Are Halo Players Uncomfortable with Change?

Your question can be interpreted in various ways. It's also highly subjective.
Anyone doesn't need to like change... There has to be a balance between old... and now... the old way of doing things and a new style of doing things.
if too much is introduced all at once then people don't like it because they expect a Halo game to act as a halo game.

This is fine. Everyone has their desires and preferences... I know I do. I like all the Halo games as they all stretch a certain itch for me.
if I wanna take the fight to the covenant.. then Halo Reach is for me. If I want to see the CHief finish the fight then I'm off to relive my memories with Halo 3.

Everyone's mileage may vary.

JimsSon3756 wrote:

This is a general question based upon the presumption that infinite is going to be dynamic in basis.

Are Halo Players Uncomfortable with Change?

I too get nostalgia from old halo days but I don't want to go back... I want new halo days...

I don't really have thoughts on this one yet but let me know what you think about the balance of reinventing versus dynacism.

I've thought it about this and I think that every fanbase is pretty uncomfortable to change to some extent. Maybe Halo's fanbase could be more than usual.

What is change? It's when something becomes different, is altered. Change is neutral, neither good nor bad. Being "anti-change" or being uncomfortable with change is therefore not inherently bad. Halo was a cultural phenomenon in the Bungie days, and while it's still a big name some would argue that it's fallen. So I wouldn't say that people wanting a return to the cultural phenomenon days is bad, even while it might be considered anti-change. But I think the best solution is a balanced mix, to not go entirely back across the board, but to change when necessary and not change things unnecessarily (looking at 4 & 5's art style, music, etc.). There shouldn't be a new or old, black or white, but there should be a mixed solution.

First and foremost should be the focus on making it a "Halo" experience where players will go when they want that, and shouldn't focus on taking too many ideas from other games.

I also think that the idea that all Bungie fans have "nostalgia goggles on" is ridiculous. They're mostly anti-new because the new style changed everything about Halo and they consider that specific change to be bad and unnecessary, even when they might be open to other types of changes. There are certain qualities about Halo that must remain untouched or be built upon (soundtrack and art style for example) that will retain an identity for the franchise.

Pinealtropic wrote:

JimsSon3756 wrote:

This is a general question based upon the presumption that infinite is going to be dynamic in basis.

Are Halo Players Uncomfortable with Change?

I too get nostalgia from old halo days but I don't want to go back... I want new halo days...

I don't really have thoughts on this one yet but let me know what you think about the balance of reinventing versus dynacism.

I've thought it about this and I think that every fanbase is pretty uncomfortable to change to some extent. Maybe Halo's fanbase could be more than usual.

What is change? It's when something becomes different, is altered. Change is neutral, neither good nor bad. Being "anti-change" or being uncomfortable with change is therefore not inherently bad. Halo was a cultural phenomenon in the Bungie days, and while it's still a big name some would argue that it's fallen. So I wouldn't say that people wanting a return to the cultural phenomenon days is bad, even while it might be considered anti-change. But I think the best solution is a balanced mix, to not go entirely back across the board, but to change when necessary and not change things unnecessarily (looking at 4 & 5's art style, music, etc.). There shouldn't be a new or old, black or white, but there should be a mixed solution.

First and foremost should be the focus on making it a "Halo" experience where players will go when they want that, and shouldn't focus on taking too many ideas from other games.

I also think that the idea that all Bungie fans have "nostalgia goggles on" is ridiculous. They're mostly anti-new because the new style changed everything about Halo and they consider that specific change to be bad and unnecessary, even when they might be open to other types of changes. There are certain qualities about Halo that must remain untouched or be built upon (soundtrack and art style for example) that will retain an identity for the franchise.

Definitely like your reply. Tks so much.

I agree that going back to bungie days and balancing some freshness would be best....
In a moment like this, I'm headed to mcc and reach. As a side note, reach was my favorite

Like anything, people are fine with change as long as the change makes sense and is something they slowly get introduced 2. People disliked 4 and 5's direction not because it was differs,t but because the change did not make sense and was abrupt.

Now, whether people liked the changes in their own merit is subjective and ultimately pointless to discuss now. However, the concept of change is not something people are against as long as the change is gradual and makes sense. For many (myself included), sprint did not make sense, armor designs did not make sense, covenant design changes did not make sense and so on.

Ya can change things without overwriting what existed before and really, introducing new things along with older systems is just way better to ease people into it. Integrate new elites with old elites, or new grunts with old grunts etc.

It's not that us grizzled ancients hate change. Look at how much different Halo 3 is from Combat Evolved. Hell, look at the difference between CE and 2. Granted, the old B.net forums were pretty lit when it came to discussion about whether those changes were good or not at the time. Ultimately the changes from game to game grew on us, as they were still recognizable as Halo.

What we don't want to see is pointless change for the sake of change (like the art style). Worse, change for the sake of copying some other successful franchise. That's part of the reason Reach was so divisive back in the day, a lot of people didn't like the inclusion of things like sprint and loadouts as they were deemed "too much like CoD".

The point is, Halo can and should evolve over time. But it should not evolve into a bastardized version of another game for the sake of chasing market trends.

My issue is that 343 have not changed the game much, the have dipped their toes into other ideas. The issue is that the ideas they choose to run with seem counter-intuitive to how Halo should play, replace popular parts of the experience or are poorly executed.

In terms of actual MP gameplay this is what they did, i'll do a list for legibility

Halo 4
- Loadouts with 2 choosable weapons off-spawn + a grenade choice + 2 perks + an armour ability
- infinity settings which gave the player a killstreak package and random weapon spawns on map
- doubled down on sprint and made it a base ability, which then gave players sprint and an armour ability
- added a subset of weapons (promethean) that added no new dimension to the game other than being more powerful clones of existing weapons
there were little things but those 4 were the big ones, none of which i would argue were popular and none which feel like the natural improvement upon the base game.

