• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Halo TMCC |OT2| 3V4 Industries

I'd like to see this as well. I legitimately believe 343 when they say they're working their asses off to get everything fixed and that the genuinely feel bad that this happened, but at the same time I want to see a major site or two rake 343 and Microsoft over the coals for Master Chief Collection because this straight up should have never happened, and I think Halo's reputation is irreparably damaged now. And porting ODST, remaking Relic, and giving a BP "we're sorry" won't heal the Godzilla sized wound that this collection's reputation has.

The closest I could do to an open letter is write something and post on my blog over on Destructoid and hope it gets promoted to the front page, but that's about it.

On that note, this might just be me, but I don't feel like ODST + Relic is enough. Honestly I'd openly sacrifice ODST if we could get 6 more Halo 2 Anniversary maps. Halo 2 Anniversary having so few maps (one of which is a remake of the worst Halo 2 map) because the actual gameplay if H2A is pretty much the definitive Halo experience in my opinion. I find it superior to Halo 5

The letter would have to be so detailed and nuanced with what's wrong with the game but yet still be understandable by a casual audience. It needs the perfect amount of factual evidence stating what's wrong and why it's wrong, but enough emotion and explanation so someone reading it can go "Why the fuck does he care about in game emblems so much?" Read the context, then go "Oh. I see."

EDIT: I'm honestly surprised at how many people like Relic. I would've taken Burial Mounds, Colossus, Midship, Terminal, and Headlong before Relic. BURIAL MOUNDS PEOPLE.
 

Sephzilla

Member
The letter would have to be so detailed and nuanced with what's wrong with the game but yet still be understandable by a casual audience. It needs the perfect amount of factual evidence stating what's wrong and why it's wrong, but enough emotion and explanation so someone reading it can go "Why the fuck does he care about in game emblems so much?" Read the context, then go "Oh. I see."

EDIT: I'm honestly surprised at how many people like Relic. I would've taken Burial Mounds, Colossus, Midship, Terminal, and Headlong before Relic. BURIAL MOUNDS PEOPLE.

I could try to be nuanced about it. I just know there are things I would miss. I'd definitely hit on inconsistencies between the original games and the MCC versions -and other things - such as broken emblems in Halo 2, Halo 3 armor emblems arent right, Halo 3 and Halo 4 armor customization is gimped, long matchmaking times, even longer times for non US players, no way to easily tell if you're on a dedicated server or peer to peer, seemingly broken party system, Halo 4 Turbo not there, uses vanilla gametypes for most games, etc.

Regarding maps - Relic is one of the more fun asymmetrical maps in my opinion. It works for objectives and slayer alike. Burial Mounds seemingly always turns into the defensive team roflstomping the offensive team at their spawn. I don't find colossus to be a very fun map, to be honest, and objectives there suck if you cant flag bounce. H2A just needs more maps in general. Headlong is the best map in H2 in my opinion and I don't see why it's left out. Midship is classic. Terminal was fun. Turf was fun. Relic was fun. Beaver Creek was fun.

I know the counter argument for more H2A maps is that you can go and play the classic maps in custom games and the playlists - but considering how H2A is the center point for competitive play, it desperately needs more maps.

#DeleteZenith
 

empathe

Member
The letter would have to be so detailed and nuanced with what's wrong with the game but yet still be understandable by a casual audience. It needs the perfect amount of factual evidence stating what's wrong and why it's wrong, but enough emotion and explanation so someone reading it can go "Why the fuck does he care about in game emblems so much?" Read the context, then go "Oh. I see."

EDIT: I'm honestly surprised at how many people like Relic. I would've taken Burial Mounds, Colossus, Midship, Terminal, and Headlong before Relic. BURIAL MOUNDS PEOPLE.

They are probably too busy scrambling to figure out why Clash of Clans has more viewers on Twitch than their limited time beta for Halo 5.

MCC is fucked, but they are likely scrambling to figure out why Halo's audience just keeps shrinking.
 

