the pistol is too powerful

Cutscenes, man, cutscenes. I know Keyes is an adult film star in Reach, but, really ? What happened to the salty old ship cap'n from CE ? And Chief...Have said it before, but anyone who's seven and a half feet tall is all legs, not John Goodman in armor. (Jackal shield impenetrability and your own [suddenly slightly less] shield aspects aside, this bothers me more than anything.) It looks like the Unreal engine not on steroids. The human wrist cannot achieve a 45 degree angle. Why is Jacob's still 35 ? Get on it, 343...

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] InvasionImminent [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Sliding Ghost Take that [url=http://www.badcyborg.net/ODST/Fun/ONIAlphaSite/BridgeOnslaughtChallenge.html]battle at the beginning of ONI Alpha Site[/url] as an example of an interesting battle. [/quote] <3 SG[/quote]Hee hee hee. I am a genius. But the real genius behind the battle is Rockslider.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Sliding Ghost Take that [url=http://www.badcyborg.net/ODST/Fun/ONIAlphaSite/BridgeOnslaughtChallenge.html]battle at the beginning of ONI Alpha Site[/url] as an example of an interesting battle. [/quote] <3 SG

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Uncle Kulikov I notice that most of the OP's complaints are based on improvements made in subsequent games, so be fair and remember those sequels could be adjusted with hindsight.[/quote]The op was made when I was still playing CE for strategies. I've come to reject most of those complaints and embrace CE... and play it for fun. And actually, the subsequent games have a lot more things I dislike: -checkpoints: +5 death cp reversion reversion is a pathetic feature. +Furthermore, there is no longer a pop up asking for confirmation if you want to revert. +Also, cp delaying has been severely changed for the worse. Other than certain cps (i.e. beginning of Quarantine Zone, I think there's a cp that you can delay to get it at the Mythic skull), I find that if I have enemies nearby or shooting at me or if I have delayed it too long, I don't get it. Also, you can only delay a cp for 5-6 jumps. Last but not least, infinite cps. They were on Halo, SC, AotCR, and some other levels but they are noticeably missing in the subsequent games. The only one I know of is when you enter the third tower on The Covenant. You can revisit that room about 6 times and get a cp. Finally, I get cps when I don't want them (i.e. when there's a bunch of enemies nearby) and don't get cps when I do want them. The subsequent games are somewhat linear in this aspect, and it is nearly impossible to obtain a cp after some points. In CE, cps were abundant yet [u]well distanced so you had to earn them[/u]. -AI: +they get removed a lot +they have so many advantages compared to the player +the skulls don't really add to their AI as much as they add their advantages +they're not as predictable. One of the things that made CE combat such a revolution (and fun) was that they were predictable yet still challenging. [b]Randomness kills fun[/b]. +they're not as bright. In H2 and Reach, I've assassinated enemies and their allies never noticed (H2 can be forgiven since it has Armory skull). In Reach, I've found myself [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uusIYrKSM#t=26s]landing in front of a Jackal[/url] and he never noticed me, even when I killed his buddy [b]IN FRONT OF HIM[/b] as well as there being no enemies nearby to keep his attention. H3 is the only one that has an Armory skull type effect enabled [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ojM-LQDG7s]by default[/url], which is why the Brute noticed his dead comrade. Which is why if you melee a sleeping Grunt's dead body through another sleeping Grunt, he wakes up. In Reach, this has been completely abandoned. On LNoS, at the part with the Bob Elite and General, one can give away his position to the Covies by assassinating a Grunt or the Bob making him say something that alerts everyone. But that's about it afaik. +they're sometimes omniscient. You'd expect the AI that get dropped off by the dropship on LNoS in Reach to continue moving up the beach, never noticing the player perched behind a precarious point or on the high cliffs (he got out of the map via Pelican) but some of them actually look up at you. In Reach, when fighting with Noble Team, if you come out of cover, the enemies turn to you. In H3, the peeing Brute is hard to assassinate even if you were crouching. +too many of them are now territorial (meaning they cannot leave their spawning area). There goes the possibility of having 4 Hunters on The Ark +the lack of megabattles. [u]I consider megabattles as a sign of Halo trademark[/u]. H1 has 4. H3 has 1 (2 if you count the few Brutes, Jackals, and 33 Grunts on Sierra 117): The Storm, at the AA gun (but most of them become territorial and remain on the rock next to the AA gun. I plan on getting marines to participate in the battle). H2 has 1 (The Arbiter, but the enemy numbers are on a miniature scale. I'm currently working on it. I've managed to get friendly AI into the battle). But where's Reach's? That's how far Bungie has taken Halo. From interesting, impressive, immersive, intense, and nearly impeccable battles and encounters to boring linear, room to room street fighting. Not even Firefight has any value anymore. I've heard that it's just fuel rod gun spam and that the enemies always know where you are... As for ODST, I'm pretty sure it might have a megabattle (on the other hand, based on my memories of NMPD HQ, I doubt it). Take that [url=http://www.badcyborg.net/ODST/Fun/ONIAlphaSite/BridgeOnslaughtChallenge.html]battle at the beginning of ONI Alpha Site[/url] as an example of an interesting battle. So you guys might consider me now a CE purist, as I've been disappointed with H2 (recently) and H3, and especially Reach. [Edited on 01.15.2012 9:45 AM PST]

