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A Halogaf Community Thread: The Old Becomes New

Cutty Flam

Banned
I think Halo 5 is dogshit and I never want to see anything resembling it again in this franchise so long as I live.
Yeah. I think I saw some pictures of maps, and was thinking wtf, where is all the color? Looked like Halo 4 Forge maps basically

But I could have been mistaken. I only played on one map for like 10 minutes. And then I only looked at a few pics after that. That’s all I know about Halo 5. That, and the fact that it looked too similar to Halo 4 for comfort. So I didn’t even consider buying it
 

Havoc2049

Member
I enjoy the basic gameplay and movement of Halo 5, but the campaign was horrible. Hell, I think the episodic Spartan Ops campaign in Halo 4 was better than the Halo 5 campaign.

Outside of the 4v4 arena style gameplay in Halo 5 multiplayer, the overall multiplayer suite was lacking. I didn’t really enjoy Warzone and its pay to win or the more you play the better gear you have access to vibe that it had. There was no BTB at launch and the map selection was the worst out of all the Halo games and outside of a few maps, they all felt like amateur forge maps. 90% of the maps in Halo 5 are forgettable.

At least Halo 4 launched with a more complete multiplayer suite. I know people liked to bag on all the additions in the Infinity modes and weapon drops, but Halo 4 also launched with a Pro mode, which was more traditional Halo. The weapons and gunplay in Halo 4 also felt great, imo. The multiplayer map selection and design also felt very professional, fun to play and on par with past Halo games.
 
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My dream for next gen is a re-release of MCC with Halo 3 anniversary and all 5 games on disc 1-2 years after Infinite comes out. I wanna see those blur cutscenes fix those ugly characters in Halo 3.

I still don't like that Halo Infinite is using in-game graphics for its cutscenes instead of using blur. Its just weird that a Halo 2 remake has better looking cutscenes than a new Halo coming out in 2020.
 

Cutty Flam

Banned
My dream for next gen is a re-release of MCC with Halo 3 anniversary and all 5 games on disc 1-2 years after Infinite comes out. I wanna see those blur cutscenes fix those ugly characters in Halo 3.

I still don't like that Halo Infinite is using in-game graphics for its cutscenes instead of using blur. Its just weird that a Halo 2 remake has better looking cutscenes than a new Halo coming out in 2020.
What would be epic, is going through all the campaigns with a friend or more

I put in so much time and effort into Halo 3’s and Halo 4’s campaign was crazy
 
The first 30 seconds of the Marty music preview is insanely good, the whole track is solid but missing a bass line/drop.



Also that shit at 2mins is to die for.
 

Cutty Flam

Banned
Just learned next year is the 20th anniversary of Halo. Perfect time to release this re-release of MCC.
Can hardly believe it man. I remember reading about the game in Electronic Gaming Monthly and the praise behind it. Then soon enough my bro bought the xbox and Halo as well. Him and our friend played the campaign together while myself and our other friend played Gamecube and N64 games. I remember making fun of the broccoli enemy things that were in the ceiling attacking them lol

And then he bought Halo 2. It came with online. I watched him play and play with others and even befriend other people in different states. His first friend was a dude named “Ribeye” from the South. Forget which state but he was a cool dude, biggest redneck we ever met online lmao. But bless him man, that was a beautiful experience; the online Halo 2 days. Have more stories about that game than I could say in a week lol

Yeah dude, long live the Halo games. I hope they continue to keep it going strong for ages to come, renewing the greatness with Halo: Infinite
 
Yeah. I think I saw some pictures of maps, and was thinking wtf, where is all the color? Looked like Halo 4 Forge maps basically

But I could have been mistaken. I only played on one map for like 10 minutes. And then I only looked at a few pics after that. That’s all I know about Halo 5. That, and the fact that it looked too similar to Halo 4 for comfort. So I didn’t even consider buying it
The Multiplayer was actually top-notch. I enjoyed it very much and I disliked Halo 4.
 