Sephzilla

Member
They are probably too busy scrambling to figure out why Clash of Clans has more viewers on Twitch than their limited time beta for Halo 5.

MCC is fucked, but they are likely scrambling to figure out why Halo's audience just keeps shrinking.

I'm just gonna straight out say what I'm thinking here - In my opinion Halo's audience started to shrink the moment Bungie (and then 343) decided they needed to shake up the Halo formula. I don't remember any of the major changes in Halo 2 or Halo 3 (no health packs anymore, no plasma stun, dual wielding, equipment) causing nearly as much division among the fan-base as loadouts, armor abilities, bloom, and sprint did with the games from Reach onward.

I legitimately think if Halo would have simply stuck to its core instead of looking too much into what Call of Duty and other franchises were doing, it wouldn't have had the audience drop off the later titles had.
 

empathe

Member
I'm just gonna straight out say what I'm thinking here - In my opinion Halo's audience started to shrink the moment Bungie (and then 343) decided they needed to shake up the Halo formula. I don't remember any of the major changes in Halo 2 or Halo 3 (no health packs anymore, no plasma stun, dual wielding, equipment) causing nearly as much division among the fan-base as loadouts, armor abilities, bloom, and sprint did with the games from Reach onward.

I legitimately think if Halo would have simply stuck to its core instead of looking too much into what Call of Duty and other franchises were doing, it wouldn't have had the audience drop off the later titles had.

I think it's much more simple than that. CoD had a better feedback loop for more players. They had progression people cared about. For as much as I hate unlocks that affect gameplay, cosmetics don't keep people addicted.

Halo's MP is more difficult than CoD's. It punishes casual/new players when they get matched up against better people. And when the audience starts shrinking, it's sort of a black hole as the people left playing are the hardcore crowd. So casual players will get bad matches because player population is too low to give them a fair fight.

They leave and it just keeps going in that direction.

The casuals were going to leave anyway for CoD and Battlefield and whatever. What the change in direction did was send a huge chunk of the fans/hardcore players away. I think they just happened concurrently so it seems like the same thing.

They probably know all this, which is why Halo 4 tried to introduce some of what CoD had - sprint, gameplay-affecting unlocks, killstreaks, no friendly fire, killcam, etc.

Now, it looks like they realize that without their core, if they can't pull the mass audience away from CoD, they have absolutely nothing. So it looks like Halo 5 is trying to come back toward the fans a bit, but isn't fully giving up CoD-influenced features.

That being said, I've had a great time with the limited amount I've played the Halo 5 beta, but I don't know how they get a mega audience ever again.

In my opinion Halo's audience started to shrink the moment Bungie

I really liked Reach, but its maps were severely lacking.
 
I'm just gonna straight out say what I'm thinking here - In my opinion Halo's audience started to shrink the moment Bungie (and then 343) decided they needed to shake up the Halo formula. I don't remember any of the major changes in Halo 2 or Halo 3 (no health packs anymore, no plasma stun, dual wielding, equipment) causing nearly as much division among the fan-base as loadouts, armor abilities, bloom, and sprint did with the games from Reach onward.

I legitimately think if Halo would have simply stuck to its core instead of looking too much into what Call of Duty and other franchises were doing, it wouldn't have had the audience drop off the later titles had.

Right. Halo could've been a genre unto itself in the way that Quake is a genre of shooter, TFC/TF2 is a genre, COD is a genre, Counter-Strike is a genre. By genre, I mean, when people go to explain some new shooter on the market, they describe it as "like COD" or "like Quake" Halo lately to me can be described as "It's sorta like Halo...but with COD elements that Halo players don't really want" Then at the same time, can be explained as "It's sorta like COD...but with the Halo elements that COD players don't really want"

Instead of just doing a good 100% full-on, Halo core mechanic focused multiplayer, it's morphed into this bastard child where the majority of Halo players aren't happy with it and the majority of COD players who try it aren't happy

You could say the same thing happened to UT when they tried introducing vehicles and hoverboards. I don't think anyone was asking for that.
 

