Halo 4 Discussion

I don't know about splitscreen but in singlescreen there are some maps that definitely suffer from framedrops. Mostly DLC maps strangely enough.

Battle Canyon - Looking from one tunnel to the other
Condemned - Zooming in with the sniper while looking through the middle of the map
Breakpoint - Flying around with the Falcon while looking at the main structure
Tempest - Zooming in with the sniper in several locations, most notably at the beach
Solitary - Looking towards the middle of the map from either of the sniper spawns

 

Pretty sure Frankie did say that.

We'd better have the aforementioned features, otherwise Frankie will be in deep solid bull excrement.

 

Certain affinity made Reach DLC...Certain Affinity made forge. Not looking good

 

Outsourcing is never good

 

Certain Affinity made good Reach DLC...

 

The issue is frame drops, not quality. Any forger is right to be worried about this. Honestly it might be the only make-or-break aspect of this game for me; I wasted far too many hours in Reach forging maps that framerate issues rendered unsalvageable.

 

as much as i beat on the positivity drum, i must agree, this is by far the worst news we have heard out of anything. if forge is plagued by framerate crap again, i simply wont be able to get any long term enjoyment out of the game at all. i will still buy it and enjoy the campaign and MM, but... goddamnit, what the ****, seriously. i would have settled for an exact copy of reach forge if they had just fixed that.

we can still hope, since none of this is totally solid and no one has done any prolonged experiments with it yet, but ... fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuck

 

I'm just saying it is a bad analogy to say,

"Certain affinity made Reach DLC...Certain Affinity made forge. Not looking good"

They made what a lot of people consider to be good DLC maps. So why would them making forge lead to the conclusion of it "not looking good". I don't follow that logic.

Of course frame rate lag is a concern, but that has little to do with the analogy or my defense of Certain Affinity's level of skill as developers.

 

Truth be told I'm not entirely sure its their fault..I think the engine is just shitty. I hate semi-realism Halo anyway, gimme back cartoony moonbouncing. Either way though, they should be more conscious of the maps they make and stop loading them full of garbage "scenery"

 

Disagree....in every way it is possible to disagree with a statement.

It is possible to have aesthetic flare and be functionally sound. The balance of them is tricky but it is possible.

 

But the maps apparently aren't functionally sound, so why bother with all of the frills if they ultimately detract from the gameplay?

I don't doubt Certain Affinity's skills as map makers, but designing a map is different than designing something like forge.

 

I don't want to speak for people who aren't me, but the course of the conversation seemed pretty clear. We were talking about FRL in Halo 4, with someone saying lag had been experienced (in leaked copies of the game I guess) in on-disc maps. That spilled over into wondering about forge lag. Someone asked if any of Reach's on-disc maps (non-forged) had FRL. Overdoziz replied, saying, "Mostly DLC, strangely enough" and provided a list of specific examples. Then chrstphrbrnnn said, "Certain Affinity made Reach DLC and made H4 forge." Noteworthy: Certain Affinity made three of the five maps Overdoziz mentioned as having lag.

In context I think chrstphrbrnnn was specifically talking about frame rate, not about overall map quality. Assuming that's true, his basic point seems to be, "They don't care enough about FRL to avoid it in standard maps, why should we think they would in forge mode?"

Personally I like the visual engine and the look of Reach and H4, and I think it's a natural evolution of the first Halo. CE wasn't "cartoony" on purpose; it's an old game. It also had a lot of beautiful (for the time) scenery, though most of it was in campaign.

But it's hard to deny that FRL is experienced commonly enough in Reach that you have to point a finger at the engine itself, so that point stands. Hopefully it's been optimized for Halo 4, rumors notwithstanding.

 

The maps were - mostly - good, yes. But the amount of power weapons on the maps was absolutely ridiculous.

 

Yea it seems like the shotguns on highlands have like 15 second respawns, just to give an example

 

agree.

chaos is a part of halo, imo.
its part of what makes it so damn fun.

 

Tbh If i remember correctly merging massive maps on halo 3 caused a lot of lagg and to make all the huge improvements to forge for reach is reasonable to expect a bit of oversight some lagg issues in complex maps sure it was annoying but I understand it and don't think its outrageous.

