Twinreaper

MJ, you misunderstood the bloom part of my post. Every Halo title does not show the amount of spread from a firing weapon. Only in Halo 2, did the reticule encompass the entire area that the spread was limited to. Did you bother to read my examples, like the H1 Pistol? I never said I was against it, I just stated that from a programmatic stand point, it is useless. For instance, items like the carbine, bruteshot and mounted turrets, never have the reticule encompass the entire spread of fire. As for the end of the post with the tightening of the bloom. BLOOM IS NOTHING MORE THAN A VISUAL WIDGET OF THE HUD. IT DOES NOT CONTROL OR DICTATE THE SPREAD OF A WEAPON. DATA IN THE WEAPON TAG ITSELF TELLS THE RETICULE TO GROW OR CONTRACT BASED ON THE AMOUNT OF ROUNDS FIRED. As for Hitscan in multiplayer, it does not make any sense. The ping required alone to make hitscan work is not achievable. There will always be a delay between all the clients and the host server, rendering hitscan a useless option for any type of weapon. That is why hitscan is never used in multiplayer aspects, and why we always have to slightly lead our targets. I could go over the technical game engine side of all these points for years, after rifting thru countless tags and decompiled maps, but I think the whole thing has gotten way out of hand. Just suffice to say I do not and will never endorse the blooming reticule or hitscan weapons. Reaper out!

The chest armor perm was an exclusive that Bungie gave Gamestop to distibute with Reach. Many other retail outlets and online stores received the same type of thing. Bungie had a lot of leftover armor perms that were never compiled with the shipping game. They used these extras to give out to retailers to entice people to pre-order. They are one of a kind and can never be unlocked via the armory outside the official code that was given to you by the retailer. Now that of coarse can change over time. It is possible we will see those things in the armory, but a very high credit price.

Very nice explanation of the "real world" physics behind it all. I was referring mostly to how the physics of the game engine are handled. Unfortunately there is no real good way to combat the issue of how much damage a weapon gives you depending n the place of the target and the type of weapon being used. The calculation process alone would kill the game play. Even when Halo 2 used the "hitscan" battle rifle, you would see a slight lag skip when the game had too players using it. It takes a lot more processing than most would realize for simple tasks to complete. Now for Halo Reach, it would be possible to achieve this. As I said in a post somewhere else, most of all the game engines handling is through a script system. This is the first time that any Halo game has used scripts outside of AI, cinematics and machs to handle almost all aspects of game play. The only exception there of coarse would be Firefight mode in Halo 3, and ODST. But while I do like that idea of how a weapons damage should change based on range, it also would bring a completely different feel to the multiplayer and campaign aspect of the game. Personally, I am not good with handling change. Hell I throw a fit after Bungie usually changes something silly in tag structure or tag data. I can't imagine how upset I would be if they drastically changed how weapons deal damage. But again, I think that is a very exciting idea that could bring a whole new spin onto the franchise. But I did also want to say, that from what I have read, the military shooter type of training games that soldiers use in the military, do have this type of damage calculation. Which is why the graphic end of it is so poor. A majority of the processing power is devoted to the environmental and physical calculations of the game.

To Spectral Jester and Matt, you quite obviously have no idea what bloom actually is or what is designed to be used for in the Reach blam! engine. Every Halo game had it's weapon draw backs if you spammed the trigger. For instance... Halo 1: Pistol. squeeze off more rounds than once every 2 seconds and the fire staggers (across multiple markers) Halo 2: Sniper rifle: Squeezing off rounds consistently caused the screen to take an upward Z vector Halo 3: All of the above apply. Halo 3 ODST: SMG: You can clearly see the accuracy drop when using non-controlled non-short bursts. Halo Reach: DMR: Firing more than one round every complete second or 2 causes staggered fire. Definition for Bloom as used in Halo: The visual representation to allow players to physically see the rate and spread of a weapons fire after a designated amount of rounds in constant fire have been reached. Again, every Halo game has this. Halo Reach was just the first one to give the player a way to really see it without having to be a highly skilled player to determine or memorize the changing of firing for weapons. Ok, now for the whole hitscan weapon thing. First off, it is best to describe for those who have no idea what is, what exactly it is. Hitscanning, is when the game engine does a series of calculations before the firing weapon actually ejects it's round. When you pull the trigger, the game determines the path of the projectile assuming that said projectile has an infinite velocity, and calculates what objects are in it's infinite path. Halo 2 is the only game to date to truly incorporate the "hitscan" type weapon. And even saying that is not accurate. There were certain instances where the hitscan style of projectile use did not function as intended. There would be times at which you fired the weapon, and only 1 or 2 rounds actually would hit the target. This is because the battle rifle fires 3 rounds, but each round actually ejects at different times. For true hitscan, the weapon can only fire 1 round at a time. Which is why saying the battle rifle was a hitscan weapon, is still not completely true. Now I do not believe hitscan has any business being in any fps. Trying to justify it in game environments that utilize such realistic collision detection and physics handling is just silly. If they do intend on doing it, then they might as well just not do any type of multiplayer. If true hitscan weapons are used, then no matter how much you stafe, roll or evade, the shots will always hit their target. Part of the magic of multiplayer is leading your opponent. As for the realistic end of it, there are not hitscan weapons in real life. every firearm fires projectiles at a set speed determined by how much gunpowder or magnetism is present in the round or barrel. Everything slows due to physics and gravity. So why add such a silly thing into a game that uses such advanced environmental handlings? Sorry this ended up so long, I just get really aggravated when people who do not know how the game engine works, or what data is present in the tag sets of the maps and resource files.

