CMT Public Beta Feedback

[Siliconmaster]

What difficulty were you playing on?

Via P0lar's Library UI, Heroic. Idk. There were a lot of easy sections, and then some why the hell do I keep dying? ones. And I kept getting stuck (with grenades). Again. And again. And again. Lol. I've made it through the whole vanilla game on Legendary, so who know.s Maybe I've just gotten a lot worse since then.

[117]

Just some things I forgot to mention previously:

The Chiron Section's textures are way too big. Scale the tiling or whatever down, it looks terrible, and horribly off-scale.

Also, if you intend to keep it at such a large scale, add some engineering elements into it, like what Hotrod mentioned. (Maybe some generators and catwalks, etc.? Something to put all that vertical height and room to use, I think, would be a good idea.)

[Siliconmaster]

Just some things I forgot to mention previously:

The Chiron Section's textures are way too big. Scale the tiling or whatever down, it looks terrible, and horribly off-scale.

Also, if you intend to keep it at such a large scale, add some engineering elements into it, like what Hotrod mentioned. (Maybe some generators and catwalks, etc.? Something to put all that vertical height and room to use, I think, would be a good idea.)

I agree. Running around an engineering-type area would be pretty cool. Of course, we go to Engineering in d40, but it would still be a nice design style. More of an "ooh, this is cool" feeling than an "oh god huge boring room enemies shit" feeling. :P

[Warsaw]

Played it through again on Heroic this time (it was extremely smooth on Normal, btw), so I could get the grenade experience everyone else is having.

Addendum:

• Make less electric arcs for plasma explosions, it's too busy...there isn't enough plasma fire in the explosions either, add more of that. The plasma grenades don't flame like they used to (it's just a blue fuzzy spider now), they don't increase in brightness as in CMT SPv1 or H2CE (dunno if that is intentional).
• Fix SMG ammo counting...I want to use it more but I restrain myself because I'll end up reloading a partially full magasine on instinct, wasting that ammo.
• Something is up with the dynamic lighting. In the service corridors, there are bright segments, but no visible light source. Needs fixing.
• The grenades from the Brutes are a nice challenge, don't change that.
• Overcharge bolt on the Plasma Pistol is too slow; either give it better tracking or double its travel speed to fix it.
• Plasma Pistol reticle is squished...there should be a 120 degree arc between the centre of each hair...Halo 3 screwed it up and ruined it, and it isn't something worth copying in the mod.
• Increase RoF on the Brute Plasma Rifle.
• At the top of the lift, perhaps have some Covenant (not too many, two brutes or one elite and some grunts) right there engaging some marines. As it is, it's too quiet.

[Con]

• give the POA engines a slight purple tint, it might look cool
• hide some rarer weapons off the main path
• brute shield looks odd still
• talk to me about the fire
• AR looks really big in the hands of marines, not sure if this is normal
• in the boarding action area, there needs to be more lighting local to the paths the player takes, as the whole room seems to be lit from a few lights alone
• make it easier to see where to go in the boarding action area; use lighting and scenery
• the custom bsps need music and ambient sounds
• the chiron area looks boring, add more scenery and lighting in the red teleporter areas
• in the warthog run sections, the red light is coming from nowhere. add some glowing red strips
• the elite and brute gibs look stupid
• SMG slightly overpowered
• i still hate the damage direction indicators
• add some fire for light in the bent/crooked warthog run hallway areas; they're too dark
• the elevator isn't smooth, and theres no door closing behind you...it just takes off the moment you step in
• the bsp at the end of the long upward service hallway didn't load the first time, only after venturing backwards a ways then returning

[Warsaw]

Elevator was smooth for me man, don't know what you're referring to there; it does take off too fast though.

[jngrow]

-Very high lag in some of the custom areas.
-Custom areas became very labrynth-y (moreso than the level already is) and frustrating at times
-The specular/bump you have applied to the speckled metal texture (the one on all of the supports) looks worse than the original.
-A couple of the custom areas had some reallllyyy ugly geometry
-Reduce the rates Brutes throw grenades, holy shit. I saw one throw two in quick succession. And every brute having 4 plasmas/ throwing infinity frags is annoying.
-Pistol looks cool, but the laser has a really weird origin/direction

[Warsaw]

The grenades force you to get up in their face and take them down personally. Otherwise, you hide behind cover and peck at them. The grenades force you to mix it up a little bit which keeps it interesting.