Sephzilla

Member
I think it's much more simple than that. CoD had a better feedback loop for more players. They had progression people cared about. For as much as I hate unlocks that affect gameplay, cosmetics don't keep people addicted.

Halo's MP is more difficult than CoD's. It punishes casual/new players when they get matched up against better people. And when the audience starts shrinking, it's sort of a black hole as the people left playing are the hardcore crowd. So casual players will get bad matches because player population is too low to give them a fair fight.

They leave and it just keeps going in that direction.

The casuals were going to leave anyway for CoD and Battlefield and whatever. What the change in direction did was send a huge chunk of the fans/hardcore players away. I think they just happened concurrently so it seems like the same thing.

They probably know all this, which is why Halo 4 tried to introduce some of what CoD had - sprint, gameplay-affecting unlocks, killstreaks, no friendly fire, killcam, etc.

Now, it looks like they realize that without their core, if they can't pull the mass audience away from CoD, they have absolutely nothing. So it looks like Halo 5 is trying to come back toward the fans a bit, but isn't fully giving up CoD-influenced features.

That being said, I've had a great time with the limited amount I've played the Halo 5 beta, but I don't know how they get a mega audience ever again.



I really liked Reach, but its maps were severely lacking.

This is a good post but the bold part is one thing I kind of question. If the difficulty of the game is a big factor in the shrinking population how come CounterStrike, Team Fortress 2, and (slight genre shift) League of Legends are still massively popular video games with audiences that are larger than Halo's? It's not like Halo's population massively dropped off after Call of Duty 4 came out, IIRR Halo 3 and COD4 were a close #1 and #2 on the Xbox Live charts when both games were still in their primes. I think a lot of shooter fans alternated between both titles because they were nice changes of pace from each other. The moment Halo started to inch closer to the Call of Duty realm it started to lose that "change of pace" feel, which is what caused people to simply stick with COD
 

dB Viper

Member
They ask for our feedback, but they don't listen.

We don't want sprint. We don't want thrusters. We don't want ground pound. We don't want shoulder charge.

We want old school halo gameplay. We want number rankings.

Hell, give me Halo 2-style gameplay, number ranks, and 15-20 new maps, new modes, etc and I'm happy. And, it's not just me saying this.

I can't count all the threads saying this on their forums, but they don't listen.

Oh well, they'll see when it's too late. h5 will not be a purchase for me, and many others. Just look at the views on twitch. Hello Kitty Online had more viewers at one point. Seriously?
 

empathe

Member
This is a good post but the bold part is one thing I kind of question. If the difficulty of the game is a big factor in the shrinking population how come CounterStrike, Team Fortress 2, and (slight genre shift) League of Legends are still massively popular video games with audiences that are larger than Halo's? It's not like Halo's population massively dropped off after Call of Duty 4 came out, IIRR Halo 3 and COD4 were a close #1 and #2 on the Xbox Live charts when both games were still in their primes. I think a lot of shooter fans alternated between both titles because they were nice changes of pace from each other. The moment Halo started to inch closer to the Call of Duty realm it started to lose that "change of pace" feel, which is what caused people to simply stick with COD

Massive audiences on PC and different audiences. The install base of PC's is astronomical compared to any console. Granted, not all PC's are used for games, but it's still a major difference. Steam has hit like 10 million concurrent users online, which is close to how many PS4's or Xbox One's (individually) have been sold.

Here is the current top 5 on Steam:

Current Peak Today
634,576 856,155 Dota 2
361,688 376,508 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
70,748 75,626 Football Manager 2015
53,124 70,178 Team Fortress 2
48,598 51,181 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

-- Dota 2 and CS:GO are "hardcore" but Football Manager and Skyrim are not hardcore FPS. Here's where CoD falls on that chart (Ghosts doesn't make the top 100).

9,324 9,876 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Multiplayer
...
7,812 8,271 Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Multiplayer
...
5,966 6,193 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Multiplayer

PC is a different beast and "console" shooters don't fair as well there.

