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Halo 5: Guardians |OT5| Is HaloGAF irrelevant now?
- Thread starter sir_dany12
- Start date
Yeah after 13 years of people complaining every time this is introduced, I simply do not understand why they'd waste time adding and this tweak. It's being universally panned across the skill spectrum- as it always has been.
I think the precision side of the sandbox tweak would be pretty well balanced were it not for this element.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
See what happens with BR starts? It breaks us. The community in disarray.
I debate that.
I think after Worlds 2016 would've been a good time to test some changes. By then there was plenty of feedback detailing certain imbalances. And the millions of hrs of data they had by then, surely would have shown significant issues with automatics, for example.
Then they started taking weapons of maps- which means they knew they were problematic. But it wasn't until Jan 2017 when they started talking about sandbox changes being on the table.
I just hope going forward, the infrastructure is in place to be more responsive. There are plenty of games that are received well at launch, yet still get sandbox updates shortly thereafter.
The only way to bring the community back together is to go back to magnum starts, add magnum starts to BTB, use the SA fracker universally, and
remove sprint
jizzlobber
Member
yeah i'd debate that too.
Not at all.
I think, as others have said, the shipping halo 5 maps are all average/good, with no real great or poor standouts. But, the dlc maps are almost all certainly of lower quality.
Poodlestrike
Banned
They gotta put the good Forge maps in.
Empire? That was launch. Hell, it was in the beta
Mercy? Funny that arguably halo 4's best map barely cuts average for most in a game with actually decent maps
Oh yeah, your right, lol.
What really brings down Halo 5 is just the maps have very little visual style. Look at Halo 1 - Reach the maps were just visually really different.
Now one thing we will never see again ever is the amount of quality maps we got with Halo 2, Gemini and Backwash were no good but god damn I've still never played a MP with that much quality maps
Now one thing we will never see again ever is the amount of quality maps we got with Halo 2, Gemini and Backwash were no good but god damn I've still never played a MP with that much quality maps
Yep! The art direction is just so bad - none of the maps feel like they have a soul. Just a bunch of industrial squares.
Launch maps are all decent accept for Empire.
All of the DLC maps range are garbage to passable. I want to like tyrant and i have fun on stasis, but they each have glaring flaws.
Molten makes me angry just thinking about it.
The Warzone maps started out with just 1/3 being any good, but things improved over time.
It's probably safe to say that there's probably as many maps on the good side of the spectrum as there are on the bad side.
Even with the better maps though, are direction needs to be tweaked. I STILL have trouble orienting myself on some maps because of the repetitious lighting and texture work.
All of the DLC maps range are garbage to passable. I want to like tyrant and i have fun on stasis, but they each have glaring flaws.
Molten makes me angry just thinking about it.
The Warzone maps started out with just 1/3 being any good, but things improved over time.
It's probably safe to say that there's probably as many maps on the good side of the spectrum as there are on the bad side.
Even with the better maps though, are direction needs to be tweaked. I STILL have trouble orienting myself on some maps because of the repetitious lighting and texture work.
VincentMatts
Member
Maps are the second biggest reason for me to either keep playing a game or not. Like BF1 for example, the maps are fantastic for the most part. It just makes me wanna keep playing the game. Maps (along with gameplay) are crucial. If none of the maps get you pumped, youre not going to wanna keep playing the game.
I always go back to Amiens on BF1. Everytime i see that thats the next map, i still get pumped and excited. Thats what good map design does to a game. The map design in halo5 is terrible and to be fair, i also disliked most of the maps in 4. 343 just have a visual style that i really really dislike. It doesnt look or feel like halo to me.
Am now, thanks for the link.
VincentMatts
Member
Yeah now that i look at those, 4 did have better maps then 5 did. But i love BTB so that might be why i think that. RIP btb.
Visually Halo 4's maps were just okay, but they did not play too well overall. The BTB maps were fine though I thought.
I think Halo 4 got the most amount of BTB maps from all the Halo games, and they were all pretty great imo (except Wreckage, but even this map was fun sometimes).
Halo 4 also add a good variety of environment, either being for small or large scale maps. I really can't blame anything regarding Halo 4 maps, maybe the Forerunner art style, but even this, it's something I can accept (the only problem I have with Halo 4 is the light which is too much bright).
One thing I loved with Bungie's MP maps was they were all small glimpse of the expanded universe, outside of the campaign. You could tell stories from the MP maps and understand more about the Halo-verse thanks to them. This is something we have totally lost with Halo 5, as the art level is really poor.