Can hardly believe it man. I remember reading about the game in Electronic Gaming Monthly and the praise behind it. Then soon enough my bro bought the xbox and Halo as well. Him and our friend played the campaign together while myself and our other friend played Gamecube and N64 games. I remember making fun of the broccoli enemy things that were in the ceiling attacking them lol

And then he bought Halo 2. It came with online. I watched him play and play with others and even befriend other people in different states. His first friend was a dude named “Ribeye” from the South. Forget which state but he was a cool dude, biggest redneck we ever met online lmao. But bless him man, that was a beautiful experience; the online Halo 2 days. Have more stories about that game than I could say in a week lol

Yeah dude, long live the Halo games. I hope they continue to keep it going strong for ages to come, renewing the greatness with Halo: Infinite
I remember playing Halo 1 at my cousins house, I would be over everyday during the summer and we must have beat that game on legendary dozens of times. We'd rush in front of the other trying to get the most kills without dying. Playing the levels over and over we'd learn them better and better and could almost rush through with minimal deaths while competing with each other. Good times man.
Nowadays the games are balanced horribly on legendary and the only viable method is staying back and killing enemies at range with long distance guns....if you run and gun in Halo 4 or 5 your a dead man. I really hope 343 fixes the gameplay in their campaigns.
 

Cutty Flam

Banned
Regardless of my name I will still pick up Infinite. If ya ever remember, hit me up bro!
Will do man, hopefully you enjoy Big Team Battle hahahaha I'll lead the Revolution in that gametype. I just need a good Gamertag and I will reign over all the nub biscuits who dare to step in the arena
 

Cutty Flam

Banned
Bro BTB is my jam. Favorite mode in Halo ;)
Hell yeah. Will definitely be adding you to the ole friends list in that case. I'm really hoping they kill it with Halo: Infinite. I would be so disappointed if they bomb again like in Halo 4....I have no idea what to expect since I skipped Halo 5 out of sheer annoyance and disappointment with Halo 4
 

Cutty Flam

Banned
i still play a few games / night

don't like the way playlists are handled, too slow and narrowly focused
Plus they feel lonely too. They need to find a way to make it easier to see fiends, make friends, and start clans like Halo 2's system allowed for
 

Cutty Flam

Banned
Even Halo 3 in the early 360 days was pretty good. The new friends list for Xbox1 seems kind of lacking in the user friendly category imo
But take that with a grain of salt, because I've only played like 25 matches or so on the Xbox1
 
Even Halo 3 in the early 360 days was pretty good. The new friends list for Xbox1 seems kind of lacking in the user friendly category imo
But take that with a grain of salt, because I've only played like 25 matches or so on the Xbox1
My GT is Crazyc527 if anyone wants to play some Halo. Im chill as fuck and just want to have a good time
 
Whoa I think my notifications for this thread were turned off or something because I have not been in here in a while. I've taken a little break from halo but will surely get back into the swing of things. Hoping we finally get the curtains pulled off of Infinite in June. Aside from a community spotlight I missed, there hasn't been much news on halowaypoint. Here are some things posted within the last few days. Looks like Halo 2 isn't far away from releasing on PC.

Twitter Community Update thread:


Latest MCC Development update:

Steve Downes is pretty cool:
 
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I'm rusty AF with Halo and still getting used to my elite 2 controller paddles but got lucky to pull 2 flag on H3's Standoff last night. Oh the fun of winning with that flag cap of yours counter capping the enemy during a drawn game in sudden death overtime, and with a triple kill (nearly an ovy) flag run stopped to boot. Love it, Halo kicks fucking ass still.

 
Bleah. Had my heart set for June blowout. Just one more month though.



Teammate got that 4th kill, almost the overkill as the cherry.
That would have been icing on the cake lol. Ozzy are you still living in Australia? How have things been there for you? Stores open or are they asking people stay home? I've been working from home for the past 2 months. But I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have that option.
 

SCB3

Member
Holy shit the goosebumps. Why is there so few games that make you feel like a badass like Halo? The only one that I can even think of that came out this year is Doom Eternal.

