Planet Etrius

We need more gametypes too. I never see oddball outside of multi-team.

Not really. I tried to go back and play a few times, I guess to refresh myself, but now the population is so much lower on all the halo games it seems. So many people really did just leave didn't they. Honestly, I think people are just starting to move on from halo because they're just losing interest. I know a couple people who did. People just keep saying things like bungie and 343 messed up halo anniversay, the missions in halo 4 are all about pushing buttons and defending this thing and other. I think some people are just blaming the developers for screwing everything up now when in reality halo-ce is just an old game now, and halo 4's campaign isn't soo much more mundane with its mission objectives than any other halo game...I think it's actually a little better than halo 3 but less than halo 2 and 1.

I'm tired of automatic weapons being utter pieces of crap compared to precision weapons, that's all. I just don't like it. I was ok with how they were before the title update in terms of damage, but never go below that again.

I didn't even realize the shield vs health mechanic was gone for weapons in H4. I thought they just didn't include that detail in weapon descriptions. I want it back!

No that's a very very good and interesting idea

Interesting

May be thinking small here... Auto Forge and Auto Invite for Customs I don't think too many new Halo players are hardcore forgers, and this might just be a cool thing to put in for the hell of it. If auto forging were implemented in Halo 4 it would only be pretty basic. Manual forging would still be way more creative and advanced. The way I think of it is that you would press the Y button at the Forge lobby screen to toggle between auto and manual forging. In auto forge you would have to option to set the dynamics for around 4 or 5 different forerunner monitors (like 343 Guilty Spark). One monitor might have options for auto-building the map's structure by placing ramps, bunkers, and etc. Another one may have settings for how the map will play (auto forging should probably only work for one gametype at a time). So if someone is auto forging a slayer map there will be settings for "general weapon palette", "max / minimum power weapons", "vehicle palette", "racy" (meaning spawn times for weapons are really fast or something), "paced" (meaning weapons spawn times are slower), and etc. For Custom games there should be an option to automatically invite recent players who you last played a game with. And this is a map generator. Not a "map maker". The map would be generated before you spawn in. Pinging I think this would be a cool element to add. In most playlists players would not be able to see where weapons, grenades, etc. are on maps via their HUD unless they're within 15 meters of them. When players press up on the d-pad while looking at items like weapons a waypoint will show up on all other team-mates HUDs telling them where the item is. This could also apply to vehicles and objective items like flags. And if more interactable environments like gates, bridges, passage ways, and etc. are implemented again like in Halo 3 and Halo 2 then pinging could also be used to alert team-mates of their status. Bring back equipment along with armor abilities But I don't think equipment should be available in loadouts. They should be map pickups only. Personally I think that the promethean beam turrets should have replaced the auto-sentry armor ability in Halo 4, but it would be an equipment. This is kind of like what the OP said in his post. Bring back the Revenant...but a little different I had some pretty interesting vehicle battles with the Revenant in Halo Reach. Battling the wraith from mid range while dodging its mortars, zipping up close and around it to distract it from my team-mates and then retreating back to our battle line again...that was pretty cool for me. If some form of it returns I have an idea for it. This thing would be much smaller, maybe the same size as the ghost and with about the same or even less health. It would look like a spider with 4 legs, maybe like the locust, but much more agile. When it fires its gun it fires a three-round shot of red plasma mortars that explode on impact, and when it boosts it pulls its form into a ball for a short time and rolls at breakneck speed for abut 2 seconds before changing back to battle-form again. It would be awesome to see something like this in the next Halo. Maybe it could also have a bonus for splattering people like the Brute chopper from Halo 3 did. An electrical field could show up around it making it super deadly for splattering people and small vehicles.

