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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 My answer to the first question is that the game has branched too far out from what originally made Halo a great FPS, and my answer to the second is as follows: What Needs to Change: 1.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

So why did people hate Halo Reach so much? Why is there such a problem with bloom? It didn't bother me so I want to understand why it bothered others so much. Please respond with articulate explanation not just telling me it is dumb crap. Thanks.

THE BR RECOIL DOES NOT EQUAL DMR BLOOM. It is useless to make both rifles 5-shots and then try to compensate for it by making shooting variables that aren't equal or at least very similar. DMR's bloom still is not fixed. Even at max bloom the bullets can still hit the player's hitbox 80% of the time. Thus making the gun SPAMMABLE. Recoil is not that much but think logically here on where the advantage lies: Vertical upward rising shots (Forces you to reposition crosshairs twice one against the upward direction and one for the player's direction) VS. Shots within a radius (Forces you to wait but only reposition once for player position) DMR Bloom requires less coordination and actual work than BR, making it a handicapped, OP, weapon. Ways to fix: Increase BR damage (since you already get recoil anyways) or Increase DMR bloom radius or Decrease DMR shot interval length or Make BR as equally efficient at long rage

I'll start off by saying that I've been a fan of the franchise since Halo: Combat Evolved, and that I'm currently studying game design. These are my impressions of Halo 4 so far after spending roughly five or more hours snapping up every tid-bit of information on the net and from E3. I'm going to focus on the things I DON'T like, there are a lot of things I'm excited for about Halo 4 including Campaign, Spartan Ops, the fact that they brought the BR back into the sandbox, etc. Please realise that I'm writing this for the love of Halo. ARMOUR ABILITIES should be removed, or toned down. They slow down the gameplay too much, they imbalance the gameplay, they're unnecessary for a fun, engaging experience and most importantly they go against the core principle of halo gameplay, that everyone has the same abilities (when I say that, I'm talking about moving, shooting, reloading, jumping, etc.) and everyone starts off a match on equal footing. I'll go into a bit of detail about the new armour abilities and why I think they're unnecessary. -Promethean Vision, the radar is a classic Halo staple, and gives players everything they need in terms of player detection. Seeing through walls also focuses the player on visual detection too much and detracts from the simply awe inspiring sound engine that's been in every Halo. -Active Camo, not sure if this has actually made the cut or if it's coming back as a powerup from an ordnance drop, in which case I wouldn't have too many problems with it. But in it's armour ability form, active camo slows down gameplay A LOT, promotes camping and is activated too often, making radar redundant. -Hardlight Shield, for those that don't know is Halo 4's version of armour lock (what I like to think of as the spanner-in-the-works of Reach) and appears like a riot shield. It's much more toned down than armour lock however most of the same problems remain. It promotes defensive gameplay, ergo slowing down gameplay, and makes 2v1 situations (traditionally always an interesting dynamic where the underdog always has that chance for the double) untenable for the lone player. It is also far too useful in team situations where focus firing should be rewarded as an active component of gameplay and is instead punished by the press of one button. -Thrusterpack is implemented like a toned down version of evade from Halo: Reach. It detracts from the gameplay because it makes grenade placement and aiming redundant when combined with the new grenade indicator (just like the jetpack did in Reach) ergo slowing down gameplay, it promotes double bashing, it makes close combat weapons like the sword and the Promethean shotgun overpowered as players are able to rapidly close distance between targets, it makes escaping far too easy and thus promotes elusive playstyles, slowing down gameplay even more. -Hologram, from what I've seen it seems to be implemented the same as it was in Halo: Reach and the same problems remain, it doesn't really add anything to the gameplay as players will use it EVERY fight, it's possible for it to trick a skilled player but most of the time it's just a small irritant, therefore it's unnecessary. -Jetpack (I really hope this doesn't make the cut) it has all the same problems as thrusterpack with the added problem of having to make all maps abuse-proof and an unhealthy redundancy of power weapons like the rocket and sword. PERKS are not as bad as armour abilities, but still unnecessary. They also go against that main tenet of core halo gameplay. SPRINT, sprint is unnecessary because; 1. Halo has never needed sprint to produce dynamic, fast, fun and engaging gameplay. 