Okay, so sorry if this is old news (this was from the end of February), but I just came across it. After running a quick forum search, I didn't see any threads regarding it, so I figured it was worth a post. Source: NeoGAF - View Single Post - Halo: Reach |OT3| This Thread is Not a Natural Formation I noticed that there were a bunch of copies of Halo: Cryptum on each side of the TVs and asked Ellis about it and he told me that anyone who plays the Defiant Map Pack gets a free copy. As I was saying goodbye to him at the end of the night, I went to grab one, but he stopped me and handed me 4, haha. So I'll have 4 copies to give away (still haven't figured out how, just yet). I'm going to be getting my own copy, too, mine's just being sent around 343i courtesy of Ellis to have it autographed, including Greg Bear's. Shishka - He's not touching matchmaking like Frank stated, but I knew people would assume he'd be doing that. He's a designer at 343i. I don't know his specific role, but Ellis and Frank told me he did actual design development on the Defiant Map Pack so you can put two and two together to figure out what he's doing. And considering how awesome the Defiant Map Pack is, I have faith in his work. He has experience to back it up, too, with his work on Left 4 Dead and Age of Booty. 343 Industries - They moved into Bungie's old building last month which I think is awesome because I liked the look and internal atmosphere of Bungie's old building from everything I saw from all the Halo 3 ViDocs and Behind the Scenes footage that was released for Halo 3. Also, the building's address starts with '434' so it's a match made in heaven. Kind of funny to think Frank is literally right back where he started just with a different title. Frank told me they're filled up in the building so it's a safe guess to think that they're 100+ people strong. I believe Bungie hit 150ish people in the old building when they knew they needed to move because they were all filled up. Good for 343i that they have their own building and are strong in terms of employees. Now, another great thing that took place that night were the extensive and thought provoking conversations I had with Ellis and Frank. It truly was something else. Towards the end of my heavy playtime with the Defiant Map Pack, Ellis was really curious to know what I thought of the maps and that's when I chose to let him know how I really felt about both the maps, but Halo: Reach as a whole. I told him straight up that as much as I love the Defiant Map Pack, Halo: Reach's core mechanics (or specifically, 'the big 3' [Armor Lock, Bloom and Melee change] are what I referred to when talking to both Ellis and Frank]) and how the big 3 are preventing me from loving the Defiant Map Pack and any other map in Halo: Reach exponentially more than I do if these elements were gone. I'm not going to go into specifics of what Ellis and Frank's responses were in fear out of putting words in their mouths that they never said, but what I CLEARLY and EXPLICITLY got from both of them was, well.... I'll leave you with this quote that I will never forgot from Ellis: "We are 343 Industries. We do everything for the community. We are listening, trust me, please. We. are. listening. Support means more to us than just worrying about playlists and new maps." At this point he was having a huge grin on his face and when I continued to grill him on the big 3, he said "Don't worry, Domino. I would not be having this huge grin on my face while telling you all of this if I wasn't serious. This is only the beginning." If what I learned from both of these gentlemen is indicative of 343 Industries' business practices and behavior, then Halo's best years have yet to come, and that includes Halo: Reach's. Have hope, guys. That's what they told me and after what I learned, that's what I'm telling you all. Have hope and don't worry.
Yeah I heard about this comment a while back, there's been a lot of activity on the Halo Waypoint forums since then as everyone who has opinions on a possible TU has weighed in with what they'd like to see (some more subjective and emphatic in their criticism than others, but this is the Halo community...). Tbh the buzz over there seems to have died down a little. Discussion is still going on but it's more the HW forum regulars chewing over the points put forward rather than the surge of new threads that we saw shortly after this quote surfaced.
Remove yoink, firebird and rejection medals, fix bloom, make armor lock less OP/remove it in most playlists, nerf mini-nukes, remove all 407 power weapons from Highlands and Condemned and replace them with new ones, fix the rotation snap system in Forge, and make a better quit ban system. That's all the changes I'd like to be implemented.