I'd argue Destiny kinda does, but it also being Bungie is kinda cheating

Also are we really not gonna get 5 on PC, it feels weird not having it despite its flaws
 
That would have been icing on the cake lol. Ozzy are you still living in Australia? How have things been there for you? Stores open or are they asking people stay home? I've been working from home for the past 2 months. But I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have that option.

It went pretty full on shutdown for weeks/months. They closed the schools, bars, restaurants, retail business etc. Supermarkets remained open and takeaway food only. Work from home became a massive thing across the board as much as possible. Government paying out businesses and people losing their jobs e.g. $1500 a fortnight for people and funds for companies reducing turnover by 30%.

We could only have one visitor to our house at a time, 5 people to funerals etc. It got tight but we've stayed in front and are just now easing restrictions e.g. visitors at home, 5-10 sit down restaurants.

A few mates had their work hours and days reduced, some lost jobs entirely as well and I had about a 40% reduction of work in my company. It's workable in the short term.

There will be breakouts of infections as things are eased back and standard changes to how we live for a long time yet. We are now opening our internal borders for travel again but not international. Hopefully a vaccine or treatment decreases the fatality rate the world over.

For reference we have had about 100 deaths and 7000 infected to date from our population of 25 odd million.
 
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Yeah that's brutal. Everyone here is wondering what is going to happen once things reopen. Like will there be another outbreak that occurs. It sucks.

My sister lives in Pennsylvania and it's lockdown there too, they want things to reopen but without a proven treatment or vaccine I'm not so sure it's for the best.

On the other hand the economy needs to move at some rate of normalcy. Strange times, stay safe mate.
 
My sister lives in Pennsylvania and it's lockdown there too, they want things to reopen but without a proven treatment or vaccine I'm not so sure it's for the best.

On the other hand the economy needs to move at some rate of normalcy. Strange times, stay safe mate.
Thanks. You too. Yeah you can't let the economy completely crash, but you don't want to let everything go back to normal before the situation is under control either.

So this is cool. 343 continue to maintain interaction with the halo community with these tournaments and grassroots events. I don't play halo on PC, so not for me. But I'll be interested in following the teams.

 
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h00ters

Member
Bleah. Had my heart set for June blowout. Just one more month though.

Does anyone else get a little worried when they see that they've outsourced a bunch of development work to some other studios?

Is this commonplace now? I know back in the earlier days, Bungie outsourced the occasional piece of DLC to Certain Affinity but that was made up primarily of ex Bungie devs and was ran by Max Hoberman who led the multiplayer development for H2. But having a quick look at Sperasoft and Liquid.....I can't really see what, if any, affiliation they have with the Halo franchise.
 
Does anyone else get a little worried when they see that they've outsourced a bunch of development work to some other studios?

Is this commonplace now? I know back in the earlier days, Bungie outsourced the occasional piece of DLC to Certain Affinity but that was made up primarily of ex Bungie devs and was ran by Max Hoberman who led the multiplayer development for H2. But having a quick look at Sperasoft and Liquid.....I can't really see what, if any, affiliation they have with the Halo franchise.

Not really. Call of duty modern warfare outsourced warzone and that turned out really well. Outsourcing something doesn’t mean its gonna turn out badly, it just means that there’s not enough people to work on all of the features they want to implement for the game.

And quite frankly, some companies are just experts at something that you don’t necessarily have the qualifications for and don’t want to hire those people in-house.
 
I just thought of the one thing that would make me buy MCC on PC. If someone puts out a mod adding health packs to Halo 2 on legendary so its actually playable without instantly dying from some BS. I wish 343 had the balls to re-balance the game to bring it more in line with other Halo games, but they didn't touch it.
 
Always late on news these days but here is the most recent community update. At the very end there is a Halo Infinite section that got me all excited, but it's just confirmation that the game will be shown at Microsoft's July Xbox event lol.

 
Always late on news these days but here is the most recent community update. At the very end there is a Halo Infinite section that got me all excited, but it's just confirmation that the game will be shown at Microsoft's July Xbox event lol.