I notice that most of the OP's complaints are based on improvements made in subsequent games, so be fair and remember those sequels could be adjusted with hindsight. I wish that the AR had more stopping power, and was more accurate. I'd prefer the Banshees and Ghosts not have limited HP, and be like the rest of the vehicles in the game.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Mark V guy TBH, a lot of things Unmerciful checkpoints, they're far too distanced[/quote]CE isn't a linear game. And you have to earn the cps. Besides, to compensate, it gives out cps quite frequently and there are places that give infinite cps.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Mark V guy TBH, a lot of things Unmerciful checkpoints, they're far too distanced The dullness of the campaign. I play shooting games to shoot and kill things, not navigate through a god damn maze. Assault on the Control Room. Nuff said. [/quote] That maze however is filled with flood.

Actually I find halo ce melee incredibly annoying. Then again, that may just be the lag.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] I RaveN I HYPOTHETICALLY halo 1 had a much larger skill gap than any other Halo for two words: magnetism autoaim[/quote]And there's no lunge.

HYPOTHETICALLY halo 1 had a much larger skill gap than any other Halo for two words: magnetism autoaim

Not enough big-team maps (the PC version really helped this)

Your hypothetical situation doesn't apply to reality. What I'm trying to say is that games with aim assist and slower movement speeds are ruining competitive shooting. The reason the gaming industry gives for this is because they're trying to compensate for the controller. You're putting it so far into a specific situation for it to have [i]any[/i] meaning what so ever. The truth is that the games on the PC/pretty much any game with K/M in mind isn't like that at all. Your entire argument is "You can have a game with an insane skill gap. You can also have a game with a slightly reduced skill gap so that it's more fit for controller use while still retaining a fairly large skill gap." My question that I've been asking that you haven't addressed is: "Why? Why not keep that enormous skill gap the game had before?" The only reason people like controllers better than the Mouse/Keyboard is because it's comfortable. They add things such as aim assist and slower movement speeds into the game to make it more reasonable to play. What crowd does that sound like it suites best? Competitive or casual? When it comes to tournaments where people can win tons of money would you rather see a game that has as large of a skill gap as possible with equipment that allows that skill gap to be fully fleshed out or one that's slightly less with equipment that gimps players no matter how skilled they are? (Yes, due to the inaccuracy of the hardware you [i]can't[/i] be as accurate. The right thumb stick doesn't give you enough precision to do so. That's not something you can learn, that's just something that is. That means there's no addition to skill in that.) Aim acceleration is better than aim assist. It's still not something that you control yourself. It would be best if they designed a controller that had higher accuracy instead of trying to find the solution in the software of the game. Let's say if there was a button you could press somewhere on the controller that would either slow or accelerate the speed of your aiming [i]that[/i] would be great. It would still not be as good as the keyboard and mouse because twitch gaming would no longer exist in the games without aim assist making it easy. Controller, Aim Assist, slower movement speeds: Casual gaming Keyboard Mouse, fast movement speeds, no aim assist: Competitive gaming Is there anything wrong with these two forms of gaming? No. Is there something wrong with either of these two forms of gaming trying to act like they're the other? Yes. [Edited on 12.30.2011 8:27 AM PST]

