Hey duders,

I understand the title may make this a magnet for complaining - and I guess that's kinda the point. Still, it doesn't need to get absurd. Just trying to list off some of my complaints and concerns so far and see if you all have similar thoughts 1 week after release. Overall, I think the shooting is better than ever, the movement feels great, and 60 fps goes a long way. Nevertheless...

Arena:

- I'm ranked Platinum 2 in Arena and Slayer and oh my God is there a problem with quitters. I thought they'd be laying down the law with bans, and perhaps they are, but as it is, someone quits on either team probably every other game. The only playlist I don't seem to have this problem in is SWAT - also the only rank of "Onyx" I have. Maybe the higher you go the rarer it is that someone quits?

- Map rotation is laughably bad. Pretty common to get the same map and even game mode 3-5 times in a row. CTF on Coliseum, anyone? This may have happened in other Halo games...I just can't remember.

- Maps feel just cluttered and over-designed. I know they used pros to make them "As competitive as possible yeah ESPORTS!" but as someone who has played 100s of hours on each Halo release, they just feel cramped and off here. They're not terrible, just feeling too busy with poor sightlines.

Warzone:

- I could write pages already about what a joke Warzone Assault is. How could this have possibly been playtested and approved? A grenadefest with no discernable strategy. Takes their largest maps and crams you into 2-3 corridors to spam at each other. Not enough time to unluck the fun stuff your req packs get you. I mean Jesus, how did this possibly get into release? If they wanted to make a shorter, non-25 minute version of Warzone, why not lock off the bases, take away the AI spawns, and have slayer matches to 200 kills? Or just a CTF with those restrictions plus a time limit? (By the way, there's your BTB mode you can add in without making new maps...although I'm no game designer). You could even use the card unlocks still. Warzone Assault fucking baffles me.

- Overall, it is what it is. If you don't go in with 2-3 other people chatting and come across a coherent team, prepared to be steamrolled. For how "close" all the matches felt in the pre-release press footage, I've only ever seen 1 end within 100 points so far.

- Losing AI kills at the last second after you've done 90% of the damage is savage. I know that's how MOBAs work. I'll just have to get over it, I guess. Can't see why they don't divide up the points by damage dealt but I'm no game designer.

Oops I forgot to add - it pains me to think MP resources were shifted away to create Breakout maps. God I hate that mode. Nothing more antithetical to Halo in my mind than sitting around waiting for a spawn. Nothing about this mode appeals to me...if they could have swapped BTB or even 3-4 more arena maps instead...eek. Hope somebody is liking Breakout; I think it's terrible.

Warzone is a bad gametype. I kinda feels like a clusterfuck of people running around and doing dumb shit. It's ok if people like it, I just don't think that's a reason why the people who play Halo play Halo. I wish they had abandoned it in favor of Firefight or something.

I really hope they flesh out the map rotation a bit and allow voting again. I'm having a blast, and I have faith that 343 will get this game to exactly where it needs to be in a month or so

I don't mind break out so much, but just not in the arena playlist. If i wanted breakout, I'd go to that playlist.

Also this radar be broken af dawg.

edit: WE NEED A CLASSIC MAP PACK STAT I WANT LOCKOUT AND NARROWS

@pontron: God I love Lockout and Narrows. I'm even thinking about how they could include a few tweaks here and there for the new movement abilities...

Warzone's grown on me, but in Slayer the "over-designed" critique is something I feel is certainly valid.

@tonic7: I can verify and confirm that if you don't go into arena modes with a squad, you are toast! It really is no fun without a team. Also, the BR feels like it has a higher rate of fire or something. The time to kill is shorter than in previous halos. Also, I agree with the map designs. They are a mess and there aren't enough of them. I played Osiris (i think that's the name) Slayer 5 times in a row before I just dashboarded. Warzone is fun enough, but I just care more for the old school halo mp which seems to be in shambles in this game. It can be fun, but I just don't like the mp in this game at all.

Maps are crap. They don't feel structured; they feel as if a bunch of paths and layers were put into the palms of both hands and you just smashed them together and rolled your hands around a bit.

Also, people should really only start with one grenade.

If Arena was designed to be as balanced as possible, Warzone seems as though it was designed to be as imbalanced as possible, which is incredibly frustrating in the wrong mood, but can be a lot of fun in the right mood.

Leaving in Arena is indeed an irritating problem, and has been a problem since the later days of Halo 3. I'm unsure what I'd want the solution to be. Stricter penalties for leaving is lame because sooner or later, you're going to want to leave a match for some reason or another. Enabling joining in progress would be lame as it's never fun to join a match midway through that your team is losing by a landslide. Maybe they could add a "game completion streak" thing where after a couple matches you get a random req pack or something? Hell, I don't know man.

I like the Arena maps, though this may not be because they are indeed good maps for multiplayer, but because the last "arena" multiplayer shooter I've played is Destiny. You think the Halo 5 maps are cluttered messes? Ho boy...

My biggest gripe with the multiplayer in Halo 5 is the incredibly limited number of available modes. Even in custom games there's no option to play King of the Hill or Oddball? What? It's Halo, and there's no KotH or Oddball?