First time forum posting (been playing halo since 2004, been playing competitively online since 2006). Not really sure if devs/CR read any of these, here goes. Keywords bolded for skimming purposes.
MCC REACH FEEDBACK:
A lot of small issues, mostly stuff that shows the game hasn't changed/improved since it was released almost a decade ago. It was frustrating then, it feels a little EMBARASSING now.
Sounds like devs know that ppl are upset about MAP SELECTION.
Maps in Reach are not especially good compared to other Halo titles. Some are great, but when you have to play the same 5 repeatedly, if three of them are mediocre, the whole experience sucks. People would like to vote, but devs think people will just pick the same maps over and over. well, that would be an improvement given the way things are right now. there's no perfect solution to this problem, and it's been a topic of debate as long as multiplayer FPS games have existed. I would love to be able to IGNORE GAME TYPES altogether and just PICK THE MAP I want to play, that's more important to me than the game type if I'm sick of playing the same three maps over and over, and wouldn't further fraction the player numbers in any playlist. This is something that is accomplished by picking servers in other PC multiplayer games, but it seems that matchmaking in Halo will never work that way. Still, the PC crowd would like to pick the map.
Halo 3 had a perfect system for ADDING/JOINING PEOPLE when it was released on the 360: hit a button to "PARTY UP". This was very easy and encouraged people to keep playing with players that they vibed well with. Why this was ever changed is beyond me, and I would love to see it in MCC on PC. It really needs to be fast and easy, you only really have about 20 seconds to do this after the end of a match before people leave the lobby, and that doesn't include the time you want to take yourself to look over your last game's K/D and stats.
Looking through COSMETICS is something very simple that is also somehow cumbersome. When I select a helmet to look at, and then decide I want to go back to the list, it returns my position in the list to the very beginning, meaning I have to scroll through the list again to find which place I was in. Even this isn't too bad, except that I don't know all the names of the helmets, so it's nearly impossible to navigate the list without visuals. Not a big issue, but one of many little things that make the experience of playing the game irritating.
PLAYER BASE has almost completely DIED. I don't need to play the latest and greatest games with 100k users, but I can't even find matches on weekends now, and never really found matches for 2v2s, even back in the beginning of january. 2v2s was my favorite in the H3 days so that was disappointing. About 4 weeks after the game came out, the player pool was already too small to have a working ranking system, so competitive has actually suffered the most from the small player base I think.
I've noticed a couple of small changes to the game since the start of the year, like new playlists. Heavies is dedicated now, which is nice, and not being able to BETRAY ppl (obviously an issue because of the Gauss Warthog) silently slipped in there, hard not to notice. I can't say if it's good or bad to have changed it, betraying has always been part of the halo experience for me, even if it's frustrating sometimes. The fact that a change like that, which wasn't even requested by the community (that i'm aware of) was silently made, while something like a REBIND FOR PUSH-TO-TALK hasn't happened, utterly baffles me.
Reach was my least favorite Halo back in the day, and I still think bloom and armor lock detract massively from the experience, but that's more of a personal preference I think. However, i think it's fair to say that those features are why REACH IS A BIT MORE POLARIZING. That, combined with the aged graphics (especially on forge maps) really makes me wonder why Reach was the first game in the MCC that 343 released on PC.
Other halo veterans are gonna stick with the series at this point regardless, and are probably more interested in news about Infinite than the MCC stuff. But I'm mostly a little disappointed in the overall showing of MCC on PC because it could've brought in (and retained) a lot of new players from a younger generation. Halo players (myself included) can be really angry and unwelcoming sometimes, so the community probably shoulders more of the blame for that than the developers. I just love the games, and wish the best for the franchise.
Also, the LACK OF FORGE/THEATER is a bummer, and really the sort of thing that PC is built for vs. consoles. Seems like the game was just ported to PC without much real thought put into how Halo can take advantage of the different controls/user base. I'm a game developer too, so I know that just the act of porting the game to new architecture was a massive undertaking involving late nights and weekends.
Some sort of LIMITED TIME EVENT/THING would be nice between now and the CEA release, something to get people playing again once or twice more in the next month. Maybe a single new map, but I doubt that's in the works, I know that stuff takes a long time to do well, but again, no map creation tools, and we can't pick maps :( so things are getting old very fast. To put it mildly, I don't think adding some new badge for Black History Month or Valentine's day or w/e is the slightest incentive for most ppl to open up the game. Hell, even A SINGLE NEW HELMET that isn't ported from the original version would've been an incentive.
I'll try and end on a high note, because I'm a longtime fanboy and Halo is very near and dear to my heart. It's really WONDERFUL to be able to play Halo on the PC with the m&kb. I've wanted this for a long time and can't wait for the other halo games (Especially 3) to hit steam.
TL;DR game is okay, but just a basic port without much love and care put into it. ppl stopped playing and it's a little embarrassing to even bring up the game at this point. :/
Thanks for your time <3