[bleach]

Okay well here goes everything. EDIT: I might continue to update my list /longpost
This could take a while to read (my apologies for the lengthy list)…The following are just my opinions and possible suggestions after running through the map numerous times yesterday and today. Not everything is a big problem and will influence the player that much. The decision is up to the team to change what the community noticed.

Easy difficulty: The level would be completed quite fast. Grunts are well, the usual. Elites aren’t very tough. Brutes are reminiscent of bullet sponges that Bungie reminded us of from Halo 2. There are less AI and the player seems to have some sense of satisfaction after beating the level on Easy, but will probably play again on a higher difficulty later.

Normal difficulty: Maybe the AI could throw a few grenades in normal. It feels pretty bland as the Covenant just relentlessly shoot me with plasma and molten slag. The level would feel more “normal” if I, the player, was forced to find some cover or strafe from a grenade or two [but not grenade spam]. A few more encounters, and more numbers of Covenant troops, nothing is that different from Easy.

Heroic difficulty: As stated in the readme (or somewhere I read), you get the most out of the level and hopefully the entire campaign by playing on Heroic. I testify that statement because the Elites, grunts, and brutes actually throw grenades at you and the whole game play seems more realistic, or in other words, balanced. AI encounters in the new BSPs finally gave a new meaning to the level but most of the new BSPs were still quite boring and there was unnecessary emptiness in a few hallways and corners. I enjoyed the level the most on Heroic.

Legendary difficulty: This is significantly harder than heroic, hence the term legendary. To actually beat the level, I was forced to resort to plasma pistol and battle rifle combo for the majority of the map. I got grenades spammed at me (and I was happy to reciprocate in kind taking advantage of the grenades on the floor) and my progress through the level slowed to the speed akin to crawling (since I had to backtrack, constantly find cover, dodge, and reload). It’s really hard to perform a speed run on legendary…but then the player misses out on the gameplay and works.

AI
• Crew Members/Marines: They seem to block me when I’m trying to get out of tight places and they just keep on running and then I get stuck by a plasma grenade and I am forced back to the most recent checkpoint (thanks for the “create a checkpoint” in the extras). I hope you can change something in how they act and well, they aren’t very good at dodging and rolling away at grenades (they weren’t anything more than body shields and bait on legendary, though they were of some help on difficulties below legendary). I would be glad if there were some who carried battle rifles because without it’s what I usually carry (with the carbine missing from this level) and the marines could score some headshots.

• Grunts: Not the new models, since the team wants them to be a surprise for the community later this year (or whenever the mod is released). Grunts really need to carry something besides plasma pistols in this level…something that needs to be emphasized is that the level needs more variety; maybe you could make the grunts carry needlers and plasma rifles too. They are sometimes really clumsy at throwing grenades (which tips the favor towards me on heroic/legendary), a grunt stuck an elite and took out half the room so I missed out on the fighting intended there. I like the grunt blood right now. The grunts almost replace the jackals in this level because of how they charge their plasma pistols. On higher difficulties, I would have to use some dodging and strategy rather than shooting like a mindless zombie.

• Elites: Their shields seem to be messed up with multiple layers (doubled occasionally and tripled on one time). They are the most formidable enemy to me right now and they have earned my respect. They could carry something besides plasma rifles throughout the level (more variety please) like carbines and needlers…The stealth elites were vexing me on heroic and legendary just before you use the Pillar of Autumn’s first maintenance access ways; cut down the number of stealth elites there and add a few grunts that could possibly come out of the air locks. They don’t throw plasma grenades as frequently as brutes or grunts. Also in regards to plasma grenades, whenever they are stuck on the head, they stop slouching and have their legs and arms at rest. Obviously, they’re hugely improved from the first campaign (those shields were ugly back then, no offense CMT). Elites are still awesome but their melee is weird. It seems to have a large “scope” since I was a few feet away from it and I still received damage from the melee; oh, the dead bodies on the ground also moved, but that’s probably not a bug or problem. Elite blood is satisfactory.

