Halo 4: First Impressions

07-01-2013 4:52pm

maximoose wrote: »

The novelty of specializations has worn off on me now, and as much as I love Exile as a map its getting boring constantly playing it or Ragnarok. Really need something new to keep my interest and competitive rank would do the trick lovely, just give the people what they want 343!

Yeah, it's kind of dawned on me lately that while H4 looks the same, and controls the same as previous halos, because of the specializations and weapon drops the similarity is purely cosmetic. You play it totally and utterly differently to all the others, which makes it feel like a different game after a bit.

I'm really missing spawning with the same kit as everyone and fighting for control of the power weapon spawns, much more than i'm enjoying the loadout options, and i'm still playing more or less the same way i did in Halo 3 (bar the sprint). I also miss equipment (bubble shields, drainers, flares, etc) just because they were great fun for nobbling opponents with.

I must have played a hundred games on Valhalla in Halo 3 and it was gripping every time, because the power weapons controlled the space and you played accordingly. On ragnarok, there's no continuity. Every game is different, because anybody can spawn with any weapon and use any ability they like or call for whatever ordinance suits them at the time, so it feels like you never learn anything. Games are random, headless chicken affairs, and the clock just resets back to zero after every match.

It says a lot for Halo 4's new loadouts & perks systems that the mode I've had most fun on since i began playing the game is swat, which doesn't use them at all.

Mickeroo · 07-01-2013 5:27pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I must have played a hundred games on Valhalla in Halo 3 and it was gripping every time, because the power weapons controlled the space and you played accordingly. On ragnarok, there's no continuity. Every game is different, because anybody can spawn with any weapon and use any ability they like or call for whatever ordinance suits them at the time, so it feels like you never learn anything. Games are random, headless chicken affairs, and the clock just resets back to zero after every match.

It says a lot for Halo 4's new loadouts & perks systems that the mode I've had most fun on since i began playing the game is swat, which doesn't use them at all.

I dont see every game being different as a bad thing tbh.

You've no control over what ordinance you get either? 9 times out of ten I call in my ordinance and let a teammate take it because its a sticky detonator or needler.

I'm still loving the multiplayer. Its the first game to keep me away from CoD in a very long time.

Getting tired of constantly playing ragnarok and exile now too I have to say though. Its gotten to the point where I'm uncomfortable on the other maps because I still dont know them well enough(apart from longbow). The ranking would be a very welcome addition too.

Here Come The Pretzels · 08-01-2013 1:45pm

Whilst I do miss the level playing field aspect of Halo 3 the one thing I definitly dont miss is the damned AR starts.
I used to get fairly p*ssed off when a BR start would be outvoted. In that respect Im loving Halo4 for the peace of mind that comes with knowing I can start with a BR/DMR as my primary weapon.
Ironically Im loving the AR as a secondary weapon now too...

maximoose · 08-01-2013 4:11pm

Indeed, I think out of 9000 odd kills I've only 4 with the AR.... hate that feckin thing :pac:

08-01-2013 7:22pm

maximoose wrote: »

Indeed, I think out of 9000 odd kills I've only 4 with the AR.... hate that feckin thing :pac:

I think most of those 9000 kills were on me last night in Zanzibar ;-).

Seriously, talk about opening a can of whoopass....

maximoose · 08-01-2013 7:58pm

Haha, I did enjoy myself that game! Pretty sweet remake of zanzibar

08-01-2013 8:04pm

maximoose wrote: »

Haha, I did enjoy myself that game! Pretty sweet remake of zanzibar

Yeah it's not bad, I think I prefer last resort, but it's still a lot of fun. There are a couple of lockout remakes and a pit remake that are good too, but I really think they all suffer from losing the whole controlling the power weapons thing. They don't flow the same way.

I miss halo 3 :-(

Browning2010 · 12-01-2013 12:29am

Loving the MP in this lads I've had some really enjoyable games in the last month.

