Halo Reach

[Vindekarr]

I just finaly finished my first playthrough today, and Im really feely... happy at the end of it like few other games can make me feel happy.

 

You see, ODST left me feeling really bitter about Halo, Reach, the last Bungie Halo, I had honestly been tempted not to play-in that I didnt want to see Halo end on a negative note. However, now that Im getting settled into Reach, Im happy to say that I dont think they could have gone out on my higher a note.

 

It's fantastic, and some of the little "for the fans" moments are just touching. Especialy the credits cut scene-do NOT skip the credits.

 

Im not going to spoil it, but it's a really cute bit of Halo nostalgia.

 

Im hugely impressed by Reach, but also relieved. Halo, the orginal 2001 Halo Combat Evolved, was always my favorite game of the series, for me, Reach feels like a next gen Halo: CE, which is what I'd really been hoping for since Halo 2.

 

As for my FORGE endeavours, I finished a particularly mad race track today, and started making a Titan map.

 

Titan Wars was a game mode from Battlefield 2142. Both teams had a Titan, a huge flying base, and the idea was to kill the rival titan while protecting yours-in multiplayer. It was basicaly Assault in the clouds.

 

I've made a few Titan maps for assault but my current WIP is the most impressive yet. Im still learning what I can do with Forge, but already I've learned how to emplace vehicles to make them into turrets, and how to properly use teleporters and the powerful new tool, the one-way shield. Idealy I want a hangar, drop pods, and a reactor that explodes when you place the bomb.

 

It's early days still, but one thing is for certain, I'll be able to make something crazy.

[Chumphrys]

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EDIT by HugePinball (moderator): Strike #1 for spam. This is not the place to recruit for pyramid schemes.

Edited October 10, 2010 by HugePinball
moderator edit - strike issued

[Vindekarr]

Got a bit of a setback today-I went online for the first time, the first time I've been able to, got a message saying that "288,789 CR is more than can be bought" and was reset to a sergeant first class :(

 

I lost all my pretty perks too, but still, forgive and forget-it's only helmets I've lost not actualy combat power, so I can rebuild fairly quickly since I get a lot of CR from each game I play.

 

About that-I feel kinda guilty for badmouthing the Halo community in the past, I set my filter to polite and they've been nothing but polite.

 

Secondly this is an awefully well balanced game, I havent had any frustrating "HAX!" moments in in 30 games-just some good fun and awesome moments.

 

My current crown achievement is when I was playing Elite Slayer on The Cage, I hid, with activ camo on, and the enemy team in full force ran past, I popped up, Assasinated the rearguard, and stuck a plasma grenade to the guy in the middle. It was an instant overkill, and funny as heck.

[AliasTheory]

 

About that-I feel kinda guilty for badmouthing the Halo community in the past, I set my filter to polite and they've been nothing but polite.

 

Seriously? I didn't expect that. I know there are definitely kind-hearted people out there playing, but I expected a bunch of bad-mouthed kids to run in there are ruin everything. Cool. Maybe I'll start using the mic again.

 

I did play a little bit of Reach...Team Snipers on Hemorrhage. Very fun...I love the detail and basically everything about Halo's sniper. (I mean, I didn't make one in my Fallout 3 for nothing!) I went +7 out of around 16 kills. Not too shabby for out of practice. I just didn't like how everyone decided to flock to the cave for that match, 'cause the enemy team was getting free kills there. >_<

[Vindekarr]

You'll get some bad moments with people using the many exploits, but as long as you played this with a GOLD subscription right from the begining, you''ll get so much credit so fast, and be so amazed by the awesome moments that you'll honestly not care.

 

Right now I really hope they patch-remove Armour Lock, I see that get exploited almost every round. Secondly camping is a bit of a problem since the pawn system is a bit buggy. I at one point constantly respawned in the enemy base.

 

For the most part though, it's trueskill system actualy works. And that's rare but good.

 

While I have exceeded my team mates by as far as 15,000 points at times, I usualy get matched fairly and dont have to carry people too often.

 

Ragequiting is still a big problem though-I very rarely see all starters at the finish, I seem to be a bad luck talisman for that though. I usualy stealth it and fight long range, so a few times when I've suddenly changed class and weapon and started fighting directly-devastating the opposition forces with the stratergy change, then I've seen a LOT of quits.

 

And plenty of bans too, some idiot who's service tag was, appropriately, D-E-R-P, started killing his team mates. He didnt come back.

 

As for my loss of points-Im almost back where I was 4 days ago. Im currently back up to Warrent officer from sergeant first class today, it's painfully annoying, and the microsoft email asking me to buy my own progress left me rightfully furious, but it's a good game, and it atleast gave me many place to regain points quickly.

[AliasTheory]

 

Secondly camping is a bit of a problem since the pawn system is a bit buggy. I at one point constantly respawned in the enemy base.

 

 

Camping is a legitimate tactic. Play to win, man. If your team is getting spawn camped it means your team isn't being offensive enough and isn't moving in either by choice or the enemy is too great. That's when the other team starts ranking up kills and yes, you switch bases.

[Vindekarr]

Im almost at alpha phase on my titans map-it's even bigger than I'd expected, the first vessel's keel has been laid down, and the hull is about 40% complete but it's already over 200 metres long excluding nonfunctional features. It's got a teleporter to get to a dropship, a medbay, bridge, hangar, AA batteries that actualy work-hell it's got pretty much everything but the ability to be piloted, and if I ever figure out how to do that, I'll add that too.

