The Good, The Bad, and the WTF of Halo 4

[Fernin]

So, here it finally is. H4 has landed, by now most of us have finished the game and logged a fair few hours of multiplayer. We have seen the sum total of the changes to the game, and while most of of may love the game, don't all love some of the changes. But, on the other hand there ARE some changes we're very glad to see, and some changes that just make us scratch out heads. So, my fellow Halo fans, what is the good, the bad and the WTF of Halo 4 for you? Please no spoilers and growling about weapon balance is NOT the intent here, the intent is to look over noticeable changes to the core game itself from previous Halos.

 

-The Good-

-The Incineration Cannon. "Exactly what it says on the tin." =0

 

-Sprinting, thank, whatever deity there is Spartans can now run faster than a slow jog without apparently needing to modify their armor.

 

-The Pelican. Dream come too. Alas it was so short. ;_;

 

-Plasma Pistol's new sound effect.

 

-The pistol is once again a beast.

 

-Spartan Ops has ALOT of potential, and is looking good so far.

 

-The Bad-

-In single player on Heroic and above the three pillars of Halo's gameplay (Guns, Grenades, Melee) are largely broken as melee combat becomes suicide because prometheans/Elites kill in one hit with their own melee attacks, and grenades can't kill a shielded target outright. The latter is particularly frustrating as sticking an elite used to be rewarded, now since Elites and Prometheans can soak 2+ stickies it's become a wast of time, and ultimately slow than just shooting them to death. No to mention more dangerous since Chief throws like an infant with no arms.

 

-Prometheans are invincible during their teleport animation, this is amazing frustrating and non-sensible when shooting a part of thier body that should still be solid. It results in alot of wasted ammo, particularly on legendary when they tele every 3 seconds. I'd swear sometimes they spend more time in that invincible tele animation that shooting at me.

 

-Every third enemy in Spartan Ops seems to have a fuel rod gun. This, is, so, friggen, annoying and makes soloing on Legendary a total pain.

 

-Needlers perfect tracking accuracy. Frankly I adore the needler, its been one of my favorite weapons since the first game. However when the needles start making u-turns to hit or actively maneuvering around cover, then it's just annoying. Even more so when three enemies are shooting at you with it at once.

 

-Auto Aim way too intrusive. I can't count the number of times so far in single, and in multiplayer I've been screwed by auto aim dragging my aim toward an enemy that ran infront of the one I was trying to kill. This actually gets me killed quite often in multiplayer. Another oddity is the way aim suddenly becomes super sluggish for a second when on target but a moment more pressing in the direction your target is moving seems to result in your aim flying off the target. 343, PLEASE give me the option to turn down, or turn off AA. I've played many games that allowed it to be off before and did just fine.

 

-The WTF-

-Hit Scan weapons. How thought this was a good idea? It does nothing but favor players with stratosphericly high pings and removes the element of skill required by leading one's targets.

 

-No Dedicated Server. Perhaps I've been spoiled by years of PC gaming, but peer-peer and dynamic host systems seem very out dated and unreliable in these days.

 

-Aliens don't wear clothes? Why are the covenant naked under their armor. o.O

 

-The Warthog's engine noise. As a car guy it makes me go @.@.

[FroztyIzSyko]

Seriously I stopped reading after you started complaining about campaign difficulty. If it's too hard for you, then either change the setting to normal or easy, or get better. Why should they lower all the skill caps because you want to feel good about yourself beating the game on heroic? I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I enjoyed beating the game on legendary solo because it extremely difficult. I beat it the first time with a friend on normal, but I highly doubt heroic is harder than it should be. There is a reason it is considered heroic, it is slightly more challenging than normal but easier than legendary.

[Fernin]

Seriously I stopped reading after you started complaining about campaign difficulty. If it's too hard for you, then either change the setting to normal or easy, or get better. Why should they lower all the skill caps because you want to feel good about yourself beating the game on heroic? I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I enjoyed beating the game on legendary solo because it extremely difficult. I beat it the first time with a friend on normal, but I highly doubt heroic is harder than it should be. There is a reason it is considered heroic, it is slightly more challenging than normal but easier than legendary.

 

You seemed to have missed the point entirely, so I'll explain it in slow, simple terms for you.

 

There's a difference between difficult and cheap. Unfortunately H4 happily meanders over into the realm of cheap. I'm in the process of slogging through it on legendary like everyone else (I did heroic on my first play through), but unfortunately it feels more like work than anything enjoyable. Making common enemy soak 2-3 stickies has nothing to with skill, all it does is devalue the use of grenades to the point of being neigh useless, the same with melee. It's not so much an issue of things being to hard, if you just use a gun it's not. It's an issue that it takes two of three core parts of Halo gameplay and makes them almost useless.