Speculation on the Halo Reach Patch.

[na golfball]

I am awaiting Bungie's official announcement for a parch. Sadly, I don't think it will be coming any time soon. For those wondering when we may hear the first mention of a patch, I believe we will have our first parch in 3 months and we will have an official announcement in January.
Since no one respects baseless claims, allow me to explain my thinking.

Halo 2 released on November 9th 2004. The first mention of AU1 can be found on their March 4th 2005 update. AU1 released on April 18th 2005. That is about 5 months.

Halo 3 released on September 25, 2007. The first clear cut mention of AU1 can be found on their January 4th 2008 update. AU1 released on February 19th 2008. That is about 5 months.

Halo Reach released on September 14th 2010. If their past behavior is any indicator of the future (it usually is) We can expect AU1 in early February of 2011, and that they'll start talking about AU1 shortly after the New Year.

So don't get frustrated. We just have to wait a little bit longer!!!!

[na golfball]

Another thought. If you think people loved Halo 2 when it came out just look at this...
Here are some quotes from December 2004 about a month after the games release....

"We continue to sit here and post about a Halo 1.5, we sign petitions and we beg for someone to resolve this problem with no luck. We miss Halo, we don't want Halo 2, and we want the competetiveness back... "

"as for the record i took my copy back 9 days after it came out, and ive been playin halo 1 on xbc (gettiing some damn good games) ever since."

"The real rason why all of you dudes are torturing yourselfs playing halo 2 is due to two factors:

1. xbox live rankings
2. the possibility of winning a few thousand dollars at a nation tournament"

As you can see people just hate change and adapting. Give Reach time for the AU1 and everything will be A.O.K.
Something I noticed that was interesting though, the mods at MLGpro back then locked every thread that bashed H2 right away. Now, they sit and let Reach be openly mocked....interesting.

[GE Master]

I think Bungie is holding their breath. I think they over tweaked and this is a valuable lesson for them and the next Halo game. Good thing? Yep, they can patch and basically admit they have sinned.

[Ponked]

I think Bungie is holding their breath. I think they over tweaked and this is a valuable lesson for them and the next Halo game. Good thing? Yep, they can patch and basically admit they have sinned.

By the opener, everyone will like Reach. Quote me on that.

[na golfball]

I watched my boy Lethul from Victorious Secret's VOD yesterday. It was actually pretty fun to watch. I did not find the gameplay boring at all. But I was annoyed when bloom was a clear factor in why a battle was won or lost.

[Ponked]

I watched my boy Lethul from Victorious Secret's VOD yesterday. It was actually pretty fun to watch. I did not find the gameplay boring at all. But I was annoyed when bloom was a clear factor in why a battle was won or lost.

Yes. It's really annoying when you both are slightly spamming at the same rate and your shot misses while his hits you in the head and he wins the 1v1 battle because of it. I hope they scrap the bloom and slow down the ROF on the DMR.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, it's actually really sad when you think about how Bungie has come so close to giving us a truly great competitive game time and time again, but they always f*** it up by tossing in some stupid, gimmicky idea that they come up with to try and sell more games. In Halo Reach they toss in armor abilities and reticule bloom, on H3 they put in bullet travel time and a big spread on the utility weapon, and on it goes. If they'd quit trying to change things just for the sake of change and instead focus on making a fun, competitive game for ALL skill levels, they'd have won Game of the Year three more times than they have.

[GE Master]

I watched my boy Lethul from Victorious Secret's VOD yesterday. It was actually pretty fun to watch. I did not find the gameplay boring at all. But I was annoyed when bloom was a clear factor in why a battle was won or lost.

Yes. It's really annoying when you both are slightly spamming at the same rate and your shot misses while his hits you in the head and he wins the 1v1 battle because of it. I hope they scrap the bloom and slow down the ROF on the DMR.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, it's actually really sad when you think about how Bungie has come so close to giving us a truly great competitive game time and time again, but they always f*** it up by tossing in some stupid, gimmicky idea that they come up with to try and sell more games. In Halo Reach they toss in armor abilities and reticule bloom, on H3 they put in bullet travel time and a big spread on the utility weapon, and on it goes. If they'd quit trying to change things just for the sake of change and instead focus on making a fun, competitive game for ALL skill levels, they'd have won Game of the Year three more times than they have.

You make a great point. They are constantly trying to reinvent the wheel. I think they need to realize that competitive gaming should count for something. To that end, they shouldn't go with the gimmicky stuff. People like the core of the engine and revamping isn't worth doing. Again, this is another reason why I'm a bit fearful of where the Halo franchise is heading.

[MagicFremen]

Personally I think they need to take the luck out of Reach. You can be the best 1v1 in the world and you can lose to a first time player based on your bullet flying away in the wind...(bloom) I find there is also a lot of glitches in gameplay:
3 punches - no kill
one front punch - kill
Sticky to the chest - stuck the wall behind
Sticky to the floor - went right through
Shotty beatdown - half shields
Begin an assasination - Suicide  (i double-checked the tape on this one, no grenades)
Frag - stuck to the floor
SWAT, full DMR clip at someones head (about 15 spartan paces away) no bullets hit.

I've also noticed that Frag and Sticky explosive strength seems to change randomly. Ive killed someone with a grenade at half-damage range, and I've not even damaged shields of a person standing on my grenade.

These sounded like lag to me, but several of my friends have noticed some of them as well as other glitches, so I'm not sure.

[na golfball]

Frags not bouncing off floors is a huge problem in my mind. Yeah that makes me sad when I KNOW I should have stuck someone and they live.
The punch stuff sounds like bad hit registration due to XBL.

[Ponked]

A grenade killing you or not largely depends on the amount of health a person has. But anyway, here's what I think they need to patch:

1. Remove bloom and slow down the ROF for the DMR to compensate.
2. Weaken armor abilities. Make them last significantly less than they do or make them take far longer to recharge (the better option). Also, remove jetpack an sprint from v3 (not a patch, but still.
3. Weaken grenades by increasing length of fuse or decreasing blast radius.
4. Reduce rocket damage (there's no way I should be able to shoot the piece of cover that someone is standing behind and kill them)
5. Back to the Halo 3 beatdown system (new one renders shooting useless against an opponent rushing you for the beatdown trade)
6. Ranking system for some competitive playlists, either back to Halo 3/Halo 2's 1-50 system or something new. Must be based on wins and losses and gives people something to work for. If noobs don't like it, they can play Arena or something unranked.
7. Fix inconsistent nade bouncing issues (Frag's get stuck on the floor randomly).
8. Fix host changing issues.
9. Spawn system needs tweaking. Its far too easy to spawn beside enemies or in a combat zone because a teammate is there, I don't know how many times I spawn into nades, a sniper scope, or beside an enemy (one time in Snipers on Cage, I spawned between drop down and snipe spawn with an enemy at snipe spawn and two at big tower)
10. Find a way to make individual skill more of a factor. Reach is far more teamwork based than H3 and its almost to the point where no one does anything without a teammate and it turns into a standoff because no ones willing to leave cover and do something because they know they'll die
8.

[na golfball]

If I do not read the words "patch" in tonights Bungie update or next weeks' update I will give up. All hope will be lost for this game being fixed.

I did not read anything about a patch

[GE Master]

Would you say Reach has been a flop?

[na golfball]

In a word Yes.

[Ponked]

In a word Yes.

I don't agree at all. Reach is a good game that has a few relatively minor problems that are preventing it from being as good as H2.

[na golfball]

I wonder if this weeks update will contain info about an upcoming patch. I can only hope.