The News
This topic has moved here: Subject: Bungie Weekly Update: 02/11/2011
  • Subject: Bungie Weekly Update: 02/11/2011
Subject: Bungie Weekly Update: 02/11/2011


Posted by: OksanaBayul
Reach is Bungie's Too Human.

Dennis Dyack and Chris Carney are now on equal footing.

  • 02.12.2011 8:44 AM PDT

Why kill the guy with the ball, when I can assassinate you?

so uhh when is multi team being changed back?

  • 02.12.2011 9:15 AM PDT

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Mmmmmmm, that's some tasty cannotconfirmnordenysauce right there.

"Please sir, I want some more."

  • 02.12.2011 9:21 AM PDT

SKEEBALL FTW!

  • 02.12.2011 10:06 AM PDT

s3x on the flag


Posted by: eating lunch
I never post on here, but before Halo Reach came out I came on the website here from time to time to see new advertising videos for Halo Reach, and I have come time to time now after playing it hoping for three things:

1. Maps. Free Maps.

Seriously, you guys have Countdown, Reflection, Powerhouse, Zealot, Boardwalk, and Sword Base. 6 normal multiplayer maps. That's nothing! Especially considering that Zealot and Boardwalk suck big time and are largely disliked by players. I personally think you guys ripped Boardwalk straight out of the campaign with only minor modifications to alter it into a multiplayer map.

Look at how many maps Halo 2 had, or games you guys are competing with. You're getting trashed by the Call of Duty series, which isn't saying much because the gameplay in those games sucks. But regardless, Black Ops does have some excellent maps, although I never play CoD.

2. A New Forge World as Downloadable Content and Forge Update

Forge in Reach turned out to be a joke, largely due to the inflation of the budget, the pitiful object pallete, and the strange grouping of objects. (Objects that are NOT similar need to be grouped together, NOT objects that ARE similar to each other). Its Halo 3 forge plus angle snaps, phasing, and a couple of other things. You can't even make a larger map than in Halo 3's forge, or edit your own terrain. I have 2 words and a number to respond to Halo Reach's forge:

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is old, and laughs at Halo's forge. I'm guessing you guys couldn't put a mad editor like Far Cry 2 has in Reach because you can't fit it into your engine, and you can't fit it into your engine because you guys are simply altering an old engine rather than making a new one. I read a big reason you guys took out duel wielding and something else was to make room for some forge related stuff, like a big forge world map, phasing, snaps, and a slightly increased budget.

The Cry Engine puts your engine to shame, seriously. I can't wait for Crysis 2, because I have a strong feeling its going to turn out to be what Halo Reach should have been.

Forge also needs to be updated to simplify some features. How are players supposed to know if they need to use a Hill, Capture Plate, or whatever the other thing is when placing an objective on a map for example? Then, on top of that, how are they supposed to know which label they need to put on the objective object? It took me TWO MONTHS to figure out how to make a map compatible with gametypes like Capture the Flag! I finally looked it up on the internet, and the help wasn't that clear, so between looking at maps that came with the game and the tutorial online I eventually figured it out. Tons of players that forge STILL don't know how to make a map play CTF. That's just sad. If its too complex to change through an update, you guys could at least have a forging tutorial prominently displayed on this site. (Which should have been there anyway for people knew to forging since there was no in-game tutorial for forge).

3. An Update Patch (Whatever those things are called to fix things)

Halo Reach is in dire need of some pretty significant tweaking to keep its multiplayer functional and fun. The bloom in Reach is not right for some reason. I used to play SWAT all the time, until I got bored of Reach due to these reasons I'm listing at least, and Reach does NOT count headshots right all the time. Maybe I'm wrong and its not the bloom, but it sure feels like it. And I'm aware bloom has been in all the Halo games, but its off in Reach for some reason. Perhaps you guys screwed up the hitboxes in the heads or something and it simply feels like bloom causing the problem to me.

Armor Lock also needs something done to it. And it doesn't need to save people from plasma grenades that they have already been stuck with. That's ridiculously stupid. Armor Lock is just very glitchy, and all around not right. I would suggest just giving up on it altogether and removing it from ALL playlists, and replacing it with the Drop Shield. (Which is pretty lame too, especially the regeneration, but it seems to work exactly how its supposed to unlike Armor Lock).

The ranking system SUCKS in Halo Reach. Arena needs to be removed and replaced with a 1-50 ranking system that people like me understand. If I play Arena, which I have probably only done like literally 5-10 times after playing Reach 15 hrs a week for a few months, and I got a rating of say 1255, what in the world does that mean? Is 1255 good? Where does it come from? What is it? I have no idea, so I don't care about that. I skip past it to look at my k/d spread to see how I did.

