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Halo 5 getting its biggest update soon, thoughts on post release support?

Akai__

Member
I'm actually really really surprised that people like the post launch support so much. Is it because it's free or do you guys actually value the updates? Like, what do you guys love so much about the updates? I'm just curious and want to understand.

Here is what I actually liked from the updates:

- Forge stuff. Absolutely amazing.
- File Browser.
- UI update with Post Carnage Reports and Medals
- I guess Firefight was fun for a couple rounds. Suffers from the bad teammates syndrome and very very bad spawns, due to not being able to choose where you want to spawn. Also doesn't really feel like Firefight at all.
- A couple REQ weapons/vehicles and some Armor/Helmet customization. The other 99% was pretty useless stuff.
- Stasis and Mercy as Arena maps. The only maps that feel like they actually belong in Arena and have competetive'ness in mind.
- Guess Infection, Assault and Grifball were also fun for some weeks.

But even then... The list has stuff on it that should have been in the game to begin with or stuff that was built from the ground up for the 3rd time (looking at you File Browser). Don't understand me wrong. I still had fun with the game. Getting to Onyx with 3 other friends and playing fair games (for the most part) was fun. But stuff like Dedicated Servers (pros lagging out in a "LAN" tournament), terrible Playlist Management, Stupid Game bugs like Ghost Melee, Stats like Damage still being broken after all these months, the god awful aim system and various other little things, is what ultimately made me stop playing this game. I'm barely touching the game since like September, I believe.

I seriously hope that 343i looks closely at Halo 5 and uses it as a base for Halo 6. If Halo 6 launches without all this stuff that they came up with, it would just be incredibly disappointing.

---

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to this update, though... Because we will finally have something that people asked for for YEARS. The Custom Game Browser. But I hope 343i doesn't use the CGB as base for Social Matchmaking and removes official Social Matchmaking. I don't want to have an other BF3 situation, where people kick and ban you from their game, because you are too good, too bad, don't play like they want you to or whatever there else is that they can come up with.

Anyways, I wish 343i (and their fans of course) good luck and fun with it. Hopefully it ends up in people returning to the game. I know that I will check it out again and who knows. Maybe I will stay longer than I think I will.
 
Considering the game is before the update 92gb, you can't argue the lack of support. I just feel bad for anyone who buys it now.
 

Euron

Member
Wow those are some incredible updates, particularly the Custom Games Browser. Seeing Race return will bring so much potential for Forge. I wish I still had an Xbox One to play this.
 

gweemz

Member
I would like to see them give us more game types in Team Arena. 6 maps and 3 different games gets boring, especially when some maps only have one game type associated with them. I still don't understand why they released assault and then took it away again.
 
What do you even mean by "fine tuning the aiming away from the mlg pro crap".

The aiming is not intuitive with that pro team at the helm made it so finicky and imprecise. Long range the guns are pretty easy to hit someone with but strafing across and following someone is the hardest it's ever been in the series. In halo 3 you have to lead your shots and I was perfectly comfortable with that, not in this installment. Not to mention why is so damn hard to hit someone up close like in Halo 1 with anything but an AR? I feel like my gun is locked in a tighter box the closer someone gets. I'm not alone in this either, the very fact they are still fixing their aiming in an update over a year later and others have similar sentiments shows just that.
 

Rodelero

Member
Their post launch support has been excellent, exactly what the game needed. That said, the maps still leave a lot to be desired.

This post seems like a contradiction to me. If the actual content is poor, either in quality or quantity, then the support is failing its main objective. Too little variety, too little originality.

How many actual maps does Arena have now, once you cancel out the variants (like Empire) and the horrid Forge maps? Have they reached ten yet? Their content pipeline seems like a cost saving initiative relative to most shooters.

Halo 5s support is doing everything but the thing that really matters. I think the playlist situation leaves a lot to be desired too.
 

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
I'll you have to pay to host a browsable server on Azure, or are they P2P?
 
This post seems like a contradiction to me. If the actual content is poor, either in quality or quantity, then the support is failing its main objective. Too little variety, too little originality.

