Halo: Reach Discussion

[Pooky]

Oh, and they're using Halo 2's completely terrible heavy weapon respawn system? Wasn't that shown to be completely terrible in Halo 2?

Halo 3 had it too. It's affected by the 'maximum on map' setting in Forge, which is invariably set to 1 for anything besides the starting weapons.

[Warsaw]

Oh, and they're using Halo 2's completely terrible heavy weapon respawn system? Wasn't that shown to be completely terrible in Halo 2?

Or you can throw a sticky, use a plasma pistol, snipe him, or counter with another shotgun...oh wait, you can't because the shotgun, plasma pistol, and sniper rifle all effectively count as power weapons and you only get two grenades which you probably tossed down the hallway at the previous schmuck. Silly me.

Long story short, the problem with all the Halos after the first is that all the different guns count as power weapons. That is partly to blame for all the DMR/BR wanking we have rampaging through the game.

Seriously...when the plasma pistol now counts as a power weapon, something is fucking wrong.

[p0lar_bear]

I thought that power weapons were on timed respawns; I've picked up rocket launchers with 6 rockets in reserve before (albeit with empty mag, guess why? ) and many sniper rifles with 10-16 reserve shots.

[Arteen]

Halo 3 had it too. It's affected by the 'maximum on map' setting in Forge, which is invariably set to 1 for anything besides the starting weapons.

I just loaded up Standoff with standard CTF rules. I had one player grab one of the rockets and the splaser, and the second player grabbed the other rocket launcher. Then I waited without either player firing a shot. The splaser and both rocket launchers respawned just fine.

EDIT: I also just confirmed that Reach uses Halo 2's weapon respawn system.

[Donut]

I also just confirmed that Reach uses Halo Reach.

wat

[DarkHalo003]

Yeah, I was the one playing Doubles Arena with p0lar earlier. He can attest to how hard I was raging at it.

Reach is basically a good game, but the gameplay is flawed in a lot of fundamental ways. My suggested fixes to make it less horrible are as follows:

- The melee attack needs a damage nerf. It is far too powerful for something that requires no aiming whatsoever. My suggestion would be to nerf the melee attack to take off only 2/3 of a player's shield in a single hit. Can agree.

-Get rid of the fucking sword/melee parry. It was a good idea to make the sword loadouts in Invasion more balanced, but it's bullshit anywhere else. My suggestion was to have two versions of the sword, one for Invasion, and one for everything else. Bungie explained the Sword Melee Parry in the most recent Weekly Update. I'd advise checking it out, it may relay some understanding. The Sword should win most of the time and it makes the game more interesting IMO. Besides, the sword's melee is faster if used right (same deal with Halo 3), but I do see the problem with some cases, mainly in Arena.

-Either tone down, or remove the reticule bloom. I really don't understand what the point of this was supposed to be, all I see is that retards can occasionally spam their DMRs at point blank range and get lucky headshots. Randomness is the bane of any game intending to be played competitively, and it certainly doesn't have any place affecting the primary competitive weapons of Reach. Considering you've been a part of the CE community, then I honestly expected you to not bring this up. ALL BLOOM IS IS PROJECTILE ERROR. And it's perfectly fine the way it is. It's not luck at point blank with a DMR because at that range it doesn't matter how fast you blast the trigger. The Projectile Error isn't wide enough to make a difference at that range. All this Bloom is is the explansion of the Reticule do to the projectile error. Use it as a tool, just like any other mechanic in the game.

-Give the plasma grenades a tiny 'arming time' of about 1/3 of a second after you throw it. During this time, the grenade will not stick to anything, but will just bounce off. This is to prevent that annoying and skill-less point blank sticking crap. It sounds good, but is a little too balance nazi. In other words, you're completely changing it to be a Covenant Frag Grenade and not the notoriously well-known "sticky Plasma Grenade." I know it's frustrating sometimes (Invasion is a living hell about it), but it's no different than Halo 3 or Halo 2 or Halo 1. That's just the rageplayer talking as I see it.

-Either make the hitboxes smaller, or tone down the bullet magnetism, because the sniper is fucking ridiculous right now. It takes virtually no effort to use, and basically dominates everything. I agree here, even if it is fun to use. The Sniper should be turned back into Halo 3's; it was definitely the most balanced it's ever been there, although I do like it's effectiveness against Ghosts and sniping the roof off of tanks.

-Like Warsaw said, can we please go back to purely timer based weapon spawns? I'd prefer games to be decided by who is the best power weapon user, not who is the only power weapon user. I can completely agree with this. I see this as a balancing force in Arena.