Can they just get back to 4v4 light vehicles slayer and objective without the fucking esports shit. Great for sandbox and weapon tuning but totally shafts the dominant popularity of Halo 1-3 and MCC. You can't even get most of the sweet maps and gametypes from the pools of matchmaking in MCC, it's so MLG/HCS focused it's atrocious. The same goes for this update, half of the update is once again all esports focused. They better have some PvE, campaign, "old school default, non MLG/HCS" maps and modes in Infinite or it too will see a razor focused population after the initial launch months.

EDIT: and....$25 for a H2A mouse pad, plus shipping. How about no.
$25 for a mouse pad, plus shipping. How about no.
 
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Pfhunkie

Member
Can they just get back to 4v4 light vehicles slayer and objective without the fucking esports shit.
It astonishes me that they haven't woken up to the fact that Halo was originally designed with the intent of being a party game enjoyed by a small group of players where "anything" can happen. That simple (emphasis on simple) gameplay design focused on having a small group of friends messing around in a sandbox with vehicles, weapons, and grenades is where the focus needs to be. If you can nail that experience, everything else can be built around it. You need that core experience to bring that special feel of Halo back so that you can have the player base to support an eSports scene.

To this day, nothing beats Halo 3's approach to its multiplayer sandbox because it focused so heavily on that. Even Forge was originally just seen as a way to move some weapons around and laugh while you crush people with a tank in editing mode.
 
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It astonishes me that they haven't woken up to the fact that Halo was originally designed with the intent of being a party game enjoyed by a small group of players where "anything" can happen. That simple (emphasis on simple) gameplay design focused on having a small group of friends messing around in a sandbox with vehicles, weapons, and grenades is where the focus needs to be. If you can nail that experience, everything else can be built around it. You need that core experience to bring that special feel of Halo back so that you can have the player base to support an eSports scene.

To this day, nothing beats Halo 3's approach to its multiplayer sandbox because it focused so heavily on that. Even Forge was originally just seen as a way to move some weapons around and laugh while you crush people with a tank in editing mode.

So true. It's nuts the core of Halo is gone since 343 took over. Literally the most popular and consistent modes, maps and game types were axed; not present in 4 or 5 at all.
 
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h00ters

Member
I would take a plain looking map with flat geometry that is fun to play over a gorgeous looking map that fits in perfectly with the lore and has ribbed walls with random shit hanging off of it that makes my grenades bounce in three different directions before landing.
 

Pfhunkie

Member
So true. It's nuts the core of Halo is gone since 343 took over. Literally the most popular and consistent modes, maps and game types were axed; not present in 4 or 5 at all.
I think the main problem is that they're finding inspiration in how to innovate the game from the wrong places. When Bungie looked for inspiration, they specifically targeted ways to enable players to customize their own experience. Halo 2 added more customization to game modes, more customization for their in-game identity, and there was even an attempt to make theater which was cancelled for Halo 2. Halo 3 brought in Forge, theater, more customization with the custom games, and equipment which was a feature that, while most didn't like, could be switched off if players were so inclined to. With Reach, they focused heavily on Forge, again increasing the abilities of the players to make their own fun experiences. The major thing they screwed up with in Reach was armor abilities being so baked into the gameplay that it pretty much had to be a thing in any of the stock maps.

If they couldn't realize the mistake that was to mess with the core combat design after Reach, it should have been painfully obvious with Halo 4. Combine that with the fact that the game isn't launching with those features that the past games had to lift up the player's abilities to create more engaging experiences, you're doomed.

I'd like to say it has me worried that they have consistently delayed features like Forge and Theater with every single release showing they don't understand how integral that is to the game but I'm past worried about it. Seeing a trailer or gameplay, no matter how good it looks, often leaves me excited for a few hours then the reality sets in. I've been let down too many times to trust anything that releases now will be as spectacular as Halo as a franchise deserves.

As a long time Halo PC player, I know that if they had announced Halo 1 through Reach were going to be releasing on Steam shortly before Halo 4 released, I would have literally been crying tears of joy. When they announced it now, I was excited but expected exactly what's happened so far to take place. It's a sad state of affairs.
 