• Brutes: Brutes are a joke; I don’t know how to explain this but the AI needs to be more intelligent and aware of their surroundings (like in Halo 3, although this is a custom modification). The only time they are menacing are when they spam fragmentation and plasma grenades at me on the higher difficulties. They don’t dodge or strafe very often when I shoot. The brutes could also use more variety, don’t limit them to carrying brute plasma rifles and spike rifles on this level; they could use carbines and brute shots. Their shields look like spots that seem stationary from medium-long distance but it is still better than those purplish/bluish shields a few months ago; I’m glad the shields were changed. But the shields can still be tweaked. Brutes right now seem like dumber elites. The “sleeping” brute was hilarious however, it stood and watched me assassinate the room full of sleeping grunts in the new BSP; but, make that specific brute turn his back on you to make it more logical. I noticed two melee attacks: the regular one and the second attack where the brute jumps and whacks you on your head. The only time I noticed a difference between the damage was only when I played in heroic and legendary. The two attacks were equal in damage on easy and normal. Please allocate more health for the brutes and slightly weaker shields (depending on the rank). Brute blood is a problem. They are literally, fruit gushers, whenever they take damage after their shields have been depleted. EDIT: Oh, sometimes they repeat their angry animation. Their death animation(s) are terrible. I don't know if this is out of the ordinary but when I assassinated a brute, he died facing me. These brutes aren't very different from their Halo 2 counterparts other than the fact that they have shields now. They are still ballistic gel targets dressed in metal plates that throw grenades and eat enemy fire until they kill or be killed; they act the same in Halo 2 is what I'm trying to get across to you. Their anger gets the best of them since they go through their angry animation which gives the player abundant time to leisurely kill the brute. I know you guys are trying to make the brutes work as a pack but they seem to have ESP as seen in their display of synchronized motion.

• Hunters: I shot their dead bodies a few times and flood blood splattered on the walls. They are kind of dumb. They stare at me blankly like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck at moments. They are easy to kill on all difficulties – just takes a few melee attacks and some time. Strafing to the left (on this case, their right side) and melee them as you go in an orbital motion. I think I would enjoy the level if there were more [higher ranking] hunters in it.

• Other thoughts: More variety as in, this seems like a good level (to me) and I would suggest introducing “geists” in this level. Instead of just sitting on the lift waiting for the dreadfully boring moment to pass, I would feel I was playing a different game than the original Halo if I fought “geists” shooting me from above. My opinion is that jackals don’t fit well with the language of the level A10. I couldn’t skip the cutscene at the end once and whenever I pressed Esc, the cutscene would just return to the Chief throwing the struggling marine on board the life pod. I hope the new Cortana makes an appearance on this level upon the final release.

Weapons

• Silenced (Spec Ops) Pistol: The melee seems unnatural since the wrist is bent like that and wouldn’t feel very comfortable for anyone, let alone, have any real oomph. Takes more than a clip to put down elites and brutes (mixture of head and body shots), so I would suggest a 10 round clip to compensate for the lack of scoping. The laser is bent, but it doesn’t really annoy me. This is a great weapon on easy though. When I pick up ammo for the pistol, the string displays “picked up elite plasma rifle”. EDIT: Also, when you are out of sight or invisible, the "silenced" pistol seems to give away your cloaking or alert all the enemies in the vicinity. In SPv1, the silenced SMG/silenced sniper rifle did not do either of those while you were camouflaged or out of enemy sights.

• Assault rifle: The 32-round clip just doesn’t seem to be enough for anything with the exception of grunts. I wouldn’t even touch this weapon on difficulties higher than Easy. The damage it deals almost reminds me of the SMG from Halo 2. It took more than 2 clips to put down a brute or elite on normal; I suggest that it take about an entire clip to kill a minor/major brute or elite. When I melee, the numbers and signs on the display sometimes turns the color of pink salmon; this occurs on the climax of the melee attack. The sound seems muffled.