How many actual maps does Arena have now, once you cancel out the variants (like Empire) and the horrid Forge maps? Have they reached ten yet? Their content pipeline seems like a cost saving initiative relative to most shooters.

Halo 5s support is doing everything but the thing that really matters. I think the playlist situation leaves a lot to be desired too.

I think what he means is, the regularity of the updates and amounts of it has been amazing. I logged in everytime there was one. I dont think that means that all of it was perfect. Like for example, having core gametypes part of those updates.

But i think if 343 continue on this path with 6, but with better maps and original gametypes, i dont think anyone would complain. Support has been amazing.

Map designers are a different problem.

edit: and tbh, i never expected 343 to support halo5 for this long and with the type of stuff they are adding, like a custom games browser??? You would have asked me if that was a possibility when halo5 came out, i would have said not in a million years. So theyve done a great job. Really surprised a lot of people im sure
 

FireFly

Member
- I guess Firefight was fun for a couple rounds. Suffers from the bad teammates syndrome and very very bad spawns, due to not being able to choose where you want to spawn. Also doesn't really feel like Firefight at all.
I haven't really had an issue with spawns since they made some of the balance changes. You shouldn't be dying much more than once per round, anyway. Currently, some of the rounds are a bit too easy (eg. last round on Apex 7) and some are broken (Banshees at level 2). But I win about 50% of my games, so there is still a good tension. It is not like the old firefight, but it is not intended to be.
 

Kill3r7

Member
This post seems like a contradiction to me. If the actual content is poor, either in quality or quantity, then the support is failing its main objective. Too little variety, too little originality.

How many actual maps does Arena have now, once you cancel out the variants (like Empire) and the horrid Forge maps? Have they reached ten yet? Their content pipeline seems like a cost saving initiative relative to most shooters.

Halo 5s support is doing everything but the thing that really matters. I think the playlist situation leaves a lot to be desired too.

I think what he means is, the regularity of the updates and amounts of it has been amazing. I logged in everytime there was one. I dont think that means that all of it was perfect. Like for example, having core gametypes part of those updates.

But i think if 343 continue on this path with 6, but with better maps and original gametypes, i dont think anyone would complain. Support has been amazing.

Map designers are a different problem.

edit: and tbh, i never expected 343 to support halo5 for this long and with the type of stuff they are adding, like a custom games browser??? You would have asked me if that was a possibility when halo5 came out, i would have said not in a million years. So theyve done a great job. Really surprised a lot of people im sure

Ditto.
 

jem0208

Member
How many actual maps does Arena have now, once you cancel out the variants (like Empire) and the horrid Forge maps?
This right here show you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Discounting “variants” when Empire and Eden are probably the two most disimiliar maps in the game is ridiculous. They share an art style and some geometry but they play completely differently.


The same can be said for all the remix maps. Every single one plays very differently.


So H5 has 15 arena maps not including the 5 forge canvases.
 
I'm actually really really surprised that people like the post launch support so much. Is it because it's free or do you guys actually value the updates? Like, what do you guys love so much about the updates? I'm just curious and want to understand.

Here is what I actually liked from the updates:

- Forge stuff. Absolutely amazing.
- File Browser.
- UI update with Post Carnage Reports and Medals
- I guess Firefight was fun for a couple rounds. Suffers from the bad teammates syndrome and very very bad spawns, due to not being able to choose where you want to spawn. Also doesn't really feel like Firefight at all.
- A couple REQ weapons/vehicles and some Armor/Helmet customization. The other 99% was pretty useless stuff.
- Stasis and Mercy as Arena maps. The only maps that feel like they actually belong in Arena and have competetive'ness in mind.
- Guess Infection, Assault and Grifball were also fun for some weeks.

But even then... The list has stuff on it that should have been in the game to begin with or stuff that was built from the ground up for the 3rd time (looking at you File Browser). Don't understand me wrong. I still had fun with the game. Getting to Onyx with 3 other friends and playing fair games (for the most part) was fun. But stuff like Dedicated Servers (pros lagging out in a "LAN" tournament), terrible Playlist Management, Stupid Game bugs like Ghost Melee, Stats like Damage still being broken after all these months, the god awful aim system and various other little things, is what ultimately made me stop playing this game. I'm barely touching the game since like September, I believe.

