Hydricide

Okay, let me emphasize what I have said and see if it is understood this time, I did NOT say that all of the things that have been proposed, I do not happen to like them and you will not change my mind. I do not think they should be scrapped, they should be in social because they ARE shackles to skill. Frank O'Donnell even said that (in reference to forerunner vision) that competitive gamers who have map awareness will likely scrap it and opt for other abilities. That is not so subtilely saying what I assumed it was, a way to even the playing field by giving new gamers the same ability that others had worked hard to attain on their own. That is frustrating for those who have put that time in because it beckons the question "what is the point of my playing a lot to get better if I am not rewarded by being able to win?" That is why I said keep it to social, or even in it's own playlist, but you are arguing to basically give a big F U to gamers like me who invested hundreds of hours in gaming, and more specifically, Halo gaming. I also never said that people that play Reach are unskilled. I have friends that are extremely good at both games, and they will say the same thing, Reach has mechanics that do not emphasize skill, they inhibit it. Bungie acknowledged it when they said they wanted to even the playing field. As stated, that does NOT make all who play Reach unskilled just as it does not make gamers that play H3 good. It is two markets, and Halo 3 which is still being played by a large community, they should not be thrown to the wayside because a portion of the gaming community likes Reach. They should try to capture both markets by, like I have said, having two play types, a social with all of the AA's and whatever else to make it as entertaining to all as it can be. Then there should be a set of ranked, hardcore, w/e u want to call it playlists that cater to the competitive gamers that want the old Halo style gameplay. IDK why you are bring campaign into this, I am sure it will be fine, Halo campaigns are always superior and they have Spartan Ops now for gamers who don't want to play MP. That said, the largest market is in MP. As for what Halo was originally intended to be, that is nice but I hardly see the relevance in it, Halo is what it is. Finally, no, the games I listed were competitors with Halo 3, no they were not released the same year for the most part, but they were being played in H3's lifespan and H3 still had a huge population throughout all of those games releases. Don't put words in my mouth, I never said that people who play reach are bad, MP is the only thing and everything else should be ignored, I never said I was cool, and I never said my gameplay preferences were the best. What I said is there are two markets, BOTH should have recognition.

CoD 4, which many still contest is the best CoD, Gears of War, Cysis, MW2, and Battlefield were all games that competed with Halo 3. Reach does have to compete with better quality updates to those games, but Reach is also a chance to update a game. The problem is there are a great deal more people that are opposed, and vocally so, to Reach that there ever were to the first 3 Halo games. I can still find games on H3 in almost every playlist in less than 30 seconds as well. I am not hear to bash Reach, it was a good game, just not a good Halo game IMO. That shows with the fact that it was a competitive failure, it almost got removed from the MLG tour because so few people watched the games where as with H2 and H3 that was a huge part of their market. Reach does cater to low and middle skilled players because it made an attempt to even the playing field, Bungie said this durning development. In that sense they succeeded, every game is more competitive, but it is not as representative of skill as the other Halo games. As for the new people playing Reach, I still see new players on H3 which is what? 6 years old now. They are not just new account start overs either, they are NEW to halo gamers by their play. Reach does not have the staying power that the other games did. The reason you see more people playing Reach now is because 343 turned off all stat tracking except in game for H3 which demotivated a large portion of the population. Even with that though there is still a healthy population of players. It is safe to say everyone here posting positive or negative about H4 will buy it, it is the next Halo. The problem lies in the fact that they, myself included, feel like that is why we are buying it, not as much because we trust that the MP will be what we want. Everyone wants H4 to be a success, that is why we are posting positive and negative, not to create flame wars, but in hopes that 343 will see what we all think will and won't work. I reiterate, that is why I suggested in another thread that we have a ranked and social system where the ranked playlists are H2/H3 MP with updated graphics, then you will have a happy competitive group (which is bigger than you'd like to admit considering the TU that Reach got was nothing more than an attempt to quell the competitive market that was unhappy with Reach, so the market is big enough to get change), and social playlists with all of the AA's and whatever else they can put in to even out the playing field for casual gamers. There you have a game that puts a big old smile on both market's faces. I think that is the direction they need to go to keep players around to buy their next game(s). If they do one way entirely or the other they will lose one market or the other, so I pray that they do that system and make the BA game I know they are capable of.