1. Normal plays like it is on a higher difficulty. (More difficult like it's on Heroic difficulty) 2. No update on smoother driving with the Warthog.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] sdnomdE In this hypothetical example, does it matter what differences the games had to begin with?[/quote]Yes. Yes it would, actually. What other things could this game have that would cause it to have a higher skill ceiling than that of Quake/Unreal Tournament/Counter-Strike so much so that even with slower movement speeds/aim assist it has just as much skill as those games?[/quote] I didn't say anything about what games "A" and "B" were, and what interfaces they were being played through, and how much assist either of them had in initial state. For an extremely crude and simplistic example, suppose game A is Quake and game B is Quake slowed down by 1000% and with doubly-large hitboxes. Now suppose that game A has its movement slowed by 10% and has a [i]tiny[/i] bit of magnetism added. Surely you agree that it's quite likely that game A still has a larger skill gap than game B? Yes, it's a [i]very[/i] extreme example, but it's simply to point out that your earlier statement about how all games with assist necessarily have lower skill gaps than all games without assist was a tad absolutist. That's really [i]all[/i] I was trying to say with it. [quote][quote]I've seen no evidence that it's easy for anyone to rise to great heights of controller-use proficiency*.[/quote]I never said it was [i]easy[/i] to reach great heights of proficiency with controllers. All I said is that it's easier. With things such as aim assist and slower movement speeds purposely nerfing the difficulty of the games to seem more playable towards newer users so they will actually buy the product/continue playing, it causes it to be easier (Not saying easy, just easier) to hit the skill ceiling.[/quote] Once again, I stated nothing about whether aim assist and slow movement are being applied or not. I'm talking basic proficiencies here, not basic proficiencies once a mask of slow movement and high assist has been applied. Obviously a game with sufficiently slow movement and sufficiently high assist to have a lower skill gap than a typical M&K-intended game will have a lower skill gap than a typical M&K-intended game. That's a very clear tautology, and not something I want to be caught denying! [quote][quote]*Perhaps I should clarify this point that I use in these spots. Consider this: The theoretical performance ceiling of gamepads with respect to shooting in FPS games is almost as high as that of K&M, that ceiling being "perfect aim." However, as it is harder to squeeze precision out of a gamepad, the practical performance floor with a gamepad is actually far lower. Hence, the possible performance [i]range[/i] for users of a gamepad seems to me to be, if anything, far larger than that for users of K&M.[/quote]Actually, with aim assist, it's not hard at all to squeeze precision out of a controller. It's quite easy to pull off headshots on the Xbox Halo games when compared to PC shooters such as Unreal Tournament. Even to someone who is above average in both which I consider myself to be.[/quote] Once again, I was assuming all other things equal in the hypothetical situation. However, you seem to take this into account... //============= [quote]It [i]would[/i] be larger if people moved faster and the aim assist was dropped.[/quote] [b]Ah ha![/b] Then, it seems, we have some sort of common understanding. In and of themselves, with no other qualifiers, we agree that gamepads provide a very high skill gap. We also agree that gamepad-based FPS games are clunky without assistance and hence typically require aim assist and/or reduced movement speeds as compared to M&K games in order to play smoothly. We agree that reducing movement speeds, and adding assist, are both factors with a rendency to reduce the skill gap, and that the stronger they are, the more the skill gap will be reduced. The disagreement we have is around the following question: Can a gamepad-based FPS title have enough of these forms of assistance to play smoothly while retaining a high skill gap for competitive play? Your answer to this seems to be "no"; that despite the innately huge skill gap of gamepads, the amount of assistance that is typically considered sufficient in order to make the game play smoothly is always so high that the skill gap will definitely drop to below that of typical competitive M&K-based games (and usually down to levels which are not suited for competitive play). I, obviously, disagree. That said. Regardless of whether I'm being stubborn, or you're being stubborn, or we're both idiots, or whatever, I believe that it's abundantly clear that neither of us is going to win the other over with our assertions one way or the other. It's always nice when big discussions end conclusively, but if we have neither entirely new thoughts or a large and rigorous numerical study on score gaps and consistencies between different types of games to bring up, I suspect we're getting close to the limit of where this discussion can go. So maybe we should wrap it up soon, rather than forcing it to spiral into us repeating ourselves and getting angry, as internet discussions so often do. //============= However, I would like to bring up one last thing: In addition to skill gap concerns, you seem to dislike assist on principle due to the awkward "hand-holding" aspect of it, as it's a bit like the game is playing itself. So... With respect to that issue, what are your thoughts on aim acceleration in games designed for gamepads? Not magnetism toward enemies, just the natural gumminess that reticles in many games have toward changes in velocity that makes fine-tuned aiming (and, to some extent, compensating for input lag) easier. (Edit: Reach has a lot of this acceleration, whereas Halo 1 has little to none of it. It can be felt by just looking around.) [Edited on 12.30.2011 2:52 AM PST]

