I think a little design literacy goes a long way in these discussions.

Good friggin' luck with that.

- It really did feel like on each new wave the Covenant forces would get dropped off and would mostly stand around. I'd kill a few and die and then most of the time I had to go back to those spots that the Covenant were occupying instead of having them press in on me.

This is true, at times. What you might not be aware of is that the exact structure of each wave varies. Some waves have objectives where you have to defend a certain spot. The enemies do, in fact, rush those areas, and if you'd given it enough time for that to happen, I bet you would have gotten smoked a few times. There are also objectives where you have to seek out and kill X amount of a certain enemy type, or even specific units - in which case it actually makes sense for you to go to them. It's also worth noting that moving around the map in Halo 5 is a lot less slow and tedious than in previous Halo titles.

- A few waves in I started get access to vehicles (I used the new flying UNSC vehicle with the machine gun and rockets and later a Mantis) and everything got super boring. I completed maybe three rounds in the air (at least one round with a bunch of Hunters and a round defending a base against mostly Covenant ground troops) and while I took damage over time I was basically king of the entire battlefield outclassing or outmaneuvering. Everything was (literally and figuratively) beneath me! Which meant there was no challenge.

If you'd played enough to get a feel for the Req economy, I think you'd realize how hilarious it is that you're complaining about the Wasp being overpowered. I was able to use it once and have never received one again. It's an extremely rare item that takes a lot of energy (the sort-of currency that you build up over the course of a match) to use. It's supposed to be that powerful, because using it isn't an option very often. Even if you have one, it won't become available until late in the game when many enemies have become strong enough to practically one-shot your helpless human form. And you have to hold off using other stuff in order to have enough energy to activate it.

- Later with my Mantis I completed a couple of normal waves, a wave with a handful of scattered Knight bosses, and the final round against the Warden Eternal (which we didn't quite beat) but other than being temporarily EMPed by the Warden's big attack, I again had no real challenge. I think I maybe lost my shields once and don't believe my Mantis was visibly damaged even at the end of the match.

All I have on that one is *shrug.* The Mantis is strong, but it's not invincible. You either played extremely well, or got lucky on positioning. It might also have been that your teammates were all in powerful vehicles by that point, as can happen when you get late in the game and people haven't used up their energy on other junk. Get 2 or 3 people in heavy vehicles and you can sometimes steamroll. IF everyone plays well.

- On foot things played ok, I got flanked nicely by an Elite once and had to retreat a few times, but again this always seemed to only happen once I pushed up. I didn't once get pushed back in that way old Firefight way where you're getting overwhelmed and running low on health and ammo and are trying to get the right stick and attack with the right weapon to disrupt the enemy forces just enough to pick off a key unit and continue to survive.

It was probably a mistake to expect it to feel exactly like ODST. It's a different thing, and I promise it can be fun if you let it.

That all being said, I think it would be good to have selectable higher difficulties. The stuff I've been playing has proved plenty challenging, but my teammates have been total rubbish in some matches. The game would probably have seemed a bit easier to you if you were with a squad of B.Org people.

Anyway, I was having a really hard time pacing my shots doing the reload animation cancel. I was ready to fire before the gun would allow me to fire most of the time.

Also, I want a No Land Beyond so I can try this.

Ultimately, I think it was a lack of tension and challenge that left me highly disappointed. There's also the small niggle that even as improved as Halo 5 is, it doesn't feel as... right... to me as Destiny does. Very hard to explain because its probably a multitude of little things with the movement and shooting... but all in all I didn't feel the need to play a second Firefight match. :(

We're literally in a thread about how wrong Destiny is feeling at the moment. At 30fps without dedicated servers and a wonky networking model, Destiny holds up fine, but doesn't feel nearly as crisp or smooth as Halo 5 at 60fps and dedicated servers.

To the point of this thread, the UI in Halo 5 makes your bloom perfectly clear no matter if you're ADSing or not. Additionally the audio helps support the variety of actions I do (i.e. sliding actually sounds like I'm sliding). I also really appreciate clamber as the helpless feeling when I get stuck on a ledge in Destiny is super frustrating and robs the game of momentum. You can still nail jumps in Halo without clambering, but when you don't, you can still get where you intended to go. In Destiny if I don't, I just slowly float to the ground and get picked off along the way.

This is all from someone who plays a lot of both games and loves both of them. There are so many things that Destiny has that Halo 5 doesn't, but a good "feel" it does not. I've recently done a frame by frame analysis comparing the two and where actions, like shooting in Halo can take 2-3 frames to "register", Destiny shows 6-12 frames of delay between trigger pull and damage registering on the enemy. Even in one hilarious case I saw a shot register hitting the edge of the geometry (and not armor piercing) and then 3 frames later the damage registering, killing the enemy and their body ragdolling in funky delayed fashion.

If Destiny "feels" better, it's entirely possible it's because you play it a bunch more than you play Halo.

