Halo 4 does require skill!

[Romeosierra616]

unlike halo 3 and halo 2 there is alot more randomness and luck based gameplay now much much more of it which results in Not being such a big skill cap. in other games i could easly turn around out br 2-3 people at times in this game you can't you will kill one and have them spawn 10 inches from you to sprint to you and kill you. The Massive dmr hitbox allows them to hit 2-3 inches above my head and so they can kill me faster, and god drops them power weapons when it drops me needles gernades and speed boost.

 

Soooo... what your saying is you can't go on planned out rampages on maps you know by heart like the other games, you have to have skill, and be able to adapt to unpredictable situations?

[Caboose The Ace]

well halo 4 does require skill if u had none you wouldent be able to kill a player

[TornadoFlame]

Soooo... what your saying is you can't go on planned out rampages on maps you know by heart like the other games, you have to have skill, and be able to adapt to unpredictable situations?

i'm saying theres no skill gap in the game everyones somewhere on the same level now with all the random situations in the game. adapting to unpredicable spawns and power weapons from the sky is like saying your pro at cod.

[Delpen9]

i'm saying theres no skill gap in the game everyones somewhere on the same level now with all the random situations in the game. adapting to unpredicable spawns and power weapons from the sky is like saying your pro at cod.

Sounds like your nagging about there being more variables to the game then the previous Halo's and somehow your relating this to COD. The only thing that really makes COD so unfair are those helicopters. Other than that the game takes map menuevering and a quick slate of hand. The new halo may have a lot of the basic componants of Call of Duty but each and every part of Halo 4 is harder to do than Call of Duty. Actually, the spawns are very predictable, why don't you give it a try. The opposite team always spawns in a spawn that is farthest from any single member of the opposing team. This is why staying with your team is so important so you won't be caught approaching an enemy spawn.

[TornadoFlame]

Sounds like your nagging about there being more variables to the game then the previous Halo's and somehow your relating this to COD. The only thing that really makes COD so unfair are those helicopters. Other than that the game takes map menuevering and a quick slate of hand. The new halo may have a lot of the basic componants of Call of Duty but each and every part of Halo 4 is harder to do than Call of Duty.

 

w00t sorry when i play game i tend to enjoy less random and luck based enviroment having a match be 59 59 only for rockets to magically spawn in front of them is not my kind of game nor a entire team going -40 combined but still win a oddball because of instant respawn. Only comparing to cod in terms of the skill gap in that game because i play it and used it as a example.

[Bloody Initiate]

Talking of the skill gap, good players still distinguish themselves, but only if they had a certain playstyle. There are players I play with who were always better than me at Halo, but they're having as hard a time with Halo 4 as I am.

 

What's different is they eliminated the odds of surviving with certain play-styles. They reduced the amount of ways you could play the game. For example, while people complain a lot about boltshot campers I've never seen such a camper dominate because the truth is we can all see him on PV and we all laugh a little before we spam him with grenades. The only hardcore camper that survives is usually camo on large maps where you have to rely on visually spotting the person and your motion tracker and PV don't reach that far.

 

The point is that once upon a time you could choose that play-style and focus on it. Now you have more requirements before it works. Halo 4 is the most anti-camper Halo yet, and if you've tried to camp on a smaller map you've learned this lesson.

 

You also can't just pick a front line on the maps and fight there. That used to be my play-style. Maps used to have sides and generally you could count on the enemy coming from somewhere in front of you (The maps that DIDN'T follow that rule got criticized for their spawns). Myself and many others got good at going to places on the maps where the fighting would be thick but not hopeless, then we spent our time there and won games by being better than the other guys. That's how maps used to play, large portions of them would go largely unused in fact.

