Support NeoGAF

[willow ve]

Check both levels. The rockets are on the very bottom where the vehicles are if I remember right.



On the MP side, I just can't get away from the .500 middle ground.

Waypoint is confusing. How the hell do I access this stat/image?

Edit - It's under the War Games Matchmaking - which is only accessible through a popout menu on the left side of the screen. Who designed this interface?

 

[erpg]

a) For anything in life, you're not the only one. You're not even the only one in HaloGAF
b) I personally would not say it was completely forgettable, but it's flawed in some bafflingly obvious ways. I cannot understand some of the decisions, gameplay especially
c) As someone who has read what there is to read, a "fan of the universe", I was very let down by what they did with the

Spoiler

Didact & Librarian.

I'd love to write up a big review, breaking down the good and bad points of the game, but with family visiting tonight, and spending the weekend in London, I won't get a chance.

Dang, that's not what I wanted to hear. I was kind of hoping there was another layer that would have helped me enjoy the campaign a little more.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Waypoint is confusing. How the hell do I access this stat/image?

Edit - It's under the War Games Matchmaking - which is only accessible through a popout menu on the left side of the screen. Who designed this interface?

Not a pop-out on mine. You are on the "app" right?
https://app.halowaypoint.com/

It's under War Games Matchmaking, just on the main area.

I want old Waypoint back. Yeah, I said it.

I guess I'm confused at what people find so bad. The "app" shows all the stats in an easy to find manner. All your "types" down the left side and the stats in the main area. I like the look of it, and it runs so much better than old Waypoint.

Plus stats on SmartGlass are awesome.

 

[TheOddOne]

Edit - It's under the War Games Matchmaking - which is only accessible through a popout menu on the left side of the screen. Who designed this interface?

I want old Waypoint back. Yeah, I said it.

 

[Pop]

I want old Waypoint back. Yeah, I said it.

I want my k/d ratio in game. Why do I have to go through the trouble of digging deep within waypoint.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Dang, that's not what I wanted to hear. I was kind of hoping there was another layer that would have helped me enjoy the campaign a little more.

Well it might. I'm not you .

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

I want my k/d ratio in game. Why do I have to go through the trouble of digging deep within waypoint.

Its there in your service record.

 

[daedalius]

Scrubs complaining about enemies being super easy need to play on Legendary.

Also, look around for ammo. Its not hard to find.

Campaign spoilers, endgame

Spoiler

So that giant swirly mass underneath Didact was a slipspace portal (confirmed by Cortana when you come into the room)

Composer fires at Earth, and then you can very clearly see the camera pan down to witness the beam going into said portal.

Didact falls into the same portal after you stick him, and he doesn't give any fucks.

So basically you toss Didact into a portal where he just sent a few million composed humans.

He ain't dead, and he is going to have an army of new prometheans coming back with him.

Also Legendary ending... Chief first ascended human thanks to the Librarian?

 

[Yager]

I don't mind having only 5 maps if there's Haven. I could play it 30 times in a row without getting tired of it. Anyway, I also want to see the new maps, and I hope the do something similar with Forge maps as Bungie did in Reach (putting a couple of them on MM from time to time).

 

[FyreWulff]

I want old Waypoint back. Yeah, I said it.

Especially because you can't tell if a forum has new posts or not.

Then when you click down into a forum, every post has the same icon, regardless if it's old, new, or has new unread replies, and only shows the name of the thread creator next to it.

343 seems to like making people dig 2-3 levels deeper to discover information than they need to in-game and on their website.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

You guys really don't like this layout? I find it so much better than old Waypoint. Everything is right there on the left side as far as campaign/MP/SpOps, etc.

 

[Tunavi]

Right now I totally agree, hopefully I can say the same in a month!

I'm currently in a predicament.
I can't sleep because I want to play Halo 4, but I am too tired to play.
...first world problems.

fuck i had this same problem last night

 

[TheOddOne]

You guys really don't like this layout? I find it so much better than old Waypoint. Everything is right there on the left side as far as campaign/MP/SpOps, etc.

Problem is that much of the info buried in the menus could easly be done on one page, it does not need to be flashy with a big thumbnail. Sub link from the one page would also be much more efficient.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Problem is that much of the info buried in the menus could easly be done on one page, it does not need to be flashy with a big thumbnail. Sub link from the one page would also be much more efficient.

