Reticule Bloom

[gollum385]

Reticule bloom was a controversial subject amongst halo fans in halo reach. Whilst I could see there idea (reduce the chance of people spamming the trigger), i feel it was implemented poorly. For a start, the size the reticule bloomed to still allowed for people to achieve kills whilst spamming.

 

However i think that reticule bloom has potential, but needs a few tweaks.

1) the bloom grows slowly at first, but starts to grow at a much quicker rate when you spam too often. In halo 2, the double shot glitch was a system which allowed you to fire 2 shots veyr quickly (quicker than normal), but unless you changed weapons there and back, suffered a longer reload time. This meant you could get 2 quick shots in when it mattered, an interesting concept. If bloom was around I think this decision would be cool. Do i make a couple of quick shots, sacrificing the bloom on my third shot (as i shot the first 2 faster than i should have), or time my shots. This sort of decision making would affect the gameplay of players, and make the br/dmr or whatever weapons be able to behave slightly differently by choice, rather than every shot having to be timed perfectly.

 

Also when the bloom retracts, it should retract quickly for small blooms, and slower for bigger blooms. This again stops spamming being an option, but if you do make a couple of quick shots, whilst you will need to wait longer for the third shot to be as accurate, it won't be anywhere near as long as if you spammed for 8 shots beforehand.

 

2) the bloom should be able to become much larger. Too often was the bloom for a pistol still small to mean you miss when up close to an enemy. This meant you could quickly spam the pistol before a beatdown (or the recoil means you land a headshot), making the ar useless in comparison I feel. If the bloom became much larger for excessive spamming (so it would be a minute chance of a hit, rather than just a lower percentage) it again would make the system alot better.

 

Basically dont punish a couple of tactical spams here and there, just excessive spamming.

 

I will also be making a thread on how I think weapons could be set up so they don't become 'unbalanced' (think br being the all in one weapon, or the pistol in the example above) and how that could have an interesting impact on gameplay.

 

Please vote in the poll which system you prefer, and if you don't like my system, what is wrong about it (is it just cus you hate the bloom!?). Also any improvements to my bloom system would be appreciated, if you do think it would be a good feature to implement in halo 4.

[l mj l]

So basically you would like to see the bloom become even harder to control, which in turn lowers the effectiveness of these weapons?

 

Now I understand your intentions here. I realize that you'd like to reward timed shots versus quick shooting, but I really think that the bloom works very well as is.

 

"Spamming" a five shot takes skill and isn't the result of a broken mechanic. You see, many players (a lot of pro players) have become very good at predicting where shots land within the bloom because there's a technique called whipping your shots. It takes a lot of practice to master and it adds a level of complexity that you didn't see in halo1/2/3.

 

If your system was used this would go out the window and of course timing shots would be favored. I just believe that the balance the bloom is at its optimal level already.

 

Pretty much your idea here is to weaken both the dmr and pistol.

 

And under your 2) you meantion a situation where a person comes at you spamming a pistol. Here's the solution: STRAFE AND/OR DON'T MOVE FORWARD. It's not the weapons fault, it's the players.

 

The bloom at its current level really does maximize skill IMO.

[gollum385]

l mj l thankyou for your input. Obviously many of the votes favour the reach system, something which actually suprises me, as i got the impression many people disliked it.

 

I don't think my idea is set just to weaken the pistol and dmr. In fact if anything it would affect things like the ar. I am also promoting controlled spamming (allowing a few quick shots for short term gain in terms of firing rate, but the compensation of less accuracy for later shots (unless you pause), and punishing uncontrolled spamming.

 

As for this whipping the shots thing, i have never heard about it, and it is very interesting to hear that people can do that. This is optimzing the system given to you, but people have done that with other games and there systems (think doubleshot in halo 2).

 

Are there any ideas of my system you like, or anything that could be done to reticule bloom as it is to improve it?

 

Thanks again for your constructive criticism.

