I honestly don't know. I obviously don't have an expertise to back it up, I just think 343's Jackals look like a more realistic creature. More generic? Yes, absolutely, and maybe that in itself is a bad thing, but . . . :shrug:

: No, they didn't. I don't know how you can say that if you didn't look at the
: details, either. There was a big jump from Halo 1 to Halo 2. There was a
: reworking of Brutes and Grunts for Halo 3, but everything else looked
: pretty much the same. ODST was the same as Halo 3. Reach was only
: marginally different from Halo 3 and ODST, aside from the Brutes, the
: Elite armor, and the Banshee. The jump for Elites from Reach to Halo 4 was
: kind of big, and it made it all but impossible to pick out ranks. The jump
: from Reach to Halo 4 for the Grunts was bigger, and if you include the new
: armor, it was the biggest ever (which, lest we forget, includes a tube
: blocking an eye, and I just realized they didn't fix that either, did
: they?). The jump from Reach to Halo 4 for Jackals was unequivocally the
: biggest ever.

You can't say they didn't change a bunch of things, and then list a bunch of things they changed. (:

I didn't look at the details because it personally doesn't matter to me, but that doesn't make me unaware of them, especially as someone who frequents these forums. It's hard not see the changes when they immediately get picked over here. I'm not saying that 343i didn't make more drastic changes; that would be silly. They obviously did. But Bungie did make pretty significant changes at times to. And, to be fair, they got a lot of flak for those changes at times, too.

: The Jackal change is glaringly different, it's so different that to many
: people it's obvious it should not be the same thing, and indeed when you
: look at the variation in Earth life forms, there's no way it could be. You
: could say it's a whole different tree of life so things work differently
: and they are the same, but they didn't do that, they just gave some
: background about different parts of the moon they came from and said
: "they developed different, honest". That is what I'd call a lazy
: explanation.

Lazy, maybe, but believable. How many different types of monkeys are their on Earth? How many types of lizards, birds, etc? It's not out of the realm of possibility that classic Jackals and 343's Jackals are separate, but closely related, species.

: It hasn't made me angry in quite some time. What bothers me now is people
: defending it, and, I'll admit, it bothers me that people like it, it is
: that awful that I don't see how anyone could like it.

Just chalk that up to different strokes. I like quite a bit of it, but not all of it. I guess maybe that's the difference between whether someone can accept the changes or not. I hate the new Warthog, but I can hardly complain about them changing that when I'm defending them for changing the Master Chief's armor.

: Everyone that said Halo was ruined doesn't post here any more. (I wish they'd
: stop saying it elsewhere too, and commenting about how HBO is all
: different and bad.)

I agree with you there, but that's an entirely different conversation.

: They made it act differently (no health display, backpack weapon icon, faster
: shield recharge, higher jump, no fall damage, fire doesn't hurt you), and
: that's gameplay stuff they probably would've done anyway, but it also
: justifies a new suit to me. Really it would be weird if they changed all
: that and didn't have the suit the be different, at least through some
: kind of upgrade.

Okay, I'll concede that point. I still feel like it's pretty clear that gameplay came first, and they found and explanation that fit.

: That's what would really be good, not bending visuals to story but having
: them work together. You could have a whole subplot about Chief's old armor
: failing, even work it into gameplay without being obnoxious like the
: motion tracker doesn't work right, and then give him new armor. You could
: just say "oh BTW there were spare parts on the FUD, you should put
: them on", but they didn't even do that.

Honestly, I had thought about that, too, and it seems like a far better explanation. We know from Halo 3 and Reach that there were multiple models and parts of MJOLNIR armor around; it's not completely unfeasible that there were spare parts on FUD. Would have made more sense.

: Yes! At least for a while. Even if there were new people working on it,
: somebody in the chain knew that the Chief was stuck in bumfuck nowhere
: so they couldn't change his looks much without the fans calling bullshit.
: If you showed me that armor before Halo 4 without the helmet, again, I'm
: sure it would've taken me a long time to guess it was connected to Halo,
: and I never would've said it's the Master Chief's armor.

I guess I just look at it differently, but I find that a bit hard to believe. I'd have immediately thought Master Chief.

: One more thing, how often do you confuse the space suit Jackals for Elites or
: vice-versa? I know you do, everyone does. That's probably the best case of
: making something not be identifiable any more, and it shows their lack of
: good judgment (and/or lack of skill) in enemy design.

I can't honestly say that that has ever happened to me. I can't recall many instances of Jackals wearing space suits, though. The first level of the Halo 4 is the only one that immediately comes to mind.

I know I'm coming off as trying to be argumentative, but that's not the case. I'm not trying to say that it shouldn't matter to you or anyone else.

I guess my point now is just, it's been changed, it's done, they're not going back, so at what point do we move on? Because otherwise, this will always be an issue, and it doesn't need to be. Are people going to be angry that the Jackals look the same in Halo 6, even though they'll have looked like that for three games at that point? Because that seems silly to me.