Bloody Initiate

First off, I don't think Destiny will be "Halo's nemesis" because the info on it so far puts it in a slightly different genre than Halo. Second, I would rather 343 management stopped looking at other games and wetting themselves, it's exactly that kind of attitude that gave us the knock-off known as Halo 4. If they spend all their time looking at other games, like you suggest, then they make other games than Halo. Your attitude is the very source of most of Halo 4's problems, as is everyone who shares your attitude. All of that "CoD vs Halo" BS is what got us this crap game in the first place.

BEFORE they released some of their larger updates I was still playing the game. I understood that things take time to fix and that 343 are real people working at a real company with real projects and other deadlines. I don't understand much about the industry, so I tend to be pretty patient when waiting for fixes. AFTER some of these larger updates which have already taken place, I'm just disgusted anymore. I know enough about the industry to know that when you update the maps in matchmaking, you can update the maps in matchmaking. I'm not a single-issue critic, but do it long enough and you start seeing canaries. "IF 343 cannot figure out that ______ issue is a very serious problem as well as a stupid problem to have, and they demonstrate this by failing to _________ (update or correct the issue), then chances are they will NEVER correct ________ issue or if they do it will be long after you're sick to death of playing a game with ________ issue." Or the abridged version: "If 343 doesn't fix this **** I'm outta here." Followed by: "343 didn't fix this **** when they did a bunch of other 'fixes' in a similar vein, I'm outta here." So I haven't been playing Halo 4 lately, and after I've played the game I'm playing right now to death, I don't foresee checking in on Halo 4. I don't declare this often because I don't really see one person playing the game as relevant, and this isn't a "I quit 343 YOUR LOSS" type of post, it's just in response to the OP's questions. I've even refrained from correcting someone recently when they said the DMR was 4-shots to kill (Someone else said the same about the BR), because I haven't been playing the game, there HAS been an update, and I know better than to talk about something I might no longer know about. A couple weeks ago when I was playing they were both still 5-shot, but I didn't correct anyone because my info may be outdated. I still check in on here and post critiques because the basic failures of Halo 4 have not and will not change. They spent a lot of effort imitating another game, that failure will not change, it's history now. They shipped a game with enormous flaws and failed to fix them before I stopped playing the game, that fact will not change. I can be "a hater" all I like whenever you do something so catastrophically stupid that its ripples are felt for years, and that's what 343 did with Halo 4. I will continue to criticize 343's failures until we see proof they've learned their lesson. You don't get a break until you redeem yourself, otherwise no one would ever change. I know this isn't their official site, but it IS a site of official fans like myself and some of the other harsher critics of the game. We want it to work, we want 343 to do well, but they are not doing well, and so I show up here and on waypoint to make that known. The mistakes of Halo 4 should never be forgotten, otherwise we'll just take the "4" out of that statement and have a cautionary note in gaming history.

The shotgun has always killed in one shot as long as you're close enough. How close you have to be has changed in each game. The sword is having more problems in this game than in others, but it's actually getting kills it wouldn't normally due to people trading kills more often. The biggest problems I see the sword having are that people can spawn with a boltshot, weapons kill faster than ever even when you're not using a boltshot, and your shields take 6 seconds to begin recharging. Thus you have to get close to people which can be dangerous, your shields are getting wiped out faster than ever but are slower than ever to come back. As I said, the shotgun has always killed in one shot and has always been able to kill a sword if timed correctly. The problems the sword is now having are largely problems every weapon has in Halo 4.

I suspect that Reach + Halo 4 sort of shook the etch-a-sketch on canon and made more Spartans seem much more appropriate. After all they had 4 years to get new spartans ready, and since they ARE officially "better" ODST probably continue to serve a more Spec Ops role. The trouble is that in-game the A.I. allies have gotten even WORSE than they were in Reach. I don't know why Bungie and then 343 decided to do this, because I used to enjoy outfitting my marines with the best weapons from the battlefield. Instead of picking between a sniper rifle and the beam rifle I had just killed a jackal for, I'd just give one to my A.I. Marines (preferring to give them to an ODST, and preferring to give the A.I. the weapon with less ammo since they had infinite ammo, and preferring to give them the sniper rifle since 4 shots in rapid succession by a legendary A.I. was much more useful than the slower beam rifle). I was disgusted when you first get allies in the game and they just walk out and die instantly (Not even exaggerating on the "instantly," just as I was annoyed when the marines in Reach suddenly forgot how to drive). It was a feature of the game few people understood but some of us really enjoyed utilizing, and since I start and end my campaigns on Legendary, these paper mache guys are all I get. It used to be on Legenary you were glad when the marines arrived because you really could use the help, now even when I've kept them alive long enough to give them good weapons they still only lasted for a few seconds. I guess Bungie and then 343 decided that having useful marines made the campaign too easy or something, but it was another way to play certain segments. Lately I've been playing Iron Brigade from the Arcade, you're allowed to use A.I. in that to your advantage.