You really should try and respect other opinions and not just yell, it doesn't give you any credibility, it just makes you sound like a jerk. As for what he had said, it won't ruin it for everyone, but there is a large number of gamers, and here is where I will refute other's claims that casual is the majority, that want a competitive Halo. Reach was geared to the casual gamers, they looked to handicap better players by introducing luck (bloom) and AA's to give skills better players had like timing powerups and equipment, to everyone. EX) Oh, I need to time overshield and not grab it until an opponent is near me so that it will be charging as I begin the battle, now there is armor lock which is a charging OS at the pull of a trigger anytime. Another example, I can jump to escape players that do not know jumps, now there is a jetpack so players don't have to worry about jumping, they can fly (and destroy map design). The changes that have been explained by GI and backed up by 343 sound like more of that system, skilled players being punished for being good. That is why I proposed in another thread that they return a ranked and social playlist system where the social playlists have all of the AA's and new ideas 343 wants to throw in to even the playing field, that would be a great idea so if a bunch of tryhards go to play social, they do not win by 40 kills as they do in H3, which is just unfair, they will be on a more equal playing field. That said, then there is ranked, which is a return to the Halo 2/Halo 3 style MP experience where skill determines whether you get the skill (1-50) in the playlist you are in, not luck. That way you can satisfy the competitive gamers that crave a classic halo game, like me, and the more casual gamer that just wants to pick up the controller now and then and not get blown to pieces when they play.

Interesting, I hope that proves accurate, I am just concerned at the way they sounded. I want to be wrong with my opinions on what I heard, I really do, I want Halo 4 to blow me off my feet, but with the probably 30K or so games of competitive MP I have played across all my accounts and Halo games on and offline, I feel like those are too far a departure and may lose people, a lot of people. I do like the idea of Regicide, that sounds intriguing, as does Spartan ops. I just am questioning the rest. Thanks for the update

I was talking with a few friends about this topic last night, and I do dislike pretty much all of what was presented about MP if it is going to be applicable to all MP playlists, I think it is a blatant attempt to take away the things that made good players good and give them to everyone to even the playing field. If it goes game-wide it will ruin Halo as we know it IMO. But there was a possibility I not only liked but I would greatly like to see that includes all of the things that GI released. So, we first start out with a Halo 3 setup with both ranked and social playlists. The social playlists are the home of the casual gamer, and in the social playlists you do not want to see lopsided games where 5 50's go to face a group of 5 randomly selected players under the rank of 27, that is just a lopsided POS game that one team will end up quitting since there is not much chance of victory. To fix that, the social playlists will have everything the GI article spoke of to even the playing field and make every game competitive, regardless of who is in it. This will make for a good natured, competitive social playlist that everyone stands a chance to win in, regardless of which team has what players. Then there is ranked, in ranked it will resemble Halo 3 and Halo 2. There will be none of the AA's and other assists that are given in social, it will be a bare bones start, with predictable weapon spawns, set spawn times, no AA's, no loadouts, just every player starting with the same weapon(s) as everyone else with map control points and powerups at certain spots across the map. There will also be a 1-50 ranking system as well, basically, return the Halo 2/ Halo 3 gameplay and mechanics to a new environment, better maps, new weapons, and better graphics. If they do this, I think Halo 4 will capture both the competitive and casual markets and make both very happy. Anyone else like that idea?

