characters much and forced us to 'like them' or call them just as BA as the Main character we had the past 15 years. So i can see ideas are incubating, but the execution may need more work.

I do applaud their hard work. the move to 60fps did wonders for me and i LOVE them for that. But that aiming fix? Not even guaranteed to be fixed with today's update?? .. ummm.... i just hope the fixes for Halo 6 fixes this because the aiming in the BETA version was amazing, but it just had a little too much magnetism.
 
It should be the aiming update, Finally!

Anyone else getting a new update on Halo 5? some of my subscribers are reporting me that

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...31/36afa419-9d7f-44a8-ad48-a304affcd287/posts

Today a hot fix is rolling out to Halo 5 that, among a few other things, addresses one specific issue that was found to be causing a “Heavy Aim” state in the game as reported by players across the community. We are excited to see the impact this fix has but will continue to monitor data and player feedback to determine if there are any other issues contributing to a “heavy aim” feeling in Halo 5.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Fantastic article. I think Frankie made a big mistake by not sticking with Bungie.

No. I have lots of friends at Bungie. It was the right thing for me at the right time and I still enjoy my job. We have lots to do and it's a different kind of challenge than building a new game.

Besides, ATVI would have had to listen to my constant Pitfall reboot pitches.
 

Juan

Member
Fantastic article. I think Frankie made a big mistake by not sticking with Bungie.

I think he made the right choice, for him, since he didn't like games that are all about grinding, and that's what Destiny is. :/

Plus, see how things turned for Staten and Marty, like Marty said, Frankie might have see things coming that other didn't about the Bungie state.

Even Marcus Letho who left after Reach but came back to Bungie like 6 months after, left once again to create his own team.
 
I think he made the right choice, for him, since he didn't like games that are all about grinding, and that's what Destiny is. :/

Plus, see how things turned for Staten and Marty, like Marty said, Frankie might have see things coming that other didn't about the Bungie state.

Even Marcus Letho who left after Reach but came back to Bungie like 6 months after, left once again to create his own team.

Bungie isnt the same bungie that was with MS. I think he made a good choice staying at MS. As long as halo games keep doing well, he will keep having a great job.
 

jem0208

Member
I hope they can expand warzone to be more like bf conquest in terms of size with Scorpio. I would love a more "war zone" feel. With the falcon or the equivalent making a return.

I feel like the lack of the "war zone" feel is actually due to large size of the levels and the lack of singular focus points during matches. If you look at Battlefield, the times when that game feels most intense isn't on the massive maps, it's modes like Rush when you have a bunch of players all fighting over a small section of a larger map.

The bosses in Warzone were obviously an attempt to get players to bunch together and engage in combat but I feel it didn't really work. The bosses aren't really fun to fight and making the last shot be the only one which counts means that people aren't that excited about fighting them. For the next iteration I think they need to add more compelling objectives to draw players into certain areas of the map. Stuff like capturing a point somewhere awards you some points and gives you a rare tank.

I also think the opening of Warzone matches sucks. Whoever thought the best way to start a match was kill some really easy AI then either sit around capturing an armoury or run across half the map to find the enemy was completely wrong. I think each team should spawn on either side of the main objective, that way the start of each match will be an epic 12v12 battle over who gets control of the center. Far more exciting than killing a few Crawlers then sprinting for a minute or two. Each team should also start the game with control of one of the armouries.


Fantastic article. I think Frankie made a big mistake by not sticking with Bungie.

Of course you do.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
So anyone try out the new aiming?

Yes. (Even) I can sense a difference but it's very hard to describe. I was on the spectrum of folks who couldn't "feel" the original issue but can sense a difference.

I'll be watching today to see what people notice and how they describe it. there will also be lots of false positives and negatives caused by other elements - your TV processing defaults causing inputlag, network conditions, wonky joypad etc. So it'll be a while before we can see how it's settled.

Yep and it's downloading extremely slow for me.

