WARNING! Wall of text approaching.
I put up 21 points. You listed 9. Again, most of the stuff I listed doesn't exist anymore.
And the nine things you pointed out have either been taken out of the player's control and randomized, or been derived of their formal depth. Let's take a look:
What happened to teamspawning?
The spawn system in Halo 1. By standing on specific points on every map, a player could force his teammate to spawn at a specific spawn point somewhere else. You could make your teammate spawn at a power weapon as it respawns, somewhere to give you an advantage against the enemy, behind an enemy, etc. Of course, this was balanced because your opponents know where the spawns points are, and you have to die in order to use the system. Halo 1 took a ton of teamwork and strategy because of teamspawning. Combined with force spawning and randomspawning, the Halo 1 respawn system in itself has more depth than the entire game of Halo 3. You had to constantly out-think your opponents and trick them into letting you use the spawn system to your advantage.
What happened to force spawning?
There are two types of force spawning; one type in Halo 1 and another type in Halo 2. In Halo 1, force spawning is a method one team can use to force the other team to spawn in a specific place, usually the same place the player just spawned. Force spawning isn't commonly utilized in Halo 1, and is more of a system that deters players from camping. Although force spawns are rare and work differently on each map, you generally have to stand in the same spot and not move to make someone force spawn. This makes it easy for your opponent's teammate to kill you if you try to abuse the system.
In Halo 2, force spawning results from Halo 2's spawn system; you generally spawn away from your enemies. If one team has a player positioned in each general area of the map except for one, the other team will be forced to spawn at that left over area until they get rid of one of the forcing players. On some maps, like Ascension, it destroyed the map's balance. On other maps, like Lockout, it made the map a more stable and strategic place to play on, although it slowed the pace of the game down on every map it could work on, which isn't a good thing.
What happened to randomspawning?
There are two types of randomspawn systems, both in Halo 1. The first type works just like the teamspawn system; standing on certain points causes your teammate to spawn on a random spawn point, anywhere on the map. It's used to get your team out of a bad situation by relocating where the spawn system is currently respawning your team.
The second type of randomspawn is when a teammate teamspawns you to a spawn point which another player is currently standing on. If that happens, and there are no other spawn points available in that particular teamspawn chain, the player gets a randomspawn.
How do said spawns work?
Well I've already gone over that, but what they do for depth is huge. Put it this way, in Halo 1, if someone spawned behind you, you thought "Oh wow, that guy just totally outsmarted me." In Halo 3, if someone spawns behind you, you think "Wth. Can this guy get any luckier?" Halo 1's system is controlled by the players and adds a huge mental game. Halo 3's system is random and players can't participate in it. It creates an element of luck and frustration instead.
Because of the way Halo 2's spawn system worked, you rarely ever spawned near an enemy, let alone right behind them. In Halo 3, it happens all the time, and a big factor is that fact that the spawn system "calculates" the best place to spawn a player the instant they die, not the instant they respawn.
What happened to weapon spawn timers?
I am aware that you can tweak weapon spawn timers, but they are dumbed down since Halo 1. Let me explain.
In Halo 1, weapons spawned on FIXED timers. That means that if a Sniper is on a 60 second respawn, a new Sniper spawns on the map every minute interval, period. The Sniper will never spawn at 3:34 or even 5:01, it will spawn at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, etc. Picking the Sniper up won't effect the timer.
In Halo 3, picking a weapon up, being too close to a weapon as it spawns, or even not picking a weapon up soon enough changes the timer. Random variables can be added, and instead of a Sniper on a 60 second timer spawning every 60 seconds, picking it up at the wrong time completely throws the system out of wack. It could spawn at 4:23, 5:59, whatever.
Why does this matter? With fixed spawn timers, both teams have to be ready to pick up the power weapons and powerups when they spawn. You have to develope different strategies for each interval, because sometimes there are other weapons spawning at the same time or nearly the same time. It adds alot to the game. But with Halo 3's spawn system, everything is left up to chance, so coming up with strats to pick up weapons is pretty much pointless. Halo 2 is even worse, because new weapons won't spawn as long as the old one is still being held by a player, so one team can pretty much grab a power weapon and camp with it without having to worry about the other team picking one up for themselves.
