Halo 5: Guardians Discussion

[Boyo]

literally once

 

i'm sure they could implement hologram to make it more effective and believable but idk, seems like a lot of wasted dev time

How would you change Hologram to make it more effective?

[Apoll0]

Having your opponent looking and shooting in the wrong direction when you begin attacking them seems like a pretty big advantage.

That's part of the point man.  If they see your hologram, odds are they are looking in your general direction anyway.  the only way that is not true is if you send that thing clear across a map, in which case your odds of killing them are low.

 

As soon as i shoot that thing, i know its a hologram AND i knew EXACTLY where you are.  The only time you can get an advantage using it is if you happen to pop out at exactly the right time, as i am shooting it which would be more luck than anything (how can you know when im about to shoot?).  which remember, in order to do that you need to be in a spot where i can't see you, but i can see the hologram AND you can also see the hologram AND you need to know from the gunfire exactly where I am if you are going to pop-out and get shots on me first.  Otherwise im going ot know exactly where you are and if you take even a second to find me when you pop out at best we will start shooting at each other at teh same time, so you gained no advantage.

 

The only way hologram gives you an advantage is

1) The people you are playing against are absolute morons

2) The situation you send it out in is exactly as i described above AND you get some luck.

 

And in neither of those is it fun to use.

 

If something has as many prerequisites as hologram does before it can be useful, that means that its not really useful at all.

[Boyo]

That's part of the point man.  If they see your hologram, odds are they are looking in your general direction anyway.  the only way that is not true is if you send that thing clear across a map, in which case your odds of killing them are low.

 

As soon as i shoot that thing, i know its a hologram AND i knew EXACTLY where you are.  The only time you can get an advantage using it is if you happen to pop out at exactly the right time, as i am shooting it which would be more luck than anything (how can you know when im about to shoot?).  which remember, in order to do that you need to be in a spot where i can't see you, but i can see the hologram AND you can also see the hologram AND you need to know from the gunfire exactly where I am if you are going to pop-out and get shots on me first.  Otherwise im going ot know exactly where you are and if you take even a second to find me when you pop out at best we will start shooting at each other at teh same time, so you gained no advantage.

 

The only way hologram gives you an advantage is

1) The people you are playing against are absolute morons

2) The situation you send it out in is exactly as i described above AND you get some luck.

 

And in neither of those is it fun to use.

 

If something has as many prerequisites as hologram does before it can be useful, that means that its not really useful at all.

Let's say my Hologram causes a Sniper to fire at it. Sniper shots have contrails that lead back to the sniper's position. Did I not just gain an advantage by causing the Sniper to reveal his position?

[Basu]

If there is armor and a shield + health mechanic yes.  Does it mean they would win? probably not unless the ripoff was particularly egregious but it doesn't mean that they wouldn't at least try to get it shut down, which is a tall order for a studio to stand against when you have the weight of microsoft behind you.

 

Really, you think that's enough? We've seen some pretty cheeky moves within the FPS genre lately and none of them resulted in lawsuits:

 

• Titanfall, CoD and Battlefield's gunplay is quite literally the same, with CoD and BF sharing the same weapons as well
• BO3 copied TF's wallrunning quite literally 1 by 1
• CoD: IW's space ship that looks like a Pelican
• Overwatch is very heavily inspired by TF2, directly taking some roles/classes and gammodes
• H5's "advanced tech" is extremely CoD:AWs' exosuit and they have admitted that Spartan Charge is a copy of Destiny's shoulder bash

I'm probably forgetting some, but IMO all these are larger offenses than copying Halo's shield + health mechanics. I mean Titanfall 1's Titans have literally the same mechanic and Respawn is still going so...

 

Yeah if a game dev copies the movement, nades, weapons (obviously not the models and names, but the roles) and takes heavy inspiration from some classic maps they could get into trouble.

[Apoll0]

Let's say my Hologram causes a Sniper to fire at it. Sniper shots have contrails that lead back to the sniper's position. Did I not just gain an advantage by causing the Sniper to reveal his position?

 

You are being deliberately obtuse at this point

[MultiLockOn]

The health recharge setting in the H3 playlist is soooo slow

[Boyo]

You are being deliberately obtuse at this point

Refuse to acknowledge any situation where a Hologram could be useful. Good plan.

