Agreed, Powerhouse is really fun. I only really like Sword Base for SWAT sometimes and 1 flag like you said. It does play really well for that, the long route is balanced nicely against the quick but risky grav lift route, and spawns are unforgiving for attackers but work well overall. I've had a good balance of scores on it, nothing too lopsided except when one team just raped the other which makes sense. I've actually played close to 100 games in the past 3 days and I'm still standing firm on this point. At first I thought the same as you, that I just needed to adjust, but I still think it makes 1v1 battles at mid-close range that little bit less about movement and more about your shot alone. I personally dislike that, plus I think a slight increase of Spartan speed and jump would help with the current power of explosives. Even aside from the nades, it's just too hard to get out of the way of a rocket even if it's most of the way across Powerhouse, I see the guy fire and immediately start to move. That just insane IMO, rockets are about strong but avoidable damage at mid to long range. Even just with general map movement. Next time you play 1 flag on Powerhouse, off Attacker spawn run straight at the curved staircase in front of you and try to jump up as high up the staircase as you can. Compared to just going around and walking up, the amount of stairs you can jump up is just measly IMO. For me, a massive part of Halo's charm is how it integrates jump in to movement. It's not like the sim shooters where jump is just a little hop to get up small ledges, and not like Unreal/Quake where you sail around the map and everything moves at lightning speed. Not to say those games are bad, but I like the balance Halo has always chosen between the two for how jump is really intgrated in to movement without it being either useless or spammed to the point at which everyone is in the air most of the time. Jumping interacted perfectly with movement in battles and just general map movement in H3 as far as I'm concerned, whereas I feel much more hemmed in by geometry like even small ledges and such in the Beta. Honestly, movement and jump is my single biggest gripe with this game so far. If they changed that, I'd probably be happy enough with the explosive damage etc, and apart from those I'm loving every second of this game, with those tweaks it'd have me totally sold even at this stage.
I don't have many complaints. Only things are: -there is blur everytime you reload. -Flag on sword base is impossible to not tie if the defending team is remotely good. -Why can you only return the flag when you are right on top of it. what happened to being around it. -pistols reticule could be slightly darkened. Thats it so far. People don't like grenade damage but I like that they are actually a factor now so having only two is legit. The bloom isn't bad at all either, just have to pace your shots.
got my first extermination (first out of all the halo games) in my very first game of reach =) grenade launcher + grenades plus whole enemy team rushing towards me = win also...only AA i use is jetpack (in terms of overall movement its much faster than sprint only leaves you more vulnerable (although i fly low when i can to avoid this) armor lock is useless unless you have a teammate there (usually) and camo would be good only the noise dampening pisses me off lol)
Well, the jump and damage are still very halo. I don't know if you have noticed, but the grenades do almost the exact same damage as in Halo 1, maybe even less, and the jump is the same as in halo 1. I personally liked that, but its really just opinion. I just like how it makes your shot and position count even more and you can't afford to be in a bad spot or you will get rocked with grenades. Plus, since there are only 2 grenades, its nice that they actually pose a threat. In halo 3, I always felt weak and vulnerable with just two grenades. And the rockets are so slow, how can't you move out of the way. I rarely get hit with them (although I do spend half my time in the air so that may be why)
I've played a few games on both, I'd have to say, Swordbase is great for 1flag. I don't really like to play slayer, or swat on it though. It seems like one good player ruins the fun on the map though, although the same doesn't go for Powerhouse. Wierd. Eh, I would prefer a bit more jump, as you said, its terribly discouraging when you hear a nade being thrown at you, either you have lockdown, or it usually results in the death of you. Playing as an elite totally mixes it up though, with roll ablitity, you can quickly get out of the way of most anything. Imo, jetpack should accelerate a tad bit faster, I use it more as an escape gadget then gaining altitude. I can see what you mean for the most part, however, I think they specifically designed the maps to where its not such much focused on jumping to destinations as much. In Halo 3, on the pit, there were jumps that could quickly get you around the map, but on this, basically everything can be walked to. For example on Powerhouse, rooftops can't be accessed but by JPers, which is a height advantage, which I'm guessing bungie did on purpose. If everyone could get up their, it would completlely take away the JP function. Again, hopefully it'll become usable after awhile.