Okay, I have the same issue, but let me try to clarify. CoD is a good game, but it is not Halo, fair enough to say? Okay, well the current trend in Halo games, that began with Reach, was an attempt to capture the CoD market and neuter the competitive gamers. What do I mean by that, well, if you look at the first 3 Halo games and compare that to Reach they are 2 entirely different animals. Then if you look at the Multiplayer of Reach and compare it to CoD you see similarities such as loadouts, slower players, less jumping ability and so on. When I play Reach it feels more CoD than Halo. That feeling is also because they tried to make a game that "anyone could pick up and play and be competitive." That is simply put, an awful idea. They tried to demotivate boosting by taking away visible ranks to demotivate boosters (and subsequently competitive gamers as well). Then they tried to get new less skilled gamers to become avid gamers by trying to shrink the skill gap by giving out AA's that are nothing short of get out of jail free cards for less skilled gamers. Why does that hurt competitive gamers more than others? Simple, those powerups are no longer points of control, everyone has them, so it is like giving everyone on H3 the ability to turn on overshield at any point they want. It takes away from the players smart enough to time powerups, which is one thing in the favor of those who didn't do that. Then there was the whole bloom fiasco which was nothing but introducing randomness into the equation to help the less skilled gamers get lucky kills. Tying this to H4, the announcements made in the GI article sound like nothing more than a stronger attempt to take away things that skilled gamers did and give them to everyone. Skilled gamers could use intuition to make guesses where players that are low shields might go, now there is forerunner vision to give that skill to everyone since they can see through walls, essentially turning every map into an empty foundry. They are also rewarding time spent in the game by giving those who just play, not even do well, just play the opportunity to have advantages over those that only play every now and then with the addition of purchasing loadouts. It sounds more and more like the game is going to be catered to less skilled gamers, which will totally ruin it for the competitive base that represents 85-90% of their customer base. I for one am very discouraged by the news, though there is an idea floating around that I like that could make all of this work, if you are interested I posted it in the GI leak thread.

I did hear an interesting idea that could make this all work, but it is 100% speculation so I guess I will put it in the GI leak thread, if you are interested check it out there.

No problem man, I just did a lot of research on this, I really want H4 to be amazing but this news just really upset me. I didn't want anyone to think I was trolling or randomly spewing junk I read on like wikipedia, I mean I read up on this a lot, I kind of wanted to see if anyone could convince me that things like X-Ray vision, instaspawns, and random weapon spawns could possibly seen as good, to me it just sounds like something that if they released in a public beta would get shot down in like 3 days of live testing. :/

Game Informer is a nationally sold gaming magazine that is generally seen as the authority when it comes to new games and reviews of new releases. Is the information going to change, possibly, as with all games in development, however, they did get an invite to 343i and get a preview of the first level of the campaign and a few MP matches. I assume nobody spent the time to read the attached article or the fact that Frank O'Connor who works at 343i basically said yeah that is the way it is though there are some exaggerations of the exact function of certain features (the random weapon spawn system). SO the information has been confirmed, though he had said it is not all of it, what was said is accurate.

I would assume there is, I mean it has become such a huge community like the designing community on Forza, which is why I am wondering why they said they have no plans to continue Firefight, it is a simple way to keep a large community happy. And BTW, Frank O'Connor has come out and said that he can not dispute the information, but he feels it could use more explaining, I will include the quote. The magazine scans were always going to come out the day after the cover debuted, that almost always happens. We can’t talk about the story in detail, because it is GI’s exclusive. I will say that some of the things that “invested, emotional” players are “raising eyebrows slightly at” are being very misinterpreted (“random” weapon spawns for example) but we will be able to clarify some of those things in due time. Some of the other features, abilities, are also being discussed with no context (not your guys’ fault, obviously) and frankly, a video of TS would probably allay many of the especially hysterical reactions, but we’re not there yet. We haven’t seen a single reaction we didn’t expect (apart from the Dax love story) and we will clarify a lot of this stuff 100% in the coming weeks and months. SOME of the things in here won’t be properly understood outside of a holistic experience (modes, progress, fictional setting, etc) but I am going to say one thing and leave it at that: It feels like Halo, it does NOT feel or act like the other game(s) it’s being compared to. Again, without playing it, you can’t be blamed for jumping to certain conclusions http://halo4newsnow.tumblr.com/