[Hard Way]

"I couldn't retake top control on Damnation because they kept getting Hologram."

[xSociety]

Do you normally zig zag down the hallways on Pit, banging into the walls as you go? Or do you run down a straight hallway in pretty much a straight line?

 

And if an enemy is looking at your Hologram down one hallway while you outflank him by traveling through another, isn't that an advantage?

Yeah, I walk down that hall without touching my right stick actually.

 

Send the holo down one hall then go walk down the other, see how long that takes. If your enemy is bad enough to get outplayed by that, you should have no problem beating him with just plasma pistol.

[Apoll0]

Really, you think that's enough? We've seen some pretty cheeky moves within the FPS genre lately and none of them resulted in lawsuits:

 

• Titanfall, CoD and Battlefield's gunplay is quite literally the same, with CoD and BF sharing the same weapons as well
• BO3 copied TF's wallrunning quite literally 1 by 1
• CoD: IW's space ship that looks like a Pelican
• Overwatch is very heavily inspired by TF2, directly taking some roles/classes and gammodes
• H5's "advanced tech" is quite literally CoD:AWs' exosuit

I'm probably forgetting some, but IMO all these are larger offenses than copying Halo's shield + health mechanics. I mean Titanfall 1's Titans have literally the same mechanic and Respawn is still going so...

 

Yeah if a game copies the movement, nades, weapons (obviously not the models and names, but the roles) and takes heavy inspiration from some classic maps they could get into trouble.

 

 

You're right of course and i didn't expand enough.  I was thinking literal copy/paste of armor design with a shield that surrounds, helmet based hud the whole 9. basically a copy/paste job of the look and feel of the game, guns, grenade and melee core, even if they didn't copy actual assets. And for some reason in my head it was an indie studio creating it that would shit their pants at a C&D.

[Apoll0]

Refuse to acknowledge any situation where a Hologram could be useful. Good plan.

 

Refuse to acknowledge that outside of a select few, incredibly contrived situations, hologram is fucking useless, gimmicky and boring.  Good plan.

[bunniesz23]

Playing Hologram in Reach was like maining a low-tier in a fighting game. You have to put in 3x the effort to be on even footing with everyone else. The 1 or 2 times you actually successfully use it in a given game aren't worth it.

 

The throwback playlist is fun. I think they went overboard with the shield recharge rate, but I see what they were going for. Would personally have more fun with it if it was pistol start and still had Thrust/Stabilize (Combo and Needler are legit power weapons without thrust). Also would def have more fun with No Radar/AR and maps without crippling framerate lag.

[Boyo]

Refuse to acknowledge that outside of a select few, incredibly contrived situations, hologram is fucking useless, gimmicky and boring.  Good plan.

Is causing an enemy sniper to reveal his location by firing at a Hologram one of those select few situations?

[xSociety]

Is causing an enemy sniper to reveal his location by firing at a Hologram one of those select few situations?

You know what also reveals his location? The huge industrial spotlight he has on his rifle.

[Boyo]

You know what also reveals his location? The huge industrial spotlight he has on his rifle.

Seeing that spotlight would require you to look directly at the enemy sniper. Seeing the bullet's contrails can be done from cover. That is a false equivalency.

[Cujjer]

Is causing an enemy sniper to reveal his location by firing at a Hologram one of those select few situations?

 

What map are you envisioning this encounter taking place on?

[Boyo]

What map are you envisioning this encounter taking place on?

One with any type of cover? Send your Hologram to the corner of the cover so it is half poking out to draw the enemy sniper fire.

[Apoll0]

One with any type of cover? Send your Hologram to the corner of the cover so it is half poking out to draw the enemy sniper fire.

 

How often do you think that a sniper is going to see that hologram and not realize its a hologram and actually shoot at it? they run in perfectly straight lines towards nothing in particular.  They dont sprint, they have translucency to them. It only take making that mistake twice to stop making it.

 

Just because something has a niche use with small chance of success, does not make it worthwhile.

[Ramirez77]

The sniper generally takes longer time to line up shots and will probably realize it's a fake in that timespan.

