RedStarRocket91

As a VERY general rule, the Big Team Battle playlist has the best ratio of time spent/cR earned. For a ten minute match you'll usually earn around 3,000 credits once you hit Field Marshall.

I'm just running with the idea in the article. If there has to be a system where customising armour actually affects your combat abilities - as is suggested here - wouldn't you prefer it to be something like this rather than just blindly getting one advantage after another as you rank up? All that would do is turn newer players off the game, and make rank more important in who wins than skill. There needs to be a disadvantage - which ideally marginally outweighs the advantage - for every upgrade you make to your Spartan, to keep things balanced and fair. Besides, starting everyone off with the same equipment isn't necessarily fair anyway. If you're rubbish with the Assault Rifle and you start with it, then you might lose a game badly against someone who you would clearly win against if you'd had access to the DMR from the start. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses as a player, and provided things are properly balanced then letting everyone start off with the equipment which best fits them actually makes the game more competitive than forcing everyone to start the same way. Also dude, you're totally ripping off my idea!

This would work perfectly well as a Big Team gametype in Matchmaking, though it would need a dedicated map. If anyone here played Star Wars Battlefront II, they'll remember the space battles from that, and I think this could work in a very similar manner.

I'd like to see a Transport version of the Falcon - maybe something where players can shoot out of the side with their guns or the chin-mounted machinegun is still there. If it could transport, say, four players - one pilot, two on the sides and one in the middle who can't shoot - then it would be pretty much perfect for Objective games.

I'd actually advise against doing SWAT. You get a very large clip, so misses don't really matter, plus you get a HUGE amount of aim assist and bullet magnetism with the DMR. All that playing SWAT will do is make you get used to those, so when you come to use the Sniper Rifle you'll actually find it more difficult to hit your enemy, let alone score headshots.

A 'demo' is actually usually representative of the game in its final state, whereas a 'beta' isn't. So if a demo came out it would be exactly what you got in the real game, while a beta would be somewhat different. For example, the Reach beta had fewer shots in the DMR, plus different loadouts for Spartans and Elites and slightly different movement speeds, while the demo for Mass Effect 3 had identical gameplay to the shipped version.

There's a theory, which is very popular with game designers, that most players don't look up very often. This increases their chances of getting killed from above as they're less likely to spot enemies. Lowering the reticule increases the amount of space available for vision above the player's head, making it more likely that players will spot targets higher up. You don't normally need to see what's on the ground in front of you as most enemies will be at head height or just below, so you'll see them anyway.

The only real caution I'd have towards this is that it might make weapons harder to recognise at a lance. If I look at someone now, I can tell immediately what weapon they have, which increases my chances of winning the fight as I know how to react to them (get in close if they have a DMR, back up if they have a Shotgun, start wondering where I'm going to spawn if they have a Fuel Rod Gun). However, if there are a lot of weapon skins it becomes harder to tell what weapon they're using, making battles unfair as I can't use the correct tactics through no fault of my own. That said, provided the weapon silhouettes are varied - and immediately discernible from any range regardless of colour scheme - this wouldn't be such a problem.

I think this potentially could be okay, provided that any improvements which are made have corresponding drawbacks. Let's say you unlock a piece of shoulder armour which increases your melee damage by 10%. Obviously, on its own this isn't fair as it gives the player a major advantage over someone just starting who doesn't have any advanced armour unlocked. However, if it increases recoil by 25%, then suddenly it's a lot more interesting. Now you have to worry about what you're doing to yourself: yes, you can hurt players better at close range, but it's going to be a lot harder to use your weapons. You can do the same thing with other aspects of your armour. A bigger chest piece raises your Shield strength by 10%, but lowers your movement speed by 15% and increases the size of your hitbox, making you more likely to be hit. Leg armour increases your movement speed by 10% but lowers your jump height by 20%. A utility piece raises your weapon damage by 20%, but you can only carry half the ammunition that you usually can. A different utility piece allows you an extra grenade of each type and 10% extra ammunition, but you can only carry one weapon at a time, making you less versatile. Obviously these are just examples and could be much better balanced, but the important thing is that they don't confer an overall advantage. Every time you get stronger in one area, you get weaker in another. It's kind of like the system used in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, but taken to a slightly greater extreme. This would balance out customisation a lot more than just blindly rewarding players who've been grinding, as it makes things more tactical. Everything you do becomes a tradeoff, so that by the time you reach the equivalent of Inheritor rank you cant just walk into any battle with more Shields, damage, speed and accuracy than everyone else. You just play to your own strengths more.

Team Snipers is actually quite a bad way to practice with the Sniper Rifle, as you'll normally be fighting either pros (so you'll just end up dead before you get a chance to shoot) or people who aren't great with it (so you won't be getting hit and thus aren't under as much pressure). Ideally, you should get a few people to practice in Custom Games. Set ammunition to unlimited, make a loadout for yourself with a Sniper Rifle, and make a few others with Shotguns, Assault Rifles, DMRs, Magnums, Plasma Repeaters or whatever. Then get them to attack you one at a time. This will help you learn to control your shots even while under fire, which is the most important skill for a good sniper to have as you will be getting attacked when you use it for real. If you just panic-fire and don't know when to scope in, when to take a shot without scoping or when to run away, you'll end up dead all the time. Your aim will naturally improve as long as you're doing this, so don't worry about that either. With time and plenty of practice, you'll get better.