I tend to defend JIP in other playlists, but it has absolutely no place in FFA ever.

I'm OK with that change really, the Halo Community is ****ing pathetic in terms of maturity. That isn't to say a lot of other games have sophisticated audiences, just that I've been close enough to this one for a long enough time to know for damn sure that players can't be relied upon to do the right thing EVER. They can surprise you occasionally with a glimmer of awesome, but you'll never get it when you're hoping for it. Present company largely excluded of course.

They should slap that effect onto the Nemesis perk, cuz that perk damn sure isn't worth anything otherwise. More on-topic, I normally condemn any and all favorable discussion of dual-wielding, but I can't help but think it might be kind of fun to dual-wield boltshots.

Reading these numbers is one thing, understanding them is something else entirely and far from an exact science. That's one of the many reasons you don't see me talking about player population much, because I feel like most attempts to interpret that information fail outside broad strokes. There are billions of variables affecting how much people play or don't play. You can say something general like "there are fewer now than there were..." but you can't pretend to have perfect answers for the question of "Why?" Games naturally eventually decline as do most things that aren't necessities. That can be sped up by one of those many variables I mentioned, or slowed down. People who pretend to know are probably overpaid for trying. Even with years of education and training they'll still get it wrong, and while I don't blame them for not being omniscient, I DO wish we'd quit expecting them to be right up unto the point when they're wrong about something. I haven't been playing for my own set of reasons, someone else will have stopped for a completely different set. Gamers as a whole might have stopped playing for another set of reasons. As long as you aren't making and marketing the games I don't recommend spending a lot of energy trying to understand why other people do or don't play, even on a mass scale.

Just so you know, while I can't offer you any answers about people quitting, it's very easy to understand/explain the skill thing. You start at 1, so does everyone else, so when a playlist is new you're facing people from all kinds of skill levels. After all, they can't have a ranking if they've never played a game in the playlist, can they? The system needs you (and them) to play games in order to understand how good you are at that playlist and place you appropriately. So the problem you were experiencing is very likely the result of 2 things: 1. Players aren't placed in their appropriate tiers yet because the playlist is new 2. Players are trying harder in the playlist because it's the "competitive" one (Don't underestimate the influence of people tryharding) BTW the "new playlist" effect on Trueskill is one reason why I actually liked playing newer playlists back when I was better at the game, because I had strong basics. So while everyone else is struggling on new maps and settings I tend to shine. Once everyone gets used to the new feel I get put in my place. The point of this paragraph isn't to brag, it's to show you that players are aware of the Trueskill system, how it works, and how to take advantage of it. I never created a secondary account or anything back in Halo 3, but even as much as I argue for the sanctity of the Trueskill system I've "poached" before. I enjoyed waiting for a playlist to "settle" - as in everyone has been playing it for a while and has been sorted into their proper Trueskill levels - then I'd start it up because all the lowest level players had sifted to the bottom and I would start out at level 1. As for people quitting, that's a Halo 4 fail and finds its way into every playlist, not just Team Throwdown. People probably quit MORE in Team Throwdown because people are tryharding and beating them badly, but they would have quit too much anyway.

No, I know they didn't fix it, but I only asked the question so that it would be asked. They haven't FIXED anything.

Is there still a Gauss Hog on just one side of Exile?

BS Nothing but the pistol was OP in CE because the pistol was SO GOOD that you never used anything else but a sniper rifle or rocket launcher. The AR NEEDS a deep clip, anyone who knows anything about the weapon and doesn't just hate it for personal reasons knows that. Dropping its clip size was the biggest nerf they ever dealt to the weapon, and it's NEVER done "too much damage." The AR has NEVER been "OP" EVER.

I play on 7, lately that's feeling too slow. People rush you and flank you a LOT in this game, and I'm not sure how anyone gets by without being able to turn quickly. It's not a lack of awareness, it's just Halo 4. It's pretty common to find yourself in the wrong part of a pincer/sandwich on Haven just due to its design, which is also the most popular small map. The surprising thing is I don't feel my accuracy has suffered very much, but at the same time this is Halo 4 where 343's loving hands interfere with every aspect of the game. Of course I could be totally wrong about how much it hurts/helps me. I really do suck at this game and complain about it often, so I'm sure at some level I'm doing it wrong. I just haven't been able to figure out where/how/why I'm underperforming.

