360 Gamers: Why have you stopped playing Halo?

[Shoggoth2588]

I haven't been able to connect to Xbox Live in over 2 months but I haven't been a subscriber for well over 2 years. That being said though, I played through Halo 4's single player campaign (and strongly disliked it) about 4 months ago...or...5 or 6. Before that I played through Anniversary's single player (did the Plasma Pistol feel nerfed to anybody else?) and before that I played Reach. I never really gave much of a thought to multiplayer outside of couch co-op with my younger brother.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

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.

Pretty much this. 343 fucked up Halo badly so my friends and I just stopped playing it. Halo 3 lasted about 3 years for us and Halo 4 about 3 weeks.

 

[Berny Marcus]

Well I didn't really stopped playing Halo, but since I don't plan to get an Xbox one, I can see it being impossible for me to get the next Halo game for it.

 

[KingWein22]

I played the first one, thought it was pretty good. Played the second one, thought it was good. Did not play much of 3. Have not played Wars, Reach, 4. Why? Because by that time, I've had friends shove the games down my throat about how great they are. Plot was pretty much given away, and THEY COULD NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!!!! Sorry, did I mention shoved down my throat?

 

[Fijiman]

I just kind of got bored of it. This also wasn't helped by the fact that the last few times I've played I've been met with nothing but lag, MLG assholes, and other bullshit. The last time I was on Halo 4 I got so pissed off that I nearly chucked my controller into the TV when my Xbox froze on me mid match.

I play it from time to time, bought ODST, Reach and Anniversary cheap to play the campaign with a few friends online (will have to get around to that soon)

Yes, yes we should. Hopefully my mic problem will be less of an issue soon.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I bought Halo 3 to see what the fuss was about. I never finished it. It just wasn't interesting enough to finish or to justify playing it online.

 

[Arcanite Ripper]

This might sound incredibly contradictory considering my name and avatar, but the game hasn't aged very well past 2008.

I stopped playing when i was good enough to play competitively, but not good enough to play competitively with the actual competitors. That makes sense, right?

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I haven't stopped playing Halo really. I may not play as much as I use to but that's because I just don't play video games quite as much as I use to.

Halo 4 is a great game, and the only problem it has which didn't exist in previous games is Spartan Ops being much less fun than Firefight. At least you can't fault 343i for not trying anything new on that front.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

The initial xbone news pretty much crushed all desire to play on my 360. Though the changes in policy did change my view of Never getting an X1 to maybe getting one when the price drops(or loses the kinect). As much as I love Halo, I didn't want to get any more attached to something I likely wouldn't get to play.

There was more to it than that though. I did honestly enjoy the Halo 4 campaign despite its issues, but I just can't get behind the multiplayer. Killstreaks, random power weapon spawns, perks, paper vehicles(even with the vehicle 'perk'), custom classes, and a while bunch of other things that ate away at the core of Halo.

I had hoped to go to the competitive community for some classic Halo gameplay, but after being dropped from MLG(on which they were far too dependent), their spirits pretty much broke. Meaning that as far as the rank and file 'competitive' players and fans go they pretty much resist anything new regardless of its actual merit unless their favorite pro player or community member sign of it. Which often leads to some hilariously hypocritical stances on gametypes, settings, etc.

Since both the casual and competitive aspects are pretty much a wash I am now pretty much only a fan of the campaign.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I always thought Halo..... The Bungie developed Halo games..... were really good at Multiplayer, but I'm not a Multiplayer guy so I would throw in a quick MP match in Reach or Halo 3 now and again but Halo 4... what's the word... sucked. So I just dropped it right away.

 

[Mad World]

I was never too into the online portion of Halo (although, I did play). It's just too boring. However, I used to really enjoy the campaign cooperatively with a friend. I'd probably even rather play Call of Duty (than Halo online). Fortunately, I don't have to be restricted to either one. After getting back into the Battlefield series (during Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3), I've never looked back. It is - by far - the best FPS I have ever played. Battlefield 3 is amazing, and I can't wait for 4 (beta is fairly unoptimised in its current state, though). When I'm not doing that, I'm playing Zombie Escape on Counter-Strike: Source, or playing one of the other many P.C. games I own.