 

You can no longer do that because the maps don't have places like that, once again except in Big Team. The maps are designed with circular movement in mind and usually when you're looking at one angle of attack you are exposing yourself to one from the opposite direction. Suddenly people can just get behind you without even meaning to, they'll just spawn there or it'll be the fastest way for them to return to the fight. Suddenly wherever the fighting is thickest is also where it's the most hopeless. Combine that with instant respawns and sprint and you often can't even get away from it before someone respawns and is shooting at you.

 

So my play-style, and the play-styles of a LOT of Halo players, don't work anymore. A player who sticks to the outskirts of the combat and makes a point of running away a LOT will still do well, but only if his teammates play like old Halo players and DON'T run away so that he can get away unnoticed. Players who stick together, wherever they are, can also do well. I used to advise players never to stick together because the way older Halo maps were you would often just be lining yourself up to become a multikill. Halo 4 is different though, because while you can still become an easy multikill, you're going to have a much harder time surviving multiple combats without someone else there.

 

For those of us who haven't yet adapted, the skill gap IS lower, because we're fighting each other with weapons and game settings that are doing most of the work. For those players who HAVE adapted or were just playing the game right from the start, the skill gap is higher because the rest of us are still fighting the game. Some of the most popular play-styles got targeted with the game's design.

 

The game IS designed for players to get one kill then die. You can beat the odds, but those odds are definitely stacked towards getting a K/D close to 1.0. There is no other explanation for things like 6 second shield recharge delay but instant respawns and weapons that kill in under 2 seconds. You are not meant to go from one fight to the next and still have good odds of winning. A lot of the time the people who get killed early in a match get to run around playing SWAT because by the time they respawn and sprint back into combat many of the players who won previous fights are still one-shot. For those of us who play this Halo like it's a Halo game, we have a hard time breaking that 1-kill-then-die design. For people who resist the game, avoid fair fights, and run from risk, there is a wealth of possibilities.

 

For me it's a total overhaul of the way I play to become good at Halo 4, and while I'm working on it I'm also on these forums arguing that a good game lets you play more than one way. Even if I get good at Halo 4 as it is, I am still very much against the style of game they made it into. Even if I were good at it already I wouldn't like the game they made, because a good player is often not beating his enemies he's just playing against the game. I understand you want to avoid fair fights anyway, because smart players want to work with their teams to minimize risk and fair fights are a risk, but you always get into some anyway and in those situations I'd like to know I was beaten by someone who was better than me not someone benefitting largely from the many features of the game designed to kill me.

[Delpen9]

Talking of the skill gap, good players still distinguish themselves, but only if they had a certain playstyle. There are players I play with who were always better than me at Halo, but they're having as hard a time with Halo 4 as I am.

 

What's different is they eliminated the odds of surviving with certain play-styles. They reduced the amount of ways you could play the game. For example, while people complain a lot about boltshot campers I've never seen such a camper dominate because the truth is we can all see him on PV and we all laugh a little before we spam him with grenades. The only hardcore camper that survives is usually camo on large maps where you have to rely on visually spotting the person and your motion tracker and PV don't reach that far.

 

The point is that once upon a time you could choose that play-style and focus on it. Now you have more requirements before it works. Halo 4 is the most anti-camper Halo yet, and if you've tried to camp on a smaller map you've learned this lesson.

 

You also can't just pick a front line on the maps and fight there. That used to be my play-style. Maps used to have sides and generally you could count on the enemy coming from somewhere in front of you (The maps that DIDN'T follow that rule got criticized for their spawns). Myself and many others got good at going to places on the maps where the fighting would be thick but not hopeless, then we spent our time there and won games by being better than the other guys. That's how maps used to play, large portions of them would go largely unused in fact.

 

You can no longer do that because the maps don't have places like that, once again except in Big Team. The maps are designed with circular movement in mind and usually when you're looking at one angle of attack you are exposing yourself to one from the opposite direction. Suddenly people can just get behind you without even meaning to, they'll just spawn there or it'll be the fastest way for them to return to the fight. Suddenly wherever the fighting is thickest is also where it's the most hopeless. Combine that with instant respawns and sprint and you often can't even get away from it before someone respawns and is shooting at you.