Halo 5's maps are decent regarding the gameplay, the job is done, but they all follow the same sketch: 3 corridors way, one in the middle, two on each sides, and 2 rooms in the middle, one on top, second on the bottom. This is really boring as I don't feel the gameplay vary from one map to another, something really different from most Halo 2 & Halo 3 maps.
I will totally forget every Halo 5 maps when the next Halo comes out, something I can't say for Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4 and even Halo Reach.
VincentMatts
Member
Thats true and thats my biggest gripe with 5. None of the maps feel like they have a story or fit in the expanded universe. They just look human industrial and all use the same assets. So bad.
Yup that is actually a super good point as well
User 73706
Banned
I hope we get a Sonic Mania sort of approach to multiplayer maps in the future - the original Genesis games had color, but weren't the most vibrant things in the world because of palette restrictions. The Mania devs have specifically said the art style is going for a what-if approach if a mainline game got released on Sega Saturn hardware, and it shows. While the returning zones have gotten some touch-ups visually, it really shines with the newcomer zones - Studiopolis looks downright obnoxious with how vibrant it is, but in a good way.
People complained about Halo 4 and to a lesser extent 5 using filters / color grading to influence the atmosphere of their maps, but I seriously doubt Bungie wouldn't have done the same if they had the technology for it back in the older games. Hell, most of the areas in the original Destiny (I haven't been following 2) are color-graded red or green to hell and back. There was variety, but maps still mostly stuck to single palettes, with the worst offender probably being Halo 2 - 90% of the map is either going to be green, brown, purple, or grey, and even with Covenant Pepto-Bismol Pink dominating the theme, some of them still look washed out.
I actually kind of appreciate what Halo 5's done in terms of "gamifying" the multiplayer spaces, like how a bunch of the symmetrical bases are oozing red or blue accents to reflect the team. That's been around in small doses even as far back as CE with stuff like Infinity having red / blue beam towers, and I can go either way on the modularity of the assets, but I honestly think Halo 5 is probably the most colorful MP lineup we've seen since 3 and/or CE. Give us more weird palettes - Solace in Halo 4 was really washed out, but it was still cool seeing it be dominated by orange and green, of all things.
People complained about Halo 4 and to a lesser extent 5 using filters / color grading to influence the atmosphere of their maps, but I seriously doubt Bungie wouldn't have done the same if they had the technology for it back in the older games. Hell, most of the areas in the original Destiny (I haven't been following 2) are color-graded red or green to hell and back. There was variety, but maps still mostly stuck to single palettes, with the worst offender probably being Halo 2 - 90% of the map is either going to be green, brown, purple, or grey, and even with Covenant Pepto-Bismol Pink dominating the theme, some of them still look washed out.
I actually kind of appreciate what Halo 5's done in terms of "gamifying" the multiplayer spaces, like how a bunch of the symmetrical bases are oozing red or blue accents to reflect the team. That's been around in small doses even as far back as CE with stuff like Infinity having red / blue beam towers, and I can go either way on the modularity of the assets, but I honestly think Halo 5 is probably the most colorful MP lineup we've seen since 3 and/or CE. Give us more weird palettes - Solace in Halo 4 was really washed out, but it was still cool seeing it be dominated by orange and green, of all things.
While I really like a lot of the design in Halo 2 (best Elites, Grunts, etc.) it's by far the ugliest looking game in the series to me. It took the shiny, futuristic look I loved about the first game and then turned it into drab tones. Bungie definitely had a weird relationship with the Covenant, because they started off bright and then alternated between amping it up (H3) and then toning it down (Reach). Plus, Destiny had all that chromatic aberration, so let it not be said they somehow hew to a "better" presentation.
FATstronaut
Member
Yeah new BR is butt. I really hope it doesn't stay like this.
It's not the neccisarily the color filters themselves that bother me- it's that the filters seem to be the only thing that give the materials a different look from map to map.
Rig, empire, fathom and plaza seem to be made from the exact same materials and if it wasn't for the Red, white, blue and green filters, there wouldn't be any differentiation. Rather than having overbearing filters, why not have unique textures that adhere to completely different themes.
Using color accents to highlight different areas of a map is a nice touch. They could have done a better job with Pink and Car on truth. Also I was disappointed at Mercy not using red and blue flames to better segment the two halfs of the map.