The things that I dislike about Halo Combat Evolved are: fall damage, wraiths that cannot be used, no banshee tricks, and also very hard to get a banshee in the first place.

overall it was a good game but the parts ihated most were the repetitive level designs in the campaign... one moment your on your way to saving keyes, next you wind up going into a circle over and over again

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] sdnomdE In this hypothetical example, does it matter what differences the games had to begin with?[/quote]Yes. Yes it would, actually. What other things could this game have that would cause it to have a higher skill ceiling than that of Quake/Unreal Tournament/Counter-Strike so much so that even with slower movement speeds/aim assist it has just as much skill as those games? [quote]I've seen no evidence that it's easy for anyone to rise to great heights of controller-use proficiency*.[/quote]I never said it was [i]easy[/i] to reach great heights of proficiency with controllers. All I said is that it's easier. With things such as aim assist and slower movement speeds purposely nerfing the difficulty of the games to seem more playable towards newer users so they will actually buy the product/continue playing, it causes it to be easier (Not saying easy, just easier) to hit the skill ceiling. For me it didn't take very long at all until I was getting 3 shot kills with the Pistol on Halo: Combat Evolved very often. In fact I was 8 and it was only within a few weeks. On the other hand it took years for me to become proficient in landing headshots in games like Unreal Tournament even though I like the feeling of a keyboard and mouse much more. [quote]No, I only agreed that it has a tendency to decrease the skill gap. I also argued, however, that it's entirely possible for games operated from gamepad to have high skill gaps*, and that some amount of aim assist can make them more practical and reasonable to play while still maintaining more than sufficiently high skill gaps for competitive play.[/quote]My point is that they shouldn't have made the software of the game more practical/reasonable for FPS gaming. It would have been far more ideal if they could have designed a controller or a more comfortable form of a mouse/keyboard for this instead. That way you can have the best instead of being sufficient. Water is sufficient, but a drink of your choice is the best. [quote]*Perhaps I should clarify this point that I use in these spots. Consider this: The theoretical performance ceiling of gamepads with respect to shooting in FPS games is almost as high as that of K&M, that ceiling being "perfect aim." However, as it is harder to squeeze precision out of a gamepad, the practical performance floor with a gamepad is actually far lower. Hence, the possible performance [i]range[/i] for users of a gamepad seems to me to be, if anything, far larger than that for users of K&M.[/quote]Actually, with aim assist, it's not hard at all to squeeze precision out of a controller. It's quite easy to pull off headshots on the Xbox Halo games when compared to PC shooters such as Unreal Tournament. Even to someone who is above average in both which I consider myself to be. It [i]would[/i] be larger if people moved faster and the aim assist was dropped. Then again it goes back to it being more interesting if you have people with better equipment for the job instead of people trying as hard as they can to use inferior equipment. [quote]And by my earlier point, if this range is sufficiently large, reducing it to make a game playable might result in a range that is still reasonably large.[/quote]It would still be smaller. Why would I want my game to be "reasonably large" when I could have it much larger? Why waste my time decreasing the skill gap to use worse equipment? (By the way, it is worse equipment. That's the entire reason it exists. You don't see Mouse/Keyboards having software in games developed with them in mind to make them as sufficient as a controller.) [Edited on 12.29.2011 10:38 PM PST]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx I see that you said game A originally had a larger skill gap. I would like for you to tell me what made game A have a larger skill gap in the first place... If it has slower movement speeds and aim assist then what on Earth would game A still have over game B?[/quote] In this hypothetical example, does it matter what differences the games had to begin with? My point was that a game with assist is not [i]necessarily[/i] going to have a lower skill gap than a very different game without assist. [quote]What I mean is that the harder it is to get used to something the more skill/mastery it takes. It's not a hard concept to grasp. If it's something you can sit down and learn how to proficiently use (Not comfortably, proficiently) in a day then that obviously doesn't have as large of a skill range than something that takes weeks or even months.