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We hired a team of testers who were members of Halo and Counterstrike leagues and had them play each other-a lot. When the complaining stopped, we knew we had it -Mitch Gitelman/ShadowRun
EDIT: For Bungie's front page update
I've Edited this a few times but these are the main complaints after Bungie addressed the ones that were already posted.
1. Movement speed. This needs to be increased. The jump would also benefit from just a slight increase. The default speed right now is just TOO slow. It prevents you from getting away from grenade spamming, and the strafe is nonexistent. To make this game feel a lot more natural the speed needs a boost.
2. The HUD. Bungie has addressed this but i want to make a note. The current HUD is really damn messy. It's hard to read, and it's constantly plagued with pop ups. I really do not care that my teammate killed so and so, please STOP popping these things up on screen to distract me from what is going on in front of me. Halo 2's HUD was simplistic, straight forward and it did the job right.
3. The DMR would benefit greatly from an extra 3 bullets or so. That or it needs less bloom and maybe more damage. I don't know, but something needs to be improved. It's just too inconsistent. The gun could be the best gun ever in Halo in terms of balance, and just overall enjoyability. Pulling off 5 shot kills is liken to that of pulling of 3 shots with the Pistol in Halo CE. The thing is, right now the DMR is just not very consistent even when your'e aiming well, it needs to be a bit more dominate. A few extra bullets could allow you to take down two unsuspecting foes instead of barely 1. I've heard community members here talk about how it takes more accuracy yada yada yada, yah but come on at one point or another you gotta ask "how many people are really dropping enemies with 5 shots?" it's too much. You're dealing with so many more variables in Reach than previous halo's and you wanna give us a gun that drops people on average of 7 shots and then you have to reload? Come on. I'm constantly reloading and missing kills by 1 shot because the person went into cover or sprinted away. I shouldn't have to do that when i'm hitting someone 5 times dead on and they aren't even suspecting it until the last min. These maps are so obstructed you rarely even get a 5 round clean shot on someone anyway.
4. Grenades: Bungie has addressed this.
5. Swordbase needs a complete overhaul. First, it's bland looking both in and out, and second it's confusing as hell. There needs to be some kind of distinction about which side you're on, where you're at, etc.
6. Some of the control schemes do not fit players needs. Some of the options are very unintuitive or do not work the same across all abilities. I suggest Bungie allow us to create our own layouts but for some reason they are against this, so i suggest giving us something that can work across all play styles but mainly the two that i think are hindered by the current options (Sprint/evade/jetpack)
This is my ideal layout and i'll tell you why it works. (i use something like this for shadowrun)
Layout:
-Right trigger: Shoot
-Left Trigger: Ability (this is ideal for jetpack users because they can shoot more naturally and with the below change also throw grenades)
-Right Bumper: Grenades (this is the most optimal because you can still use a jetpack without letting go of the throttle It also works on a subconscious level because you have to let go of the trigger to throw the grenade just like your avatar on screen does)
-Left bumper (i'd just stick grenade toggle on here, reload could also go here but for the sake of making it feel at least somewhat comparable to the previous games, it'd be a safe bet to stay with the grenade toggle) I've seen some people suggest to use this as jump but that's a bad idea because under Sprint Ability you wouldn't be able to execute the Sprint+jump very well.
-Y: switch weapons
-X:reload
-A:jump
-B:melee
See, what this does is allow the most optimal scenario to use your ability with out hindering everything else. It also keeps the fundamentals "X,Y,A,B" unchanged, and should be pretty easy to pick up and get used to.
A lot of the suggestions I see do exactly what bungie does, and that's not just change one thing, but change a lot of other things to make it too drastic for someone wanting to switch.
Things Reach is doing well
1.Shotgun is superb. This is a very well balanced shotty, excellent job here.
2. AR is fine. It's a nice balance of support weapon/splash weapon that isn't too powerful but in the right situation it works.
3. Jetpacks rule.
4. Sprint function works very nicely.
5. Needler is fine. most covy guns are fine actually
6. Beam rifle is good, not too powerful, but does the job and it looks and sounds cool.
So, yeah, the main things to really help this game out are: movement speed, dmr improvement, grenade damage reduction, and HUD rework.
Bungie needs to realize (i know they have a hard time) that for the most part people do not play in very nice communicative teams. You shoudln't design the game around "team" and instead allow individual skill to shine through. Good teams will always overcome 1 or 2 all stars so you don't need to hinder the individual. Too much emphasis is placed on team shooting when it should be about individual shooting first.
After these very fundamental changes the game can fly by Halo 3.
But in all honesty I think all of these posts are for nothing. Going by what Bungie has already posted on the front page they could careless what the community thinks about "design" decisions because they are the "professionals" haha, the ones that never seem to know how to balance their game and have to leave it up to other more capable groups of individuals to do so (MLG).
Bungie has shown that they rather the individual feel like a mouse rather than a pit bull, what other reason would they have for making us move like snails?
I know it's all for nothing but whatever, Bungie I hope you understand this game moves at a crawl and people do not want to feel stuck in the mud.
The number 1 complaint on Reach after grenades (which this adds to the frustration from the grenades) is MOVEMENT SPEED.
Please, players like to feel like they can actually travel around the map at a respectable pace and not like a snail wearing 100 pound armor.
[Edited on 05.09.2010 12:16 PM PDT]