 

So my play-style, and the play-styles of a LOT of Halo players, don't work anymore. A player who sticks to the outskirts of the combat and makes a point of running away a LOT will still do well, but only if his teammates play like old Halo players and DON'T run away so that he can get away unnoticed. Players who stick together, wherever they are, can also do well. I used to advise players never to stick together because the way older Halo maps were you would often just be lining yourself up to become a multikill. Halo 4 is different though, because while you can still become an easy multikill, you're going to have a much harder time surviving multiple combats without someone else there.

 

For those of us who haven't yet adapted, the skill gap IS lower, because we're fighting each other with weapons and game settings that are doing most of the work. For those players who HAVE adapted or were just playing the game right from the start, the skill gap is higher because the rest of us are still fighting the game. Some of the most popular play-styles got targeted with the game's design.

 

The game IS designed for players to get one kill then die. You can beat the odds, but those odds are definitely stacked towards getting a K/D close to 1.0. There is no other explanation for things like 6 second shield recharge delay but instant respawns and weapons that kill in under 2 seconds. You are not meant to go from one fight to the next and still have good odds of winning. A lot of the time the people who get killed early in a match get to run around playing SWAT because by the time they respawn and sprint back into combat many of the players who won previous fights are still one-shot. For those of us who play this Halo like it's a Halo game, we have a hard time breaking that 1-kill-then-die design. For people who resist the game, avoid fair fights, and run from risk, there is a wealth of possibilities.

 

For me it's a total overhaul of the way I play to become good at Halo 4, and while I'm working on it I'm also on these forums arguing that a good game lets you play more than one way. Even if I get good at Halo 4 as it is, I am still very much against the style of game they made it into. Even if I were good at it already I wouldn't like the game they made, because a good player is often not beating his enemies he's just playing against the game. I understand you want to avoid fair fights anyway, because smart players want to work with their teams to minimize risk and fair fights are a risk, but you always get into some anyway and in those situations I'd like to know I was beaten by someone who was better than me not someone benefiting largely from the many features of the game designed to kill me.

When I get into those dire situations where I am alone and in a 1v1 confrontation I always find a form of cover to fight from. I supply my grenades for these moments and I rely on my aiming ability to outplay my opponent. Still, I try to preserve my grenades and I will run away if my shields lower too quickly or the team groups on me. When I run away I normally rely on the radar to find the best path to be concealed from the enemies line of site. Checking your radar every 5-7 seconds is a good habit that should save you multiple times in war games. Additionally, I try to predict the opponents spawn based on the position of my teammates and I react accordingly, or mark spots for possible flank positions. I put special emphasis on having the higher ground than my opponent.

[HappehNinja]

That's what I'm always trying to tell, but I always get shunned by "pros" that only use that. Mind as well, save my typing time...

[Vaulting♥Frog]

Well now, this has blown up into something far more than I expected when asking for clarification... Didnt intend to cause an arguement.

 

In any case, I believe Halo 4 is full of skill and there is plenty of a skill gap. People who play skillfully in any manor will find a way to be successful. Learning better cover, learning not to take on people all at once... stuff like that. Its a different skill people need to learn and I think that is the major hang up for most players. Something that has never bothered me personally as I am adaptable to any skill set fairly quickly even if I am not a great player.

[Hater]

In my eyes, more aim assist = less skill. This game has heaps of aim assist, making guns like the DMR incredibly easy to use. With lower aim assist, you have to rely on your actual aim, not who gets a red reticle first.

[Delpen9]

In my eyes, more aim assist = less skill. This game has heaps of aim assist, making guns like the DMR incredibly easy to use. With lower aim assist, you have to rely on your actual aim, not who gets a red reticle first.

Having more aim assist is just a lower controller sensitivity in a specific area. Saying that aim assist is unskilled is like saying that a person with a controller sensitivity of 1 is not as skilled as a person with a sensitivity of 5 which may or may not be true. As far as I see it, the aim assist and controller sensitivity do not denote skill but more eye-hand coordination.