[/quote] Okay, I agree with this. (At least with what seems to be the idea; I don't like the connotations of the "get used to" in the first sentence, for the reasons I stated before.) But while I agree that it's easy to pick up a controller and use it comfortably, I've seen no evidence that it's easy for anyone to rise to great heights of controller-use proficiency*. [quote]My original point was this: If you put slower movement speeds and aim assist on a game it then decreases the full potential of the game's skill gap, therefore, I don't like competitive games being developed with it. It seems that now you agree with me on that.[/quote] No, I only agreed that it has a tendency to decrease the skill gap. I also argued, however, that it's entirely possible for games operated from gamepad to have high skill gaps*, and that some amount of aim assist can make them more practical and reasonable to play while still maintaining more than sufficiently high skill gaps for competitive play. //============= *Perhaps I should clarify this point that I use in these spots. Consider this: The theoretical performance ceiling of gamepads with respect to shooting in FPS games is almost as high as that of K&M, that ceiling being "perfect aim." However, as it is harder to squeeze precision out of a gamepad, the practical performance floor with a gamepad is actually far lower. Hence, the possible performance [i]range[/i] for users of a gamepad seems to me to be, if anything, far larger than that for users of K&M. And by my earlier point, if this range is sufficiently large, reducing it to make a game playable might result in a range that is still reasonably large. [Edited on 12.29.2011 10:09 PM PST]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] sdnomdE [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx How does it not have a smaller skill gap? If you reduce the very thing that gives that game skill then you're directly reducing the skill gap. If people move slower and you add aim assist people will have a much easier time hitting another person. That means that someone who would have a much harder time hitting someone before would find it much easier while the guy who was extremely proficient at it would be finding it slightly easier. For the most part the guy extremely proficient at it would notice it more on how much easier it was for other people to kill him than he would on himself. I don't see how someone can't see how that effectively decreases the skill gap.[/quote] What are you arguing against? I agree that slower movement and higher assist tends to decrease the skill gap, and I've been agreeing with that throughout our entire discussion, and my argument wouldn't make any sense if I didn't acknowledge that. Read my post again.[/quote]I see that you said game A originally had a larger skill gap. I would like for you to tell me what made game A have a larger skill gap in the first place... If it has slower movement speeds and aim assist then what on Earth would game A still have over game B? Even then I'm not comparing two games specifically, I'm comparing what a game [i]would[/i] be like with Keyboard/Mouse in mind as to how it [i]is[/i] with controller in mind. If you put aim assist and slower movement speeds on game A then you effectively decrease the skill that game originally required which takes away a large part of the potential that game had as a competitive shooter. [quote][quote]If it's harder for someone to use something then that means there is a much larger range of skill towards it.[/quote] Equivocation. You're using different meanings of the infinitive "to use." If you mean "to use competently," (or "to use skillfully") then yes, it holds. But you qualified the application of "to use" with a description of how K+M is unwieldy to new users and how new users can pick up a gamepad quickly, which means you meant it in the sense of "to use comfortably," which says nothing about the skill with which it's being comfortably used. Chess, for instance, is very easy to learn the basic mechanics of. You don't have to be brilliant to quickly learn what the different pieces do. That is, it's easy to learn to use Chess' interface comfortably. But becoming comfortable with the mechanics doesn't make you a chessmaster, and there are still massive skill differences between people who pay chess, because being able to use it comfortably and being able to use it competently are two entirely different things. You tend to have to do the former before tackling the latter, but the difficulty of mastering the former says absolutely nothing about the difficulty of mastering the latter.