Getting pretty sick of playing the same maps over and over tho.

Is the Crimson DLC worth getting?

It's not as good Reach tho imo. I loved reach MP taught it was the best Halo MP.

martomcg · 12-01-2013 1:09am

Browning2010 wrote: »

Loving the MP in this lads I've had some really enjoyable games in the last month.

Getting pretty sick of playing the same maps over and over tho.

Is the Crimson DLC worth getting?

It's not as good Reach tho imo. I loved reach MP taught it was the best Halo MP.

You'd be one of a minority who preferred Reach MP!

Have you followed since Halo 1? Followed the MP from Halo 2,3? There's no comparison between them. Reach is by far the worst of the series!

Synyster Shadow · 12-01-2013 12:03pm

martomcg wrote: »

You'd be one of a minority who preferred Reach MP!

Have you followed since Halo 1? Followed the MP from Halo 2,3? There's no comparison between them. Reach is by far the worst of the series!

yeah i agree with you reach is not of the best quality of halo games...well till 4 came along anyway.....anyone see or hear anything on bungies new game "Destiny"? sounds like it will be...saaaavage :P

12-01-2013 12:55pm

martomcg wrote: »

You'd be one of a minority who preferred Reach MP!

Have you followed since Halo 1? Followed the MP from Halo 2,3? There's no comparison between them. Reach is by far the worst of the series!

I liked the single player story in reach, and played it loads online but only in Firefight mode, which i liked a lot. The competitive multiplayer was not too interesting, and the map design was, well how can i put it gracefuly....wack??

Halo 2 and 3 were by far the best online MP. H3 is my favourite but both were amazingly good and addictive.

Turtyturd · 12-01-2013 1:00pm

I think it's safe to say the Halo 3 multiplayer was untouchable.

But I don't get the hate for Reach. Despite it being a bit........grey, it had some decent level layouts, and was better than 4 in my opinion.

Patsy fyre · 12-01-2013 1:08pm

Turtyturd wrote: »

I think it's safe to say the Halo 3 multiplayer was untouchable.

But I don't get the hate for Reach. Despite it being a bit........grey, it had some decent level layouts, and was better than 4 in my opinion.

Il agree with you on the Halo 3 was untouchable part, although 4 has the potential, but REACH was a complete let down for me.

12-01-2013 1:11pm

Turtyturd wrote: »

I think it's safe to say the Halo 3 multiplayer was untouchable.

But I don't get the hate for Reach. Despite it being a bit........grey, it had some decent level layouts, and was better than 4 in my opinion.

Do you mean in single or multiplayer? I would put reach ahead of anything in 4 except for the multiplayer. It had loads more replay value, better single player story, better AI, a great firefight mode, and a much better and more versatile forging environment to create stuff in. 4, while good, hasn't been as good in any of those departments, but the competitive multiplayer is holding my attention for much longer than reach's did.

It really needs a decent shake up in terms of game modes and maps though. While the gameplay itself is fun, i'm really sick of seeing the same maps. Isolation and abandon are doing my head in at this stage (especially isolation) and i'm not paying over a tenner for the map pack in the hope that one of the three will come up once in a blue moon in my favourite game mode.

Blops 2 is still sitting on my shelf sealed in it's plastic. I can feel it calling me......must...resist. Come on 343!

Patsy fyre wrote: »

Il agree with you on the Halo 3 was untouchable part, although 4 has the potential...

No way. never in a million years. Halo 3 was something really special, one of those games that only comes along once in a generation. I lost soooo much time in that game. It almost caused a breakup of the relationship that eventually turned into my marriage. My then girlfriend/now wife was jealous that i was spending more time with master chief than i was with her!!

Halo 3 was Epic!

Mickeroo · 12-01-2013 2:19pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Blops 2 is still sitting on my shelf sealed in it's plastic. I can feel it calling me......must...resist. Come on 343!

