Ha, OK, sufficiently clarified and then some. I agree there. I hate the idea of success being self perpetuating even between games. It's like taking the idea of Leader Traits (not even just Leader Traits, but positive ones) and extrapolating that out to a full game. I know I sound cocky, but I don't even resent this because I'm going to suffer too much from it, I just think it's stupid.
You keep talking as if you know exactly how these features will work. You don't. We have no clue if the maps have been designed to accommodate instant respawn or how fast shields will recharge. We don't know how the weapon drops work exactly, but we know they are not completely random as it has been said that there are specific ordinance drop zones. We don't know how any of the AA's will be modified and how the maps will be designed to balance them. Obviously Bungie didn't even try to create their maps with AA balance in mind, but that doesn't mean 343i will make the same mistake. None of us know ****, but we talk like Halo 4 has already been released and everyone's played it. I wasn't evaluating the game based on MLG. I simply said I find MLG's game-type to be the most enjoyable Halo experience thus far in the series. I liked what Halo: Reach tried to accomplish, but it fell short. That doesn't mean that Halo 4 will fall short in those same categories and who knows, I may find myself enjoying the hell out of the new features and the way they influence game-play when implemented properly. Also, I will rape you in a warthog. Either be a better driver or stay in the gunner seat. I agree they were too flimsy in Reach, but god forbid they aren't wrecking machines like they were in the past.
I just listened to the podcast and I have some thoughts. The "random" weapon drops don't sound too bad. Apparently, the devs think that removing the advantage of knowing the weapon spawns will shift the focus of a game from controlling the map to simply being a good shot, which I understand. I can't help but feel that this will turn team slayer games into crazy king, but I won't know until I play it. Forerunner Vision is apparently like close range sonar at the moment, which sounds okay. It certainly doesn't sound overpowered. Though I may not totally accept this change, I am a little relieved. It sounds like the only downside to Spartan Ops is the name. Everything else sounds great. To all the people saying that having multiplayer tied in to campaign, they just did this to allow your spartan from MP to carry over onto Spartan Ops. They talked a little bit about the sounds of the weapons. This got me pumped. IMO, 343 did great with the weapon sounds in CEA, so I have a lot of faith in the sound team. The assault carbine is renamed. They said that it was similar to a previous weapon, which I'm going to guess is the plasma rifle, considering it's not coming back. They implied that it is based on a weapon used mainly for depleting shields (plasma rifle), but this could also mean sentinel beam. They did say, however, that the weapon as it is as of now is more of a finishing weapon and less of a shield deplete-r. I've come to the conclusion that this game is going to be great. It may not be what Halo "fans" want, but doesn't "fan" imply that you're willing to follow the game to wherever it leads. If you're a fan of a specific sports team, you are a fan during the bad seasons as well as the good. If you consider yourself a fan of Halo, you should be willing to give Halo 4 a try instead of instantly condemning it based on other people's experiences.
I don't think it'll work like that to be honest. You can't get rid of map control totally without making the map dull as hell, because position dominance will still be key. Randomising things doesn't even remove the power weapon element of map control, it just...randomises it. Taking the power weapons out (not promoting this btw, just talking about logical conclusions) would remove said emphasis, randomising it means they're still just as important but who gains that advantage has an element of chance added to it. Scumbag fanboy: Tells people they shouldn't decide a game sucks based on rumours, reports and leaks. Decides that game is definitely going to be awesome based on rumours, reports and leaks.
Probably. But isn't a true test of skill the ability to deal with these events on the fly? You got me. But I'm not basing my opinion on the info of Halo 4, I'm basing it on 343 and its ability to develop a game. CEA was great, no big problems. This is how 343 should be judged. And I fall back onto my sports analogy, if your a "true" fan (normally I hate the term but I think it's appropriate here), you should give them the benefit of the doubt. But more specifically to you, Peg, what are you mad about? Judging from your comments you only play MLG. If 343 is giving MLG all the options to tailor the game to the MLG playstyle, why do you even care about changes that most definitely will not be included in the standard MLG gametypes? From the sounds of it, you are getting everything you wanted. DMR, Halo CE style movement, etc. I'm probably in over my head getting into an argument with Peg. Goddamn video doesn't ****ing work for me. GI, THERE IS A THING CALLED YOUTUBE YOU KNOW!