• Battle Rifle: An excellent all-round purpose weapon, but I still mourn the lack of Covenant Carbines. It is pretty good for slaughtering grunts but as most projectile weapons are, weak against energy shields. The grenade is useful for taking out very large groups of enemies like the grunt pyramid near the end of the level. Headshots are the player’s friend with this weapon. The battle rifle sounds don’t feel like they have a metallic sound behind them (like the difference between Halo 3 and Halo 2), but again, it’s the team’s choice if they want Halo 2 sounds or Halo 3 sounds. To me, the sounds for the Battle Rifle seem slightly muffled.

• Elite Plasma Rifle: It is a really good replacement if you don’t have an SMG or plasma pistol nearby as it certainly drains shields rapidly – which works for the player and also backfires (benefits the enemies) on higher difficulties. It would be nice to see projectile effect that is more electrical upon searing scenery.

• Brute Plasma Rifle: The ROF needs to have a significant gain over the elite variant and needs to drains shields faster (it already does, but the whole entire idea behind the brute variant needs to be more apparent). It is almost redundant on easy and normal though. As with the elite variant, an additional effect when the plasma hits walls and other scenery/bipeds, would be nice (but not necessary because of the timeframe we’re dealing with).

• Spike Rifle: It is satisfying to use, but not stronger than the SMG even though it's supposed to be. The weapon itself seems kind of glossy sometimes. I might consider picking this weapon up on easy and normal but not on heroic or legendary. Using this weapon eats up your ammo fast unless you fire in very short bursts which you usually don’t at close range.

• Minor Hunter Cannon: I can’t crouch with this weapon. That’s the only complaint from me on regarding it.

• Plasma Pistol: Nothing much to say here except I’m going to use this weapon very often on legendary for shielded enemies and sentinels. The projectile is visually extraordinary, but it is kind of on the slower side.

• Sub-Machine Gun: This is a very good close-range weapon if there aren’t any shotguns. I also carry this weapon around a lot on all difficulties. The SMG easily has more benefits than the assault rifle and spike rifle (to me) in the encounters on this level since most of them are in close quarters. There isn’t a lot of ammo for the SMG and moreover, because it is a caseless weapon, you discard the unused rounds whenever you reload. If you want to keep it as a caseless weapon, I suggest giving the player more ammo for it throughout the entire campaign, not just this map. I think the sound for the SMG right now is Halo 2. (I doubt that you'd guys would want every sound to be from Halo 3).

• Fragmentation Grenade: I wasn’t surprised that brutes used these grenades since I had seen Brutes use them in the broadcasts. This is a really good anti-personnel weapon – the personnel being unshielded enemies. Not a lot of things going on with the grenade though. It was graphically improved from MPv2.

• Plasma Grenade: This is one of the best things the player do/use besides melee and shooting. The plasma grenade is very strong and it has met my expectations, including visually. But, what happened to the grenade becoming brighter before exploding? This is the feature that kind of foreshadows what might happen to the player and thus the player moves away from the grenade avoiding being sent back in time…But other than that, I loved the plasma grenade. Spectacular!

• Other thoughts: It would be my preference if I saw more weapon variety and opportunities [this includes more ammo] for the player.

Level
• Empty space in BSPs (usually the larger and wider main halls) – I see that as an opportunity or waste. Either add new encounters and ammo or delete some parts. If the empty space is a kind of place for the player to cool down between the heat, shorten the length a bit. The player doesn’t need that much time to find their bearings and prepare for the next battle
.
• Confusing with the new places to go and objectives (this applies for the entire campaign), give us NAV points or some sort of indicator to inform us of the direction we are to go.

• More variety other than just differing permutations/combos in grunt-elite, grunt-brute, and etc. in the encounters because it could get boring after a while of playing ever since the original levels were lengthened

• Very dark in the new areas. Sometimes the BSPs go from light to dark all of the sudden; need to make transition more subtle like a color gradient. Are the dark floors and walls supposed to signify destroyed parts of the Pillar of Autumn? They aren't doing a very great job at that.

• The ladders are very hard to climb since you would have to kind of climb almost to the top of the ladder and then crouch-jump off to the side if you wanted to retrieve ammo or backtrack.