Mine chugged for a few minutes but then unclogged. But at one point it was squeezed to like 5mbps... Think it was just a Live issue, as the CU is just normal data.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
Yes. (Even) I can sense a difference but it's very hard to describe. I was on the spectrum of folks who couldn't "feel" the original issue but can sense a difference.

I'll be watching today to see what people notice and how they describe it. there will also be lots of false positives and negatives caused by other elements - your TV processing defaults causing inputlag, network conditions, wonky joypad etc. So it'll be a while before we can see how it's settled.

I will be sure to give my feedback as soon as I am able to test it. (will test on a TV and a PC monitor with 1ms lag)
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
I will be sure to give my feedback as soon as I am able to test it. (will test on a TV and a PC monitor with 1ms lag)

This is the best description for my (subjective) experience:

I come away from each encounter feeling like what I did is what I did and that when I lost a joust, there was a clear 1:1 feel that I should have lost.

But I should stress, I was in the camp that felt the pre-fix sensation was "normal" degrees of control and feel difference between iterations of the game.
 

E92 M3

Member
No. I have lots of friends at Bungie. It was the right thing for me at the right time and I still enjoy my job. We have lots to do and it's a different kind of challenge than building a new game.

Besides, ATVI would have had to listen to my constant Pitfall reboot pitches.

Not sure how you could resist Marty begging lol.

I think he made the right choice, for him, since he didn't like games that are all about grinding, and that's what Destiny is. :/

Plus, see how things turned for Staten and Marty, like Marty said, Frankie might have see things coming that other didn't about the Bungie state.

Even Marcus Letho who left after Reach but came back to Bungie like 6 months after, left once again to create his own team.

I honestly don't know the intricacies of why people departed, but think that Frankie would have just as a good future at Bungie.
 
I feel like the lack of the "war zone" feel is actually due to large size of the levels and the lack of singular focus points during matches. If you look at Battlefield, the times when that game feels most intense isn't on the massive maps, it's modes like Rush when you have a bunch of players all fighting over a small section of a larger map.

The bosses in Warzone were obviously an attempt to get players to bunch together and engage in combat but I feel it didn't really work. The bosses aren't really fun to fight and making the last shot be the only one which counts means that people aren't that excited about fighting them. For the next iteration I think they need to add more compelling objectives to draw players into certain areas of the map. Stuff like capturing a point somewhere awards you some points and gives you a rare tank.

I also think the opening of Warzone matches sucks. Whoever thought the best way to start a match was kill some really easy AI then either sit around capturing an armoury or run across half the map to find the enemy was completely wrong. I think each team should spawn on either side of the main objective, that way the start of each match will be an epic 12v12 battle over who gets control of the center. Far more exciting than killing a few Crawlers then sprinting for a minute or two. Each team should also start the game with control of one of the armouries.

I think this is basically right. To really get the proper "war zone" feeling, maps need to either be more focused around bringing players to a single point or filled with a lot more stuff (or, hey, both). I'd like to see more types of objectives and more allied AI. Waves of friendly Marines (and other UNSC units) that go after bases would be great. Think Titanfall grunts and how they impact the feel of the match.

Also, and this is just a super basic thing, but making the bases map unique would go a ways to enhancing the vibe. Even if they're identical in layout for whatever reason, visual differences would be great to see.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
I'm glad we got stankles still on halo.

Now when are we going to hear about future content releases for h5, if they are coming, or what's next for halo in general?
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Not sure how you could resist Marty begging lol.



I honestly don't know the intricacies of why people departed, but think that Frankie would have just as a good future at Bungie.

Marty's seduction techniques could use some work so he flaunts his body a lot. One thing I wish I'd stayed for was to finish Reach. I wrote the story and script for that with Lee Wilson and Marcus, and although it's almost exactly the same in the shipping version, there's some things I'd have wanted to alter a little.
 

Gig

One man's junk is another man's treasure
There needs to be more enemy A.I. in Warzone. A lot of times during a match there aren't any covies or Prometheans to kill. Also, I hope the spawn locations of the bosses can be somewhat randomized so we have fewer instant kills of the enemy A.I.
 