The MP in Halo 4 is streets ahead of BLOPS 2. I found it pretty good at first, but its just so hair-pullingly inconsistent. H4 is much more consistent in terms of lag issues and such. I also find Halo, even with the seemingly microphoneless community, still wins out in terms of having to use team work and strategy to win a match. Such a shame that rarely happens when playing solo.

The map situation is extremely frustrating in H4 though, certain gametypes only vote in the same one or two maps constantly. The annoying thing is this could be easily fixed if they just patched it so it doesn't bring up the same map in the choice of three if you've just played it.

Browning2010 · 12-01-2013 3:10pm

martomcg wrote: »

You'd be one of a minority who preferred Reach MP!

Have you followed since Halo 1? Followed the MP from Halo 2,3? There's no comparison between them. Reach is by far the worst of the series!

I never played 2 online, played 3 online for the first time last year found it alright but felt reach was better.

I love 4 on Haven, pure mayhem the whole game.

What's everyones average score during a game? I'd say I'd get over 280 points in 90% of games.

Highest score I've got so far is 415.

I'm prob **** compared to most.

Synyster Shadow · 12-01-2013 7:06pm

Browning2010 wrote: »

me.
What's everyones average score during a game? I'd say I'd get over 280 points in 90% of games.

Highest score I've got so far is 415.

I'm prob **** compared to most.

bout 700 to 900 i'd say...i try to do challenges alot though

highest was 1050....34 kills 3 challenges and no deaths

gowan the sniper and beam rifle

12-01-2013 7:48pm

Synyster Shadow wrote: »

bout 700 to 900 i'd say...i try to do challenges alot though

highest was 1050....34 kills 3 challenges and no deaths gowan the sniper and beam rifle

I had a 14:1 k/d ratio on one game last week, a big team battle on ragnarok. Camo loadout and firepower perk with a DMR and a BR as my starting weapons and just hanging around the back of the base waiting for the sniper to spawn and calling in the beam rifle and spartan laser as ordnance. I know I gave out about it before, but Camo + sniping really is a lot of fun. I spent the whole game calmly, invisibly picking off the enemy team one by one.

I would have had a perfect game only some idiot on my team didn't see me and splattered me in a warthog. Lol.

Turtyturd · 12-01-2013 8:12pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I had a 14:1 k/d ratio on one game last week, a big team battle on ragnarok. Camo loadout and firepower perk with a DMR and a BR as my starting weapons and just hanging around the back of the base waiting for the sniper to spawn and calling in the beam rifle and spartan laser as ordnance. I know I gave out about it before, but Camo + sniping really is a lot of fun. I spent the whole game calmly, invisibly picking off the enemy team one by one.

I would have had a perfect game only some idiot on my team didn't see me and splattered me in a warthog. Lol.

Use pretty much the same strategy myself, although rather than hang around the base I either take the hill in the middle if I am on the red team or hang around the rocks to the left of the base if I am on the blue team. Easy enough way to pick up a perfection. Makes me wonder how the hell did I ever feel comfortable sniping out in the open without camo in Halo 3.

Synyster Shadow · 12-01-2013 8:17pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I had a 14:1 k/d ratio on one game last week, a big team battle on ragnarok. Camo loadout and firepower perk with a DMR and a BR as my starting weapons and just hanging around the back of the base waiting for the sniper to spawn and calling in the beam rifle and spartan laser as ordnance. I know I gave out about it before, but Camo + sniping really is a lot of fun. I spent the whole game calmly, invisibly picking off the enemy team one by one.

I would have had a perfect game only some idiot on my team didn't see me and splattered me in a warthog. Lol.

ah your one of them lol i just run around with BR and sniping with hologram..love them snapshots. i still play H3 team snipers at a 50 so i warm up on that and usually head on to 4 for a while...its very easy in comparison...big team is very fun though

lol just seen this http://www.343industries.org/news/_/343-industries-news/headless-spartan-cheaters-to-be-beheaded-r536

new modding for H4...I'd be very annoyed haha

12-01-2013 8:56pm

Turtyturd wrote: »

Use pretty much the same strategy myself, although rather than hang around the base I either take the hill in the middle if I am on the red team or hang around the rocks to the left of the base if I am on the blue team...

