Halo: Reach Forum
This topic has moved here: Subject: Halo Reach had the potential
  • Subject: Halo Reach had the potential
Subject: Halo Reach had the potential

With only a mere 52 days remaining in Reach's lifespan as the most recent Halo Multiplayer game, I decided to make this thread to explain how Bungie turned a game with so much potential into a game that is unbearable to play at with Vanilla settings. You may be wondering how did Halo Reach ever have potential; it has always been a frustrating game that implemented several random mechanics such as bloom and armor lock. As we count down the days until MLG Dallas, where Halo 4 will make a huge appearance on the showfloor, I want to explain how Reach failed casually and competitively even with the strong potential it once held.

As we start to discuss random mechanics, I think we should start out with the mechanic that killed competitive Halo - bloom. The general idea of bloom appears great on paper, but the way Bungie implemented it into the final build made the mechanic unbearable and broken. After the horrible netcode in Halo 3 due to the large amount of spread and non-hitscan weapons, I jumped with glee about the idea of Bungie implementing hitscan weapons and a feature that allows us where our shots will directly hit. Spread made cross-mapping almost impossible, but did not alter close-mid range combat. When Bungie released Halo Reach's beta, I soon realized that bloom will not only cause severe frustrations, but it will also slow down gameplay from all distances. Halo has always been a game about fast killtimes that require skill, but Bungie decided to stray away from that general idea and implement a broken mechanic into a game that would later go on to severely break gameplay and end the competitive scene for Halo Reach. It was bloom that destroyed Halo Reach's competitive atmosphere. It was armor lock and jetpack which destroyed Halo Reach's general atmosphere.

Let's start out with armor lock, shall we. As we all know, armor lock will cause severe frustration and allows for inexperienced players to carry a crutch like bloom. Also like bloom, it completely STOPPED gameplay and extremely broke the overall flow of the game. As a Bungie employee once said "It's super powerful!", we know now he was not joking. Instead of balancing all of the armor abilties, Bungie decided to add an armor ability that will, above all, cause the most frustrations for the enemy side. Jetpack was another game-changing armor ability. We seem to have the general conception that jetpack broke map flow, but that is not correct. Jetpack completely IGNORED map flow, causing map control to be completely pointless. Power positions were now an ease to control with the usage of jetpack. Jetpack allowed for the exploitations of maps, especially forge maps that were created due to the lack of unique maps Bungie offered.

Do not even get me started on maps. Reach had only two competitive maps right out of the box, and both were inspired by previous Halo games, Asylum and Zealot. Instead of creating new playspaces, Bungie exemplified a company that was ready to get rid of a franchise. It recycled map after map after map from the campaign, and the maps that were recycled were not even close to be considered competitive. Reflection was dominated by jetpack, Sword Base (Please don't let me explain), Uncaged (ARE YOU KIDDING ME BUNGIE), etc. etc. etc.

Strafing in Reach was almost non-existant in Reach due to the slow movement speed and the short jump height. Strafing has always been an important aspect in Halo that was absolutely necessary to win a BR battle. Now in Reach, strafing hardly plays any effect on throwing off shots from the opponent. Why Bungie decided to slow down movement speed is way beyond me.


If Bungie were to balance bloom, make better maps, balance armor abilities, and keep the original movement speed and jump height, Reach would easily be one of the best Halo games. It's netcode and shot registration is by far the best out of any Halo game.

Happy 2 year birthday Reach

[Edited on 09.14.2012 7:32 PM PDT]

  • 09.14.2012 7:25 PM PDT

Just a note on the last point... the maps weren't recycled from campaign. They were made for matchmaking then put into the campaign.

  • 09.14.2012 7:32 PM PDT
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I'm new to competitive Halo and Halo itself (Reach being my first video game ever actually). Message me if you want to play;

Reach: MLG, Arena, Doubles, BTB and customs.
Halo 3: Ranked MM and customs.

Also I have every Halo title and all of its DLC on the Xbox 360.
-Umpa

We've heard this all many times before...but I do agree with the OP.

Thankfully, 343i learned a lot from the mistakes made with Reach.
If Reach wasn't bad, Halo 4 wouldn't look so good IMO.

[Edited on 09.14.2012 7:49 PM PDT]

  • 09.14.2012 7:48 PM PDT
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Posted by: Umpalumpalump63
We've heard this all many times before...but I do agree with the OP.

