Mon Sep 20, 2010 8:49 am
WOW, there sure is a lot in here, and it is all great feedback.
First off here, I want to give my opinion on Vehicles. You all know my first love is the Hog, and I roll with a community of vehicle lovers.
- Warthog: Yea, the Hog is very different from H3. It seems to be much lighter so it bounces around a lot more. This is going to take some getting used to for a lot of people that considered themselves "drivers" when they were really wannabes. A good driver should be able to adapt to the situation, which includes a change in a vehicles handling. The updated handling means the driver is going to have to take it a lot slower around more places. This is going to be the biggest downfall of the Hog in the current BTB maps. The open nature of the new maps are not condusive of the Hog. Players can be shot out of the Hog from great distances because there is no cover for the Hog to take in the wode open spaces of the new maps.
- Scorpion: The Scorpion is a beast of a weapon. I however don't think it belongs in match making. The Wraith would be a much better suited alternative to the Scorpion in the current maps. The Scorpion is still highly overpowered in Reach as it was in H3. Unfortunately they did put in one major flaw into the tank, the driver's hatch is way too weak. The hatch should not fly off with one Sniper shot. I understand that the .50 caliber rounds might be designed as armor piercing rounds, but really, one shot? After you have the hatch off, the tank operator is completely exposed to all kind of fire, and one more sniper headshot can disable the tank by removing the driver and allowing your team to take it for their own if they are in position. I also find it very interesting that the main gun on the scorpion can be shot off without completely disabling the tank. This is a very interestign addition and a good strategy to disable to scorpion for extended periods of time because if a player doesn't get out and destroy it themselves, it will have to despawn before the new timer will start.
- Revenant: I like this new addition. This new vehicle combines the power of a Wraith with the speed and handling of a Ghost. The mortar may be a little too nerfed though. I have shot players in the face with a mortar blast to see them run away behind cover, and I know they did not have armor lock because they used their sprint ability to get out of range. It is however, extremely fun to get a teamate that has become adept with the DMR to sit in the side seat and pick off the head shots from the mortar weakened enemies. The Revenant is also a great objective vehicle. The ability for the Revenant weapon to be controlled by the driver and still have a passenger seat is very valuable. Add this benefit to the speed boost that last almost long enough to completely transverse Hemmorage, and you have what I consider to be the best objective vehicle in the Halo series.
- Mongoose: The mongoose relatively unchanged. I do like how they gave the Mongoose different colors depending on what team you are on.
- Falcon: This is a flying beast. The ability to carry two separate gunners is a huge advantage. However, it does require two gunners that are pretty good and a pilot that maneuver the aircraft properly to be a formidable vehicle. Add a good amount of map awareness and communication to the mix, and you have what could be the most effective aircraft in the Halo series.
- Banshee: I like th new handling of the Banshee. It seems a lot more tighter than its predecessor in terms of handling. I also think the update to change weapons is a good thing. This is just one thing they did to minimize the overpowered nature of the Banshee. No complaints in this department.
- Ghost: Again, I don't think they changed much here that is a game wide vehicle change. The only thing I am seeing is that when I try to jump over a charging Ghost, the splatter box (area the vehicle will register a splatter) seems to be a lot higher than the vehicle itself, so beware if you are trying to jump over the Ghost that you ensure you are at the pinnacle of your jump with they go under you.
- In General: I am not sure if this is more that the vehicles are in general weaker or that the other weapons are much more powerful, but they vehicles seem to be destroyed way to easily. I can understand that Bungie may want to nerf the vehicles so people can't spawn kill the enemy the whole game, but I think they may have taken the idea way to far. They could do what they did with Heavy Game Types in H3, give them more weapons to take down the Vehicles, and spawn them in places where they are safe to get to.
That pretty much covers my opinions on the vehicles so far in Reach. As you can tell, I actually spent some time trying to see what I like/disliked about the changes. There were a lot more changes in terms of weaponry that I also have oninions on.
- DMR: This weapon is now overpowered. The effective range of the DMR is way too distant. I feel that the general weapon used in match making should be a medium to short range weapon, not a medium to extremely long range weapon. In the Reach handbook I purchased this weekend, it lists the effectiveness of weapons in Reach. The DMR is listed to be most effective at LONG range and moderately effective at short range. However, the Sniper is listed to be most effective at medium range and moderately effective at long range. How is that possible? I have 5-shoted a lot of people over the weekend, and I think that is the general best performance you can do with this new weapon. 4 shots to the body to take out the shields and 1 to the head for the kill. The downfall is that you can 5-shot people all the way across a large map or right in front of you. There should not be a weapon given such a gigantic range and be effective everywhere.
- Sniper: With Reach came the change of the hit registry system. The new system is a Hit Tracker style where the shots register immediately for most weapons. There is not more "leading the target," therefore less skill. Part of the challenge of H3 was becoming proficcient at judging the distance and knowing how far to lead your target to get the most out of your shots. The sniper is now way too easy to handle partly because of this change. Moreover, it seems that the hitbox to register a headshot with the sniper, or any other weapon, has been increased. No-scoping is a lot easier in Reach than in H3. I think this downgrades all the best snipers by allowing n00bs like myself to become a decent sniper when I usually would not.
- Needler, Shotgun, Rockets, Spiker: They are what I expected. I would just like to see more of the Rockets adn Spiker in BTB.
- Plasma Launcher: decent weapon. I find that the tracker is a little iffy at times, but it is apparently extremely effective in a lot of situations.