While I'm not big on consoles, there was a time when I played Halo online. But, that was a while back.

 

[fix-the-spade]

This is something that's been nagging at me for a while. The player counts for all 3 Halo's that are currently playable online are pretty low.

Because Halo, but especially 4, has multi player that's become increasingly dull with each iteration. More than that the lobby/matchmaking system was fine in 2004, but nowadays it renders the game almost unplayable.

Then there's DLC being required to enter certain game modes. That's not on.

Number 4 finally added the ability for players to join mid game, but you still end up playing empty matches as rage quitters leave the game and no one comes in to play. Plus it's so slow finding and populating new games, plus the time between matches can be interminable.

Plus Halo 4 got rid of Grifball, that's a hanging offence, I found Halo 4's games to be pretty dull as well. Spartan Ops was interesting, but underdeveloped and now seems to have vanished without a trace.

The core gun fighting mechanics are still great, but the infrastructure around it is massively outdated and you spend far too long waiting to play.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Halo 4.
Campaign was fun, though I have not felt compelled to ever replay it. (I decided to do my first and last run of the campaign on Legendary)

Multiplayer sucked balls, also tricked me into buying a season pass, when the value of the maps released is less than the pass was worth. Buck I suppose shitty DLC goes hand in hand with a shitty multiplayer.

 

[RedDeadFred]

There are just better games out there and I didn't buy another Halo game after 3. Why would I play Halo when I could play games that are way better and more fun to me? Halo hasn't evolved enough for me. It's like COD (not as bad), another game I never play anymore (stopped buying them after MW2).

 

[ZorroFonzarelli]

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun here but with everything I've seen, I'm not convinced I'm being too pessimistic. In addition look up a recent 343 panel where they talk about the game's successes and failings and in addition to admitting they didn't do a good job explaining who the villain is they will go on to mention plans to 'appeal to a wider audience' (there's THAT damn catchphrase) and they do this by comparing an AK to a needler and pointing out that to many people the needler doesn't look like a weapon the way the AK is. The vibe I got from that panel really was 'WE WANT TO BE CALL OF DUTY'.

Vrex360, I agree 100% with most everything you said regarding Halo's demise.

My friends and I were effectively a Halo group. We had countless LAN parties with H1, a clan in H2, etc. When a Halo game came out, we played Multiplayer for YEARS. Until a new Halo game came out. Halo 4? Those few of us that bought it played it for 2 months.


STORY:

Halos 1 - 3 were easy to follow. You got it in-game. Reach betrayed the novels and moved the story into the CoD realm, and Halo 4 was so out there story-wise it was difficult to follow while I was actually playing the game. VG storylines don't need to be so complex that you don't know what you're doing or why. It required 2 playthroughs for me to understand what exactly was happening and why. And I have an Economics degree; I'm not stupid.

Halo 3 was wrapped up perfectly and simply. Halo 4 WAS the beginning of the Cash Cow, and practically required you to study up on the whole established Halo 4 expanded universe in the Halo Waypoint app. Ain't nobody got time for that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFEoMO0pc7k).

Great characters were tossed, and the tone is the ubiquitous "Newer/Kewler/Darker" that has literally infiltrated every single franchise from Star Trek to Superman. Halo 1 was open fun and a bit quirky. Halo 2 was more developed and still a blast. Halo 3 was the completion of the circle. Now, Halo 4 is effectively a run-of-the-mill reboot.

Halo was EA'd. MrBTongue on YouTube illustrates this better than I ever could (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6TmTv6deTI). Put simply, Bungie wanted to make games; 343/Microsoft wanted to make money.


