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If I may ask, why does there need to be another race to play as? Just curious.

The random weapon drops does seem a tad.. odd, but they also stated that the weapons are going to be placed at the beginning of the match like always, just after that it will become random. Not sure if they are applying this to all weapons, or just power weapons though. In one of the sparkcasts they did say that it does have a pattern that can be learned over time, though, so we'll see. The unlocking things does feel very much like CoD/BF. I haven't personally played CoD, but BF, it is a pain, but I understand why it is in there. Unlike the Halo universe, at least in BF3 they have a multitude of guns that perform the same function, and you unlock them as you progress in the different "classes". I'm not sure how much I like this idea for a Halo game, but again, I'll reserve judgement on it until I've seen it in action. Anyway, thanks for the discussion! Should probably get this back on topic about bloom, huh? To me, the whole ZB thing seems a bit overpowered. I may like it more if perhaps the DMR was nerfed a bit, but as it stands, the game wasn't designed for it to be played that way. I dunno. My personal preference, I guess.

Okay wall of text. Let's begin, shall we? Spartans are in multiplayer. Period. The game revolved around the Chief. There's no question that they are in. You say CE didn't capture you're attention because you couldn't play as an elite, so I assume you were absolutely thrilled when Halo 2 allowed this, correct? So now, we have Halo 4. A brand new game to start off a second trilogy, and to top it off, now there is a reason why red spartans fight blue spartans. It's all a training exercise aboard the UNSC Infinity. The maps take place inside a holodeck (think Star Trek). So why would the UNSC have their spartans train as elites, instead of in their natural form as Spartans? It doesn't make sense, from a story perspective. As for elites fighting humans and humans fighting elites, we don't have enough background information to know what is going on. Chances are they are a separatist group (think Star Wars: Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith separatists) that want nothing to do with the new government, yada yada. Now, for your feelings on the matter. Playing a game not for the gameplay, mechanics, not for the abilities, etc, and you are playing for story, then what does it matter that elites are not in the multiplayer side of things? Honestly? I don't mean to come off as rude, I'm just curious. Where was the story behind them being in the multiplayer of Halo 2 or 3? Strictly from the campaign? I understand where you are upset about not being able to play as elites in matchmaking, but like Fal'Taralumee said, if they are playable in Custom Games and Forge, would that be okay? What about a dedicated section, like the so called rumored "Elite Ops"? There is still a lot of unknown information, and the game is still 6 months away. Who knows what surprises 343 may have up their sleeves?

Thanks for the response, Three. How do you feel about the apparent custom loadouts, then? Choices between BR/DMR/AR, etc? Obviously for competetive play, the choices will probably be between DMR/BR, so what are your thoughts on this?

It's the same basic principle as that. Two people each sign in three guests, play against each other and just kill the guests, headshots, assassins, etc, to boost. There's nothing saying that you couldn't also have a group of 8 friends who do the same thing. 8 sign on, one team plays the first game, the other team AFC's. Switch the next game. Banhammer can't distinguish.

And even then, the whole team would have to be AFC. If it's a single player, there usually isn't a problem. When it's a full team, the banhammer tends to think that you're doing it intentionally with friends to boost.

It's about Faber, Choot's guess as to what's happening to AC.

But to limit yourself to one weapon and one style of play doesn't make you good. It makes you good at one aspect of the game, not the whole game. I'm not knocking the way you play, don't get me wrong. You have every right to play the game how you want to play the game, and that is everybody's right. But answer me this, if you don't mind. There is no bloom in H4 as far as we are aware. There is recoil on the BR. How do you feel about that?

I use CAD software every day at work, I'm a mechanical/piping designer who went to school for architectual drafting. It would not do well for map building/forging purposes. You'd be better off with what VivaLebowskisuggested, 343 releasing a program to actually build maps, not just forging. But for making structures that could be imported into a program like VivaLebowski suggested? I could see that working really well, as long as all the scales were known.

They have confirmed there will be some sort of join in progress, but we don't know exactly how it is going to work yet. Could be strictly for a social type playlist, or it could be across the board. I'm hoping for the social only. I think it would screw with rank too much in a ranked type setting.

Adding in these "perks" seems a bit... wrong.. Some of the ones mentioned would be okay, such as Hybrid or the Trooper and Soldier, but the others would just seem to make the game unbalanced, IMO. We'll have to wait and see what 343 is planning, but hopefully whatever they decide on will be balanced well. 15% seems like a very large increase...

That post nearly brought a tear to my eye. :unworthy: Great post!