Could see this working, as far as I know EMP already kills Holograms and Drop Shields, so I don't see why it shouldn't disable other abilities too. At the moment it's actually a somewhat underused weapon outside of Big Team Battle, so giving it an extra kick against Armor Abilities might make its use a bit more common.

You might want to ask a mod to move this to one of the 'Forge World' sections. Also, you may have more space that you think: as far as I know it's possible to have up to 100 Forge World variants at any one time, so unless you've got 90+ maps you don't need to worry about deleting them.

What's your map called? I'll be happy to give you some feedback, anyway.

It definitely goes up. When I was a Warrant Officer I used to be pleased if I got more than 1200 cR per game, while now I get irritated if I'm earning anything less than 1500. I think as a general rule you get significantly more 'game complete' credits as you rank up, although from what I've noticed the 'slot machine' credits seem to decrease a little.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything that can be done for you here. Console Bans aren't done automatically by the system, they have to be done manually by 343i - this is to prevent legitimate players getting serious bans by accident. Although you can try appealing directly to 343 over on the Waypoint Forums, chances are that they've already made a decision and won't reverse it. However, if you've just bought your console and this is the first time you've played it or you've had the console a while but this is the first time you've played Reach, you should definitely let them know. If you've been banned because of someone else who was using your console, they may be able to check when and where your console was banned via IP or which gamertag the ban was handed to. I hope this helps!

Do you mean something like the EVA, or surrounding the head entirely? I don't think the latter would work, as you'd be sacrificing a lot of protection and structural integrity for no real increase in vision. I'd quite like to see a gas-mask styled helmet, with bug eyes and a large rebreather.

Because it's generally quite difficult to train against someone who actually wants to kill you. That's normally classed as combat. OT: Interesting speculation, but unlikely. The Elites in Reach had open faces after all, and they still had a HUD: I think (though I'm quite possibly wrong) that I read in one of the novels that Elites wear some sort of contact lenses which is what their HUDs appear on, rather than being shown on the visor itself.

As far as I knew, you're actually not supposed to be able to end up on different teams, at all. Maybe it only happens if there's an awkward number of players partied up or something? Like in a 4v4 gametype, you get two parties of three and a party of two. Other than that, I can't see how this happens. Might be worth asking Twinreaper, he knows his stuff as far as multiplayer coding is concerned.

I find it even funnier that people 5-star their own topics. When you create something everyone disagrees with and there's one vote saying it's great, it's kind of obvious who gave that rating. On topic: Halo 4 has better netcode than Reach, so you'll have less problems even if you have a bad connection. Also, of course people get red bar signals. If nobody ever did, there wouldn't be any point in showing signal strength. If you're frequently getting matched into laggy games, there are a few things you can try. Firstly, there's an option built in to deliberately take longer to get into games in order to find a better connection. I suggest you use that. You can also try playing with friends in your own area, which will reduce latency times. Also consider playing in the evening, as this increases the chances that people with good latency times compared to yours will be online. If none of these work, the problem may be with your own connection: you can visit speedtest.net to check your internet speed. If this is fine and you're still having problems, check your NAT level and if possible switch to a wired router. If none of this helps, unfortunately it looks like you just have a bad internet connection. You may wish to consider switching to a better ISP.

Did you know that The Battle Rifle appearing in Halo 3 is a different variant to that in Halo 2?

This is done deliberately in Reach. It's a method of preventing people from credit boosting or getting to really high ranks without any real effort. if you have an XBL-enabled profile, you will gain a huge amount of credits from Matchmaking, regardless of whether you're playing in Competitive, Firefight, or Campaign. This is also the reason why someone who doesn't have an XBL-enabled profile will lose a lot of credits and ranks if they do sign up for it. Basically, it's to stop you just going into Forge and leaving your console on overnight to get 200,000 credits without actually doing anything. Or going into Custom Games and shooting at three guests who don't have anyone controlling them. I agree that it's a bit of a shame for those who aren't into playing Matchmaking, for whatever reason, but sadly that's the way it is and can't be changed.

Am I the only person who actually really liked the way the Halo:CE Warthog handled? In any case, I liked the feeling of speed and weight in the Reach version. It was just ruined by how fragile it was, and how uncontrollable it became after even the lightest touch. You could use the Brute Shot against its counterpart in Halo 3 without sending it too far off course, and yet it routinely gets rolled with nothing but small arms fire in Reach. Ideally, it should keep its speed and the feeling of weight, but be less susceptible to rolling. A bit less sliding would be nice, too. And a turret which can actually hurt people again.

The DLC didn't seem to sell very well, plus most people only want to play specific gametypes. Now that they've updated the matchmaking system so that people are more likely to be matched against others who have the same DLC, it's quite common to go into Team Objective or Team Slayer and get the DLC maps but with a better chance of getting a gametype you want. Also, if possible you should try playing just after midnight GMT, that greatly increases the populations of most playlists as the majority of players are from the Americas and that's when they come on.

I just hope everyone here has played Starcraft II...

Maybe they could work something like the Silverback from Gears of War 3? You get plenty of power, but you're a big target and move and turn very slowly. I don't think they'd work in multiplayer, though. Their job would essentially be the same as the one the Scorpion already fills, so they'd be a bit redundant there. Maybe if they only had machine guns, so they fill a better anti-infantry role? Kind of a hybrid between a tank and a Warthog.