I think those are your new currency that has been dubbed Spartan Points. That is the new way to purchase armor and armor abilities as you progress through the ranks, according to GI. I am hoping that the scoring system doesn't stay permanently changed from what has always been a simple system. If GI goes unchanged and is accurate I will be extremely sad. I do not understand why they are trying to overcomplicate what has always been a simple game that was based on skill. Halo 1 - 3, the games most consider to be "true" halo game, were simple, that was their allure. Everyone started with the same weapons and same abilities (none). The score was simple, to 50 in team games and to 25 in FFA for slayer and whatever the scores were for oddball, KoTH, and Flag depending on playlist, it was always easy to understand. Weapons spawned at normal time, 2, 3, or 4 minutes map and weapon dependent, same spots. The MP matched the theme, spartan, it allowed for skilled players to show that if you played you could get better. For instance, Halo 3, when I first started I maxed out at high skill 35, then I started to play more and made it to 40, then I started to learn the strategic portion of the game and made it to 45, after that I spent more time talking and learning from other players and made it to 50. I made it to 50, not by out BR'ing every other player like MLG pro might, I become a strategic player and made it to the same goal. Where this comes into play is when they introduced reach (which I DO NOT HATE! I was just never motivated to play it for reasons to come) and tried to make a casual gaming experience to all. They neutered the competitive gamers by introducing luck as a huge part of the game with bloom and AA's. Luck in any other Halo game meant I threw a lucky nade cross map and stuck someone or no scoped someone across sandtrap, Luck in Reach was a part of every kill. Bloom made more accurate players slow down their shots and allow for less skilled players to become lucky by spamming shots and somehow getting kills that those who pace shots never seem to if they spam. AA's (some of them) also introduced luck, armor Lock and jetpacks in particular. Armor lock saved so many people who would get ambushed by sword, rockets, shotgun, or were otherwise 1 shot and just mash a button and like magic they were saved, then they release and do damage to the player so audacious to be better, who would then die with a beatdown. Jetpacks simply destroyed map design, okay, I am one shot and am sitting near nobody, oh, you spawn cross map and lift up to see over the wall in between us and I die, effectively neutralizing the map's designed barriers. I also did not like the super repetitive environment in MM called forge world. I like forge world as an idea, i actually didn't ind the map layouts of forge world maps, i HATED the fact that it all looked the same, same grey metal, same grey rocks, same grass, same environment with some new walls is how it ended up feeling. Why I bring that up is because, again as stated in GI, the reason blue spartans fight red ones is right out of RvB, it is a training simulation aboard the vessel called the UNSC Infinity. The UNSC Infinity is now what MP will be called, it is also where the MP will take place, it is tied to the storyline as hinted on by the video when they mentioned that "campaign was steeped in fiction and MP never was" and how they were looking to change that. This is how, which to me screams same recycled environment, I do not want to play on a metal map every game again, I want some variety of my MP play spaces. The Pit was a training place, Guardian was a jungle, Avalanche was a snowy tundra, there was variety, I miss the variety. I just get that impending sense of doom that they are going to try and over complicate this and make it fail. I want it to be what it always was, simple and spartan. I want to see this game succeed, I love gaming, I love Halo, I don't want this to be what GI says they saw because it won't be a good experience, mark my words. Campaign will be great I am sure, regicide as a gametype (there is a king in FFA, the king is the leading scorer, you get a bounty for killing the king, the king's bounty raises as he kills more players in the game, kind of like VIP for FFA with a bounty raising for kills) sounds like a cool idea, no elites in MM is another good idea, and the Spartan Spec Ops is a good idea too, but the mechanics they are talking about just ruin it for me. If you want to see the community react other than me go to the sites, check out the forum posts at HaloCharts.com, or on HaloTracker.com, or H3Forums, there are a lot of them, none of them really have much positive to say about the changes. Check out the twitter accounts of the MLG pros, these are your dedicated players that spend the most money and time on your games, see what they have to say, we know what works in competitive MM and what won't. Make this game the successor to H2 and H3's MP, not something else. To be honest this is sounding more and more like Crysis 2 as a MP experience, problem, Crysis 2 is a great campaign but is far too complicated for most console players to find it to be a great experience, its better on the PC since controllers only have so many buttons and can't cycle through all these skills as smoothly. Please, again, save H4 and make it a back to the origins game that truly reflects H3 and H2.

