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Halo |OT12| Last One Out, Get the Lights

This part of the bulletin pretty much explains it:
That's not a great explanation.
They're afraid people will use the fact that they "fixed exploit where players could jump out of Exile" (made up example) to find others?

I don't really understand. It doesn't stop other devs.
Surely they have the record internally about what exactly the patch contains, and assuming the patch is going through cert, then they must have time to make this public facing quality.

It comes back to having a MM blog, or a clearer, more engaged face for the online community.

Thanks for the post though OddOne, can't read the bulletin here (hbo included).
 
- King of the Hill removed from matchmaking.

Called it as soon as we saw the leaked playlist screen. Expecting Oddball to go out the door soon, too. Both of those playlists were scraping by at like 2% of the population. Shocking, I know, gametypes that served as filler in grab bag objective playlists can't maintain a dedicated playlist population.

The Spartan Ops break is hilarious. They couldn't have said something before the week leading up to the break, really? I guess I should have bought the Official Strategy Guide To Playing Halo: Shoot the Aliens in the Head.
Sad thing is they're so much better to play this time around, and actually some of the better, less bullshit modes in the game. Boo.
 

Striker

Member
But in Halo2, the guns that locked on and are unavoidable (like the pp or needler)
Needler was useless in H2. What are you talking about?
Having rockets, somewhat lock-on weapons or noob combos in Reach or 4 for the most part takes some skill to get kills with them, it doesnt in halo2.
The H2 rockets were fast moving (to counter the vehicles) but had little splash damage compared to the Halo 3 and Reach versions. The Halo 4 version is back to the smaller radius but it doesn't matter when there's bigger OP weapons like the Incineration Cannon and Binary Rifle in MM and getting more playtime than things like the Beam Rifle or Rockets. How you ignore things like those two and the Fuel Rod Gun and even the Laser is pretty silly.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
That's not a great explanation.
They're afraid people will use the fact that they "fixed exploit where players could jump out of Exile" (made up example) to find others?

I don't really understand. It doesn't stop other devs.
Surely they have the record internally about what exactly the patch contains, and assuming the patch is going through cert, then they must have time to make this public facing quality.

It comes back to having a MM blog, or a clearer, more engaged face for the online community.

Thanks for the post though OddOne, can't read the bulletin here (hbo included).

I thought the standard was to release patch details when the patch releases? I know Blizzard just put out a major update for the Heart of the Swarm beta (StarCraft 2) and the patch notes are right there as you download the patch itself (3.3gb!!)
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Because it would be huge.

We stream the videos but having to download new locations per week is going to be horrible for those with strict data caps.

Well then what is the other 4-6GB we had to have for the game there for? I'd assume the full season 1 will fill the rest of the space. Who knows though.

Glad KoTH went and Oddball stayed. I liked both, but oddball is so much better in Halo 4.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
I'm not convinced. Remember the whole "Requires 8GB" thing? Well, we're only at 4GB, right? And Frank did say on here that the 8GB would include Spartan Ops. I think there's more Season One Spartan Ops download content to come.



End of Jan when people without the Map Pack go to play Episode 6 it says "You need to download content for Spartan Ops" and then it downloads the relevant data to put those spaces into Spartan Ops. I think this is totally feasible and indeed probable.

It can still lock that content away from you to use in multiplayer until you've bought the relevant unlock key, that'd be no different than locking away on-disc content (which Halo4 already does).



Well, yeah, that'd be the ideal, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's DLC spaces.

I think you're forgetting that at least one of the maps doesn't take place on Requiem, and the others don't appear to either. Unless Season 1.5 is going to galaxy hop they can't be used as Ops locations.
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
I don't know why everyone is bitching about SITRECs. They are accurately replaying (with some extrapolation for smoothing purposes) the absolute fucking bullshit lag that occurs in every match of Halo 4.
iudydpnh66bzpf0l6g.gif
 

Havok

Member
Sad thing is they're so much better to play this time around, and actually some of the better, less bullshit modes in the game. Boo.
Yeah, I mean, they're definitely better than before. But at their core, they're still that same game that people have never wanted to play for extended periods of time. That there's been such a great reception to those two gametypes this time around speaks volumes about what they've done to the other gametypes. I enjoy King and Ball more than CTF in this game, I think, which is crazy talk. That's partially on the merit of the good changes they made to King/Ball, but largely due to the (often terrible) CTF changes. If they'd fix the respawn timer bug in King/Ball the quality would skyrocket, too.