Most of Halo's weapons aren't that good on a wartime scale. Look at the beloved sniper rifle, it always revealed the person wielding it and it took that thing 4 games to learn how to hurt vehicles. What's balanced and effective in an arena shooter just happens to be different than what works in an actual war. Heck we don't even use personal firearms if we don't have to anymore, that's what drones are for... More on topic: The AR always fell a little short. It should have gotten better instead of worse, but both Bungie and 343 decided it must continue to suck and so it does. For some reason a weapon that requires you to get very close to use it became the standard issue grunt weapon for the UNSC, how those idiots win wars without Chief is beyond me. Oh wait, they don't. It's really like a full-auto musket.

Absolutely. OMG they could have at least let it kill someone with the final shot in the clip. Instead you have to empty your clip landing every damn shot and then RELOAD to get the headshot. The boltshot's normal firing mode is the most imbalanced and horrible thing about it. I can't believe they were so stupid as to let a method that weak into the game. It reminds me of the Gauss on Exile... and how there's only one. How could ANYONE be so unbelievably stupid and still have a job making games? I'm sure there are stupid people in every industry, after all there are stupid people everywhere, but damn there are a LOT of them at 343i. That's a tragically high concentration of dim-witted folks working together to fail a common goal.

Assuming I had a directorial position in the game's development and was therefore a chief decision-maker, I love it when people say things like "you couldn't do any better." I assure you I could have done MUCH better, and I bet a lot of people on here could have done better too. I don't say that with a lot of pride because it would have been easy to make Halo 4 better than it is (Again, assuming we're just taking the helm at a development studio, not following the paths in life that actually get you the position). What you fail to realize is that Halo 4's biggest problems come from the direction they took the game, not coding mistakes or lack of project coordination. The problem with Halo 4 is that the people who made it liked another shooter more than they liked Halo. There is also blatant incompetence like putting a Gauss on just one side of Exile. All of that makes me think "Wow, some simple proficiency with the game as well as making different decisions than these would have made this game much better." I also didn't need to see the stupid decisions made to know they were stupid, I would never have even considered making the game like it is. The lack of inspiration, competence, and direction present in this game is astounding. So if I ever get the helm at a major game studio handling a developer's flagship title I'll let you know, and then you can play it and see how well I did. Although I admit at this point Halo 4 is so awful that if I got control of a game like Crysis 4 I'd probably make it play like Halo out of wistful desperation, lol. Nah that's not true, I'd try to familiarize myself with the franchise and then expand on it while honoring its traditions. I would NOT spend all my effort copying other shooters, and I would NOT do things so wildly stupid as assymetrical power distribution in symmertrical gametypes/maps. If I had the opportunity before I took the job I'd try to make sure I had a good idea of the game I was supposed to make. I doubt I'd have that time if the opportunity arose, and the opportunity will never arise since I'm not in the gaming industry, but I would never just copy a lot of other games. Some features are good, but I would never try to morph one game into another because I know enough to know that is a horrible move from all perspectives. Halo 4 is SO bad and SO mismanaged that I can think of fewer ways to do it worse than I can think of to do it better. You could neglect your programming staff, allowing the game to be glitchier. That kills a game right off. You could copy another shooter MORE... Yeah that's about all the ways I can think of to make it worse. I'm sure I could do more if I took the time, but I can think of SO MANY MORE ways to make it BETTER. On a side note, calling an inane statement like yours a "tip" is pretentious at best.

To be fair, StrongSide won an FFA Tourney back in Halo 3 under a different tag. I don't remember the name of the tournament, but I remember a special FFA Tourney event and I later found out he won it As I've said a few times, the best players are still the best because they still do whatever they have to in order to win. That's what makes them the best. Even some of the old MLG Pros that aren't playing professionally any more could still pick up a matchmaking game and completely dominate most of the games they played. Even when they're no longer in the top 0.001% or whatever percentage the professionals make up, they're still going to be in the top 0.0016% or something. I know when I come back from a long break it takes me awhile to get back in the swing of things, but things like smart positioning stay with you forever. I remember after long breaks from H3 I'd come back and never score in the top of the board, but I'd focus on contributing to my team and go something like 9-2, which was still positive and therefore acceptable to me. Communication also stuck with me, some buddies and I picked up Reach after a long absence from it and we were on one of those forge maps we'd never played before. My call outs kept our shots coordinated (it was a simple enough map that I could say things like "left" and that was enough) and I went something like 13-0 while my friend who was much less experienced got a perfection 17-0 or thereabouts. I didn't think about it much as we were playing, but that flow of information let my teammates move and strike with consequence. If I hadn't been the only one calling things out I imagine we would have crushed even harder, because when you're the only guy on the team making call-outs you tend to play "alarm" a lot, finding enemies and either dying or retreating a lot. I am nowhere near the league of any pro or ex-pro, but the point is good gameplay habits help you long after your prime. Unless of course they change the game so dramatically that your foundation crumbles, but hey that's Halo 4 for me.