If they get rid of Yoink I shall be very disappointed, just cause hearing Jeff say that is amongst the coolest things ever to have happened. Other than that I pretty much agree with your list, though I've also said in the past that I think a Banshee nerf would make it much more useable in many maps, and less OP in the ones it's currently placed on. Basically the bomb should be nerfed in radius a little so that dodging it on foot is a more distinct possibility (obviously when fired at decent range only) and tricking should deplete the boosting charging bar, perhaps 3 tricks per full charge. That way you wouldn't just be able to spam tricks to dodge Rockets/make Laser targeting harder, and you'd have to balance tricking/boosting since even the smallest amount of boost would reduce the number of tricks you could do in a full charge by 1.
Yet again I agree completely with Pegasi. I also second 4shot's list (minus the yoink part) except that I'm over the bloom thing - I'm sufficiently used to it that it no longer bothers me at all.
OK 1. What's Halo: Cryptum? 2. I don't see why people hate armor lock so much? I mean, I'm an armor locker and when I fight other armor lockers, it really does'nt seem to be a problem. And Also, The Banshee tricks are fine, even better than in Halo 3. They kept it the same as it was is Halo 3. That means no charge and can be used non-stop. If you pay close attention, this ability can be canceled out by the fact that if you hit a building or something while doing these tricks, chances are you'll go boom.
Yeah, I'm pumped for this. Majorly pumped. I don't really mind certain things, but there should be Matchmaking playlists that don't include things like Bloom, armor lock, and the odd melee system. Additionally, there should be options to change the melee system's mechanics, as well as Bloom's mechanics.
The people who whined about such features have already moved on; making such major changes will only drive away more of the remaining players.
Bloom isn't even a big deal, I barely ever noticed it. Plus, it's been in all the Halo games so far anyway, only they bothered to mention it in Reach. Plus, bloom makes sense: the more/faster you fire your weapon, the less accurate your shots will be. They'll all end up in the same general area, but you can't expect every shot to be dead-on. Think of it as a cone, (usually represented as your vision): the faster you fire, the more error allowed, thus the radius of this cone is increased; your shots will land within this cone.
Ya know something funny? I read this post and thought "sigh, another person spewing out this same thin and baseless counter to the bloom argument, this is such a carbon copy of a post that I've responded to in the past that I don't even need to type a response, a simply copy pasta will do." So when I go and search to quote said post, turns out the guy I was quoting back then was you as well. Let's have another go at this, shall we? Fact is, on LAN it really isn't bad, as was proved at Dallas. Imperfect? Yes, but really not too bad at all. The problem is that LAN isn't online, and the only guy that is guaranteed anything close to a LAN experience online is the host. When I spend most of my time playing on US hosts (and yes I search good connection, a lot of it is to do with the hours I play), I'm just forced to shoot slower than other people in the game or suffer lower magnetism/worse bullet registration. Simply put, I am at a consistent disadvantage in the majority of DMR situations on most US hosts, so excuse me if I do notice that. With the better shot registration than H3 a lot of people have called an end to connection winning or losing you games so drastically as it did in H3, they should come and play on US hosts at my house before they make such statements. The one difference is that I can actually control how much it messes with my shot for over-accounting with my pacing. However, do you not see why it'd get a little frustrating knowing that I'm literally forced to shoot slower than other people in the game simply because of my connection meaning I don't enjoy the benefits of the forgiving bloom system?
If you check out the bnet forums, you'll see the current players are begging for a title update every day and complaining about how broken many features currently are. The fans will keep complaining until something is done, and then afterward they will complain some more. Such is life. I don't think it will drive players away- there are still tons of people who love Reach and want to see it bettered, like myself. I strongly feel it is in need of an update to fix bugs and balance issues. Bloom for instance, should stay. It simply needs better implementation. I say 10% faster blooming and 10% faster reset to center. This would make pacing your shots much a much more efficient tactic and increase the skill barrier between scrubs and pros. Edit: Confused Pull with Firebird. Speaking of AL, for all that is good and holy, that thing needs to have SOMETHING done to nerf it. I don't care how they do it, it just needs to happen. I know that the hype around this quote has died down a bit, but consider it has only been a month and a half since it was posted. I believe 343i will come through and deliver on the things we all want.