[/quote]What I mean is that the harder it is to get used to something the more skill/mastery it takes. It's not a hard concept to grasp. If it's something you can sit down and learn how to proficiently use (Not comfortably, proficiently) in a day then that obviously doesn't have as large of a skill range than something that takes weeks or even months. My original point was this: If you put slower movement speeds and aim assist on a game it then decreases the full potential of the game's skill gap, therefore, I don't like competitive games being developed with it. It seems that now you agree with me on that. [Edited on 12.29.2011 8:00 PM PST]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx How does it not have a smaller skill gap? If you reduce the very thing that gives that game skill then you're directly reducing the skill gap. If people move slower and you add aim assist people will have a much easier time hitting another person. That means that someone who would have a much harder time hitting someone before would find it much easier while the guy who was extremely proficient at it would be finding it slightly easier. For the most part the guy extremely proficient at it would notice it more on how much easier it was for other people to kill him than he would on himself. I don't see how someone can't see how that effectively decreases the skill gap.[/quote] What are you arguing against? I agree that slower movement and higher assist tends to decrease the skill gap, and I've been agreeing with that throughout our entire discussion, and my argument wouldn't make any sense if I didn't acknowledge that. Read my post again. [quote]If it's harder for someone to use something then that means there is a much larger range of skill towards it.[/quote] Equivocation. You're using different meanings of the infinitive "to use." If you mean "to use competently," (or "to use skillfully") then yes, it holds. But you qualified the application of "to use" with a description of how K+M is unwieldy to new users and how new users can pick up a gamepad quickly, which means you meant it in the sense of "to use comfortably," which says nothing about the skill with which it's being comfortably used. Chess, for instance, is very easy to learn the basic mechanics of. You don't have to be brilliant to quickly learn what the different pieces do. That is, it's easy to learn to use Chess' interface comfortably. But becoming comfortable with the mechanics doesn't make you a chessmaster, and there are still massive skill differences between people who pay chess, because being able to use it comfortably and being able to use it competently are two entirely different things. You tend to have to do the former before tackling the latter, but the difficulty of mastering the former says absolutely nothing about the difficulty of mastering the latter.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] sdnomdE Let me rephrase my question. Suppose game A is constructed in such a way that it has a much larger skill gap than game B. Suppose someone comes along and slows down the movement in game A, and adds a bit of aim assist to it, which reduces the skill gap. Will game A now necessarily have a smaller skill gap than game B, and why? Why couldn't game A's skill gap not possibly still be a bit higher than, or the same as, game B's?[/quote]How does it not have a smaller skill gap? If you reduce the very thing that gives that game skill then you're directly reducing the skill gap. If people move slower and you add aim assist people will have a much easier time hitting another person. That means that someone who would have a much harder time hitting someone before would find it much easier while the guy who was extremely proficient at it would be finding it slightly easier. For the most part the guy extremely proficient at it would notice it more on how much easier it was for other people to kill him than he would on himself. I don't see how someone can't see how that effectively decreases the skill gap. [quote]I can't accept this without justification, at least not in a general sense. It does not seem intuitively self-evident, and it suffers from some uncomfortable implications. For instance, it suggests that the much less general ("less general" since in colloquial use it is aimed primarily with learning curve, without consideration toward things such as talent) statement of "easy to learn, hard to master" cannot be accurately applied to anything.[/quote]Talent is natural. Skill is obtained. If you have talent then it's easier for you to gain skill. A wider learning curve is proportionate to a wider skill gap. If it's harder for someone to use something then that means there is a much larger range of skill towards it. If someone picks up a sniper rifle and aims it down range to hit a target they will surely miss the target their first time. They will have to learn how to use it and become proficient with it. Now, if that same person were to have started with a long bow shooting a target the same distance they would have to learn how to use it as well. It would be much harder and would take a lot more to become proficient at it. Therefore there would be a wider skill gap to it. That's how it works.