I think the main problem is that they're finding inspiration in how to innovate the game from the wrong places. When Bungie looked for inspiration, they specifically targeted ways to enable players to customize their own experience. Halo 2 added more customization to game modes, more customization for their in-game identity, and there was even an attempt to make theater which was cancelled for Halo 2. Halo 3 brought in Forge, theater, more customization with the custom games, and equipment which was a feature that, while most didn't like, could be switched off if players were so inclined to. With Reach, they focused heavily on Forge, again increasing the abilities of the players to make their own fun experiences. The major thing they screwed up with in Reach was armor abilities being so baked into the gameplay that it pretty much had to be a thing in any of the stock maps.

If they couldn't realize the mistake that was to mess with the core combat design after Reach, it should have been painfully obvious with Halo 4. Combine that with the fact that the game isn't launching with those features that the past games had to lift up the player's abilities to create more engaging experiences, you're doomed.

I'd like to say it has me worried that they have consistently delayed features like Forge and Theater with every single release showing they don't understand how integral that is to the game but I'm past worried about it. Seeing a trailer or gameplay, no matter how good it looks, often leaves me excited for a few hours then the reality sets in. I've been let down too many times to trust anything that releases now will be as spectacular as Halo as a franchise deserves.

As a long time Halo PC player, I know that if they had announced Halo 1 through Reach were going to be releasing on Steam shortly before Halo 4 released, I would have literally been crying tears of joy. When they announced it now, I was excited but expected exactly what's happened so far to take place. It's a sad state of affairs.

I don't mind iterations on gameplay but it really went with a split of there is MLG or there is Warzone and nothing in between. I can live with abilities and sprint etc too, I like most of the H5 implementations over H4 but late life H4 actually had many things stripped back to core gameplay and was very enjoyable; the maps too were pretty great in the later DLC but got fuck all exposure and by then the population had pissed off anyway. The trouble with H5 was too many forge maps in place of developer curated maps and missing that "default" 4v4 and BTB experiences altogether in place of WZ or arena. I've always said I want custom games browser/filtering and to enable the community designs and developments of maps and gametypes to "level up" from the more successful forge/customs that arise to the studio getting hands on itself. This invests in what works and doesn't have to end up with straight up 50% forge maps in matchmaking either. It gives goals and rewards to the community content creators to take their content and run with it while showcasing and ensuring better results from studio resources on maps/modes being invested in. The studio is always free to have their own maps/mods and take on things as well, for a studio the size of 343 it feels really piss poor to constantly hear about the lack of resources or decisions to go a certain way instead of investing in smaller more agile teams to deliver. Look at Rare and Sea of Thieves with their split teams and release cycle of every 3 months. It's fucking AAA grade and way beyond what 343 has ever done. Game release wise the biggest goals 343 kicked were H4 graphics, H5 Firefight, H5 sandbox/weapons/movement/balance, WZ was partially a success, soundtracks and their Forge team.

I have to agree with the worry about 343 game releases and features, their track record is quite shit actually, there's some good stuff there but the stability and what they choose to focus on misses the mark every time. They literally have released broken product many times, lack features or direction that fans want and take a long time to fix things. They've taken a step back and gone all out with platform (Xbox Series X), game engine (slipspace) and studio (back to roots) but whether this works to transform from the curators of Halo to standing as a AAA first party studio making their own Halo to produce a genre leading/breaking game remains to be seen big time.

My Infinite wish list is this -
1. A fucking super stable and fast game, loads fast, matchmaking that just works (99.5% of the time). No more MCC, party chat, matchmaking bullshit problems. Sort it the fuck out.

2. A campaign that makes me want to replay it so many times like H1 & H2 did. Focus on Master Chief, fuck the Cortana stories, we've rescued her enough. Focus on Blue Team, simply take Nylund books and put that shit in game.

