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[Sean]

How Fans Helped Shape the Multiplayer of Halo 5: Guardians

The team has spent the past few weeks poring over player feedback from the aforementioned sources. From this we have developed an extensive list of improvements for the game. What follows is a short summary of items that we are addressing for launch. Some of these improvements were already in development and didn’t make it in time for the beta. The majority of changes address issues that surfaced during the beta and relate to feedback coming directly from the community. It’s important to point out that there will be a massive list of additional improvements and bug fixes that are not captured here, as we hosted this beta almost a year from release.

In the ViDoc that introduced the new Spartan Abilities before the beta went live, I touched on the fact that a portion of the Halo community strongly prefers to play without sprint. The results from the HCFP surveys showed that nearly 11% of HCFP participants felt that Halo should not have sprint. It is important that we continue to evolve Halo multiplayer while ensuring that legacy Halo players feel right at home. As a result, I’m happy to say that we will provide toggles in custom games so that sprint and the other Spartan Abilities can be turned off. By putting these tools in the hands of players we will give them the ability to play the game their way, enabling them to create a more traditional style of Halo if they prefer.

Some of the other improvements that we are making to Spartan Abilities and general mobility coming out of the beta:

• Increase base speed (faster base movement)
• Increase strafe acceleration (faster, more responsive strafing)
• Reduce top sprint speed (narrow the delta between base movement and sprint)
• Modify Ground Pound controls to prevent conflicts w/ crouch jumping
• General tuning & bug fixes for all Spartan Abilities (Thrusters, Clamber, Ground Pound, etc.)

Other improvements we’ll be making to presentation based on fan feedback:

• Post-death replay: this will become an opt-in feature. After death, players will see a traditional follow-cam and have the option to view a replay of their death from the killer’s perspective (as long as the feature is enabled within the playlist)
• Medals: decrease frequency and number of medals displayed in the medal feed
• Spartan chatter: players will have the option to turn this on or off in the settings menu
• Adding highlights to placed/dropped weapons to make them easier to see
• General tuning for announcer and Spartan chatter to reduce the frequency of events and focus on the information that matters most to players

Coming out of beta we have a number of fixes and improvements already in flight for matchmaking but at a high level our focus is on the following:

• Much faster matches
• Better skill matching
• Better feedback to players in the lobby and matchmaking experiences
• Allow players to set desired datacenter for matchmaking (may impact matchmaking speed and skill balance)
• Improved party vs party matchmaking
• Hide CSR ranks until in match to de-incentivize quitting
• Punish quitters with CSR penalties and matchmaking bans

Some of the other improvements that we’ll be making to weapons in the game follow:

• Sniper Rifle: improve scope experience to making it less “clunky” and faster to scope
• DMR: adjust position of the scope to improve visibility
• Bring back the SPNKr Rocket Launcher as a legendary version of the weapon
• Reduce bonuses for automatic weapons in Smart-Link & w/ headshots
• Remove grenade detonation in mid-air based on weapon fire
• Ability to turn on/off vibration feedback for weapons
• General tuning and bug fixing for all weapons

Lot more here: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...ped-shape-the-multiplayer-of-halo-5-guardians

 

[shinobi602]

As a result, I’m happy to say that we will provide toggles in custom games so that sprint and the other Spartan Abilities can be turned off.

Oh shit.

 

[RoKKeR]

Oh hell yes. Higher movement speed and lower sprint speed is great news.

Edit: And to the above, awesome!

 

[DopeyFish]

89% of the halo community are idiots, confirmed.

 

[UnlovedJew]

Rad to see that they really are changing the game based on those surveys. Awesome stuff.

 

[Netprints]

Oh shit.

Good! I hope it becomes standard for matchmaking

 

[BokehKing]

So it will stay in ranked matches were it matters

 

[Sephzilla]

Just kick up the base speed a little more and remove sprint entirely.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Should've just added faster movement and no sprint, but I'll take what I can get.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I’m happy to say that we will provide toggles in custom games so that sprint and the other Spartan Abilities can be turned off. By putting these tools in the hands of players we will give them the ability to play the game their way, enabling them to create a more traditional style of Halo if they prefer.

Custom games.

Why not just have it as a matchmaking option? You can either play with those abilities or you can't. There's really no need to limit it to just custom games.

 

[nbnt]

As a result, I’m happy to say that we will provide toggles in custom games so that sprint and the other Spartan Abilities can be turned off.

Then you'll get people complaining "the maps are designed with sprint and SA in mind, so it's pointless"..

 

[theSlacker]

Oh shit.

The problem is that maps will still be balanced and designed around the ability to sprint. But who knows until we see them.

Edit: I guess I'm right on que.

 

[RoKKeR]

"Opt- in for killcam"

Great news. They listened!

