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Halo |OT3| Remember Reach?

GhaleonEB

Member
I think the whole, "quick matching, good enough quality vs longer waiting and better quality" is kind of ridiculous. I seriously do not mind waiting an extra minute of 2 or even up to 4 or 5 minutes if I know the quality of the match I'm going to play (which is usually 8-15 minutes long) will be of better quality. And by better quality I mean, against a similar sized party, similarly skilled teammates and opponents, and good connection. The benefits of waiting far out weigh the time spent finding the better quality match. Obviously studios are going to push and push to make everything more efficient but there's nothing wrong with waiting a little longer to ensure I have a good experience in matchmaking, consistently.

edit: Oh and twitter is @tashi0106

I agree entirely. I'm playing in hopes of having an enjoyable time. Speeding up the matching process while making sub-optimal matches undermines the entire reason I play.
 
Has anyone posted this yet?

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/04/16/the-changes-to-halo-39-s-competitive-multiplayer.aspx

Nothing really new... kinda getting re-angry haha.

What i got from the end: "trust us, it's balanced.. if you don't like it.. play customs" not really my cup of tea, especially when he mentioned the "hardcore crowd" is worried about it.

"people are building playstyles up around the armour abilities more so than in the past"

- Just what I wanted out of Halo.

"all abilities have counters"

- Yay Halo 4: rock paper scissors evolved.


Despite how much I hated hearing those two things, the rest of the video sounded alright. Need to see gameplay footage to actually see if its a disaster or if it turns out well.
 

MrBig

Member
Forerunner Vision can see through walls? What the fuck, I thought that was denied on here?

New armor lock confirmed.

What a ridiculous ability. Wallhacks have always been a detriment to games, and 343 thinks they can successfully implement it as a feature?
 

JonCha

Member
New armor lock confirmed.

Nope, it's true. Don't worry though. If you happen to pick Hologram when you spawn you'll be able to counter it!

Well that sucks. One, I could have sworn Frank said you "absolutely" can't see through walls. Two, when Frank said players who were familiar with their surroundings would remove the ability for something else I thought it'd be like an extended radar.

I hope it's at least very shot range. Don't want to be using snipe only for someone to see me, or to be coming around a corner and be seen when they're one shot only for them to sprint away.

thought they said you can see through walls to see objectives, but not opponents. I could be wrong though

That would be fine, and Frank's comments would line up with it.
 

m23

Member
I'm pretty sure Frankie said that you can't use Forerunner vision to see other players, so it probably is for objectives or weapons.
 

stephen08

Member
When he was talking about the features he mentioned split screen would be 4 player local and 2 player online. That's a step back in functionality yet he talks about it like it is being preserved. What gives?
 

Arnie

Member
My immediate reaction to that video:

PETE-CAMPBELL-KTFO.gif
 

Retro

Member
Forerunner vision allows you to oogle Female Spartan IVs through their armor. Combined with the AR and Rumble feature, this AA ensures that even if you lose, you'll feel pretty good about it.
 

JonCha

Member
My immediate reaction to that video:

PETE-CAMPBELL-KTFO.gif

Everything outside of Forerunner Vision sounded fine. The new FFA mode made it sound interesting for once. Sounded like an enhanced VIP.

Guessing you didn't like the whole 'sprint speeds up gameplay' argument? Actually, neither did I. Please don't have two-hit melees for goodness sake.
 
I don't see how Forerunner Vision could only be for objectives or weapons when the guy says in the video that players with Hologram or Invisibility can trick someone who has Forerunner Vision on.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Interesting video. Still want to see exactly how all this will work before I form a solid opinion. I am opened minded.

I imagine that the game at low levels will be much different than the game at high levels if it's balanced properly. At the highest levels the entire sandbox, weapons and armor abilities should be unlocked. What level will that be though? In CoD you can set the final unlock to a really high level because you can't level down. You just keep going up and up. Obviously the better players go up more quickly (which is something Welch said). In Halo though, that final unlock can't be too high because then you don't allow lower level players full access.

It can't be like that though. There's no way 343 would do that. My guess is that these experience points that lead up to level unlocks and spartan points can't be taken away from you. You won't be able to level down. I also would guess that you can get spartan points from other aspects and game modes to unlock stuff in multiplayer. Might there also be a rank that you can lose and only achieve through winning games? That's what I'm hoping for. 2 different ranking systems working together.

Also, the forerunner vision part gave me a little worries. He said that each armor ability has a counter to another armor ability. While that's all good and makes sense I also think that the base player traits of all players in the game, regardless of loadouts should counter each armor ability in some way. That may be achieved in many ways. I'm not saying give everyone something extra to counter each ability. It might be a counter built in to the ability itself and doesn't rely on other abilities to counter. Obviously we don't have the full story and I don't want to jump to conclusions so I'm just saying that I'm a little worried and that's it.