I've said it before, I'd welcome a Team Control playlist with King, Ball, and Extraction voting slots. I doubt any of those can hold their own next to a half dozen Slayer playlists, but together, maybe.
 
Everyone spawns with two grenades. Everyone throws their grenades at the hill immediately. Everyone dies. Everyone respawns with two grenades. And the cycle continues. It is not a fun cycle.
That is KOTH in every Halo. Oddball and CTF are still broken with automatic pickup. THAT is game breaking. KOTH's issues are minor compared to that.
 
I thought the standard was to release patch details when the patch releases? I know Blizzard just put out a major update for the Heart of the Swarm beta (StarCraft 2) and the patch notes are right there as you download the patch itself (3.3gb!!)
Sorry if I mis-spoke, that's what I meant. I was saying, if the patch is going through cert, I would think they have time then to put together public facing patch notes.
 

Crucio

Member
I just played a game of Dominion on Longbow. The game started with what seemed like host migration then we discovered something terribly wrong. Everything from capture consoles to vehicle spawns were doubled. For example: The banshee spawn would allow us to use two banshees at once, you had to destroy the turrets twice, the weapons spawns could be picked up twice. Also it would cause the base shields to be solid while neutral.

I saved the game of course but have no have to upload it.

All in all it was amusing. But a major glitch.
 
I've said it before, I'd welcome a Team Control playlist with King, Ball, and Extraction voting slots. I doubt any of those can hold their own next to a half dozen Slayer playlists, but together, maybe.
Right, it will be interesting to see how the playlists get further managed down the line.


Wait, Spartan Ops "has been widely praised by critics"?

jah00pnurkk.gif
 

senador

Banned
I signed up for the Infinity thing. Its lame they setup a whole separate site for that. Take advantage of the site you have and just have that new domain redirect. I hate that kind of thing. Now I have to have multiple sign ins all over and shit.

Thank you again for hosting these on your site, Wu. As usual, Waypoint won't fucking work and can't even find the home page no matter how many times I try. I've never had such horrible issues with a website in my life, ever. For it to be regularly inaccessible for the official face of an enormous company is just absurd

Weird. I have had no such issue. My experience has much improved since their update some months ago. Maybe you have some weird caching or DNS issues at your router or ISP level.

Dang it, KotH was probably my favorite playlist.

Word. It was my preferred objective mode because it didn't have game-impacting stupid glitches and lag like CTF and Oddball, respectively. The Flagnum drops fire input, and ball throwing is shit with sizeable latencies and host authorization.

Yeah mine too. Probably because it was nice small objective mode on small maps. I actually really like KOTH in Halo 4. I'm sure we'll see it back.

Doesn't surprise me one bit.

Yeah not at all. I guess its just the confirmation that is news. I'm actually quite excited to see where Halo 5 goes. I actually want to see some Flood again.
 
I think they mean that they're focusing on glitches and exploits before focusing on any kind of tuning.

That is what I think too. Things that should have been fixed before release. I wonder when this game is actually going to be finished? When are they going to update the game to the condition it should have been on November 6th?
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Sorry if I mis-spoke, that's what I meant. I was saying, if the patch is going through cert, I would think they have time then to put together public facing patch notes.

Doesn't the Bulletin say we're getting details on it? Why would we get those details when it hits cert rather than when it's available?
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Sorry if I mis-spoke, that's what I meant. I was saying, if the patch is going through cert, I would think they have time then to put together public facing patch notes.

I'd guess we'll see them later today or tomorrow. Patch roll-out times over XBL can be completely wonky. I can remember when the Saints Row and Homefront patches went out the guys never knew exactly what time they would hit. Seems like 343 wants to keep some of the fix notes under wraps until the whole world gets the patch so people don't take advantage of the exploits before their game is patched.
 

lybertyboy

Thinks the Evil Empire is just misunderstood.
Sorry if I mis-spoke, that's what I meant. I was saying, if the patch is going through cert, I would think they have time then to put together public facing patch notes.

Except you need it to be out of cert before anything is confirmed. Something could get caught in that process that would change the TU. And the exploits we don't want to draw more attention to pre TU aren't map items. Take that as you will.

Oh, and for those asking about SpOps locations in the second half of the season. None of them are repeats from the first half of the season.
 

Striker

Member
Yeah mine too. Probably because it was nice small objective mode on small maps. I actually really like KOTH in Halo 4. I'm sure we'll see it back.
It is generally fun on Haven, but I didn't see much else for it. The small maps you mention still was hit with KotH Complex and KotH Ragnarok complete with a Banshee and Mantis.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Except you need it to be out of cert before anything is confirmed. Something could get caught in that process that would change the TU. And the exploits we don't want to draw more attention to pre TU aren't map items. Take that as you will.