Halo 5
- about 6 abilities off spawn to copy the advanced movement trend
- a new gametype which essentially came at the expense of BTB which along with team slayer was the most popular playlist in Halo
- another gametype with dev made maps that looked like forge maps that no-one played

Halo hasn't drastically changed, everyone is welcome to an opinion but i don't see how the choices 343 have made have been anything but the attempt to subvert the fundamentals of Halos 'start simple, the map has all the options' sandbox style of play.

I would love to see more map complexity, weapons that allow for interesting map movement, weapons with effects (like in CE with plasma rifle slowing), map interaction that doesn't feel like a gimmick, items that add a new dimension to the game (like how hologram in 4 allowed for players to bait out reactions), experimentation with gametypes and detailed gametype settings. To spawn simple and have a range of ways to play on the map. Halo 4s loadouts and randomness and Halo 5s movement system made the game feel monotonous and repetitive and rob the game of its creativity and metered out pace.

With so many games getting either remade or a new release, they manage to balance the familiar with fresh while keeping it faithful. it's something i think Halo fails, on all 3 fronts.

depends on what you mean by change. most of us like new additions and evolutions of various aspects in the halo universe because it keeps the games fresh, and really one of halo's best traits is that each game is different from each other. but completely redoing everything all at once is a bit much.

I don't mind certain changes when they don't impact core gameplay too much. I'll give some examples of changes that I like and ones that I dislike.

Like

• Dual Wielding in halo 2 and 3, it was a tradeoff of being able to kill more quickly at close range, but you lose access to your grenades.
• The hover function in Halo 5, you can get a good view for a time, but the the cost of being more vulnerable.
• Aim Down Sights, pretty much the same thing as zooming in from the old games, just every weapon is capable of doing so now. Might not be necessary without sprint as maps would be smaller again, but a change that didn't impact too much as a whole.

Dislike

• Sprint, causes maps to have to be larger as a whole, which means weapon range has to be modified on every weapon, also led to a large increase in bullet magnetism in Halo 4 and 5.
• Clamber, takes away the skill of having to time jumps properly which was always a skill in former games that was acquired by learning proper timing.
• Class Skills from Halo 4, allowed you to completely negate certain consequences like having your vehicle destroyed, showing you where the last person who killed you is. These items completely ruined the arena gameplay of Halo.

This makes me think back to a newcomer to Halo I was watching play the series on YouTube a while back. He started with Reach, and then went on to CE. It was heartwarming seeing how quickly he fell in love with the series, and this was from someone that long avoided Xbox and only just recently gave it a try. He was madly in love with Halo 2, and gave 3 that same sort of support.

From the very beginning, there were people urging him not to play Halo 4 or 5, and they kept reminding him not to throughout the streams. Despite that, he insisted he'd play them anyway, and when it came time to play 4? Oh boy. Not only was he pleased to see he could Sprint (I imagine that ruffled some feathers in the stream heh.) but he said the music was godlike, it still felt like he was playing a Bungie game (Bear in mind, this was Campaign not Multiplayer), and at the end of the second H4 stream mentioned that he appreciated the fact they tried to do something different.

By the end of the game, he had placed Halo 4 as being his second favorite in the series, behind Halo 2. Because he liked Halo 4 so much, I could see some people around these parts quickly suggesting "That must have been his first Halo then lol" but that wasn't the case. It wasn't the case for me either, but I had years to get to know CE, 2, and 3. I didn't mind most of the new additions and I still to this day feel people are making way too big of a deal out of things like Sprint or jetpacks or whatever. With that being said, I'd appreciate the games with them or without them - it really doesn't make or break the games for me like it seemingly does for some others.

All that in mind, I don't think that the community as a whole is averse to change. Some might be more loud about it than others, but I think a lot of us are at least willing to give change a try and see if it works out or not. Some of these changes were overwhelmingly negative, others were more mixed. I feel that some of the things Reach, 4, and 5 did can still 'work' in the Halo games, while other things they did probably wouldn't. At the end of the day they can't please everyone, especially not after these last three games ended up bringing in a community that has a side that wants new additions and another side that wants things to remain unchanged.

I don't agree with "Change for the sake of change", but I also feel that things can't always just remain exactly the same either. Fundamentally changing an existing mechanic (like a thread suggested we do with Shields / Health Regen) as opposed to introducing a new one (Hijacking back in the day, Equipment with Halo 3/Reach/4, etc). I think it'd be okay to introduce new things to the series.

The short answer is that I don't think that Halo community as a whole is not more uncomfortable with changes as any other community as everyone is an individual that take different types of changes differently, community is not some hiveminded entity set against something in unison.

And what do I think of forwarding in the series, a brand needs to have it's own recognizeable aspects while each new installation should bring something new, yet unseen in the franchise before while avoiding becoming too similar to competition in the market simultaneously in the world of ongoing trends.

But it also needs to be recognized that not every new change or addition is good, not bad either mind you, some of such aspects should be treated simply as experiments which didn't work out, surely some changes work in the big picture but not every new thing needs to remain in the franchise either. There shouldn't be fear of backpedaling some aspects if they dont work out in some particular brand.

But there definitely are some restrictive matters in bigger brands, as they already have some set rules in their universes.

The balance is introducing new things while respecting those set rules on the existing beforehand created universe, it's something to build on, not trash the foundations & replace it with something entirely different while painting something resembling the old brand on top of it. for then the brand loses its soul & becomes just a shell, hollow if you prefer the term.