In Response To: Re: My Thoughts on the Halo Series (TalkingElmo)
There's the rub though, in your example you're using people who are roughyl as good as each other. In a tournament, you'll see this a lot. You even see a bit of this in matchmaking. But the bulk of people who play together are of varying skill levels-friends, college people, people online. And in that event, your approach just doesn't work particularly well.
You and I can agree that a good player is a good player in both games, and they're going to kick the ass of weaker players no matter what. The only major difference is how they'll go about doing it. In Halo 1 it was being able to use the pistol effectively, and knowing what times and situations you would want to pull out a more specialized weapon(which I still hold wasn't enough to give the game a proper balance). Halo 2 does have a more random element, it's true, but a good player, nay, a good team can still turn the odds against the opposing team. You example both snipers on the beach on Zanzibar. Looks bad-can't move in on them on foot. Possible solutions? There's a few. If it's a slayer game, a warthog and ghost both spawn near the power station, and as you already said, rockets are really the most reliable way of dealing with vehicles. Or one could simply wait them out. Not as much a possibility on live with the time limits, but eventually most players will get tired of waiting and move out of safety. And one can't discount the fact that you run out of ammo, in the gun, or in stock, period. Granted these are generalizations, and Zanzibar really isn't the best map for slayer in general, but I thought of those concepts off the top of my head.
Spawn yourself with a carbine or BR, and you(to a lesser degree than halo 1, admittingly) have a chance to defend yourself in a lot of situations. But like in halo 1, certain specialized situations will arise that you'll want to use another gun. You can kill vehicles with more than the rocket-just the other day I killed a ghost driver by hearing him coming nearby, and shotgunning him as he drove past-to say nothing of sniping them out with the BR, or killing them with a turret, or smg/plasma rifles, etc. and the hog is just as vulnerable to BR fire as well as close range weapons if the gunner is dealt with-just like Halo 1.
I'm just not sure what you're getting at here. You seem to prefer the individual aiming abilities and capabilities that Halo 1 emphasized, but I'd argue that since Halo 2 emphasises an effective team, that it requires not just a different sort of skill, but more. It's a lot harder to coordinate 4 guys than it is to be able to watch a timer and rely on each person to be able to do well themselves :P I'm willing to bet if Halo 1 had been made for Live, the aiming would have been akin to that for Halo 2 for the same lag reasoning.
And once again I point out it's all moot anyway, unless you messed with the options in Halo 1. Really, this is coming down to a comparison of custom style Halo 1 vs default settings Halo 2 matchmaking for a lot of people.
: I wasn't suggesting Halo 2 was as flat as my basketball example. It is
: significantly flatter than Halo 1 with the goal of leveling the playing
: field somewhat, and my point was that that approach by nature is the wrong
: one, even if it isn't taken to the extreme of a swimming pool-sized
: basketball rim.
: (note: the following isn't meant as a heated argument. I'm just trying to
: clearly articulate my ideas on how the Halo series can be improved in a
: place where someone who matters might read it. Intelligent discussion is
: far more likely to take place here than on b.net. My examples also assume
: roughly equal skill level among players.)
: The pro players will still win every time, but they've had to find other ways
: to set themselves apart besides aim, since the ceiling is so low now. For
: example, strafing makes very little difference now because of the huge hit
: boxes, slower movement, and massive auto-aim. So pros now use peek
: shooting, team shooting, and other such tactics to set themselves apart.
: The BR requires very little in the way of aim. I got host in a SWAT game
: the other day and it was almost impossible to miss. Just move the reticle
: somewhere near their head and you get a free headshot. With the old
: pistol, you could fire shots over their shoulder and still miss, meaning
: the person who was dead on would beat someone who wasn't. Higher ceiling.
: It's more interesting (and fun) when there's more to the fight besides who
: shoots first (which is basically how H2 is once you reach a certain level
: of aiming ability). And that's assuming BR/Carbine vs. BR/Carbine. If
: someone has a BR more than 15 feet away and you spawn away from cover with
: your Plasma Rifle or SMG, all the skill in the world will make almost no
: difference in the outcome, so the game devolves into a race for the power
: weapons and then abusing the fact that they don't respawn until dropped.
: That brings us to the Rock Paper Scissors design.
: True Rock Paper Scissors (A automatically beats B in situation X) doesn't
: work in an FPS. Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) works in the real RPS game
: because both people have equal access to all 3 elements; On the count of
: three, you can just as easily do one as the other. In an FPS, the elements
: are tied to points on the map, so your choices are limited to what is near
: you (which partly depends on spawns, which are initially random). So
: instead of a true RPS dynamic, you just end up with lots of situations
: where one guy wins almost automatically just because of the weapon he's
: holding (aside from unintended glitches, a BR holder has almost no chance
: against a sword in close quarters). The problem is exacerbated when
: everyone constantly respawns with one of the weakest, most limited weapons
: in the game (all but useless outside of a ~15' radius). The problem is
: exacerbated even further when the power weapons don't respawn until
: dropped, giving one team a complete monopoly and turning the game into a
: campfest (since you don't have to worry about controlling item spawn
: locations regularly, you can just set up camp in an easily exploitable
: part of the map, such as the beach on Zanzibar with both snipers). A
: perfect example of how broken RPS is is the vehicles and rockets in Halo
: 2. Vehicles are quite difficult to take down unless you have a Rocket, but
: if you have a rocket, it's an almost automatic kill thanks to the lock on.
: Just make the reticle turn red, lock on, and fire. But if you don't happen
: to be holding one of the 1-2 rockets on the map, you have almost no chance
: against a vehicle if you're on foot. Rock Paper Scissors! Too bad.
: In contrast, the design philosophy of spawning with an equalizing weapon (not
: a guaranteed kill but you have a fighting chance in most situations) means
: you win by outplaying the other guy, which is so much more fun and
: rewarding than winning mostly because of circumstances. In the vehicle
: example, if you don't have a rocket, you can skillfully lay a frag grenade
: in the hog's path to topple it, or you can try to headshot the gunner
: before he can kill you. If he's a good driver, he may be able to avoid the
: nade, depending on how well you placed it. It comes down to who outplays
: whom, instead of, "Well, he had the rocket, not much I could
: do." Or take close range infantry fighting. If Fred has a plasma
: rifle and Ned has a shotgun, it comes down to who outplays whom. Can Fred
: catch Ned from the side to stun him before Ned can hit him with the
: shotty? Can Ned turn just enough to shotgun Fred before his shields go
: down? Did Fred start stunning him close enough to finish with the melee
: before his gun overheats and he's left vulnerable? Excellent fun, great
: balance, and yet the weapons are unique enough to make it really
: interesting. The pistol guaranteed that, although you may be at a
: disadvantage in many situations (i.e. facing a shotgun up close), you more
: often than not had a decent chance of surviving if you played well. There
: was some Rock Paper Scissors since certain weapons had an advantage in the
: right situations, but the outcome was still up in the air depending on who
: outplayed whom. Very fun and rewarding.
: My $0.02.
|