"If you're really good you'll be able to deal with it. Wait, you are good...aren't you?" Thanks dude, it's been a while, I was beginning to miss the sense of utter disdain whenever I hear that argument used. CEA was an exact remake, save for a graphical/audio overhaul, which also had no multiplayer. So yes, I'm confident that Halo 4 will sound good, and probably look good, but frankly CEA didn't even look that great. Also, that sports analogy is entirely inappropriate. A sports team isn't even close to the same as a game franchise. Sports teams continue to play the same sport, with the same rules, and the variable is an objectively discernible performance, be that better or worse than their previous one. A game franchise has distinct iterations, which you can easily like or dislike regardless of the last one. It's a much more changeable thing, and it's inherently interactive. I'm actually having trouble trying to formulate a concise explanation of why that's not just a bad analogy, but a nonsensical one, it feels like trying to explain why the ground isn't the sky. Pretty much the only thing they have in common is the idea of a "fan." Judging from the comments like the ones where I say how I don't want to only be able to play MLG, and how I specifically don't play MLG that much, and that Squad Slayer was my favourite playlist until they axed it? Fair.
I didn't say lock the thread. I just don't see the point to arguing about stuff when you don't know the full impact each aspect will have on the game.
It was a joke... I was making the point that this is a Halo 4 Discussion thread. Discussing an unreleased game is going to revolve largely around speculation. When said speculation provokes disagreement about gameplay preferences, debate will likely ensue, even argument. The glib remarks on that point seemed to fade out in the first few pages, I just didn't feel that a reprise was necessary.
Another play then judge advocate, good to know larger numbers of them exist. Pegasi I agreed with a lot of the things you said over your last few posts I just request you stop using the phrase, "logical conclusion". It is so condescending and frustrating a phrase to use in an argument (Mind you, this is coming from a person often accused of condescension). Mostly because it is your logical conclusion, not "the logical conclusion". Often times you make pretty large leaps in logic to associate what was being said with one of your "logical conclusions" and more often then not you are making an opinion based assumption on what you believed the person had said and not a logical anything. By all means keep arguing as you do but please refrain from using "logical conclusion" in your responses, it irritates me so much. Or at least when you use it, preference it with, "how I see the logical conclusion of your statement is..." I also disagree with the CEA didn't look that good statement but that's a discussion for another time.
Logic is not subjective, or at least it's not supposed to be. I get what you're saying that it can sound pompous, but the idea of "my" logical conclusion is self contradictory. Now I'm not saying I can't be totally and utterly wrong in my assertion of what the logical conclusion of any basic gameplay principle is, and if you disagree in any given instance then I don't need to tell you to call me out lol. But most of the time, the point I'm making with that phrase is that the argument someone is putting forward stands on a point along a continuum, and the reason for drawing the line where they have (generally at a slight tangent to this continuum itself, as I'll get to in a sec) hasn't been made clear. Like above, adding an unpredictable variable to power weapon control (an aspect of larger map control) isn't going to reduce emphasis on map control. Position control will still exist for its own sake, and still will for the potential of power weapon spawns (or of getting an appropriate one if it works as it sounds like). If you want to actually shift emphasis from map control to raw aim then remove the reasons to control the map, any manner of unpredictability doesn't reduce the impact of the respective mechanic on the game, it only serves to reduce the consistency with which those skilled in that mechanic will win out. Ya know, not only are you right that I do use that phrase quite a lot, but I'm actually noticing a trend as to why on reflection. This argument of "we want to reduce emphasis on X, so we'll add an unpredictable element to it" just irks me, and it's one that comes up time and again with discussions of Halo mechanics. When I say "logical conclusion," I guess what I'm saying is that if they really wanted to achieve this general premise of reducing X's importance within the game (be that a weapon, gameplay mechanic or even playstyle), then they'd do Y. That what they're suggesting actually serves to do in general terms is maintain the presence of X within the game but add a built in potential for good and bad luck in to the game. Thing is, I don't even hate that principle in itself, in something ultimately subjective like games it'd make no sense to. On a personal level I hate the idea of it being a driving force behind Halo's development, and admittedly that's a part of why I'm so hostile to that argument, but another part is that it has this veil I talked about above. Few people actually use this angle when arguing in favour of unpredictability, that the potential for the better player to not win a situation 100 out of 100 times can actually make the game more fun, instead clinging on to this idea that randomness is a kind of skill. Like I say, the former is actually a fair argument. One a strongly disagree with, but at least not one I see gaping logical holes in. If you can patch up those holes in the wider terms of the argument then you'll have basically headed off my entire use of that phrase anyway. And yes, CEA did look very good. I phrased that badly, you're right. What I mean is that in technical terms it wasn't anything definitively reassuring (which, to be fair, it had no reason to be, but I'm just saying), and even though I really liked the art direction, this was obviously heavily guided by the original CE. So yeah, it is good in visual terms, but what I should have said was that I don't see anything definitively reassuring in it, and even then it's a small basis for reassurance on the scale he was talking about.
