Halo 3 Beta

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Thu May 17, 2007 6:33 pm

Spooky wrote:But you need the Crackdown disc to play it.

Oh, that sucks. I won't bother if returning Crackdown will disable the demo. No access from dashboard?

ExtremeGamer · Post by **ExtremeGamer** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:58 am

Naples39 wrote:
Spooky wrote:But you need the Crackdown disc to play it.
Oh, that sucks. I won't bother if returning Crackdown will disable the demo. No access from dashboard?

Nope. It's a horrible idea, because I had a bunch of times last night when invited, that I couldn't even just jump in while playing Crackdown, it kept asking for the Halo 3 Beta disc. You have to be in Crackdown, and then be in Halo 3 to even accept invites.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:16 am

The beta only lasts til the beginning of June. The 4th I think. An extended rental will do the trick. Plus, Crackdown is hella fun, especially co-op online.

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:30 am

I had a ton of fun last night and hope everyone else did too. I'll be setting up another party at 10:30pm EDT tonight. Hopefully we'll get another full room of eight.

SoMisss2000 · Post by **SoMisss2000** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:15 am

ScoopBrady wrote:The beta only lasts til the beginning of June. The 4th I think. An extended rental will do the trick. Plus, Crackdown is hella fun, especially co-op online.

they extended it to 6/10 because of the botched beta launch.

SoMisss2000 · Post by **SoMisss2000** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:15 am

ScoopBrady wrote:The beta only lasts til the beginning of June. The 4th I think. An extended rental will do the trick. Plus, Crackdown is hella fun, especially co-op online.

they extended it to 6/10 because of the botched beta launch. That ssaid, I see playing the same 3 maps over and over get old quick.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:48 am

SoMisss2000 wrote:
ScoopBrady wrote:The beta only lasts til the beginning of June. The 4th I think. An extended rental will do the trick. Plus, Crackdown is hella fun, especially co-op online.
they extended it to 6/10 because of the botched beta launch. That ssaid, I see playing the same 3 maps over and over get old quick.

Maybe get old, maybe not so much. It's the gameplay that counts. I just wish that at least in player match mode, the host could choose the game type. This thing is a tease! The very first game of 'team skirmish' I played was team oddball. After last night I'm starting to think that was a dream . . .

Also, they might as well end the Beta on the 29th or 30th, since that's when Shadowrun comes out. . . .

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:53 am

I'll try to get there tonight. I was just too beat to join in yesterday.

Shadowrun is multiplayer only, right Zep? No single player at all?

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:56 am

I'll give it another go tonight, but I'm seriously considering canceling my pre-order based on last night session. The graphics are a little better and the new weapons and maps are really cool.

But last night reminded me about why I dislike Halo multiplayer. You can empty 2 clips into a guy and he turns around and one shot kills you because he has a better weapon. A guy can run right up to you while your blasting him and hit you once with his rifle melee style and kill you. The game always breaks down to:
- Map memorization
- Knowing where the weapons spawn and which is the most powerful
- Bunny Hoping Skills

When we played the bomb mode or king of the hill I found those better then slayer. Plus I am really out of practice with this game style so I will try some more and see if it warms on me.

seanmac31 · Post by **seanmac31** » Fri May 18, 2007 11:34 am

Danimal wrote:I'll give it another go tonight, but I'm seriously considering canceling my pre-order based on last night session. The graphics are a little better and the new weapons and maps are really cool.

But last night reminded me about why I dislike Halo multiplayer. You can empty 2 clips into a guy and he turns around and one shot kills you because he has a better weapon. A guy can run right up to you while your blasting him and hit you once with his rifle melee style and kill you. The game always breaks down to:
- Map memorization
- Knowing where the weapons spawn and which is the most powerful
- Bunny Hoping Skills

When we played the bomb mode or king of the hill I found those better then slayer. Plus I am really out of practice with this game style so I will try some more and see if it warms on me.