Also, comparing how Halo 3 stacked up against CoD 4 is a tough one because CoD4 really got the ball rolling bringing that game majorly to consoles. Halo had already been established.

You can look at what Reach did vs. CoD whatever was out then (Black Ops?) and so on, though, and see that the damage was done.
 

DJ Gunner

Member
They ask for our feedback, but they don't listen.

We don't want sprint. We don't want thrusters. We don't want ground pound. We don't want shoulder charge.

We want old school halo gameplay. We want number rankings.

Hell, give me Halo 2-style gameplay, number ranks, and 15-20 new maps, new modes, etc and I'm happy. And, it's not just me saying this.

I can't count all the threads saying this on their forums, but they don't listen.

Oh well, they'll see when it's too late. h5 will not be a purchase for me, and many others. Just look at the views on twitch. Hello Kitty Online had more viewers at one point. Seriously?


Brav-fucking-O.

Seriously, this describes my feelings, my friends' feelings, so many people I've talked Halo with.
 
They ask for our feedback, but they don't listen.

We don't want sprint. We don't want thrusters. We don't want ground pound. We don't want shoulder charge.

We want old school halo gameplay. We want number rankings.

Hell, give me Halo 2-style gameplay, number ranks, and 15-20 new maps, new modes, etc and I'm happy. And, it's not just me saying this.

I can't count all the threads saying this on their forums, but they don't listen.

Oh well, they'll see when it's too late. h5 will not be a purchase for me, and many others. Just look at the views on twitch. Hello Kitty Online had more viewers at one point. Seriously?
Agreed. That's why it hurts so badly that MCC doesn't work. It was supposed to be our game. And now we're basically being mocked.

Two months later: "Guess what? UI and achievements! YAY!"
 

AlStrong

Member
I just can't possibly blame a developer in this situation. A game needs more time in the oven, a publisher decides to release the game as is; all the blame should be on the publisher.

It's probably not that simple considering it was a multi-studio effort, and we don't know whose idea (MS or 343i) it was or when exactly the decision was made to convert the H2 Anniversary event into a full blown 4-title collection or when the actual porting of CEA/3/4 started.

Certainly, being the 10 year anniversary, there would be no question about MS wanting H2A there on time. That was probably everyone's goal at any rate.

It's harder to point fingers for the rest.

*shrug* Anyways... :(
 

empathe

Member
They ask for our feedback, but they don't listen.

We don't want sprint. We don't want thrusters. We don't want ground pound. We don't want shoulder charge.

We want old school halo gameplay. We want number rankings.

Hell, give me Halo 2-style gameplay, number ranks, and 15-20 new maps, new modes, etc and I'm happy. And, it's not just me saying this.

I can't count all the threads saying this on their forums, but they don't listen.

Oh well, they'll see when it's too late. h5 will not be a purchase for me, and many others. Just look at the views on twitch. Hello Kitty Online had more viewers at one point. Seriously?

While I agree with you on what I want from a new Halo, we aren't an audience big enough that justifies the amount of money MS has poured into and continues to pour into this IP.

They need the big crossover audience. Just making the remaining hardcore Halo fans happy with Halo 5 won't move enough copies.
 
While I agree with you on what I want from a new Halo, we aren't an audience big enough that justifies the amount of money MS has poured into and continues to pour into this IP.

They need the big crossover audience. Just making the remaining hardcore Halo fans happy with Halo 5 won't move enough copies.

That "crossover" audience led to Halo 4...which is the series' least popular multiplayer on XBL ever.

I said it in my other post, but in an effort to make everyone happy, they made very, very few happy.
 

empathe

Member
That "crossover" audience led to Halo 4...which is the series' least popular multiplayer on XBL ever.

I said it in my other post, but in an effort to make everyone happy, they made very, very few happy.

It's definitely not the game we want, but the multiplayer game we want won't sell enough copies to make their megaton investment in Halo pay off.
 