I steer clear of the hill in the middle at all costs. It's too exposed. The centre of that map is generally one big killbox, but especially the hill. Anyone with a ranged weapon can get a bead on you from anywhere on the map, there are too many angles to worry about. in H3 you had to rush it because it was the laser spawn and that was central to map control and locking down enemy vehicles and banshees, but in H4 with weapon drops supplying lasers easily it's just pointless being up there, you're just asking for a bullet.

I reckon when you're camo'd and sniping, the key thing is to relocate after every kill or two. And save your Camo for when you're shooting and relocating. You piss people off no end if your sniping successfully for any length of time, and with killcam now people know where you are shooting at them from and they will come and get you after they spawn when you've pissed them off enough, or let their team know where you are. Best thing to do is be somewhere else when they arrive.

On ragnarok, the best spots I find are as follows. Use the little angled walls at the edge of the ramps at the back of each base, one on the left and one on the right, walk about half way up them and you can see a good chunk of the map and don't have to worry about being hit from the other base. On the base by the river, relocate between it and the rocks on the right or left, the cave on the left, and maybe up as far as the pelican if you feel brave. The pelican is a good spot but it's very exposed to fire, especially from other snipers, and it's hard to hide in cos the centre hill area is always busy.

On the inland base, go between the base itself and the rocks on the left or right at the rear, the raised rocks across the river to the right up a slight hill (great spot, never busy) or just follow the river downstream a little to the left of the base towards the rock overhang if you want to take some pot shots through the overhang at the hill on the left where the turret is.

Make sure you're not too far from cover in case you get rumbled and don't waste your Camo unless you're engaging someone, spotting for targets, or trying to make a getaway. Once you kill someone, assume they and their whole team now know where you are.

Turtyturd · 12-01-2013 9:01pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I steer clear of the hill in the middle at all costs. It's too exposed. The centre of that map is generally one big killbox, but especially the hill. Anyone with a ranged weapon can get a bead on you from anywhere on the map, there are too many angles to worry about. in H3 you had to rush it because it was the laser spawn and that was central to map control and locking down enemy vehicles and banshees, but in H4 with weapon drops supplying lasers easily it's just pointless being up there, you're just asking for a bullet.

I reckon when you're camo'd and sniping, the key thing is to relocate after every kill or two. And save your Camo for when you're shooting and relocating. You piss people off no end if your sniping successfully for any length of time, and with killcam now people know where you are shooting at them from and they will come and get you after they spawn when you've pissed them off enough, or let their team know where you are. Best thing to do is be somewhere else when they arrive.

On ragnarok, the best spots I find are as follows. Use the little angled walls at the edge of the ramps at the back of each base, one on the left and one on the right, walk about half way up them and you can see a good chunk of the map and don't have to worry about being hit from the other base. On the base by the river, relocate between it and the rocks on the right or left, the cave on the left, and maybe up as far as the pelican if you feel brave. The pelican is a good spot but it's very exposed to fire, especially from other snipers, and it's hard to hide in cos the centre hill area is always busy.

On the inland base, go between the base itself and the rocks on the left or right at the rear, the raised rocks across the river to the right up a slight hill (great spot, never busy) or just follow the river downstream a little to the left of the base towards the rock overhang if you want to take some pot shots through the overhang at the hill on the left where the turret is.

Make sure you're not too far from cover in case you get rumbled and don't waste your Camo unless you're engaging someone, spotting for targets, or trying to make a getaway. Once you kill someone, assume they and their whole team now know where you are.

I find it fairly easy to control the hill, or at least stand off to the side and take people out as they come over the top of it.