[ProudDrunkIrish]

Soooo... what your saying is you can't go on planned out rampages on maps you know by heart like the other games, you have to have skill, and be able to adapt to unpredictable situations?

 

No what he is saying is that now even if he and his team control the power weapon spawns through better play, the enemy can quickly end up with more power weapons than them, so say your in a vehicle and you have killed their vehicles and have the map locked down well now you should be able to assualt (you deserve to be able to assault) but then some guy who has no more than some assists can get a spartan laser or incineration cannon dropped at his feet and hey presto the player without a kill can end your spree of good play.

 

This is the issue the ordinance is random so the better team may get little while a weak team can get the best weapons in the game. I cannot count the amount of times I am doing well on the winning team in Ragnarok and I get needler/frags/overshield repeatedly while the enemy has 3+ snipers on the go. This means that the better player is at a dissadvantage, thus we are here discussing the lack of a skill gap.

 

The old school Halo where all started with same weapons and all power weapons were to be fought for was a true skill based game, it made you come out and fight and it rewarded the winner of said fights.

[Bloody Initiate]

 

This is the issue the ordinance is random so the better team may get little while a weak team can get the best weapons in the game. I cannot count the amount of times I am doing well on the winning team in Ragnarok and I get needler/frags/overshield repeatedly while the enemy has 3+ snipers on the go. This means that the better player is at a dissadvantage, thus we are here discussing the lack of a skill gap.

 

 

Hit this exact problem in BTB the other day. Our team was playing smart but NONE of us were getting good ordnance. Of the 8 guys on the other team 5 had some kind of sniper rifle kill at the end of the game. We lost because of ordnance. I got two drops that game, neither one brought anything good and for one I picked the speed boost just to get back to the sniper rifle I'd stolen from one of the enemy. At at least one point in the game I was aware of 3 separate beam rifle positions on the enemy team.

[airsparrowhawk]

In my experience, I've found that this game is far more random than prior ones, mainly in the Infinity playlists, this is due to several factors:

 

1. Unbalanced Ordnance Drop layouts for each side on two-sided game types. (Probability: 50% chance you'll spawn on the better side)

 

2. The coin-flip nature of Personal Ordnance.

- Probability: Changes based on the map.

- Probability: Up to 10% chance you'll get the weapon choices you want in any one drop.

 

3. Trueskill's weighting system practically devoid from the game.

- Probability: Unknown

 

4. The previously know Halo-nemesis: Lag.

- Probability: Differs based on your position in the world.

- Probability: Differs based on your connection type.

- Probability: Differs based on what Halo 4 itself decides your connection type is.

(For example, on Halo 3 my connection is Moderate, on Halo Reach it's Open and on Halo 4 it's strict).

 

You've also got to remember that these apply to the other team, essentially meaning you can't predict or prepare for anything they call in via Personal Ordnance for example, and there's a 50% chance they'll additionally get the better side.

 

This means that doing well outside of a dedicated team or clan that can overcome these obstacles is down to luck more than anything else. Obviously there's a skill-based factor on how you'll do against someone with your starting loadout, but it means nothing when they appear in front of you with Rockets/Variant or across the map with Sniper/Variant. Essentially, someone will eat the death every time before everyone else is aware that an enemy has a power weapon. In Halo CE, 2, 3 and even Reach this would not be the case.

[TRF BaDInTentZs]

 

Bloom wasn't broken. You just couldn't adapt to the style of gameplay that the dmr required. Bloom was an automatic game function that really didn't make a difference because everyone had to deal with it.

 

Bloom absolutely was broken. It has been PROVEN several times in testing that unless you had host or were in extremely close proximity to host the bloom began on the 1st shot, that is a huge difference as opposed to the bloom beginning on the 2nd shot as it was advertised.