Pull!!!

No time for that invis stuff

Floating Warlock

Nice work Guardians

But yes, I only played one round or match or whatever then deleted the game. For a few reasons:

- It really did feel like on each new wave the Covenant forces would get dropped off and would mostly stand around. I'd kill a few and die and then most of the time I had to go back to those spots that the Covenant were occupying instead of having them press in on me.

- A few waves in I started get access to vehicles (I used the new flying UNSC vehicle with the machine gun and rockets and later a Mantis) and everything got super boring. I completed maybe three rounds in the air (at least one round with a bunch of Hunters and a round defending a base against mostly Covenant ground troops) and while I took damage over time I was basically king of the entire battlefield outclassing or outmaneuvering. Everything was (literally and figuratively) beneath me! Which meant there was no challenge.

- Later with my Mantis I completed a couple of normal waves, a wave with a handful of scattered Knight bosses, and the final round against the Warden Eternal (which we didn't quite beat) but other than being temporarily EMPed by the Warden's big attack, I again had no real challenge. I think I maybe lost my shields once and don't believe my Mantis was visibly damaged even at the end of the match.

- On foot things played ok, I got flanked nicely by an Elite once and had to retreat a few times, but again this always seemed to only happen once I pushed up. I didn't once get pushed back in that way old Firefight way where you're getting overwhelmed and running low on health and ammo and are trying to get the right stick and attack with the right weapon to disrupt the enemy forces just enough to pick off a key unit and continue to survive.

Ultimately, I think it was a lack of tension and challenge that left me highly disappointed. There's also the small niggle that even as improved as Halo 5 is, it doesn't feel as... right... to me as Destiny does. Very hard to explain because its probably a multitude of little things with the movement and shooting... but all in all I didn't feel the need to play a second Firefight match. :(

If I had to put it in terms of other games, it feels most like ODST Firefight to me, but not unlimited length, so sort of Reach-like in length, and with Mass Effect 3's semi-random rewards system.

Can you set it to a length that is near impossible? I like the challenge of playing for a long time... For example, a buddy and I played for about 4 hours one time in ODST... it was so taxing and nerve racking. I'm surprised that neither of us had a stroke or aneurysm.

What i love about it is that i can easily get into a firefight match with 7 other spartans and go to town with all sorts of wild weapons in a variety of scenarios from hunting certain enemies to defending a base. As things escalate and you reach the point where 8 people are taking Wraiths, Scorpions, and Banshees to the enemy it's gloriously wild.

Halo doesn't have anything like a raid, but Destiny also doesn't have a matchmaking based 8 person PvE mode...

So you are saying it feels more like PoE than it does original ODST? Set length with random encounters in each wave. So more like jump in to blow shit up? No way to increase the difficulty?

If I had to put it in terms of other games, it feels most like ODST Firefight to me, but not unlimited length, so sort of Reach-like in length, and with Mass Effect 3's semi-random rewards system.

Can you set it to a length that is near impossible? I like the challenge of playing for a long time... For example, a buddy and I played for about 4 hours one time in ODST... it was so taxing and nerve racking. I'm surprised that neither of us had a stroke or aneurysm.

What i love about it is that i can easily get into a firefight match with 7 other spartans and go to town with all sorts of wild weapons in a variety of scenarios from hunting certain enemies to defending a base. As things escalate and you reach the point where 8 people are taking Wraiths, Scorpions, and Banshees to the enemy it's gloriously wild.

Halo doesn't have anything like a raid, but Destiny also doesn't have a matchmaking based 8 person PvE mode...

If I had to put it in terms of other games, it feels most like ODST Firefight to me, but not unlimited length, so sort of Reach-like in length, and with Mass Effect 3's semi-random rewards system.

Can you set it to a length that is near impossible? I like the challenge of playing for a long time... For example, a buddy and I played for about 4 hours one time in ODST... it was so taxing and nerve racking. I'm surprised that neither of us had a stroke or aneurysm.

1) I tend to retreat in gun fight so I am further from my enemy, but depending on my weapon, I may be hurting myself more than helping. Something to keep in mind in the future.

2) Now I'd like to field test all my favorite weapons to kind of figure out why they are my favorite, and what their effective ranges are.

Having just recently got Halo 5, I played the campaign (which I actually really liked, much better than 4 IMO), and jumped into Firefight. It's not ODST or Reach firefight, it's something else. But I found it to be really fun.

Now, I'm told there have been some "changes" since launch, so maybe I'm not playing the same thing everyone else remembers. I have no idea really.

I recently got rid of Halo 5 on my Xbox (last night) but now all this talk about Firefight (that I never played) has me wanted to redownload it. I LOVED firefight in ODST and thought the other versions were okay... makes me really want to try the Halo 5 version.

Now, I'm told there have been some "changes" since launch, so maybe I'm not playing the same thing everyone else remembers. I have no idea really.