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Bungie discusses changes made to Halo Reach since the beta
Movement speed and jump height increased, grenade damage tweaked and more for final release of Halo Reach.
Written by David Scammell, 03 August 2010
Bungie's Brian Jarrard has explained some of the changes made to the final version of Halo Reach following feedback from the game's beta back in May, revealing that tweaks have been made to grenade damage, run speed, abilities and more.
"The main thing that most of us learned is change is hard sometimes," said Jarrard speaking to X360A.org. "After people had spent years playing Halo 3, the sudden leap to something that was not Halo 3, that was actually quite different in many regards, was not the easiest transition for a lot of people.
"But it was really interesting to watch over the progression of that three weeks the tides turn and people start to play Reach the way it's meant to be played and understand the nuances of the weapons, aiming and armour abilities. It was really cool to see by the end that it started to really be embraced by players hardcore and casual alike."
Jarrard revealed that the armour ability has seen the "biggest tweaks" since the beta ended, saying that many people thought it was "overpowered".
"We've tweaked that slightly since, the biggest difference being, for one, people were able to use it in a way it was never intended. Rather than locking themselves in place for periods of time, people were getting so good at rapid firing it they'd get about four or five uses out of a single charge.
"A couple of changes were made to extend the cool-down and make it so that you couldn't rapid-spam it as much as you could in the beta, and then it also no longer will drop the shields of your opponent if they hit you while you're locked."
Grenade damage has also been toned down, with the radius and 'drop-off' of the damage being changed slightly. The health system was also "not being visually communicated to players properly", making players feel like the grenades were doing more damage than they actually were. That's been tweaked too.
Movement speed and jump height have also been increased too "solely on account of universal overwhelming feedback that people felt it was just a little too much away from Halo 3," said Jarrard.
"One of the results of that is now you can get away from grenades easier; you can jump out of the way and still survive an impact if one lands at your foot, which is probably the thing people were most frustrated with with the beta."
Shield recharge time has also been "slowed a tiny bit" to add "more drama", while the encounter time has also been increased slightly, meaning a little more time will pass between the time you start shooting someone and the time somebody dies.
360Zine Issue 46
For our latest Halo Reach coverage, click here to download 360Zine Issue 46 for free.Bungie's Niles Sankey added that the changes were made to "bring the system back to Halo 1 and find that sweetspot for gameplay."
In summary:
- Increased run speed
- Increased jump height
- Grenade damage and radius decreased and visual impact toned down
- No more rapid-spam for Armour Lock ability
- Armour Lock ability no longer drains opponent's shield when meleed.
- Shield recharge time slowed
- Encounter time increased
Do you like the sound of the changes, or do you think Bungie had it spot on in the first place? Let us know in the comments below.
Halo Reach launches on September 14th exclusively on Xbox 360.
Halo Reach coverage available in 360Zine Issue 46 - click here to download it for free!
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