How do you know people would like forced loadouts? Have you taken a poll to see who does and who doesn't like forced loadouts? As far as grenades and rockets are concerned, they are the same as they were in Halo 3. In Halo 3 it takes two rockets to blow up a fully intact warthog. In Halo 4 it takes two rockets to blow up a fully intact warthog. I tested it in a custom game.
Say a warthog has 100 health. Say Halo 3 rockets do 50 damage and Halo 4 rockets do 99 damage. Both would take two direct shoots to kill a warthog(50+50=100,90+90=180) so in that isolated incident there damage mose well be the same. Halo 4 rockets will still have more damage in most other situations though specially involving splash damage. As for loadouts your initial comment was "I'm sure nobody else likes forced loadouts either." I like forced loadouts so it's impossible for "nobody else to like forced loadouts" I don't know if I'm the majority or minority but there has to be a market for it since games sell with that system.
I like forced loadouts too. ...anyone else interested in no instant respawn for Team Doubles? Haven't played on it myself yet..
I agree with everything nut duster has stated. Sometimes I wonder why halo 4 never had a proper beta to counter these issues. Most of the decisions made by 343 were made in light of cods release soon after I imagine, which unfortunately hindered the halo I once knew.
There are one or two reasons I would assume there was no Halo 4 beta like Reach had. First, because Reach had a beta as the game engine went through heavy changes from Halo 3 to Halo: Reach and they wanted to test it thoroughly. So, 343i probably felt it wasn't needed to run a Halo 4 beta since the game is basically the same as Reach only updated with minor changes to gameplay decisions and cosmetics. It's not like they changed the core engine mechanics or anything. What really needed public beta testing was balancing of the loadouts and stuff for Big Team Slayer I think. You can't really make that many changes to the gameplay and only test it in-house, because there are much more skilled players in the world than just the people who make the games. For example, if they public beta tested they would have known that the Boltshot needed to be nerfed before the game came out. They didn't notice because not many people played the game to realize. Secondly, Microsoft for sure had a strict deadline to get this game out before the Holidays like COD, which is their number one competitor. So I highly doubt there was even time to beta test and if there was then shame on them.
Um, yeah they kinda did. They changed or added some major sandbox elements. Always on sprint, armour mods and personal ordnance being the ones that spring to mind. They also added completely new game modes, and drastically changed others. If that all doesn't need beta testing then what the hell does? Sadly I suspect this is the case. I'd like to think that the question of timing depends on the approach you take to development planning. If you consider a public beta to be something of an essential stage, then you plan with it in mind and design a game that you can get done in time to include it. I know this sounds extreme, but for a flagship competitive title in an established series which has even made good use of public betas, I think it was a glaring omission.
If anything, I think the net change from Reach to Halo 4 was larger than the one from Halo 3 to Reach. It definitely deserved a public beta. But the takeaway from those things is probably less than we always think, anyway. I know Bungie changed some things after the Reach beta, but there was still a lot more that needed to happen (and did, in the TU) and some things that should have happened but never did - e.g. the jetpack, which was always too powerful and only got its much-needed nerf with Halo 4.
Well I didn't say it didn't need beta testing, just that I think that was possibly one of their reason(s) for not beta testing. But these things like adding sprint on by default, making loadouts, new armor, personal ordnance, or tactical and support upgrades... they aren't really big changes to the game engine, just additional gameplay elements. But yes, it did all need beta testing since it changes how you play the game. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Halo 3 feels like a much different game than Reach and Halo 4 to me.... Halo 4 feels like a Reach on steroids with better graphics (an updated Reach essentially). If you take away sprint, personal ordnance, the BR, loadouts, the Mantis, and all the Forerunner Weapons. It would feel like you are playing Reach except a slightly increased jump-height. Not counting graphics and aesthetic changes or new armor abilities. Then again I'm not a developer so I don't know who had to do more work to change the game from Halo 3 or Halo: Reach.
I'm pretty sure they did a major overhaul on the engine between Reach and 4, actually. Quote from this article: Even if you look at this from a technical standpoint rather than a balance one, Halo 4 was hella buggy when it was released.
that's true. I'm sure they worked hard and it shows. I also like what they've done. I just wish BTB wasn't twice as chaotic now as it ever was, and the BTB maps should be much bigger than they are to balance out some of that chaos. Ragnarock for example is a remake yet it feels much smaller due to Halo 4's gameplay and speed... but they didn't make it any larger. If you're going to have a gametype where everyone uses DMRs they should at least make the maps larger and they also took out a lot of the bloom so it's even easier to use than it was in Reach. I do recall seeing a lot of glitches though with the physics and spartan models when the game came out. Even recently I've had my dead spartan's body crumble and twist in a deformed manner lol. But something like that doesn't bother me as long as it doesn't happen too often.
That's a pretty crazy list of things to sweep away, though! Especially ordnance, which to me represents a bigger change to the game mechanics than AAs did in Reach - AAs had more of a precedent (in the form of Halo 3 equipment and power-ups) than ordnance drops did. There's no accounting for subjective impressions of course, but I think Reach feels much more like Halo 3 than like Halo 4 to me. Part of that is due to elements that are rather superficial - like how the players move around, how the weapons sound, and how the graphics look - and part of it is due to stuff like the aforementioned ordnance drops, as well as the fact that H4 just plays a lot faster than Reach. When I see videos and pics of Reach now, I see a clearly Bungie-made game; even though it was a bit grittier and more soft-focus than before, it still had their clean lines and solid, bold colors. 343 has taken a lot of steps to make this game feel like the start of a new series and less indebted to its predecessors, and that distinction is very noticeable to me.
good points, can't say I disagree. Halo 4 does feel like a new direction. I don't like the red and blue team colors though in Halo 4, I think it would look better if they were at least a little more bold/saturated. Halo 4 does feel much higher quality than Reach but maybe that's mostly the graphics and amazing sound effects they made. I don't care for the DMR sound, for some reason. I do prefer Bungie maps especially for Big Team.