But in halo 4 its not a amazing new feature its copy pasted pretty much so instead of doing bunch of silly things like adding magnets could of improved FRL!

I play a TON of BTB its all I played for ages, I had way over double vehicle kills then headshots (before I started playing Slayer)

Wraith is deadly that's not a question, I was just trying to point out warthog isn't useless its at least got some uses and viable in enough situations to be a viable vehicle not deadly and scary but when playing safe can easily do a lot of damage.

Warthog>Wraith at long range, At range where wraith can't viably hit a moving warthog (Say half way across hemorrhage as a obvious example) a warthog can easily pick at a wraiths health "sniping" it destroying its packets even if it doesn't kill it in one go (someone attacks you, random thing happens) you can come back strait away and finish it off the longer you are away the safer it is and the longer it takes so its a risk vs reward thing.
It can't do anything besides hide or take damage which leaves it in a bad position to do anything meaningful.

 

I think they badly overdid it though. Battle Canyon is nigh on unplayable because of the fact that you rarely encounter a player who DOESN'T have a power weapon, and it seems like half of them have a shotgun or sword - very frustrating inside those cramped little bases. There are literally three times as many power weapons on the map as compared to the original, and more than twice the number from the Halo 2 version (the original had one sniper and one rocket launcher; Beaver Creek in H2 added a single shotgun). I played one of the most infuriating games of Halo I've ever played on that map - it was CTF and the other team all retreated into their base with shotguns, the sword and the rockets, and just sat there watching the entrances. Dumbest power weapon layout ever, IMO.

Actually, I'm hard-pressed to think of any maps in CE or 2 that had nearly that many power weapons. Anyone who can think of examples, enlighten me. Off the top of my head these were the power weapon qtys from CE for the popular maps: Damnation - 4, Hang 'em High - 4, Chill Out - 3, Longest - 2, Blood Gulch - 5 (I think). From 2: Lockout - 3, Ascension - 4, Ivory Tower - 3, Midship - 2. The most power weapon-y map from both games that I can think of, relative to its size, is Sanctuary with 5, but the more open nature of the map always neutralized the effectiveness of the shotties somewhat.

Hopefully they did. I think Overkill or someone else with a leak indicated it might be better, but we have yet to get any real hard info.

Certainly true. I was just responding to where you said the warthog was better than the wraith and seemed to suggest that its longer-range capabilities were the reason. If I misinterpreted, my bad. There are definitely viable strategies for hogs to take out wraiths (keep moving and stay FAR away) and they can be useful no doubt. My point is just that compared to the warthogs of previous games - especially CE and H3 where I remember a number of nightmarish games huddled inside a base, waiting for the sweet release of death - I don't fear them in Reach. They're much more fragile. And I'd much rather have one wraith than two fully-loaded hogs on my team; the hogs, for their advantages, are easier to take out, have longer kill times vs. any target they might go after, and have a higher cost factor than the wraith to boot (meaning it takes 2 people to run an effective hog, so when it dies, the enemy almost always scores two points rather than just 1).

Any scenario where a hog is better is strictly situational. If you add up overall effectiveness, the wraith dominates the hog - it's not even close.

 

When i said Warthog>Wraith, I was thinking of in a fair game in a 8v8 fight, a warthog kills a wraith better then a wraith kills a warthog(when both players playing smart), Because its a even teamed game so your team is protecting you so wraith is less likely to focus you and you intentionally don't set yourself up to be cornered so your always at a distance and able to run from it if it gets close(strafing the mortars) so you can sit at a distance picking at the wraiths HP.
(Wraith still wins in 1v1 with no other players on map but its a team game)

I can see why it was confusing when I used that undefined example and using other unrelated points to validate the warthogs viability in same post.

Wraith>Warthog in most other situations though.

I'm soo curious about how useful vehicles will be in Halo 4 they got small buffs apparently, but you have no idea, You probably do but idk how else to word it lol, But you have no idea how weak vehicles will be with spawnable PP's.

Ever play elite slayer on BTB? I would run around like god mode turned on with PP and evade Playing chicken with ghosts/revenants/wraiths didn't matter. Now I can get that every game with sprint and (nerfed)evade(maybe even onther AA) and PP and perks......