Random stuff that pissed me off today:

I'm starting to miss Halo 3. I don't like the new vehicle health system. And double melees. And the lack of proper teammate indicators in Invasion. Or lack of good HUD indicators in general. Or the fact that you can't choose to spawn at the same location as other fireteams when on offense in Invasion. And tanks and revenants in Hemmorage. And drop shield in oddball.
The Vehicle Health System makes a lot of sense when it correlates to your shields. In other words, it makes sense when a Laser, tank blast, or Rocket hits you. But the problem shows up when the Sniper does; it'll screw up your entire vehicle from just a few shots. Now for a Ghost or Revenant, I think that's okay. But for a Banshee, I think it's pretty cheap considering what the Banshee has to be aware of besides it. I agree with the Indicator problem though. IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. Half of the time when on offense, I can't tell if my team is even playing. I hope it gets better as more people complain about it. The Tanks on Hemmorage have been replaced with Wraiths, so that shouldn't be a problem anymore. The Revenants can be caked by the Sniper or enough small arms, but the drop shield in Oddball on an indoor map is a little much, even if you can destroy the shield with enough grenades.

I hate how jumpy Elites are (nothing like the Halo 1/2 Elites). Same with skirmishers. The proportion of high-level Elites compared to low level Elites is way too high. I think I've seen few blue/minor Elites than any other type. They have way too much health/shields, too, and their shields recharge ridiculously quickly.
It's also because you're not as fast as the Chief in Halo 2, so you can't keep up as fast. It would also explain why you're so susceptible to melee attacks as well. What difficulty are you playing on too? Normal has a lot of Minors. You also shouldn't just treat them like you do in Halo 2. They're a lot smarter and definitely more challenging than that.

You can't get too close to Elites because they'll 1-hit kill you with a melee, and even if you can avoid it, it's not like any of your close-range weapons will have much of an effect. You can't stick them because they jump around so much. Even if you do stick them, they have so much health that they'll shrug it off. Good luck trying to kill them with a needler. Your choices of dealing with them end up being DMR from a distance or PP overcharge to DMR closer up. Compelling. At least with the Brutes, you can use a variety of weapons against them effectively. Bungie can call them Elites, but they're nothing like what I fought in Halo 1 and 2, and not nearly as enjoyable to fight.
If your shields are low enough, then it makes sense. Also, the shotgun and sword help a ton if you have them. You need to fight Elites like they're actually Elites and not this Halo 1/Halo 3 crap we're all accustomed to here. And you don't know how to use other weapons it looks like. I use the AR to kick the crap out of most of everything when I feel like it. Unless you play on only Legendary, there shouldn't be an excuse for using almost any weapon to win. Try different combinations. Some are more fun than the DMR and Plasma Pistol. Also, the Halo 1 Elites were cupcakes and the Halo 2 Elites felt a little absent minded when fighting them (all but the Zealots, Active Camos, and Ultras). These Elites feel more realistic in terms of a leadership enemy.

There are also far too many 1-hit kills in the game. Elite and Brute melees are almost always 1-hit kills. The 1-hit kill fuel rod is also a pain in the ass. What were you thinking, Bungie? Giving the enemy a rapid-fire rocket launcher? Most of my deaths to the FRG end up feeling cheap and unfair.
Depends on the difficulty for melees (can survive two hits by both on normal and one on Heroic), but the FRG is obnoxious on Legendary, especially when they spam it like crazy. I do think they should have made it a two hit kill on Normal and maybe Heroic though.

Hunters are absolutely awful to fight because they can kill you in one hit with a melee or with their fuel rod. You can try getting in close and circling them with a shotgun, but they seem to have a certain melee attack that you can't really dodge, so you have to hope they don't use it. Oh, and since they're two hunters as a time, you really can't have a CQC battle with them like you could in every other game. Slowy whittling down their health from a distance is not compelling gameplay.
I love the Hunters now. You have to use the most powerful of attacks to defeat them and you can't just spam them to death with Heavy Weapons. Try the Needler and Needle Rifle while your allies buy you time. In a way, they're a lot like fighting Halo 2 Hunters on Legendary.

I also hate how useless camo is. If a covie is anywhere within three feet of you, he will invariably turn around and melee you to death, even if you were crouch-walking the whole time. Actually, you just don't know how to use it. It's my most used Loadout in multiplayer and one of my favorites in campaign. I used it a lot in the Night level on Legendary to sink away and get close to one of the Elites enough to take it down.