It's definitely not the game we want, but the multiplayer game we want won't sell enough copies to make their megaton investment in Halo pay off.

My point is, they've made the game no one wants.

Why not at least TRY to go back to the games that people do actually want, H1, H2, H3 and try to tweak and modify those to some extent, but leave the core the same.

EDIT: I realize that's exactly what they did with the MCC. It's just shameful and unbelievable what they did to it.
 

empathe

Member
My point is, they've made the game no one wants.

Why not at least TRY to go back to the games that people do actually want, H1, H2, H3 and try to tweak and modify those to some extent, but leave the core the same.

EDIT: I realize that's exactly what they did with the MCC. It's just shameful and unbelievable what they did to it.

Well, exactly. If MCC had launched and worked, it would have been the classic Halo with a H2A and a new Forge for the old school fans while they do whatever with H5.

Too bad they bungled MCC so hard.
 

tmac456

Member
matchmaking has been a joke for me tonight so far. failed connect, session full etc

3 weeks since the last patch? 343 has lost my $ for halo 5. it's legitimately embarrassing the state this game is still in 2 months later
 
They ask for our feedback, but they don't listen.

We don't want sprint. We don't want thrusters. We don't want ground pound. We don't want shoulder charge.

We want old school halo gameplay. We want number rankings.

Hell, give me Halo 2-style gameplay, number ranks, and 15-20 new maps, new modes, etc and I'm happy. And, it's not just me saying this.

I can't count all the threads saying this on their forums, but they don't listen.

Oh well, they'll see when it's too late. h5 will not be a purchase for me, and many others. Just look at the views on twitch. Hello Kitty Online had more viewers at one point. Seriously?

What's with this "we" stuff, Kemosabe?
 

Bread

Banned
this game is great when i play by myself

try to go into matchmaking with a party though? nearly impossible.

what a shame.
 

RBK

Banned
Pretty sure they had down years as well.

Didn't get a rise back to glory until CS: Source as far as I remember.
 

tmac456

Member
lmao forgot the bug of the game not ending if a team quits out of CE

something so simple and they still havent gotten it fixed
 

RSB

Banned
They ask for our feedback, but they don't listen.

We don't want sprint. We don't want thrusters. We don't want ground pound. We don't want shoulder charge.

We want old school halo gameplay. We want number rankings.

Hell, give me Halo 2-style gameplay, number ranks, and 15-20 new maps, new modes, etc and I'm happy. And, it's not just me saying this.

I can't count all the threads saying this on their forums, but they don't listen.

Oh well, they'll see when it's too late. h5 will not be a purchase for me, and many others. Just look at the views on twitch. Hello Kitty Online had more viewers at one point. Seriously?
Sad but true.

At this point I don't think they will even bother to add something as simple as an option to use classic scopes. "A circle in the middle of the screen? Sorry fans, you are asking for too much"

Well, at least there's always the MCC right? Oh wait...
 

Skel1ingt0n

I can't *believe* these lazy developers keep making file sizes so damn large. Btw, how does technology work?
So this shit still isn't working? Was debating on having friends over for split screen this weekend... guess Halo is out of the running.

This was supposed to be my JAM. Un-touched Halo 2 in 1080p/60fps on dedicated servers? It was, truly, a dream come true. Fuck with Halo all you want, 343... at least I've got what I want, and can always just play one of my favorite games ever long into the future. It was a beautiful compromise as I become less and less excited for the future of the franchise.

And yet, it's released in an absolutely abysmal and broken state. And after months of promises, we still have a game that doesn't work. And because of that, the community has no doubt dwindled drastically, defeating the point all together.

Some of us were mocked and told not to jump to conclusions when it seemed 343 would leave us with a glued-together game. It's almost mid-January, and things don't sound any better.

Sad.

This will go on my very short, but very painful, list of ultimate gaming disappointments.