What happened to animation cancels?
Animation cancels were in Halo 1 and 2. They did many different things from meleeing faster, reloading faster, doing two otherwise impossible actions at the same time, etc. Luckily, these glitches were for the most part balanced (aside from superbouncing in Halo 2 and infinite ammo in Halo 1). They opened up more options for players, which inherently added depth. While in Halo 2, most of the glitches simply made things faster, in Halo 1, most of the animation cancels traded one thing for another, like trading a grenade for a double melee, using your secondary weapon while your primary reloads in your backpack, etc. Definitely added depth.
What happened to crouch tapping?
Teabagging quickly in Halo 1 allowed you to bob your head up and down fast enough to dodge headshots, but your movement speed was cut in half while doing so. Shooting at the body countered this, so tapping crouch was generally a rock-paper-scissors kind of thing that players could use to stall a fight temporarily.
What happened to weapon swapping?
It takes a ridiculously long time to swap weapons in Halo 3, and it prevents other actions from being taken, especially animation cancels. Not only is it annoying, but it slows the pace of the game down. A player is more likely to hide to reload and switch weapons than he is to play offensively against more than one opponent.
What happened to melee damage levels?
In Halo 1 and 2, running and moving in the air caused you to do more damage with melees, respectively. If you could set up a situation where you could jump in the air and have you opponent run into your melee, you'd do more damage. In Halo 3, all melees do the same amount of damage. Just another options that players don't have in H3.
What happened to melee hit detection?
In Halo 3, if you're not lunging when you melee, the hitbox is tiny. That means that if you can predict someone coming around a corner and want to meet them with a fist, your melee is most likely not going to register and you'll be a sitting duck waiting for the animation to finish.
What happened to quick camo?
In Halo 1, and even in Halo 2, active camo works differently depending on which gun you're using. For example, if you shoot and have a Sniper out, you'll stay visible for a few seconds before you become invis again. Do the same thing with an Assault Rifle, and you'll go back to invis almost instantly. That's why players with camo rockets use an AR as their secondary instead of a Pistol; the Pistol doesn't give a player quick camo, but the AR does. It's all about decision making. In Halo 3, camo is overpowered when you're not shooting, and keeps you visible for a long time when you shoot with any gun. There's less to think about.
What happened to leading shots?
in Halo 1, bullets were actual objects flying through the air that moved at specific speeds. The Pistol, for example, had relatively slow moving bullets, so you had to predict where your opponent was going to move and shoot ahead to meet him. Hit detection in Halo 2 and 3 works differently, so there's no leading shots outside of bad lag (which is inconsistent anyway).
What happened to the BR?
The BR in Halo 3 is inaccurate and inconsistent. You can't rely on it to make decisions, and it takes the skill away from the game. In a 3-round burst, the bullets can blatently miss the head, or give you a headshot when you weren't aiming at the head. Takes away consistency and depth. The H1 Pistol was accurate at first, but became inaccurate if you fired at full auto for too long, meaning you had to moderate your fire. Players can't control the H3 BR's inaccuracy.
What happened to the PR?
The H1 PR took away shields fast, slowed an opponent down, and froze up an opponent's aim. It was a great teamwork tool that countered the Overshield and offered something a good player could use against a power weapon. In Halo 2 and 3, it's nerfed. There's no point to the PR in those games, and it doesn't add to teamwork at all.
What happened to the Shotgun?
Shotty hit detection is retarted now. If your aimer is red at all, the shot counts as a direct shot the the center of the body, same for the Mauler. Aim doesn't effect damage, just distance. It's obvious how it became a noob weapon because of it.
What happened to the Sniper?
