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Halo |OT| She's Gone, Sir
- Thread starter Poodlestrike
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Yeah, my honey moon phase has worn off since the update. Even fiesta is bad, because there's a strong chances you'll spawn with two guns that are utterly usesless.
Cough...I spawned with a human shotty and a forerunner shotty. Good times.
I feel like composer is hobbled at the knees by developer map and gametype pools. It is a wonderful addition but I can't but feel it is severely warped by developer managed playlists in within composer's filters. Composer is not a truly dynamic beast at its heart and it shows within repeat visits to the playlists and game selections.
I was just about to post this, lol.
But after disabling it, I had some really fun games of CE and 2 although the connection was quite terrible every time.
I feel like Halo 3 suffers the worst from a bad connection from all Halos. You just have zero feedback for your actions, which makes it very hard to gauge how much damage you're actually dealing.
At the time it was legendary. I sunk so many hours into it. But yeah it has aged so poorly. I really wonder why that is. It cant just be the networking issues and projectile weapons can it?
well yeah, composer is Definately limited by the quality of the vanilla experience. It seems like the frequency of AR or SMG starts has gone down, so that's good..
It's just the terrible weapon balancing and the terrible FoV
In MCC the networking is fine, and there's nothing inherently wrong with projectile.
I think it was everything but the core gameplay. It came at the right time, right after Halo 2, and could have ridden on its coattails for a while even if it wasn't good. It certainly looked better than Halo 2, and didn't suffer from the egregious host advantage or the number of glitches that either broke the game or made high level play less accessible. Halo 3 just felt way more fair after getting stand-by'd and griefed for an hour by some guy hiding the bomb on the top of the map.
Halo 3 also had great support in terms of consistent DLC, and then a mechanism to get DLC to all players in the form of ODST, which refreshed the game at the exact right time. There was also Forge and a decent split between casual/hardcore playlists, so you could warm up in Team Training or SWAT or Big Team before throwing yourself into Team Slayer or MLG. There also wasn't a console shooter anywhere near as popular until later in its lifetime (MW2 as I recall).
But dat gunplay tho, everything about it feels like horrible garbage. Projectiles and leading aren't inherently horrible, but add in spread, lack of feedback about where your shots actually hit, and networking iffiness, and you get a fine fucking mess even if you have a BR (instead of the lovely default AR+magnum).
I think the thing I dislike most about H3 these days is how bad the BR feels to use. With the bad spread that it has, it just doesn't feel accurate, even at mid-range.
I wonder if 343 would ever alter the BR spread, I see no reason they couldn't, would be interesting to add a BR in that just had less spread.
While I had the most fun with H3 pistols in infection, I'm still hoping we get a proper projectile CE magnum for other modes.
Halo 3 performs really well for me since the update. I still enjoy playing it 🤷♀️
I've played a chunk of big team and my main issue is folk who play it just to betray their teammates (nothing has changed there haha). I've only had 1 game of CE and it was alright, 2 and H2A popped up once each too but they were pretty laggy. People teleporting around, kills registering a second or 2 after people die etc. Zero fun when it's like that.
Halo 4 popped up once too, heavies in big team I think it was. Horrible match. Connection was fine in that one though!
I've played a chunk of big team and my main issue is folk who play it just to betray their teammates (nothing has changed there haha). I've only had 1 game of CE and it was alright, 2 and H2A popped up once each too but they were pretty laggy. People teleporting around, kills registering a second or 2 after people die etc. Zero fun when it's like that.
Halo 4 popped up once too, heavies in big team I think it was. Horrible match. Connection was fine in that one though!
From a cultural, critical, and player perspective, that's as close to an objectively true statement as one can make.
H3 isn't my favorite in the series, however, it definitely was the peak of the series. H3 was a juggernaut and was everywhere. I don't believe it's peak when it comes from a game play perspective since the game play is constantly evolving and getting better. However, in every other sense, it's peak Halo.
