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[Hawk269]

You think they intentially gimped the online to avoid self competition?

Yes I do. I have been thinking about why they would do what they did and the only thing I can think of is that they did not want to have Ranking, Matchmaking, Leaderboards, Trueskill because they then would have (at the launch of HW2) Two RTS games with separate communities etc. I don't see why they would gimp the game the way they did other than not wanting to have 2 RTS games with 2 different on-line communities. Unless there is a technical reason they could not do it at this time and it will return when the game is "final" I don't see another reason to do what they did. This is the same company (MS) that has accomplished what most thought was a technical imposable with backwards compatibility.

I played the original game a lot, but my reason for looking forward to the Definitive Edition was to play it on-line with a new players, old Halo Wars players etc. Starting fresh with a new community on Xbox One and what it all entails when a new on-line game comes out. I had a blast playing the original game on-line, Ranking up, being matched with people with similar skill level's etc. It was a blast. While I will still play the games SP campaign just to revisit it, I don't know how much I would play the on-line because of what they did, which then puts the game on the shelf once the SP is done and on-line losses it's fun factor due to the lack of on-line features that is present in almost every competitive type of game. Which I believe is why they did this, why have this version have all the great on-line modes and then 2 months later your sequel comes out and now you have a competing product trying to attract the same audience. As a Halo Wars fan, for me, I would easily move on to the next game because the on-line component is what will give the game legs and I guess, mission accomplished since I would 100% move on...but then again, these type of decisions make me question if I want to even support 343i any more and may still cancel my pre-order right before release of the game.

I know there are some that think that it is not that big of a deal, but if you play COD, Halo 5, Battlefield, if you were to rip out the matchmaking, ranking etc, how many would move on and how long would the on-line community survive without these essential basics of an on-line competitive game?

 

[Tecnniqe]

Hmm maybe

Most games wouldn't be as big as they are without the competitive aspect and leaderboards/ranking for sure.

 

[Cranster]

Yeah the lack of leaderboard and matchmaking support is pretty shortsighted on 343i's part. This is definitely not the "Definitive Edition" without it.

 

[Hawk269]

Yeah the lack of leaderboard and matchmaking support is pretty shortsighted on 343i's part. This is definitely not the "Definitive Edition" without it.

The is the best way to describe it. When you call a game the "Definitive Edition" it means it is the best version of the game you can get. With them doing what they did to the game, it is clearly not. I also am now reading on the official forums that it is actually worse than we thought...

They actually implemented "pausing" in an on-line game!!!

Pausing!! In an online RTS game??? So if you are killing it on-line the other player can spam the pause button during the game. This is a feature NOT part of the original game and they actually took the time to develop and implement pausing in an on-line game. For those that play any type of competitive on-line game, tell me how introducing a pause functionality would impact said on-line game?

How does 343i actually approve such a moronic thing as allowing players to pause an on-line game? Then again, this is the same dev that deemed Master Chief Collection ready to ship and we all know how that turned out. For those that want to say "Dude, it is early access though". Please keep in mind, this is a feature that was planned, programmed and tested. This is not a bug, pausing was actually planned and executed to be part of the game when playing on-line.

Hey 343i, if pausing while playing a match on-line is so great, when are you implementing pausing while playing on-line in Halo 5? If it is such a great feature that you spend dev time creating and implementing, when is it coming to Halo 5? Short answer: It will never appear because you know it is a moronic thing to implement.

 

[Tecnniqe]

Is the pause function limited to X uses for each person like WC3/SC?

 

[Proelite]

The is the best way to describe it. When you call a game the "Definitive Edition" it means it is the best version of the game you can get. With them doing what they did to the game, it is clearly not. I also am now reading on the official forums that it is actually worse than we thought...

They actually implemented "pausing" in an on-line game!!!

Pausing!! In an online RTS game??? So if you are killing it on-line the other player can spam the pause button during the game. This is a feature NOT part of the original game and they actually took the time to develop and implement pausing in an on-line game. For those that play any type of competitive on-line game, tell me how introducing a pause functionality would impact said on-line game?