 

[Ultima_5]

does mcc work yet

 

[njean777]

The problem is that maps will still be balanced and designed around the ability to sprint. But who knows until we see them.

Edit: I guess I'm right on que.

Considering you can play the game without ever sprinting I have no clue how a map can be "made with sprint in mind".

 

[Pappasman]

They added a sprint toggle and increased base move? Holy shit! Good job 343.

Kinda sucks that the maps are already designed to be fucking massive, but oh well.

 

[Papercuts]

Faster base movement and reduced sprint speed is a nice change. The custom games toggle doesn't mean much as the existence of sprint has a real impact on map design already.

 

[Sephzilla]

Important question - did they implement a control scheme that uses the Halo 1 / Halo 2 default scheme? There's literally no reason it cant be in here.

Considering you can play the game without ever sprinting I have no clue how a map can be "made with sprint in mind".

Look at how spaced out and open H5's Midship is compared to H2's.

 

[Sanic]

Custom games.

Why not just have it as a matchmaking option? You can either play with those abilities or you can't. There's really no need to limit it to just custom games.

Their survey is showing that only 11% of participants would prefer to not have sprint. I'm sure a playlist or two will rotate in and out from time to time that will have sprint disabled, but so few people care that I see no reason to split up matchmaking in a sprint/mom sprint fashion.

Unless of course you were just alluding to playlists like I mentioned.

 

[ryan299]

They're bringing back the classic rocket launcher but only has a legendary variant. If people wanted it back that much that you guys did it just make it the base look


Also seems like the Spartan bro's before and after matches are getting cut. Thank god

 

[ProvenDeadly]

This is the problem with having a feedback problem that only had 19k people. It's not a fair selection of people. I'm assuming a majority of those people are off of Halo Waypoint. Why didn't they just build a feedback program directly into the game? I am having a very hard time believing that only 11% of the people dislike sprint.

 

[Scooby]

Can't believe they actually listened.

 

[dancrane212]

Post-death replay: this will become an opt-in feature. After death, players will see a traditional follow-cam and have the option to view a replay of their death from the killer’s perspective (as long as the feature is enabled within the playlist)

Fantastic! Now just confirm the death music is also able to be toggled off and we're golden!

 

[Pappasman]

This is the problem with having a feedback problem that only had 19k people. It's not a fair selection of people. I'm assuming a majority of those people are off of Halo Waypoint. Why didn't they just build a feedback program directly into the game? I am having a very hard time believing that only 11% of the people dislike sprint.

Same here. I put quite a bit of time into the beta and never left feedback. I was playing at my friends house.

 

[Woorloog]

This is the problem with having a feedback problem that only had 19k people. It's not a fair selection of people. I'm assuming a majority of those people are off of Halo Waypoint. Why didn't they just build a feedback program directly into the game? I am having a very hard time believing that only 11% of the people dislike sprint.

19k is pretty big sample group. A lot smaller would provide accurate statistics already.

 

[njean777]

Important question - did they implement a control scheme that uses the Halo 1 / Halo 2 default scheme? There's literally no reason it cant be in here.



Look at how spaced out and open H5's Midship is compared to H2's.

And? You can still play it without ever using sprint. Sprint actually makes it to where the person not sprinting has the advantage. Same on COD.

 

[Euron]

Ability to turn off sprint
Ability to turn off Spartan Chatter
Medals less frequent
Classic Rocket Launcher

Ok so it looks like they're improving everything I was worried about regarding the beta. Awesome. Now I want to see what they're doing with the campaign.

 

[Arby 'n' the Chief]

In the ViDoc that introduced the new Spartan Abilities before the beta went live, I touched on the fact that a portion of the Halo community strongly prefers to play without sprint. The results from the HCFP surveys showed that nearly 11% of HCFP participants felt that Halo should not have sprint. It is important that we continue to evolve Halo multiplayer while ensuring that legacy Halo players feel right at home. As a result, I’m happy to say that we will provide toggles in custom games so that sprint and the other Spartan Abilities can be turned off. By putting these tools in the hands of players we will give them the ability to play the game their way, enabling them to create a more traditional style of Halo if they prefer.

Some of the other improvements that we are making to Spartan Abilities and general mobility coming out of the beta:

Increase base speed (faster base movement)
Increase strafe acceleration (faster, more responsive strafing)
Reduce top sprint speed (narrow the delta between base movement and sprint)
Modify Ground Pound controls to prevent conflicts w/ crouch jumping
General tuning & bug fixes for all Spartan Abilities (Thrusters, Clamber, Ground Pound, etc.)