Present halo's game mechanics and emphasize the skill personality. I think this is a subtle, but signifigant thing. Halo developers have never really openly just explained certain game mechanics like the overcharge on the plasma pistol or the instant kill for hitting someone from behind. There were hints and tips at the matchmaking lobby for halo 3 and Reach I think, but they were taken out of halo 4. Halo only has so many gameplay dynamics like EMPs and beatdowns. Then there's things like crouch jumping, plasma grenade launching and etc. The main mechanics however are a big part and most new players or even casual veterens won't take the time to read weapon details or experiment, or read the manual. So basically what I'm saying is to really shove those things in our faces. Maybe have it so when you're holding a plasma pistol that there's notification on your HUD that says "Hold__________to charge". There could be an option in settings to turn off weapon hints too. And put in details for weapon descriptions that say things like "Rapidly depletes shields". There is a good bit of players out there, probably all noobs, that don't realize shield dynamics. Bring back hints at the matchmaking screen that say "Headshots for precision weapons only count when energy shields are down" or something. The other topic is emphasizing halo's skill set. Don't amp up auto-aim on snipers, or take things out of the game for the sake of new players. A lot of noobs and players out there already thought and still think halo takes no skill because they can choose to play sloppy and easily get 1 or 2 kills per life. Most of US don't do that though. Noobs don't really think about deep team-play skills when they play halo for some reason. They don't think about using power weapons like the railgun or rocket launcher to take out enemy vehicles and get multi-kills instead of being selfish and wasting them on minor targets. A lot of noobs don't figure out game mechanics either. So it's a seriously false judgement they make saying "Halo takes no skill" or assuming it has no deep dynamics. Really emphasize the skillset and bring back things like the grav-lift equipment, or those other unique weapons with a learning curve like the grenade launcher from Reach. The dominant atmosphere for all games should be having power weapons only on the map in most gametypes, and power-ups on maps more often. Ordanance should be rare, maybe only certain medals like kill-joys and killing sprees earn up to ordnance. By only power weapons on maps I mean rocket launcher, fuel rod, all snipers...things like that. Then weapons like the SAW and shotguns could be ordnances. Bring back active camo as a power-up too. There could be certain ordnance power ups like damage boost and speedboost for ordnance. Since ordnance is harder to get they might last longer or have more effect. Then overshield and active camo could be on the maps.

They definitely left out some important things with custom games. I agree.

I think it's more fun than BTB. Just want more maps and map variants.

Is it possible to do an invasion flood gametype with hivemine?

I think hivemind is great as it is. All I want is more map variants and gametypes added in that center around it now. I'd be fine if a hivemind playlist replaced flood. Maybe flood could be added into actionsack?

nvm alright, cool I didn't realize those were your game stats at first. Are they?

I see what you mean. This was a little rushed because I didn't want to lose track of my thoughts. I might revise these or just let the thread die, but for auto forge in specific I should have also put in that it's supposed to be like a "map generator" really. Once you put in the details and start the game the map is generated before you spawn in. Monitors don't actually go in and build stuff in-game. For Legendary Skirmish and / or Legendary Big Team I was thinking that the gameplay would strongly resemble Halo 3 or Halo 2, minus equipment. If 343 does try to do more map remakes like Sandtrap, Guardian, and etc then that would be awesome. One of the things in specific I miss about Halo 3 are the Elephants on Sandtrap. Besides that I was just envisioning power-ups, power weapons, and maybe armor abilities on the maps with a mix of objective and slayer games. Base player speed would be faster and sprinting could be disabled for at least some gametypes. There would also be map variants like "Sandtrap Heavy" from Halo 3. Maybe they could also tailor the armor abilities to have limited uses too. For the Skirmish / Big Team idea I was trying to cater to those who still don't completely agree with the changes in Halo 4 from the past Halos.

Is this an everyday thing?