I also use the little ledge on the left side of the hill which runs under the main part of the hill, crouch down there and it's fairly easy to take out people in enemy base. Also get a few handy kills off the people who inevitably run for the turret too.

14-01-2013 12:27am

I'm rank 35 or 36 at the moment and have just noticed ive got nearly no XP toward the specialisations. I'm only about 5% progressed into the spartan IV default specialisation and don't seem to have picked up hardly any XP in the couple of months I've been playing on and off.

Does this just mean I'm terrible (as I suspect), or is it really supposed to take this long to advance? Are there any handy tricks to pick up XP easily?

Synyster Shadow · 14-01-2013 1:16am

na just means your not on 24/7 :P

you gotta do challenges to rank up quick as they give extra exp

Mickeroo · 14-01-2013 1:37am

Yea keep an eye on the daily/weekly/monthly challenges. Working towards the commendations helps too.

If you play through whatever spartan ops episode is on the plaits that week it's handy xp too.

Once the Spartan specialisation is done the others are a bit quicker to rank up too.

honeybadger · 14-01-2013 9:53am

play spartan ops in co,op mode and get at least 7 kills in every game and make the game last 8 minutes or longer and you,,ll get 7731 fo every game you complete..if you have pioneer specilsition activated you'l get extra cred aswell ,kinda makes the wargames challenges a waste of time tbh imo

maximoose · 14-01-2013 10:02am

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm rank 35 or 36 at the moment and have just noticed ive got nearly no XP toward the specialisations. I'm only about 5% progressed into the spartan IV default specialisation and don't seem to have picked up hardly any XP in the couple of months I've been playing on and off.

Does this just mean I'm terrible (as I suspect), or is it really supposed to take this long to advance? Are there any handy tricks to pick up XP easily?

Do you mean the commendations? You don't start the specialisations until you reach rank 50. I just started pioneer and noticed the tactial loadout option for it makes you rank quicker, that's a bit stupid.

Also, has the waypoint app been acting up for everybody else? Hasn't let me log in all weekend

Patsy fyre · 14-01-2013 10:15am

What's the advantage of getting the specialisation?

maximoose · 14-01-2013 10:26am

Patsy fyre wrote: »

What's the advantage of getting the specialisation?

Nothing major. With each specialisation you complete you unlock a loadout perk (and new armour sets and visors)

The perks aren't that great tbh...

Pioneer - perk makes you rank up quicker (stupid)
Operator - when using a vehicle you can take and deal more damage
Wetworks - quitens footsteps and makes you invisible on promethean vision
Rogue - makes your aim steady when taking fire
Engineer- allows you to see where and when world ordinance drops are coming in before everyone else.
Tracker - allows you to re-roll personal ordinance drops
Stalker - shows on the map where the person who last killed you is
Pathfinder - reduces the cool down rate on vehicle weapons

4 are tactical and 4 are the other kind (I can't remember which are which though!) so you can combine them and some of them are pretty useful together eg using Operator and Pathfinder together will make you much harder to kill in vehicles.

14-01-2013 11:27am

maximoose wrote: »

With each specialisation you complete you unlock a loadout perk...

See this is the kind of sh1t that bothers me about the way the game has gone. That kind of thing is TOO like the COD character development system, where you're basically rewarded for playing more with extra perks and abilities that can give you an edge over other players on the field.

In halo 3 you knew what everyone was capable of, what it took to kill someone, etc. In 4 i have no clue anymore depending on what options people have. Stuff like vehicle damage perks etc are all wrong.

I unloaded 2 shots from a rocket launcher at a team of guys in a warthog in a game recently, got 2 direct hits on it, and nobody died. The team jumped out and killed me while i was reloading. Perks were obviously at work there, but i couldn't believe it. I felt so robbed.

That's messed up. In any previous halo game, one hit with a rocket in that situation would have been a guaranteed triple kill.

Halo 4: First Impressions

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