[Locked] Multiplayer Beta – UNSC Feedback Thread

Is it just me, or do the Jump Brutes seem to have a little too much armor and power dealt against the UNSC units?

I don't know what is planned for the full game, but here are some of my requests
-Keep the boost ability for the banshees
-Keep the overdrive ability for the locusts
-Make the health bars are more noticeable like in the first game, I also wanna be able to see all units and buildings health bars at once
-I kinda wish the vampires would make a return
-Reduce the population costs on some of these units, A population cost of 4 for only 2 Elite Rangers in one unit seems ridiculous. 1 engineer should cost only 1 population not 3.
-Will the Scarabs come back?
-keep the Covenant leader powers like they were.

Hello All
I would like to get across that Halo Wars 2 looks great and I cannot be more excited for its release. Also I by no means have any idea on what it takes to create a title such as Halo Wars 2. Ergo, this thing I wrote is just my opinion as a HUGE Halo fan and I would just like to get it out there to support as constructive criticism. Therefore, here it goes as I was playing the beta some aspects that made the original halo wars great were absent. One of these absentee aspects is the lack of unit upgradeability especially commander specific upgrades such as Grizzly Tanks or Hawks. These strategic upgrades are instead replaced by upgrades for an entire unit class such as vesicles and air units (with exception to canister shell for scorpions and fuel rods for the hunters). I am personally not a fan of its new upgrade system because it takes away some of the early game skill and the late game pandemonium. An example of this would be if I was a Professor Anders I would optimize my build order to get me hawks as soon as possible. Conversely it would be the other teams’ duty to prep some anti air and maybe some tanks to either pester me to stall my build or outright destroy me before my hawks could be made. That however is the strategic part the thing this absentee feature is taking the most from is the late game. In my time playing the original Halo Wars (all 300+ hours of it) nothing was more fun than a 45-minute game where all three armies had maxed out units on Frozen Valley. During games such as these you could count on me having a hulking purple Scarab lying in wait upon one of the valley's frost bitten mountain tops waiting to ambush and subsequently melt those unlucky enough to cross by my mountain (also the covenant has no scarab super unit in Halo Wars 2 beta hopefully that's in the full game ;))) ) . I digress, eventually in those types of games scarabs, ODST's, Grizzly Tanks, Hawks and their respective leaders (UNSC and Covenant) would duke it out in epic earth shattering battles clashing their vast armies together. These were the moments that made the original Halo Wars Great!! Not to mention for me those were some of the most cherished Halo memories I possess (next to Halo 2 and 3's release dates lol). Long Story short bring back the Super Units please (Scarab, Grizzlies, Hawks and ODST(as fully upgraded mares not cutter leader power)). Another thing Halo Wars 2 changed is the unit variation between the UNSC and the Covenant. In the Original Halo Wars the UNSC and the Coronation had many units that had counterparts on either side (banshee and hornets warthogs and ghosts). However, many of the units had counterparts in different unit classes. An example of which are the Hunters being infantry and cobra being in the vehicle unit class. this variation in the unit class counterparts between the two factions added a dimension to the games strategy. For instance, let’s say my teammate and I were an arbiter and a cutter and we were facing a two Sargent Forges. In this situation I would be best if I made the anti-vehicle because my hunters could take out the Grizzles without the risk of being countered by Cobras. My teammate could then focus on air power and eventually upgrade to some ODST late game because i could take out both sets to tanks and wolverines with my hunter army. Conversely the two forges are stuck they chose to both be the same leader which limits their options to a few things where my teammate and I can counter about anything they throw at us because of our increased variation. Furthering this point in Halo Wars 2 the UNSC leader powers and Covenant leader power system are too similar. in the original Halo Wars Covenant leaders had to be alive on the battlefield to utilize their powers the UNSC did not. These ads to some variation the armies. An example of which would be the need for anti-air to combat a flying Prophet of Regret (so he does not glass your face) or the neglect of building a scarab in fear of a 4x mac-blast. Furthermore, the fact that the Covenant leaders such as the Brute Warlord does not channel his leader power (which is glassing beam now?) like the Brute Chieftain channeled his vortex leaving him open to attack not only leaves me feeling less power full with my leader in Halo Wars 2 but gives the other leader next to no opportunity to stop me from glassing hos face in because I am no longer stationary and vulnerable. Finally, I would just like to congratulate 343 on the fact that they are even making this game. It is a tremendous act of fan service and you have made this fan ecstatic.