3. Massive investment in PvE/progression modes (not fucking grinding or RNG) that lead to end game sustain e.g. Destiny 2 strikes, raids, progression, coop online with a fireteam. There is a world of enjoyable "fair" online play that is just dying for Xbox/343 to showcase what Azure and Halo could deliver. This is where the new engine and studio pipeline needs to be churning content out every "season", they miss this sort of streamlined sustain of content and I'm fucking out with Halo. Screw waiting 5 years bullshit. Think constant releases of story, side stories, different playable characters, progression, procedural systems etc.

4. Fuck esports and fuck MLG/HCS. They've had game after game of focus and serious spotlight of resources invested from the studio and Halo in general. Time to shift gears back to what made Halo popular, default 4v4/BTB and having buddies play together. MLG/HCS were flow on communities from that, they're never as popular as the default game. We don't let grifball or action sack dictate the core Halo experience why the fuck do we enable esports to control the game and maps/modes? Bungie got sick of that shit too, it was always an in house cat fight between default and MLG, just like the community in fights still today (even Destiny still has competitive folk pushing devs left and right). Time for Halo to return to its roots, show me esports isn't the dominant player. MCC matchmaking pools currently highlight to me how little 343 is willing to make such moves, literally MLG/HCS maps and modes dominant the weightings and games you play. FFS halo 2 burial mounds doesn't even show up as a flag or bomb games, coagulation slayer ain't anywhere either. Pathetic and I could go on and on with examples of those. Mixer/Xbox pay Ninja what 25 MIllion. How many fucking Halo maps and modes could be developed for that? How many Forge contests to get designs/mods for the studio to work with could be run as cash price competitions. The lack of creativity worries me, it's very cookie cutter esports/streaming focus, let the content create that viral marketing not the marketing create the content.

5. Graphics and immersion in the Halo world that are basically like the UE5 demo. Fucking bring it Xbox/343, no excuses on the new hardware, engine and tools.

6. Multiplayer that is fair and consistent for an Australian to play and easy to use partying that always works. They focus on USA and/or esports again and I'm fucking out here as well. There's far better games to enjoy my time with these days. Look at games like Fortnite and Apex where there is so much to do besides just slayer engagements on a small esports map. The aspects of looting, hiding to win a game, squad strategy, filters for searching by your specific region etc etc. There is a huge catch up for Halo in this regard, 5 years have passed and other developers have enabled their entire playerbase and skill levels to enjoy their games beyond hyper communication and twitch aiming for gunfights of the 1%. Halo needs to balance the masses vs the highly skilled or multiplayer is going to have the same issues 10% top tier squads/players destroying the population within the first few months like Halo 4/5. PvE modes and replayable campaign curtail much of this but if multiplayer is a binary choice between all symmetrical MLG/HCS maps or little solo affect on a game in WZ for you and your buddies with little else to do then it's done, put a fork in Halo.

I totally agree with you that inspiration from the community and enabling them to fully mod/design/develop Halo is one of the keys to success. Bring it full circle where the goods funnel back into the studio for curation and Q&A for the masses to enjoy. At any time during H3-H5 had studios allowed the community to push things forward beyond basic console based Forge the popularity would have sky rocketed consistently. It's still painfully ironic MS owns Minecraft and doesn't understand the community content creating back to the masses cycle enough to fully exploit it.

Despite all my bitching here I do truly look forward to Infinite, I won't lie though and have to say 343 are on thin ice with this Halo fan and squad mates.
 
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h00ters

Member
Ozzy Onya A2Z Ozzy Onya A2Z Agree with your point on Party Chat. Halo 2 and early H3 lobbys were great, being able to trash talk opponents and work with your team (and proxy chat with H2). Party Chat killed all of that.

Also hear you on the Australian aspect. It really hurts to see what's happened with the Halo community here. I helped run the ACL Pro League for Halo during the H2 and H3 days. We had a fantastic and really active community which has all but died out now. Blocking us out of matchmaking is a massive part of this. Back then you'd almost exclusively play on US host in Matchmaking, but it forced you to become a better player given the massive disadvantage you were at. These days all I can do is play social with extremely wide preferences for gametypes.