I first came to the Halo forums in 2009 / 2010 on Bungie.net. And I've always been eager to share discussions and ideas with the community, but I haven't been on in a while so right now I'm like "meh". I don't feel so passionate right now. Anyway when the whole "change vs. no change" and "keep Halo Halo" war started raging at first I was on the side of radical change and drastically evolving Halo 100%. It was fun thinking about ways to evolve Halo's gameplay and style. Sometimes I had radical ideas and some-times I was a lot more subtle. I thought of myself as putting a lot of deep thought and consideration into my arguments and ideas on those threads, but regardless I still got a lot of "keep Halo Halo" retaliations, "that's stupid" remarks, and "this isn't Call of Duty" attitudes. The thing is after Reach was less than and far off from what a lot of us thought it could be, I now know by experience how even seemingly minor things can be a huge deal, like bloom. If bloom was in Halo 4 I might even hate it. So even now I think Halo 4 has some significant things amiss that are more than hindering its lasting appeal, at least for me. I didn't even start playing the game until about 5 days ago, but before then I was watching Youtube videos and I was already feeling like there were some things off. No no no I'm not bashing Halo 4! I'm still all for evolving the series. I absolutely don't think that change should be shunned or that it's impossible to evolve Halo without upsetting the spirit of the game. I understand I'm no game developer, and my enthusiasm for discussing and sharing ideas has been drained a bit. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't contribute to the community besides buying the game. I'm a veteran and I still love this game and what it can be. I won't leave just because we may flop big or small sometimes. So now that the lame disclaimer is out of the way I did just have a couple thoughts. Of course some of these probably can't be put in at the time, but for future Halos maybe. Add Spartan Ops into the match-making hopper with the other playlists. Have one playlist where players can play through all the chapters and episodes in order starting with the first one. Have another playlist where players can jump in and vote on different chapters or episodes to play. If episode voting is implemented then players can choose to leave the party without being penalized between each chapter. Is Spartan Ops under rated, even just a little? I don't know how accurate the player counts for playlists are on H4 xbox live, but I think a lot more people would play it if it was just in the matchmaking hopper with everything else. I mean right now there's only 5 different options for chapters under the Spartan Ops hopper. I think it's worth it. I won't bet, but at least 400 more people will be playing Spartan Ops with that.....at least I really think so. A lot of new players to Halo who didn't really care much for it before will get disinterested after so many games. Watching Youtube videos gave me that perspective, but gametypes like Flood and Spartan Ops are definitely things that stand out a bit more especially to new players. Bring back the campaign search feature. Is it possible to bring back skulls to find in campaign as an update? I wished that there were more extras in the campaign. I saw in Halo Waypoint that data pads were noted, but I haven't found any in the campaign. Those are only from Halo Reach aren't they? I'm not sure. I might have missed that bit of new if they're in Halo 4. I wish equipment was brought back and implemented along with AAs. Jetpack would only be available to use in Spartan Ops, and in matchmaking the gravity lift would be the alternative. I know a lot of Halo players were very fidgety when it came to jetpacks ruining the aspect of map control among other things. I think if equipment were in Halo 4 that it should replace power-ups for personal ordnance, or that there should only be weapons and grenades for personal ordnance and equipment + power-ups + power weapons on the map. All power-ups would be on the map and in preset locations that you'll want to watch out for. I won't go to deep into what I would do or how, but I just want to see them return in future Halos instead of being an exclusive to Halo 3. Having equipment would have still left some spice in the classic playlist as well. Add in Legendary Skirmish or Legendary Big Team with full-on map remakes from Halo 3 including Sandtrap. Legendary Skirmish and / or Legendary Big Team's gameplay would strongly resemble Halo 3 or Halo 2, minus equipment. If 343 does try to do more map remakes like Sandtrap, Guardian, and etc then that would be awesome. One of the things in specific I miss about Halo 3 are the Elephants on Sandtrap. Besides that I was just envisioning power-ups, power weapons, and maybe armor abilities on the maps with a mix of objective and slayer games. Base player speed would be faster and sprinting could be disabled for at least some gametypes. There would also be map variants like "Sandtrap Heavy" from Halo 3. Maybe they could also tailor the armor abilities to have limited uses too. Auto Forge and Auto Invite for Custom Games. I haven't played too many custom games yet. I would start up a ton of them, but I want to use my 14-day free trial to play matchmaking and join games instead of forging. And I don't have an actual Xbox hard drive. I don't think too many new Halo players are hardcore forgers. If auto forging were implemented in Halo 4 it would only be pretty basic. Manual forging would still be way more creative and advanced. The way I think of it is that you would press the Y button at the Forge lobby screen to toggle between auto and manual forging. In auto forge you would have to option to set the dynamics for around 4 or 5 different forerunner monitors visible as options (like 343 Guilty Spark). One monitor might have options for auto-building the map's structure by placing ramps, bunkers, and etc. Another one may have settings for how the map will play (auto forging should probably only work for one gametype at a time). So if someone is auto forging a slayer map there will be settings for "general weapon palette", "max / minimum power weapons", "vehicle palette", "racy" (meaning spawn times for weapons are really fast or something), "paced" (meaning weapons spawn times are slower), and etc. For Custom games there should be an option to automatically invite recent players who you last played a game with. I should have put this in before. Auto Forge is a map generator not a map maker. Monitors don't actually go into the map and place things, you put in the details for each monitor at the lobby screen and the map is generated before you spawn into the game. "Pinging" I think this would be a cool element to add. In most playlists players would not be able to see where weapons, grenades, and etc. are on the map via their HUD unless they're within 20 meters of them. When players press up on the d-pad while looking at items like weapons a waypoint will show up on all other team mates HUDs telling them where the item is. This could also apply to vehicles and objective items like flags. Maybe if more interactable environments like gates, bridges, passage ways, and etc. are implemented again like in Halo 3 and Halo 2 then pinging could also be used to alert team mates of their status as well.