It's pretty neat how regret has live foliage on one half, while the other is dried out- but I wish the colors popped more.
Despite the random spread, I still think the new BR is better than the old one.
Getting kills is actually satisfying now.
That's actually something I really hate about the art in Halo 5's MP maps. During the beta, they thought it wasn't obvious enough which base was the red or the blue one, and we ended with having blue grass and red grass on each side of Regret.
It was so much fresher during the beta:
Than having this:
Previously, most of the MP maps were in "believable" places, now, most of them just feel way to video game-ish. I never had this feeling with Halo 4.
And speaking of art, we have Bungie and this on the other hand (personal taste ofc, but I love the art, even if the level design is mediocre):
User 73706
Banned
Eh, I kinda prefer the red / blue grass, it makes it look alien without straight-up plastering red and blue accents all over the structures.
...you think Halo 5 feels too gamey, but don't have a problem with 2001 monolith rock gardens dominated by chromatic aberration and a vignette covering half the screen? That screen is a few assets away from being a Halo 5 forge map, the only difference is that they're hiding the modularity with Space Brutalism™ just like Halo 5 did with that one Warzone map. I don't think Halo's maps have ever felt not gamey, Halo 5 just capitalized on it instead of acting like it was a limitation as has been done for the last few games. Reach's spaces probably felt the most lived-in, like 90% of the maps were human just like Halo 5, and the constant grain / wear-and-tear textures, reduced saturation, etc. are way too much of a hindrance for me to really appreciate it in the same way. Halo 5 and Halo 3 feel like they're hitting the highest notes in terms of balancing "clean" and "alien" without being Combat Evolved outright.
Another chance for a Madness complain post about 343-style color and art design? For me it is more clarity, sharpness and their tint filters. Halo 4, H2A and H5 are almost exclusively dominated in entire campaign levels, multiplayer maps by a single color. There are some things they do that are updated sure, but it is my one thing I would address with H6.
I do miss the vibrant colors sure, but even when you look at games like Call of Duty these days, they utilize a variety of colors, tint and lighting in their maps.
Jack the Nipper had two good examples of the difference. Look at visually how clearer and crisper Halo 3 and Reach look to H4 ane H5 in terms of actual gameplay. Lighting, haze, UI elements ruin the visual clarity.
I do miss the vibrant colors sure, but even when you look at games like Call of Duty these days, they utilize a variety of colors, tint and lighting in their maps.
Jack the Nipper had two good examples of the difference. Look at visually how clearer and crisper Halo 3 and Reach look to H4 ane H5 in terms of actual gameplay. Lighting, haze, UI elements ruin the visual clarity.
User 73706
Banned
I don't disagree that 343 can push the color grading a little too far, but what I find silly is when people say "Bungie would never!" Like, the screen above has the entire environment tinted blue, and then you've got postprocessing like CA and the gigantic vignette on top of that.
This I agree with. I also like to think it is a byproduct of working with weaker hardware. It is why I want to see what they can do with this extra dev time and having Xbox One X. But they still need to ensure it would run on Xbox One S/OG Xbox One so there may again be compromises?
Poodlestrike
Banned
The bigger change from the beta was dialing down the lighting effects, which was something a lot of people asked for. Beta maps were BLINDING in spots.
Also, that Destiny screen looks kinda awful.
Eh, I don't think 2 or 3 had particularly great looking maps.
3 was clean and colourful but I don't think any of the maps were particularly exciting to look at. Functional is how I'd describe them for the most part. Which to be fair isn't really a bad thing, I don't think aesthetics are that important in multiplayer map design so I'd take 3's clean look over the busy look of 4 and 5.
A lot of Halo 2's maps were downright ugly. So much muddy brown.
Reach had some very nice looking maps, although it also probably has the worst playing maps overall.
My favourite looking map in the series is actually a Halo 4 map though. Yeah, it's busy like the all the rest of 343's maps but I think Monolith looks really good:
3 was clean and colourful but I don't think any of the maps were particularly exciting to look at. Functional is how I'd describe them for the most part. Which to be fair isn't really a bad thing, I don't think aesthetics are that important in multiplayer map design so I'd take 3's clean look over the busy look of 4 and 5.
A lot of Halo 2's maps were downright ugly. So much muddy brown.
Reach had some very nice looking maps, although it also probably has the worst playing maps overall.