I have a question on how team deathmatch works, I had 90% of the map under control, was massing vultures when game ended in defeat, they had 3 bases, my team had the rest, how did I lose? Team death match should be the enemy team destroyed, not how they can hold back and kill more units while they are being withered away for a victory.

takeomeow dn wrote:

I feel strongly that the ODST cool down time needs to be decreased and the MAC blast needs to be improved the MAC blast right now shouldn't even be called a MAC blast with how weak it is the MAC blast is supposed to be powerful and everyone knows this.

I feel like the ODST cooldown is perfectly fine, because if you use a the special ability it can decimate building, so having a large amount of ODST could kill a base really fast

Nickopoulos wrote:

Hello, I have been waiting for this game for years now and it is almost finally here! I am just very concerned for my next favorite game. I just want to make sure most of the issues get addressed that I have seen so far so it can come out better in the end. I'm almost a 1100 hour online veteran of halo wars 1 and obviously I like what the first game had, but I am still interested in what Halo Wars 2 has to offer.

-So far it is seems like they just prettied her up, took some cool stuff out and added some weird iffy new things in. It really does look too cartoony. I thought they would beautify it like the cutscences from the first HW campaign or the trailer for the second. I was expecting bigger unit sizes, much bigger unit caps, way bigger maps, and bigger teams (6v6).

-So when I play as Captain Cutter on HW1 I am specifically choosing him for the iconic multiple devastating MACs, the ODST spamming, and the occasional max pop Elephant huddle. With HW2 you are given one MAC round that seems pretty useless even when fully upgraded. You can get ODSTs, BUT only one unit at a time and has a slow reload time. I see that they tried to spice it up with giving us more options to choose from in the leader powers menu, but all of them are either too nurfed or too buffed. The waypoint marker for when you try to show a point on the map to a teammate is just a little white blip for a second and it doesn't even make a sound. How am i going to know you are trying to show me something if were not in a party?

-This new game, even though it is a beta seems to be too fast paced, just focused on small skirmishes that one side wins quickly and when they push the other team already has another small army ready to fight them back so it goes on like that forever. No real strategy to it. Just keep pumping and sending in units. Now I know that is how HW1 was/is played but it goes smoother and has more structure to it. It is too chaotic now. The balance is too balanced.

-I was happy to see they added another of the UNSC flying vehicles in the air pad, the Falcon, but it is a different variant that is only good for healing/repairing, no combat role whatsoever. Sort of a bummer. Also sad that Pelicans still are not units to be used either. So where did the Elephant and Cobra go? Flame throwers switching over to snipers actually makes sense. Always seeing how devastating the rebel snipers were on HW1 never made sense why they gave us flame throwers in the first place. Why did they have to create a new scout unit? For goodness sake why not use the Mongoose??? Not some weird useless tribike. Not sure why the Scorpions are nurfed down so much. They seemed to focused on the Rock Paper Scissors method.

-The map also seems very crowded and compact, kind of like I am playing a match of LOL or DOTA. The base and other bases honestly do not seem like they would make sense in the big picture. Those tiny, one pad outposts don't look very good and also don't seem to be worth grabbing and defending. Your main base really feels kind of jumbled together. It reminds me of the map Blackout. I am not sure yet how i feel about the way you get energy. The reactors were replaced with a windmill thing that I feel are used as "filler" buildings. The reactors made sense, the windmill things kinda do not, but I am not sure how i feel yet. Taking control of on map energy output points that you can not garrison units in really doesn't make sense.

-For gods sake PLEASE do not let the campaign turn out to be like Halo 4 and 5. One being a "What the -Yoink- just happened" kind of game and the other ending like a over hyped season finale of a drug out show that they could not just finish and just haaaaad to end in a cliffhanger so they could make another season. Just make it believable to the lore and the games before it. Make it something I would enjoy replaying time and time again. Keep some basics please. Keep how Cutter, Anders, and The Spirit Of Fire looked. Keep ODST-OD-OD-ODS-OD-OD-OD-ODST-ODS-ODST, HELL JUMPERS STANDING DOWN. Keep the originality of what Halo use to be, not what it is trying to be now. Keep me scared of the sound of super speed rods of tugstun falling from the sky and obliterating my units.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZImP2ganHg <-- Would have worked for me :P

Still waiting for..

• HW1 controller layout option
• After action reports
• Space battles
• No BS storyline
• A beautiful soundtrack
• Endless hours of actually genuine fun

Right?