Ultimately, the game just needs to be stripped back. It went too much in the way of the COD ADHD generation with instant gratification in terms of perks, unlocks, hit markers, XP, grenade indicators. H2 I still view as the pinnacle. Great maps, satisfying gunplay, and a real simplicity to the game that also had a high skill ceiling. H3 added great elements with Forge & Theatre, but at the same time introduced bullet spread on precision weapons and randomness with equipment.

When he was at 1up.com before heading to Bungie, Luke Smith penned a great article on some of the issues with the launch version of H2. He wrote: "Randomness is a poor substitute for tactics and skillful execution". Amen.
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z Ozzy Onya A2Z Agree with your point on Party Chat. Halo 2 and early H3 lobbys were great, being able to trash talk opponents and work with your team (and proxy chat with H2). Party Chat killed all of that.

Also hear you on the Australian aspect. It really hurts to see what's happened with the Halo community here. I helped run the ACL Pro League for Halo during the H2 and H3 days. We had a fantastic and really active community which has all but died out now. Blocking us out of matchmaking is a massive part of this. Back then you'd almost exclusively play on US host in Matchmaking, but it forced you to become a better player given the massive disadvantage you were at. These days all I can do is play social with extremely wide preferences for gametypes.

Ultimately, the game just needs to be stripped back. It went too much in the way of the COD ADHD generation with instant gratification in terms of perks, unlocks, hit markers, XP, grenade indicators. H2 I still view as the pinnacle. Great maps, satisfying gunplay, and a real simplicity to the game that also had a high skill ceiling. H3 added great elements with Forge & Theatre, but at the same time introduced bullet spread on precision weapons and randomness with equipment.

When he was at 1up.com before heading to Bungie, Luke Smith penned a great article on some of the issues with the launch version of H2. He wrote: "Randomness is a poor substitute for tactics and skillful execution". Amen.

You are my new man crush -

H2 I still view as the pinnacle.

Too right. Proxy chat was one of the best things in objective ever, sneaking into the enemy base for flag or bomb games and knowing when/where to make your run was one of the best things Halo ever had. Trash talking afterwards was the second best thing. Having them cut off from chat when you killed them was the third.

I'm all for the weapon balancing and movement being highly skilled e.g. ACL/HCS/MLG but not to the level of investment that went to the extent of completely removing "Default Halo". It's the maps and modes that core gameplay is then put into through developers choosing for players that bothers me the most. A battlefield style custom filters/toggle config for players/party leaders combined with an Apex/Azure region selection is light years in front of what 343 does with their matchmaking and selection pools of maps/modes/playlists. MCC has proven how skewed that is from the original games. I agree with you to reduce and focus is the way forward.

The beauty about the old CE/2/3 was that you could play MLG/ACL or default and have relatively little difference in the gameplay. You could jump between the playlists no worries. H4 and H5 removed that completely in favour of basically just arena and a social version of the same. Default of old school Halo should have been the social version. Friends in our group knew Benno and the few times I got to play against him and his usual friends in customs back in the day I was in awe of their skills; both solo and as a team. Fucking destroyed is the word. My friends and I never wanted to head into MLG/HCS still. I watched some streams and was approached to sponsor a few times but it's just never been where my/our interest lies. We wanted, and still want, Standoff 2 flag/bomb with light vehicles and BTB H2 ranked OBJ.

You are so on the money with great maps and simplicity. For example even bouncing grenades on The Pit from H3 vs say any map in H5 is hampered by too much geometry and therefor unpredictability or randomness. It's not needed. Bungie stuffed so many features into H3 all they really ever need to is make insanely good maps and modes while maintaining and improving networking and matchmaking for the community beyond USA. It's never been rocket science, developers and designers just get up their own asses and head down paths that aren't the least resistance for established franchises and fans. How Halo never got full blown PC editing/modding similar to Minecraft is beyond me.
 
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Morning storms knocked out the power. So I'm just sitting here on my phone with 10% battery life lol. I'm on nights and really want to go to sleep but I need mah fan!

Community spotlight posted last night:


MCC hotfix update:
 
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