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[NullPointer]

Oh I can agree with this, and I always found it odd MS didn't wait one more year for the new console to showcase the new trilogy, but some of the "it can't be hard to make right" just gets to me a bit.

Well 343 nailed the moment to moment feel, and showed that the 360 still could be tapped properly to produce some amazing effects. On that note I'd say it was worth it.

There have been a shitton of lists here detailing the game's flaws, and I agree with most of them, just not the end verdict that the game is irredeemable, broken, or unplayable. And now that I understand these gripes better I think that most of them are fixable without ditching what 343 has brought to the table on their own. But then again flinch and undroppable flags aren't make or break for me. We'll see though.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

The funny thing is, I got a really badass DVD with Halo 2 that showed me what a struggle development was for that game. 343, you missed a huge opportunity to show what Halo 4's development was from the conception of the studio, seeing the studio growth, seeing key members making tough decisions, showing your obstacles etc etc. I think everyone would have enjoyed seeing that.

"Ughh we have to make do with 2011 Herman Miller Aeron's M$ couldn't even get us the new models, our backs are so sore."

 

[OrangeOak]

There is still "servers unavailable" information in playlist selection screen, my spartan has turned into default one and when im searching for matches from default playlists it shows that i'm rank 1 but I was 50 today.
Do I have something to worry about or is this normal ?

 

[Plywood]

AAA is a measure of budget, not perceived quality. So it is a AAA game. It cost a bunch to make.

As for the rest, there's no way we can know how development went. Not sure what people are assuming, that 343 was just sitting around the whole time? There were obviously some challenges that lead to it not being as easy as you seem to think it should be. That's what gets me, people are sitting here assuming that "surely it's easy to make this game, Bungie gave them the tools!" but we really have no idea what 343 got, what state it was in, how it fit into Halo 4, what had to be done to the tools/code/engine, or ANYTHING at all about the development, because we don't work at 343. We can't just assume "oh, Bungie did it, and they gave 343 the tools, so it should have been easy to get Firefight in right?"

The rest of your notes are opinions more or less. Ones that I can accept, but disagree with. Things like campaign length, etc.

As for fixes, show me a massive AAA game with this huge of an online community that doesn't have issues that need patched after launch. Blops 2 has major issues right now. Not an excuse, and they could have ironed out some of the early stuff with a beta, but you can't act like it doesn't happen.

AAA has always meant high quality with a high budget, at least to me.

You say we do not know what they received and yet you paint the picture of difficulty, it works both ways. You could also be clearer on what you disagree with besides campaign length. What we both know is that they received existing code, right? If that is true than I do not understand why existing features would be removed. Wouldn't they at the very least be modified to work in conjunction with whatever else was altered/created?

As for Blops don't compare this to the yearly iterations of CoD, that's stupid. Let the franchise stand on its own two legs. For example: if there's one thing Bungie had right in the Halo titles it was a polished UI, this game's UI is not polished and the lobby is pitiful. All that had to be done was to take the best of Halo 2 and Reach's UI. I also got to see kyle's menus dance the derp on his stream yesterday and he had to keep mashing A to just get back into the playlist. The game lacks refinement and you can just point to the fact that they're new developers all you want, but I'll just point to the fact that they already had an existing base to work off of.

I need a refresher. Why were the Jackals and Grunts changed again?

So they could be easier targets and all share reptilian features so they look like they crawled off the same planet.

 

[Shake Appeal]

There is still "servers unavailable" information in playlist selection screen, my spartan has turned into default one and when im searching for matches from default playlists it shows that i'm rank 1 but I was 50 today.
Do I have something to worry about or is this normal ?

Restart your 360 would be my suggestion.

 

[zlatko]

Halo 4 is in an interesting spot. There are two ends of the spectrum that cannot logically meet in the middle unless you split playlists.

Yup. I second this.

For me all I want for H4 going into the future is DMR readjustment(nerf, or buff other guns to be more viable), and more map variety by taking out map voting altogether.

Even if neither happen this is the MP game I'll be putting in until SC2 Heart of the Swarm next year. Absolutely love it!

343 can win everyone else over with just 2 new playlists and a few minimal patches to address lack of shit from old Halo games.

Done and done. Still won't fix the tiny online player population though.

 

[Reagan's BR]

Clans.

----
Playing Spartan Ops, 17 missions in and I've only enjoyed 2 1/2.

I knew I forgot something.

I need a refresher. Why were the Jackals and Grunts changed again?