It's nerfed. Horrible hit detection and a horrid rate of fire. It's not a power weapon anymore, at least not the way it used to be. It's not reliable, it's not strong, and it takes stability from the game because of it. The Sniper in Halo 1 and even Halo 2 was balanced as a power weapon and was important to gameplay. In Halo 3 it's been nerfed as to not affect the game significantly, to make it so a good sniper can't dominate over careless opponents.
What happened to flag tossing?
In Halo 1 and 2, you could toss the flag to teammates by dropping it, and the flag would inherit your momentum. You could set up strategies and a good player could throw the flag out of a bad situation if he was thinking on his toes. In Halo 3, the flag drops straight down when you drop it. No tossing.
What happened to flag touch returning?
There is no flag touch return in Halo 3. The system is intended to work on a "time return" system. If you are within 3 yards or so of the flag, you start to make the timer go down. If it reaches zero, the flag returns. The timer at zero makes the flag return if someone is within nine feet from the flag, not touch return. This creates technical flaws with the flag return system and limits the stealth or offensive roles a flag carrier can go about
What happened to bomb arming?
The bomb arming mechanics have also been changed. Instead of having to stay in the opponent's base in order to plant a bomb, you can just set it and leave it. If you try to create a gametype with an arm time but a short detonation time, the enemy team can score in their own base due to them being the last team to touch the bomb if they are nearby.
What happened to play ball?
Play ball is now delayed, and there is no option to make it instant. Throwing the ball of the edge doesn't create the need for quick planning anymore, not to mention that it slows the game down considerably.
What happened to map design in general?
Maps in Halo 3 are generally designed in ways that give players little movement options, plenty of places to hide, and little incentive to move. Take a look at Guardian and compare it to Lockout. Guardian has many more enclosed hallways and very little shot lines, as opposed to Lockout which allows teams to combine fire from many possible angles. Maps like The Pit and Isolation are cut off into two parts, resulting in a campy game. Maps like Snowbound and Epitaf have shield doors that promote camping and slow gameplay. Maps like Narows and Isolation have horrible spawn points, and no cover to create alternate spawn points. Etc, etc, etc. Foundry offers some solutions, but there are serious forge limits on Foundry that limit how much you can make on the map, not to mention the uneven walls that make it extremely difficult to place objects properly.
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Look, you can like Halo 3. I have nothing against that. But don't say it has considerable depth, because that simply isn't true. There's nothing Halo 3 has over a decent shooter in terms of depth, and in most cases deliberate design choices such as slow, forced animations and constricted map design make the game have less depth than almost any shooter. While you can argue some points, you can simply not say that Halo 3 or 2 have more depth than Halo 1. When H1 vets like me and speak about Halo 1 like it's the gospel, we're not talking out of our a**es or out of nostalgia. Halo 1 really was an in-depth mental gave, and it really did take much, much more skill than the second or third games.
Halo was once a great competitive shooter, one of the greatest in videogame history. Now it's a dumbed down run of the mill shooter designed to make money off of unskilled gamers. It took Halo 2 years to drop down from first place on the XBL activity list, it took Halo 3 a few months. Halo 1 vets still find ways to get together and play Halo, Halo 3 "vets" hate Bungie and are playing Call of Duty 4. If Sakurai does decide to turn Brawl into a marketing scheme, you can bet your *** that Brawl is NOT going to have the longevity that Melee and 64 did. From the looks of it, that just may be the reality of the situation. And if so, a year or so down the road there will be plenty of angry people like me making lists like this about Brawl explaining why the game is too frustrating and boring to play anymore.
Why would this happen? Dumbed down games make money, but they don't last long term. If Brawl is a sell-out like so many people are afraid of, everyone's game experience will be suffering from it after a year. This isn't something new to the videogame industry, and it wasn't something new when it happened to Halo. It's a reality and the people who have blind hope for Brawl may end up finding that out the hard way over time. And Nintendo will have their money.
Sorry for this long rant... I hate it when this happens to games, especially when the game finally gets an online sequel and is butchered. I just get heated. Despite that, what I'm saying here has some real support behind it, so you may want to re-think things before you put blind hope into Brawl, if you are.