Agreed in many percentages beyond 100. 343's M.O. as we saw in Reach and we're now seeing in H4: Fix none of the real problems, nerf things people yell loudly about.

Gauss for raw ability. The chain gun just sucks right now. Rockets are neat but much harder to use and harder to drive for, too demanding for a weapon that's still not as effective as the Gauss.

I've heard the SAW is insane with a damage boost, I very rarely get a damage boost with a power weapon though. I WILL more often get it with a vehicle though (In fact I've been meaning to teach myself to get out of a vehicle after so many kills to see if I have a good ordnance). I like getting it in the ghost because players aren't ready for the ghost to kill them that fast, so a lot of the planning they do to deal with you relies on the fact that you kill them in X amount of time and they can do Y before then. I also feel like a damage boosted Warthog turret has a much more appropriate kill time than the unboosted turret. That damn thing just kills too slow normally. I enjoy a DB + sniper rifle for tough situations. I got one on harvest awhile back when the enemy team cornered me. I saw I had DB and dropped it behind cover, grabbed it, and then turned and snapshotted the guy who was rushing me. That made them think twice about pressing their advantage.

I don't think there is significant damage protection in the current SWAT gametype since you kill people in one melee. I don't think that is a bad thing. I wouldn't include damage protection to limit a sniper rifle in a SWAT gametype because there's no reason the sniper rifle should kill in two shots while every other gun kills in one. The whole point of SWAT is one-shot kills, usually due to headshots. This expands to become a gametype focused on reaction time, positioning (Being where they're not looking, being where they ARE where you're looking, and being harder to see/shoot), awareness (Hear fast footsteps behind you? Some idiot is going for an assassination), and communication believe it or not (If your team communicates you will be looking where the enemy is and have a sizable advantage). It's all about getting the jump on the other players, and thus a two-shot weapon is pointless. That being said I'm having a hard time of thinking of a SWAT gametype for Halo 4 that could ever include a sniper rifle without being on a big map. The DMR just has enough accuracy and therefore coverage to do the job of a sniper rifle if no one has any shields. It could have worked in Reach since the DMR had much more dramatic accuracy degeneration in that game, not so much in Halo 4.

Some guns are better than others in more situations, and I see people with rockets get "completely decimated" only occasionally by people with assault rifles or magnums. You can push a rocket user enough to make them commit suicide, but even getting that close usually requires them to look elsewhere or reload. I agree that getting killed by a weapon doesn't make it OP or imbalanced, but it sure as hell doesn't automatically make all guns "balanced" either since they all EVENTUALLY kill people. Just because over time they will eventually all get kills doesn't mean they're all just as good as one another. The idea that players can just whip out "counters" to weapons as easily as changing your hand from "paper" to "rock" is a bit silly too. You tend to have to die a bit before you can acquire the ideal tool, and then you need circumstances to allow you to use it, which tends to correlate with how good that tool is. If you're trying to deal with a sniper by counter-sniping (Which could be the only option in the game you're playing, it might be the worst option in another game), then you first need the rifle and then a moment's peace to use it. If the sniper's team has you flanked there is no "counter" that will counter both the guys up close and the guy far away perfectly. Also as I say in my first sentence, some guns are just better in more situations, and since you can't predict every situation, you go with the most versatile. DMR > BR in every situation except SWAT. Rocket Launcher > Assault Rifle as long as the Rocket Launcher hasn't just begun its reload within CQB range.