Other improvements we’ll be making to presentation based on fan feedback:

Post-death replay: this will become an opt-in feature. After death, players will see a traditional follow-cam and have the option to view a replay of their death from the killer’s perspective (as long as the feature is enabled within the playlist)
Medals: decrease frequency and number of medals displayed in the medal feed
Spartan chatter: players will have the option to turn this on or off in the settings menu
Adding highlights to placed/dropped weapons to make them easier to see
General tuning for announcer and Spartan chatter to reduce the frequency of events and focus on the information that matters most to players


Coming out of beta we have a number of fixes and improvements already in flight for matchmaking but at a high level our focus is on the following:

Much faster matches
Better skill matching
Better feedback to players in the lobby and matchmaking experiences
Allow players to set desired datacenter for matchmaking (may impact matchmaking speed and skill balance)
Improved party vs party matchmaking
Hide CSR ranks until in match to de-incentivize quitting
Punish quitters with CSR penalties and matchmaking bans

 

[BokehKing]

This is the problem with having a feedback problem that only had 19k people. It's not a fair selection of people. I'm assuming a majority of those people are off of Halo Waypoint. Why didn't they just build a feedback program directly into the game? I am having a very hard time believing that only 11% of the people dislike sprint.

Even if you had 5 million people in the survey, sprint would still win, people have been pushing in L3 for far too long now to just strip it away from a fps

 

[VinFTW]

Data. Center. Selection.

 

[theSlacker]

I am having a very hard time believing that only 11% of the people dislike sprint.

I don't because I know that most people don't realize the game design implications of sprint, and just see it as "why would anyone not want to be able to run faster". Along with the fact that it is just how most modern FPSes are made so it is what people are use to.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Wow, sounding good. Now hopefully they make sure to polish it up so it doesn't launch like shit again.

 

[CrazedArabMan]

Pretty good, though I wish they would have reduced overall grenade damage a bit or starting nades, too much spamming in the beta. Hopefully when they finally announce their plans for BTB and the more open maps this shouldn't be as much of an issue.

 

[Ryde3]

I like the changes they're making, seems like they've been listening. Return of the original Rocket is also awesome.

I hope they change Breakout to have the same TTK as Slayer.

 

[lybertyboy]

Pretty good, though I wish they would have reduced overall grenade damage a bit or starting nades, too much spamming in the beta. Hopefully when they finally announce their plans for BTB and the more open maps this shouldn't be as much of an issue.

Increased movement speed should make a difference since the amount of distance you travel per frame is increased, making it easier to avoid grenade damage.

 

[Marjar]

Holy shit, they actually listened.

Halo 5 may actually have a chance.

 

[RoyalLaFlame]

Expect the final sequences to feature considerably fewer chest bumps and high fives.

Good good!

So you guys are really listening? Fantastic job 343i.

 

[Toa TAK]

Thank God we can turn off Spartan Chatter.

*Bring back the SPNKr Rocket Launcher as a legendary version of the weapon

Interesting, but glad it's back in either way.

Now how about that MCC?

 

[ProvenDeadly]

I like the increased movement speed, but 343 still has no idea why sprint absolutely ruins any promise this game has. Oh well. Time to go play my semi working collection of older games.

 

[kahboomkin]

Give me big team and team slayer playlists with no sprint/abilities and I'll actually buy it.

 

[KevinG]

Impressive. 343i have redeemed themselves.

But seriously, I'm impressed with this list. Looking forward to seeing campaign stuff now.

 

[Bolts-n-Rays1109]

Bravo for listening 343. These all sound like great changes that will make Halo 5 a great game later this year.

 

[Celestia]

Funny to see Blue team with the higher win rate.

 

[Wiseblood]

19k is pretty big sample group. A lot smaller would provide accurate statistics already.

But the results aren't what I want. It's clearly not accurate.

 

[kittens]

I'm glad they're making sprint optional. Now add in a custom games browser so those who prefer playing without sprint can do so in a variety of game types!

 

[Illusive_Juan]

Glad they are listening, but i'm probably in the minority as I liked the Spartan chatter. The announcer was terrible, tho.


Now if only they listened to community feedback about the master chief collection and fix that instead of promoting their next game.

Spoiler

I'm totally not still bitter

 

[GeordieMark]

It's a mistake to listen the fans too much. Like Steve Jobs said, people don't know what they want.

343i are supposed to be the game design experts. They should have a vision and sick to it instead of pandering to the fans.

 

[Nephtes]

Dammit! Nothing in there about new bumper jumper controls schemes that are sane... like Destiny's...


That's all I really wanted... :C

 

[JaggedSac]

I...actually like most of what they said there. Hell, it actually looks like they were lurking in the Halo Beta threads here on GAF.

 

[Radec]

does mcc work yet

probably not their priority.

and talking about MCC would be off topic on this thread.