Interesting. I can see having those complaints to some extent with Halo 2, but it seems to me that Bungie took steps to more or less correct those problems with Halo 3. In particular, changing the starting weapon to the assault rifle was key. The SMG was basically worthless, but the assault rifle is good enough that you will see a lot of players simply using it throughout the game. You are definitely able to hold your own at short to medium range with it. The other major change is that they made sure there are a lot of good weapons lying around. There are so many carbines and battle rifles that you can equip yourself optimally within 10 seconds of spawning more often than not.

My goal is always to maximize my kill to death ratio (I only end up around 50% or worse when I get frustrated and start playing stupidly). It's the same take I have on most FPS/shooters, and I find that Halo really does allow me to play that way. In theory, Gears of War should be the ultimate for players who want to move from point to point, lay down long range suppressing fire, etc, etc, but as much as I love Gears, playing that way can put you at a disadvantage versus the sniper/shotgun/roll and grenade melee set. Not always, but the lancer's value is usually directly tied to the quality of your connection.

Anyway, I would suggest a few tactical adjustments if you are bothered by the above-mentioned issues:

1- Pick your battles, especially in team games. If you are outgunned and see red running around on your HUD, don't rush to engage. Slink off, or use grenades to cover your withdrawl to a more defensible position. If the other team has three guys bunched up moving past, don't engage the first guy, wait for them to move past and then pick off the last guy.

2- Use defensive positions. A battle rifle behind a wall is tremendously effective against anyone moving over open ground, no matter how big a gun he's carrying.

3- Relocate after every sniper shot, and think about relocating after every kill. It saves you from dying when the guy you killed respawns and immediately comes looking for you where you were.

4- Don't run around the map like a chicken with its head cut off, and make plentiful use of the crouch. There's an option in the control settings to toggle crouch so that when you click the thumbstick, you stay low. Crouching keeps your motion senser off, so it can be the safest way to move around dangerous areas.

5- Don't die. It sounds trite, but all FPS games have certain spawn issues, so the best thing to do is backtrack out of a firefight if you can and regroup.

As for the bunny hopping, it's annoying, but I generally find it's easier to shoot someone who is hopping than it is for them to shoot me. But your mileage may vary.

Anyway, I was racking up the kills at a very good clip in team slayer last night and keeping some awful teams in contention. I would love to be able to do the same thing in GOW, but when you have a bad team there, you're pretty much screwed no matter what.

Fshguy · Post by **Fshguy** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:43 pm

mixdj1 wrote:I had a ton of fun last night and hope everyone else did too. I'll be setting up another party at 10:30pm EDT tonight. Hopefully we'll get another full room of eight.

I guess I wouldn't be a good friend if I wasn't there for you in your time of need.

Slumberland · Post by **Slumberland** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:48 pm

Seanmac, great post. If I trust anyone's tips, it's the dude I see on my friendslist constantly playing Halo 2 for the last three years!

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Fri May 18, 2007 1:28 pm

Danimal wrote:I'll give it another go tonight, but I'm seriously considering canceling my pre-order based on last night session.

Man, I heard you say that last night and I was sure you were joking, what with all the laughter and fun you seemed to be having. I guess I just can't tell when people are having fun.

The Halo shield thing provides, to me, the absolute best platform for true teamwork than any other game I can think of except maybe GoW. Knowing that a one on one confrontation is a bit of a crapshoot, dependent on who has what weapons and who can aim better or avoid better, or has a lot of luck, or who has the fastest start, etc., but also knowing that 2 on 1 in just about any instance is going to be a win for the 2 and not the 1 (except, even as the 1 you still have some hope if you can pull off a miracle, like if you have the rockets or something) is very conducive to trying to work as a team. In a more 'realistic' game like a GRAW or a R6, 2 on 1 is as often as not no advantage for the 2, since once you know the enemy is there it's pretty much too late. You only know he's there because he shot you and you're dead. At least in Halo, you can run and scream like a girl after the first shots are fired, and you can look for cover, and if you have a teammate nearby, the guy chasing you will be very surprised, and then most likely dead because you've already worn away his shield just a little bit but enough for your buddy to whipe him out without having to reload. It seems to me that a lot of the complaints, especially the whole 'I empty a clip into the guy and he still kills me' all come from not understanding how the shield functions.

