- Pingbizzle
- |
- Honorable Member
Hello. Reach is the first Halo game I have played and my style is mostly recreational.
I've logged far less COD play than Halo but I have to say playing multiplayer on CoD just feels more intense. It's primarily due to how much more realistic the environments and guns are. I mean, face it, Forge world-ed multiplayer maps just look silly. Especially some of the new ones.
With CoD and killstreaks you actually feel like your survival is a valuable asset to your team and you can do things that can change the whole field of play. The only allure in Halo of a Perfection medal just isn't enough to keep it fast-paced and keep you on the edge of your seat.
A lot of folks probably won't agree with this, but the XP and rank system does make a game more intense. In Halo all you get are credits for everything you do. And you use these credits to buy armor that does absolutely nothing. No new weapons, no abilities, nothing.
It's good if you're fresh in the game, to be on an even playing field with the year-old Reach players. But when you are a year-old player and you still find yourself with no advantage over new players it gets to be demotivating.
The thing Reach is missing is the motivation to play hard. You win a game and go 20-3, you get 1500 or so credits. You lose a game and go 3-20, you get 1000 or so credits.
Say what you will, but I stand beside my point firmly: the biggest thing Reach loses out to CoD on is game intensity. Players AFK because they know they'll get time credits no matter how heinously horrible they do. People aren't engaged in each match because the motivation to do well is lacking.
There's no advantage to play for.
Not to say that people can't play for the fun of it, but it just makes it so much more interesting to have actual rewards for staying alive longer and logging more kills than anyone else.
Case in point: I'm literally disappointed when I die on a four-kill streak or a six-kill streak in Crysis 2 or CoD because I know that I just lost a chance to help the team out with my killstreak reward.
In Halo I go 9 kills and then die, I'm like: "Who cares, getting that Killing Frenzy would only be 20 more credits." I'm not disappointed at all because there is no loss. I literally do not care about the little medals because at the end of the day none of them are as valuable as simply making the game last ridiculously long.
And if I level up in Crysis 2 or CoD I genuinely feel accomplished because it signifies a new weapon, new perk, or just a new facet of gameplay. In Halo it's like, "Yeah! Now I can spend my useless credits on some useless armor that was previously unavailable!"
The only thing keeping people interested in getting kills in Reach is probably the daily challenges. For once it's a solid, visible, useful reward for doing well.
The underlying issue is simply that because the motivation to play well is lacking people screw around on purpose. I've seen a teammate and his guest take turns betraying each other for the single purpose of drawing the game longer than it needs to be so they can get more time credits.
Which is pretty horrid, to be honest. Because it's justified by the system of Halo. In CoD if someone is screwing around they're just being a dick because they view it as a worthy use of their time. In Halo people can be dicks because they want more credits.
All in all the thesis of all that was: "Halo loses out to CoD on game intensity and motivation of the players to play hard and do well. CoD has accomplished this with killstreak rewards and levelling that actual matters."
[Edited on 12.31.2011 1:56 PM PST]