Thankfully, 343i learned a lot from the mistakes made with Reach.
If Reach wasn't bad, Halo 4 wouldn't look so good IMO.


lol they didn't learn, H4 is worse.

  • 09.14.2012 7:58 PM PDT


Posted by: Apocalypse

Posted by: Umpalumpalump63
We've heard this all many times before...but I do agree with the OP.

Thankfully, 343i learned a lot from the mistakes made with Reach.
If Reach wasn't bad, Halo 4 wouldn't look so good IMO.


lol they didn't learn, H4 is worse.


You will think that until you play it.

  • 09.14.2012 8:12 PM PDT
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I'm new to competitive Halo and Halo itself (Reach being my first video game ever actually). Message me if you want to play;

Reach: MLG, Arena, Doubles, BTB and customs.
Halo 3: Ranked MM and customs.

Also I have every Halo title and all of its DLC on the Xbox 360.
-Umpa


Posted by: Apocalypse

Posted by: Umpalumpalump63
We've heard this all many times before...but I do agree with the OP.

Thankfully, 343i learned a lot from the mistakes made with Reach.
If Reach wasn't bad, Halo 4 wouldn't look so good IMO.


lol they didn't learn, H4 is worse.


How?

I was refering to Reach at launch

[Edited on 09.14.2012 8:31 PM PDT]

  • 09.14.2012 8:17 PM PDT

Herroh. U have reached teh BOOGIE LAND

Are you writing a book?

  • 09.14.2012 11:06 PM PDT

OP lists childish complaints and takes reach for granted.

  • 09.15.2012 1:23 AM PDT
  • gamertag: ankerd
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Bringing in Fikst. Bringing back lmao.
Inheritor # 475 world,

#6 In the Country.

Halocharts.com

Boring, get over it already.

  • 09.15.2012 5:28 AM PDT

Music is slowly dying. Classic rock, rock, and metal is real music. Non of this bull-blam!- pop and rap with there auto tuned voices. No talent.And Im not talking about stupid ass New Metal bands like Drowning Pool, Disturbed, and Godsmack. Im talking about Children of Bodom, Slayer, Exodus, and Megadeth. Also, what happened to awesome rock bands like AC/DC? The best band ever. Why can't rock bands now have that kind of talent like the older rock bands? Music is slowly dying.

Are we seriously still ripping on this game? It's been 2 years. Get over it buddy.

  • 09.15.2012 1:23 PM PDT

Herroh. U have reached teh BOOGIE LAND


Posted by: steelerfan86712
Are we seriously still ripping on this game? It's been 2 years. Get over it buddy.


Well, of course

  • 09.15.2012 9:53 PM PDT
  •  | 
  • Exalted Legendary Member

Exalted Unexplainable Member

I took out all the opinionated parts of your post, and will appropriately reply to the rest:
Posted by: Effective Strafe
Happy 2 year birthday Reach!

Happy two year anniversary, Reach! It was a grand two years that I enjoyed playing with my friends and random strangers. Thank you, Bungie. Especially for sticking with a community that, for a majority, has gotten so hypercritical over the years. :D

  • 09.16.2012 12:11 AM PDT

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Wow, another "I hate Bloom & Armor Lock" thread. Map control is still very relevant in Reach. Jet-Pack did not break map flow at all. As any experienced player will tell you, if you Jet-Pack when you play against a good team then they will kill you very quickly! I do agree about the strafing and jump height though. They really needed to fix those two things.

As for Halo 4, they are bringing back Jet-Pack I hear. So obviously 343 does not think it was OP.

  • 09.16.2012 2:48 AM PDT
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Halo multiplayer sucks!

Based on campaigns

Halo 2 > Halo 3 ODST > Halo 3 > Reach/CE tied

aaaaaaaaaaannnnnddd...nobody cares!

  • 09.16.2012 2:59 AM PDT

Posted by: John McGhee 1975
Map control is still very relevant in Reach. Jet-Pack did not break map flow at all. As any experienced player will tell you, if you Jet-Pack when you play against a good team then they will kill you very quickly.

As an experienced player, I can assure you that it did break map control and disrupted the flow of the game. A good team of jetpackers > a better individually skilled team. I wish you knew how it was used.

People who jetpack properly dont just fly up straight. They go behind barriers and around walls. They fly up when someone is weak and then fly back down once theyve either killed him or made him weaker.