- Concussion Rifle: This is basically the updated version of the Brute Shot. With the changes to the Warthog, this weapon has become a much more effective weapon against the Puma. It is just abotu as effective against individual players. I am indifferent about the weapon itself, but am saddened by the increased effectiveness against vehicles like the Warthog, Ghost, Revenant, and Wraith.
- Plasma Pistol: LOVE IT!!! I am so pleased they added the EMP medal to Match Making. The Plasma Pistol is such a great assist weapon, and it comes in extremely handy against vehicles and is very nice to have at the beginning of Invasion to quickly dispatch incoming enemies. It is also extremely effctive in Campaign against Grunts, which makes me even happier.
In general I like the changes to weapons. They took a little skill out of the equation and made it to where all you had to do is get the enemy inside the reticle and pull the trigger, but I can see why they would make the change. Being able to expand into a wider market of casual gamers is too much of a business opportunity to pass up.
I know Reach will be around for the long haul. I have heard people talk about Forge like I have never heard before. I have friends that never went into Forge because creating anything was too annoying and difficult to achieve. Now, they can easily throw something together,a dn not only does it look good, it actually works how they intended the first time. I can't wait to see some maps come out from the users of Reach.
Currently the Match Making maps leave something to be desired. I am very dissappointed that there are no symetrical maps like The Pit or Avalanche. They seemed to have try to cater to all of their armor abilities at once in every map. There seem to be may levels, high and low, with a lot of open places to get to at every level with a lot of narrow doors along the way. Admittedly, the new armor abilities are a great concept, but I think they may become novel down the road.
The new maps and new weapons bring a new style of playing, and they have not created maps to suit these needs in my opinion. The BTB maps seem to be too wide open with little cover in the middle of things to run any of the classic objective games like Flag or Assault. There are way too many asymatrical maps as well. Yea, Invasion is great, but I don't want to play a map that is disigned for a one sided objective for a multi objecive game type, it just isn't fair to one of the teams. I am also dissapointed at the low number of different maps that came out with Reach. It looks like they are expecting two things from this decision: 1) they are selling out and holding back maps that are ready for release to offer as DLC to make more money later, and/or 2) they are putting the weight of the map development to the community itself to make what they want. Lets face it, the community is great, but we don't have the tools to build a map from the grould up. We only have one thing to make teh maps, Forge.
To me, Reach is going to be able to hold out for the long haul because of the variety. They have put in a lot of things from their greatest games. Reach contains a competitive match making that ranks people periodically, it has a great social envornment, it has a huge world to make just about anything you want in Forge, it has a great campaign, an it brought in a lot if differnt options for Firefight. Firefight is now interesting. The ability to just go in and play a 10-15 minute firefight game is fantastic. The match making options for Firefight and Campaign are completely win as well. It is amazing now that you can go into Firefirght and Campaign and find people to team up with that you couldn't do before. And if they turn out to be buttholesa and quit out, they won't hurt your progress. The only change they could have done better with this side of things is to allow people to set their game options to allow general players, friends, invite only, or lock party to allow/disallow people to come and go from the game as they please. That is one thing that CoD definitely has going for it. If I have to leave in a hurry, that doesn't really effect the team as much as it would have in H3. Thumbs up to Bungie for the changes to Campaign and Friefight match making!!!
As for the lack of experience and addition of the commedations/credits, I am still up in the air. I like the idea of changing so many options to the armor, but I don't really care about that kind of thing. I have bought one thing so far to get the achievement, and I am now saving up for the 200,00 credit Birthday Party effect. Other than that, I don't really care too much about what my Spartan looks like. I am sure that they will come out with game updates to add more armor permutations as players move up in ranks. I think the commedations take the place of experience. In fact, I think the commedations give a lot more things for people to brag about. Not only are they continually increasing (I hope they track past the platinum level), but they are easily found on a service history straight from the game on X-Box.
I would like them to tie in winning more with the credits. To me, you should get more credits if you actually pull off a win. People sacrifice a lot of credit opportunites to win a game. I don't know how many times I have been on killing sprees and see what might be a decent opening to grab a flag only to be killed as people start to respawn. I could have camped it out taking the kills of opportunity, but I instead went for the objective to attempt to win the game. I think Bungie has failed in recognizing peoples efforts at winning games by not handing out a significant amount of credits as a reward. I honestly have not seen much/any difference in credits whether I have won or lost a match.
I also like the daily/weekly challenges concept. I see a lot of temporary potential with this additions, but I don't see it holding out for the long haul. I think people will lose interest in teh challenges as they progress in the game as credits become less important to them. They could do a lot more with the challenges other than making them getting a certain number of kills in a playlist. They need to add more variety to the challenges, and I am sure they will over time. I want to see a challenge for EMP medals, a minimum score in Campaign/Firefight, or a specific combination of medals in match making like earn one of each in one game: superdetonation, EMP, & Headshot. There is a lot of potential in the area of challenges, and I hope Bungie takes the opportunity to put some mroe fun in the game.
In general, the game hasn't even been out a week. There are still a lot of opinions to be formed about Reach, and some of the ones stated here can easily morph over time. I pretty much marathoned my game play from Friday after work until my wife got home on Sunday night from visiting her parents (a very good decision for our relationship). I didn't realize that I had so much to say about the game until I actually started typing. I thank anybody that actually read all fo the above comments.
Admin of HaloSphere2brickfungus wrote:there are plenty of communites better at halo than us, but i challenge any to comradery and we will pwn them.
you Oboe...oh, and I still didn't get the T-hug It Out Challenge from yesterday, made me sadface.