[ksharp5]

personally i hate the reticule bloom, it gave bad kid a good chance of killing a better person purely on luck which happens to me often

[Kyle K]

Get rid of it i hate it

[gollum385]

Thanks for your comments. I agree ksharp5, that that was the problems i found with it. That is why i suggested the improvements above. It actually punishes spammers, but due to it's increasing rate of expansion, means there are tactics involved in when you should time every shot, and when you should get off a couple of quick shots etc.

 

thanks kyle k for your comment. Is there any particular reason you hate it? Would the options i proposed make it any better, or would it still be rubbish?

[Rafter]

thanks kyle k for your comment. Is there any particular reason you hate it? Would the options i proposed make it any better, or would it still be rubbish?

 

Hey gollum,

 

I see you've been writting some interesting posts and always asking people who don't write posts with any sense to explain themselves better; tough I think you'll grow tired, man. Some people are just not worth it.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that most people who want Halo 4 to be a classic Halo seem to write it in this way, which is quite bad.(not all of them, a good example is the Arby).

 

Tough, , they must be much younger and just kids to write things in this way (of course, there are always exceptions) so we I guess we're just asking them too much

 

Sad,

[l mj l]

The way I see it "spamming" is an element of the game that players have to be able to master to really excel at the game, and for me that's fine.

 

"Spamming(mid-range)" isn't easy because if a player misses shots they're likely to lose their battle. It's the risk of playing that way. Someone who times their shots have a pretty even chance in this situation. If the spammer wins it's because he's ****ing good. Not because he's lucky.

 

"Spamming(close-range)" is pretty simple, and I could understand your frustration there. But if the system is changed to increase either the recharge(whatever its is) or size of the bloom, then the dmr will be majority weakened in the mid-range battles which would slow down gameplay.

 

I'll NEVER be for something that slows down gameplay.

 

So close-range (where I'm sure you have most of your problems with bloom it seems) is just something you have to either learn to adapt too or you'll keep getting spammed. Part of the game is knowing when to do it and when not too, and it's also about getting your opponent to do the wrong thing as well.

[TheCobaltOcean]

I understand that spamming with a pistol has been notorious over the past games on the multiplayers, but I have seen the bloom counter measure on the Pistol on Reach and makes it nigh unusable to me unless I am within a metre of the target.

 

I thought the Bloom on the DMR was good, it makes placing shots manageably harder and makes me slow down and concentrate for the kill. Also the with AR, it makes me fire in bursts to make sure all the shots hit and count because of the bloom- it is also much more accurate than previous ARs anyway... (I also fire in bursts because that's what the Spartans in the books do - Problem? )

 

As long as the bloom is manageable in Halo 4, I will be happy to see it return...

[Baykem]

There most likely not going to have bloom, and imo if there smart they wont, thats why so many people hate reach, and why else would they say its running off a different engine then reach? thats the only reason they would make a new engine, if they were taking bloom out

[gollum385]

Rafter, thanks for backing me up. Something that is a bit frustrating on forums is suggesting an idea and people having a few without explaining it. I'm all for my ideas being ripped into if it is flawed, but an explanation on what is wrong with it, or why other systems are better and improvements would help!

 

l mj l thanks for your comments. Interesting to see your views on it.

I can completely agree that you would not want to slow down gameplay. I too am definately not up for that. In fact I think halo reach was too slow in comparison to halo 3, which became much slower than halo 2. It needs to go back a step in my opinion.

 

My system that I am proposing may sound more negative than it is. What I am trying to promote is the occasional 'controlled' spam, think double shot in halo 2. This leads to short term gain, as you get 2 quick accurate shots, but the speed at which you took the shots means the bloom is larger than if you paused. Again if you took a third shot at this speed, the bloom would get even worse

 

when i say recharge/bloom size. I mean that the rate at which it increases. In reach, every shot makes the bloom grow x amount. If the bloom is already y amount in, then the shot will make it size x+y. What i am proposing that if you do the same, the bloom won't grow a fixed amount for each fixed shot, but will grow more and more the bigger the bloom is (this kind of exponential rate of growth). This means that consistent spamming would lead to a huge bloom (the bloom not having such a small limit being a factor), with a very long recharge time.