Your right, "logic" is not subjective. As soon as you extend what someone else was saying based on your understanding of what someone else said, it stops being objective. Someone might come up with a completely different conclusion based on the same information as you (that happens all the time in the Scientific community) so calling it "the logical conclusion" is the very definition of haughty. That assumes your conclusion is the only conclusion and that your understanding of the information at hand is the only understanding. If you can be wrong in an assertion then again, the finality of a statement like "the logical conclusion" is the wrong way of saying it and you could easily frame the same argument without statements like that. A continuum that you see. Not the one that everyone sees. I can extend someone's logic to it's extremes (and by the way, logic rarely has a "conclusion" it can be reduced to simplest terms or extended to extremes but rarely has a set conclusion) just as well as you can. Does that make my perspective less valid than yours just because I didn't call it "the logical conclusion"? For instance, using your example, "random" is not a concept games handle particularly well so I could just as easily make the case that players will eventually gage how these "random" weapon drops happen and gameplay will in turn revolve around that. Now that doesn't significantly change the point you were making but I just introduced information and a perspective you hadn't even considered or made apparent. Again, you can form an argument and use as much information to justify your conclusions but they are just your conclusions no matter how common sense you might feel they are. The thought process behind you using the phrase isn't what bugs me. Like I said you can argue that way all you want and is in fact much better then reading empty fluff people pull out of their ass to act like they're contributing. It is simply the connotation behind the phrase that precludes the possibility of your conclusion being wrong and it assumes how you interpreted what someone said is the only way to interpret what they said. Again, no matter how common sense or obvious you think your understanding of what someone else is saying or some bit of information is that doesn't mean you can throw around absolutes of what every single person believes. Well, it is reassuring just to know 343i is competent enough to do what they did without introducing new problems. The decision to just do a graphical overhaul and not an engine one was a large decision and shows that the developers do care about what made Halo such a classic.
I really like this analysis. For anybody that plays any poker, you may know that one reason poker is a popular game (and enjoyed a recent boom, though that is now on the wane) is exactly this: the potential for the better player to not win a situation 100 out of 100 times can actually make the game more fun. In other words, adding a substantial (but not dominating) amount of randomness to what is fundamentally a skill game. That aspect draws in all kinds of players, many of them quite unskilled, and allows them to still do well sometimes. But on paper, the skilled players still prevail the majority of the time, and win in the long run. If poker is 70% skill and 30% luck (numbers courtesy of my ass) then the average Halo game is more like 90/10 or 95/5. In fact, when I retired from poker it was mainly because the random aspect of the game was wearing me out - I was a net winning player but the periodic losses were too frustrating for the game to still be fun. And I appealed to Halo (my other main love, on a recreational level) as an exemplar of a game where skill wins almost always. But as you're pointing out, a big factor in many of their development decisions seems to be to increase randomness as a way of reducing skill's dominance. And actually, I'm not sure there's another good way to accomplish that goal. Removing power weapons entirely would certainly not accomplish it, though it would remove that one particular way that good players beat bad ones. But they would certainly find another. I mean, a lot of times when I know the other team is less skilled than me, I don't really go out of my way to get power weapons anyway; I just look for situations where I can get people 1-on-1 with my DMR vs. whatever they want to use. If I do pick up a power weapon, the main intent is to prevent them from killing me with it. I'll go where you won't - CEA didn't look that good. For a game sold primarily as a graphical upgrade, it wasn't enough of one to feel like it was worth the money. It looked substantially less good than Reach, and the remade maps outshone the campaign graphics. I think Battle Canyon is far more easy on the eyes than most of the CEA levels. But that's fine, I also don't expect CEA to really represent what 343 is capable of with more resources and a full development cycle. CEA was a budget effort, priced accordingly. The bits we've seen so far of H4 look beautiful.
Is there a chance that they are going to make it so you can sprint and shoot at the same time due to this statement:
The first brief multiplayer footage we saw confirmed you have to stop and shoot. Cool brain you got there.
Meh, forgot about that detail as I haven't seen that video in a while. And I wasn't saying that you can sprint and shoot, but by that statement alone you could infer it.
However, its been posted by either Frank or Ellis that players shot while sprinting will experience a stun like effect. Essentially we have stopping power. Eat **** and die herpaderpers.