Reach is actually fun again!

Reach will be fun again when they get rid of the 1 respawn zone for the offense of phase 1 in Invasion... and then add more maps. After playing the beta, I had such high hopes for Invasion... and was hoping that they would have capitalized on this gametype. It's such a shame that of all the gametypes/maps... this was the most neglected as far as updates/tweaks are concerned over the past year.

 

Agreed, Had so many invasion ideas after the beta but gametype options are limited so much which makes all the maps forced to be pretty much the same thing. Wish they focused on glitches/flaws/gametype options, instead of trying to please the Bloom/AL haters.

And actually Reach has always been fun.

 

I hope Invasion gets put to rest. I took so many resources and the result was still half-baked. BTB suffered from it by having zero real BTB maps at launch. There were two bad Forge World maps and two Invasion maps in BTB.

 

You're not the only one. I was fine with everything. I'm okay with grenades the way the are. I don't hate bloom. I don't even hate the retail maps, as SO many people here on forgehub do. It seems to me that the people that were the most disappointed or outright angry about reach were the ones that were expecting perfection, or some reiteration of halo 2/ce settings. I excepted a new game, with a new feel. That's what I got. So I've always thought it was fine the way it was (the only exception I'd make is the banshee needs a trick/evade nerf)

Even playing the TU beta, besides zero bloom gametypes, I can't notice much a difference. Plays about the same. I guess I don't pay enough attention to the minutiae of how the game works. Its no more or less fun for me

 

*Playing alone in TU Beta playlist*
*Sees Peg playing TU Beta playlist alone too*

*Decides that Peg needs as much practice as he can get before our showdown*

 

To play devil's advocate on ya, GG, I don't think Reach changed that much more radically than previous Halo games did. 2 was a big departure from CE: dual wielding was new, and very important because they made it dominant over everything else at mid-range; the player view was different and they added a lot of things happening when you get shot (screen turning red and shaking) which made the game experience very different and more frantic compared to the original (which felt comparatively cool and almost robotic to me). 3 added equipment, which was nearly as big of a deal as armor abilities are in Reach - it was an entire extra dimension of gameplay, and every map had equipment on it. You could hardly win games on certain maps without deploying equipment smartly - the regenerator on Isolation, the power drain on Construct, the grav lift on High Ground, and the trip mine on Rat's Nest, to name just a few examples.

Yeah, armor abilities might be the biggest change they ever made, but if you look at the evolution of the games it's hardly unprecedented.

 

Armor Abilities ruin Reach for me. Except for Hologram the all affect the gameplay in a negative way. This is especially the case when you can pick them at spawn.

Evade makes close quarter combat a joke and also makes for too easy getaways.
Sprint also makes for easier getaways and makes CQC weapons even more powerful.
Jetpack neglects the entire design of the map and therefor ruins the way the map plays.
Armor Lock stops the game and slows down the pace tremendously.
Drop Shield does the same and ruins Objective.
Active Camo promotes camping and is retarded in combination with the Sniper.

 

the games been out for a year now. Armor abilities are part of the game. Get over it

 

I can't argue with that, you've won me over. Excellent post. Would read again.

 

LOL. I'm just tired of hearing those complaints over and over and over and over again. I know a lot of people share your opinion, its just I've been hearing that since sept 15th of last year. Effectively you're saying you don't like the game, at all. So why bother to post in the reach section?

 

Yes, because I hate AAs I hate the entire game. Seems like a logical conclusion.
Also, a forum filled with only rainbows and cute little kitten shitting glitter who are all positive about a game will become boring.

 

You're a ****ing tool.

Armor abilities are one of the core gameplay mechanics. If you don't like them, you don't like a significant part of the game.

That's never going to change. Sure, tweaks can be made to the armor abilities, but they aren't ever going to be completely pulled from the game.

IH8 was completely right. If you still have a problem with armor abilities, you need to either go play classic, wait for the anniversary playlist, or stop playing the game.
That or get over it, instead of spending your time here acting like a sarcastic ****ing child.

 

The only time when Reach online is enjoyable for me is when playing with other people. Yet I've played thousands of matches in the past in Halo 2 and 3 alone without friends. Reach just has so much bullshit I can't bear it when I'm playing alone. Going in alone is just a frustrating experience.

By voicing my opinion (and at least I have arguments) I hope that 343 will not make the same mistakes as Bungie did. No bloom, no AAs, no bullshit.

I want a proper Halo 4, thank you.

 

So, reach isn't a proper halo game? even though it was the opus of a studio that created this franchise we all love? I'm so tired of this attitude. When I started playing there was a lot of love for Bungie, all the way up to the end of halo 3. I, and others, would even look forward to bungie day for whatever special thing would be going on. More people bought the map packs immediately. There was nothing but love for Bungie, even here on forgehub where the criticism flows like water through a sieve.

Since the release of reach however, suddenly everyone is a ****ing expert game designer. "The maps suck. The game sucks. The AAs suck". Then shut up and go play halo 3. So many players have this attitude that Bungie is dumping us after giving us the shittiest of the halo series. Suddenly, everyone knows better than people who work in the gaming industry. I see it as the opposite, bungie gave us this great game with fantastic tools as a send off before they go on to do other things.