WarHawk255 wrote:

Hello All
I would like to get across that Halo Wars 2 looks great and I cannot be more excited for its release. Also I by no means have any idea on what it takes to create a title such as Halo Wars 2. Ergo, this thing I wrote is just my opinion as a HUGE Halo fan and I would just like to get it out there to support as constructive criticism. Therefore, here it goes as I was playing the beta some aspects that made the original halo wars great were absent. One of these absentee aspects is the lack of unit upgradeability especially commander specific upgrades such as Grizzly Tanks or Hawks. These strategic upgrades are instead replaced by upgrades for an entire unit class such as vesicles and air units (with exception to canister shell for scorpions and fuel rods for the hunters). I am personally not a fan of its new upgrade system because it takes away some of the early game skill and the late game pandemonium. An example of this would be if I was a Professor Anders I would optimize my build order to get me hawks as soon as possible. Conversely it would be the other teams’ duty to prep some anti air and maybe some tanks to either pester me to stall my build or outright destroy me before my hawks could be made. That however is the strategic part the thing this absentee feature is taking the most from is the late game. In my time playing the original Halo Wars (all 300+ hours of it) nothing was more fun than a 45-minute game where all three armies had maxed out units on Frozen Valley. During games such as these you could count on me having a hulking purple Scarab lying in wait upon one of the valley's frost bitten mountain tops waiting to ambush and subsequently melt those unlucky enough to cross by my mountain (also the covenant has no scarab super unit in Halo Wars 2 beta hopefully that's in the full game ;))) ) . I digress, eventually in those types of games scarabs, ODST's, Grizzly Tanks, Hawks and their respective leaders (UNSC and Covenant) would duke it out in epic earth shattering battles clashing their vast armies together. These were the moments that made the original Halo Wars Great!! Not to mention for me those were some of the most cherished Halo memories I possess (next to Halo 2 and 3's release dates lol). Long Story short bring back the Super Units please (Scarab, Grizzlies, Hawks and ODST(as fully upgraded mares not cutter leader power)). Another thing Halo Wars 2 changed is the unit variation between the UNSC and the Covenant. In the Original Halo Wars the UNSC and the Coronation had many units that had counterparts on either side (banshee and hornets warthogs and ghosts). However, many of the units had counterparts in different unit classes. An example of which are the Hunters being infantry and cobra being in the vehicle unit class. this variation in the unit class counterparts between the two factions added a dimension to the games strategy. For instance, let’s say my teammate and I were an arbiter and a cutter and we were facing a two Sargent Forges. In this situation I would be best if I made the anti-vehicle because my hunters could take out the Grizzles without the risk of being countered by Cobras. My teammate could then focus on air power and eventually upgrade to some ODST late game because i could take out both sets to tanks and wolverines with my hunter army. Conversely the two forges are stuck they chose to both be the same leader which limits their options to a few things where my teammate and I can counter about anything they throw at us because of our increased variation. Furthering this point in Halo Wars 2 the UNSC leader powers and Covenant leader power system are too similar. in the original Halo Wars Covenant leaders had to be alive on the battlefield to utilize their powers the UNSC did not. These ads to some variation the armies. An example of which would be the need for anti-air to combat a flying Prophet of Regret (so he does not glass your face) or the neglect of building a scarab in fear of a 4x mac-blast. Furthermore, the fact that the Covenant leaders such as the Brute Warlord does not channel his leader power (which is glassing beam now?) like the Brute Chieftain channeled his vortex leaving him open to attack not only leaves me feeling less power full with my leader in Halo Wars 2 but gives the other leader next to no opportunity to stop me from glassing hos face in because I am no longer stationary and vulnerable. Finally, I would just like to congratulate 343 on the fact that they are even making this game. It is a tremendous act of fan service and you have made this fan ecstatic.

This is awesome and sums many thoughts of mine as well! basically stick to a lot of the basics!!! but with MORE AND NEW!!!! and again PELICAN as a a full time transport with a mini-gun for basic defense would be awesome!!!!!

I dont like that basically UNSC and banish Have the same units, in halo wars 1 the Cobra was a vehicle anti-vehicle and the covenant Have infantry anti-vehicles, at the same way I hope see vampires like anti-aereal units may be like a exclusive troop of a leader, this maybe can bring more dificult tío the gane and better strategies

I like HW2 generally; I haven't played HW1, so I don't really know how everything works. However one thing I would like in HW2 is the ability to increase your maximum number of units. Perhaps there could be some sort of upgrade that would allow you to do that.

SkyburnerLos wrote:

takeomeow dn wrote:

I feel strongly that the ODST cool down time needs to be decreased and the MAC blast needs to be improved the MAC blast right now shouldn't even be called a MAC blast with how weak it is the MAC blast is supposed to be powerful and everyone knows this.

I feel like the ODST cooldown is perfectly fine, because if you use a the special ability it can decimate building, so having a large amount of ODST could kill a base really fast

Then just make ODST's the way they were on Halo Wars 1 I liked the multiple ODST's a lot better.