The only reason it hasn't been confirmed is because contractually, 343's developers are not allowed to respond to topics such as this. The article was written by game informer as the game is now, it is not finished and is likely to have changes made. I am responding to the facts as is. GI got to see and play the game, if you read the article, which I spent time to, but as I can see by later posts, nobody seems to have done that and just feels like denying it, then in two weeks it will be sprayed all over the palce. If you don't like those ideas in a halo game it is best to try and get your voice heard now instead of after the game is packaged and sent out since there is no public beta being offered. So, my advice is to say your peace now instead of later so you can possibly see change. And no twin, I'm not mad, just a little sad that 23's need developers to handicap 50's and ruin good games so they can stay competitive

You need to click on the individual pages to load a bigger screen of them, then click again to zoom. I do read but going by tens makes no sense to me so I was going by the established 50 kill theme that has always been in Halo, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changed too. Also in the link I attach, u can see a score of 24 - 38, which can not be attained with scores going by ten http://4logpc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Halo-4-gameplay-screen.jpg )The problem is they are trying to neuter competitive gaming with all this extra stuff so that the 5 year old that just picked up a controller can get kills on a MLG player. I know MLG players and they are not happy with this, as is most everyone I talk to in the community. I have no problem with the new gametype, and I have no problem with the elimination of firefight, though I do not understand why. What I have issue with is they took the #1 competitive MP game on the market and completely destroyed what made it great. I am not going to get into a flame war with you about who is a Halo fan and who isn't, I have purchased every game, including the original CE the day it was released (which I still have), along with my 9000 exp on H3 I tend to consider myself I legitimate fan of the series. Changing the game over to mimic another series is stupid, you will lose your fan base and will not get the other fan base because, they already have their game, they don't want CoDHalo, they want CoD, just as Halo players don't want CoDHalo, they want Halo. All this is doing is alienating their current market. I think if these changes go into effect and they do not make it Halo 4, the game that follows Halo 3, this will be the most traded in game in the Halo series. No one will buy it, they will get it in gamefly for a month to play the campaign and trade it in. That is simply my opinion as a long time Halo fan.

