Slight inconvience caused by lag (that we've identified the cause of and how to completely remove) is not "two steps backward" While not as bad as noxy's "complete trash" statement you're still generalizing the negative aspects and giving an over-the-top catch-all to it. No one would disagree that several areas could use improvement, but Forge 2.0 was still in almost every way better than Forge 1. For die hard forgers who expect the finest level of control over their creations I can see why you'd be quick to dismiss everything it's done but don't belittle the impact it has had in bringing thousands of new forgers into Halo and many hundreds of thousands of quaity maps (Maybe not what you would call quality but then we're up high on a pedestal in a community called "forge"hub right)
The biggest issue IMO with Reach 'nades isn't the blast radius (though it's large) or the lack of graduated damage (though it is certainly lacking) or the map designs. It's the fuse. The damn things blow up so fast after they hit the ground that something I used to be great at in previous Halo games - getting away from grenades before they blow - is now nearly impossible. If a grenade "tinks" in your immediate vicinity, you may as well just grit your teeth and wait to respawn. Now, I assume they did this because with sprint and evade, it would be too easy to escape grenade damage unless the fuse was short and the blast radius large - maybe also because the short fuse gives armor lockers and drop shielders less time to react. But to me, that was introducing a big problem to cure a medium-sized one. They should have tweaked the AAs, not the 'nades. It has made things really hard for any custom or MLG game that doesn't even use armor abilities; it's also brutal on anyone not using the AAs I just mentioned in any context, and even if you ARE using them, Reach just feels unpleasant sometimes because of it.
One thing I don't understand you guys saying is that you want more colors and textures to use, but if you have an ass ton of textured blocks, it would look like **** when you try to put them together. :|
The one step forward is the simplifying what we could already do: Merge objects flawlessly, make objects hover, make objects 'movable'. The larger budget and the amount of objects were mostly unusable in ways that everyone wished to use them. The merging of the objects also couldn't be done flawlessly as each item had different sizes and weren't really set to a grid scale (collesium walls shifting, using objects on grid revealing large holes that grenades can slip through etc...) Budget glitching, object clipping/ghost merging are other examples. By all means, it was an advancement, but in retrospect, the original Forge had a lot more possibilities as identified by Noxiw. Mini-games and physics machines were restricted due to the movable items. Item counts on screen caused most map designs to be instantly flawed by performance, items didn't match each other once you finally could create a map that didn't have performance issues... None of these problems really existed in Halo 3 forge, although the time and hardwork it took to create a map was much greater than in Reach. Most of these issues are the cause of why there are so few lagless BTB maps, or even 4v4 maps. The majority of released maps these days are either 1v1 or 2v2, which is a shame. To summarise, there was a lot more variety in Halo 3 because of it's simplicity. Reach had too many restrictions (although the main restrictions were removed and processes made quicker).
The ability to change a texture on a block is what people want. Areas could have matching textures as well as being coloured (if necessary). Identifying the areas would be much easier, maps would look more complete and natural at the same time.
That's not a small thing. It used to be that only dedicated and very patient map-makers could make a really good map with plentiful interlocking - and geo-merging was legitimately REALLY HARD and imprecise, even if you did have patience and experience with it. The number of good competitive maps has to be 5-10 times higher in Reach, simply because of this "small" step forward. I was a forger in H3, but when I saw how phased physics worked in Reach, I nearly wept with joy. Now people shrug it off. I also think the increased available of huge objects is nothing to sneer at, yet people also overlook what an advantage that is. If you wanted to make an enclosed competitive map in H3, you made it on Foundry or in the crypt portion of Sandbox - period. In Reach you can enclose a fairly large area with coliseum walls or the larger blocks and platforms, anywhere you want. Is it an obvious evolution for forge? And was it simple for them to do it? Sure. But it means a lot to map makers. Important to note that this exact same glitch existed in H3 as well. It's not new in Reach. If anything it seems a little more subtle - you only really see it with very large objects in Reach, whereas in H3 making a flat floor with significantly smaller pieces was a *****. I agree with a lot of the rest of your points, but I think some of you guys are really taking the advancements of Reach forge for granted simply due to being used to them. For minigame guys, I understand and sympathize about the new restrictions - but let's not overlook that the insane gametypes give you a lot more to work with, too, even though they weren't present when Reach was shipped. Overall I feel like Reach was mostly a big step forward for forgers, with just one significant problem - framerate. Everything else was either not a new issue (object shifting, repetitive map feel) or was minor, IMO (some of the objects are awkwardly-sized or -textured; I say this is minor because I feel like I see 3-4 Reach maps every week that look better than any map ever made in H3). If H4 offers another step forward and fixes framerate concerns, I for one will be very, very happy.
Missions make up an episode. Episodes make up a season. I think there are about 5 or 6 missions in an episode, and 7 or 8 episodes in a season. I just hope it doesn't become "quite" too repetitive. Also, there is bound to be an easter egg where you bump into your war games spartan.
I didn't really specify the size of each step taken... but the point was while in some areas it was a huge improvement, but in other existing areas it was still a step in the opposite direction. Don't get me wrong, when they announced Forge 2.0 I loved it. I enjoyed the new items, I enjoyed the new experience... but as time went on, so did my understanding that each of these new additions also brought new problems with them. The Halo 3 shifting issue was a little more predictable though. You could tell where items would jump to with the tear drops.
Your war games Spartan and you Spartan ops Spartan are the same thing. Just like your armor is the same in firefight and multiplayer in reach right now
I dont think there will be a season every month. I also remember hearing the first season wont be out for a few weeks or months.
Ah per week. Okay. I wish they'd show a mission from start to finish, without cuts (well sans cutscenes, that'd be okay), just so I can see the depth of what's going on. I feel like my unexpressed worry (which someone else actually expressed) that it may be using campaign assets like firefight did may be the case. It'd make sense, but it'd severely diminish the appeal.
Even ghost-merging was fussy (you had to master the button presses to be able to spawn the object in spartan mode; you also had to memorize the sequence of events spawn this twice, wait for one to disappear, set the runtime min, blah blah blah; the whole process takes 1-2 minutes per object even when you're good at it). It also was a glitch, not a designed feature, and it wasn't discovered until Halo 3 was two years old.
Halo 4 - First Look at Slayer Multiplayer Gameplay, Pt. 3 (Off Screen) - E3 2012 - YouTube Shows the rocket launcher and at around 1:20 shows friendly fire turned off (hopefully just for the demo)