I didn't see this until now, so let me respond. Sorry for bringing up an old topic, but this irked be a bit. Armor abilities in Reach were done for a reason. Where they done right? No, I don't personally think so. That doesn't mean that 343 will make the same mistakes as Bungie did (because yes, Bungie made the mistakes). What do you know about Forerunner Vision? Honestly? Have you seen it in use? Do you know exactly how it's going to work? No. Nobody but the developers at 343 know how it's going to function fully. Spartan Ops was a placeholder name, as far as I'm aware. And honestly, a company adding in MORE features to give you more playing time is a bad thing? Wow, where did I wake up this morning? Neverland? Spartan Points - Seriously, just like credits. Nothing says they are going to be used to rank you up, so what's the problem, really? Adding sprint is hardly an issue. If everyone has it at all times, then it's balanced, period. Nobody has an advantage or disadvantage with it. Slowing somebody down from sprinting at you with a sword is bad? No, I don't think so. That was a problem with Reach. Sprint + Sword was a terrible combination to deal with. Is it possible to stop? Absolutely, but it can be difficult. I don't see an issue here. Show me where Armor grants stat bonuses. Show me what those "stat' bonuses are. Until you do, this point is moot. We don't know anything about these yet, we don't know what they will be, how they will function, if they even exist, truly, to the way people are portraying them. People like me, is it? People who have faith that a game will play well, that the developers are doing everything in their power to make a balanced, fun game? Who says that these items are "problems"? It's people like you who ruin games, my friend. People unwilling to accept changes and only wanting carbon copies of previous games, people that complain at every little thing. Without change, game franchies will die. /rant

Welcome, welcome! You've definitely come to the right place. Friendliest Halo forum ever, and the members here are awesome, unlike on some other sites.

Would love a beta, but I doubt it's going to happen, like Doctor said. There's just not enough time left for them to stop, create a beta, test the beta, have players play, get the feedback, incorporate changes, and still get the game out on Nov. 6th. Not to mention if they do have a beta, you're going to get a lot more threads here (like somebody stated yesterday), crying for changes. "I don't like this, change it!" etc. I'd rather have that only happen after the game is out, because I'll be spending more time on it than on here, most likely.

My understanding is that the problem isn't from using the account, the problem is the account is spamming his friends on its own to try and build the playfire community, correct hotdog? If so, that's strange. I have a playfire account, but can't acccess it from work, so I'll take a peak when I get home, see if I can help you out here. As far as I'm aware, my account hasn't spammed anybody. Is there a setting somewhere that allows them to send out invites to friends?

I see what you're getting at, Skys. Something to that effect, but I would limit giving credit for kills and assists. Strictly needs to be K/D, otherwise it starts becoming like Reach's system, and very few people want that. For example, you have a positive K/D at the end of a game? +100 XP. You have a negative K/D at the end of a game? -100 XP. Your team wins? +200 XP. Your team loses? -200 XP. Something along those lines, so you still have the incentive to win, but even if you don't, if you do enough to try and help your team to win (positive K/D, capturing flags, etc), you still have a chance to improve your true skill ranking, because you are better than that loss would show. Is it still possible to have negative XP at the end of a game? Absolutely. But again, it can be abused. Perform badly to derank, and then tear up on new players. Or you don't derank, and it just takes you that much longer to rank up. Hm.

This. But it would need to be about equal to capturing a flag, otherwise what's stopping the betraying anyway? Or you add in both the betrayal losing XP and this. Like I said though, any system can be abused. It's finding a balanced system that can't be abused as much that's what's difficult, because let's face it, somebody will always find a way to work this system to their advantage.

I've been saying this for a while. Strictly wins is not the way to go. You win? You get XP. Add in a positive K/D to a match? Extra XP. Killed an enemy flag carrier? Extra XP. Captured a flag? Extra XP, etc. You lose? You don't receive or you lose XP. Negative K/D? Lose XP. Let the enemy capture a flag uncontested? Lose XP. Let them control a hill for as long as it's in position? Lose XP. It doesn't need to add a lot (or take away a lot), but something more than just wins and loses. Sure, if you performed well, maybe you don't lose as much, but you still lose. This way wins and loses still matter, but if your team loses and you go +15 K/D, you aren't as penalized (or gain a minor amount of XP) towards your next rank/skill level, etc. Any system can be abused. How do you feel about what I explained above?

I'll start off with the campaign on normal. It it grabs my attention then I'll probably play through the whole thing before jumping into MM. If the campaign seems bland? I'll finish a few missions then switch over, and will eventually go back and finish the game when I have the itch.

While Reach's ranking was far from perfect, 1-50 wasn't perfect either. I'd rather see that then Reach's, though. What I really want is more than 16 players. Dedicated servers with say, 24 players. That would be good. Sick of the max 16 count.

Agreed. Having it pop up in the middle of the screen like that would drive me crazy. I already get annoyed by the commodation pop up, adding something even higher on the screen.. no please. Middle bottom? I may be okay with that.

That's a good question. Hopefully we get a clear answer on that sometime in the near future. The only buttons I can think of as being free are the d-pad...

Because most people think it helps them. When I see somebody go into armor lock, I tend to back up and call a teammate to me and we have fun waiting for him to come out. I like the idea behind armor lock, I do, but it wasn't implemented well at all.

I had a feeling that the countdown was always for the release date, and now it's been updated. Though oddly it does not end at midnight, but rather noon. Strange. Why noon? Edit: Noon can be subjective. To be specific, it ends at 12:00 PM Central time.