So what is your argument exactly? All I've heard so far is "the maps suck, AAs suck, they ruin the game". They ARE the game.

 

You should read the my first post you commented on. I explained why the AAs ruin the gameplay. You don't reply to that, you only reply to what type of post it was, not the content.

Also, I like Bungie, but I hate what they did to Halo. Microsoft made a deal with Bungie that they needed to make 2 more Halo titles and after that they were free to go (and they went to Activision). Those last two games were ODST and Reach. ODST was made by only a handful of people so that doesn't really represent the company, but Reach does. It just shows how either out of touch they were, or how tired they were of Halo. Probably a bit of both. Halo is about beginning on an even playing field. AAs ruin this, because now you can't know what kind of AA the enemy spawned with thus making it a guessing game. And I'm not even talking about how the AAs themselves negatively impact the game, but just the concept of them.
Making AAs spawn on the map would fix this problem, but that doesn't fix the problems about the individual AAs which I listed earlier.

I don't like AAs no matter how I look at it.

 

I did read that post. You basically said whatever advantage the AA gives you ruins gameplay for some reason. The only thing I can agree with is that armor lock and drop shield can slow down gameplay sometimes. But thats what they are about - surviving damage, taking your time. Jetpack is about finding your own route up and down. Evade and sprint are about moving in and out quickly. I guess we just see things in a fundamentally different way. The game is still about an even playing field, the AAs are just another variable to throw in there. And once you die, if you want that advantage that someone else is using, you can switch to it. I LIKE not knowing what AA everyone else has. For instance, I play a swat custom where all the movement AAs are an option (sprint, evade, jetpack). I find that fun!

I understand a bit more what you are saying. You miss the one use equipment drops, when everyone moved at the same speed, took damage the same way, etc. Btw, I really wasn't trying to be rude or antagonistic, I just get tired of hearing the same argument.

Back on the subject of halo 4, if they follow canon at all than there should be no AAs right? its after 3, and all this reach technology is supposed to be lost.

 

Guys, lay off Overdoziz.

I completely agree that AAs in general (though I disagree about Sprint, as I think the potential negatives are easy to balance with certain tweaks, which the TU very much goes in the direction of, and there are significant positives too) are flawed as a pick-at-start mechanic. They all serve to act as significant, if somewhat situational, advantages that do not have to be worked for yet at the same time allow for little depth of skill development. They're very binary, with AL being a good example as it's just an 'I win CQB battles now' option at start. It's not something with depth or much room for skill differentiation within its basic use, and the fact that it's not worked for removes the potential depth it could add to the game in the traditional sense of Halo advantages = pickups.

Fair enough if you're sick of hearing the same old complaints. But that doesn't stop them being valid in terms of the perspective from which they come (I'm not trying to discount the subjectivity, but I'd be surprised if someone argued for too long that the ability to pick a 'speciality' off spawn is the most significant deviation from the basis upon which the Halo gameplay principles were founded). Also, this is a thread originally started to discuss, in a positive light, the changes brought by the TU. If you came in here expecting the majority of discussion to be focused around how good the pre-TU game is, then frankly you have only yourself to blame if you're disappointed with the posts you find.

EDIT: Nutduster, I'd say you raise a very interesting point. I think 2 was definitely the most stark departure from a previous game up until Reach, but I maintain that the nature of AAs and how many of the core mechanics (melee bleed through, RoF limiters etc.) they tinkered with puts Reach above that. Primarily I'd fall back on my above point about being able to pick a speciality off spawn.

@IH8YourGamerTag: I don't see how you can say that being able to pick a speciality off spawn can ever still result in an even playing field (which, it seems, we both agree is pretty much the fundamental basis of Halo gameplay over the years). If you prefer it then fine, as I say subjectivity has a massive role here, but the plain fact remains that it is no longer an even playing field when you can have two players spawning in with different attributes.

You could argue that as long as the options are balanced, then the playing field is still even, but isn't said balance the core principle of all class based shooters etc? If the options aren't balanced, then it's not a case of the game not being an 'even playing field' title, it's just a bad game. One could argue that loadouts in class based shooters are balanced, but that doesn't mean they play in an 'even playing field' way such as previous Halo titles and other, non classed based shooters like Quake. The entire premise of the identical off-spawn experience, once again the defining factor of Halo if you ask me, is undermined by having loadout options. I genuinely don't see how this can be argued with.

Call Reach AAs balanced if you wish. I'd disagree, but it's still a discussion worth having. But saying that they still present an even playing field in the way that has defined Halo up until now is simply to ignore the facts.

 

Hey, I did lay off in my last post! I didn't mean for this to turn into this discussion, it just kinda happened. you know how it is. i didn't expect to go this direction, just saw his post all about the negatives of AAs with nothing relating to the TU itself. So, in the parlance of the schoolyard..... he started it.

But seriously, as I said before... besides zero bloom I don't notice much of a difference. Were any changes made to AAs?