It wouldnt be a release without an extra. Every game after Halo 2 had some sort of special attached to the version, and the fact that you pre-ordered. With Reach, those of us that pre-ordered got a special chest perm. And depending on the version, you got a helmet or something else. i am sure 343 or Gamestop or the others will give us something. They have to....right? I mean c'mon....it's Halo CEA!!!!

Halo 1 and halo 2 had no hidden bloom. All shots fired from H1 and H2 weapons always stayed within the confines of the reticule up to a certain distance. This is where the actual "skill" to combat other players came in. Seriously, you people really need a reticule to grow or contract on your target so you know how much chance your shot has of hitting your target? That is sad. I would hate to see you play with "Blind" enabled then...lmao And bloom does not stop spamming of shots. Rapidly firing any weapon produces a "spread" of shots. Again, for anyone who really knows the tag and structure system of how weapons and huds work, knows all errors in shots is handled by the weapon tag itself. Bloom is just an additional visual bitmap widget added to the weapon hud so you can actually see it happen. Hell while we are at it, why not add a sissy hud timer to let you know how long till your frag grenade goes off. All things reticule should be kept simple a sweet. A crosshair. no magnetism, no weakspot translation, no red sights. Just you a gun and simple sights. Good luck on Halo 4 guys! You are gonna need it!

Releasing new armor permutations for the game via the armory would not require any special additional coding. The newer version of the blam! engine relies heavily on the use of scripts to execute just about 60 to 70% of everything we do in game and in the lobby. Adding the new perms would be as simple as updtating on the script sources and linking it to the actual data that would come in the form of an update download. Now, a big misconception around here is that Bungie did Reach. Not true. 343 worked closely with Bungie in all aspects of Reach. It would not suprise me that 343 would kick off it's official permanent handling of all things Halo, with some sort of updated content. Hell, they could be releasing the helmet as an add-on special for those who pre-order the Halo 1 remake to go along with the redone maps. Which now looking at it, makes the most sense. Every Halo game after 2, had a special add-on or code for a special item for those who pre-ordered or grabbed a certain edition of the game.

The problem with the weapons is not the distance to enemy issue, but more of a damage level. Although your idea is sound, it is flawed a little. It would take the game engine an additional amount of time to calculate appropriate damage for each weapon. That is something that is already almost pushed to the limits with the 360. All halo games to date, have heavily relied on the 360 graphic architecture to handle a majority or the gameplay in terms of damage, physics and collision calculations. While the processor end handled a small amount of other tags and game objects. memory usage also runs very high on halo games. Adding in a secondary calculation string subset for the damage would tax the game engine and console optimization a bit. there would have to be a compromise in other areas. As for the whole real war thing posted up by Rafter, your reason is flawed as well. The amount of force one recieves from a bullet is relevant to it's firing acceleration, amount of angle it has due to gravity and the trajectory or movement of the target. Someone hit by a shotgun at a distance of 3 feet versus 30 feet is a good example of this. Someone up close would be blown back by the amount of physical force the bullets have + it's ejection speed. As the distance grows, so does the effective penetration and recieved force. It is all basic physics and very well documented.

Firtst off, bloom is an uneccessary function of the weapon hud. All bloom does is give the player an actual (visual) view of the firing spread (min and max error angles) + (unknown constaraint) of a weapon. Halo 2 and Halo 1 did not incorporate a blooming reticule into gameplay, and for that, multiplayer became more aggressive and required a larger amount of skill to properly hit your target at distances. Even with the larger reticule they gave you, for each weapon, dependng on the type and size of weapon, you still had to lead more than Reach to make sure a fair amount of your shot or shots hit the target. From a engine standpoint, the blooming reticule was more than likely added to help/assist novice players who were not familiar with the franchise or the multiplayer/campaign aspect. Personally, I don't even notice the reticule bloom when playing thru. While there are some I am sure, who rely heavily on needing to know when and how far apart shots are going to be placed when engaging in combat. Bloom has no use and no real function in any Halo title going forward. And for that matter, get rid of that ridiculous "magnetism range" weapon chunk while they are at it.

If you have to "boost" in Halo 2, then you really suck at Halo period.

Have to agree completely. While the armor effects did add that little extra "oompf" to replay, it grew very fustrating for those of us in the multiplayer environment. All those extras caused a huge spike in match spamming players. Even now, almost a year later, it is hard to find good "team" based players to game with, instead, you get a bunch of guys who credit farm for these extras. If they are going to have add-ons for armor and gameplay, they need to re-think the way these things get achieved. First off, the credit system is flawed. All add-ons should be based on a gameplay award system. Make it so that certain objectives must be met before you can purchase these items. For instance, instead of simply saying, yeah go ahead a spam a few matches to get that 3000 credits for the new armor or effect; why dont they instead say "hey! Go assinate 100 Elites and 200 grunts", then you can have it? And then mix things up. make some things match specific. "10 assists, 2 assinations, 1 vehicle kill, and dont die". This kind of armor and effect add-on system would most definatly spice things up and prevent tons of lame ass players from standing around all day farming for things.