How does 343i actually approve such a moronic thing as allowing players to pause an on-line game? Then again, this is the same dev that deemed Master Chief Collection ready to ship and we all know how that turned out. For those that want to say "Dude, it is early access though". Please keep in mind, this is a feature that was planned, programmed and tested. This is not a bug, pausing was actually planned and executed to be part of the game when playing on-line.

Hey 343i, if pausing while playing a match on-line is so great, when are you implementing pausing while playing on-line in Halo 5? If it is such a great feature that you spend dev time creating and implementing, when is it coming to Halo 5? Short answer: It will never appear because you know it is a moronic thing to implement.

Pausing in online games is an essential part of PC RTSes and Mobas.

 

[Tecnniqe]

Also to note: current online component is not made to be competitive due to, well, everything so actually pausing during casual games is neat.

I don't know.. so much weird stuff going on with this release

 

[Hawk269]

Pausing in online games is an essential part of PC RTSes and Mobas.

To the point it can be spammed and basically use it to be a jerk? I have not played many PC RTS games, so not sure how they implement it, but reading what I have it is something being used by trolls in HW.

 

[Tecnniqe]

To the point it can be spammed and basically use it to be a jerk? I have not played many PC RTS games, so not sure how they implement it, but reading what I have it is something being used by trolls in HW.

Usually any player can resume and you have a limit of pauses, say 3, per player.

Is this unlimited?

But you also have text chat to communicate and it is used for toilet breaks and such. It's based on mutual trust and respect for both or all players not to abuse.

 

[Proelite]

To the point it can be spammed and basically use it to be a jerk? I have not played many PC RTS games, so not sure how they implement it, but reading what I have it is something being used by trolls in HW.

It's like 3 lines of code to add a limit plus some code for UI feedback. I can code and test in 5 min.

I highly doubt they need to clarify pausing has a limit.

Non-issue.

 

[Tecnniqe]

Reading Twitter I actually feel sorry for Dan and the rest of the crew

Merry Christmas Dan, Frankie, Brian and everyone else at 343 Industries 🎄🎁

 

[krang]

I know there are some that think that it is not that big of a deal, but if you play COD, Halo 5, Battlefield, if you were to rip out the matchmaking, ranking etc, how many would move on and how long would the on-line community survive without these essential basics of an on-line competitive game?

I think HW is a different scenario, though. In the cold light of day, MS must know it's a pretty niche title. I'd also be concerned over the ongoing population of two HW releases within a month of each other.

 

[Tecnniqe]

I think HW is a different scenario, though. In the cold light of day, MS must know it's a pretty niche title. I'd also be concerned over the ongoing population of two HW releases within a month of each other.

This is true. Both sides of the coin is easy to see thought.

 

[Hawk269]

Reading Twitter I actually feel sorry for Dan and the rest of the crew

Merry Christmas Dan, Frankie, Brian and everyone else at 343 Industries 🎄🎁

I do not read Twitter, so not sure what is being said to the folks, if they are being rude and disrespectful, I agree. If it is constructive feedback, then I am all for that. The devs do need to hear from users, but hopefully in a respectful way. I know I have had my comments about Dan, but I am not resorting to name calling or anything like that. I just hope that Dan as the team lead looks at improving things and works hard to ensure Halo Wars 2 is fully functional and continues to fix the D.E. version.

With that said, I would like to also echo Merry Christmas to everyone here in the thread and to the teams at 343i, Creative Assembly and the original Ensemble Team. Hope you all have a great holiday and enjoy time with friends and family.

 

[Gai Murakumo]

Back to talking about the game itself. I love the better framerate, though it can dip back to the original 360 levels but that is rare (Xbox One Version). The graphics improvement is nice as well. I wish more people could be experiencing it right now but hopefully for those still waiting it is resolved early next week. Have a great holiday everyone in this thread.