Because changes

 

[J10]

Epitaph

I actually have nightmares about shield doors regularly

Swordbase, yellow lift. There has been nothing worse in any game ever created. I played ET on the Atari 2600.

 

[zlatko]

None of the maps in any Halo game compare to the dog shit that is Nuketown in CoD Black Ops.

Stuff of nightmares.

 

[Ken]

Before I dive into SpOps.... I want to say... WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF CLEARING COVANENT OUT OF THE SAME AREA OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. JESUS WHATS THE POINT OF DECURING ANY AREA IF IT BECOMES OVERUN AGAIN!?

ffs

IT'S NOT THE SAME COVENANT. IT'S NOT THE SAME MAP.

None of the maps in any Halo game compare to the dog shit that is Nuketown in CoD Black Ops.

Stuff of nightmares.

From a "competitive" view, sure, Nuketown was bad.

From a "I want to turn off my brain and shoot stuff dead for 30 minutes" view, Nuketown was perfect.

 

[OrangeOak]

Restart your 360 would be my suggestion.

I have done that but it didn't work ;(

 

[Reagan's BR]

Nuke town being small and fairly symmetrical makes it automatically better than every map in Reach.

 

[Digital Limit]

Well 343 nailed the moment to moment feel, and showed that the 360 still could be tapped properly to produce some amazing effects. On that note I'd say it was worth it.

There have been a shitton of lists here detailing the game's flaws, and I agree with most of them, just not the end verdict that the game is irredeemable, broken, or unplayable. And now that I understand these gripes better I think that most of them are fixable without ditching what 343 has brought to the table on their own. But then again flinch and undroppable flags aren't make or break for me. We'll see though.

Yeah, I've been watching a bunch of streams of "professional" gamers playing Halo 4 and those last two quirks don't seem gamebreaking at all. I certainly don't mind them.

 

[NullPointer]

343 can win everyone else over with just 2 new playlists and a few minimal patches to address lack of shit from old Halo games.

Done and done. Still won't fix the tiny online player population though.

Yep. They should just keep the "pro" moniker on these new playlists and incorporate the changes they can from the competitive community. You want dynamic battles and more chaos? Got to the regular playlists. Want something more static and defined for competitive purposes? Go to the pro playlists. Incorporate the ranking system into the pro lists only, and throw in some rank-based armor mods, stances and emblems to allow pro players to be visually distinguished and provide incentive for the points grinders out there to dip their feet into the pool.

Is campaign theater DOA? You'd see a lot more (positive) discussion here if we could have been sharing stories, screens and vids from campaign and spartan ops here.

 

[Tashi]

Well let's hear your expert opinion. It's not rocket science that when CoD really took off, every other FPS suffered in population.

I firmly believe the game isn't as popular for the simple fact that it's not as accessible. Shielded opponents vs. one shot & dead opponents plays a very large role in that, just from personal experience in talks with friends.

I had a little cousin over who is a CoD head(8 years old) and he wanted to play Halo. I threw on Reach for him because it was on my 2nd Xbox where I don't play Halo and didn't want to install H4 there because I knew he would only play for like 5 minutes lol. Anyway, first fucking minute of him playing Halo for the first time, "why do they take so long to die?" I say, "that's Halo, that's just the way it is"

2 minutes later, "this game is stupid"

Yup! So sad. Kid plays CoD and iOS stuff. He does have a Vita though which is cool and he does like sports game so he not completely "the worst" lol

But yea this is just the way the industry moves. It's actually very impressive that Halo is still as popular as it is. The 10 million units or so each game sells is nothing to scoff at just because CoD doubles that shit.

 

[StalkerUKCG]

The Cage is the worst map in the entire series, no question.

I'd prefer to play that shit with the teleporters.

I really have to disagree.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

AAA has always meant high quality with a high budget, at least to me.

You say we do not know what they received and yet you paint the picture of difficulty, it works both ways. You could also be more clear on what you disagree with besides campaign length. What we both know is that they received existing code, right? If that is true than I do not understand why existing features would be removed. Wouldn't they at the very least be modified to work in conjunction with whatever else was altered/created?

As for Blops don't compare this to the yearly iterations of CoD, that's stupid. Let the franchise stand on it's own two legs. For example: if there's one thing Bungie had right in the Halo titles it was a polished UI, this game's UI is not polished and the lobby is pitiful. All that had to be done was to take the best of Halo 2 and Reach's UI. I got to see kyle's menus dance the derp on his stream yesterday and he had to keep mashing A to just get back into the playlist. The game lacks refinement and you can just point to the fact that they're new developers all you want, but I'll just point to the fact that they already had an existing base to work off of.