Some people are mostly indifferent and some people are more sensitive to details like these. But what a lot the hard core players don't get is that they're asking for something that is divinely perfect and can only continue to stagnate in the future. "The better player should win everytime!", ok but why do you think your judgement of what makes a better player is universal.

I see what you mean but apparently everything does.... It was just an example though. What about the equipment idea and the philosophy I proposed? It's nothing new, but it seems pretty legit.

Gameplay aesthetics as a serious addition to Halo! Give ideas on this principle I have given up, most of the time..., on trying to suggest radical changes to the core of Halo. So I'm thinking about how could a producer introduce new "minor" features to Halo that either in themselves or cumulatively spice up the game by adding complexity or depth in a non B.S. tripping manner, hopefully. Gameplay aesthetics are like they sound. They theoretically aesthete-icize gameplay without really being a huge feature. If you disagree then you disagree. Just don't get threatened. I would prefer a consensus other than "It's not Halo". If something like this concept is completely outrageous than what wouldn't be? I'm just gonna jump to an example now. As a subtle morph of features without really adding anything here it is. Starting from the classic vanilla Halo pallet and building from there here it is. What I'm thinking is having a new feature that would work with your field of view. It would affect your movement speed, auto-aim, and how your player looks a little bit. It would probably be assigned to your left bumper and toggle activated, or you could make it a "HOLD" button in the controller options too. So in your default state your field of view is smaller and more emphasized along your line of focus (where you're aiming) than in other Halos. It's like by default you're kind of more focused and have less peripheral vision. Auto aim is also only active or more active in this state. Your max player speed would probably be about 90% of Halo 3 speed when in this state as well. When you press the left bumper first of all your weapon is lowered a little and you have a sprint animation, but you're not sprinting. The sprint animation could also be a option for the player. Your max speed would then be about 100% or 110% of Halo 3 speed. And of course your field of vision is like it is in the recent Halo games, and your auto aim is disabled or nerfed. When you fire your weapon or press the left bumper again you will revert back to the focused mode. Gameplay aesthetics also count as things that can build off the classic triangle of Halo: Weapons Equipment / Grenades Typically(Example: Halo 3 Equipment) Map Control (Example: Man Cannon) They either build off of the core, or they are "aesthete-icized" typical features. Like euipment in Halo 3 (weapons...sort of) and also the man cannons. Some equipment also fit into the map control territory. Now going from there I would want a return of armor abilities, but in Halo 3 equipment map pick-up style with a couple changes. They would probably be assigned to the (X) button by default. I would say no armor lock, jet pack (as it is), sprint, hologram, drop shield (as it is), or evade. Jet pack would turn into a gravity lift-like jump pack. It would have one or a couple uses and would basically serve the same function. Drop shield could either become the bubble shield again or stay as it is. Maybe it would be changed a little in mechanics too.