I think it's worth noting that pretty much every game now uses something very similar to the Halo health system. It works, it's fair, it's not cheap but rather it's a designed part of the gameplay mechanics. You have a powerful shield, then you have the tender gooey meat-bag inside it. I almost never feel like I get cheap-shotted in Halo even when I suck and am dying a lot, even when I'm getting sniped from halfway across the map, and this is as opposed to the GRAW type games where there's little to no feedback as to whether you are hitting the other guy (Halo it's very clear to see the shield taking hits), or GoW where there is so much random disjointed laggy weirdness you can't tell what is going on half the time in a melee scrum.

They're all fun and they're all different. Once I grasped the basics of the shield in Halo, I haven't had any complaints. Cheating in online games is a problem with Halo2, and I hope they do better locking that stuff out with this one, but the gameplay basics, the way it's supposed to work without cheating, are just plain fun.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:26 pm

Thanks for all the tips, I'll fully admit that I'm not the best at this game and I could use some practice. Maybe it was just the slayer modes I didn't like, because I really like the bomb and king of the hill.

I was having fun, I laugh at myself when I play these games. You and I on the Bike was comical. It's just frustrating sometimes, one of the guys last night was a super player and he was always on the other team so maybe that made it worse.

I will say I can't stand that you have to press the d-pad to communicate. It only took me 20 minutes to figure that out.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:34 pm

Danimal wrote:I will say I can't stand that you have to press the d-pad to communicate. It only took me 20 minutes to figure that out.

It's the one time though, right? I'm assuming you don't have to press it every time you talk. I've only played a couple of matches so I don't really know the beta that well yet.

Who's playing tonight?

greggsand · Post by **greggsand** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:35 pm

Remember, this is the Beta. Ideally, bungie will still be making tweaks. As far as weapon balancing, never really found it to be a big issue in H2 (grenades were a good equalizer).

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:55 pm

ScoopBrady wrote:It's the one time though, right? I'm assuming you don't have to press it every time you talk. I've only played a couple of matches so I don't really know the beta that well yet.

Who's playing tonight?

Er, no, it's just like Halo2. Whenever you talk, you can be heard through proximity chat which comes through the speakers just like environmental sounds and gunfire. You tap the d-pad in any direction, and you can hear a little 'opening connection' squirty sound, and you can then talk 'over the radio' to your teammates, who hear you over the headset no metter where they are on the map. Because of the lack of audio mixing options, I tend to have the audio pretty low over my speakers (the wide dynamic range means I have to keep it low because the gunfire and explosions can be very loud when I am near them), so proximity voice is something where I can hear the person is talking, but often can't comprehend what is being said.

New to Halo3 and the beta is the ability to set voice chat preferences so that you only hear voice chat from your teammates/ party members, both in proximity voice or over the headset. While this is nice for avoiding the whining and boasting of annoying randoms in the post-game lobby, I found last night that I really want to have that proximity voice active for the other team. There were times last night when we were in a party of four playing ranked matches where it came in very handy to be able to hear the other team yapping like the Martians in Mars Attacks around a corner or in an adjacent room. Funny, to tell the truth, and really a nice advantage.

I can understand how frustrating it can be to hear the boasting and such from other players, but personally, outside of the really annoying kid who will sing constantly, or make noise just to make noise, or has a fan blowing into his mic, I don't mind hearing the randoms yap away. I guess I just don't think about it to the extent that it affects my play, or at least to the extent that the advantage of proximity voice in terms of hearing the other team would be overcast by the annoyance of some kid trying to be tough or annoying.