Oh, and for those asking about SpOps locations in the second half of the season. None of them are repeats from the first half of the season.

Thanks David. Good to hear. Will we be downloading any of the second half?
 

Brolic Gaoler

formerly Alienshogun
Dominion REALLY needs to tone down how many power weapons are being given out. Shit just gets absurd, then when you factor in the shield doors to the bases it just becomes a exercise in frustration.

The re-supplies should mostly be grenades and other "weaker" power weapons. Shotguns/rocketlaunchers should not be dropping in Dominion at all. Snipers, grenades, needler, spartan laser etc are all fine.

Give people a reason to move into the bases to take them, not say "fuck it" and spend the entire round not playing the OBJ because they know some asshat is sitting on the other side of the shield door with a 1hk weapon.

Except you need it to be out of cert before anything is confirmed. Something could get caught in that process that would change the TU. And the exploits we don't want to draw more attention to pre TU aren't map items. Take that as you will.

Oh, and for those asking about SpOps locations in the second half of the season. None of them are repeats from the first half of the season.

The question is will they (the new ones) be repeated to death in the second season?

Also, less waves of fuel rod/binary rifle/beam rifle swarm please.
 

malfcn

Member
So they can or can't do what they did with Gears of War?

Make everyone download the new War Games map for free, but they are only playable through Spartan Ops.

That was what they did with Gears. Everyone got the first Map Pack for free, but only private matches were available to people that purchased the maps. This way everyone has the maps for Spartan Ops, and if they buy them for War Games it is just a quick key..
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Except you need it to be out of cert before anything is confirmed. Something could get caught in that process that would change the TU. And the exploits we don't want to draw more attention to pre TU aren't map items. Take that as you will.

Oh, and for those asking about SpOps locations in the second half of the season. None of them are repeats from the first half of the season.

Figured.

About the bold: Button combos gone? That would be sexy. If so, I can't wait to hear the backlash.
 
True, still I did not see tons of praise for Spartan Ops in reviews. Some mentioned it.

I know it has been discussed to death already, but I actually like it. I think more than anything it has great potential. If 343 wanted to, they could make some really crazy chapters. There is so much you can do with Forge and custom settings (look at that recent Slender gametype for an example), and I assume any of it could be implemented into SpOps, PLUS unique VO and cutscenes to compliment the gameplay.

There are a few really great ideas and awesome moments across the five episodes we've seen so far. I want to get into more specifics later when I have access to my Xbox and can look up which missions I'm referring to.
 
Oh, and for those asking about SpOps locations in the second half of the season. None of them are repeats from the first half of the season.

while im glad about this, im still pretty nervous it's just going to be 5-6 new environments that we will see over and over again in the second half.

i really hope i'm wrong, and we see more of a diverse lineup, with more mission variety. ie vehicle, stealth, generator defense, flying in space, dominion-like, etc.

less "push the button crimson"
 
Except you need it to be out of cert before anything is confirmed. Something could get caught in that process that would change the TU. And the exploits we don't want to draw more attention to pre TU aren't map items. Take that as you will.

Oh, and for those asking about SpOps locations in the second half of the season. None of them are repeats from the first half of the season.
Thanks for posting David.

Sure, if something changes in cert, you can remove it from the patch list. It hasn't been posted yet, could it not just be a document that grows and shrinks as the patch gets to the almost deployed stage, no?

As for the exploits comment, a bit hard to parse, makes me imagine a whole world of possibilities.
I don't necessarily agree that it means ye shouldn't include it, but it's hard to commit to say that without fulling appreciating the severity/risk involved.

The SpOps comment is interesting, but I never really had a problem with the environment reuse. Hell, I thought the MP usage was clever.
It's the gameplay that lets me down, unfortunately.
 
re: Shatter looking like Vortex...

I wish there was more variety in the art across the multiplayer maps. For an example, if you look at Halo 1-3 maps, you've got a snowy map, a desert map, an urban map, a forerunner map, a covenant map, a swamp map etc etc etc.

In Reach and Halo 4 you have a bunch of areas lifted from the campaign that are all very similar, either taking place on Reach or Requiem.

Seriously, 343 - I'd like at least one map that takes place on a traditional Halo. You even removed the Halo setting of Valhalla for some unknown reason.
 
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