I am sure most of you have heard, but the game informer cover of H4 has been leaked. SOmeone scanned the entire article onto the internet. After spending the last 20 minutes reading it, I can safely say that Halo 4 looks like the biggest fail of a game I have ever seen. I am sorry, I had high hopes for this, but as far as reach was a departure from H3 and H2, this takes the cake. For those of you that do not know I will sum up, AA's are back and you can purchase them at higher levels like CoD, Sprint is standard, weapon spawn are not set, they are drop podded in to prevent skilled players from being skilled, they are adding in X-Ray vision to see through walls and prevent anyone 1 shot or protecting the now random power weapons from staying hidden, there is instant respawns to completely F-Over anyone who just won a BR fight and it 1 shot and hasn't already been cleaned up by an xray toting idiot, and you can join in-progress games to put a definitive NO on the "will there be a 1 - 50 true-skill system like in H3?" question. Halo 4 sounds completely moronic. Let me explain all that is wrong with those changes. 1. Instant Spawns - THIS IS NOT COD!!! You are not 1 shot 100% of the time like in cod where that mechanic doesn't matter. In Halo you have shields and require 4 shots. If you are playing a game and you kill someone they can just instant-spawn back and kill you while your shields are low. Effectively shafting better players because they had the audacity to be better than an other player and kill them, oops, your dead for being better. 2. Jet-Packs and other AA's - Jet-packs destroy map design, plain and simple. Armor abilities in general do nothing more than screw up a good flowing MP experience. Why should someone carry around the right to be invisible any time they want, or have temporary invincibility to save all unskilled players from a certain death, nope, armor lock to again destroy the better player who had them dead. Don't even get me started on this new Forerunner Vision X-Ray garbage. That is quite possibly one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. Okay, now you can no longer hold onto a weapon, retreat when 1 shot, or plan an attack without the other players knowing exactly what you are doing. OMG, this makes me mad just thinking about it. X-Ray vision again takes a shot at the knees to players who actually took the time to become acclimated to the game and, oh God, were loyal to the series and played enough to get a thing I like to call anticipation. 3. Randomly Spawning Weapons - Okay, lets continue to chop down the loyal, regularly playing fan-base by not allowing them to time weapons or the now non-existent power-ups. Timing weapons is something simple that every player can do, but only the good ones ever seemed to remember to do, so what dose 343 do now, oh, lets see, take yet another thing away from the competitive Halo base. The excuse, "it ads more points of focus to the game." Okay, great, not the team winning by 3 with 2 seconds left gets a rocket spawning in the middle of their base, what does the other team get, plasma pistol, GREAT IDEA!.....Why couldn't you leave something as simple as weapon spawns alone, my goodness could you mess anything else up? 4. Joining in game sessions - YES YOU CAN! So now to fix the problem of quitters, you get join mid game. Okay, common scenario, oh, i join a game, my team has 12, the other team, 49 and 50 as I join, oops, there is a loss that I got without participating. There goes my 50..... oh yeah, there is no 50 because if you had them, you'd probably need to buy a few hundred thousand TVs for raging gamers who put their controllers through theirs. Now, just like reach and every other non-competitive POS game on the market there is no skill measuring system, just a stupid RPG style if you spend time you will rank up system, lovely. Final Thoughts. Why does this game go from being oh boy, a return to the classic halo series that was so successful to boy what a POS this will be. It is like 343 has taken a battle axe to the players who loved the game and spent time on it to get good and gave a big fat F U to everyone who liked and was good at Halo. Now all us 50's from H3 will get to be put on par with first timers since there is no more hiding or escaping, no more player intuition, no more timing, NO MORE SKILL OR REASON TO PLAY. So let me take this time to give a thank you to Bungie for making H1, H2, and H3 the best competitive games on the market (I will forgive Reach), and give a than you to 343i for making me drop the last part of my childhood I was looking to hold on to and destroying the best MP game on the market and thank you again for removing all stat tracking from H3 and destroying the last game I love and any evidence that Halo ever had a good game in the series. I guess you guys all thought that video games were juvenile and that we all should grow up. Guess I'll be, and it burns my tongue to say this, playing CoD from now on, at least they improve their games, even if they still aren't as good as H3 or H2. P.S. For anyone who doubts my information I have attached the link to the scanned in article, take a gander and you can be the judge. Goodbye to anyone who I played with or against over the years, best wishes everyone, and finally, Goodbye Halo, you will be missed. Article: http://gamingsquid.c...former-magazine

To follow more in the line of its predecessor Halo 3 when it comes to the MP experience and most importantly IT NEEDS TO HAVE STATS. I have heard recent noise that when Bungie hands over the API and stuff to 343 that there will no longer be H3 or Reach stats collected, which would be a tremendous disappointment. Adding to that, it has lead to rumors that H4 may not have stat collecting in the same way the H3 and Reach had, which to me was one of the most defining features of the Halo franchise. H4 needs a stat collecting website, it is a huge part of what makes Halo Halo.