Halo 5: Guardians

Halo 4 and Reach had fairly decent weapon balances, 4 was actually quite surprising considering the weapon selection was through the roof. The Forerunner weapons were probably not as different from the others as they could have been (burst rifle, automatic rifle, shotgun, etc), but the visual element was pretty satisfying. Disintegrating a Hunter with a scattershot to the soft parts is something I didn't know I always wanted to do. And I know some called the Binary Rifle the "Eye of Sauron."

Binary rifle was way too good, and non-SAW automatics continued to be bad. The Incineration Cannon was such a monster it wasn't even funny. There was a ton of overlap as well, which isn't great; the Light Rifle, the DMR, the BR, and the Carbine filled essentially identical roles, as did the Shotty and Scattershot.

The AR wasn't that bad. It was pretty good in some regards. Just don't engage DMR users at long range with it.

And don't engage BR users at any range with it

edited 3rd Sep '15 7:29:16 PM by kingtiger522

The AR was great in campaign, as its bloom was easier to control than in Reach, making it ideal for sawing at Promethean shields. But the lack of ammo for most missions made it unfeasible, and then in multiplayer it was outclassed.

I'm more concerned with how they're going to balance Prometheans. Every class but Crawlers was broken in some way, so they've got a lot of work to do.

edited 3rd Sep '15 10:33:38 PM by Tuckerscreator

They seem to be introducing the Soldiers as a justification for thinning out the Knights. Having them as a "most common fodder" class, and putting the Knight/Keeper combo into more of a Miniboss/Hunter role would definitely be a step in the right direction.

edited 3rd Sep '15 10:42:17 PM by kingtiger522

The AR was beefed up in later multiplayer, I think the damage remained the same but spread was tighter. It became the optimal weapon in tight spaces, sans a shotgun. The Halo 5 AR felt similar to that version.

Still, the game had four weapons with similar characteristics and had them tweaked so that all three were competitive. The Carbine had the fastest rate of fire, making it very useful in surprise situations. The BR was good at mid range but not quite accurate enough at long range, while the DMR had the advantage at long range. The LR was versatile at nearly all ranges.

The Incinerator Cannon in practice was not much different than a rocket launcher, visually very intimidating but the secondary splash damage was redundant after the first. The impact register on the projectile was also finicky, a lot of people killed themselves trying to slip around a corner. The Binary Rifle was broken in the hands of very good players (who would otherwise wreck with the regular sniper), but it was a little clunky in handling.

I've beaten BR users with the AR. Granted it was the kind of range where the spread was irrelevant but still.

I mean... it's possible for any gun to beat any other gun allowing for variation between players, but all else being equal BR beats AR under basically any circumstances.

I guess that what I'm trying to say here is that while you're all right that 4 was better than CE-Reach in terms of weapon balance, it still wasn't what I'd call good. From my time with the beta, H5 is a definite improvement, even over 4.

More cannons (but no incineration).

True. Covenant weapons are notoriously underpowered in Halo multiplayer. Slow shots, low damage, always overheats when you need them the most. Or like the Carbine and Beam Rifle, it instantly gives you away.

On another topic, the court documents for Martin O'Donnell's case against Bungie are now online, and a lot of light has been shed why he was fired. This article summarizes most of it.

Reading what happened, I can agree that it was fairly unprofessional of Marty to be so vocally angry about how Activision hid away his music (he wasn't wrong to be angry about it, though), but Bungie went way over the line in firing him and then trying to steal his founder's shares. It's an utter shame a relationship this long went so sour.

This is what usually happens with Creative Differences. Both sides have their reasons, it's rarely one Obviously Evil exec who decides to screw themselves over by screwing over a valuable employee. Sympathy will certainly be with O'Donnell, who had legitimate concerns and in his mind was standing up for the artistic integrity of Bungie as a whole.

In case anyone doesn't even want to read the short version:

• O'Donnell was asked to compose music that would be used for the entirety of Destiny (called "Music of the Spheres") and not rework themes for each installment.
• In the 2013 E3 Destiny trailer, it was agreed they would premier his Destiny music there but Activision instead aired one with different music altogether.
• This lead to O'Donnell being vocally angry at Activision for taking away their artistic contribution to their own work, as he planned to release the "Music of the Spheres" soundtrack shortly after.
• When Destiny was delayed, O'Donnell insisted waiting until the game was completely stable before continuing work on the sound design. This frustrated other Bungie employees (previously on his side over the E3 issue) who felt O'Donnell was getting lazy over the project.
• While maybe not quite an original founder of Bungie, O'Donnell was early enough in the company's life that he held founder's stock and when he was fired they took that stock away from him. That was the crux of the lawsuit, along with royalties for the music.

edited 5th Sep '15 6:00:47 PM by KJMackley

So, in other words, Activision did a dick move, O'Donnell overreacted, Bungie overreacted to the overreaction, and lawsuits happened?

And what was once a very well respected game company is no more.

I would consider that an overreaction as well. Bungie made a mistake. It happens. I'm not even certain why it's being discussed here, since at this point it's only tangentially related to Halo as it is, much less 5 in particular.

edited 5th Sep '15 11:37:58 PM by EndlessSea

I think most people recognized from the start that Bungie partnering with a mega-publisher like Activision was going to lead to this kind of friction. Microsoft had a different relationship altogether, knowing that Bungie was their golden ticket. The main reason Bungie exploded in popularity as a developer is because Microsoft gave them relative free reign when it came to fan interaction. Most studios don't get that kind of recognition.

Leaked Halo 5 Cinema Trailer/Vidoc/Thing

Quality is potato-tier, but not quite as out there as the barn thing.

Contains what might be considered spoilers, so you have been warned.

edited 6th Sep '15 2:46:44 PM by kingtiger522

Embed works?

edited 6th Sep '15 7:16:52 PM by AnotherGuy

Did it stop? I had to stop frequenting the site for a while, the ad situation got really ridiculous.

Oh yes, for a while you couldn't embed videos. Quite annoying.

From what I can gather, apparently the ending to Halo 5 has already been leaked onto Youtube, or something like that. Didn't stick around to find out more, don't want no spoilers.

Kinda spoiled Halo 4 for myself last time, so I should probably go dark... quite a long time to avoid the boards I usually frequent though...

As someone that for the most part was unspoiled with Halo 4 (I just knew it was something related to the Didact) I'm going to avoid that for fear of spoiling something that will make me tear up like Halo 4's ending.

The leaked Halo 5 ending: John and Locke end up having blueberry pancakes at the IHOP. Yum.

edited 8th Sep '15 10:28:52 AM by AnotherGuy

They leave Buck with the bill.