343i remaking a bunch of code just makes me think "Don't fix whats not broken" all time wasted making a completely new buggy code they could of made a better game with time to have a beta. (assuming the time saved was enough to make it a good enough game to be beta worthy) Specially when you consider gametypes with AA's as pickups, And if that was the norm gametype which believe giving more time to Bungie to make it, it would of been made that way or at least more balanced AA's or less predominant. Point being Halo 4 has tons of bugs and flaws and poor gameplay choices. But if you give them any lenience to ignoring the flaws/bugs/poor choices, then have to give some lenience to Bungie with Reach(meaning AA's more balanced and less predominant), When comparing which is closer to previous Halos then with or without lenience Reach feels like next evolution in the series and Halo 4 feels like a HalCoD spin-off of Halo. IMO
Jeez it ain't that bad. Halo 4 is some high quality **** as far as video games go, super high quality. Every game has it's bugs but none of them are that bad in Halo 4 are they? Maybe I just didn't notice many of them. Most of the ones I've experienced were just something funny to see and didn't affect gameplay... such as a warthog blowing up and the debris flying way high in the air or spartan dead bodies glitching out in weird ragdoll deformities. The only bug I can recall off the top of my head that affected gameplay was Ordnance-related, but for the most part Halo 4 is fine I think. I don't see why people say Halo 4 feels anything like Call of Duty. I'll have to assume people say this because of "loadouts" in matchmaking? Loadouts in an FPS game doesn't make it like Call of Doody. Even if Call of Duty was the first FPS to use loadouts, which I highly doubt it was (?), it is just one aspect of a game that has to do with choosing which weapons you want to spawn with. Sure it changes the game but I don't think it does too much except for that damn "Plasma Pistol/Sticky Grenade" loadout combo that makes vehicles near useless in BTB. The new Gears of Lag: Judgement game coming out that caters to the "wannabe scrubbin' thugs" has loadouts now too... and I'm sure most competitive shooters will from now on, as it seems to be becoming a standard. I remember Bioshock 2 had loadouts also. Call of Duty gameplay is nothing like Halo at all though and Halo is nothing like Call of Duty (In my opinion). Duty is so easy it takes no skill to be good in that game, that is why so many people like it because they are good at it. Then they come and play Halo and get raped and can't get a kill so they say Halo sucks and it takes forever to kill someone. Because they are so use to basically killing other players with the tap of a button in COD. Whoever sees who first gets the kill in COD basically. Halo is so much more in-depth and skill-based. What else makes Halo like COD besides Loadouts?
You want the list again? Load outs. Perks, down to exact clones of specific CoD perks in many cases. JIP. Kill cams. Personal ordnance as a comparison to sprees, particularly care packages. ALL the changes they made to CTF. Single game type playlists only (though they have addressed this). SpOps. And that's just all I can think of right now. I don't agree with William that it feels more like CoD than Halo, but to brush off the stark and abrupt similarities as nothing more than loadouts is to ignore some obvious things.
Also grenade indicator. I don't think Halo 4 feels more like CoD then Halo! Halo 4 feels more like Halo then it feels like CoD. (meaning it has more Halo in it then it has CoD in it) But it does have more CoD in it then other Halo's which makes it feel like a CoD spin off rather then the natural progression of the series like Reach feels like to me. Specially if Bungie had of more time to fix AA's issues.(Aka balance/predominance) Even if Halo 4 had more time to fix balance it would still feel like a CoD spin off.
Thanks for the info. I didn't want the list "again", I just wanted the list period. I never seen the list and I never played COD (never will either). Spartan Ops I guess you are saying it's **** Zombies? I see it more as the new Firefight with a 3 minute video to watch every 5 maps. Although it isn't never-ending like Firefight/Horde was. I think both **** Zombies AND Firefight/Spartan Ops were taken from Gears of War's Horde Mode, unless Zombies came out first I before Gears of War 2? I'm all for adding in elements and taking ideas from other games to make a certain game better. Personally, I like the Ordnance as I think it's a cool idea no matter if it came from COD, as long as we can disable it for customs which we can it's a welcome change. Same with the Loadouts and Tactical/Support Upgrades (Perks) although I don't think it works well with Big Team Battle but that's only because of the plasma pistol and sticky grenade combo that can be used to destroy just about any vehicle that comes in your path. As for CTF, can't say I played it much to notice changes to be more like COD.
Closer to SpecOps from Modern Warfare, right down to the name they gave it, which is so blatant as to seem intentional. Fair enough - and most game developers do it. The reason this seems like an argument already is because for months there was this back-and-forth thing between people saying "Call of Halo LOL" and people claiming that Halo 4 didn't resemble CoD in any way, shape, or form. Personally I don't mind it that much, if it improves the game (or at least doesn't ruin the game), but I also have a hard time with posters around here who feign ignorance or pretend that it's not even happening. It's quite clear that 343 had an eye on their biggest competitor when they designed this game.
I see, thanks for the info. I didn't mean to seem like I am arguing, I just never played COD really. So, I'm not going to deny it because I see what you guys mean now and it's obvious... I'm sure their motivation was to attract the COD players to buy Halo. However... I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft told 343i to add elements of COD into Halo 4 to attract more sales. Hey... I like blaming Microsoft and their shady greedy tactics for everything,