I seriously hope that 343i looks closely at Halo 5 and uses it as a base for Halo 6. If Halo 6 launches without all this stuff that they came up with, it would just be incredibly disappointing.

---

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to this update, though... Because we will finally have something that people asked for for YEARS. The Custom Game Browser. But I hope 343i doesn't use the CGB as base for Social Matchmaking and removes official Social Matchmaking. I don't want to have an other BF3 situation, where people kick and ban you from their game, because you are too good, too bad, don't play like they want you to or whatever there else is that they can come up with.

Anyways, I wish 343i (and their fans of course) good luck and fun with it. Hopefully it ends up in people returning to the game. I know that I will check it out again and who knows. Maybe I will stay longer than I think I will.
I feel like alot of people who are praising them are new to the series, or just dont realize how much content was left out of the game at day one.
Like forreal they had to patch in post game carnage report lmao, and im sure you still cant talk in the pre game lobby game chat.
 

DesertFox

Member
I haven't hopped on Halo 5 in probably 10 months. I loved the multiplayer, and I felt that it was some of the best multiplayer in the series since Halo 2.

However, the REQ system really tempered my excitement for all of these free releases. I bought pack after pack after pack just trying to get the armor set that I wanted in the vanilla game. Let alone how much time it would take to unlock all the cool new stuff they add in each update.

The RNG packs to access the cosmetics and weapons for Warzone really killed it for me. If there was simply a way to guarantee an unlock, I wouldn't feel like I was completely wasting my time.
 

E92 M3

Member
I have zero problems with aiming. My deadzones are set to zero, aim acceleration is set to 2 and I have my vertical+horizontal sensitivity matched (7). Try something like that. I've never witnessed input lag, though not saying it doesn't exist. Also the game has been out for 14 months, pretty shy of 2 years.

The mechanisms behind the aiming model are SIGNIFICANTLY different when compared to previous Halo games and all other console shooters. If you only play Halo 5, sure you can get used to it within a month or 2 (which inherently laughable), but overall it's very bad. I can pick up any old Halo game and get back to slaying within 10-15 minutes.

Good luck doing it with Halo 5.
 

Theorry

Member
I haven't hopped on Halo 5 in probably 10 months. I loved the multiplayer, and I felt that it was some of the best multiplayer in the series since Halo 2.

However, the REQ system really tempered my excitement for all of these free releases. I bought pack after pack after pack just trying to get the armor set that I wanted in the vanilla game. Let alone how much time it would take to unlock all the cool new stuff they add in each update.

The RNG packs to access the cosmetics and weapons for Warzone really killed it for me. If there was simply a way to guarantee an unlock, I wouldn't feel like I was completely wasting my time.

I understand your points but overall i prefer this kind of system then paid maps etc
Maybe they should for Halo 6 work abit more with a scraps system where you can buy specfic stuff. But the overall feeling of getting enough packs is pretty great imo. Almost at the end of every match i have something to open. Wich is pretty fun.
 
The mechanisms behind the aiming model are SIGNIFICANTLY different when compared to previous Halo games and all other console shooters. If you only play Halo 5, sure you can get used to it within a month or 2 (which inherently laughable), but overall it's very bad. I can pick up any old Halo game and get back to slaying within 10-15 minutes.

Good luck doing it with Halo 5.
Yup. To add to this, this game is strange in that if you don't play for a couple of days, suddenly your aim is garbage when you play again. For other shooters I could take breaks for months and still play fine when I come back to it.
 

jem0208

Member
The mechanisms behind the aiming model are SIGNIFICANTLY different when compared to previous Halo games and all other console shooters. If you only play Halo 5, sure you can get used to it within a month or 2 (which inherently laughable), but overall it's very bad. I can pick up any old Halo game and get back to slaying within 10-15 minutes.