Not to reopen a rotten and festering wound, but: 1. Reduce max lock time from 5 to 4 seconds (or less) 2. Reduce the number of times you can pop in and out of lock in one charge cycle from 3 to 2 3. Increase slightly (quarter to half second) the amount of time it takes to both go into and come out of lock 4. Take away sticky rejection - if it's on you before you lock, you should die 5. Remove the 180 degree spin coming out of lock 6. Remove the frosting effect Result? An armor lock that to casual players is barely any different, and for OCD competitive types is far, far less annoying and frustrating. [br][/br]Edited by merge: There's a whole epic thread about it (at least one) on this very forum. Seek and ye shall find. Summary version: slows the game down too much, has features that seem unfair and unneeded, and is too powerful in its ability to pause the game and counter everything you throw at it. That's not "canceling out" anything. Maybe it cancels it out for idiots. Decent players will just avoid tricking into scenery and voila, they get to dodge rockets and all kinds of other stuff infinitely. The reason it could stand to be nerfed (putting it on the charge cycle along with thrust is a great idea) is that a good banshee pilot can chain tricks and banshee bombs together endlessly to make himself a spinning death machine that is way too hard to take down for anybody who doesn't have a tank or spartan laser (or sniper, I suppose). The bomb radius needs nerfing too, and I say that as a guy who regularly takes advantage of its generous nature in big team battle. I have a lot of banshee bomb kills, and they're just too easy to get. You only halfway have to aim, especially since the bomb also has a slight homing effect.
Sounds like you want to play Halo 3. They aren't going to change the entire game like that, simply because people are pissed it isn't the exact same as what it used to be.
It's funny how people say that those who want reach's glaring problems fixed are just clamoring for another Halo 3. I like Reach more than Halo 3, but notice how 4shot never said "remove bloom" or "remove armor" lock. As for the nades, all they need is a slightly longer fuse. The thing is, if more people liked the way Halo 3 played, what's wrong with wanting some similar aspects of gameplay back? Look at CoD. That game has been the same since WaW and 500,000 people play Black Ops. Why fix what ain't broken? I'm not saying I want the game to be like Halo 3- far from it. I just want more balance and polish out of an already amazing game.
The Banshee. Yes, I forgot about that one. I don't play BTB too often (The maps aren't very good, IMO. Plus, I don't like the slow-paced settings. I'm hoping for a BTB Classic so that I can play maps like Headlong, Containment, Valhalla, Sidewinder, and Coagulation.) But yes, that is a good idea. More so because I want Gamesager to feel at a disadvantage than that it is actually overpowered. Also, I'm not real big on this one, but I'd like for the Spartan Laser to have a mini-buff. Something as little as increasing the max ammo or a slight accuracy increase. Bloom is only really a problem at long ranges or when playing MLG and getting caught up in an intense DMR battle. Even crouching will have some random factor to it at extremely long ranges, and in MLG I don't think to pace my DMR shots most of the time. I mean after all, that's why Status Quo sucks so much. I'm thinking of power weapon spawn times, when to make a push, and when to fall back. Armor Lock pisses me off. I don't even play Reach other than in the Classic Playlist and TGIF because of it. I just let my brother or cousin take over for non-TGIF customs, non-classic matchmaking, Firefight, and Campaign. It makes games incompetitive and slow-paced and for some reason, MLG added it to make these upstart MLG Pros feel comfortable. When Str8 Rippin and Triggers Down come into Reach, these guys are going to get knocked right down to semi-pro status. As for the Banshee tricks, they are not fine. In Halo 3, they were slow and so required skill in order to maneuver it correctly and dodge the opponent. This allowed Spartan Lasers to have some sort of use and it made it harder to get a Killionaire in it. There's a guy who named himself Title Update on Bungie.net. I think that should tell you enough. There are less players complaining about a Title Update, myself included, but there are still some who are complaining every single day. I stopped complaining because I really think they don't intend to release a Title Update. 343 might release one, though. I want a Title Update, but there's not much need to push for it anymore. To be honest, I only want these changes so that the skill gap will be back and I can go +20 every game. They will fix the game as well, but I mainly want these changes so that I can dominate everyone. These changes will make it more competitive. This won't be a Halo 3 clone, I doubt that is even possible with so few changes. But it will improve the fairness, balance, and competition of the game and that will be enough for me, mechanic-wise. Look up Halo 3 BR Spread on Google, read whatever link you clicked for about 30 seconds, then come back here and tell me how badly misinformed you were.