 

[Werd]

I did have a teammate pause dozens of times in a row (with others unpausing it) when we had lost. Although following the game when they tried to play again they were just kicked/blocked by the host. If this gets a community on PC it will be small so I don't think you will get away with doing that constantly.

They need to implement a limit which as Technique stated exists in Starcraft and such, but I'm not going to be upset about adding features. It is fairly common for someone to pause a game of SC2 for ~30 seconds to wait for lag to pass or fix something with their PC. I won't wait much longer than that in unranked or team games where it just didn't matter enough to hold everyone up, but in ranked 1v1s people generally give each other several minutes if they need it, given that's a game where being AFK for 1 minute is an automatic loss vs an even opponent and people get invested in their rank. Granted this doesn't have ranked games to worry about the integrity of. I'd want it to be in HW2.

Anyway, beat the campaign mostly on normal so I could remember the levels and grab all the skulls/achievement stuff. Going for 100% on it so have at least a legendary co-op playthrough still to do. Still good, nice mission design and entertaining cinematics. One thing I thought was odd this time was never having the Arbiter or a Prophet appear in an actual mission.

 

[Tecnniqe]

I do not read Twitter, so not sure what is being said to the folks, if they are being rude and disrespectful, I agree. If it is constructive feedback, then I am all for that. The devs do need to hear from users, but hopefully in a respectful way. I know I have had my comments about Dan, but I am not resorting to name calling or anything like that. I just hope that Dan as the team lead looks at improving things and works hard to ensure Halo Wars 2 is fully functional and continues to fix the D.E. version.

constructive criticism is always a good thing and especially from fans as long as it's done in a respectful and understanding matter

We've had a fair share of angry, me being included but some take it a bit further at times.
Regardless of that I both don't agree with some of their decisions but I also see why they might have done them.

Clear communications inside Microsoft themselves as well as clear communications towards us as a community needs to be improved. The fact that a week is almost gone and people who cancelled their orders are receiving their keys and long waiting fans who are sticking with it is still waiting without a key in example.

That is something that needs to be said again and again until something it stops becoming an issue.

With that said, I would like to also echo Merry Christmas to everyone here in the thread and to the teams at 343i, Creative Assembly and the original Ensemble Team. Hope you all have a great holiday and enjoy time with friends and family.

Hear hear!

 

[Tecnniqe]

I did have a teammate pause dozens of times in a row (with others unpausing it) when we had lost. Although following the game when they tried to play again they were just kicked/blocked by the host. If this gets a community on PC it will be small so I don't think you will get away with doing that constantly.

They need to implement a limit which as Technique stated exists in Starcraft and such, but I'm not going to be upset about adding features. It is fairly common for someone to pause a game of SC2 for ~30 seconds to wait for lag to pass or fix something with their PC. I won't wait much longer than that in unranked or team games where it just didn't matter enough to hold everyone up, but in ranked 1v1s people generally give each other several minutes if they need it, given that's a game where being AFK for 1 minute is an automatic loss vs an even opponent and people get invested in their rank. Granted this doesn't have ranked games to worry about the integrity of. I'd want it to be in HW2.

Anyway, beat the campaign mostly on normal so I could remember the levels and grab all the skulls/achievement stuff. Going for 100% on it so have at least a legendary co-op playthrough still to do. Still good, nice mission design and entertaining cinematics. One thing I thought was odd this time was never having the Arbiter or a Prophet appear in an actual mission.

A timer is needed with a limit to how many times you can pause.

While rank is a nice incentive to avoid such behavior, the community will be based on reputation going forward unless the system change which will be both good and bad in its own ways.

Can't wait to beat Legendary next week in coop. Got my Red Bull's stacked

 

[Diablohead]

Clear communications inside Microsoft themselves as well as clear communications towards us as a community needs to be improved. The fact that a week is almost gone and people who cancelled their orders are receiving their keys and long waiting fans who are sticking with it is still waiting without a key in example.