• As how everyone said, “A Whole New World” needs more tweaking and work.
• I thought there was some place in the level where gravity would be disrupted. I played with Open Sauce (from Jcap’s thread) and I didn’t notice any changes.

• If you're going to have large battles, place hunters in them. Hunters tend to work well with larger rooms because they don't seem as cramped in a place with low ceilings and no where to turn to.

• EDIT: The Chiron TL34 BSP was slightly disappointing because there was no variation. It was just sleeping grunts and more elites; they just rushed at your position without dodging or any kind of hiding. It was easy to kill them with the grenades already strung out on the floor. Maybe a few brutes instead of a truckload of grunts could mix things up a bit for the player.

• Sometimes after Captain Keyes gives me the pistol, I don’t see the three grunts that usually spawn outside of the bridge and I don’t have the pistol.

• The whole campaign could use a mixture of Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 music.
• More variety in weapons and new AI/and encounters and environments would make this level fun on the 1st, 10th, and 100th time being played.

Powerups and Tools
• Over-shields: It is useful on all difficulties. Is the appearance of the powerup itself going to be changed at all? /eyecandy

• Double-speed: It is useful on all difficulties, like the over shields. Is the appearance going to be tweaked or is it finalized? And, stated in my post before, my visual performance was never affected in anyway by using the powerup.

• Flash light is needs to be upgraded in power. Larger scope and brighter.
• The gameplay regarding NAV points that pops up after you defeat the stealth elites before you enter the ship's maintenance access ways can be removed, right?

• EDIT: This needs to be emphasized more but since the levels in the campaign have been heavily stretched out, we need more ammo placements for our weapons and maybe even fresh new weapons for the player to use.

Devmode and CMT Extras
• Create checkpoint is one of the best ideas yet; saved me time on heroic and legendary.
• Time Freeze is also something I like to toy with in conjunction with Flycam
• Flycam is a very good idea so the player won’t have to enter multiple dev codes.
• Clear Decals and Collect Unseen garbage is a plus for people who have older computers.

• Dynamic lights didn’t change anything for me (?)
• Sounds, seems kind of useless because we have more of a choice to tune out things in settings

• Display Fps: useful at times, keep it
• HUD On/Off – great for screenshots
• Slow Motion: used it; it doesn’t benefit anyone but it could be a toy in the final release
• How to use CMT Extras button doesn’t work, and isn’t necessary to many players
• Without Devmode, well, the level wouldn’t be fun after the 1st few times because it is part of our nature to have curiosity and to wonder how we might have changed gameplay by activating some cheats and etc. Please enable the player to input devmode codes in the final release. Let the player take responsibility for his/her own actions (liability) by using devmode; the player uses it at their own risk of messing up, and the team won’t have anything to do with it.

I had fun playing through this level again and again (probably played it over 15 times) with various cheats on (only after beating the level without cheats.) like infinite ammo or to mess around, deathless player and jetpack. I wouldn’t have the guts to use bump possession and I prefer inf. Ammo over bottomless clip. Cheat active camouflage worked sometimes and sometimes the enemy would see me even if I didn't fire anything... I disagree with the statement that using devmode on the campaign is bad. Letting us use devmode will keep the campaign alive for a longer time than without devmode. In a way, it will also have better reception from the community.

If I had to rate this map on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be somewhere between an 8.5 and 9 overall.

[Warsaw]

Longpost

Good review, though I need to point some things out because I disagree.

• The Carbine and Needler, etc. are not in this because this is the first level of the game. Think of this with respect to the whole campaign, not as a standalone piece. Let CMT introduce more weapons as the game progresses
• Where is everyone getting the idea that caseless ammunition is any different than normal ammunition? They are still individual rounds that must be loaded into the magasine, just like any other gun, they just don't have shells that need ejecting. The terrible reload system on the SMG needs to go. Make it normal.
• Pistol is fantastic the way it handles as-is. It shouldn't be used by itself against shielded targets. Against soft ones, it is absolutely lethal, and the 8-round magasine keeps it balanced. You can drop all 8 invisible elites in one magasine at the blast door segment.