360 Gamers: Why have you stopped playing Halo?

[Irridium]

In the case of Halo 3, I moved on to Reach along with most of the player-base. In the case of Reach, well I didn't like 343's changes to it all that much. Granted they did keep playlists so you could keep playing without the changes, but I still lost the will to continue on. With Halo 4... well, probably the maps. They're, well, boring. Just don't have that same spark past Halo maps had. Most likely because Bungie isn't at the helm anymore. Plus, removing weapon spawns made the game feel less like Halo where you had to learn and control the maps and more like COD where you just run around and shoot dudes. It just didn't feel all that like Halo, to me. That and a few other gameplay changes. Constant sprinting, loadouts... Just felt less like Halo which bummed me out.

 

[OCAdam]

I only bought Reach, and borrowed prior Halos (and played 4 with my bro when he was around). Every one of them annoyed me endlessly with their reticule location, not to mention the movement style presented to me. The only FPS I've played with worse movement clunkiness is ArmA2 (though it's hard to get worse movement than A2). Admittedly that doesn't very much since I tend to play more other types of games most often, thus my range of FPS games is a bit lower than average. As for the reticule... I honestly don't like a non-centered aiming point. It's annoyed me enough before in some games with their reticules being off by a few pixels that I'd go in and modify the texture if at all possible (but that's PC FPS games there, not 360).

 

[Something Amyss]

I never played it. It just didn't appeal to me. Does my vote count?

 

[jab136]

I don't tend to play MP for any game (only exceptions are for a while was ME3, but I don't even play that anymore, and BL2 if you count that, but I really only MP with friends on that)

 

[Tiger8gamer]

I have been trying other games so far, And really only play halo 4 when my friend is over because I don't have a lot of co-op games in my house. Also my sci-fi love has moved onto 40k now.

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

I never play 360 games online because it requires more effort than I feel like putting into setting the internet up to go to my xbox AS WELL AS my computer, and I don't think I'll fork out (over) $110 for an ethernet thing or a hub.

I only played 4 once, then I sold it to a second hand place because although nice to look at, with its Tron inspiration, it didn't offer much replay value. And I'm on the other side of the experience divide - been there, done that. And I'm a realist - I'm not all that *cynical* about tropes and cliches and such, but I am a bit bored of them, 9 times out of 10. (the 10th time is when you have a cliche-storm B-movie that's great to watch because it's so damn funny for how bad it is).

It doesn't hold the fresh, wide-eyed wonder it used to. Although, I admit, there's nothing quite like the Halo experience.

 

[Evonisia]

Other: Halo 4 was crap, Halo: Reach was boring, I still go on Halo 3 sometimes but it's usually campaign.

 

[white_wolf]

Each game is to similar to the last, and drawn out, and not in a good way. To me its stale but even if they gave the story, characters, and environment a total rehaul I doubt they'd win me back either. I'm even worried about playing Destiny because the Bungie is working on it I'm worried they'll include to much Halo clone items and not enough original things.

 

[SmokingBomber465]

Each game is to similar to the last, and drawn out, and not in a good way. [sic]

THIS

For me, it is that Halo 3 was an excellent way to end the series and every title since then has been either half-assed or boring story-wise...actually, both.

The part in Halo 4 where I stopped giving Halo any story credit: "These covenant look more fanatical than the other ones"

I burst out laughing, then stopped playing a few levels later (maybe a third of the way through). Story sucked, writing sucked, couldn't be bothered to care any more.

Which is especially telling because Halo 3 is probably one of my favorite 360 games of all time after Mass Effect 1, Skyrim, and Batman: easily in the top 10, maybe top 5.

 

[Lightknight]

COD killed the series for me. The shields practically enfuriate me and the weapons feel totally ineffective. Halo 3's storyline was particularly disappointing to me as I have yet to care about the AI like they apparently want me to.

We recently got Halo 4 but I haven't fully delved into yet. We have enjoyed the ball game but that's about it. I think that ultimately I just got bored with the series.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

I recently got a PS3 so I have a lot to catch up on, I don't want to give Microsoft any of my money after that Xbone debacle, and my LIVE isn't working right now anyway.

 

[Il_Exile_lI]

Because Halo 4 sucks. When 343 decided to get rid of the perfect multiplayer balance with a focus map control and teamwork that has been of a staple of series in favor Call of Duty style perks, killstreaks, and loadouts, they pretty much killed what made Halo great and unique. They tried to win over the COD crowd by making the game more like COD, but instead just pissed off the few die hard Halo fans (like myself) that had already chosen Halo over COD long ago.

As for Halo 3 and Reach, I've already played the hell out of those, I am done with them. I would have normally moved onto the next Halo game, but Halo 4's aforementioned shittyness put a quick stop to that. Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to see real Halo again (I expect 343 to continue the COD-ification of the series), so the only hope for a great multiplayer shooter that isn't a COD clone that I see on the horizon is Destiny.

 

[Zealous]

I stopped after about 50 hours of Halo 4. Lost interest in the Campaign, the multiplayer took off in a direction I didn't like, the hoppers were not to my liking, the co-op was shit, glitches stayed unresolved, the weapons and maps weren't balanced properly, they restricted the progression system to people willing to fork out additional cash (and only in certain regions) and I stopped paying for Gold. It just wasn't all that great.