My favourite looking map in the series is actually a Halo 4 map though. Yeah, it's busy like the all the rest of 343's maps but I think Monolith looks really good:
the comparison should be between the magnum (previous spawning weapon) and the new BR though. i'd take the old pistol as a starting weapon EASILY
Eh, I don't think 2 or 3 had particularly great looking maps.
3 was clean and colourful but I don't think any of the maps were particularly exciting to look at. Functional is how I'd describe them for the most part. Which to be fair isn't really a bad thing, I don't think aesthetics are that important in multiplayer map design so I'd take 3's clean look over the busy look of 4 and 5.
A lot of Halo 2's maps were downright ugly. So much muddy brown.
Reach had some very nice looking maps, although it also probably has the worst playing maps overall.
My favourite looking map in the series is actually a Halo 4 map though. Yeah, it's busy like the all the rest of 343's maps but I think Monolith looks really good:
Monolith is easily my favorite Halo 4 map, and it came out so late that few people played it.
#MonolithWasRobbed
Citadel was robbed harder.
With the spread I agree with you, the magnum is a better choice.
However, I am enjoying playing with BR starts again . Although I'm not really sure why, I agree with all the arguments regarding single shot vs burst and objectively single shot is clearly the superior and more skillful option. There's something satisfying about that 3 shot burst and getting swipe headshots though.
I first played it on the MCC, damn good map.
Feel the Swift
Member
Seems like for H3 Anniversary they added in the spread of the BR. kappa
Fata1moose
Banned
Longshore was robbed hardest until it was one of the only things you play in MCC BTB.
Everything need context, I'm not comparing Halo 5 3D modeling versus Destiny, I was comparing art direction. Heh, I would rather take this for the rest of my life:
Than this:
At least, the Brustalism is on purpose with Destiny.
Again, I would put context here. I don't think past Halo maps/art were game-ish as much as they were aiming for realistic assets and art. Bungie's rendering engine gave Halo a special cartoonish touch we lost with Halo 5. So from that, having exaggeration for colors and environment felt acceptable to me.
Where, on the other hand, Halo 5 mostly aimed for a more realistic rendering and art style compared to previous Halo, and from that, most of the tricks they used to give base a color accent feel out of place in a realistic world.
Like, I don't remember Reach having blue and red base, or at least, each side could be easily understood from a player perspective without having to over show if it was the red or blue base, unlike Halo 5.
Again, that may only be personal taste. Art meaning vary from person to person.
The Henery
Member
Played 20 or so games of the new weapon settings. New BR is dog shit. Worst starting weapon in the series after the 100% bloom Reach pistol.
Just keep the original sandbox and slightly nerf the autos and done.
Also, why am I playing teams again when I'm playing solo? Could tell within the first 20 seconds of the game and had it confirmed when I saw the group spartan company monikers post game. Lost 50-28, almost always a blowout with teams vs randoms #FromTheBegginingYouKnowTheEnd
Just keep the original sandbox and slightly nerf the autos and done.
Also, why am I playing teams again when I'm playing solo? Could tell within the first 20 seconds of the game and had it confirmed when I saw the group spartan company monikers post game. Lost 50-28, almost always a blowout with teams vs randoms #FromTheBegginingYouKnowTheEnd
YourExWife
Member
Listening to Snipedown and Spartan on Snipedown's stream straight up plagiarizing my complaints to FATstronaut about the new BR. Pro-status confirmed.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
"Worst" starting weapon? Are you sure that's not the H2 SMG, or the H3 AR/Magnum, or the H3 BR?
It's funny, I actually like this BR even though it seems so many people dislike it. On one hand I'm glad because maybe this'll be a reminder that AR/Pistol starts are ideal, but on the other I do think there's been some hyperbole. I'm curious to see how 343 handles the feedback, and for better or worse, at least it shows the community is still actively engaged in Halo.
HALO IS STILL RELEVANT
, until it's dad again.
Prinz Eugn
Member
Play Halo scrubs
NippleViking
Banned
Why does Halo 5 have that blueish tint to their lighting - what lighting technique is attributed to that. I feel like the blueish tint + the map specific colour grading, really limits the range of the palette. I feel like resolving that, plus pursuing a more vibrant palette would solve the color issue.
I just want to see them bring materials back. I miss brick, concrete, stone, and tiles. With grunge and grime.
I just want to see them bring materials back. I miss brick, concrete, stone, and tiles. With grunge and grime.