And whose idea was it to make the Grunts not speak english? And why even have the Gutas, Engineers, Drones, or Scarabs in the game? You hardly did anything with them, Bungie! They made the Covenant speak no English to set a different atmosphere for the game. I wish they would have changed that for the IWHBYD skull though. And if you play Heroic and Legendary, the Drones and Engineers are occasional to almost frequent (Drones on Heroic and Engineers on Legendary). Scarabs added crucial atmosphere and if you look off into the distance you can see them decimating stuff.

The game is fun, sure, but just tweaking a few damage variables and such could have made the game so much more fun and so much less frustrating. Agreed.

Also Spire is terrible in every gametype. And Zealot. And Countdown is pretty bad too. And Paradiso. I disagree with you about Spire and Countdown; I think they're pretty good maps. I've played Zealot only once and thought it was okay, but I won pretty well so I guess I have a lot of bias there. Paradiso is mixed for me; I think if some of the weapons spawns and vehicles are fixed, as well as AR starts instead of DMR starts, the map would be so much more fun.

Answers are in Bold.

[Pooky]

Bungie explained the Sword Melee Parry in the most recent Weekly Update. I'd advise checking it out, it may relay some understanding. The Sword should win most of the time and it makes the game more interesting IMO. Besides, the sword's melee is faster if used right (same deal with Halo 3), but I do see the problem with some cases, mainly in Arena.

Whatever excuses Bungie offers for the sword parry, I'm still not going to agree with it. The majority of people I play with find it obnoxious, unskilled, and frustrating. If the game isn't fun, you have a problem.

Considering you've been a part of the CE community, then I honestly expected you to not bring this up. ALL BLOOM IS IS PROJECTILE ERROR. And it's perfectly fine the way it is. It's not luck at point blank with a DMR because at that range it doesn't matter how fast you blast the trigger. The Projectile Error isn't wide enough to make a difference at that range. All this Bloom is is the explansion of the Reticule do to the projectile error. Use it as a tool, just like any other mechanic in the game.

I'm aware what the reticle bloom does. Go look at any of the previous Halo games, the only midrange headshot weapon that had any sort of bloom was the Halo 1 pistol, and that was only if you held down the trigger, which no one ever did. Bloom is fine for CQB spray weapons, but it has no place on the primary competitive weapons of the game.

There's no reason people should be able to spam the DMR at chest level any get lucky headshots. As said before: randomness is the opposite of skill.

It sounds good, but is a little too balance nazi. In other words, you're completely changing it to be a Covenant Frag Grenade and not the notoriously well-known "sticky Plasma Grenade."

You misunderstand. This wouldn't remove the sticky function in any way, it would only make the grenade become sticky very slightly after it was thrown, instead of instantly. Skilled sticks from slight range will still work, but pure autoaim sticks from point blank will not. The theme here, if you couldn't tell, is player skill.

Old sticky armed at this point:


New stickies would arm at this point:

[dark navi]

I am happy as long as it isn't like Halo 3 were every weapon does the exact same damage.

[Donut]

i see your point about the reticle bloom on the DMR pooky, but i have yet to have anybody get a lucky spray and pray kill on me up close with it. halo 2 and 3 got MLG'ed to shit and back because of the br and lack of projectile error (and i suspect halo 1 would have too if it supported online from the get go). it became a "whoever shoots first wins" game where two people just jump back and forth landing all their shots. i like the new reticle bloom system since you do actually have to pace your shots to avoid them spraying everywhere. now its not just whoever shoots first wins, but also whoever keeps their bloom inside the reticle's circle. i think its a nice addition.

im in total agreement with the bloom on the sniper, though. when i was playing with it at first, it seemed like the reticle bloom settled before you could even fire a second shot. im not sure if its the bloom or the autoaim, but i have popped more headshots and noscope headshots in the past week in reach than i ever have in halo 3. im not even good at sniping, let alone noscoping.

[Warsaw]

I just loaded up Standoff with standard CTF rules. I had one player grab one of the rockets and the splaser, and the second player grabbed the other rocket launcher. Then I waited without either player firing a shot. The splaser and both rocket launchers respawned just fine.

EDIT: I also just confirmed that Reach uses Halo Reach.

How about the shotgun? And the sniper rifle? I've sat on top of a Hemorrhage base for ten minutes waiting for the damn thing to spawn, and no dice. Hell, even the Needle Rifle took ages to show up again.