Powerups
The use of powerups within the game design of Halo 1 was something very unique and special for competitive gaming. One major quickly noticeable difference between the powerups in Halo 1 and Halo 2 is their major differences in effectiveness. The Overshield (OS) and Active Camouflage (Invis) served as a noteworthy advantage when they were used properly. They also could typically be countered properly by an opponent, plasma weapons for the overshield and baiting for the active camouflage. In Halo 2 however the behavior of these powerups is radically different, most notably the behavior of the overshield. Due to the glowing effects of the overshield on the posessor it usually serves as a bulls-eye not an advantage. When opposing players see two enemies in close proximity to each other their first instict is to shoot the one with the glowing blanket on their armor. The invis in H2 is also quite ineffective at adding an advantageous stealth to a player. Most players will note that they have very little trouble seeing invis players and they can typically light up their shield with the spray of the battle rifle.
Another major difference between the powerups of the two games is the variety of their respawn. The powerups in Halo 1 always respawned at explicit time intervals which ran from the beginning of the game. A useful weapon respawn chart was compiled by HBO beginning in 2002, of which i was a contributing member. The respawn of these powerups creates a fair playing field for all combatants to gain an advantage by picking up one of the powerups. The powerups in Halo 2 are based on set timer intervals for each powerup, however their respawn clock begins when a player picks them up. The Beaver Creek OS has a 1 minute respawn from when picked up, the Ascension OS is somewhere around 2:21 respawn from when picked up. As a side note I am unsure of why Bungie used vastly varying respawn times such as 1:23 for the Ivory Tower OS, perhaps they believed uneven respawns would discourage players from actually timing their spawn, which is moronic to assume. Good players will always use whatever they can to legitimately win, which is allowed and expected.
I believe the powerup difference between the two games shifted the dynamic of the game tremendously to something that is quite "un-Halo." It is my contention that the powerups in Halo 1 serve much like blinds in Poker: they create action and force drama while being applied fairly to all participants. It is expected at high levels of competition that every minute there will be a fight for OS, Invis, or rockets (dependent on which is spawning). However in Halo 2 if a team is able to secure both the sniper rifle and the sword (if the map contains either) early on they can typically be assured of victory. While this is not a steadfast rule and in no way suggests that by simply having the sword a team is guaranteed victory it does illustrate a major gameplay difference between the two games created by the lack of effective powerups.
I will be discussing the respawn of power weapons in a future article. . .
Another major difference between the powerups of the two games is the variety of their respawn. The powerups in Halo 1 always respawned at explicit time intervals which ran from the beginning of the game. A useful weapon respawn chart was compiled by HBO beginning in 2002, of which i was a contributing member. The respawn of these powerups creates a fair playing field for all combatants to gain an advantage by picking up one of the powerups. The powerups in Halo 2 are based on set timer intervals for each powerup, however their respawn clock begins when a player picks them up. The Beaver Creek OS has a 1 minute respawn from when picked up, the Ascension OS is somewhere around 2:21 respawn from when picked up. As a side note I am unsure of why Bungie used vastly varying respawn times such as 1:23 for the Ivory Tower OS, perhaps they believed uneven respawns would discourage players from actually timing their spawn, which is moronic to assume. Good players will always use whatever they can to legitimately win, which is allowed and expected.
I believe the powerup difference between the two games shifted the dynamic of the game tremendously to something that is quite "un-Halo." It is my contention that the powerups in Halo 1 serve much like blinds in Poker: they create action and force drama while being applied fairly to all participants. It is expected at high levels of competition that every minute there will be a fight for OS, Invis, or rockets (dependent on which is spawning). However in Halo 2 if a team is able to secure both the sniper rifle and the sword (if the map contains either) early on they can typically be assured of victory. While this is not a steadfast rule and in no way suggests that by simply having the sword a team is guaranteed victory it does illustrate a major gameplay difference between the two games created by the lack of effective powerups.
I will be discussing the respawn of power weapons in a future article. . .
posted by Annihil8or at 11:38 AM
17 Comments:
Hello,
I like your blog, although lots of the ideas have been around for awhile, you talk about them in a balanced and professional way with logical conclusions :-) However, i think the title should be Halo 2's Competetive Failures. Many of the design decisions that you critisise work perfectly for 90% of Halo 2 games, only becoming a problem when you play the game at a high level - which i don't think was a design objective from the start.