I loved Halo 3 and Reach (after the title update where they fixed that disgusting bloom and that annoying as hell melee stuff) and have clocked over 1000 hours on both titles, but 4 was just painful to play most of the time.

Edit: So as a response to the poll I'd have to say a tie between:

-The new game(s) I bought stole my attention!
-I do still play it. Just offline.

I love playing through 3's campaign and CE is always a blast.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses. Learned a crapload.

I guess the majority of people don't play Halo anymore because:
1. They're too busy these days.
2. Halo 4 ruined it for them. (Mostly because of the 'CoDification' of it.)

The Arbiter's character arc and the seeming journey of redemption the Sangheili race seemed to be moving towards? Nothing, they are all enemies now and from Halo Reach, Halo 4 Forward unto Dawn, the Glasslands Trilogy, Halo initiation, Halo 4, Spartan Ops, Spartan Assault all combined have done an incredible job of ruining that to the point where it feels like someone at 343 was looking at the ending of Halo 3 and shouted:
"SHIT the elites could be portrayed as sympathetic or humanized and even heroic, this could result in complex stories, new ideas and a creative angle to take our series. This is an actual creative spark.... STAMP IT OUT, STAMP IT RIGHT THE FUCK OUT. KILL IT! KILL IT! WE ONLY WANT BLAND MARKETABILITY GOD DAMN IT, GENERIC EVIL ALIENS TO BE KILLED IN THE THOUSANDS THAT'S IT!''

...

The impact of the Ark and the Halos? Diminished somewhat by this new Didact guy who played no part in the previous trilogy and his newfound seemingly limitless power just makes the huge epic battle of the ark feel rather small and anti-climactic. Plus the mystery of the forerunners is ruined when we reveal them to just be this omnipotent vampire god race who love to spew out long monologues and get killed by a quick time event.

Uhhh... OK. First of all, the "Covenant" you face in Halo 4 aren't actually Covenant. They're a separate faction of all these aliens called the Storm as you know that are trying desperately to cling to the Covenant ideals, roles, and society. So, of course they'd seem more fanatical. They'd have to be to cling to such a dead way of life. The Arbiter and the Elites that followed him are off somewhere else and were not focused on at all in the story of Halo 4 for better or worse.

As to the Ark and the Halo's, they have been DEALT WITH. We've had 3 games to cover that particular arc (no pun intended). We don't need another. Revisiting them's fine but to do a whole other story on them would just drag.

And no, he doesn't have limitless power. He's the banished head of an advanced alien race. And he doesn't even represent the Forerunner race at all. Why do you think he was BANISHED? They didn't want him. Also, with dat suit the Didact had on, there was nothing the MC could really do to fight him honestly.

 

[Nick of Blades]

I stopped with Reach, 4 isn't a game I'll play. I finished the fight, damn it.

 

[Fractral]

I just found the Halo 4 multiplayer to be a bit boring, to be honest. That and I suffered from the same issue I have with every multiplayer game I'm good at- I get up to a 1.5 K/D ratio and then I'm terrified of losing it so I stop playing. I didn't have such a problem with reach, which I still like to play with friends. Actually not to long ago I had an 8 player lan party where we just messed around for 4 hours or so. Twas great fun.
That and, you know, not having gold anymore because I don't see the point of paying £50 a year on top of the game cost and paying for internet so I can play Halo 4 for 2 hours every weekend.

 

[kommando367]

I stopped playing because the 343 devs kept adding things I didn't like and they nerfed the 1 thing from them I did like, armor lock.

 

[Elijah Newton]

CoD-ification is a good summary of all that I read about Halo 4 and disliked, but I have another note which nobody's mentioned much...

Halo : Reach had jetpacks. And Firefight. I played the blue bejeebies out of that game.

Halo 4, inexplicably, got rid of both.

This was such an incomprehensibly bad decision it actually made me less interested in playing Reach, because what was the point? The series clearly wasn't going to go in any direction I'd be interested in.

Also my sci-fi love has moved onto 40k now.

yeeessss. One of us. One of us. One of us. (etc etc)

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I wasn't that into it because it wasn't quite the pure FPS genre I'm used to. Halo had that sort of pick up and play playstyle, where anyone can start it up and have the same abilities and potential as someone else who had been playing longer, not to mention using crosshairs and mixing out weapon strategies, a lot like Quake or TF2 or Unreal Tournament...

But at the same time, I thought Halo still paced itself like slower-paced FPSs like Call of Duty and Battlefield because the game wasn't paced that particularly well, and the objective-driven maps (which is easily the best part of any FPS) are only a dressed-up form of team deathmatch. Movement speed needs to be faster, firefights can't end in four seconds, vehicles usually have no drawback and almost certainly better than infantry combat. I think Reach took a step in the wrong direction with adding things like Armor Lock, Jetpacks, and Sprint, because was a huge step back from my point in the first paragraph.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I love the Halo games for the campaigns first and foremost. Multiplayer is fun for a short while, but it gets boring quickly for me.