H3 was bound to be a blockbuster regardless of whether Bungie made the right gameplay choices.
It was the culmination of a massive trilogy in a franchise that had become a cultural phenomenon. It had an ungodly marketing budget as well.
It's also had amazing community features for its time- so if you weren't fond of vanilla, you could make your own.
It was the culmination of a massive trilogy in a franchise that had become a cultural phenomenon. It had an ungodly marketing budget as well.
It's also had amazing community features for its time- so if you weren't fond of vanilla, you could make your own.
Halo 3 had a perfect storm of console FPS coming off the back of Halo 2 and becoming a household icon. New console, XBL getting massive, forge, theatre, parties/chat improved, campaign story was closing off, leaderboards were far better than the Halo 2 cheaters-and-modders-fest-in-matchmaking-fuck-them-all-forever problems. By Halo 4 there was four times the magnitude of FPS games being released. Insanity.
Halo 3's networking and regional matchmaking has really aged poorly, it's a mixed shitshow in MCC even now. You never really know quite what quality of game you're about to play and therefore just how far to lead your BR shots. The least "fair" online game of the lot IMO. At least in CE the smoke and mirrors isn't really there showing you one thing but calculating another.
Halo 3's networking and regional matchmaking has really aged poorly, it's a mixed shitshow in MCC even now. You never really know quite what quality of game you're about to play and therefore just how far to lead your BR shots. The least "fair" online game of the lot IMO. At least in CE the smoke and mirrors isn't really there showing you one thing but calculating another.
Did you have a sudden urge to take long meandering walks and lick frogs?
This is why I wished MCC had a Global Veto system...
Almost quit out of a SWAT Magnums game on Construct, yesterday.
To be fair as well, people at the time knew it had issues. They had Luke Smith write a post justifying their design decisions to the BR, and the pros were kvetching about it then too.
But Halo 3 absolutely was the right game at the right time. I dunno if we'll ever seen another game like it—certainly pop culture phenoms like Fortnite games are for the kids, but I don't think you can replicate how Halo was the game that really shattered the wall for many people finally between gaming and the wider culture. NPR was interviewing Joe Staten and learning that video games had stories. Master Chief rang the New York Stock Exchange bell. It had a Super Bowl commercial. It was probably the apex of the midnight launch phenomenon before it was eaten by digital. It was the top-grossing entertainment launch of all time when it still was uncommon for games to regularly destroy movies in that arena.
It also helps that Halo 2 helped lay the groundwork for the modern online infrastructure we take for granted, and Halo 3 did too. Saved Films, console map editors, etc.
The opening cinematic is definitely up there with Halo 2 and ODST, but I think the end falls somewhat short of 3's or even Reach's.
I feel like I would have thought better of it if Halo 5 hadn't undermined all the emotional weight and suspense of that scene, but it was very well done at the time. I was factoring gameplay into Reach and 3's ends, so chopping that out would definitely put it above Reach at least.
H4 definitely had the strongest ending.
First you had this great soundtrack for the final mission.
Then you had Cortana sacrificing herself for Chief and humanity. Bringing her back in H5 somewhat cheapens the ending of H4. However, people think it's not really her and it's one of her rampant personalities. However, Infinite is supposed to be the last in this trilogy, so maybe they both finally meet their end in it.
For strongest opening I'd probably have to go with H2 and the Covenant stumbling upon Earth. This is how you start a game:
First you had this great soundtrack for the final mission.
Then you had Cortana sacrificing herself for Chief and humanity. Bringing her back in H5 somewhat cheapens the ending of H4. However, people think it's not really her and it's one of her rampant personalities. However, Infinite is supposed to be the last in this trilogy, so maybe they both finally meet their end in it.
For strongest opening I'd probably have to go with H2 and the Covenant stumbling upon Earth. This is how you start a game:
Halo Infinite isn't the end of trilogy. What started out as a trilogy has now grown into a saga.
Since Halo 4 and 5 are only related tangentially, it would be REALLY difficult to make H:I effectively close out a trilogy.
