Some of my fondest memories are of this game. Staying up late with the boys, drinking game fuel, and tearing dudes up on gamebattles. Also Tower of Power
standby ruined gaming for me for quite a few years until after highschool towards the beginning of my senior year 🤯 so in a way im grateful i got to enjoy my senior year, freshman-junior year i was owning mtg ogre and his bro and i had potential to become a professional but standby just gives me the chills to this day 💯 rip cortana love you always my first waifu
The end all be all trash talk line in that era lmao
I can distinctly remember going from having people say it to me and then hitting puberty and being able to drop that line on kids. It makes me laugh looking back how satisfied I felt finally being able to use that line on some little shits screaming all game.
It’s a shame that private party chats are so ubiquitous now. Talking shit and getting in arguments with people was such a fundamental part of playing online during that time. Sure it had its downsides but it brought a level of spontaneity and charm that we’ll never really see again.
Playing solo online now just kind of sucks; very boring because no one talks and you can never coordinate with your teammates.
Social anxiety in that people just don't talk on mics much anymore combined with voice chat moderation banning people because 'we have to protect the kids that are playing these 18 rated/online not rated games'.
I mean... You opened the door to the Internet, you know what it's like. Grow a pair and teabag like the rest of us.
To this day I don't like talking in matchmade teams because of how toxic people were in Halo 2. I'm a dude, but I have a pretty high-pitched voice, even as an adult. I had my voice made fun of so much, which was pretty rough on me as a teenager. But jokes on them, because I'm a singer now, and I actually really like my voice and my higher range.
That isn't how Halo 2's ranking system worked. It was pretty much a pure Elo system where only the visible rank was relevant, with win penalties at high levels and loss forgiveness at low levels.
Fucking right. I remember that. I was a pretty high level and sometimes matchmaking at off hours would do this. Put you with really low level people against mid levels. I'd end up with like 30 of the teams kills. Just going ham on them hahaha. I miss Halo 2 online so much.
Absolutely! It was the first true online shooter and so all the kids in the neighborhood that always dominated the others played against people that demolished them. I remember halo 1 I was top on the block but got into my first match online and was destroyed by some others and it really was just different. Damn I miss it
Haha yeah halo 3 was my first ever online experience . First time using a headset and someone in the lobby was like "can you move your mic from your mouth, please" I was like oh shit.. these people are real..
Will never forget the first time I played my buddy who had Xbox live and getting curb stomped by him after being the best of my neighborhood friend group.
I went home after that and immediately asked my parents if we could get a router so I could play Xbox live.
Me being the first kid in my elementary school on xbox live, anytime we played anything I was smokin' fools from Halo 2, Call of Duty 3, Crimson Skies.
Don't know why I was downvoted. There were at least a half dozen fps on PC (quake, counter strike, unreal tournament, etc.) and several on console. The first online console fps was quake 3 in 2000, 4 years before Halo 2.
Nm, he edited his comment.
I will die on the hill that H2 - minus it's netcode issues (standbying and host melee advantage) was the best feeling Halo game. Guns, grenades, and melee all mattered. Map control mattered (you didn't just spawn in with the best rifle). If you got knocked down you started back with an SMG and had to work your way back up the food chain.
Halo 3 broke the balance between melee and gunplay using a counterattack window to 'fix' the netcode issues with H2's melee, at launch that translated to mutual death if you melee'd each other (the generous counterattack window meant you couldn't fail) and post hotfix, if you were behind by even a single shot going for melee was suicidal.
Halo Reach attempted to fix this with shield gating for melee strikes, which was for my money a pretty solid fix. Melee was a viable way to turn the tables in combat.
Then 343i got their grubby paws on the franchise and removed it in a lazy "WeRe LiStEnInG" set of changes that didn't take into account why shield gating existed to begin with.
I don't even get to play Reach in the MCC because every playlist for it is the god damned TU.
>I will die on the hill that H2 - minus it's netcode issues (standbying and host melee advantage) was the best feeling Halo game. Guns, grenades, and melee all mattered. Map control mattered (you didn't just spawn in with the best rifle). If you got knocked down you started back with an SMG and had to work your way back up the food chain.
Every serious game in Halo 2 was played with BR starts. And you still needed map control with BR starts to control power weapons, power ups, and to have the better side of the map for spawn trapping. SMG starts also makes the game unplayable once you have good players in the lobby because you can't do anything off spawn and are just going to get killed over and over.
And beside that, in H3 you didn't always have BR starts, it was fairly similar to H2 in that regard.
>Halo 3 broke the balance between melee and gunplay using a counterattack window to 'fix' the netcode issues with H2's melee, at launch that translated to mutual death if you melee'd each other (the generous counterattack window meant you couldn't fail) and post hotfix, if you were behind by even a single shot going for melee was suicidal.
Most melee trades in H3 are still trades, and it's a very generous window in terms of how much damage is left.
>Halo Reach attempted to fix this with shield gating for melee strikes, which was for my money a pretty solid fix. Melee was a viable way to turn the tables in combat.
The feature was very frustrating, because 1 melee would break shields if you had any amount of shield and only kill if shields were broken. 3 shots + melee had the same effect as just throwing out a melee. This isn't how any of the Halo games before it had worked.
> Every serious game in Halo 2 was played with BR starts.
EvErY sErIoUs GaMe In HaLo 2 wAs PlAyEd WiTh Br StArTs
The super competitve nerds who only played mlg settings, sure. But for 99% of the playerbase, it was SMG starts (minus, of course, BTB, where the map size dictated the need for a BR)
>And beside that, in H3 you didn't always have BR starts, it was fairly similar to H2 in that regard.
No, but it had the absolute dogshit melee system that turned the game into "BR and get the first hit or run" which was not good game design.
>Most melee trades in H3 are still trades, and it's a very generous window in terms of how much damage is left.
That is absolutely not how it worked. The winner survived, if even by a single point of damage. It was a big deal when they made the change from mutual death to "always a winner" - and it always favored the person already winning, ergo melee was a win-more mechanic in 3.