Whatever. It's a nice option to have, and I would think it should help some here who like the game feel less anxiety about playing randoms. What really bothered me in Halo2 more than anything was the cheating, the little tricks and exploits, or downright modding or router tampering and so on.

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:13 pm

Zeppo wrote:While this is nice for avoiding the whining and boasting of annoying randoms in the post-game lobby, I found last night that I really want to have that proximity voice active for the other team. There were times last night when we were in a party of four playing ranked matches where it came in very handy to be able to hear the other team yapping like the Martians in Mars Attacks around a corner or in an adjacent room. Funny, to tell the truth, and really a nice advantage.

...

I guess I just don't think about it to the extent that it affects my play, or at least to the extent that the advantage of proximity voice in terms of hearing the other team would be overcast by the annoyance of some kid trying to be tough or annoying.

I know we discussed this last night and I see your point about losing the advantage of hearing where the opponents are but it appears that only works in the training playlists anyway. This quote is from the Halo 3 FAQ:

In the Halo 3 Public Beta, the default voice setting is that you can hear and talk to All. However, it is important to note that in ranked games, you can only communicate with Team and Party Members in-game. In ranked matches, this means you can’t hear smack talk or proximity voice from strangers. You will still be able to communicate with everyone, including non-team strangers in the post-game lobby, unless you change your settings to avoid that.

Since I plan to play a lot of ranked matches I guess I don't have worry about losing that tactical advantage when turning off opposing team chat.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Sat May 19, 2007 11:39 am

So, we playin' tonight?

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sat May 19, 2007 12:12 pm

mixdj1 wrote: Since I plan to play a lot of ranked matches I guess I don't have worry about losing that tactical advantage when turning off opposing team chat.

Yeah, that must've been in those early, player match rounds we were doing. I really like that aspect of the proximity voice, the giving away of your position aspect, but oh well.

BTW the B button is very useful once returning to the lobby, so as to not hear the boasting that get under y'alls skin so badly. When I play alone, I pretty much always jump out immediately with that B button; that's because I pretty much always suck like I was sucking in the last few rounds last night.

I hate team slayer.

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Sat May 19, 2007 1:02 pm

tealboy03 wrote:So, we playin' tonight?

Sure, I'll set up another party at 10:30pm EDT.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Sat May 19, 2007 4:29 pm

Hopefully I'll be on tonight. Last night my nephew was surprisedly dropped off at our house and wasn't picked up again until 12:15 a.m. By the time I got on everybody was done.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:26 pm

I'll play more tonight.

Nozzleman_216 · Post by **Nozzleman_216** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:48 pm

Thanks for the tips guys. I will try to play tonight too. I am at work as I was last night but I need to get the Xbox here from home first LOL. I have a lot of fun playing this and when we get our butts handed to us I just remind myself that most of these people do nothing but play Halo. I am still amazed at the amount of people that play it still. One other thing is I was looking through my recent players list last night and saw Fata1ty or whatever his name is, if its the same guy and not some poser, he was the world gaming champion. LOL and this guys was good so it may have been.

One thing I don't think I have ever mentioned to anyone, if for some reason I leave a game (any game I play with you guys) and I don't come back relatively quick chances are there is a fire call. This applies to when I am at home too as I am on call all the time. I don't play much at work as some guys don't like it but they had a BLAST watching last night. I will always say bye when I have a chance or have to leave though, its just sometimes when the bells ring its time to go and shut'er off

edit: one more thing I just thought of, if you guys see me online playing the beta and you send an invite and I do not accept, its not me playing. Its my son. He loves Halo and I have been letting him play online with NO HEADSET and NO SPEAKERS. He loved both games. I hate that he likes it so much but oh well. The only way he can play it is on my gamertag as his is just a silver account.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Sun May 20, 2007 2:17 am

Yee-HAW! Lots of fun tonight, fellas. I don't know why I didn't care for Halo 2 that much, but I really, really like 3 so far. Single Bomb and territory are my favorites, followed by Crazy King and VIP. Wish this one were out already!