I can see that I guess. I just don't have issue with the current design. Either way works for me.

SmartGlass was pretty cool last night. Boot up Halo 4 on the Xbox and SmartGlass brings up your stats automatically.

 

[Continuity]

I am so bad at Slayer, I used to play exclusively on SWAT so I'm not used to having 6+ grenades hurled at me and having shields all over the place. I almost always get double-teamed by people, or I would win my one-on-one and get instantly eviscerated by 2 more guys because I've lost my shield. I guess this is what happens when you play with randoms as a random.

 

[Overdoziz]

You guys really don't like this layout? I find it so much better than old Waypoint. Everything is right there on the left side as far as campaign/MP/SpOps, etc.

.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

The amount of big team maps and smaller maps is out of proportion.

As small maps, we have:
-Haven
-Adrift
-Solace
-Abandon
-Complex (barely)

The other five maps are all for big team battle and Dominion. I think Valhalla appears in CTF and King of the Hill. 5 big maps maps for 2 playlists and 5 smaller maps for the rest. That doesn't seem right. There really need to be some more maps for slayer. Otherwise, these playlists will grow stale very quickly.

I can't believe I'm saying this but if there aren't enough small maps in DLC, 343 better start adding some forge maps to the playlists with the smaller maps.

 

[Pop]

The amount of big team maps and smaller maps is out of proportion.

As small maps, we have:
-Haven
-Adrift
-Solace
-Abandon
-Complex (barely)

The other five maps are all for big team battle and Dominion. I think Valhalla appears in CTF and King of the Hill. 5 big maps maps for 2 playlists and 5 smaller maps for the rest. That doesn't seem right. There really need to be some more maps for slayer. Otherwise, these playlists will grow stale very quickly.

I can't believe I'm saying this but if there aren't enough small maps in DLC, 343 better start adding some forge maps to the playlists with the smaller maps.

Yea that would be okay but first let them get the custom searching working. I wanna check out Pit and Guardian in H4.

 

[Reagan's BR]

Elzar where are you? We haven't played Halo 4 together yet.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

.

Bungie page gives you more stats up front in the list form, but there is still a ton of stuff "buried," just look at all the links on the left. I don't think either site is perfect.

 

[FyreWulff]

Didn't get your Halo 4 from Gamestop? Still want a Haven theme?

[EMAIL="

JHM3C-GC4FC-MHXMX-22THJ-7VWDZ
KHXVG-7YQ4G-6CVH4-VFV4Q-QYDGZ
KHPQX-3J7F7-T7YV4-FQV3P-VHH7Z
MXHQP-2Q4K9-4HXR4-9M346-D49HZ
4QGWW-JCGFP-JQF6X-CPFXP-P4GHZ
9VCVY-FY9H3-KDH4V-KRHKP-6WVRZ
TPFMF-PRYGM-KXRHG-3W433-F327Z
VRQXC-C2P3D-KW7H4-JVCFX-MXPCZ
Y4YW9-D6946-W2D6F-9X2HV-HDYPZ
F673K-QT3M6-7YDJW-PTWXW-FRYCZ

]quote
[/EMAIL]

 

[TheOddOne]

Bungie page gives you more stats up front in the list form, but there is still a ton of stuff "buried," just look at all the links on the left. I don't think either site is perfect.

Bungie website could use some streamlining, nobody is going to argue that, but it is way more efficient in giving basic fast need-to-know information then Waypoint now. Keep the simple stuff on one screen, so people can access them fast, and keep the lesser sections under links. Waypoint is just cumbersome in getting simple info fast.

 

[McNei1y]

Spoiler

So that giant swirly mass underneath Didact was a slipspace portal (confirmed by Cortana when you come into the room)

Composer fires at Earth, and then you can very clearly see the camera pan down to witness the beam going into said portal.

Didact falls into the same portal after you stick him, and he doesn't give any fucks.

So basically you toss Didact into a portal where he just sent a few million composed humans.

He ain't dead, and he is going to have an army of new prometheans coming back with him.

Also Legendary ending... Chief first ascended human thanks to the Librarian?