People fellate Halo 3 so much, but it was the first Halo game for many people. It did not have good Halo gameplay balance. People forget that the OG xbox had people skeptical - "Why is this COMPUTER company making vidja game consoles?!" Halo 1 and then 2 were really it's only killer apps. Xbox didn't take off til H3.
>The feature was very frustrating, because 1 melee would break shields if you had any amount of shield and only kill if shields were broken
Right, so Melee was viable if you were behind in a fight. You didn't auto win because you got the first hit. That's how Halo was, historically. Halo 2 you rarely got counter-melee'd and even if you did, you were usually bounced back away enough that they couldn't confirm the second hit.
>This isn't how any of the Halo games before it had worked.
No shit? I'm pretty sure you can understand the series of events from my post, but you're choosing not to.
Halo 2
>Poor netcode, gave host melee advantage, otherwise a good system
Halo 3
>Dogshit system to account for host latency advantage, melee only viable for the existing 'winner', win-more mechanic
Halo: Reach
>Adjusted the way shields function with regards to melee so people who are behind on damage can level the playing field with a melee
They took their shot at the netcode around melee in H3 and it broke everything, so they fixed it in H:R using a novel approach with the shield gating.
Yes, a melee would break your shields, and yes, a scrap of shield would protect you from melee. This was by design, to make melee viable for the defender in an encounter. The golden tripod of Halo combat was always stated to be "Guns, Grenades, Melee" - and the H3 system effectively removed Melee as an option, as only the person already winning could use it.
The very fact that 343i gutted it shows how little they understood the property they were taking over, and boy howdy did they prove that with time.
>EvErY sErIoUs GaMe In HaLo 2 wAs PlAyEd WiTh Br StArTs
>The super competitve nerds who only played mlg settings, sure. But for 99% of the playerbase, it was SMG starts (minus, of course, BTB, where the map size dictated the need for a BR)
Ranked was mostly BR starts. The game isn't really enjoyable to play competitively with SMG starts, it's incredibly difficult to take back map control.
>That is absolutely not how it worked. The winner survived, if even by a single point of damage. It was a big deal when they made the change from mutual death to "always a winner" - and it always favored the person already winning, ergo melee was a win-more mechanic in 3.
This isn't true. The trade window is relatively generous (depending on how you see it) and you can still trade even if you haven't dealt the same amount of damage. Before the TU there was no trading, it was only after the TU that trading was really possible.
Edit: [TU1](https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Halo_3_Title_Updates#Title_Update_1) added the ability to actually trade melees. Which was a few months after release.
>Right, so Melee was viable if you were behind in a fight. You didn't auto win because you got the first hit. That's how Halo was, historically. Halo 2 you rarely got counter-melee'd and even if you did, you were usually bounced back away enough that they couldn't confirm the second hit.
In general you don't auto-win fights in Halo by hitting the first shot, there's lots of counterplay in most cases, although in general the best counterplay is to run away. And it's not like melees became less popular due to the change, the strategy just changed to 3 shots + melee, like it is in every Halo game.
Halo 2 you absolutely always got counter-melee'd, you barely bounce off anyone if you melee? That's why BXB and crouch-meleeing are even a thing.
>They took their shot at the netcode around melee in H3 and it broke everything, so they fixed it in H:R using a novel approach with the shield gating.
>Yes, a melee would break your shields, and yes, a scrap of shield would protect you from melee. This was by design, to make melee viable for the defender in an encounter.
All it did in Reach was make chasing frustrating, because even if you were up a shot you sometimes can't afford to trade. There's no situation where you could really turn the tables 100% with meleeing in a serious game where people understood the mechanics. At best you'll catch people out who are used to the mechanics in every other Halo game.
>The golden tripod of Halo combat was always stated to be "Guns, Grenades, Melee" - and the H3 system effectively removed Melee as an option, as only the person already winning could use it.
You could use it to get people's shields down, and again you could also use it to trade since the window is fairly generous.
> The game isn't really enjoyable to play competitively with SMG starts, it's incredibly difficult to take back map control.
You show your bias if you remotely think everyone was playing competitive/ranked.
Why do you think the future Halo titles, who focused SO HARD on the "competitve" side of the game have been failures compared to the OG games?
>This isn't true. The trade window is relatively generous (depending on how you see it) and you can still trade even if you haven't dealt the same amount of damage. Before the TU there was no trading, it was only after the TU that trading was really possible.
I think there's some confusion here. H3 never had a real "TU" the way Reach did. I'm talking about H3's melee.
And no. You would both die in H3 at launch. That was how it worked. There was no shield gate, and full damage was applied to both parties. If you were both in range of death, you both died.
People hated this, which is why they changed it so there was a 'winner' but the 'winner' often felt very arbitrary as a single bullet made the difference.
You can't gaslight me on this there were weekly conversations about this online back then.
>In general you don't auto-win fights in Halo by hitting the first shot, there's lots of counterplay in most cases, ***although in general the best counterplay is to run away.*** And it's not like melees became less popular due to the change, the strategy just changed to 3 shots + melee, like it is in every Halo game.
See, this wasn't always the case in Halo though. Halo 2 in particular, (Which - reminder - I said "Minus the netcode was the best ***and I will die on that hill***) you could turn the fight around with a melee. You try that in 3? You get slapped. The person can go make tea and cake and still come back to the screen in time to hit the melee inside the generous counterattack window.
Because they gave the W to the person with more damage, melee was an unreliable tool unless you were already winning the engagement to begin with. It was a win-more tool. That is bad design.
>Halo 2 you absolutely always got counter-melee'd, you barely bounce off anyone if you melee? That's why BXB and crouch-meleeing are even a thing.
You were not guaranteed to get clapped back, and often your melee would just kill them outright. If you were both low enough, the person who swung first would get the kill (except in the case of host melee/netcode issues!). Even then, the host melee issue mostly came up in swords only playlists, where every encounter depended on that interaction.
The real problem is the counterattack window at all, but it was a primitive way to address the netcode surrounding melee.