Also, what is the gold/ silver/ onyx junk? I don't know what color is best, or how they work exactly. And whatever they are, they reset like every month or something?!? Very wierd. It makes no sense to me.

And why would I want to get good to move up in that wierd rating system if it resets every month or few months? (I don't even know when it resets because there's no way to know).

Weapons need tweaking very badly too. The Plasma Launcher is now useless compared to being awesome in the beta. Me and a friend of mine loved the Plasma Launcher in the beta, and thought it was one of the most fun weapons ever put in Halo. Then the REAL game came out, and it sucks now?

The laser needs 2, yes TWO, shots to kill tanks and banshees now? Is that seriously how its supposed to be? If not, it happens all the time to me in matchmaking. Its crazy that it takes two shots to take out a Banshee while a Sniper Rifle takes what, 3-4 shots to take out a Banshee? I know some people criticized you guys for making the Sniper Rifle more powerful against vehicles, but I think thats fine, and it functions anyway. But is the laser seriously supposed to take 2 shots to kill Banshees and tanks now? Either way, it needs a damage increase. Its also TERRIBLY inaccurate now as well because it lags behind where you're actually aiming for some reason.

The Focus Rifle. Rename it the shield drainer. Its not like its going to kill anyone. Even back in the beta it was less powerful than a Needler. (I shot someone at the same time they shot me with a Needler while I had the Focus Rifle, and I died first because the Needler kills faster). And after the beta instead of giving the Focus Rifle a slight damage boost, it was made far less powerful. Its useless. I NEVER pick it up. It might as well not exist.

The armor abilities also seem unbalanced because some are used far more often than others. I think Sprint is certainly not balanced against others since it is by far the most used armor ability.

The abilities also glitch VERY badly. Lots of games everyone spawns without armor abilities until they die and respawn, armor abilities drop onto the ground instead of spawning with players, last longer than they're supposed to, don't work at all, and so on. There are tons of common issues with them in matchmaking games.

Firefight matchmaking lags so badly its pointless for it to be there for most players. Has it been fixed yet? No. The only way I can play firefight in matchmaking is by myself in score attack. And its not just my internet. My internet is fine and tons of other players have the same problem with severe lag in firefight that's so bad they can't really play it.

The Infection playlist sucks big time. It has so many problems I can't even fathom how a playlist was put in matchmaking that is so screwed up. And your response was to fix the worst couple of problems, while there are many more. Most of the maps chosen for that playlist don't make sense either because they're the worst maps possible for Infection. Are you guys actually truly looking at your voting data, and really making changes to playlists based off that information? It doesn't seem like it.



There's probably much more that needs to be fixed in Halo Reach, but I will stop here. That is more than enough to make you think I just don't like Halo, but thats not true. I've been a fan of Halo since CE, and still think Halo CE is the best game made yet.

Also I would like to say you guys INSULTED your players that forge maps and share them with the community playlist you made by putting such bland maps up. I have seen the HUNDREDS of maps on forgehub.com, and know there are easily at least 20 maps that could go straight into matchmaking. But instead you guys put HORRIBLE maps into matchmaking, and declare them winners of your contest.

Its an insult to the people that play Halo Reach and make maps to play when you guys put BAD maps from people you know into matchmaking and declare them the best. There ARE better maps out there, but you guys want to sell your map packs. (Which the first 6 downloadable maps should be FREE since Reach has no maps).

If Bungie doesn't listen to this criticism, you guys will continue to lose to other popular games such as CoD. You can't just slap the name Halo on a game and expect everyone in the world to love it if it sucks.

Obviously as you can tell Bungie, you have lost my business if some attempts to solve some of Reach's problems aren't shown. So far you have shown arrogance and disdain for your fans rather than sincere efforts to fix at least the simple problems, like the infection playlist, and other things like that. At the very least, a free map pack of at least 3 maps should have been released by now. I feel ripped off because Reach has no maps, and the invasion maps are only good for invasion games, not even big team really.

If you guys at Bungie don't get off your high horse of arrogance, and start explaining what you're doing to improve Reach, and don't offer at least 3 free maps, I won't be buying your next game. Hopefully 343 turns Halo around.


!

  • 02.12.2011 10:23 AM PDT

Posted by: dm8ns
Many will enter, only one will rise to the top and he might not even win....

Nice screenshots everybody!