Play me on Halo 3 and then tell me that the frag nade 'isn't actually a factor'. I'm not trying to be cocky, I'm far from Pro, but I realised the power of the frag nade a while back and there's a good reason it's 4th on my ToD list for H3. Even aside from killing with it, the interaction with other weapons (even a mid range AR-prep if nothing else is to hand) is incredibly effective. The precision with which you can place them at pretty much any range on the map is really nice, and this is actually something that 3 nades have over Reach Beta ones in terms of effectiveness. The heavier and higher friction nature of frags in the Beta makes them a bit less useful for really quick and precise close range bounces. True this is actually an argument for balance in the higher power, and like I said I could probably live with both nade and rocket damage if movement and jump felt right, so I actually felt like I had a chance at avoiding them if I was good enough. As for the distance thing, I never found long range nades a problem on H3 tbh, I could quite happily place frags across the map on Guardian/Pit/Narrows etc, and whilst Valhalla and the farthest stretches of Standoff, for example, were obviously off limits, that's as it should be, they're massive maps and there should be some limits to these things. I think of Halo CE as pretty ridiculous for nades in retrospect, and I still think it's pretty funny how some people think it bad that they can't aim their reticle less than an inch above headshot height and place a frag on the complete opposite side of Hang 'em High anymore. You had to move your reticle higher in H3 but not to the point of awkwardness imo, and it helped in giving more precision to your throw. I loved placing frags right in the corner wall of S2 on Pit from bottom runway, I've netted many a kill that way. Honestly, I thought frags was one of the things that H3 got really right, I see no reason to change it, but as long as I can't be killed with full health and more than half shields, or as long as I'm able to get out of the way of that, then I'm happy enough.
although i love jet pack, i have to disagree on armor lock, if u use it well you can emp them and get a quick beat down. the only AA's i use in order of how much i use it are: Armor lock Jet pack Sprint between these i switch a lot, but at this point camo is just so bad compared to the rest it's ridiculous.
i also dislike the nerf in jump height however im fine with movement speed and grenade strength (i can usually see grenades coming now cus of there sparkly new animation and avoid them relatively well(only losing a small chunk of my shields)) in addition to this i like seeing huge explosions all over the place makes the game more interesting and fun to me
Ok, so last night the xbox i've had for around a month now broke down, something to do with the cooling system going mental, which was annoying, but since it was still in warranty so i figured i'd just get it replaced. After multiple delays we finally get home with another box just to turn it on and find out that it already has red rings of death. what the ****. We're now searching the entire city for Eb games with a WORKING xbox 360.
Only just saw this. First off: Reach frags definitely do less damage than H: CE frags, I never said anything to the contrary. A single H: CE frag could kill you in one. Full shields. Full health. You didn't even have to be directly on top of it if I remember correctly, the radius of insta death was far from massive but still there. This was, however, balanced out by the longest fuse time of any Halo by a noticeable amount, and the fact that movement speed was very high in Halo CE. Whilst the frag damage isn't as bad in Reach, I'll happily agree, they haven't put any balances in against this increase in damage over 3 (a longer fuse time, easier evade through movement/jump), and in fact have actually decreased these balancing factors overall whilst increasing the nade's damage in comparison to 3. The only increase in an off-setting factor for the nades increased power is slightly less precision, especially at close range. Imo, this serves as more of an annoyance than any gesture towards balancing this damage increase. On that note, I'd challenge you to prove to me that the Reach Beta jump height for Spartans is the same as H: CE, I'm pretty sure CE was about the same as H3 if not slightly more, it could have been slightly less but it was definitely closer to H3 than it is to the Beta. As for Rockets, I'm pretty sure they travel faster than they did in H3. Next time a situation like this comes up (it's happened to me multiple times), I'll try to remember to clip and capture it to show what I mean. However, on this point in particular I think the movement/jump thing really would negate my problems for the most part, since it's not the damage it does, but the fact that it seems so much more difficult to avoid getting all or most of that damage even at some range.
No Halo 3 jump is defiantly higher than Reaches...I can't jump on anything anymore that I could in halo 3.
You guys know what I was thinking would be cool if it were actually implemented in Reach when it comes out? To be able to give call outs or names or whatever they're called to specific areas on your forged maps, since they're already is the thing on the bottom left of your screen that tells you where you are currently at. I think it would be neat and useful.
****in' seriously? i just got a 9 killstreak with the needle rifle on powerhouse. then another with the needle rifle and sword on sword base. Sprint works there. What are your guys' rating in Arena? im 1687, how does the system work? --- Discussed a billion pages ago. Still cool though.
Given customizable Loadouts for custom games, do you think there's going to only be a base player traits configuration? or will each Loadout have custom traits who's default setting is "Unchanged"? e.g. 300% speed with sprint?