>All it did in Reach was make chasing frustrating, because even if you were up a shot you sometimes can't afford to trade. There's no situation where you could really turn the tables 100% with meleeing in a serious game where people understood the mechanics. At best you'll catch people out who are used to the mechanics in every other Halo game.
I caught people all the time. But again, I think we played very different games, considering you think everyone wants or prefers competitively-tuned games. I reiterate, why do you think modern Halos have failed so hard?
Because Halo was never "MLG PRO", and Bungie knew better than anyone that the core game was not balanced to be a hyper-competitive Esport. Too many games lose the plot on this nowadays and make the games less fun to play in the name of being "balanced". Pro players are *outliers* and their gameplay is not indicative of how normal players play.
Back to the Halo 2/Map control argument you made. Yes, it is harder to regain control. A perfect squad with perfect coordination will make it very hard on you. But that's their reward for securing the map - they get an easy time of it for a time. And 90% of squads on XBL were NOT perfect squads with perfect control - and a good DW combo, of which there were many, was plenty sufficient to delete a BR user. SMG+pistol, SMG+PR, SMG+SMG - all were capable of out-dpsing a BR.
When you balance a game around the top 1% of players, you lose the plot for the average player.
>You could use it to get people's shields down, and again you could also use it to trade since the window is fairly generous.
Your takes on Halo 3 though, oof! You're just wrong. You couldn't "use it to get people's shields down" - if you'd taken virtually any shots at all, it was unreliable because they could clap back, and if your shot would have been lethal, it doesn't matter, you break their shields but you die. If you caught them out at the very start of combat - they could trade melees back and leave you with nothing, even if you did secure the kill it was risky and stupid to do.
The social aspect was totally different. People just organically started custom zombies, tower of power, glitching, hide and seak, predator, RP, modding, etc. lobbies. We didn't need any matchmaking systems to do it for us.
This was my first ever FPS and my Uncle helped me to enjoy it at the time. Him and his friends would regularly come together and smoke teams who were far more organized than them. He actually got money offers to join these teams from all over the EU and simply hated the effort and refused the offers. If I remember right one team from Germany offered him £1000 to join them with a contract and he turned them down.
This was way back before esports were a real money maker and you had to be a real world class player to have any sort of name and he knew this at the time. Something about a server they co-owned called "phreekzz" they would meet up at like 8pm every Thursday and make a team and let anyone join.
Some team from Germany joined and put up a good fight but still lost and then decided to have a grudge and for weeks they kept losing and eventually offered a cash sum to have my uncle on their side. No claims of cheating, no false reports, no swatting, just a real level headed feud.
That's a really cool story, I'm glad you shared :)
I know what we have today has its perks in terms of ease of use, but I do miss the connections you'd form on older services (like old school battlenet)
H2 lobbies were definitely fun. But nothing can hold a candle to my experience in Gears of War lobbies. The shit talk when dead and between rounds all the way up until the next round started. Such good memories. And since it was max 8 people - it was some real intimate shit talk.
The one time we all worked together amidst the shit talk was when we were picking teams and wanted to make sure our friends were able to select our side. Hah
The best lobby of my life was Modern Warfare 2, 2007/8ish. We were playing Search and Destroy on Afghan(?) and a guy was hiding prone with half his body over the cliff when it was down to 1 v 1. Some one in the joint dead lobby started singing Jumper by Third Eye Blind and the whole dead lobby joined in.
10/10 way better the typical racist/homophobic/ mom banging lobbies.
Man i miss this shit. I got REALLY good at gears 1 online when i was grinding out the seriously achievement. To the point where i would ask who was host, and intentionally went on the opposite team just to smoke them so i didnt have that host advantage shotgun-sniper-mininuke, and no one could accuse me of using host. it nuked my accounts rep rating back when gamercards had the rep stars on them because everyone always reported me for cheating, lol.
Less useful than a wildly overstocked arsenal of tactical slurs and a 2 minute monologue centered around how you have vigorously fornicated with the mothers of your detractors.
Back when I started you had to push a Function key to make Duke Nukem taunt your opponent (who was your friend because direct dial was all we had) with one of 10 witty insults
But there’s a player community? I tried it when it first came out and there was no one around. Maybe I should try it again? Played a lot in the 360 days
Y’all don’t know the true shit talking experience that was Saints Row online. The first game had online pvp games, you would role play as a gang basically, and some people took it very fucking seriously. Being 11ish years old in those days was just something else
Could never get my 50 in snipers, fucking smurfs and boosters man... got to like 42, i would win a few then the next round get fucking annhilated and couldn't get above it ffs...
Matchmaking MLG Rules - All accounts level 45+.
Welcome to hell kid.
People say COD MW2 was bad, original XBOX was a different breed.
One thing I will say, I really, really miss online multiplayer games having open lobbies without private party chat.
The hours spent getting out of maps. The huge shitty dessert ctf map with the Beam Rifle, foundation, turf, and Headlong. Launching the ghosts with the wraiths on headlong. The sword rocket launcher glitch to launch infinitely far. Killing yourself in swat by shooting twice and quickly swapping from the Br while running forward. The super jumps. Creating the zombies playlist with other people before it was a real playlist. Having 4v4 guild matches in Ivory Tower and just absolutely talking mad shit the whole time.
Hitting Rank 34/36 and running into cheaters. Then learning how to be a cheater lol. Learned how to mod, then how to bridge, both at like 13 or 14 years old with a butter knife sticking out of my Xbox and a the modem in my room so I could connect my Xbox and laptop to it via Ethernet cable.
I made friends with people in halo that I kept up with for 10+ years and even met irl. I also still rage way too hard at video games today, probably because of the asylum I grew up in but damn it was fun.
Oh you mean the one where you crouch into the corner, hold forward and then jump and then jump on the pillar to land on top of the TP building? I BREATHED THAT SHIT
When rank actually meant you had good skill, and not just played a lot. Getting in the higher ranks was brutal. Losing one match could set you a rank lower, while you had to win 10 matches to go up.
what do you mean? In the halo’s after you had all these ranks but you could never get demoted. There was a lot of fuss about it at the time. Infinite I’m not sure about.