Alright, about the bloom. Regardless of whether or not you like it, it's there. It's here to stay, and it always has been. Mainly for balance issues. Bloom reflects a number of things: accuracy, recoil, bullet spread, accuracy decreases with speed/distance, whatever. Also, I guess I wasn't very clear when I said I hardly noticed it. Yes, there is a perceptible difference in firing, but it's not huge, and it really doesn't make a significant difference in the first place. Yes, bloom can be annoying, but it's expected. Plus, I think one of the only reasons so many people complain about bloom is that in Reach you actually have a visual representation of (i.e. your reticle actually expands). If Bungie removed bloom you may as well be using an aimbot. What they should do, if anything, is decrease the amount the reticle blooms by just a hair. About a TU: I think they should include: *Do something about AL. I don't care what, but do something. Perhaps it can be replaced with dropshield in certain situations? *Also, moar Drop Shield. And Evade. *Less power weapons on Highlands *More weighting on Higlands *For the Haloball playlist, remove the AR. And the ability to assassinate. No idea why they bothered including either. Most games of Haloball I play, I end up sprinting, getting chased by some asshole around the rink until they can catch up to me and assassinate me. Otherwise I'm being sprayed by AR fire. While they're at it, lower the jump height in that game, too.
I whined about these features. I justified my whining. I still play halo reach. I still want something done. I just disproved your entire statement.
I don't think anybody is requesting aimbot assistance. I think they just want it to work basically like the BR and pistol did in Halos 3, 2 and CE. i.e. There's some inaccuracy and bullet spread if you spam shots, especially from long range, but the weapon is fundamentally accurate and rewards good aim, even if you do pull the trigger as fast as possible. What a certain subset of good players hate about Reach's bloom is that it feels like shot pacing is more important than good aim, and you are actively punished too often for simply trying to fire that precise killshot faster than the other guy. Halos 1-3, that stuff mattered. If you got the first shot by a quarter second and both of you fired as fast as possible and each got a headshot each time, you'd kill him by virtue of both your good aim and your quick reflexes with each shot, first to last. Bloom has changed this dynamic in a lot of fire fights and now rewards a cool head over other concerns. Me personally - I'm finally used to it and have started winning a lot of firefights in ways that I'm sure annoy shot-spammers. But I wouldn't mind if they dialed it back some. I still have at least two or three times every matchmaking session where I know I had a guy one shot and pulled the trigger with his head centered in my reticule, and nothing came of it.
I feel as if most of the bloom-fix cynics just see the word 'bloom' in my posts or those like them and immediately assume that I'm bitching about it's presence. Let me make something perfectly clear: I am not complaining about the presence of bloom, what I am asking is that pacing (the entire point of bloom) becomes more important. Or rather, that it becomes consistently important. My point about how I suffer on many US hosts covers this quite well, as in such games I'm basically forced to account for bloom in such a way as you should logically have to. I have to pace such that my reticle has contracted far enough to be fully on top of the target (be that head or body) to guarantee a hit, or even have a chance in hell of getting that hit. My problem is that unless your connection is as low as mine is to the majority of average US hosts, you can actually spam more than you should be able to. In short, if you are saying that bloom makes sense and that having to pace is a good thing, logically you should be supporting the fix I'm proposing since it makes pacing to the proper degree a necessity in all scenarios rather than just on poor connections. In terms of the progression of how overly forgiving bloom is, it goes something like LAN>Host online>Good connection online>Bad connection online. The closer you are to the top of that list, the more you can spam above the point at which bloom has reset enough for your reticle to cover the target and still get hits a decent amount of the time. If someone is standing on the objective in a base on Asylum and shooting an enemy at their door to Ring 1, and they fire 5 shots at full RoF or even close to full RoF and hit all of them for a perfect 5 shot kill with final headshot, do you honestly not see something wrong with that? But that's not even the whole problem, the problem is that it doesn't happen all of the time, it only happens some of the time. This means that it's not simply a case of just ignoring the bloom and firing faster than it should dictate, but basically trusting to luck. If you watch the best DMR players, especially those with good connections or when they are on LAN, you'll notice that they fire faster than is logical in terms of ensuring the hit, but get away with it most of the time. Not all of the time, but enough to ensure that