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Halo 4 would work as an odd intermission between trilogies, if they didn't forgo that for the saga route.
I just pray that ranked in Infinite doesn't include spartan abilities, sprint, or recoil. That's all I ask. I just want to enjoy Halo man...
Yeah... I feel like "saga" was the route they chose when they decided to take hard pivot from 4 and couldn't be sure how many entries it would take to tell a complete arc.
Its still possible that, H5, H:I, and H7 read like a trilogy, but coexist with H4 to makeup the "Forerunner Saga."
Is it even called the Forerunner Saga anymore?
Hopefully they'll throw a bone to those of us who want an unadulterated experience its - long overdue. Halo has always been flexible enough to support multiple preferences... We just need the devs to be flexible too.
With all that talk about Halo 4 ending, I still dont get why they decided to stop the focus on Chief Character, personality and autorised Halo 5 story.
Because we're viewing Halo 4 now further along on the Halo Cycle®. There were tons of people who absolutely hated Halo 4, its story included, and let it be known.
343's biggest problem is that they seem too responsive to feedback in the macro level while not being responsive enough at the micro level, honestly. At some point you have to make a game that you know isn't and can't please everyone. But they seem to end up with whiplash that hurts them even further.
Even now before Infinite's release I'm already seeing "well I appreciate this more about Halo 5"-type pieces. Some people have knee-jerk opinions that they then double down on for way too long.
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I agree with this for the most part. 343 seems pretty reactive to symptoms, but they don't actually address the root cause. So they end up throwing the baby out with the bath water. The main issue with Halo 4 was that appreciating the central conflict required an understanding of lore that wasn't well presented in-game. The fix for that shouldn't have been to toss out Halo 4... They should have instead used Halo 5 to flesh out what H4 missed.
This is the kind of poorly-filtered hot take on player sentiment that completely misses the point and leads to campaigns like Halo 5 being made.
Too much chief wasnt Halo 4s problem - it was the decision to cram 200,000 years of backstory into a 5 minute cutscene instead of having actual character development and world building. There was a lot going on that couldn't be covered by just highlighting MCs emotions.
Halo 5s problem wasn't too little Chief, it was that time away from Chief was spent with dull characters who did nothing to push the unfocused narrative forward.
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This is not Frank O'Connor'job, as a Franchise Creative Director ? Maintain a precise direction while correcting some some of the mistake made along the ways ?
Cant wait to read in 10 years the story behind the making of Halo 5.
Stinkles would have to explain his job description, but I don't think it's very fair to saddle any one person with either the success or failures of a creative endeavor.
What I personally mean by the macro/micro thing is that they clearly wanted to distinguish themselves from their predecessors. Fine. Some of the audiovisual changes I didn't like, but they made them... except people then got upset and now we have a convoluted "actually the old Covenant phenotypes still exist, just you don't see them except for this one comic" stuff. Likewise people reacted to Master Chief's story in Halo 4 and they over-corrected in 5, and now people have complained about Cortana going "evil" in 5 and lack of Chief and I'm afraid they're going to double down on more Chief time and use one of the "she's rampant! she's actually corrupted by the Didact!" fan excuses rather than what was quite clearly their intention of having a fundamental difference of opinion.
Meanwhile the micro stuff is things like shipping the game without a lot of infrastructure and support, and then taking months to improve the situation. Halo 5 would 100% have been better with stuff like Oddball, Ricochet, Infection, etc. being there day one. As awesome as MCC support has been this past year and leaving aside the mistakes that led to it shipping it its buggy state to begin with, it shouldn't have taken so long to actually come up with a cohesive gameplay for fixing it.
At this point, it's a worrying pattern—Halo 4 is another example of a game that had a rough launch and was a much better game by the end of its life, but far too late for it to matter to most everyone. They feel like they're backtracking on stuff that doesn't matter as much as the quality of life things that need to be more rapidly addressed.