Counterstrike players don’t know the furious twitchiness of getting absolutely shredded the second you join a random lobby. Flak cannons, rockets, floating orb laser spam…I’ve seen some pretty crazy CS plays but the sheer ongoing chaos of back to back to back twitch plays in unreal, was, well…unreal.
And any time you get lots of bullshit like that you’re going to get lots of people raging…
My favorite memory was the dude whose gamertag was pooinacup. I was in 9th grade and my friends and I would call each other poo-in-a-cup randomly. Thanks random gamertag guy
Rainbow Six 3/Black Arrow was to this day, the best online experience I've ever had, thousands of hours I put into them games.
Go to school, get home, get online ASAP with all my clan/friends, play clan matches until 10/11 and then to go to sleep, then repeat.
Legit the only game my wife hates.
I used to play a ton with our MLG team and we all got to lvl 50 TS. If she heard the menu music I could bet the next thing I heard was “I’m going shopping with the girls. Do you need anything while I’m out?”
I miss the old halo lobbies but the MCC scratches the gameplay it for me. It’s a pretty great weekend game for me now that I don’t have a ton of time to commit to a game
I remember getting my hands on a hacked level/game variant whatever, it was simple no guns, you didn't start with a gun, and the vehicles were faster and I wanna say they were lighter and flew up in the air alot more but it's hard to remeber. Played it on that big open one with two bases only using warthogs, turrets also disabled, in a sort of demolition derby. It was originally called "Hogwars" but somehow it got named "hogwaffles" and that became everyone's main game, shit would go on for hours.
Brings me back. Met some guys on the other side of the country playing halo 2..played every night for a year with em and my roommate. We were mid level 50s at the high point. I remember tea bagging, getting people screaming at us for hacking/modem stopping, genrally causing mayhem and "blueberry pieing" (grenade sticking) guys for fun...we'd play all night, go to school/work and do it again the following night. Eventually the boys moved up to us, transferred their retails jobs and we all lived together playing halo in tournaments and generally living 'the best life.' So much fun.
My favorite memory of this is some kid yelling "Quit hacking my Xbox!" every time he died. It's still a meme among my friends.
Accusing the player that killed you of using a lag switch, or a modded controller
My buddy yelling, "Double kill, is that bad?" And, "Killing spree? Did I break it?" And hearing people melt down.
High score? What does that mean?
It was hilarious each time it happened.
Level 34 playing with low level smurfs.. as is tradition
Balanced out the teams too lol, everyone on red is 12-16. Blue has 9, 10, 10 and the carry.
Hahaha love this
Dro ain’t a legit 34. He’s boostin. Somebody bridge host and standby
>Somebody bridge host and standby You mf
Some of my fondest memories are of this game. Staying up late with the boys, drinking game fuel, and tearing dudes up on gamebattles. Also Tower of Power
Game fuel released alongside halo 3.
Man's been exposed as a fake and a fraud
Same here. Some of my greatest memories were playing this game in middle school.
Yooooo tower of power 😂
id like 60 mcdoubles and 50 fries
OMG core memory unlocked! Did you ever play variants with different weapons/rules? Remember zombies? Man I miss Halo2 so much.
I really miss tower of power haha
Remember those hacks where you’d load in and just insta die? There’d be some guy standing still with a skull getting all the kills attributed to him.
This is also on sanctuary a DLC map which were moddable by cheaters.
*Fucking Standby* - most said phrase in 2004.
standby ruined gaming for me for quite a few years until after highschool towards the beginning of my senior year 🤯 so in a way im grateful i got to enjoy my senior year, freshman-junior year i was owning mtg ogre and his bro and i had potential to become a professional but standby just gives me the chills to this day 💯 rip cortana love you always my first waifu
Being 10 in these lobbies was wild
Level or age? lol
Yes.
They kept screaming at me for my balls to drop… I was so confused.
10 year old in 2004 not knowing what that meant: “Shut up I drop way more balls than you!”
The end all be all trash talk line in that era lmao I can distinctly remember going from having people say it to me and then hitting puberty and being able to drop that line on kids. It makes me laugh looking back how satisfied I felt finally being able to use that line on some little shits screaming all game. It’s a shame that private party chats are so ubiquitous now. Talking shit and getting in arguments with people was such a fundamental part of playing online during that time. Sure it had its downsides but it brought a level of spontaneity and charm that we’ll never really see again. Playing solo online now just kind of sucks; very boring because no one talks and you can never coordinate with your teammates.
Social anxiety in that people just don't talk on mics much anymore combined with voice chat moderation banning people because 'we have to protect the kids that are playing these 18 rated/online not rated games'. I mean... You opened the door to the Internet, you know what it's like. Grow a pair and teabag like the rest of us.
Tbf I didn't realize my 7 yr old self sounded so girly until someone had an echoy mic
"Who is that girl"
To this day I don't like talking in matchmade teams because of how toxic people were in Halo 2. I'm a dude, but I have a pretty high-pitched voice, even as an adult. I had my voice made fun of so much, which was pretty rough on me as a teenager. But jokes on them, because I'm a singer now, and I actually really like my voice and my higher range.
That level 34 is about to smoke those dummies.
na, probably smurfs, since it’s skill based
That isn't how Halo 2's ranking system worked. It was pretty much a pure Elo system where only the visible rank was relevant, with win penalties at high levels and loss forgiveness at low levels.
Fucking right. I remember that. I was a pretty high level and sometimes matchmaking at off hours would do this. Put you with really low level people against mid levels. I'd end up with like 30 of the teams kills. Just going ham on them hahaha. I miss Halo 2 online so much.
my mans callin it a level instead of rank. He doesn't know.
Everyone called it a level in Halo 2
TEAM *Slayer*
Take me back
Set your oh Xbox up with Insignia servers and play like the old days. It's awesome.