Me too. Wasn't it really just something that had to be there? I want it back. About the weapon modifications. If they are doing it then I'd expect they'll be part of weapon details and only placed on the map already with the weapon. Like SMG or silenced SMG. Yes, yes come on!

nice

I have something that really is subtle and at the same time can enhance the atmosphere. It's also more of a "gameplay aesthetic" which are the kinds of things I was thinking about when I made this thread. So starting from the classic vanilla Halo pallet and building from there here it is. What I'm thinking is having a new feature that would work with your field of view. It would affect your movement speed, auto-aim, and how your player looks a little bit. It would probably be assigned to your left bumper and toggle activated, or you could make it a "HOLD" button in the controller options too. So in your default state your field of view is smaller and more emphasized along your line of focus (where you're aiming) than in other Halos. It's like by default you're kind of more focused and have less peripheral vision. Auto aim is also only active or more active in this state. Your max player speed would probably be about 90% of Halo 3 speed when in this state as well. When you press the left bumper first of all your weapon is lowered a little and you have a sprint animation, but you're not sprinting. The sprint animation could also be a option for the player. Your max speed would then be about 100% or 110% of Halo 3 speed. And of course your field of vision is like it is in the recent Halo games, and your auto aim is disabled or nerfed. When you fire your weapon or press the left bumper again you will revert back to the focused mode. In addition to this I would want a return of armor abilities, but in Halo 3 equipment map pick-up style with a couple changes. They would probably be assigned to the (X) button by default. I would say no armor lock, jet pack (as it is), sprint, hologram, drop shield (as it is), or evade. Jet pack would turn into a gravity lift-like jump pack. It would have one or a couple uses and would basically serve the same function. Drop shield could either become the bubble shield again or stay as it is. Maybe it would be changed a little in mechanics too. The last thing is a spin on the assassinations. Instead of only being limited to assassinating you could press the melee button from any angle to engage an animation where you execute the player if you succeed. They would be called "Pummel" and you would be awarded a pummel medal. The regular melee kill is a beat down. And if you pummel or melee from behind it's an assassination. Now here's how it would work. You would hold the melee button from any angle to engage it, but if the other player presses the melee button at the same time that you try to pummel them then it'll be canceled. The victim player can also press a button when prompted during the assassination to cancel it. When the victim player starts to be pummeled an initial button prompt will be shown for a counter action, but it'll have a red (X) through it which means not to press anything yet. All pummeling maneuvers will last about 2-3 seconds. After the initial button prompt with the (X) through it is shown, sometime during the pummeling the (X) will either disappear or another button prompt will be shown with no (X) through it. The victim can then push the button quickly enough to counter the attack. This whole function can be toggled on or off for games as a whole, or toggled to be active only during an assassination. They also don't have to be default in matchmaking at all.

What are some ideas for subtle changes and additions you would want in a Halo game? By subtle I mean things aren't a real big change but that add an extra feel of dimension and general feel. Anywhere from equipment like in Halo 3 to Visor mode.

The new features in Reach added a new experience, but I think the story could have been better. Actually now that I think about it and play through the campaign again it wasn't so bad, but it still could have been better.

or this too, from Halo 3 and Halo Reach