I was on Halo Waypoint overnight perusing the forums as I do (no not trolling, LOL). It’s plainly obvious there that a good many fans aren’t happy with the game as it stands. Whether it’s 343 taking too much time to fix the game in their opinion or that the game came out unfinished or too much like CoD, are topics of conversation in many threads.

I put my own two cents into some of these threads and I wanted to post them here. Before I do, I want to be clear that I, like many fans, WANT 343 to succeed. ON that note though, we do want them to hear our concerns. Halo isn’t just their franchise, we fans have years of playing time vested into the series. So on that point we do deserve at least some respect at should have our voices heard and our concerns addressed.

Here’s what I posted overnight:

The following was in response to a forum poster saying that 343 is Microsoft. I took that and ran with it.

Thread title: WHY 343 CHANGED HALO FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE..

Well you are right about 343 being Microsoft. They are not their own independent game developer. They are part of MS. They are there to only make Halo games which is a distinct MS property.

Is it CoD? Well, I’m told from my friends who play CoD that it is indeed much more like CoD than any previous Halo title. Does that make it CoD? Not necessarily. However, it also doesn’t mean this game is halo at the core.

I really REALLY hope MS gets a clue. All the complaining we do is because we LOVE the franchise. Sure we may not all be tactful in our responses. But the point is we want 343 to succeed, we want Halo to continue. However, to do that they need to not go in the direction of another game. Why? Well, because if it’s TOO much like another game, then why even buy Halo when you can just go and get the game it seems to be emulating?

Halo at it’s core has been about team play and tactics. Ordinance has crushed a good bit of that. Certainly power weapon drops and the randomness that is the drops to begin with.

Beyond this though, I do hope that more attention to the UI is taken into account for Halo 5. What we got just seems a bit underwhelming. The game itself looks gorgeous, so why didn’t we get something equally as so for the interface? Game menus just seem fairly generic.

I was talking with some friends tonight about this very thing. Personally, I think to “buy” armor or unlock it, we could have had an interface that took us to the Spartan armory on Reach. There we would have seen a holo of what our armor would look like. Then when we want to change it, it would go into an animation that would put our spartan into that gyroscoping armor harness and put the armor on. Of course, we would also have a “quick change” option if we wanted to by-pass this so we could do it on the fly between games without the need for the animation. In this way, the change would be for the better in that we get a whole new experience with changing armor. Something more interactive that would endear us more to our personal war games spartan.

I hope we get something like that in Halo 5 since it’s going to be on the NextBox. I’d actually like to see us be able to traverse more of the Infinity outside of War games and Spartan Ops. Have a shooting range for challenges, maybe a “boxing ring” area where we could have sparring matches with our spartans again for challenges/commendations. Those could be against AI and/or other gamers. Again, have the armory to visit. Changes like those would NOT change gameplay. However they WOULD add to the UE (user experience).

Forge took both steps forward AND backward. Magnets can be incredibly useful as is the copy tool. However, taking away the race playlist to be able to forge, certain special effects, other playlist tools, just hurt forge. Again, we can only hope that with the NextBox we’ll get all of those things back and more. People have been asking for a Far Cry like editor. That is something I could get behind. It wouldn’t change actual gameplay but WOULD allow we users to make much better maps. The NextBox will be able to handle all of that memory and coding so this needs to happen. (Heck if Far Cry can get it into their game now, why couldn’t Halo?)

No more excuses about not having a public beta. Whether it’s 343 or MS or both to blame, you asked us to trust you. We did. However you didn’t quite fulfill OUR wants and desires from the newest Halo game. Many changes that were made were not asked for by the Halo community. If MS doesn’t want to listen to us, well, maybe they need to check themselves. Whether you’re an old Halo fan like me or a newcomer to the franchise, we all have time vested in this game. MS ignoring us and doing what they think should be in Halo just shows the amount of disrespect that have for Halo’s faithful fans. That is eventually going to backfire on them. It’s already happening with the Halo 4 War Games matchmaking population dwindling.

Respectfully,
HFFL

This next response has similar tones to the above response but takes more into account Microsofts handling of Halo 4’s release.

Thread title: CHANGE IN HALO 4. IT TAKES TIME

Well that’s because Bungie got it right for the most part (excluding Reach). Plus they had an established team, where as 343 while having experienced people, those folks hadn’t worked together before for the most part. So workflow had to be established from the ground up.

I do think the Microsoft had a hand in the game coming out when it did. No public beta hurt the game and again I think MS had their hands in this as well. My gut tells me that 343 would have loved to have another 3 months to develop the game as well as have a public beta for it. In that time you BET they would have had all or certainly most of the feedback they’d have needed to have not only the game THEY wanted to put out, but the game WE wanted to play.

I’m grateful for the game we got from 343. However, I, like many have some concerns about certain aspects of it. Fixing it after it came out doesn’t speak well for 343. Well not for as much fixing as they done and as we’re asking for. Again though, I have that feeling that MS tied the hands of 343 from doing any further development and wanted to get the next Halo game out there.

And finally the third response is regarding getting to rank SR130, how it could and should have been higher and was actually planned to be but didn’t make the cut at the end.

Thread title: TAKING POLL: WHO IS 130 NOW?

I’ve been 130 since the 40th day of release. It’s boring now as all I have to work for in matchmaking is commendations.

I get that 343 wanted people to be able to rank up quickly to get to specializations. However, once we got to 50, it should have taken a long while to get to each subsequent specialization. In that way, you’d pick your next one more carefully.

I zipped through these so fast that I didn’t care which one I was picking next since I knew I’d be moving on to another one in just a few days.

This is one reason why we need some other form of a ranking system. I’m grateful we’ll have one for ranked playlists. But that may not be enough for some.

I just really think it should have taken longer to rank up. Heck I got to Inheritor in Reach within 9 months and that was FAST for Reach. I couldn’t believe that I maxed out in just 40 days in Halo 4. The SR rank really doesn’t mean anything now. If there aren’t going to be other specializations then adding more SR ranks just wouldn’t do it.

Anyone else remember when 343 said there would be 10 specializations? There are only 8. There WERE 2 more. It’s even been uncovered in the Crimson Map pack as teleport and hacker. So really we should have been able to achieve SR150. Doesn’t that number sound more deliberate than 130?

Still even then, with the small amount of XP needed between specializations I’d have been maxed out in maybe a week after I got to 130.

I can only hope that when Halo 5 comes out that rank for playing games and getting XP is overhauled. And on that note, I’d love to see the ranks match those of Halo lore. Why not “Petty Officer” And heck, why not Master Chief? Who wouldn’t like being ranked as a master chief in Halo?

End of responses.

So what concerns might you have of Halo 4? Beyond what I’ve posted above, I have to say that I really hate the Join-In-Progress system. We should at least have an option to NOT JIP. As well, that Boltshot…way to overpowered, IMO.

please PLEASE shoot me your responses. I want to read how others feel about Halo 4 and what they think needs to be fixed to make it a better experience for them.

-Sal