MULTIPLAYER:

Two things:
First, I've been playing Halo since 2003. Halo 1, 2, 3, Reach, and now 4. Multiplayer changed between H1, H2, & H3, but I found Reach to suck. They replaced the good weapons with weapons that were not nearly as effective and said "Hey, new weapons". When H4 came around, many of the old weapons came back, but there was so little differentiation between H3 & H4 that my whole Halo group got bored in 2 months of multiplayer.

Second, they allowed the lobby to choose the map. That ruined it entirely. Want BTB? Get used to Exile. Exile, Exile, Exile. I got so sick of that map I stopped playing. Yeah, I get it - people like the Gauss Hog, but give it up, people; give it up.


INFINITY:
Spartan Ops was bland. Lots of fun in the beginning, but there just wasn't enough to it to really make it any more than a few extra campaign levels without any context to Master Chief/Cortana that got old quick because they were the same maps over and over.

The plot was bland and the plot twists were inexplicably lame. The characters seemed like cartoons.


XBONE:

I'm not buying an XBox One, unless they saw off the Kinect. Therefore, I'm done with Halo. I like Master Chief/Cortana enough that I'd buy further Halo games in the future otherwise, but that's not enough for me to mess with it.


Halo used to be something I could talk to my friends for hours about, and relive a million multiplayer battles. Now, Halo gets an "Eh" out of virtually everyone I talk to, and me as well...

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

I stopped playing because the single player games became banal as hell, and I always sucked at the multiplayer. I guess I just didn't get it, or just came to it too late, but I was awful at Halo 3 online. There's something particularly humiliating about 13 years whomping you in the game and then hearing their girly voices slag you!

 

[BoredWalker]

As far as the multiplayer goes, I hated the CoDification of the game; the progression-based loadouts, the lackluster maps, the killstreak weapons and lack of weapon spawns. They also cut too many things or replaced them with watered down knockoffs - like the co-op thing replacing firefight, and every armor ability (ex. the shield thing that's a terrible, less team-friendly substitute for Armor Lock). My friends and I got bored of the multiplayer very quickly, and just stopped playing.

While I would love to go back to Halo Reach's multiplayer, I hate all those crappy Forge maps that they stuck in the regular gametype map rotation, and the playerbase has shrunk to a few people + all the really good players (because everybody else jumped from Reach to 4 when it launched), so I can't get a match on a good map with people at my skill level. Which leads me to...

The community levels are hardly worth considering the effort to jump back online,

Wait, are you saying that you stopped playing Halo because there were too few players online? Don't you think that's sort of a self-fulfilling cycle? 'If people don't play this game then I won't either', thus making the player counts even lower which cause even more players to drop the game.

Welcome to the death spiral of every multiplayer title which has had a sequel or wasn't good enough to maintain a large playerbase early on. If there's too few players online, finding matches takes forever, and the matches that you do get into aren't fun because all the other players are way above you in terms of skill (and unlocks, in the case of games with progression-based rewards). This lack of fun discourages new players from playing more (because, after all, why spend valuable time on something that isn't necessary or fun?), and thus the playerbase never expands unless some well-known person tries to kickstart interest. It's not like the Halo games are the only games that this has happened to.

Anyways, off that tangent, and onto my gripes with the single-player portion of Halo 4; actually, my stance is almost identical to Vrex360's (minus his opinion that the Sangheili should never, ever be enemies to the humans after Halo 3), so I'll just avoid typing a 6-paragraph rant on those things.

 

[Kanova]

Playing Halo since its beginning, and CoD up to MW2, I think I am super tired of multiplayer FPS games. They are just, so done. Quality of game goes up the farther away you get from the FPS.

 

[deeman010]

Thanks for reminding me that my Reach disk broke I stopped playing Halo 4 because it just doesn't feel the way I think Halo should feel like. You know how CoD manages to stay the same despite different studios working on it? Well I don't think that 343 managed to capture the feeling of Halo. I mean, the core is there but the essence has changed (for me at least).