Good work though. :D
Halo blogs are stupid.
This is a lot of work for a hater site. Why not move on? Or are you still actually playing Halo 2?
The use of powerups within the game design of Halo 1 was something very unique and special for competitive gaming.
Yes. Completely unique. Certainly, no game ever played competitively has used powerups before. Not Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, or even the recent Quake 4. Certainly none of the Unreal series have had powerups before ever.
Of course, if Halo's your first competitive game, I could understand why you might not realize how what you said was incredibly false.
Congratulations on pinning the one unique feature of Halo 1 that made Halo 2 fall short of glory. Here's hoping someday you come to understand that saying something as completely asinine and incorrect as what you said for your opening statement only serves to invalidate your entire opinion on the basis of fanboy idiocy.
Thanks for the comments
To Fozma - Yes it is true that many of the comments discussed thus far are applicable very specifically to competitive gaming, however I do have ideas for other articles on more broad Halo related topics.
adavis - It has been said throughout history that "if you don't learn from your mistakes you are destined to repeat them." I don't remember what who said it but I believe making an intelligent and logical note of what errors which were made within Halo 2 could help create a much greater game in Halo 3.
anonymous - if you understood how time stamps work my opening statement would have actually been "First post, ideas coming soon..." I was going to discuss the use of powerups in Quake & Unreal, which all typically use powerups that time similar to the manner of Halo 2. However I did not believe an outside example of successful games was necessary with the already powerful example of the success of Halo 1.
"First post, ideas coming soon" does not translate to "I will extrapolate on vague and largely incorrect comments I make at a later date" in the mind of anyone but the person writing the articles. What you do say, however, is that your followup article is going to be about power weapons, implying closure on the article regarding powerups.
You say nothing about this comparison that apparently I'm supposed to get from a completely unrelated post, and then act indignant that I didn't pick up on it.
Either you're not actually reading any commentary that doesn't find your work favorable, or you're trying to cover for a large logical gap in one of your inaugural rants. Either way, this does not improve the image you've already begun to create of yourself as a fanboi "pro" that looks back at Halo 1 through rose-tinted glasses, a precedent that set itself the moment you decided to make a blog about how superior Halo 1 is to Halo 2 a year and a half after Halo 2's release.
xerxjerk. get it? xerxjerk? he's a jerk.
anonymous - Your initial comment made note that I said Halo 1 created something unique for cometitive gaming. I responded to your post by pointing out that the use of powerups in Halo 2 is essentially the same as the majority of games which use powerups.
(I'll assume the two posts by anonymous are the same person afraid to give their identity or even their alias. I could set the comment section back to being for registered blogspot users, however I wanted to hear any and all intellectual responses available. Perhaps that was a mistake as the comments section may divulge into an environment being similar B.net)
It's an interesting thought, but you do have to look at the general effect these time limits set on Halo 1 and 2.
With Halo 1, teams would attain, say, the Rocket Launcher, but would still have to fear the idea that the opposing team could grab a-hold of the respawning launcher. The idea then arises as to, what gives one team an advantage over the other when they successfully attain an objective in the game? It would seem as if in order for that objective to give any sort of apparent advantage, the team would have to "camp" the respawn point in order to make sure that the advantage was theirs and theirs alone. A secondary objective per-se, used in order to solidify that which the first should have done. This creates a sort-of forgiveness factor in the game, where Bungie pities the team who failed to meet that objective, but still grants them the abiltiy to get even a minute later, or a minute after that, or a minute after that.