Trup1aya

Member
I feel like the lack of the "war zone" feel is actually due to large size of the levels and the lack of singular focus points during matches. If you look at Battlefield, the times when that game feels most intense isn't on the massive maps, it's modes like Rush when you have a bunch of players all fighting over a small section of a larger map.

The bosses in Warzone were obviously an attempt to get players to bunch together and engage in combat but I feel it didn't really work. The bosses aren't really fun to fight and making the last shot be the only one which counts means that people aren't that excited about fighting them. For the next iteration I think they need to add more compelling objectives to draw players into certain areas of the map. Stuff like capturing a point somewhere awards you some points and gives you a rare tank.

I also think the opening of Warzone matches sucks. Whoever thought the best way to start a match was kill some really easy AI then either sit around capturing an armoury or run across half the map to find the enemy was completely wrong. I think each team should spawn on either side of the main objective, that way the start of each match will be an epic 12v12 battle over who gets control of the center. Far more exciting than killing a few Crawlers then sprinting for a minute or two. Each team should also start the game with control of one of the armouries.

Pretty accurate stuff here.

I think the biggest issue is they have these massive maps, meant for people to navigate creatively, but the primary scoring device (capturing base) encourages people to stay put. As a result you often have these vast areas of emptiness that are only populated when key enemies spawn in them.

To fix this they need to remove bases as a scoring device. Instead point should be scored for Spartan kills, boss kills, and randomly generated objectives (like CTF and planting bombs). There should be atleast one live objective at all times.

Bases should be used to open certain types of Reqs for use, and should be map specific. Map A could have an Armory, a Garage, and a Hanger - and capturing these point would unlock Heavy weapons, ground vehicles and air vehicles respectively (For Example)- so there'd be a strategic element to capturing bases- but it would be the end all be all.

Rather than have a triple cap open the opponents core, I'd just have hard to access switches that make the opponents base vulnerable at anytime.

Also, bulletsponge bosses are corny. Instead boss fights should be Leaders who must be killed in specific ways who are flanked by a ton of normal strengthed enemies. Say, a speedy Elite who must be backsmacked. Or Bashee Pilot who must be boarded. The challenge would be dispatching their cohorts and enemy Spartans so that you can get in position to seal the deal.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Pretty accurate stuff here.

I think the biggest issue is they have these massive maps, meant for people to navigate creatively, but the primary scoring device (capturing base) encourages people to stay put. As a result you often have these vast areas of emptiness that are only populated when key enemies spawn in them.

To fix this they need to remove bases as a scoring device. Instead point should be scored for Spartan kills, boss kills, and randomly generated objectives (like CTF and planting bombs). There should be atleast one live objective at all times.

Bases should be used to open certain types of Reqs for use, and should be map specific. Map A could have an Armory, a Garage, and a Hanger - and capturing these point would unlock Heavy weapons, ground vehicles and air vehicles respectively (For Example)- so there'd be a strategic element to capturing bases- but it would be the end all be all.

Rather than have a triple cap open the opponents core, I'd just have hard to access switches that make the opponents base vulnerable at anytime.

Also, bulletsponge bosses are corny. Instead boss fights should be Leaders who must be killed in specific ways who are flanked by a ton of normal strengthed enemies. Say, a speedy Elite who must be backsmacked. Or Bashee Pilot who must be boarded. The challenge would be dispatching their cohorts and enemy Spartans so that you can get in position to seal the deal.

While I'm not entirely opposed to those ideas, thinking about it from the disadvantages...

Map-specific REQs also sound it would dampen one of the fun parts of the Warzone experience, which is to be able to call in REQs specifically to your play style. If you want to run a bunch of Warthogs early to lock down the map, you can. If you want to sit back and wait for tanks or Banshees, you can. More importantly, you can call in counter REQs. In your scenario, what the does the team which has lost the vehicle REQ area do against those vehicles if they can't get access to vehicles or heavy weapons of their own?

While I can see reducing the point values for base captures, I don't think it's a major issue right now. I have been in plenty of games where we have more control but the enemy team outslays. In those instances the only real advantage is some bases offer easy access to the WZ bosses (or in some cases, basically lock the other team out of the boss areas) so the incentive to still camp and control those areas will remain, even if there isn't a point value added over time.