 

If there's enough space between where the target is moving and where it will arrive, the sniper will have ample time to switch to their non-trailed sidearm and shoot at it to test it before wasting sniper ammo on it.

 

Even assuming it works...it's as people have said one possible use.

 

I again think what you're missing with all these ideas is that pickups need to have a wide range of uses to be worth going after.  It both makes them more desirable and also makes them contain more depth.  An item with a handful of niche uses isn't one people are going to bother going out of their way to obtain.  It's nice to have if you happen to stumble upon it, but it's not a game changer worth pursuing.

 

You can list off a few advantages of any given idea and while you may not be automatically incorrect, they still need more than that.

 

There is also the fun factor as other people have pointed out.  It doesn't care if an item is deep and balanced if it's simply unfun to play against or play with.  The main purpose of a game is to be entertained.

[Boyo]

How often do you think that a sniper is going to see that hologram and not realize its a hologram and actually shoot at it? they run in perfectly straight lines towards nothing in particular.  They dont sprint, they have translucency to them. It only take making that mistake twice to stop making it.

 

Just because something has a niche use with small chance of success, does not make it worthwhile.

I don't think you are understanding. You send your Hologram to the edge of cover so it is just standing there, appearing as if it is looking out. A Hologram running in a straight line has nothing to do with that scenario.

 

You would shoot an enemy who you thought took one step too far out of cover, wouldn't you? Or are you omniscient and would automatically know that it was a Hologram and not a real enemy?

[QuietMan]

How would you change Hologram to make it more effective?

var file = Directory.GetFiles("C:\HaloSourceCode\Engine\Abilities\Code\", "Hologram.cs", SearchOption.AllDirectories)

.FirstOrDefault();

 

if (file != null)

{

    // The file variable has the *first* occurrence of that filename

    File.Delete((String)file);

}

else

{

    // Handle the file not being found

    System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Glad to see this file does not exist");

}

[Basu]

a rare look into the inner workings of 343 industries (2017, colorized):

 

[Ramirez77]

I don't think you are understanding. You send your Hologram to the edge of cover so it is just standing there, appearing as if it is looking out. A Hologram running in a straight line has nothing to do with that scenario.

 

You would shoot an enemy who you thought took one step too far out of cover, wouldn't you? Or are you omniscient and would automatically know that it was a Hologram and not a real enemy?

 

I do so.  After a fraction of a second the hologram just stands there completely still staring at nothing.  If I know holograms are in the game I'm not going to just shoot at everything that briefly pops out of cover.  Maybe in that aspect you can argue holograms have a wider impact on the game than people give them credit for, but having to hesitate to shoot everything isn't fun game design.

 

Regardless I digress.  It would be obvious that it's just a hologram with those behaviors. For that to be useful the hologram would need many more behaviors programmed in.  A lot of effort to go to for, again, a rather pointless mechanic.  Even then, the behaviors (the way it looks around, moves, pretends to shoot, etc) I'm sure would become predictable over time.

[Boyo]

I do so.  After a fraction of a second the hologram just stands there completely still staring at nothing.  If I know holograms are in the game I'm not going to just shoot at everything that briefly pops out of cover.  Maybe in that aspect you can argue holograms have a wider impact on the game than people give them credit for, but having to hesitate to shoot everything isn't fun game design.

 

Regardless I digress.  It would be obvious that it's just a hologram with those behaviors. For that to be useful the hologram would need many more behaviors programmed in.  A lot of effort to go to for, again, a rather pointless mechanic.  Even then, the behaviors (the way it looks around, moves, pretends to shoot, etc) I'm sure would become predictable over time.

On the rare off chance that something is a Hologram, you wouldn't immediately shoot at an enemy? Come on now. That's just completely unrealistic. You only get a fraction of a second to spot and shoot an enemy in many cases. You're going to give up that chance because it COULD be a Hologram? Bullshit.

[xSociety]

var file = Directory.GetFiles("C:\HaloSourceCode\Engine\Abilities\Code\", "Hologram.cs", SearchOption.AllDirectories)

.FirstOrDefault();

 

if (file != null)

{

    // The file variable has the *first* occurrence of that filename

    File.Delete((String)file);

}

else

{

    // Handle the file not being found

    System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Glad to see this file does not exist");

}

Literally lol'ed.