Spoilers:

Spoiler

this all makes sense. I never put two and two together. I remember Cortana saying that it was a slip space portal but it never came to my mind when Didact fell into it. It just escaped me. I thought the game was a good set up towards the next couple of games. I'm looking forward to some Forerunner history.

Campaign Endgame Questions:

Spoiler

1. What do you mean by "Chief first ascended human thanks to the Librarian?" I saw the Legendary ending but I'm confused at what you mean.

2. I like the idea of the humans being sent into the portal with the Didact... but how do we know the Composer took the people through the portal? I thought it either: A) dissolved them or B) started the Promethean process?

3. What are some ideas on the Cortana situation? She can't be gone.

4. Did they ever explain why the Covenant is working with the Didact? What I got from the game is that Chief and Cortana theorized that they are just a split group. The Covenant also seemed to know about the Didact and what it did, since they started working with him.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Bungie page gives you more stats up front in the list form, but there is still a ton of stuff "buried," just look at all the links on the left. I don't think either site is perfect.

It's everything from font to layout that I prefer how Bungie did it.
It's not perfect certainly, but I do think they did it better.

 

[pakkit]

I don't like the new Halo Waypoint layout at all, but it definitely seems to be optimised for tablets or phones. I can't access my in game history, and some of the better stat crunching that Bungie had (heat maps and more in-depth comparisons between players, for example) have been stripped.

343i's art team is incredible. I think next go around with Halo they'll have a new system to work on, and more time to finetune. For their first foray into the Halo universe, it's hard to disagree that Halo 4 isn't a great success. Whether it stands up to Bungie's legacy, however, is a different question. The fact that it's a difficult question to answer, even, shows how talented they are.

 

[Overdoziz]

Bungie page gives you more stats up front in the list form, but there is still a ton of stuff "buried," just look at all the links on the left. I don't think either site is perfect.

Yeah, but there's no dumb drop down or slide-in windows or whatever. There's links made up out of text instead of huge pictures. There's not a shitload of wasted space so that the stat page takes up the entire fucking page. You don't have to click in a box to scroll down.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcete-fucking-ra.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Yeah, but there's no dumb drop down or slide-in windows or whatever. There's links made up out of text instead of huge pictures. There's not a shitload of wasted space so that the stat page takes up the entire fucking page. You don't have to click in a box to scroll down.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcete-fucking-ra.

Yeah, I can see that I guess. I just have less issues with the new layout and think it looks a bit nicer and more modern. Different tastes I guess. Be nice if there were more in game though.

 

[GridironGrace]

loving the game, and the BR

 

[Poker Face]

Has anyone experienced a glitch where they change the difficulty to legendary...but feel like they're not playing on legendary?

Played through the game and wanted to watch the ending again but the legendary ending was different then what I saw. Got the achievements for legendary and everything.

Any ideas?

 

[daedalius]

Spoilers:

Spoiler

this all makes sense. I never put two and two together. I remember Cortana saying that it was a slip space portal but it never came to my mind when Didact fell into it. It just escaped me. I thought the game was a good set up towards the next couple of games. I'm looking forward to some Forerunner history.

Campaign Endgame Questions:

Spoiler

1. What do you mean by "Chief first ascended human thanks to the Librarian?" I saw the Legendary ending but I'm confused at what you mean.

Well, his eyes were all black and crazy looking; and he did get some sort of genetic recoding by the Librarian. I guess 'ascended human' isn't necessarily true, but it kind of ties into what Halsey said at the beginning, how her Spartans were the next step in genetic evolution.

2. I like the idea of the humans being sent into the portal with the Didact... but how do we know the Composer took the people through the portal? I thought it either: A) dissolved them or B) started the Promethean process?

It dissolves them and encodes their memories, or something like that, so they can be placed into the Promethean armor; I think this is explained more in the terminals. It seems very clear that the beam coming from Earth and going into the slipspace portal was very intentional, and we were supposed to see it. If it is, Didact just netted millions of new Promethean warrior drivers.

3. What are some ideas on the Cortana situation? She can't be gone.

Considering Didact called her a 'evolved ancilla' he probably grabbed a copy of her or something of that nature. It wouldn't surprise me if he fixes her and holds her prisoner to extract all the information about humanity from her.