<- played arena when it was infested with jetpack players and still sprinted.

  • 09.16.2012 6:17 AM PDT

Name's John. I'm a 21-year-old firefighter/EMT from lolhio who doubles as a die-hard Halo fan. I've been enjoying the franchise since 2001. My favorite iteration of Halo would have to be Halo 2 simply because I never got to experience the joy of a full-on Halo: CE LAN.


If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Oh yeah, and boot Zome.


Posted by: Flavor
Posted by: John McGhee 1975
Map control is still very relevant in Reach. Jet-Pack did not break map flow at all. As any experienced player will tell you, if you Jet-Pack when you play against a good team then they will kill you very quickly.

As an experienced player, I can assure you that it did break map control and disrupted the flow of the game. A good team of jetpackers > a better individually skilled team. I wish you knew how it was used.

People who jetpack properly dont just fly up straight. They go behind barriers and around walls. They fly up when someone is weak and then fly back down once theyve either killed him or made him weaker.


A thousand times this.

  • 09.16.2012 7:15 AM PDT

I intend to live forever, or die trying,

so far, so good.

Bloom could had been implemented much better.

The TU for AL is perfect, but it is still over powered. but if the game was released with this version, it would had been much better.

RANKING System, Arena was a fail. Halo 3 system was nice, but derankers sucked.

REACH biggest flaw is MAPs. It had too little maps, and Bungie relied on Forge World too much.

I have still played 4000 games of REACH and think it is a good game, but between Halo 3 and REACH Halo 3, wins by far.

  • 09.16.2012 4:22 PM PDT

Too be honest I always liked arena (and I remember hitting my friend multiple times with a hockey stick because I carried him to 56% onyx and I never got too onyx, only at gold 1% then back down at 90%, good times)

Jetpack got useless after 50% gold and season 9. Period. Just stay inside and zone the sky, gg.


Reach is done, brother, put it behind you and cherish the fun times you had with it, because I'm ready to bet reach made you have fun a couple of times.

[Edited on 09.16.2012 6:43 PM PDT]

  • 09.16.2012 6:39 PM PDT

Posted by: TheLiquiddoom
Too be honest I always liked arena (and I remember hitting my friend multiple times with a hockey stick because I carried him to 56% onyx and I never got too onyx, only at gold 1% then back down at 90%, good times)

Jetpack got useless after 50% gold and season 9. Period. Just stay inside and zone the sky, gg.

what

  • 09.16.2012 6:46 PM PDT

Sorry to dissapoint you but I do believe you are wrong in stating that halo reach wasn't bad. Halo Reach was by far the WORST halo game ever created and made halo an absolute disgrace to the halo world in general. The game play, rules and everything involved in the creation of this game was absolute disgrace. I don't believe in the temporarily banning situation. It has to many cons to pros. Half the time I get banned its due to team mates walking in front of my bullets. There needs to be a more user friendly way of banning and booting. Hopefully they change this in halo 4. Also the host picks and game lag is pretty bad for a Bungie game.

  • 09.16.2012 6:53 PM PDT

Posted by: AngryBrute1
Oh yeah, since somebody does not believe what YOU believe; that makes us vapid...
I cannot grasp that what you call "Something happened to nothing, and that nothing became something, and it was smaller than than a period."

Well with all the other successes Bungie has birthed, you could possibly say they made Reach partially atrocious to test 343i to see if they could improve it.
But yeah that is true.

  • 09.16.2012 7:50 PM PDT
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TLDR: Too much Bloom, horrible player biped (movement speed, movement acceleration, aiming, jump height, health/shield ratio), AA-based gameplay slowing down the game.

Also, I disagree about Halo originally having fast kill times. Halo was known for it's survivable combat. You could survive in CE for a long time without having to use repetitive tactics (besides finding health packs). That changed with Halo 2 and Halo 3, particularly with the advent of the BR; 4sk with the BR is far more easier to land than 3sk with the God pistol. Reach made it even worse, not because the DMR is easy to use, but because the DMR was dominating all ranges, Reach introducing crouch shooting and placing emphasis on team shooting.

[Edited on 09.17.2012 2:14 PM PDT]

  • 09.17.2012 2:11 PM PDT

Tin shacks and catfish bones.


Posted by: Effective Strafe
unbearable to play


Cry, Cry, Cry

  • 09.17.2012 2:32 PM PDT