I think Warzone needs refinement, not revolution; if they want to make a Battlefront/Battlefield-like game at that point, it probably should be a spinoff title. As it is currently, I appreciate that Warzone just feels like BTB on steroids with metaobjectives.

Mostly I just think aside from balance issues (hey, the Banshee! Wasps hiding in places you can't hit!) maps need refinements more than anything else. There should always be a third way to get out of your home base, for instance.
 
This is the best description for my (subjective) experience:

I come away from each encounter feeling like what I did is what I did and that when I lost a joust, there was a clear 1:1 feel that I should have lost.

But I should stress, I was in the camp that felt the pre-fix sensation was "normal" degrees of control and feel difference between iterations of the game.

Yeah even before the other fix I also was on that camp, I will also give feedback on the aiming Frank I will test it on a 1ms response time PC monitor with 10ms input lag and on a TV with 40ms response time
 
I've been starting to play Halo 5 again a few days ago and have been enjoying myself A TON.

I only played a few hours total before this past week and easily doubled my playing time and then some. Why? The HCS game mode! It's fantastic.

I dabbled with watching nV and Optic and I saw the pros' recommendations for making the game better after the last worlds and this mode was that. I'm now way addicted to this HCS mode and I hope it stays!

Pistol battles primarily are too fun.
 

Gwyn

Member
What is this halo 5 update?

From halowaypoint


Halo 5 Hot Fix – May 31
Today a hot fix is rolling out to Halo 5 that, among a few other things, addresses one specific issue that was found to be causing a “Heavy Aim” state in the game as reported by players across the community. We are excited to see the impact this fix has but will continue to monitor data and player feedback to determine if there are any other issues contributing to a “heavy aim” feeling in Halo 5.

Heavy Aim
What is “Heavy Aim”?
This term has come to be used across the community to describe a game state where the on-screen reticule feels sluggish and less responsive than it should.

What is being fixed?
The team has identified and successfully repro’d a specific condition that results in players getting in a bad state where Halo 5’s input latency is higher than it should. This hotfix includes an update to make it so this particular issue will no longer cause players to get stuck in this undesirable state.

I thought “Heavy Aim” was fixed before?
In December we released a small hotfix that addressed a different issue that was slightly impacting input latency in Halo 5. After players’ reports continued and additional in-depth investigations commenced, a larger underlying issue was discovered which is being fixed in today’s patch.

Will aiming be different now?
It will really depend – players who found themselves frequently getting stuck in this particular ‘heavy aim’ bad state and who are sensitive to millisecond changes in input latency will notice a difference now as they no longer get stuck in that state. This fix is solely aimed at resolving that specific issue – the fundamental aiming mechanics of the game aren’t being changed.

Is that all?
Please keep in mind that there are many external factors that might contribute to how the game feels while playing online. Network-related latency – which can be caused by any number of variables - is a factor of playing online and is not something that this patch will impact.

We’d love to hear about your experiences with this new hotfix. If you frequently found yourself in a “heavy aim” state before, have you noticed a difference now? Please let us know in the forums.

Additional Fixes
The primary impetus for this hot fix is the heavy aim issue noted above but this patch also includes a few other small items that were being worked on in parallel:

Helmet and Armor customization items are now sorted by name and rarity instead of unlock date
Added additional tuning capabilities for HCS game variants (gives the 343 team greater future flexibility to adjust settings and variants in the retail environment)


Looking Ahead
With this latest hot fix out the door the team is continuing work on several other high priority issues that have been reported by the community. Most notably, work is underway to get a hot fix released to address the “double shot” exploit as well as the Plasma Grenade “wall glitch” that has been making the rounds of late. We will provide additional details as we have them but the team is pushing to get these particular fixes into the game ASAP.

Thank you for the helpful feedback and game films being shared – it’s incredibly useful to the team – and please continue to share feedback with us on social and here on Waypoint.
 
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