.

I can agree with this post much more than the last. You mention "we don't know" that's the ultimate key. Maybe you're right and it should be super easy to make Halo games with what Bungie gave, maybe I'm right and they found some very hard things to get around and had to make compromises to get the game done. Maybe we're both wrong. I just don't like people assuming it should have been easy. I guess I shouldn't assume it was hard either.

The UI is another thing I'll agree on. Menu UI (besides the little start menu pop up thing with customization) is not near as solid as Bungie had. But this seems to be more a 343 style choice, not something they didn't have time to do. I personally hate the Blops 2 UI as well, so who knows. Maybe people suck at UI now.

I just think everyone going around assuming this or that for development reasons of doing this and cutting that is key. They are all assumptions, even my assumptions. None of us know for sure why 343 cut something, or changed something, I just don't assume that making Halo 4 was "easy" in the slightest.

I hope some of that makes some kind of sense.

 

[Ken]

The 10 million units or so each game sells is nothing to scoff at just because CoD doubles that shit.

Especially when CoD is on way more platforms.

 

[Ramirez]

I'm a week behind on SpOps, but that Valhalla level with the Mantis was more fun than any other FF shit I ever played. Got a little tedious towards the end, but I was playing alone, so that's probably why. Too bad the net code sucks. =\

 

[GrizzNKev]

I think a major point they missed with the changes they made is that the weapons in the game don't work within their newly established systems. They should have thrown away all the weapons and started over, balancing them all into the ordnance system for better fairness.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

So what the hell is the

Spoiler

Didacts Gift

when did it first appear, was just a bit blindsided that they started randomly referring to it like we knew of it for a while in Spops.

 

[Ramirez]

I think a major point they missed with the changes they made is that the weapons in the game don't work within their newly established systems. They should have thrown away all the weapons and started over, balancing them all into the ordnance system for better fairness.

Throw away all of the old weapons and introduced new 3 shot burst & single fire weapons? wat

 

[NullPointer]

2 minutes later, "this game is stupid"

Many COD players don't grock shields, and how that changes everything up, for the better. That might be the main reason, or secret recipe to why I've preferred Halo over the alternatives. Being able to take some hits and react to it makes all the difference in the world.

Throw away all of the old weapons and introduced new 3 shot burst & single fire weapons? wat

Honestly I'd love to see how this game would play out with no long range loadout weapons.

 

[MaximumFlipFlop]

"Ughh we have to make do with 2011 Hermal Miller Aeron's M$ couldn't even get us the new models, our backs are so sore."

lol.

On a more serious note now. 343 as an untested studio had a huge undertaking. Taking over Halo, that is an enormous task. So why didn't 343 just accept that creating a new Halo game was going to be tough and choose to make the smart decision to just return to the more simplistic Halo of the past? I can't imagine how much time and resources went into the conception, creation and balancing of armor abilities, sprint, global ordnance, personal ordnance, new control schemes, tactical packages, and armor mods. Suddenly control schemes don't need to be thought about, you don't need to think about to fix armor abilities from Reach. Maps, vehicles,and other systems don't need to be modified for sprint. The list goes on. Suddenly your focus is on simply refining that core experience and creating great maps. Halo doesn't need to "keep with the times." Halo wasn't built on these post Halo 3 gimmicks, it was built on simplicity and predictability which led to an amazing meta game and great competition. Just something that has been on my mind.

 

[darthbob]

I need a refresher. Why were the Jackals and Grunts changed again?

It has been like 4 years after the fact, plus new faction = new raiment.

 

[m23]

I'm enjoying the game quite a bit but......I want 1 flag and doubles
Of course 1 flag would have to turn off the "Kill" indicator.

 

[Ramirez]

lol.

On a more serious note now. 343 as an untested studio had a huge undertaking. Taking over Halo, that is an enormous task. So why didn't 343 just accept that creating a new Halo game was going to be tough and choose to make the smart decision to just return to the more simplistic Halo of the past? I can't imagine how much time and resources went into the conception, creation and balancing of armor abilities, sprint, global ordnance, personal ordnance, new control schemes, tactical packages, and armor mods. Suddenly control schemes don't need to be thought about, you don't need to think about to fix armor abilities from Reach. Maps, vehicles,and other systems don't need to be modified for sprint. The list goes on. Suddenly your focus is on simply refining that core experience and creating great maps. Halo doesn't need to "keep with the times." Halo wasn't built on these post Halo 3 gimmicks, it was built on simplicity and predictability which led to an amazing meta game and great competition. Just something that has been on my mind.

