Matthew Grossberg

To be honest I really get the sense that from the start 343 has been controlled by Microsoft telling them they needed to make the game more like CoD. I feel like they were never given a chance to make a good Halo game to begin with, as their corporate overlords dictated what type of shooter they should make. I think this is the reason that Bungie left Microsoft to begin with, and 343 just had the bad luck to be created by Microsoft. I am not so sure that they couldn't make a good game if they were given the ability to freely do what they wanted without being forced into certain areas, but it really does seem like they don't want to admit they made any major mistakes and they just keep sticking with stuff that is not working even though the game is dying because of it. Truly a shame when you think of what Halo once was... I really would like to see what they could come out if they were just given complete free will to create something true to Halo. Who knows, they might surprise you.

Yeah I get that. It makes sense really. Until the game is almost completely devoid of players they will just keep thinking they can solve things their way like you said. Ironic, because trying to do things their way is what really screwed Halo 4 up in the first place. Ah well, hopefully if enough people are swayed by these ideas, when 343 comes crawling back to the community after losing almost everything, we can tell them exactly what we want, and they will make it. Thanks for the feedback though, I appreciate your insight!

So you don't believe that with how small the Halo community has gotten recently, 343 might realize they have screwed something up? I feel like now is the time they cannot afford to ignore us, if they want Halo 5 to sell at all. I know they are only ideas, but if enough people got together and pushed some of them on 343 maybe they would see what people want and need from Halo 4, and they would make the changes. Just an idea though

It's a shame that not many people have seen this, I would love to get some more feedback on my ideas.

If every playlist had an Infinty variant I would be fine with that, I just don't like being forced to play with imbalanced personal ordnance drops all the time. Along with random weapon spawn, I feel like that has done the most to destroy the feeling of playing a Halo game. Bloom may have been implemented better, but I still dont really see why it was necessary at all. I don't think the game would be just like Halo 3 in any way except ranking system, no bloom, and playlists. It would still have loadouts, armor abilities, and all the new weapons and gametypes. It's funny that you mention Treyarch and Infinity Ward and say you dont want 343 to be like them, when several of the newest additions to Halo 4's mulitplayer seem like cheap knockoffs of things from CoD. Perks, ordnance, everyone with sprint, loadouts, flinch, instant spawn. Not saying all those things are bad, or even that they are complete copies, but you can't deny they were taken from CoD specifically to bring new people into Halo. And it hasn't worked. Not only did no new people come, but old people left. You might like Halo 4 for what it is, but the game is dying whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

Haha this is a shame. I pretty much just modeled it after Halo 3s playlists, obviously there could be some tweaks I felt it was just a good outline or place to start! Like I said I am a first time poster so I haven't really been around this forum for long, but it is good to hear that other people are having similar issues and have brought it up before. What is not good is that 343 has done very little about it. I am not sure how to feel about the Waypoint ranking system, but to me it seems like too little too late almost. By april there could be only 20,000 people playing Halo. In terms of bloom, I feel as if it is so minor in this game, why even have it at all? It is just one more thing that randomly effects small portions of the game, it would be simpler just to remove it completely. As for Invis, I personally think it is too easily abused and should just be removed and made into a powerup, but thats just an opinion, and not a major flaw in the game.

Here is a link to a commentary I did on this subject for my YouTube channel if anyone wants to check it out.

Ok first things first, I am a first time poster on this forum, so please let me know if I am doing anything incorrectly. So tonight I went onto Halo 4 to test out the new maps and Infinity rumble playlist, and I noticed that there were only about 40,000 people online at 9:30 EST. This disappoints me, as it seems like every day more and more people are leaving the game, and the community itself. I got to thinking, what is it about Halo 4 that is making these people not want to play, and what could be changed to help to bring them back. My answer to the first question is that the game has branched too far out from what originally made Halo a great FPS, and my answer to the second is as follows: What Needs to Change: 1. A 1-50 TruSkill Ranking system must be implemented 2. Ranked Playlists must be added with the 1-50 ranking system. The playlists I would like to see are: 1. Lone Wolves (6 Player FFA) Gametypes include Slayer, Infinity Slayer, Oddball, and King of the Hill 2. Team Slayer (4v4) Gametypes include Slayer and Infinity Slayer 3. Team Objective (4v4) Gametypes include Capture the Flag, Oddball, Extraction, and King of the Hill 4. Team Swat (4v4) 5. Team Snipers (4v4) 6. Team Doubles (2v2) Gametypes include Slayer, Infinity Slayer, Oddball, and King of the Hill 7. AGL (4v4) Gametypes include AGL Settings Slayer, Capture the Flag, Extraction, Oddball, and King of the Hill 8. Squad Battle (6v6) Gametypes include Slayer, Infinity Slayer, Dominion, Extraction, Capture the Flag 3. Social Playlists need to be distinctly separate from Ranked, with random matchmaking instead of skill based. Social Playlists I would like to see are: 1. Rumble Pit (8 Player FFA) Gametypes include Slayer, Infinity Slayer, Oddball, King of the Hill 2. Social Slayer (5v5) Gametypes include Slayer and Infinity Slayer 3. Social Skirmish (5v5) Gametypes include Capture the Flag, Oddball, Extraction, and King of the Hill 4. Multi-Team (6 Teams of 2) Gametypes include Slayer, Infinity Slayer, Oddball, and King of the Hill 5. Big Team Battle (8v8) Gametypes include Slayer, Infinity Slayer, Dominion, Extraction, Capture the Flag 6. Action Sack (4v4) 7. Grifball (4v4) 8. Flood (6v6) 4. In order for the above playlists to work, Dominion, Regicide, and Infinity Slayer must all become gametypes (as opposed to the playlists they are now) to be voted on with all other gametypes available in each playlist. Only Infinity Slayer would have personal ordnance and instant spawn, all other gametypes would have their normal settings. Join in progress would be enabled for Social, disabled for Ranked. Killcams would be dependent on the playlist settings. Loadouts would be allowed based on the particular playlist settings. 5. No more random weapon spawns. Weapons should spawn how they have in every other Halo, in a particular place on a timer. Making weapon spawns random removed one of the two biggest facets of Halo gameplay, power weapon control. Besides skill itself, weapon control and map control were two of the most important aspects of all Halo games, and I believe it imbalances the game to have random weapon spawns. 6. Remove bloom and recoil. I feel like bloom was a failed experiment in Halo Reach, and it should not have been brought over to Halo 4. There may need to be some changes made to the fire rate of the DMR, Magnum, AR, etc. The BR has recoil, but it is small and almost unnoticeable anyways, so might as well just remove it. No bloom worked fine in MLG, and the previous Halos, with some tweaking it should work fine here as well. 7.Remove flinch, bring back being knocked out of scope. I don't know why they changed this in the first place, but I feel like getting rid of flinch and adding back in being knocked out of scope when shot is the way to go. The game would feel more like Halo I believe. 8. Remove Invisibility as an Armor Ability, make it a powerup like Damage Boost, Speed Boost, and Overshield. Have these placed around the map like in previous Halo titles, able to be picked up by a player. That is pretty much it, everything I think could be changed to help make the game feel more like Halo, less like a mishmash of other stuff. Let me know what you think about it! Mercules