 

The system i propose (again this is why i select the option with tweaks) would mean that initially, the first few shots do not grow as quickly as halo reach, so in fact it is easier to get the first 2 (maybe 3 but probably not) shots off quickly with little punishment in terms of bloom. However your 3rd/4th and 5th bullets would suffer at increasing rates should you try to shoot quicker than the bloom lets you.

This would allow for tactics in that when you choose to shoot faster/slower/ at the recommended rate of firing will determine your success and failure in battles.

 

I'd like to stress this wouldn't affect the dmr at mid ranges, unless you persistently spammed the shots. In fact for the first couple of bullets, the second (maybe 3rd) shots would be more accurate than the current situation. I'd also like the br to be in halo 4, and again the bloom would only get worse if you shoot very quickly. With bullet spread that would make the punishment of bloom a bit more severe, making it less useful at a closer range.

 

Would like to hear your opinions on this, whether i clarified the situation or not, and whether that improves how you view my idea (or makes it worse). Again if people would like to suggest tweaks on my idea id welcome them.

[gollum385]

thecobaltocean thanks for your comment.

 

I too didn't find the bloom terrible in reach. However i did feel there were a few issues with it, and thought my idea would balance out the negatives of it that i thought were present (spamming can lead to luck, the bloom doesnt go big enough, and the fact i felt that there were not many tactics involved with it (ie everyone must fire at similar fire rate to guarantee the kill)). Obviously i may have misjudged a few of those options, but like anything out there improvements can be made, and i think the reach system was defiantely not perfect.

 

Baykem thanks for your comments, but i don't think we can assume bloom is not in reach. A new engine wouldn't be made just to get rid of bloom, for a start, new graphics, new physics, new animations and potential features would all be reasons to make a new engine. I agree many people disliked it, but this thread shows that many people like it.

 

As for saying if there smart, there are many features that probably will go into the game which are not smart: things which are either direct copies of previous halo games (mainly reach imo, where they will view that as the most successful game (because of sales)) or things they might take out or not put back in. This is my biggest worry about halo 4, and whilst the chances of them listening to us are slim. If enough people get behind all the ideas on this forum, we get lots of votes in the polls people make, and through ideas and criticism make great ideas, maybe they could be in halo 4. It is early in development, and now is a better time than ever to suggest them.

[Baykem]

Rafter, thanks for backing me up. Something that is a bit frustrating on forums is suggesting an idea and people having a few without explaining it. I'm all for my ideas being ripped into if it is flawed, but an explanation on what is wrong with it, or why other systems are better and improvements would help!

 

l mj l thanks for your comments. Interesting to see your views on it.

I can completely agree that you would not want to slow down gameplay. I too am definately not up for that. In fact I think halo reach was too slow in comparison to halo 3, which became much slower than halo 2. It needs to go back a step in my opinion.

 

My system that I am proposing may sound more negative than it is. What I am trying to promote is the occasional 'controlled' spam, think double shot in halo 2. This leads to short term gain, as you get 2 quick accurate shots, but the speed at which you took the shots means the bloom is larger than if you paused. Again if you took a third shot at this speed, the bloom would get even worse

 

when i say recharge/bloom size. I mean that the rate at which it increases. In reach, every shot makes the bloom grow x amount. If the bloom is already y amount in, then the shot will make it size x+y. What i am proposing that if you do the same, the bloom won't grow a fixed amount for each fixed shot, but will grow more and more the bigger the bloom is (this kind of exponential rate of growth). This means that consistent spamming would lead to a huge bloom (the bloom not having such a small limit being a factor), with a very long recharge time.

 

The system i propose (again this is why i select the option with tweaks) would mean that initially, the first few shots do not grow as quickly as halo reach, so in fact it is easier to get the first 2 (maybe 3 but probably not) shots off quickly with little punishment in terms of bloom. However your 3rd/4th and 5th bullets would suffer at increasing rates should you try to shoot quicker than the bloom lets you.

This would allow for tactics in that when you choose to shoot faster/slower/ at the recommended rate of firing will determine your success and failure in battles.