  • 02.12.2011 10:36 AM PDT

@JosephBiwald
View my Art

Per Audacia Ad Astra

Great to know, but I feel like you guys didn't look at every entry.
Posted by: urk
Not a single winner is on my friends list, and I didn't recognize any of the gamertags I gave stars to today. I literally picked my favorites, copied the corresponding gamertags, and pulled the trigger.

:)

  • 02.12.2011 10:48 AM PDT

Alot of those pictures weren't "plain awesome" at all in my opinion, too easy to do or too edited to make it look any good.

I also despise that big team battle's Paradiso is now being outspoken by hemmorhage by about 7 to 1

[Edited on 02.12.2011 1:00 PM PST]

  • 02.12.2011 12:51 PM PDT

Wow, I wish I knew about this weeks Bungie All-stars... oh well, maybe next time. The submissions are funny, awesome, and creative; can't wait to see the next All-star submissions.

Also, I'm loving grifball!

  • 02.12.2011 4:36 PM PDT

Join Planet Reach
Hog sniping
Exalted is considered "the highest" because you can't get any bans or warnings of any kind for quite a long time, which is harder than just being a member for a long time.

That's what I'm talking about... new and interesting custom games!

  • 02.12.2011 4:54 PM PDT

Gamertag:: |stealth4ce|
Bungie.net Profile:: |xNoBlex Ramen|
• Hook me up for a play-date •

I really should have submitted... :/

  • 02.12.2011 10:06 PM PDT

Yeah, I know they supposedly weren't cut and pasted out of the campaign into the multiplayer. And its obvious that Zealot, Powerhouse, Sword Base, Spire, Boneyard, and others were not. What I'm saying is, where a map like Powerhouse was designed first as a multiplayer map, then included as part of the campaign, Boardwalk was part of the campaign first, and turned into a multiplayer map quickly out of desperation due to a time crunch.

There is so much wierd stuff on that map, it had to have been created as just part of the campaign originally, and modified into a multiplayer map out of desperation due to a time crunch and lack of multiplayer maps. Why else would it have completely pointless pathways, passages, strange architecture that interferes with player movement different than how it should, and design that promotes boring gameplay?

If Boardwalk was not ripped from the campaign and modified a little, like adding some passages, out of desperation, then whoever made that map needs to be fired it is so bad. It does not have a good enough level of quality to even be included in an amateur video game, much less Halo Reach.


As for the free maps, they should release some free ones because HALO REACH COMES WITH VIRTUALLY NO MAPS. If they don't release free maps, Reach is a rip off of a game.

And no, the maps will never be free. They stopped doing that back in the Halo 3 map packs. The last couple of Halo 3 map packs were never free, which is understandable if thats what they want to do. Its unrelated to me saying some more maps should be given to people that bought Reach because Reach has so few maps.

Honestly, go look at some other games like Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Modern Warfare, Black Ops, or Far Cry 2, and then compare those maps by quality and quantity to Reach and ask yourself if you got a fair amount of maps in Reach or not. If you feel satisfied, then you're easily pleased.

[Edited on 02.13.2011 12:45 AM PST]

  • 02.13.2011 12:40 AM PDT

dear bungie, it's really awesome that you guys have been giving us new gametypes however don't you think that you should be fixing the old ones like juggernaut first are you even aware that not only can you not change all sorts of stats for juggie but do you know what happens if people get spawn with grav-hammers besides juggie no weapons and then all sorts of glitches ensue why don't you fix this crap and allow the community to make some even better games

  • 02.13.2011 12:57 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

M.K

cool opdate cool pics cool game super cool news

  • 02.13.2011 4:28 AM PDT

Halo: Reach has been left to a skeleton crew of newbie employees who like to hang out and just play user-created maps instead of earning the money we paid. I agree with the comments on here about lack of maps, it was ridiculous - i have no problem with 5 redux maps but in addition to 10 originals not 6 (invasion doesn't count b/c it was completely unnecessary and just takes time away from the more popular playlists)!

Don't get me started on Arena, what the hell were Bungie thinking - save us poor players from de-levellers? Damn near 1 in 3 games people quit as it is because they have no reason to play a map they don't like or keep fighting a losing match. De-levelling could've been dealt with easily through a combo of their betrayal/quit penalty/suspension system and implementation of Activision's stand still long enough and get booted system. Halo's ranking system was the only truly competitive system out there and what separated it from Gears and COD - now you're just another shooter and 3rd place in the weekly Xbox live unique users list behind two COD games including 1 thats been out over a year and only released a paltry two DLC packs. PS: for you cronies who think that COD superiority proves Bungie should abandon its ranking system, clue up! Halo can't compete with COD straight-up because COD offers a total different gaming experience - instant game-loads, drop-in and drop-out, quitting players replaced by joining players, run-n-gun gameplay. Halo's whole setup and gameplay isn't designed to appeal to COD players, so why the heck would you cater to them by going social multiplayer heavy? Keep the social mutiplayer section, but give us back the traditional ranked multiplayer and people might actually play it instead of CODs!