2. It rewards players for playing elusively, thus slowing down gameplay. For example it makes the important positional gameplay of Halo 2 and 3 redundant because players can high tail it out of situations with sprint that they should really be punished for entering. 3. It makes close combat weapons like the sword overpowered. 4. It promotes double bashing. The RANKING AND EXPERIENCE SYSTEM of Halo: Reach that rewards mindless playing. I'm not against an exp system that gives unlocks and shows how much a player has played in a holistic sense, but I'm more of the mind that it NEEDS to take second place next to a WORTHWHILE RANK that accurately displays a player's LEVEL OF SKILL. RANKED PLAYLISTS should not be thrown in the same category as "social" playlists like the Arena in Halo: Reach. It should have it's own category to make it seem worthwhile and important and encourage players to try it out. This was one of the main reasons the Arena in Reach is a wasteland, along with the fact that the rank attained in the Arena isn't visible outside that playlist. If armour abilities, perks, loadouts and unlocks absolutely must be in Infinity Slayer, then so be it, but RANKED PLAYLISTS should NOT have these, they should remain a more pure, traditional halo experience that I'm confident 343 can deliver. BLOOM is another major element that ruined Halo; Reach for me, it introduced far too much luck. Rather than promoting skilful shooting as it was intended, it rewards players that spam the trigger and get lucky with the bullet-spread at the more common encounter ranges. From what I've seen and heard, bloom isn't as major an issue in Halo 4 as it was in Reach but I'd like to see it removed and have distance dps modifiers implemented in a different fashion. tl;dr To sum up, and continue, SUGGESTIONS FOR HALO 4. -Remove armour abilities from the game, if they must be in, give them a long cool-down, for example 60- seconds, so that they're only usable in every 4th or more encounter rather than every encounter. OR, simply have them in a separate playlist from everything else. -Remove Sprint, Bloom and Perks from the game. -Ranked playlists separate from "social", without armour abilities, perks, bloom and with fixed loadouts. -Ranks attained in ranked playlists that are worthwhile, accurate, and given a priority on a player's gamer card in-game. -Maps to bring back from the franchises' past (me faves) Guardian, The Pitt and Sanctuary. Although I love a lot more, there's no point listing everything. -A no-scope medal! Thanks for reading.

(TL;DR near bottom of page, but read through this if you want to know the reasons behind my suggestions, they are all reasonable, fair, and have been tested.) First of all the latest TU is really sweet. The armor lock has been nerfed and is not only unable to be exploited, but actually a fun aspect of the game now. The bleedthrough has been removed, which is great because REACH originally had no bleedthrough and this really helped with clarification of melee kills, along with allowing individual skill to play a larger role in deciding who comes out on top in cqb encounters! Some will complain that bleedthrough fixed the double melee problem, I will get to this problem further on, but in direct response to those pro-bleedthrough, it's addition opens up the window to loads more issues and gameplay inbalances. Ok onto the the topic of bloom. It seems there are three popular settings each with their own die hard fans. 100%, 85% and 0%. At first I liked 100% bloom, I found the DMR and the NR required more skill to use effectivly, but I have got to say the 85% bloom setting really evens out the game so that everyone gets a shot at the DMR and kicking ass. And those more skilled with it before will still be skilled with it now, but don't have to worry about their targets coming out from cover to shoot until their shields are dropped and not being able to take the final shot at them before they escape due to the higher bloom. I tell you that was far more annoying than the times people used AL against me in CQB. The TU features 85% bloom and I think after a bit of credit bribing to get people to try out and get used to these new settings, people are loving it. I personally believe it adds to the game and should stay in future TUs. Infact all current TU features should stay the same if you ask me. But I do have some new suggestions which have already been touched on with other playlists such as classic anniversary. Melee damage in classic anniverary is set to about 50%, not only does this mimic Halo CE, but it also means that any player on full health and shields requires 3 melees to kill. So after screwing with these settings in custom games I found that 50% is indeed a great value to keep melee on simply because it requires 3 hits to kill, but unlike on 90% or 75% where it also takes 3 hits to kill, you are going to need more than a quick AR burst/dmr headshot before 2 follow up melees to down a player with half a brain. Incase I dragged that sentence on for too long and it made no sense, this means that DOUBLE MELEE WILL NO LONGER OCCUR!!! (yay) and the best thing is WE CAN STILL KEEP BLEEDTHROUGH OFF!!! And as a bonus to those who enjoy paying extra attention to detail/ those with OCD who like to believe every weapon should have a role in