4. Did they ever explain why the Covenant is working with the Didact? What I got from the game is that Chief and Cortana theorized that they are just a split group. The Covenant also seemed to know about the Didact and what it did, since they started working with him.

They think the Forerunners are their gods, and then the Didact comes out all 10 feet tall and encased in super armor, controlling an army of AI controlled killing machines. They WANT to work with the Forerunners.

Added my comments below your questions

 

[squidhands]

Spoilers:

Campaign Endgame Questions:

Spoiler

1. What do you mean by "Chief first ascended human thanks to the Librarian?" I saw the Legendary ending but I'm confused at what you mean.

2. I like the idea of the humans being sent into the portal with the Didact... but how do we know the Composer took the people through the portal? I thought it either: A) dissolved them or B) started the Promethean process?

3. What are some ideas on the Cortana situation? She can't be gone.

4. Did they ever explain why the Covenant is working with the Didact? What I got from the game is that Chief and Cortana theorized that they are just a split group. The Covenant also seemed to know about the Didact and what it did, since they started working with him.

Spoiler

1. The Librarian changed his DNA to be a human/Forerunner hybrid
2. I guess we don't really "know". I think the humans killed were digitized to be used as Promethean Knights. Kind of fucked up to think that a human consciousness is trapped inside one of those things.
3. I don't think she is. There has to be more to the whole splitting herself plot than just to screw up Didact's shields.
4. Covies think he's god.

 

[ElzarTheBam]

Elzar where are you? We haven't played Halo 4 together yet.

Oh we will. In time, young sir.

Send me a message if you're on sometime today.

 

[Tawpgun]

So on what day do we get a new SpOps episode?

 

[Tha Robbertster]

How do you watch the stats of other players from waypoint? I can't find it anywhere.

 

[Havok]

You guys really don't like this layout? I find it so much better than old Waypoint. Everything is right there on the left side as far as campaign/MP/SpOps, etc.

Okay, now try to find any data that's not on the service record for a different player by typing their name where yours is in the address bar.

You can't. Your view of their data is restricted to their service record which for whatever reason displays some of the strangest, most undesired choices of player data that I've seen. Their commendation progress, where it shows just the progress towards the current level of the commendation? The number of loadout items they've bought? Nobody ever wanted to use that data when looking a player up. Fact is, you can't see kills, deaths, assists for anyone other than yourself. Waypoint's performance is way better now, and I tend to like the layout better than before, but the actual data presented is not up to par.

How do you watch the stats of other players from waypoint? I can't find it anywhere.

:\

 

[Tha Robbertster]

:\

Lol.

It is pretty stupid that we keep losing features from previous games (and in this case, from Bungie.net and waypoint pre-update). I at least expected Halo 4 to be on par with Reach, feature whise. Let's hope a TU will fix a lot of these things soon.

 

[squidhands]

So on what day do we get a new SpOps episode?

Should hit in the wee hours of the morning on Monday every week.

.

 

[TheOddOne]

Lol.

It is pretty stupid that we keep losing features from previous games (and in this case, from Bungie.net and waypoint pre-update). I at least expected Halo 4 to be on par with Reach, feature whise. Let's hope a TU will fix a lot of these things soon.

I'm going to be a dick and say we won't. We will get table scraps at best.

 

[Tawpgun]

.

Sounds good. Thanks.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

I'm going to be a dick and say we won't. We will get table scraps at best.

The list CyRen posted a few pages back sounded really good. If they do 2 TU's, one when the first DLC is released or soojn after and one in the first quarter of 2013 (the one that implements the ''ranking'' system), that should keep me happy. Plus some of those changes, like putting in static weapon spawning and extra playlists, don't even require a TU.

 

[WJD]

Everyone votes for Ragnarok. Fuck democracy.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

What perks are you guys using? I found myself using faster reload and faster shield recharge last night a lot.

 

[Tawpgun]

Still really sucks SpOps has input lag...

 

[Not a Jellyfish]

Anyone want to party up and do our best to not play Ragnarok?

 

[MrDaravon]

What perks are you guys using? I found myself using faster reload and faster shield recharge last night a lot.

Were you noticing a big difference in your shield recharge rate? I swear shields recharge a lot slower in this game. I've been using the mobility one that lets you sprint forever in that slot.