 

I'd like to stress this wouldn't affect the dmr at mid ranges, unless you persistently spammed the shots. In fact for the first couple of bullets, the second (maybe 3rd) shots would be more accurate than the current situation. I'd also like the br to be in halo 4, and again the bloom would only get worse if you shoot very quickly. With bullet spread that would make the punishment of bloom a bit more severe, making it less useful at a closer range.

 

Would like to hear your opinions on this, whether i clarified the situation or not, and whether that improves how you view my idea (or makes it worse). Again if people would like to suggest tweaks on my idea id welcome them.

Not trying to bash you, but they shuld still take bloom out period, all it works with is the DMR and it still has problems, if they were to put that in h4 in any way it should be with the DMR only and nothing else.

[gollum385]

no dont worry, i didnt get that impression. I think there are many weapons apart from dmr where reticule bloom is a good idea. Many of the automatic weapons and the sniper are all good places for it, as it does stop spamming too quickly. Again in the point of the sniper though, my idea would allow for 2 quick shots without much punishment in terms of bloom. However the third would suffer (unless you wait for bloom to retract) in comparison. This allows for a tactical 2 quick shots if a guy is trying to run behind a wall, but you are making a quick decision which could affect your next few actions based on whether you time your next shot, or risk the spam (which as said before would be less damaging if done intelligently).

 

Again i agree with most people who dislike it, but with many aspects in halo reach (including aa's) whilst the idea is good, the execution was not as good as it should have been imo. Therefore i am suggesting a tweak to bloom to solve those issues, making it good at the job it was meant to do.

 

Have just created another thread on the issue of how weapons work, in terms of firing out of range (think the pistol close up, or the br in previous games) viewtopic.php?f=16&t=772

Would be interested to see if you like this idea with or without bloom being in place.

[Rafter]

Rafter, thanks for backing me up. Something that is a bit frustrating on forums is suggesting an idea and people having a few without explaining it. I'm all for my ideas being ripped into if it is flawed, but an explanation on what is wrong with it, or why other systems are better and improvements would help!

 

Yes, I know how frustating it is, I see it in almost every topic you made.

 

Moreover, 73 topics in 2 days? Wow, If I dind't read some of them, I would think of you a spammer.

(Either you don't have nothing to else to do, or you're very dedicated to this cause)

 

Lastly, I know this is my second post on this topic and haven't said nothing about the Bloom.

 

Thing is, I am not sure of which way I would prefer, all I know is: Bloom must exist and the reticle must expand, even if it doesn't cove the whole area where the shots land (think CS, you can have a very small reticle that only expands a little, but if you fire an assault rifle to a wall for more than just a few shots, you can see the reticle in the middle, fully expanded, and the wall full of holes outside the reticle are)

 

Anyway, It must have bloom

(why do people call it bloom and not recoil?),

[l mj l]

Gollum, sorry you had to explain your idea again. You didn't have to because I completely understood what you were going for from the beginning.

 

We just disagree unfortunately.

[Twinreaper]

Firtst off, bloom is an uneccessary function of the weapon hud. All bloom does is give the player an actual (visual) view of the firing spread (min and max error angles) + (unknown constaraint) of a weapon. Halo 2 and Halo 1 did not incorporate a blooming reticule into gameplay, and for that, multiplayer became more aggressive and required a larger amount of skill to properly hit your target at distances. Even with the larger reticule they gave you, for each weapon, dependng on the type and size of weapon, you still had to lead more than Reach to make sure a fair amount of your shot or shots hit the target.

 

From a engine standpoint, the blooming reticule was more than likely added to help/assist novice players who were not familiar with the franchise or the multiplayer/campaign aspect. Personally, I don't even notice the reticule bloom when playing thru. While there are some I am sure, who rely heavily on needing to know when and how far apart shots are going to be placed when engaging in combat.

 

Bloom has no use and no real function in any Halo title going forward. And for that matter, get rid of that ridiculous "magnetism range" weapon chunk while they are at it.

[gollum385]

l mj l thanks for posting. and fair enough if you disagree, just wanted to clarify that my idea was put across correctly.