Because that shit don't fly today. The game is already vastly different than past Halo's, and yet you still saw in about every review about how much the game hadn't changed.

 

[GrizzNKev]

lol.

On a more serious note now. 343 as an untested studio had a huge undertaking. Taking over Halo, that is an enormous task. So why didn't 343 just accept that creating a new Halo game was going to be tough and choose to make the smart decision to just return to the more simplistic Halo of the past? I can't imagine how much time and resources went into the conception, creation and balancing of armor abilities, sprint, global ordnance, personal ordnance, new control schemes, tactical packages, and armor mods. Suddenly control schemes don't need to be thought about, you don't need to think about to fix armor abilities from Reach. Maps, vehicles,and other systems don't need to be modified for sprint. The list goes on. Suddenly your focus is on simply refining that core experience and creating great maps. Halo doesn't need to "keep with the times." Halo wasn't built on these post Halo 3 gimmicks, it was built on simplicity and predictability which led to an amazing meta game and great competition. Just something that has been on my mind.

With all the promises of fixing what Reach did wrong, I assumed this is what they were doing until we were told otherwise.

 

[Tashi]

Especially when CoD is on way more platforms.

Well that only fuels it more. No matter what console your friend has, they're playing CoD. No more, "I don't have an Xbox, no Halo for me" But for sure multiplatform adds to the accessibility.

I'm actually curious about Maddens sales during this generation as I think they share a similar market. Last gen is was GTA, Halo and Madden.

 

[zlatko]

Nuke town being small and fairly symmetrical makes it automatically better than every map in Reach.

Yes because my idea of fun is spawning and dying every 3 seconds from a person watching a backyard spawn point, or a guy camping in a fucking house, or a dude raining a shit storm on the whole map which is the size of my pinky.

That map was a turd and a half and symmetry couldn't save it's abortion gone wrong of an existence.

I'll play cage all day and punch myself in the nuts once a hour over 10 minutes of Nuketown.

#fuckthatshit

 

[Korosenai]

So what the hell is the

Spoiler

Didacts Gift

when did it first appear, was just a bit blindsided that they started randomly referring to it like we knew of it for a while in Spops.

I noticed that as well. They just randomly started talking about it in the fourth mission.

I'm enjoying the game quite a bit but......I want 1 flag and doubles
Of course 1 flag would have to turn off the "Kill" indicator.

I love doubles as well. It's pretty much all I played in Halo 3, but after playing some 2v2 gamebattles last night this game just doesn't work well for doubles. Maybe on Haven and Impact (the small forge space map), but there really isn't any other good maps.

 

[Ramirez]

Well that only fuels it more. No matter what console your friend has, they're playing CoD. No more, "I don't have an Xbox, no Halo for me" But for sure multiplatform adds to the accessibility.

I'm actually curious about Maddens sales during this generation as I think they share a similar market. Last gen is was GTA, Halo and Madden.

Madden's as strong as ever:

http://mashable.com/2012/08/30/madden-nfl-13-record-sales/

Sharpshooter on Nuketown was god tier. Sharpshooter in BO2 sucks though.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Because that shit don't fly today. The game is already vastly different than past Halo's, and yet you still saw in about every review about how much the game hadn't changed.

Yup, most of the criticism that the game recieved in the press was either for how the Didact plotline was confusing and that the gameplay was too similar to previous Halos.
Made for fun laughs from me.

We're all right, we're all wrong.

I'm a week behind on SpOps, but that Valhalla level with the Mantis was more fun than any other FF shit I ever played.

Really?
Dayum. I feel so differently.

 

[kittens]

I noticed that as well. They just randomly started talking about it in the fourth mission.

It only makes sense if you watch the videos that are exclusive to the Waypoint Android app that were announced via decoding secret symbols from the ARG campaign that 343 launched on Grifball Hub last week.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

Because that shit don't fly today. The game is already vastly different than past Halo's, and yet you still saw in about every review about how much the game hadn't changed.

Well the best part about reviews are they can be ignored cause video game journalism is a fucking joke.

They play the game for two days before everyone gets it write up what they think and are done. We actually play the game for months/years. Well I guess I don't this time but maybe soon when they get some more maps and a ranking system and fix all the bugs.

 

[Ramirez]

Honestly I'd love to see how this game would play out with no long range loadout weapons.