[quote]In regards to if it would be the same level of skill if you took away the skillful things in the game to compensate for a gamepad, then no. If using a gamepad would be more skillful then let it make the game have a higher skill gap. If you compensate it makes it easier for just anyone to pick up and play.[/quote] Let me rephrase my question. Suppose game A is constructed in such a way that it has a much larger skill gap than game B. Suppose someone comes along and slows down the movement in game A, and adds a bit of aim assist to it, which reduces the skill gap. Will game A now necessarily have a smaller skill gap than game B, and why? Why couldn't game A's skill gap not possibly still be a bit higher than, or the same as, game B's? [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx What I meant before with the increased skill ceiling with the Mouse/Keyboard alone was that there was a great skill gap both ways. It's much easier for someone to pick up a controller and start playing than it is on a keyboard/mouse. The inherit difficulty of simply using these devices along with the reward once you're great at it is what makes the skill gap enormous. Not just the end result.[/quote] This argument seems to depend on the following (admittedly informally stated) proposition: [i]If something is easy to pick up the basics of (or get comfortable with, or whatever), the skill of users of that thing will not vary as as greatly as if that thing was not as easy to pick up.[/i] I can't accept this without justification, at least not in a general sense. It does not seem intuitively self-evident, and it suffers from some uncomfortable implications. For instance, it suggests that the much less general ("less general" since in colloquial use it is aimed primarily with learning curve, without consideration toward things such as talent) statement of "easy to learn, hard to master" cannot be accurately applied to anything. [quote]Limiting Formula One engines and limiting the amount of area a wet suit can cover are better suited analogies to not letting people use keybinds/macros. Making them use a controller instead of a keyboard/mouse would be the equivalent of telling them to use a metal ping-pong paddle instead of a Tennis racket while playing Tennis.[/quote] Nah. keybind/macro limitations are more akin to F1's traction control limitations. And there's nothing wrong with ping-pong paddles; people do play games akin to tennis with them. And how do they keep it reasonable? By using a smaller court, a court which the paddle sweeps out a proportionally greater area of. In a sense, it's not dissimilar from the use of assist or slower movement to make console shooters make sense.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] InvasionImminent [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] blade246 Not much, but the fall damage and the delayed jumping was quite annoying just as it was in the original Halo 1. But what annoyed me the most was the change from the Halo: Reach assault rifle model to the Halo 1 assault rifle model. It made me quite sad when I found out that it was just a place holder. :-([/quote] I really liked the Reach assault rifle aesthetically :( [/quote] I like the Halo CE/3 AR look better. It looks exaggerated and unnecessary in Reach. OT: Some things I didn't like. Hmm.. The jump delay I didn't like. I didn't like how there was no midranged rifle weapon lol I can't really think of anything else.