 

The only thing that i can also post to try and get you on my side, is that the method of being skilled at spamming shots ie making it so they hit often does sound very skilled, and something i had not heard of/tried in halo reach before reading that in these forums. However, with my method, aswell as allowing controlled spamming, there is no reason this method couldnt also be manipulated for skilled players to control their spamming to hit players. Where the difference is is that with an increasing rate of increase in the reticule, it would become increasingly harder to do, meaning only the best players could do it at the latter stages, again leading to a tiered skill gap (something i approve of in a game).

 

Rafter yea i have made alot of comments, but most of these are in my own threads, which I think i havent made more than 10 for just something that i thought about for a long time even before reach and my hopes for that, and then when it came out i was really disappointed and again focused on how to take the good ideas and rework them. Doesn't take too long really, most of them are just replies to the posts made. Thanks for all your comments btw!

 

As for your views on bloom. I have heard many people say bloom was incorporated in other games, for example in the bullet spread of the br, or just the fact it was hidden. Whilst i agree this was true, i think how the system works, as well as it's visualisation of it has changed. The system i am proposing is an expansion of that, making it so spamming is ok in small controlled bursts, but the rate at which the reticule increases (and the total size it increases to) gets larger. AS for calling it recoil, bloom is the idea that the spread of bullets increases with persistent shots. Recoil is the kickback from the gun, and so the moving of the gun (usually upwards). This is present in other games with the smg and i think the pistol in reach does this. I think recoil should also be present btw.

[Twinreaper]

Halo 1 and halo 2 had no hidden bloom. All shots fired from H1 and H2 weapons always stayed within the confines of the reticule up to a certain distance. This is where the actual "skill" to combat other players came in.

 

Seriously, you people really need a reticule to grow or contract on your target so you know how much chance your shot has of hitting your target? That is sad. I would hate to see you play with "Blind" enabled then...lmao

 

And bloom does not stop spamming of shots. Rapidly firing any weapon produces a "spread" of shots. Again, for anyone who really knows the tag and structure system of how weapons and huds work, knows all errors in shots is handled by the weapon tag itself. Bloom is just an additional visual bitmap widget added to the weapon hud so you can actually see it happen.

 

Hell while we are at it, why not add a sissy hud timer to let you know how long till your frag grenade goes off.

 

All things reticule should be kept simple a sweet. A crosshair. no magnetism, no weakspot translation, no red sights. Just you a gun and simple sights. Good luck on Halo 4 guys! You are gonna need it!

[gollum385]

Twinreaper, I am definately not a fan of reticule bloom. would you care to clarify, that it is just a graphical representation of weapon spread then? Because although i know it is shown graphically, i thought it was implemented instead of bullet spread as a method of stopping spamming, and reducing the effectiveness of the dmr etc, by making the spread of bullets larger from spamming.

 

therefore my reasons for just changing how it increases (increase in rate rather than fixed amounts), and to what size it reached for persistantly fast shots.

 

Or arey you saying that is exactly the same as weapon spread in halo 3, but just shown graphically?

Just am also wondering your opinion on hitscan then, and whether you think halo 4 should or shouldnt have it (seeing as you seem to know what you are talking about).

[gollum385]

interesting to see many people want to keep it as it was in reach. I only thought this idea up because i thought the concept was ok for bloom, but was a bit flawed, but i generally thought people hated it. I much preffered the halo 3 version over reach.

[gollum385]

After saying that, many people now voiting in favour of the halo 3 way. That was what i was expecting when i set the poll up, but still suprised at the number of reticule bloom fans.

[Matt Master1]

I love the reach system! It is perfect the way it is. It rewards you for acutally knowing how to play the game and change your pace of shooting if you are far away or up close. The DMR is amazing. Honestly people it seems like everyone on this website are trashing reach, it is a great game and i love the multiplayer and the reticule bloom!

[Spectral Jester]

Personally bloom requires more thought, not just point and shoot. Timing shots over hammering the RT always wins on a 1 v 1

[Enry117]

I say remove it because it slow down the game, because without bloom the game is easier and an easy game is more enjoiable than an hard one. By the way 343 could add an option to put it on / off for hardcore gamers who likes bloom that much