Why are 343i holding back so much in Halo 4?

[Nizzmitt]

I don't understand why they aren't giving us everything there is to offer, I have so many questions and I'm just hoping someone can answer some of them for me.

 

I am talking about few things here but mainly the matchmaking, I'm not here to complain about it, I'm thoroughly enjoying it, but it is definitely getting repetitive

 

-Matchmaking

 

First problem with the matchmaking is the playlists, why are there so few? Why is there no doubles and what happened to assault?

It just makes no sense to me to not have more playlists in there, they have Griffball and Extraction in custom games but not in matchmaking.

I guess they could say they want less playlists so there are more players in each one providing more games to find, more people close to you, better connection etc. but we survived in Halo 3, sometimes searching in the early hours of the morning in Assault with less than 100 people in the playlist, but we made it work.

I guess this is more of a plea for more playlists, especially doubles (which was in my opinion the best playlist ever), or at the very least an explanation as to why there aren't more.

 

Second, Rank.

I know they're working on their ranking system but daaaaaaaaamn, I've been sitting on 70 for aaaaaaages because I couldn't afford to pay extra for early specializations and it grinds my gears that you can reach max level very quickly just by putting lots of time in, too much emphasis has been put on the casual gamers. The amount of XP you get just for seeing out a matchmaking game til the end is ridiculous, sure I don't want people quitting but I don't to sit there pulling out all the stops, getting only up to 3000XP (Seems to be the max) while my AFK teammate gets half that just because he was too lazy to push a few buttons and quit. They NEED to bring the proper rank system out ASAP, I worked ridiculously hard for my 50 in H3 and it took me a long time, where as it took me a couple of weeks to get to 70 and I see other 70's on my team and think "sweet, we should take the other team to the cleaners." But in actuality all they've done is put in the hours and reached 70 without performing well in game at all.

 

Third, Specializations.

C'moooooooooon, let me level up more, getting early access to specializations should be rewarded for being a fan no doubt about it, but when I stomp through the noobs getting to 70 quickly and not being able to progress because I didn't front up the extra dollars for early access it pisses me off. Those 12 year old "fans" whose parents bought the most expensive one they could find shouldn't get early to those specializations. Don't tease me 343, "Here's our game enjoy, oh wait, you've been playing quite a lot today, you're not allowed any more XP today how about that?" "Oh you've reached level 70 already, great job but you can't go any further because only fans get the early specializations and you clearly not a fan because you didn't pay us enough."

 

Fourth, "Challenges"

Challenges are meant to be just that, a challenge. "Complete 4 matchmaking games" They already give out to much XP for completing matches then they put out a challenge that gives out more XP just for playing 4 games. These challenges are just like the ranking system, rewarding people just for putting in time, you will always get the daily and weekly challenges just by playing. Challenges should be difficult, you should have to strive to get them with every possibly that would might not get the daily challenge today because you're just not good enough.

 

-Moooooooving on to something else, Fileshare.

This one just baffles me, why can't we see everyone's fileshares yet? That's all I have to say about that one...

 

 

I guess that's all I have to say for now, apologies if it seems like I'm having a bit of a rant.

 

I was huge fan of Halo 3 and I love Halo 4 but I feel like they could be doing a lot more for fans and they could cater more towards better players instead of the casual gamer.

[Artyom09]

don't forget about the ugly armour and lack of old game types

[RedStarRocket91]

I am talking about few things here but mainly the matchmaking, I'm not here to complain about it, I'm thoroughly enjoying it, but it is definitely getting repetitive

 

-Matchmaking

 

First problem with the matchmaking is the playlists, why are there so few? Why is there no doubles and what happened to assault?

It just makes no sense to me to not have more playlists in there, they have Griffball and Extraction in custom games but not in matchmaking.

I guess they could say they want less playlists so there are more players in each one providing more games to find, more people close to you, better connection etc. but we survived in Halo 3, sometimes searching in the early hours of the morning in Assault with less than 100 people in the playlist, but we made it work.

I guess this is more of a plea for more playlists, especially doubles (which was in my opinion the best playlist ever), or at the very least an explanation as to why there aren't more.

 

The small number of playlists is pretty much for the reasons you've given: they want to make sure they're well-populated so they can have the most balanced games with the best connections possible. Sure, it was possible to get the occasional good game back in some of the smaller playlists in Halo 3, but for the most part they suffered really badly from lag or had uneven teams. Plus, most of the new maps were designed specially for certain game modes, so having lots of other playlists would mean they wouldn't play as well as they should.

 

Also, it's to try and encourage people to try the new game modes and see how they've changed: there'd often be something like 500 people in Team Objective in Reach, now we have thousands of people in every objective playlist, and that's because the playlists are less weighted towards Slayer gametypes. There'll be more playlists coming, and they've said they're willing to make rotational playlists permanent if they get enough demand, so they're basically holding these things back to make sure there's a good demand for them before they're introduced: a playlist with only 500 people isn't worth having, you won't find a good match very often and it makes finding a good match for people in other playlists that much more difficult.

 

Second, Rank.

I know they're working on their ranking system but daaaaaaaaamn, I've been sitting on 70 for aaaaaaages because I couldn't afford to pay extra for early specializations and it grinds my gears that you can reach max level very quickly just by putting lots of time in, too much emphasis has been put on the casual gamers. The amount of XP you get just for seeing out a matchmaking game til the end is ridiculous, sure I don't want people quitting but I don't to sit there pulling out all the stops, getting only up to 3000XP (Seems to be the max) while my AFK teammate gets half that just because he was too lazy to push a few buttons and quit. They NEED to bring the proper rank system out ASAP, I worked ridiculously hard for my 50 in H3 and it took me a long time, where as it took me a couple of weeks to get to 70 and I see other 70's on my team and think "sweet, we should take the other team to the cleaners." But in actuality all they've done is put in the hours and reached 70 without performing well in game at all.