With Halo 2, there is, as you said, a large difference. With the appearance of only one power weapon, teams are forced to look at these power weapons as if a stepping stone to the overall objective, be it kills, captures, or detonations. This focuses the game early on, inviting players to duke it out for the touted weapon which, predictably, the other team will vie for as well. Does this not invite a plethora of strategies and options? Teams are now given the urgency to race for a small array of powerful weapons, each granting the team with their inherent properties, hence giving them an advantage over the enemy. They will pick and choose which to attain, how many men to deploy towards each, and which vehicles/weapons will work best when racing for these weapons. The system works well, and with any realistic war-game, there are advantages to be had on the way to the ultimate goal. In addition, with such time limits Offense-Defense games will find unique scenarios, in which one team coudl be set with a Rocket Launcher, whereas the opposing team must make the offensive with a Warthog. Were it both ways, as with Halo 1, say a game of 1 Flag Zanzibar occurred, one, the offensive team would not know whether the enemy team in effect picked up the rocket launcher and two, the supposed advantage the defensive team would ahve inside the base with the launcher would be rendered ineffective, now that a second launcher is in-game. Even worse, the Defensive team could find themselves with multiple rockets, further deviating the odds.
Reverting back to Halo 1, this re-appearance of power weapons as well creates a sort of confusion on the battlefield. Teams no longer know whether an enemy has the same weapon, they no longer have much in the thought of objectives before they move for the goal, teams no longer have a definite outline of strategies to employ in-game.
Anyways, I actually think that the Power-Up system in Halo 2 works out well. The Camouflage does its job well in camouflaging the player, and furthermore serves the player well in terms of rader-use. The Overshield as well works usefully, as the addition of two more shields heavily outweighs the debateable occurrence in which you out-lined earlier.
Nice topic.
Reality....
^^
Did anyone actually bother reading the above comment?
j/k..
Prince... start making your posts a little more... streamlined, let's say. It's pretty difficult to understand what you're saying, what with the weird punctuation and shifting meanings.
And therefore I don't think your post really refuted what I said. Halo 2's scenario in 1 Flag Zanzibar still stands, as a Rocket Guy can successfully grab it without being attacked by anyone, same goes for the camouflage and the Sniper guy at Camp Froman. Therefore re-spawning weapons while the Defensive team still holds them would greatly change the balance of the game, and furthermore how well it is played in comparison to Halo 1. I'm not going to re-explain now what I said in my earlier post.
Reality....
Was Halo 2's only purpose set up for 1 Flag CTF Zanzibar? If it was then that is the only way your statement has any validity to it. Powerups being timed as they were in Halo 1 was good because it had never been done before in any other game. It was infact a accident which created such a great part of a FPS game. It was this new strategic part of the game that gave it such intense battles and ultimate strategy to win.
"Halo 1 will always take more skill anyway you want to look at it."
FACT.................
Reality, your point is well taken but you fail to consider the emphasis on camping as a result of the first dispute for weapons. While objective based games may differ slightly lets examine slayer, the preferred gametype of the majority of players. In slayer, the initial spawn is important, however, it becomes more important when only that chance can decide the outcome of the rest of the game if the other team realizes it doesnt have to move to kill other people once they have found a favorable position after obtaining the power weapons. Something as important as the winner of a halo game should not be based on initial spawn of the game, rather it should be based on the ability for one team to demonstrate a clear ability to control the map and movement of other players in a way that neutralizes their ability to kill back. The game should be decided, as it is in H1, by continuous fights to obtain and control powerful weapons and positions on the map, not just one fight after the spawn that allows one team possession of all the important items for a majority of the rest of the game. THe following is a contribution and addition to annihil8or's power up theory that proves that H1's powerup spawning system illicits both movement and action far more than H2's.
The os and invis and power weapon spawns force action by forcing movement of players. “Camping” is a problem in competitive gaming. Not just pros but any reasonably intelligent gamer knows that if you can move less and avoid contact you will live longer. Since the point of these games is dieing the fewest times naturally camping occurs. However, perpetual respawns, as used in H1, illicit movement by the players. If you choose to sit and camp an advantageous map position for too long the powerups respawn and are available to your enemies.
Let’s imagine a scenario: suppose for an instant that, by the grace of god, you had the wit and resolve to obtain not only rocket,snipe, and invis in chillout, but then grabbed OS as well. Certainly you would become an unstoppable player, what some would call a “TERRY TATE”, but only momentarily. Camping in shotgun room with your buddy opposite you crouching with a shotgun at the entrance from rocket room would only be effective for about a minute and a half. Soon, the sniper, Invis, and rockets would respawn, and your enemies would quickly grab them, rape you and your buddy, and then have you pined on spawn for the next minute of the game. Clearly the timely respawn of the essential game items forces players to reevaluate their map positions and try to move into more advantageous spots to secure the newly arriving powerups.