Xbox controllers have been able to sense how much you were pressing the thumbsticks and the buttons for a looong time, game developers who don't take advantage of this capability are doing their players a disservice. The triggers, ABXY face buttons, and thumbsticks can all detect how much you're pressing. The bumpers are just "clickable" (Pressed or Not) as are the thumbstick buttons, I don't know about the D-pad, I think it's just clickable too. In fact I never realized but this may be a contributing factor to what made Halo feel more "smooth" than a lot of other shooters that were available and popular at its initial release. Other games felt jerky and disconnected from their thumbsticks, maybe they had uniform sensitivity for all pressures on the thumbsticks. I don't know because I've never had that kind of close awareness of what I was doing vs. the feedback I was getting. I'll have to boot up "Hybrid" some time and feel whether this is why I felt the game was unpolished. So while I completely disagree that this is a problem, or that it was ever a "problem," I'm glad you pointed it out. It was a capability that has always been there and I knew it, but I never realized it could have been a major aspect of making the game playable. Most game developers I've noticed DON'T use the variable sensitivities of the buttons. I remember Fable 2 did, if you pressed the button all the way down when using a bow your character would pull the bow-string back further. I honestly didn't even realize the button pressure was variable until I played that game because so few developers made use of the full controller. This is also why I always hated playing games that also showed up on the PS2 back in the day. As I recall that controller has two fewer buttons, and so you'd play the game and you'd have at least two unused buttons. I always hated the old PS2 controller, it was a step in the right direction but simply less capable than the Xbox controllers. Playing PS2 games on an Xbox often left me feeling like I had fewer fingers or something. I wish more developers would use MORE of the hardware, but in many situations it's understandable. In Halo for example, making the face buttons have pressure-sensitive in-game results would probably be a mistake because people need to press them too fast. They probably can't keep their speed and accuracy up if they also have to be careful. In bigger games where you can take a bit more time, especially single-player-only games, they could do much more than they do with the controller.

Don't think I've seen any actively working together, but I imagine there's plenty of people going in with 3 guests and no-one playing them. To be fair, this is a legit way to play Regicide. I'm sure we've all been annoyed when we're playing Oddball FFA or something similar and we're headed to the objective when some fool starts unloading his gun into our back. He's not getting many points and he's denying you points at the same time. Regicide is an objective gametype. Sure you CAN get points for just killing each other but the KING is the objective. Smart players will realize fighting people other than the king frequently just slows them down and weakens them. Smart players will fight over who is KING. It's only because FFA players play every damn game the same way that Regicide normally plays like regular Slayer. FFA players don't think much, they just charge forward and shoot the first thing they see that's moving. Some people will say "smart players don't play that way" but the fact is most players aren't smart. Statistically most will be average, and then a bunch will be stupid, leaving a minority of intelligent players. I didn't get to 50 in Halo 3 Lone Wolves, I got to 44, and it took about that long for players to stop charging forward shooting everything that moves. Numerically I was within the top 15% of players, which means it was a minority above me.

If you were about the size of a launcher and this were a sci-fi racing game then the Halo 4 maps would be awesome. Sadly you're bigger than that and supposed to kill each other. They DO suck, and it's a deliberate design choice that they should suck, although the map makers hopefully weren't writing "make maps suck" on a dry-erase board to remind them of their objective every day, they were writing something equally stupid and synonymous like "promote movement" and/or "forbid camping." The problem with Halo 4 maps is they're designed to funnel and control you instead of being designed to inspire and allow you. Haven is a favorite, but there's nothing to do on Haven except run around. That makes it work for slayer and nothing else ever. Halo 4 maps are hamster wheels, letting you move without giving you anywhere to go. I have a hard time with this personally because my movement has to have an objective. I have to want something on the map, a weapon or a position. In Halo 4 maps there is nothing on the maps that I want to have or do. So yeah they suck quite a bit. They wanted us to keep moving and never to camp, but they failed to realize how aimless this makes movement feel. You're just marauding around hoping to find someone, and you won't have a good position when you do. The result is almost exactly the opposite of 343's intention. One of the smartest things you can do is stick with your team, and it's easier to hold a team together when you don't move as much. You also don't have any power weapons or power positions to worry about, so wherever your team is becomes the best place for you, and then you can just summon power weapons. I second this. The DMR changes the game, whether you like it or not you can engage enemies from at least twice the range that you once could. This makes just about every map created before Reach sieze up like an ungreased wheel. It's a shame because most maps made in Reach and in Halo 4 aren't any good. I'm a bit confused why they've NEVER re-made "Boarding Action" though, it's the one damn map ever made designed for consistent long-range combat. It would have worked in Reach or in Halo 4. I don't really want any more re-makes, even though I was very glad to see Valhalla return as Ragnarok (I've said in multiple places that I believe that's the best map ever seen in a Halo game). Most people don't want to play the same map over and over again even if it's perfect, and most don't have an obstacle like the center hill cutting a bit into the DMR's reach. The Pit actually did, so it may actually work. The maximum range you could fight at in the Pit actually ended up being 4-shot range for the BR most the time. Snipers would be miserable in a DMR-infested Pit though. You could barely withstand the BRs when you were sniping in the Pit, the DMR would just make your life miserable.