 

They don't have a rank system yet because they want it to be as fair as possible: some people will be new to Halo games with Halo 4, some will have been around since playing splitscreen back in 2001. It's a way of making sure that everyone has had a chance to get the hang of the controls and learn how the different weapons work, find a favourite loadout, and learn all the different rules before they start getting ranked on it. If it was from Day 1, some people would do much better than they actually are because of good luck, and some people much worse for the same reason. Holding back the ranking system just means it'll be that much more fair when it finally arrives.

 

As for people going AFK in-game, it's unfortunate but that's just always been a part of Halo. I think the new AFK booting system takes something like ten minutes to kick in, which is why you may be seeing it a little more frequently than in Reach, where players would just get banned rather than kicked out mid-game. The reason that's changed is because there were too many complaints about people getting banned unfairly, a lot of which seemed to actually be legitimately unfair.

 

Third, Specializations.

C'moooooooooon, let me level up more, getting early access to specializations should be rewarded for being a fan no doubt about it, but when I stomp through the noobs getting to 70 quickly and not being able to progress because I didn't front up the extra dollars for early access it pisses me off. Those 12 year old "fans" whose parents bought the most expensive one they could find shouldn't get early to those specializations. Don't tease me 343, "Here's our game enjoy, oh wait, you've been playing quite a lot today, you're not allowed any more XP today how about that?" "Oh you've reached level 70 already, great job but you can't go any further because only fans get the early specializations and you clearly not a fan because you didn't pay us enough."

 

Think of it as a bonus, rather than a right. 343 don't want everyone getting all the specialisations too early, as it would make it unfair for those people who don't have the time to get to maximum level in the month after release. For example, while I love Halo, between my job and my studies I just don't have the time to play for five hours a night, and I imagine for a lot of the other older fans, the situation is the same. Nobody can get above SR-70 at the moment, all that differs is which specialisations they can pick from. Once enough people hit max level, they'll unlock the next set of specialisations.

 

Also, what's wrong with being twelve? I first played Halo when I was ten, and I'd like to think that I wasn't banned from liking it just because of my age.

 

Fourth, "Challenges"

Challenges are meant to be just that, a challenge. "Complete 4 matchmaking games" They already give out to much XP for completing matches then they put out a challenge that gives out more XP just for playing 4 games. These challenges are just like the ranking system, rewarding people just for putting in time, you will always get the daily and weekly challenges just by playing. Challenges should be difficult, you should have to strive to get them with every possibly that would might not get the daily challenge today because you're just not good enough.

 

In fairness, a lot of them challenges HAVE been very difficult. How many people managed even 12 regicides in one game, for example?

 

The logic behind it is the same as capping players at SR-70. It helps people who don't have the time to put in 5 hours a day rank up. I can't just skip work to make sure I hit the XP cap for the day, but I can make sure I get 50 Assault Rifle kills in a day. If you're looking for a difficult challenge, you could also try setting your own: a game of Oddball becomes a lot more fun when you decide at the start that your personal goal is to kill 5 Oddball carriers, for example. There's no XP reward, but if you're having fun and playing enough to hit the cap anyway, what's the problem?

 

-Moooooooving on to something else, Fileshare.

This one just baffles me, why can't we see everyone's fileshares yet? That's all I have to say about that one...

 

Supposedly it's to help them get the filters working. Back in Reach, with the tag system a lot of people started adding really horrible tags to files: there was the whole 'author rams whatever' thing for a while before Bungie stepped in, so they probably just want to make sure nobody has to worry about their videos getting tagged by trolls.

 

I guess that's all I have to say for now, apologies if it seems like I'm having a bit of a rant.

 

I was huge fan of Halo 3 and I love Halo 4 but I feel like they could be doing a lot more for fans and they could cater more towards better players instead of the casual gamer.

 

I don't think it's so much that they're trying to upset hardcore gamers as it is they want to make it so that everyone can play. If a casual picks up Halo 4 and likes it, they'll probably keep playing it, so we get a new player for the community. Plus, there's a very big difference between how good someone is and how hardcore they are: my flatmate, who plays nothing but Farmville and The Sims, completely destroys the rest of us every time we play splitscreen, while another of my friends, who's been playing Halo pretty much every day since Halo 2 launched, sometimes can't kill me if I'm standing still and not firing back.

[SykoWolf]

There are issues with the game , yes. But they listen to the community. So Halo 5 will be better, you can rely on that.

They hold alot back, because it is the trend these days, bad i know, but they do it to get more people into the game.

[Final Sentence]

The thing that drives me crazy in all FPS games, is the lack of personalizing controllers.

 

How hard would it really be from a programming stand point to have preset controller and another option that displays each action to the side, and the player selects what does what...

 

Halo 3 and Reach have forever burnt jumping with the left bumper into my brain and muscle memory. It also feels extremely comfortable. Some people could make their controller's setup complacently different while others could make the basic of changes with only a single button change.

 

They messed up Bumper Jump, the original Halo 4 settings had LEFT TRIGGER as armor ability, that would be amazing. All I want to be able to do is swap left trigger with X, remapping these is child's play.

[Nizzmitt]

Thank you RedStarRocket91 for answering all my questions, hopefully they release a few things soon.

[buffy the spartan buffalo]

holding back? they brought new weapons, killstreaks, random ordianance, maps, armor, emblems, support packages & upgrades, sprint is default, specilizations, spartan ops, and campaign. if you think they are still holding back then its because of disk space. also i made this post soley on the title

[Noxus]

In response to the lack of playlists, yes, there should've been more playlists at the start but you gotta remember that the game is still young. Over time more playlists will be added...