It could be interesting at a high level, 4v4 sequence where each team has a set loadout and a set role (a class) and it's up to the other team to counter it. That would work great in a 4v4 tournament, competitive league but for randoms in matchmaking it could potentially be a mess. Again, it's just things to try to juggle. I do have faith that 343 will support the game with patches and playlist updates as needed because this is their baby. They weren't given this game, they made it.
 

Arnie

Member
Everything outside of Forerunner Vision sounded fine. The new FFA mode sounded good.

Guessing you didn't like the whole 'sprint speeds up gameplay' argument?

That and the just the overall pimpage of armour abilities in general. They're shit, they contributed to Reach being a pile of shit, and no amount of 'it still feels like Halo' is going to change that. I didn't dislike sprint because it wasn't balanced, I disliked it because it was a shit addition to the Halo sandbox.

I also hate how classic Halo now feels like an ugly duckling, kept around because it's part of the family.
 

JonCha

Member
Ultimately, if I'm out BRing someone and they can use something to gain the upper hand - Armour Lock did this in Reach - when their lack of skill should have resulted in a death, then something is wrong. The AAs we've had confirmed are Jetpack, Active Camo, Forerunner Vision and Hologram. They're actually pretty subtle armour abilities. Jetpack needs to have a shorter lifespan at least, camo needs a longer recharge rate to simulate the pick-up version, FV can't see players and Hologram is pretty pointless. My biggest worry is Sprint.
 

Gui_PT

Member
I can't wait for someone to discover a ridiculously overpowered loadout combination.

Then everybody will start using the same loadout and the game will be unplayable.

But at least 343 will fix it 6 or 8 months after if becomes a problem.
 

Falagard

Member
Super simplification of the whole concept: You can do AI on asynch, it just can't be as complex or numerous as lockstep. Which is the pitfall.

On asynch, each AI takes up the bandwidth of a normal player. So 4 people playing against 12 AI would be like playing a BTB match (roughly). MS also has bandwidth limits, so you couldn't add much AI.

On lockstep, all you're networking is button presses. So it doesn't matter if you have 4 AI or 30 AI, your bandwidth cost is the same.

Good summary. However, even there are definitely ways to do asynchronous with AI that doesn't mean that the AI uses the same bandwidth as a player.

The reason why the campaign and co-op multiplayer uses synchronous lockstep networking is because it is the easiest way to synchronize code that was original written to be run on only one machine (A.I., physics, etc). Each player's console is essentially running a copy of the campaign / firefight as if it were running locally on their machine, with 4 players playing locally and some synchronization code to keep the controller inputs the same (over simplification of course). The game was written to be completely predictive - that is if you press a button on your controller when the state of the game is X the game will always do Y.

Now, I'm not saying it's easy, but the game could be rewritten such that asynchronous could be done without each AI taking up the bandwidth of a player. Instead the host would synchronize AI state (I'm moving to this position, I'm firing at this player, etc.) when the state changes rather than constantly sending a flood of millisecond updates about position, orientation, etc for each AI. Then of course the client consoles would have to run client side simulations based on the last known state, and correct the simulation as new updates arrive from the host.

It gets even more interesting if the "ownership" of the AI is based on which player is closest to the AI, who the AI is focusing its attention or, etc. allowing the peers to actually choose which console is controlling the AI to give even better response times for the player who needs them most.

Anyhow... yeah. Perhaps we'll see it someday in Halo. Or not.
 

Homeboyd

Member

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Ultimately, if I'm out BRing someone and they can use something to gain the upper hand - Armour Lock did this in Reach - when their lack of skill should have resulted in a death, then something is wrong. The AAs we've had confirmed are Jetpack, Active Camo, Forerunner Vision and Hologram. They're actually pretty subtle armour abilities. Jetpack needs to have a shorter lifespan at least, camo needs a longer recharge rate to simulate the pick-up version, FV can't see players and Hologram is pretty pointless. My biggest worry is Sprint.

Hologram is awesome! You bite your tongue!
 

m23

Member
Ultimately, if I'm out BRing someone and they can use something to gain the upper hand - Armour Lock did this in Reach - when their lack of skill should have resulted in a death, then something is wrong. The AAs we've had confirmed are Jetpack, Active Camo, Forerunner Vision and Hologram. They're actually pretty subtle armour abilities. Jetpack needs to have a shorter lifespan at least, camo needs a longer recharge rate to simulate the pick-up version, FV can't see players and Hologram is pretty pointless. My biggest worry is Sprint.

I really hope jetpack like you said has a shorter lifespan. It should allow you to reach higher places and stuff, but not fly across the map.
 
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