 

[Devin Olsen]

Am I the only one who thinks it is a bit odd to have the layout look like this.

It is hard to word it properly, but I think that the color on the circle graph needs to be on the side corresponding with it. Meaning Game Victories should be on the right side and Defeats on the left.... Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[Overdoziz]

Still really sucks SpOps has input lag...

And because of the respawn system there's virtually no challenge in beating the missions, it's just a matter of how fast you can finish it. Such a disappointment.

 

[The Librarian]

Just finished Reclaimer, and it's the best goddamn mission in the game by a country mile.

The whole concept and setup is very unique to a Halo game. It was so refreshing.

But it's not just the concept that makes the level great – the quality of the encounters takes a significant leap. And there's a reason for that – their design is very much like Halo 3's. And this isn't more apparent than after

Spoiler

the player meets the Librarian and steps outside to the sprawling battle with the two tanks, the Warthog, and the mongoose with rockets. It was harkening back to the battle outside the Cartographer on The Ark. They even had Pete Stacker yelling, "Form up on the Chief! Second line clear, move forward!" Halo 4 was screaming "Halo 3!" at you by that point. Despite their similarity, the execution was different, so it still felt new.

They lend themselves to a huge portion of the Halo sandbox and give the player so many options. I can't wait to go back and tackle those encounters in different ways.

It's the only level in the game that didn't make me feel tired and is if the game were on auto pilot and just going through the motions. Despite the poor feedback system in the game, it was the first time in Halo 4 where I was feeling that moment-to-moment progression of past Halo games. I was feeling that "thirty seconds of fun" again. That flow was there again. And, again, that's probably because it was emulating Halo 3.

The level ramps up in unexpected and satisfying ways,

Spoiler

like taking down that new Covenant drop ship, and it had a fantastic atmospheric moment inside that Forerunner structure.

Some nitpicks:

Spoiler

1. Jumping out of the Covenant dropship would've been cooler if you didn't have any fall damage. Come on, 343. Get rid of it.
2. Inside the Forerunner structure, Cortana says something to the effect of, "Sentinels seem to be leading us somewhere." I don't think that line was necessary because it was pretty obvious to me, through the subtle use of the HUD and your reticule turning "green" when you placed it over the sentinel, that something different was up.
3. I am so confused by what was revealed between the Librarian and the Chief, but I was having so much fun with the level, I don't care at this point. I'll sort it out later.
4. Halo 4 has problems with distributing enough ammo to the player. It was bothering me when fighting upwards inside the Forerunner structure.
5. What would've made the "The Ark"-like portion even better was if there was some appropriate music to get your blood pumping. I was fooled for a second there in thinking that the Halo theme would come in. Of course that didn't happen, but there was no satisfying music in its place.

My perception of the quality of this level could be a bit skewed given that the past four levels haven't been...good, but if anything, this level has given me the push to see the game through to its completion. The setup for mission six looks damn interesting as well.

There's hope.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Okay, now try to find any data that's not on the service record for a different player by typing their name where yours is in the address bar.

You can't. Your view of their data is restricted to their service record which for whatever reason displays some of the strangest, most undesired choices of player data that I've seen. Their commendation progress, where it shows just the progress towards the current level of the commendation? The number of loadout items they've bought? Nobody ever wanted to use that data when looking a player up. Fact is, you can't see kills, deaths, assists for anyone other than yourself. Waypoint's performance is way better now, and I tend to like the layout better than before, but the actual data presented is not up to par.

:\

While pretty much everything you say is true, you can see the number of kills a player has for their most played variant along with their K/D ratio for it. Not that completely makes it better, but you can at least get a little bit of an idea on how a person plays. Seems to me like waypoint was designed with the sole intent of it being viewed through mobile devices. The original Bungie page had way too much on the main page to view from the screen of a phone.

 

[squidhands]

I sincerely hope something can be done to affect the length of the Spartan Ops missions for co-op.

Chapter 1: 8:34
Chapter 2: 6:28
Chapter 3: 8:34
Chapter 4: 5:50
Chapter 5: 7:33

I guess these average out to be the length of a regular matchmaking game, but it should be closer to campaign/firefight lengths in my opinion. The difficulty needs to be ratcheted up to Legendary with 4 people playing so it doesn't feel like some sort of speed-run.