Death of GameBoy
Too Human
Beyond Good & Evil 2 MIA
The Old Republic

... and now Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
 

mbmonk

Member
I tried Spartan Ops with a buddy tonight.

First try, level didn't load and we crashed to the main menu.

Second try, got into the game but the frame rate was a disaster. Hitting what felt like single digits at times. Hard to aim and shoot with that frame rate.

Third try, different level same frame rate issue. My buddy crashed to the main menu while I was left in the game.

Spartan ops was released much later after launch. Did they not test it either? Or do they just not give a f*ck anymore? "If the code compiles, release it!" is apparently the moto for the MCC project.

:-(
 
I tried Spartan Ops with a buddy tonight.

First try, level didn't load and we crashed to the main menu.

Second try, got into the game but the frame rate was a disaster. Hitting what felt like single digits at times. Hard to aim and shoot with that frame rate.

Third try, different level same frame rate issue. My buddy crashed to the main menu while I was left in the game.

Spartan ops was released much later after launch. Did they not test it either? Or do they just not give a f*ck anymore? "If the code compiles, release it!" is apparently the moto for the MCC project.

:-(

I'm pretty sure the framerate issues were a native Halo 4 thing, not an MCC thing. Halo 4 didn't take kindly to splitscreen in most environments, and all of the stuff Spartan Ops does in any given encounter (assumed networking + spawn shittons of enemies and objectives) doesn't help.
 

Chitown B

Member
It's probably not that simple considering it was a multi-studio effort, and we don't know whose idea (MS or 343i) it was or when exactly the decision was made to convert the H2 Anniversary event into a full blown 4-title collection or when the actual porting of CEA/3/4 started.

Certainly, being the 10 year anniversary, there would be no question about MS wanting H2A there on time. That was probably everyone's goal at any rate.

It's harder to point fingers for the rest.

*shrug* Anyways... :(

This contains a lot of "probably" and is total speculation. That's the problem here. People on GAF pretending they have any idea what went on. Only Frankie can speak to that.
 

iMax

Member
It's probably not that simple considering it was a multi-studio effort, and we don't know whose idea (MS or 343i) it was or when exactly the decision was made to convert the H2 Anniversary event into a full blown 4-title collection or when the actual porting of CEA/3/4 started.

Certainly, being the 10 year anniversary, there would be no question about MS wanting H2A there on time. That was probably everyone's goal at any rate.

It's harder to point fingers for the rest.

*shrug* Anyways... :(

They should've released the games periodically, not all at once. Maybe 3-6 months between each. Would've helped keep the population up, too.
 

jelly

Member
Did Halo MCC sell well ?

As for 343 making changes after feedback, like most betas that users get to play, not a lot changes, particularly major things. It's kinda an empty gesture, the features are already set out. Some stuff might not make it because of time constraints but the base philosophy would be set in stone I imagine.

If Halo 5 is a let down and numbers crumble again, they should just go full COD but do it with ODSTs, oh wait, we have jock Spartans now. Redo the story again 343. Forget Spartans, have your sprint, ads, drops etc. See how it goes in a separate Halo IP.
 

Sephzilla

Member
Did Halo MCC sell well ?

As for 343 making changes after feedback, like most betas that users get to play, not a lot changes, particularly major things. It's kinda an empty gesture, the features are already set out. Some stuff might not make it because of time constraints but the base philosophy would be set in stone I imagine.

I have to imagine it sold decently well. Xbox Ones sold pretty well during the holiday season, and this is Halo
 
I'm pretty sure the framerate issues were a native Halo 4 thing, not an MCC thing. Halo 4 didn't take kindly to splitscreen in most environments, and all of the stuff Spartan Ops does in any given encounter (assumed networking + spawn shittons of enemies and objectives) doesn't help.

Yeah. Spartan Ops framerates online were shit too on the 360.
 
This and the Halo 5 beta made sure I'm done with the Halo franchise. Not play because the series in 25 years old? Yea. Actively remembering how much it sucked and how much the fan was fucked? I didn't see that coming.
 
Top Bottom