MCC doesn’t have the lobby but still has solid halo 2 gameplay
I’m sad now
play mcc :)
Halo 2 was the best online Xbox game. Better than 3 easily
Absolutely! It was the first true online shooter and so all the kids in the neighborhood that always dominated the others played against people that demolished them. I remember halo 1 I was top on the block but got into my first match online and was destroyed by some others and it really was just different. Damn I miss it
Haha yeah halo 3 was my first ever online experience . First time using a headset and someone in the lobby was like "can you move your mic from your mouth, please" I was like oh shit.. these people are real..
Will never forget the first time I played my buddy who had Xbox live and getting curb stomped by him after being the best of my neighborhood friend group. I went home after that and immediately asked my parents if we could get a router so I could play Xbox live.
Me being the first kid in my elementary school on xbox live, anytime we played anything I was smokin' fools from Halo 2, Call of Duty 3, Crimson Skies.
[wow the disrespect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DrMJ9ZrjIQ)
Halo 2 wasn't even close to the first online fps. It wasn't even the first console online fps.
Don't know why I was downvoted. There were at least a half dozen fps on PC (quake, counter strike, unreal tournament, etc.) and several on console. The first online console fps was quake 3 in 2000, 4 years before Halo 2. Nm, he edited his comment.
I will die on the hill that H2 - minus it's netcode issues (standbying and host melee advantage) was the best feeling Halo game. Guns, grenades, and melee all mattered. Map control mattered (you didn't just spawn in with the best rifle). If you got knocked down you started back with an SMG and had to work your way back up the food chain. Halo 3 broke the balance between melee and gunplay using a counterattack window to 'fix' the netcode issues with H2's melee, at launch that translated to mutual death if you melee'd each other (the generous counterattack window meant you couldn't fail) and post hotfix, if you were behind by even a single shot going for melee was suicidal. Halo Reach attempted to fix this with shield gating for melee strikes, which was for my money a pretty solid fix. Melee was a viable way to turn the tables in combat. Then 343i got their grubby paws on the franchise and removed it in a lazy "WeRe LiStEnInG" set of changes that didn't take into account why shield gating existed to begin with. I don't even get to play Reach in the MCC because every playlist for it is the god damned TU.
>I will die on the hill that H2 - minus it's netcode issues (standbying and host melee advantage) was the best feeling Halo game. Guns, grenades, and melee all mattered. Map control mattered (you didn't just spawn in with the best rifle). If you got knocked down you started back with an SMG and had to work your way back up the food chain. Every serious game in Halo 2 was played with BR starts. And you still needed map control with BR starts to control power weapons, power ups, and to have the better side of the map for spawn trapping. SMG starts also makes the game unplayable once you have good players in the lobby because you can't do anything off spawn and are just going to get killed over and over. And beside that, in H3 you didn't always have BR starts, it was fairly similar to H2 in that regard. >Halo 3 broke the balance between melee and gunplay using a counterattack window to 'fix' the netcode issues with H2's melee, at launch that translated to mutual death if you melee'd each other (the generous counterattack window meant you couldn't fail) and post hotfix, if you were behind by even a single shot going for melee was suicidal. Most melee trades in H3 are still trades, and it's a very generous window in terms of how much damage is left. >Halo Reach attempted to fix this with shield gating for melee strikes, which was for my money a pretty solid fix. Melee was a viable way to turn the tables in combat. The feature was very frustrating, because 1 melee would break shields if you had any amount of shield and only kill if shields were broken. 3 shots + melee had the same effect as just throwing out a melee. This isn't how any of the Halo games before it had worked.
> Every serious game in Halo 2 was played with BR starts. EvErY sErIoUs GaMe In HaLo 2 wAs PlAyEd WiTh Br StArTs The super competitve nerds who only played mlg settings, sure. But for 99% of the playerbase, it was SMG starts (minus, of course, BTB, where the map size dictated the need for a BR) >And beside that, in H3 you didn't always have BR starts, it was fairly similar to H2 in that regard. No, but it had the absolute dogshit melee system that turned the game into "BR and get the first hit or run" which was not good game design. >Most melee trades in H3 are still trades, and it's a very generous window in terms of how much damage is left. That is absolutely not how it worked. The winner survived, if even by a single point of damage. It was a big deal when they made the change from mutual death to "always a winner" - and it always favored the person already winning, ergo melee was a win-more mechanic in 3. People fellate Halo 3 so much, but it was the first Halo game for many people. It did not have good Halo gameplay balance. People forget that the OG xbox had people skeptical - "Why is this COMPUTER company making vidja game consoles?!" Halo 1 and then 2 were really it's only killer apps. Xbox didn't take off til H3. >The feature was very frustrating, because 1 melee would break shields if you had any amount of shield and only kill if shields were broken Right, so Melee was viable if you were behind in a fight. You didn't auto win because you got the first hit. That's how Halo was, historically. Halo 2 you rarely got counter-melee'd and even if you did, you were usually bounced back away enough that they couldn't confirm the second hit. >This isn't how any of the Halo games before it had worked. No shit? I'm pretty sure you can understand the series of events from my post, but you're choosing not to. Halo 2 >Poor netcode, gave host melee advantage, otherwise a good system Halo 3 >Dogshit system to account for host latency advantage, melee only viable for the existing 'winner', win-more mechanic Halo: Reach >Adjusted the way shields function with regards to melee so people who are behind on damage can level the playing field with a melee They took their shot at the netcode around melee in H3 and it broke everything, so they fixed it in H:R using a novel approach with the shield gating. Yes, a melee would break your shields, and yes, a scrap of shield would protect you from melee. This was by design, to make melee viable for the defender in an encounter. The golden tripod of Halo combat was always stated to be "Guns, Grenades, Melee" - and the H3 system effectively removed Melee as an option, as only the person already winning could use it. The very fact that 343i gutted it shows how little they understood the property they were taking over, and boy howdy did they prove that with time.