 

Right now it's looking pretty hot, I vaguely styled it after a UNSC frigate, and put two smaller corvettes to act as "island" sub bases and drop pod launchers. My drop pod is still pretty simplistic, but I hope to have the system working sooner rather than later.

 

The bottom line is that it's gonna have two big ships, a flag or bomb site on each, and you've got to board it and bomb it. Now, that's where the real design has been happening, I've put in airlocks, crawlspaces, a defensible yet explodable hangar and some blast away hull plates. It's gunna be a hell of a fun map when I finaly get it done.

 

If I get it done, the community doesnt seem to want me to play this game, and their "contributions" to the file share have not yet gone beyond zoomed in photographs of Kat's groinplate.

 

This brings me to my only complaint about this game: the shamefully bad community,

 

A real problem however is the arbitration system:

 

Im currently just coming off my third ban. All three were from players claiming I'm cheating when I wasnt. Their pathetic lack of skill, their pathetic cowardice, their pathetic pathetic little egos that now lie crushed under my boot, are at fault here, and yet they all, postgame, went straight to "file complaint". I hope to Hel I get a chance at payback.

 

The current one claimed I had been using a one-shot-kill cheat after I killed him with a sword lunge( a natural one-shot-kill) to give you an idea how disgustingly weak and feeble they are.

 

I am however also sickened by the amount of "legit" cheaters there are. I've seen plenty of shots through walls(not a Halo feature, I asked Bungie myself, they said it was a blatant hack) plenty of walking through walls, and even a few hacked spawns.

 

However that is not the only disgusting issue: my last game saw every single player but me(15 in all) simply standing still, they're "boosters" they leave their character online while they sleep, it circulates through games, immobile, and gets whatever points that team earns. Makes me sick.

 

But what's left me the angriest is just the general community attitude. Most of these cant hit the side of a barn even if they pressed their gun's muzzle against it. Yet every single match I get a hail of threats "IMA F***ING HACK YOU B****!" their lack of skill offends, their insulting butchering of the english language offends, the way they run like wipped dogs at the sight of me offends, but what offends most is how I get booted one in 3 games simply for "being a fag" that is in their language, an honest player.

 

Now the post launch days are over and the real community has moved in I can honestly say they're the worst community I've seen in all Halo games, even worse than ODST if that's possible. Sort of like COD MW2 + WOW + 4-CHAN /B/ + preschoolers.

 

Disgusting filthy little runts. I get so sick of executing them, why cant they do me a favour and not use shields? they're dead anyway so why dont they save me from having to hike for DMR ammo? /end rant

 

What's needed is inactivity booting, and an age cap.

[Deleted1217574User]

Well, I'll definitely agree with you that the community frequently sucks, but I really haven't heard the level of abuse you've been mentioning. And I mean, you can mute offensive people, as well as using the Psych Profile. And, you can't get booted from a game unless you betray someone =/ Though I agree the new, one-strike policy is kinda unfair.

[Vindekarr]

You're kidding me Raithfyre.

 

It's not just betrayelthat results in booting, I sometimes just get randomly booted.

 

In matchmaking I fairly often see "the host has removed you from the session" So no, you can obviously be booted at the simple whim of children too young to legaly own this game.

 

My other main complaint is the level design-it's atrocious in places. At one point I ended up fighting six hutners at once. SIX!!!

 

Now, the hunter is one of the most abnoxiously designed creatures in gaming, but fighting one is annoying, fighting the usual two is abnoxious, but six is just torture. It took me literaly an hour and a half to finaly kill them all-I didnt die once, the brutal trhings are just too clumsy in Reach for that to be possible, but it took me that long to find enough and then use enough ammunition to finaly down them all.

 

And the trouble doesnt stop there, you've got damage tables that are completely unpredictable. Sometimes you'll get one shotted by a Needler while on full shields and health, other times you'll survive being stuck with a grenade.

 

Now that the novelty is wearing off, reach has some pretty major issues to overcome: fix the uncharacteristic glitches, fix the seemingly random damage tables, improve or remove the rule system, and please, please, fix the glitch that's been randomly removing my ranks and giving them to others.

 

Oh and I nearly forgot, they better do something about the cheats and modders too-one in five players I see is using some sort of mod or cheat.

[AliasTheory]

And the trouble doesnt stop there, you've got damage tables that are completely unpredictable. Sometimes you'll get one shotted by a Needler while on full shields and health, other times you'll survive being stuck with a grenade.

 

Now that the novelty is wearing off, reach has some pretty major issues to overcome: fix the uncharacteristic glitches, fix the seemingly random damage tables, improve or remove the rule system, and please, please, fix the glitch that's been randomly removing my ranks and giving them to others.

 

Oh and I nearly forgot, they better do something about the cheats and modders too-one in five players I see is using some sort of mod or cheat.

 

Welcome to the world of Halo online. People have been complaining about this since forever. It sucks when it happens, and it can't really be helped; if you really want lag free games, go to a LAN party or something. I think Bungie's netcode must be pretty solid, but it obviously can't be perfect.

 

The only thing I agree about is the ranking system change here. It is kind of dumb. And the cheaters/modders. That's self-explanatory.

 

But in short, if you're annoyed by these "random" damage tables, just think: the law of averages says in the end they'll help you just as much as when they are against you.

 

Oh. And I'm a victim of this:

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/15/halo-reach-co-op-requires-hard-drive-4gb-xbox-360-slims-have-t/

 

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