What I meant before with the increased skill ceiling with the Mouse/Keyboard alone was that there was a great skill gap both ways. It's much easier for someone to pick up a controller and start playing than it is on a keyboard/mouse. The inherit difficulty of simply using these devices along with the reward once you're great at it is what makes the skill gap enormous. Not just the end result. It is easier to hit something with a Mouse/Keyboard on a game like Quake III Arena. You ought to download the Xbox Live Arcade version of it and see how bad it is. If you lowered the movement speed and added aim assist to compensate for gamepads it wouldn't be as skillful due to many things. For one thing it wouldn't even be Quake anymore. Another thing would be the what I was talking about with the Mouse/Keyboard having a greater skill gap both ways by its self. In regards to if it would be the same level of skill if you took away the skillful things in the game to compensate for a gamepad, then no. If using a gamepad would be more skillful then let it make the game have a higher skill gap. If you compensate it makes it easier for just anyone to pick up and play. Limiting Formula One engines and limiting the amount of area a wet suit can cover are better suited analogies to not letting people use keybinds/macros. Making them use a controller instead of a keyboard/mouse would be the equivalent of telling them to use a metal ping-pong paddle instead of a Tennis racket while playing Tennis.

[quote]Using a mouse/keyboard does not automatically gain you higher precision. As many people have stated in the past, it's difficult to learn to use the keyboard/mouse. It's something you have to work towards and it's a skill that has a high skill ceiling in its self. Just because someone has a mouse/keyboard doesn't mean they'll ever be able to pull off amazing shots like in that montage I linked earlier.[/quote] I'm fully aware of this. If you want me to use obnoxiously precise terminology (which I'm going to have to ratchet up a bit with this post in general to get this discussion to actually go anywhere), here goes: Someone with a given level of experience and skill with M&K will typically aim far more precisely than someone with comparable levels of experience and skill with a gamepad. [quote]The way Quake was developed to suit Mouse/Keyboard playing was in the pace of the movement. Players can go at much higher speeds and lots of the guns require extreme precision to hit someone. When creating a game with the thoughts of gamepads in mind they have to slow down the movement speeds which makes it far easier to get a hit on someone.[/quote] Okay. So, to compensate for the difficulty with gamepad aiming, they have to slow the game down (or do other stuff) to compensate. So far we're on the same page. However, why do you immediately jump to the conclusion that this necessarily makes it easier to hit someone than with an M&K-based faster-paced game? If we acknowledge that it's a compensation mechanism for a game which would otherwise be [i]more difficult than our basepoint[/i], why do you claim that there can't be a point along that compensation curve where it is [i]similar to our basepoint[/i], as opposed to always making games [i]easier than that basepoint[/i]? Which also ties into this: [quote]It brings out the full possibilities for skill gaps in First-Person Shooting.[/quote] But if a gamepad makes it more difficult to be precise, than wouldn't a game like Quake, if played on a gamepad, actually tend to have a higher skill gap than if played on M&K? Which means that even if aim assist and movement speed difficulty compensation decrease the skill gap, couldn't a hypothetical game be envisioned which, using a gamepad, could have both some aim assist and somewhat slower movement than Quake yet still have just as large a skill gap as vanilla Quake? Look, this is the basic thing that you need to justify. We both acknowledge that a gamepad is hard to be precise with compared to a keyboard+mouse (which implies that it's harder to hit enemies with), and we both acknowledge that compensation mechanisms like slower games and aim assist decrease the skill gap by making it easier to hit enemies. Your argument that console games with slower movement and aim assist will always necessarily have lower skill gaps, then, relies on the notion that there if no combination of movement speed and aim assist that still leaves it as hard to hit enemies as an assist-free M&K game. And this you have still not justified (Though on the plus side, we're zeroing in on, or at least viewing other angles of, the core issue! That's good, and it's a lot more than most internet discussions accomplish.). //===================== [quote]Would you rather watch a sport where everyone has handicapped equipment that causes the game to not show its full potential versus a sport where the game is to its absolute potential with the best equipment they can get? Would you rather watch the Special Olympics or would you rather watch the Olympics? Would you rather watch a race consisting of lawn mowers or a race consisting of super cars like Lamborghinis? (Ironically, Lamborghini was started as a Lawn Mower manufacturer. I didn't even think about that while first typing this out xD)[/quote] I don't really care, actually*. Most sports systems actually have bans for the highest-performance equipment, and I'm not just talking about performance-enhancing drugs and stuff. Even Formula One racing has limitations on stuff like engine RPMs, swimmers are limited in how much of their bodies can be covered by their suits, baseball players have limitations on what bats they can use, and so on and so forth. *As long as we ignore that "causes the game to not show its full potential" clause. [Edited on 12.23.2011 11:09 PM PST]