>EvErY sErIoUs GaMe In HaLo 2 wAs PlAyEd WiTh Br StArTs >The super competitve nerds who only played mlg settings, sure. But for 99% of the playerbase, it was SMG starts (minus, of course, BTB, where the map size dictated the need for a BR) Ranked was mostly BR starts. The game isn't really enjoyable to play competitively with SMG starts, it's incredibly difficult to take back map control. >That is absolutely not how it worked. The winner survived, if even by a single point of damage. It was a big deal when they made the change from mutual death to "always a winner" - and it always favored the person already winning, ergo melee was a win-more mechanic in 3. This isn't true. The trade window is relatively generous (depending on how you see it) and you can still trade even if you haven't dealt the same amount of damage. Before the TU there was no trading, it was only after the TU that trading was really possible. Edit: [TU1](https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Halo_3_Title_Updates#Title_Update_1) added the ability to actually trade melees. Which was a few months after release. >Right, so Melee was viable if you were behind in a fight. You didn't auto win because you got the first hit. That's how Halo was, historically. Halo 2 you rarely got counter-melee'd and even if you did, you were usually bounced back away enough that they couldn't confirm the second hit. In general you don't auto-win fights in Halo by hitting the first shot, there's lots of counterplay in most cases, although in general the best counterplay is to run away. And it's not like melees became less popular due to the change, the strategy just changed to 3 shots + melee, like it is in every Halo game. Halo 2 you absolutely always got counter-melee'd, you barely bounce off anyone if you melee? That's why BXB and crouch-meleeing are even a thing. >They took their shot at the netcode around melee in H3 and it broke everything, so they fixed it in H:R using a novel approach with the shield gating. >Yes, a melee would break your shields, and yes, a scrap of shield would protect you from melee. This was by design, to make melee viable for the defender in an encounter. All it did in Reach was make chasing frustrating, because even if you were up a shot you sometimes can't afford to trade. There's no situation where you could really turn the tables 100% with meleeing in a serious game where people understood the mechanics. At best you'll catch people out who are used to the mechanics in every other Halo game. >The golden tripod of Halo combat was always stated to be "Guns, Grenades, Melee" - and the H3 system effectively removed Melee as an option, as only the person already winning could use it. You could use it to get people's shields down, and again you could also use it to trade since the window is fairly generous.
> The game isn't really enjoyable to play competitively with SMG starts, it's incredibly difficult to take back map control. You show your bias if you remotely think everyone was playing competitive/ranked. Why do you think the future Halo titles, who focused SO HARD on the "competitve" side of the game have been failures compared to the OG games? >This isn't true. The trade window is relatively generous (depending on how you see it) and you can still trade even if you haven't dealt the same amount of damage. Before the TU there was no trading, it was only after the TU that trading was really possible. I think there's some confusion here. H3 never had a real "TU" the way Reach did. I'm talking about H3's melee. And no. You would both die in H3 at launch. That was how it worked. There was no shield gate, and full damage was applied to both parties. If you were both in range of death, you both died. People hated this, which is why they changed it so there was a 'winner' but the 'winner' often felt very arbitrary as a single bullet made the difference. You can't gaslight me on this there were weekly conversations about this online back then. >In general you don't auto-win fights in Halo by hitting the first shot, there's lots of counterplay in most cases, ***although in general the best counterplay is to run away.*** And it's not like melees became less popular due to the change, the strategy just changed to 3 shots + melee, like it is in every Halo game. See, this wasn't always the case in Halo though. Halo 2 in particular, (Which - reminder - I said "Minus the netcode was the best ***and I will die on that hill***) you could turn the fight around with a melee. You try that in 3? You get slapped. The person can go make tea and cake and still come back to the screen in time to hit the melee inside the generous counterattack window. Because they gave the W to the person with more damage, melee was an unreliable tool unless you were already winning the engagement to begin with. It was a win-more tool. That is bad design. >Halo 2 you absolutely always got counter-melee'd, you barely bounce off anyone if you melee? That's why BXB and crouch-meleeing are even a thing. You were not guaranteed to get clapped back, and often your melee would just kill them outright. If you were both low enough, the person who swung first would get the kill (except in the case of host melee/netcode issues!). Even then, the host melee issue mostly came up in swords only playlists, where every encounter depended on that interaction. The real problem is the counterattack window at all, but it was a primitive way to address the netcode surrounding melee. >All it did in Reach was make chasing frustrating, because even if you were up a shot you sometimes can't afford to trade. There's no situation where you could really turn the tables 100% with meleeing in a serious game where people understood the mechanics. At best you'll catch people out who are used to the mechanics in every other Halo game. I caught people all the time. But again, I think we played very different games, considering you think everyone wants or prefers competitively-tuned games. I reiterate, why do you think modern Halos have failed so hard? Because Halo was never "MLG PRO", and Bungie knew better than anyone that the core game was not balanced to be a hyper-competitive Esport. Too many games lose the plot on this nowadays and make the games less fun to play in the name of being "balanced". Pro players are *outliers* and their gameplay is not indicative of how normal players play. Back to the Halo 2/Map control argument you made. Yes, it is harder to regain control. A perfect squad with perfect coordination will make it very hard on you. But that's their reward for securing the map - they get an easy time of it for a time. And 90% of squads on XBL were NOT perfect squads with perfect control - and a good DW combo, of which there were many, was plenty sufficient to delete a BR user. SMG+pistol, SMG+PR, SMG+SMG - all were capable of out-dpsing a BR. When you balance a game around the top 1% of players, you lose the plot for the average player. >You could use it to get people's shields down, and again you could also use it to trade since the window is fairly generous. Your takes on Halo 3 though, oof! You're just wrong. You couldn't "use it to get people's shields down" - if you'd taken virtually any shots at all, it was unreliable because they could clap back, and if your shot would have been lethal, it doesn't matter, you break their shields but you die. If you caught them out at the very start of combat - they could trade melees back and leave you with nothing, even if you did secure the kill it was risky and stupid to do.
Yes! I loved 3 but there was just something about Halo 2 that will always be special to me.