Good luck doing it with Halo 5.

I jump back and forth between a variety of different shooters and Halo 5 with minimal problems.
 
The mechanisms behind the aiming model are SIGNIFICANTLY different when compared to previous Halo games and all other console shooters. If you only play Halo 5, sure you can get used to it within a month or 2 (which inherently laughable), but overall it's very bad. I can pick up any old Halo game and get back to slaying within 10-15 minutes.

Good luck doing it with Halo 5.

I was reading that the reticle lag has to do with the connection to the server. Maybe that's why I didn't notice. There's certainly less auto aim on weapons, especially the pistol which should be the gun everyone should master. When I go back to MCC it feels easier, but when I go back to 5 I don't feel that it's worse.
 

jem0208

Member
So what is the problem with Halo 5 aim then?

Honestly, we're not sure. There seems to be some form of input lag which can cause the reticule to feel quite heavy. This seems to be quite variable though and is potentially dependant on your connection to the server which is bizarre.

People are also going to bring up the sudden jump in aim speed. However, they don't realise every Halo title has had a sudden jump similar to that. 5's is just slightly more pronounced. That said you can mitigate most of that issue with the deadzone controls.


Also when I say I have minimal problems I do notice that it's a bit weird but it just doesn't bother me.
 

psyfi

Banned
I know Halo 5 isn't perfect, and I get peoples' complaints, but the game is so damn good that it's hard for me to sweat the small stuff. But I also play nothing but Arena, and I only use REQs for cosmetics, so a lot of the stuff mentioned doesn't effect me.
 
The mechanisms behind the aiming model are SIGNIFICANTLY different when compared to previous Halo games and all other console shooters. If you only play Halo 5, sure you can get used to it within a month or 2 (which inherently laughable), but overall it's very bad. I can pick up any old Halo game and get back to slaying within 10-15 minutes.

Good luck doing it with Halo 5.

It took me a long time to get used to it. In fact i was doing terrible until their last update to it. But yeah, the controls were really screwed up. I never struggled with halo controls until 5.
 
Wait the full fledged game is on PC? Or why are folks getting excited about all this?
Only Forge and Custom games are on PC. So with this update, now you'll be able to join peoples lobbies with a custom game browser. Sorta like a server browser in other games

Keep in mind that Halo 5 is free on PC. You're essentially getting a f2p halo with no downsides of f2p games
 

OneUh8

Member
Got to hand it to 343 for their post launch support. One of the best if not best support I have ever seen of a game.
 

Theorry

Member
Honestly, we're not sure. There seems to be some form of input lag which can cause the reticule to feel quite heavy. This seems to be quite variable though and is potentially dependant on your connection to the server which is bizarre.

People are also going to bring up the sudden jump in aim speed. However, they don't realise every Halo title has had a sudden jump similar to that. 5's is just slightly more pronounced. That said you can mitigate most of that issue with the deadzone controls.


Also when I say I have minimal problems I do notice that it's a bit weird but it just doesn't bother me.

Oke that sounds weird yeah. Must say i play it but not crazy much that i feel something is off. Got used to it after a while like with every game. But hopefully they fix something for the people who have problems.
 
I'll check out for the Reach Grenade Launcher, see how long it can keep my interest away from TitanFall 2.

I mostly play BTB and Warzone since the Arena maps have been so poor.
 

-Ryn

Banned
I really hope they have all of this stuff as Launch features in Halo 6. Perhaps then, we can begin to rebuild.

The only good thing about Reach is back babayyyy
(the UI was good too)
wake-me-up-halo.gif
 

DesertFox

Member
I understand your points but overall i prefer this kind of system then paid maps etc
Maybe they should for Halo 6 work abit more with a scraps system where you can buy specfic stuff. But the overall feeling of getting enough packs is pretty great imo. Almost at the end of every match i have something to open. Wich is pretty fun.