Well the best part about reviews are they can be ignored cause video game journalism is a fucking joke.

Reviews aren't for forum dwellers.

Juices, you still play D3 regularly, I can't take you serious anymore.

 

[Tashi]

Madden's as strong as ever:

http://mashable.com/2012/08/30/madden-nfl-13-record-sales/

Sharpshooter on Nuketown was god tier. Sharpshooter in BO2 sucks though.

That's impressive.

I'll do some more research later.

 

[CyReN]

Spartan Ops biggest influence.

 

[Enfinit]

I need a refresher. Why were the Jackals and Grunts changed again?

The realistic reasoning says that it was for the sake of change. However, canonically, the Grunts/Elites/Jackals are a rogue group of Covenant that are independent of the previous ones (known as the "Storm" faction).

 

[MrDaravon]

Juices, you still play D3 regularly, I can't take you serious anymore.

To be fair D3 has improved significantly in the last two patches, especially since the last one. After launch I figured it was a bust until an expansion came out and I completely stopped playing it after a couple of weeks, but now in the last two months I've put more time into it than anything else this year by a considerable amount, and will probably be in my top 2 or 3 games for this year.

 

[Ramirez]

To be fair D3 has improved significantly in the last two patches, especially since the last one. After launch I figured it was a bust until an expansion came out and I completely stopped playing it after a couple of weeks, but now in the last two months I've put more time into it than anything else this year by a considerable amount, and will probably be in my top 2 or 3 games for this year.

The patches did little for me, to me D3 suffers from the exact problems Halo 4 does. It's been streamlined into a completely casual experience, coming no where close to the glory that was D2.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Spartan Ops biggest influence.

Eh, the Campaign is worse when it comes to button love I think.

 

[orznge]

To be fair D3 has improved significantly in the last two patches, especially since the last one. After launch I figured it was a bust until an expansion came out and I completely stopped playing it after a couple of weeks, but now in the last two months I've put more time into it than anything else this year by a considerable amount, and will probably be in my top 2 or 3 games for this year.

who could have guessed though? I sold my gold and got a refund for the game like two weeks after it came out lol

 

[Tashi]

You should play real Blizzard games like StarCraft 2.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

I am of the opinion that if you are not Bungie, creating a decent Halo game from scratch is a challenge. They also had to walk a careful line of proving themselves to the fanbase without changing too much that would make it feel like something other than a Halo game.

It's okay to be critical of Halo 4, but seeing as how they basically nailed the fundamentals right out of the gate, I'll give them a free pass and let the small stuff slide this time.

This game is essentially a well funded mod of Reach.


Not to put it down or anything, but it's moreso than 3->Reach was. Some of the sound effects are unchanged, the Carbine is just a Needle rifle re-skin without the supercombine, the storm rifle is just a re-skinned plasma rifle, etc.

If you ever played around with the map editor in Halo 2 PC you can see what they did with the weapons, just turned up the auto-aim and bullet damage for the AR/DMR.

The biggest things 343 did with the feature from Reach is seemingly remove them altogether.

 

[u4iX]

This week's Spartan Ops feels like playing Laser Tag when you're about 2 years too old to enjoy it.

 

[Hypertrooper]

So what the hell is the

Spoiler

Didacts Gift

when did it first appear, was just a bit blindsided that they started randomly referring to it like we knew of it for a while in Spops.

I haven't played the missions yet but in CGI of Episode 3

Spoiler

Jul 'Madame called Dr. Glassman the gift from the Didact's artifact. May they refer to it?

The realistic reasoning says that it was for the sake of change. However, canonically, the Grunts/Elites/Jackals are a rogue group of Covenant that are independent of the previous ones (known as the "Storm" faction).

Who said that? Why is that the name of that fraction? 343i never stated that. Or at least I haven't seen any official word that the fraction is called Storm.

 

[Sai-kun]

That's why it's called the storm rifle :>

 

[MrDaravon]

The patches did little for me, to me D3 suffers from the exact problems Halo 4 does. It's been streamlined into a completely casual experience, coming no where close to the glory that was D2.

I never played D2, so I can't make that comparison . It's mostly the latest patch that's made the biggest difference, I don't know if you played after 1.05 came out, but if not I'd say it's at least worth checking out.

To stay on topic: RIP Halo.

 

[kittens]

This week's Spartan Ops feels like playing Laser Tag when you're about 2 years too old to enjoy it.

too old for laser tag? surely you jest.