This really does sound like something which should be top priority, waiting for a key is bad enough but when stuff like this happens it's not good at all.

 

[Hawk269]

Finally was able to get in on an on-line game on PC 3vs3. First thing, Matchmaking/Ranking definitely needed. The two people on my team you can tell were fairly new to the game since they were not expanding too much. I did run into the pause issue and the game was paused a lot during the fight. Fight was still fun, but we got steamrolled by the other team that seemed a lot more experienced. I was Ranked 4th overall, with the other team having spots 1-3. My 2 team-mates hardly had gathered/produced much resources, but one of them did do something smart, knowing that he was a goner he started to send me resources since he was going down, which was nice.

Game in-itself and if you look past the on-line issues is still fun, single player has been a blast and it runs great at 4k and on my modest lap top it runs pretty well, even though I have to turn down shadows and AA a little.

On Xbox One it runs pretty good...I do run into some hitches in frame rate and it does run good, but there are occasional dips that are noticeable and at times when panning over bases it seems to chug a little. I am thinking they should lock it to 30fps since it seems to vary between 30 & 60 but does not hit 60 consistently, especially as battles get bigger. Locking it down to 30 would over all make it more consistent.

 

[mjc]

I have a buddy who just got HW2 Ultimate as a preorder gift for Christmas today...and he got a code for HWDE. His dad bought him the code today. Unreal.

 

[SpartanSlayer117]

I have a buddy who just got HW2 Ultimate as a preorder gift for Christmas today...and he got a code for HWDE. His dad bought him the code today. Unreal.

Incredible to say the least. I understand that these things happen but the people getting screwed over are actually the most hardcore fans for this niche game.

How it is even possible that 343i/Microsoft would allow this to happen to their most supportive customers is quite something.

Props to the 343i folks here that were trying to help, but this is incredibly disappointing and frustrating.

 

[Unity2012]

Yeah, i hope everyone receive their codes soon. Merry Christmas and best wishes to everyone at 343i with the rest of codes, the Blitz beta and everything you guys are doing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS GAF. Have fun!

 

[Tecnniqe]

I have a buddy who just got HW2 Ultimate as a preorder gift for Christmas today...and he got a code for HWDE. His dad bought him the code today. Unreal.

Damn, probably on santas shortlist :3

 

[witness]

I have a buddy who just got HW2 Ultimate as a preorder gift for Christmas today...and he got a code for HWDE. His dad bought him the code today. Unreal.

This is infuriating to read. I know I am far less entitled then some in this thread because I didn't preorder until the 20th so I can only imagine how they feel.

 

[Phloxy]

Hey guys, two days ago I tried chat support and linked to the article and forum post and got nowhere. Yesterday, I went on chat and in less than 4 minutes they had my code. So worth a second or third try because he had it right away this time. No fuss to it.

 

[Tecnniqe]

Hey guys, two days ago I tried chat support and linked to the article and forum post and got nowhere. Yesterday, I went on chat and in less than 4 minutes they had my code. So worth a second or third try because he had it right away this time. No fuss to it.

Seems like a 50/50 chance if they help you or not depending on the rep at hand.

 

[Steverulez]

Im happy with the port for the most part. A bit of a shame they got rid of ranks, I dont think thats very good or helpful, perhaps they'll put them back in.

I like the ability to search games and choose the room etc that is very nice and im pleased with that, also selecting maps etc. Xbox One port looks great and runs really well for me for the most part, frame-rate not perfect but still feels very smooth for me and much better than the 360 version.

Some of the DLC maps are nice too. Quite happy with it so far, be interesting to see what 343 change to get it to full release.

 

[DrTeflon]

I Preordered mine on the 19th, but still no code, which is kind of expected. Since I bought from the Brazilian Xbox Store, I have no clue on how to talk to reps and see if I can get a code early.

Kinda sucks, but I'm happy people are enjoying it

 

[Tecnniqe]

I Preordered mine on the 19th, but still no code, which is kind of expected. Since I bought from the Brazilian Xbox Store, I have no clue on how to talk to reps and see if I can get a code early.