The problem with the "fundamental difference of opinion" angle is they didn't portray how Cortana formulated this opinion.
It contradicts everything presented to the player previously, and the only explanation given - the domain - explains little of her thought process if you have read the books and even less if you haven't.
So, I don't think it's fair to say "difference of opinion" is the obvious angle, because the randomness of her actions and the abrasive was of here personality is more in line with an evil lunatic.
If "difference of opinion" is the story they wanted to tell, they should have done a better job showing that. But again, they requires an effort to actually develope the antagonist's character.
It contradicts everything presented to the player previously, and the only explanation given - the domain - explains little of her thought process if you have read the books and even less if you haven't.
So, I don't think it's fair to say "difference of opinion" is the obvious angle, because the randomness of her actions and the abrasive was of here personality is more in line with an evil lunatic.
If "difference of opinion" is the story they wanted to tell, they should have done a better job showing that. But again, they requires an effort to actually develope the antagonist's character.
Except it doesn't.
From The Fall of Reach to "Human Weakness" to what Halsey spells out explicitly in Halo 5—Cortana's just doing what Halsey and the UNSC has always tried to do, she just now has the means to do it. You can argue it could be better done, but there's plenty there to justify their character choices.
Also in Halo Legends: Origins Parts 1 and 2, Cortana seems displeased with the need for war by humanity. This clip, for example:
Where is this even remotely implied in any game? How would anyone who's only played the games correlate Cortana's behavior to Halsey's previous actions? You pointing to extended media doesn't really disprove the point. The games never really touch on the orgins of the Spartan program enough for that connection to be made.
And even if you know of Halsey's actions from reading the books, we know that she made her decisions in a time of open conflict in direct response to models that indicated massive casualties. Cortana comes along in the most peaceful period the galaxy had seen in decades, and (rather unnecessarily) murdered millions without warning. There are stark differences.
Beyond that, there's an obvious dramatic shift in Cortana's Reach-H4 thought process Halo 5 Cortana that are simply not addressed. what is it about The Domain that would turn her into Super Halsey who hates Halsey? Reading the neither the games nor the books provide any incite on this.
You can argue that perhaps myself and everyone else just hasn't been paying close enough attention... But if these kinds of sentiments are widespread, then the problem is the storytelling, not the consumer. Key character development should'nt be obtuse, hidden or taking place off screen.
Edit : And again what are "the means to do it?" The domain? in Halo 5 its completely handwaved.
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Hello fellow Halo-maniacs. I love H5´s multiplayer, particularly Super Fiesta, but I´m not sure of what some of the fancy versions of weapons do different, which makes it hard to take advantage of them sometimes. Is there a link that explains all the varieties of weapons?
That´s really useful and awesome, I´ll be busy tonight. Thanks a lot!
The opening to Halo 4 explains the origins of the Spartans and Halsey's "greater good" defense pretty clearly. The rest is elided in Halo 5's dialogue.
Stuff like Cortana's complicated relationship with Halsey was also directly mentioned in Halo 4.
The domain gives her an indefinite lifespan, and tools the UNSC could only dream of (the Guardians).
Disagree... H4s intro has a 1 sentence reference to the Insurrection, and 0 reference to the fact that the Spartan program was meant to greatly reduce the loss of human life on both sides of THAT conflict, limiting civilian casualties Primarily by capturing/assassinating leadership. People who just play the games don't know this tidbit.
In the same scene, Halsey ultimately argues that it was justified because Spartans lead to victory against the Covenant - Not because the Insurrection was predicted to cause mass human casualties.
Beyond that, how exactly were people supposed to draw the line between this cutscene at the beginning of 4 and Cortana's final revelation at the end of 5?
But no mention a latent belief within Cortana that violent authoritarianism is the logical way to achieve peace. What sense does it make that the domain opens this thought process
But again, there's no effort to develop Cortana in a way that adequately explains why she would use this gift of life and these tools in this manner. It's in direct contrast to how she behaved previously, which is why people assume she's rampant or corrupt...
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