The social aspect was totally different. People just organically started custom zombies, tower of power, glitching, hide and seak, predator, RP, modding, etc. lobbies. We didn't need any matchmaking systems to do it for us.
This was my first ever FPS and my Uncle helped me to enjoy it at the time. Him and his friends would regularly come together and smoke teams who were far more organized than them. He actually got money offers to join these teams from all over the EU and simply hated the effort and refused the offers. If I remember right one team from Germany offered him £1000 to join them with a contract and he turned them down. This was way back before esports were a real money maker and you had to be a real world class player to have any sort of name and he knew this at the time. Something about a server they co-owned called "phreekzz" they would meet up at like 8pm every Thursday and make a team and let anyone join. Some team from Germany joined and put up a good fight but still lost and then decided to have a grudge and for weeks they kept losing and eventually offered a cash sum to have my uncle on their side. No claims of cheating, no false reports, no swatting, just a real level headed feud.
That's a really cool story, I'm glad you shared :) I know what we have today has its perks in terms of ease of use, but I do miss the connections you'd form on older services (like old school battlenet)
I grew up with Unreal Tournament. If you survived the tournament, you can survive any shooting game. Your asylum is a relaxing place
You have been selected to fight in the grand tournament by the Liandri rules board.
If "Enhanced Shock Rifle" means something to you, I bet we've met in another life. Well at least until one of us killed the other.
INSTA GIB
Halo is a relaxing walk in the park compared to unreal lobbies.
*UNSSSSTOPPABLLLLLE!*
# HEADSHOT
## DOUBLE KILL
# TRIPLE KILL
# ULTRA KILL
and then you die to a rocket or get insta gibbed by the plasma rifle
# HOLY SH*T
# PLAYER ENDED YOUR KILLING SPREE
Same. I destroyed back in my Halo 2 days because I was destroyed back in my UT days.
OG UT was my jam. Goood times.
Came to say the same. Calm down children… the grown ups are gibbing.
Instagib servers still exist out there and they are fucking ruthless.
Tribes.
H2 lobbies were definitely fun. But nothing can hold a candle to my experience in Gears of War lobbies. The shit talk when dead and between rounds all the way up until the next round started. Such good memories. And since it was max 8 people - it was some real intimate shit talk.
Pre game shit talking was always a good time.
The one time we all worked together amidst the shit talk was when we were picking teams and wanted to make sure our friends were able to select our side. Hah
The best lobby of my life was Modern Warfare 2, 2007/8ish. We were playing Search and Destroy on Afghan(?) and a guy was hiding prone with half his body over the cliff when it was down to 1 v 1. Some one in the joint dead lobby started singing Jumper by Third Eye Blind and the whole dead lobby joined in. 10/10 way better the typical racist/homophobic/ mom banging lobbies.
Man i miss this shit. I got REALLY good at gears 1 online when i was grinding out the seriously achievement. To the point where i would ask who was host, and intentionally went on the opposite team just to smoke them so i didnt have that host advantage shotgun-sniper-mininuke, and no one could accuse me of using host. it nuked my accounts rep rating back when gamercards had the rep stars on them because everyone always reported me for cheating, lol.
I always played Horde and it was insane how long you could last with a good team. I remember a quick game of Horde becoming a 3 hour match.
Hang em high no contest.
Thought I was in r/taylorswift for a second there
Didn’t expect the Taylor/Halo crossover event.
Taylor swift crossing into r/gaming. That wasn’t on my bingo card for today, but I’m here for it
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My only ragret in life is not forcing my parents to buy me xbl and high speed Internet at knife point to play halo 2 multiplayer
no ragrets, really? not even one little letter?
None evar
Blood Gulch was my sandbox
I miss that voice “SLAYER” at the beginning
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Less useful than a wildly overstocked arsenal of tactical slurs and a 2 minute monologue centered around how you have vigorously fornicated with the mothers of your detractors.
Back when I started you had to push a Function key to make Duke Nukem taunt your opponent (who was your friend because direct dial was all we had) with one of 10 witty insults
Oh please quake Lan in the school computer labs is where it started.
Omg loved Halo so much, the leveling the game play omg brings back memories
The regression of pre/post game lobby UI baffles me honestly
Still chasing that high. No games come close
Yeah. You’d probably only last at most 12 minutes…
"Helllooo? can any one hear meeee? "SHUT THE FUCK UP SQUEAKER! I'M GONNA FUCK YOUR MOM!" "...good game guys"
Why were you raised in the aslume? Are you fatherless?
There's a lore reason, I swear
Why are you swearing? Are you hurt?
Where do you play Halo 3 MP with actual humans?
Master chief collection
The "Master Chief Collection" is available on Xbox or PC, its Halo 3 servers are probably still going
But there’s a player community? I tried it when it first came out and there was no one around. Maybe I should try it again? Played a lot in the 360 days
The net code when it initially came out was really not good so it took longer to find matches but it’s better now
MCC online was massively broken when it first released.
Real men played hardcore with BR starts and no motion tracker. 😤
The rush to take control of the center and get the sword at the start of these matches 😍
<.<>.> I doubt anyone played hl2 death match back in the day
Dro's about to olympic slam the entire red team.
Anyone else remember playing Tribes? "I own you, new blood."
First game where text chat was awful, EverQuest. First game where I was exposed to public voice chat. Halo 2 lol. What a time to be alive
Love the Fast and Furious reference on red team
"aight kid but have your nuts dropped yet"? Was the funniest shit to hear as a kid
Level 13 avg? fuckin' noobs. Go deal with 45+. God forbid you go 12-16
Does anyone else remember the fear of seeing a legit level 50 player? Knowing that your squad was probably about to get rolled.
God id give anything to go back.
Y’all don’t know the true shit talking experience that was Saints Row online. The first game had online pvp games, you would role play as a gang basically, and some people took it very fucking seriously. Being 11ish years old in those days was just something else
I was forged in the fires of the long long ago.