Now, lets imagine that exact same scenario but with halo 2’s respawns. You set up in shotgun room exactly like before, but this time you don’t have to move at all. Only you know when the invis respawns, and only you know when the OS respawns. Although the other players will eventually discover the powerups respawned, what advantage will they have anyway? You still hold rockets and snipe (and all you h1 pros that don’t consider the snipe that important in chill out imagine for a second if it didn’t respawn every 30 seconds and you had to wait for the first one picked up to be emptied and dropped, it would become FAR more important!) and have nothing to worry about. The rockets, no matter how long their next spawn time is, will NEVER come back to the map again until you have used every single one of them, and then replaced them for a new weapon. Snipe is exactly the same. So, the other players on the map are forced to make due without the two best weapons on the map for the duration of your camping. Basically, you can sit in there till the time runs up, presuming your playing online with a time limit or your opponents can just attempt to make you use all your goodies by dieing over and over again. This is obviously an exaggerated case but it begs the question, why would I move around when I have the lead and all the powerup weapons if I never have to face them again until I use them?
Anyone who has ever played a godforsaken game of burial mounds where both teams obtain human and alien snipe and just sit back at the beamspawn can attest to this. How bout a game of Zanzibar where the other team won all the fights at the beginning of the game, got both snipes and rocks, and just sat in the fucking water? If the weapon and powerup respawn time were put back on fixed interval scale players could never do that, because the new froman snipe would respawn, along with invis, and then you would only have to decide who on your team gets the three headshot triple kill with the snipe on the two kids crouching in the water with snipes next to the idiot perpetually shooting the gauss cannon at seawall snipe door.
What about the less dramatic instance of this in Ivory Tower. One team spawns closer to rockets, gets them, and has them for the rest of the game because only they know when the rockets are coming back, because only they know when they were dropped. What if it was a fixed interval two minute respawn. Your team could spawn closer to rockets, get them, and then when they are done all that matters is the next time they come up, not when YOU dropped them. Clearly this gives the other team a chance to overcome their bad spawn and gives them the exact same chance to get them next that the previous user had. That smells like fucking BALANCE to me. Obviously, in changing the respawn times in H2, bungie allows players to hoard powerful weapons without having the repercussion of having to secure new ones after a fixed amount of time. Simply put, it turns camping into a necessity to win and disrupts the games balance, and those factors combined lower the competitive level and nature of the game. SAY SOMETHING.
See above.
Optimus gives several excellent applicable examples of what my article on powerups was intended to illustrate. Another real-life example his post made me think of was the TDT vs. STK Chill Out TS-50 at like AGP3 or so. TDT began camping rocket room at the start of the game, forcing STK to camp as well due to the size of the map and the number of players. TDT coming into the game was the unstoppable super power with the skill of Darkman & Zyos and the strategy of Shizz. TDT decided they would camp rocket room and would concede Invis and even OS to STK. This strategy seemed to be working fine until the Ogre twins figured out TDT's strategy. Time after time an invis/OS ogre would slide into rocket room and headshot a TDT player and vanish. The successful use of the invis & sniper afforded to them allowed them to win the game and overcome a strong camping strategy. Had this been a Halo 2 match STK's strategy would have been foiled as soon as they dropped the sniper.
The general gameplay derived from the powerup & weapon situation in Halo 1 creates a much different atmosphere then then alot of other FPS's and one extrmely unique to a gaming console. Sadly the majority of Halo 2 matches simply become "I'll sit here and there's nothing you can do to stop me."
I'm going to finish this comments page up. Reality listen real close. IF HALO 1 WAS ON XBOX LIVE WITH MATCHMAKING IT WOULD TRUMP H2 SALES. Infact it probably would hurt Halo 2 tournaments so bad MLG would start MLG for halo 1 again.
"HALO 1 on XBOX LIVE would be the greatest game ever." - That's REALITY
Who actually camped around the rockets in BG waiting for the respawn after picking them up? I wouldn't be caught dead in the middle of BG with pistols in the game.
And this isn't the other anonymous who uses big words to seem like he knows something when really, he just likes to be a dick.
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