overall it's the best way to treat bloom. So this establishes 3 things: -Pacing isn't as important as the visual indicator of the reticle implies that it should be (so your point about bloom making sense actually follows that you should be supporting a bloom fix to make it consistently punishing to spammers) due to forgiving bullet magnetism and/or random number generators deciding where the bullet falls. -The best way to treat bloom is to fire slightly faster than is logically the case and trust to luck. Most of the time you'll be ok, but there will be enough scenarios where doing the same thing as you've done before will royally screw you over with no real logic to the different outcomes. In short, there is no way to truly master bloom in its current form, so the idea that it adds a skill to the game is somewhat (and I do appreciate that it is only somewhat) diminished. -Better connections are more forgiving to this 'semi-spam' approach than bad ones, again returning to the old Halo 3 problem of connection dictating the outcome of battles in a way which could be avoided. Obviously connection is going to factor in to it, but when it's simply a case of some connections feeling the effects of bloom in a way that makes sense, but better ones being able to be more trigger happy and get away with it, and easy fix would level this playing field and make bloom/pacing more important. EDIT: A megapwn, yeah tbh I wouldn't be sad at all if they dialled it back just a little to speed up kill times, I agree that it sometimes seems like pacing (or in many cases, knowing how to abuse bloom) becomes more important than aiming itself, and it'd do well to decrease kill times just a tad to make fewer encounters redundant in the face of things like Sprint/Evade and the ability they give to get away before it's possible for the enemy to kill you. I have to admit, this would make me happy. However, I still the the most fundamentally important thing is to make the system consistent. If Bungie are going to add another level of skill and depth to gun use, fine by me, but it should actually be that, and not just a way to sneak in random chance as the ultimate nerf to precision weapons: ie. something that it's impossible to truly master. Also, I'd like to address another point with regards to forgiving, even pointless reticle bloom in the visual sense: the AR. Seriously, why did Bungie even put reticle bloom in as a visual aspect on that thing when it has next to no actual effect on how the bullets full? I'm of the mind that unless someone is at very close range and not strafing, say about 10-15 feet, you should never be able to take them from full shields to dead without burst firing at least somewhat. The implication of bloom on an AR is that holding the trigger should decrease accuracy over time in a way which has a practical effect on how you must use the gun, when frankly it just doesn't. I would love it if burst firing actually had a point with the AR since I think it'd add a nice bit of depth to a gun which I like a lot more in Reach than I did in H3. But through extensive experience I can tell you that even at 30+ feet range, burst firing against a trigger holding-opponent actually puts you at a disadvantage simply because it means there are short intervals of time where the opponent is shooting and you aren't, the supposedly increased accuracy doesn't really factor in at all. The AR can clean up kills at insane range by merit of this pretty much nonexistent bloom combined with the new hitscan mechanic. Factor in the basic width of the bullet spread versus the basic speed of a Spartan, and strafing in AR battles becomes pretty much a non-issue unless you're up against someone playing with one hand, and even then you're better of just firing and relying on your better aim to kill them before they kill you. It's really saddening because people did nothing but ***** (and rightly so) about the fact that the H3 AR was reduced to a burst and smash weapon, getting rid of all possible depth to it, and Reach looked to change that but just fell short in a couple of areas. If burst firing was more important and the bullet hose width was a little slimmer, the AR would have such depth and potential for gunskill over how it currently is. I'm not gonna pretend it's awful, not after what we had to put up with in H3, but considering what just a couple of tiny tweaks could have brought it is very disappointing.
Kuroda, lynx, and 4shot, don't play dumb. Just look at the total number of Reach players on average compared to Halo 3. Most people didn't stick with Reach to begin with because of this fear of change, and the people who do still play are doing so regardless of title updates, so they obviously aren't much of a factor. It's not as though you ever see forums for popular games full of people praising it; people go there to make their complaints. Peg, I don't see where you're coming from here. Is the lag changing how quickly the bloom increases or decreases? How exactly does it change in a way that has nothing to do with the difference in connection speeds? As for the AR, one of the reasons I enjoy AR starts is because I use bursts while most people don't, and I generally nab more kills as a result, especially at greater ranges.