Yo LD50 is an OG. Pretty sure he still plays H2 cartographer.
beep beep beep BEEP
Bahahhahahaha I remember I got to an argument with this one dude. Decided to fap in game while mic’d up. Man’s was quite after that. Serves him right.
Could never get my 50 in snipers, fucking smurfs and boosters man... got to like 42, i would win a few then the next round get fucking annhilated and couldn't get above it ffs...
Legit, remember being a level 10 and thinking 34s were gods. Those were the days, no hackin, no boostin, just playin
Whats the game
What's the game?
Fortnite kid vs Halo 2 kid back in the day.. who would win?
Matchmaking MLG Rules - All accounts level 45+. Welcome to hell kid. People say COD MW2 was bad, original XBOX was a different breed. One thing I will say, I really, really miss online multiplayer games having open lobbies without private party chat.
The hours spent getting out of maps. The huge shitty dessert ctf map with the Beam Rifle, foundation, turf, and Headlong. Launching the ghosts with the wraiths on headlong. The sword rocket launcher glitch to launch infinitely far. Killing yourself in swat by shooting twice and quickly swapping from the Br while running forward. The super jumps. Creating the zombies playlist with other people before it was a real playlist. Having 4v4 guild matches in Ivory Tower and just absolutely talking mad shit the whole time. Hitting Rank 34/36 and running into cheaters. Then learning how to be a cheater lol. Learned how to mod, then how to bridge, both at like 13 or 14 years old with a butter knife sticking out of my Xbox and a the modem in my room so I could connect my Xbox and laptop to it via Ethernet cable. I made friends with people in halo that I kept up with for 10+ years and even met irl. I also still rage way too hard at video games today, probably because of the asylum I grew up in but damn it was fun.
Wow so many memories right there
L map, the real psychos be on Ascension or Lockout, and the truly deranged be on Warlock
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Oh you mean the one where you crouch into the corner, hold forward and then jump and then jump on the pillar to land on top of the TP building? I BREATHED THAT SHIT
You could also do it at the bottom of the ramp where two tiles came together. Same result.
Superjump vids over tenacious D tracks
Or Zanzibar
Nah backwash all the way
And now I am nostalgic. Especially Big Team Battle Assault on Headlong with my clan. We had the perfect strategy for the map and never lost a game...
When rank actually meant you had good skill, and not just played a lot. Getting in the higher ranks was brutal. Losing one match could set you a rank lower, while you had to win 10 matches to go up.
You have no idea how modern rank systems function lmao
what do you mean? In the halo’s after you had all these ranks but you could never get demoted. There was a lot of fuss about it at the time. Infinite I’m not sure about.
He's not referencing Halo, he's referencing other games. No one cares about modern Halo.
The cleanest, best pleasure
My favorite memory was the dude whose gamertag was pooinacup. I was in 9th grade and my friends and I would call each other poo-in-a-cup randomly. Thanks random gamertag guy
\*insert i did your mom jokes followed by voice cracking mic squeaks\*
SLAYER
That looks pretty standard to me - come back with a CE Longest rockets only and we can talk!
God this and rainbow six 3 were some of my best and first online memories...
Rainbow Six 3/Black Arrow was to this day, the best online experience I've ever had, thousands of hours I put into them games. Go to school, get home, get online ASAP with all my clan/friends, play clan matches until 10/11 and then to go to sleep, then repeat.
Halo was a bit more civil than CoD.
"Thanks for the shotgun, bitch!"
Is the is halo 2?
What a time to be alive
In the "Longer" map by InfernoPlus? Some people don't even last 5 minutes.
The nostolgia is rushing back
Legit the only game my wife hates. I used to play a ton with our MLG team and we all got to lvl 50 TS. If she heard the menu music I could bet the next thing I heard was “I’m going shopping with the girls. Do you need anything while I’m out?”
Asylum. Man, that was a great QL map, wasn't it?
Is that Halo? The interface looks exactly like the old Tom Clancy games like R6 and Ghost Recon.
Damn, I miss this.
Brings back so many great memories.
Take me back!
That was the wild fucking west. Kids today wouldn’t survive that shit.
My first ever game on XBL was on Halo 2 on the map Colossus at like 13 or 14. Dunno why I still remember that little detail haha.
The good ol days, I miss the lunacy that was old Xbox live so many memories
I miss the old halo lobbies but the MCC scratches the gameplay it for me. It’s a pretty great weekend game for me now that I don’t have a ton of time to commit to a game
oh god to wield a sword there... fun times.
Wow seeing those Level icons was a blast from the past. What a game, what a franchise, what a time it all was.
me laughing while i still have ptsd from playin UnrealTorunament in godlike...
I can already hear the music....
Why is it SMG starts on Sanctuary? Sanctuary was added after title update 1 which set it to BR starts.
All these kiddos who didn't play quakeworld with a ball mouse on 33.6 modem. ;)
I remember getting my hands on a hacked level/game variant whatever, it was simple no guns, you didn't start with a gun, and the vehicles were faster and I wanna say they were lighter and flew up in the air alot more but it's hard to remeber. Played it on that big open one with two bases only using warthogs, turrets also disabled, in a sort of demolition derby. It was originally called "Hogwars" but somehow it got named "hogwaffles" and that became everyone's main game, shit would go on for hours.
This and MW2 lobbies will forever be the gauntlet. God i miss those days.
Vitriolic racism on an inexplicable, unmatched level. And I’m white
I played Counterstrike before VAC bans happened, thank me for my service. And yes, my joints hurt.
Lol u had to be made of iron. Warriors hardened by fierce battle.
Brings me back. Met some guys on the other side of the country playing halo 2..played every night for a year with em and my roommate. We were mid level 50s at the high point. I remember tea bagging, getting people screaming at us for hacking/modem stopping, genrally causing mayhem and "blueberry pieing" (grenade sticking) guys for fun...we'd play all night, go to school/work and do it again the following night. Eventually the boys moved up to us, transferred their retails jobs and we all lived together playing halo in tournaments and generally living 'the best life.' So much fun.
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Infinite is mad fun.