For god sakes if you're going to have community created playlists, then find the best Halo 1-3 map remakes and load them up, you know they play well and it can't take very long to find the best I downloaded most in 2 hours of searching and testing. Having 3-4 maps over and over in each playlist is boring as hell.

Oh and bring back Clans while your at it, another unique thing you decided to get rid of. The issues people had with clans may have seemed important but I miss trash-talking and making fun of them. I also miss having groups of friends in a clan having competitive matches with other clans for bragging rights. Clan tags aren't the same as the way Halo 2 incorporated them. Seriously, in all respects Halo 2 was your glory days, Halo 3 was good too and added a nice element in EXP but Halo 2 got it right in so many ways and felt more in touch with your community. Personally, I could care less about your little wannabe Warcraft MMO game and I hope it epically fails given how you sold us players out for the last two years with abbreviated games instead of coming out with one epic finale (sorry, Reach's campaign/story was awesome but MP is a let down)

[Edited on 02.13.2011 10:36 AM PST]

  • 02.13.2011 10:27 AM PDT

...

[Edited on 02.18.2011 9:57 PM PST]

  • 02.13.2011 10:58 AM PDT

Today is the day Halo died.

  • 02.13.2011 1:18 PM PDT

I agree, Halo is done now. Its finished. The quality is gone, and Bungie is too arrogant to put quality back into Halo. I doubt 343 can turn Halo around even if they have the talent and desire since they will be under pressure from Microsoft, at least I imagine that's how it will be.

I won't be buying Bungie's next game for sure. I hope 343 will do a good job with the next Halo game and I will buy that if they do, but I doubt that will happen.

And "Urk," whoever you really are at Bungie, you guys need to hear this criticism. Apparently being praised for naming your games Halo for the past decade has gone to your heads over there at Bungie, because you haven't made a revolutionary, bar-setting game since Halo CE and Halo 2.

[Edited on 02.13.2011 4:09 PM PST]

  • 02.13.2011 4:06 PM PDT


Posted by: eating lunch
I doubt 343 can turn Halo around even if they have the talent and desire since they will be under pressure from Microsoft, at least I imagine that's how it will be.


Well that's just it, Bungie was under no pressure to make Reach the least bit enjoyable. It's their swan-song, the last departing effort made to finish up the franchise and leave it with as little fuss as possible.

The future was already decided (no more Halo) so of course Bungie ducked under the bar of expectation knowing that whatever comes of this game, there's going to be another, bigger, multi-platform release (hence the deal with Activision) to compensate for whatever Reach doesn't get them. No pressure, no direction, nothing good, which is where 343 has a tremendous advantage in crafting a far better game than Reach because they have the intrinsic motivation to not push -blam!- out. Their entire existance is based on Halo, and if it doesn't perform they'll be out of a job (or at least reassigned to other stuff) and that's a good of a reason as any to try, to innovate, and in general to make a truly good game as opposed to making one that just fits the bill.

  • 02.13.2011 5:08 PM PDT

Posted by: Commander GX
Bungie.Match.com: Our Johnson knows what the ladies like.

My pic got on the update :D (it's the one with the BOB in the drop pod near the end of the update) Didn't get a star though. V_V

[Edited on 02.13.2011 7:11 PM PST]

  • 02.13.2011 7:07 PM PDT

Owners of the Katana: A place for those who have a Katana or over 1000GS in Halo 3.

Posted by: SHADOW167
Somewhere out there... in an alternate reality... Marty decided to stay in the ad jingle business, bringing about an age of amazingly orchestrated Pampers commercials.

I love the photo that was taken in Halo 1 and was trying to be sneaky about it.

  • 02.14.2011 4:34 AM PDT

Posted by: Achronos
I blame stosh.


Proud tester of the Halo 3 beta.

Never seen more badass Elites ever. People got crazy photographic skills!

  • 02.14.2011 6:53 AM PDT
  •  | 
  • Exalted Legendary Member

Whoa, nice skeeball. Sweet screenshots too.

  • 02.14.2011 7:03 AM PDT

Shmokin a pancake

I would love to see that last picture at full resolution. I need a new wallpaper.

  • 02.14.2011 9:15 AM PDT

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Elitism.

  • 02.14.2011 2:49 PM PDT