Kinda sucks, but I'm happy people are enjoying it

You can use any rep or support as all they need to do is verify the purchase to help you out

 

[DrTeflon]

You can use any rep or support as all they need to do is verify the purchase to help you out

Just did, they went *shrugs* "sorry but I don't have any codes".

Ah well..

 

[Tecnniqe]

Just did, they went *shrugs* "sorry but I don't have any codes".

Ah well..

Hm they can generate codes and send them to your email. It's what we're told to do

Some won't do it however for some reason.

 

[Kurt Russell]

Just did, they went *shrugs* "sorry but I don't have any codes".

Ah well..

Try the Xbox Support Twitter account. I ended up getting my code thanks to them, had to keep pestering them for a while but it was worth it.

 

[DrTeflon]

Try the Xbox Support Twitter account. I ended up getting my code thanks to them, had to keep pestering them for a while but it was worth it.

I will pester them for a while then, thanks!

 

[Tecnniqe]

I will pester them for a while then, thanks!

Yep a message every now and then and you might get a present 🎁

 

[#sorrynotsorry]

I played a bit on PC and ended up returning it. I found it still felt like a console game. Mouse movement was just weird and everything felt a little off - like it wasn't optimized.

 

[Ade]

I played a bit on PC and ended up returning it. I found it still felt like a console game. Mouse movement was just weird and everything felt a little off - like it wasn't optimized.

How'd you manage to return it? You're aware it's not finished yes?

 

[Tecnniqe]

How'd you manage to return it? You're aware it's not finished yes?

Refund I assume
I haven't played it all that much yet due to the holidays but the first missions felt fine on PC

 

[Tecnniqe]

A few skirmish and campaign missions more in, damn, runs super well and it is good old Halo Wars alright.

I still can't seem to take screenshot or anything from the game :|

Some weird voodoo hidden app or something.

 

[Leopold]

Still waiting for my code...

 

[Kurt Russell]

I played a bit on PC and ended up returning it. I found it still felt like a console game. Mouse movement was just weird and everything felt a little off - like it wasn't optimized.

While it's true that it feels like a console game, the actual "game" is still really good. I decided to play with the 360 pad, since it was originally developed with that control method in mind. Also, I didn't experience any optimization problems.

 

[nekkid]

I played a bit on PC and ended up returning it. I found it still felt like a console game. Mouse movement was just weird and everything felt a little off - like it wasn't optimized.

Isn't it still early access, and not yet complete?

 

[#sorrynotsorry]

Isn't it still early access, and not yet complete?

Yes. If they improve it I'll rebuy it. But as of now it's just not what I was hoping for. KB/M just isn't as functional as even decades old games.

 

[Tecnniqe]

While it's true that it feels like a console game, the actual "game" is still really good. I decided to play with the 360 pad, since it was originally developed with that control method in mind. Also, I didn't experience any optimization problems.

I mean, after playing it a lot more it still runs perfectly fine even in 3v3 battles and it controls fine too.

My only issue is some units have a mind of their own but eh.


I get this error code upon trying to record tho
"This game doesn't allow recording"

 

[Tecnniqe]

So still cropping Prnt Scrn images

 

[Tecnniqe]

A friend just got his key from Microsoft Store support chat

 

[BlazinSkatinAxel]

That's crazy that people are preordering and getting instant codes.

 

[Tecnniqe]

About 50% on Legendary right now.

My only complaint is that there seems to be a slight unit command delay or something during coop but man is it a lot of fun )

Unit pathing is weird at times too but it's a minor issue.

 

[DrTeflon]

Yep a message every now and then and you might get a present 🎁

Tried support chat, called, sent a twitter message and all I got was "Oh just you wait 7 to 10 days" :|

 

[Tecnniqe]

Tried support chat, called, sent a twitter message and all I got was "Oh just you wait 7 to 10 days" :|