Yeah I agree. All they need is a scrap system and I think the issues I have with the REQ system would largely be resolved. If that were in... I'm pretty sure I'd have enough scraps by now to make everything I want.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
Some slight news on the server browser

Ske7ch343 said:
I admittedly haven't been able to use the feature first-hand (there aren't a plethora of custom games to join in the internal dev environment) but from what I've seen in screens and heard from the team it looks like the search fields can get pretty granular so you should be able to avoid that kind of thing.
 

Moofers

Member
I'm a big fan of Halo 5 and it all came from their decision to bring in Firefight to Warzone. I got the game earlier this year and have been thoroughly impressed with it. I plan to be there for Halo 6 on day one. For me, the series is back and as strong as ever. Don't get me wrong, its a bit different now as I don't love the direction with Cortana in the story, but at the end of the day it is a super fun game and that's what matters most to me. Halo is back as far as I'm concerned.
 
If they actually did fix the aiming (completely garbage IMO) then i'll be legit stoked AF!

That paired with custom game browser... whelp i know what i'll be playing a ton of soon. Completely surprised but very, very excited if i can play H5 without it feeling different than any other FPS i've ever played. Even with all the tweaks and an Elite controller. Such a shame this all wasnt there/addressed around launch though.
 
i think halo 5 launched with a great, awesome, pretty perfect new movement system. halo 5 felt fun to play again. i loved what they had.

but it was devoid of content. these updates have been awesome, and have changed that.

now if 343 can launch halo 6 without "uhh well big team battle isnt in there yet" and the like, i'll be ecstatic for the series. launch with the features you have NOW in halo 5. Just please dont regress
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
Reach = best Halo campaign. Come at me.

it was solid, but taking place exclusively on a human planet (and very briefly in space) made it dull. there was no sense of wonder or discovery --- one of my favorite things in a halo game.
 

Rodelero

Member
This right here show you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Or what you're inferring my opinion from a simple question that you didn't answer.

Discounting “variants” when Empire and Eden are probably the two most disimiliar maps in the game is ridiculous. They share an art style and some geometry but they play completely differently.

The same can be said for all the remix maps. Every single one plays very differently.

I simply don't feel, having played Halo 5 for several months, that remixes are as valuable as genuine new maps. Leaving aside that they often look similar, and that segments of them tend to play similarly, I simply feel that remixing is a poor route to creating a good set of varied and high quality maps, and I submit as evidence the lack of quality and variety in Halo 5's maps. Compared to the range you see in previous Halo games, it's a bit underwhelming in my opinion. Obviously, the range of the maps is hugely hampered by 343i's heinous decision to remove vehicles from the game's core modes, presumably in some deluded attempt to court Call of Duty and eSports fans.

As for the remixes - you are right to say that Eden and Empire play differently, they do, but I tend to feel that one of them is the better map (Eden), and one has been put together from its pieces (Empire). Empire's Stronghold B is a singularly poor piece of map design, and I can't help but wonder if it's due to them trying to get two maps out of one.

Ultimately, I'd prefer two original maps two an original map and a remix of it. I suspect everyone would agree. I'd go further and say that I'd prefer three original maps to two original maps and two remixes of them.

So H5 has 15 arena maps not including the 5 forge canvases.

Or nine, not including the remixes, I believe.
 

E92 M3

Member
Yup. To add to this, this game is strange in that if you don't play for a couple of days, suddenly your aim is garbage when you play again. For other shooters I could take breaks for months and still play fine when I come back to it.

Indeed, it's such a weird phenomon that's hard to quantify.

I jump back and forth between a variety of different shooters and Halo 5 with minimal problems.

Consider yourself lucky, my friend.

I was reading that the reticle lag has to do with the connection to the server. Maybe that's why I didn't notice. There's certainly less auto aim on weapons, especially the pistol which should be the gun everyone should master. When I go back to MCC it feels easier, but when I go back to 5 I don't feel that it's worse.

It certainly has nothing to do with aim assist (play a variety of shooters with varying levels). I wish it wasn't so difficult to explain haha.

It took me a long time to get used to it. In fact i was doing terrible until their last update to it. But yeah, the controls were really screwed up. I never struggled with halo controls until 5.

Yeah, even Halo 4 functioned as expected.
 
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