the game (both describe me really well ), the gravity hammer's melee attack (with the RB or B button not the RT trigger) still takes 2 shots to kill rather than three thanks to its massive blade. Awesome! This got me thinking about the spiker. Poor old spiker... It has less DPS than the AR, slow moving bullets (or spikes whatever), terrible accuracy and to top it off the bayonette only gives the spiker's melee attack extra oompf in campaign. That's right with 50% melee, the spiker does the same damage to a fully shielded sparten as an AR. So all in all the spiker is just a bad AR in every way. This got me thinking about how other weapons might not be balanced. And I straight away jumped back to how much better the DMR and NR are with 85% bloom. They can quite easilly take out an AR or Plasma Repeater (and ofcourse spiker) in close range where the auto weapons should dominate. In tight quarters the AR/Plasma Repeater will win still, but at close range in open ground the DMR/NR will usually rip through automatic users. So here are a list of weapon tweaks that I think know will balance the game while keeping current TU bloom and no-bleedthrough settings how they are now: awesome:) Assault Rifle: Recoil/bloom needs to be toned down by a small fraction, nothing too drastic. Damage is actually at a good level if you make your shots count and burst your weapon. The thing is in order to land every shot on a DMR user (the only way to kill them if they are landing every headshot QUICKLY) your bursts are forced to be too short and too close of range. If the recoil/ crosshair bloom was to be toned down a small fraction, it would make ALL the difference. No joke when testing I found I got my friends down to 1 health bar each time as long as they landed every headshot and killed me first. This still requires control and skill on the AR user's behalf, but it makes it possible against skilled DMR users who are starting to venture into the automatic range domain with their reduced bloom. Plasma Repeater: This weapon needs a slight increase in damage dealt to shields. This is because while it can in theory beat an AR if every shot lands (only just), the thing is it isn't hitscan, and enemies don't stand still which means the weapon will overheat when fired more (even in bursts) and slow down. Once the weapon has started to slow it will lose outright to an AR unless there are teammates around etc. The Plasma Repeater needs to be more effective against shields, even if the buff is slight, it will still make a difference and balance the gun. Spiker: Needs slight damage buff (health, not shields) and increased melee damage (on par with the RB/B melee attack of the grav hammer) and to keep it balanced with plasma rifle, slight shield damage nerf. The increased damage should be just enough to allow this weapon to beat an AR so long as every shot hits. This will still force the players to use the spiker only in very close quarters where neither the spikers slow projectiles or horrible accuracy will have too much of an effect on the weapon. The increased damage melee will give this weapon a small advantage over other automatic weapons in hand to hand combat and this is fair seeing as the weapon is still probably the worst auto weapon with all the above settings in play. And besides it has dual blades c'mon it should be better than the rest Imagine not getting to use the chainsaw on the lancer in gears of war, or being able to use it but it only does the same as the hammerburst melee! It is currently a plasma rifle clone, with slightly more ammo and firing times (before reload/overheat) and more accuracy, but will be beaten as the rifle increases ROF with continued use and will kill just faster. With a slightly increased kill time (takes a little to deplete shields, but much quicker to deplete health) it will, like the plasma rifle be capable of matching the AR in extreme CQB, and with slightly (not extreme, otherwise campaign will become unbalanced) adjust shield and flesh damage stats, the weapon could finally become unique and have its own purpose, eg as a sidearm or cqb weapon with a sick melee damage boost. So while the kill time will only be marginally greater still making it and the plasma rifle inferior at most ranges, these two weapons are balance out against the assault rifle due to not having bloom, the plasma rifle dropping shields faster and leading to a melee kill quicker, the spiker having more ammo and time before reloading, and also a sick melee capability should the next TU include 50% melee damage. Firefight sniper rifles need 24/24 ammo to begin with. It cannot make use of the resupply crates and takes 3 headshots to kill an ultra on heroic, which is difficult enough because they are fast moving and jumpy, but they will also run away and recharge shields. Currently snipers start with 12/24 ammo. Allowing them to make use of the resuply ammo crates would be a bit OP, as with more than one sniper on the team with unlimited sniper ammo could reak havoc. Also, it would make the snipers from weapon drops useless if players spawning with snipers in custom firefight don't need to search for more ammo. Maybe a way for the author to limit how many people on one team can actively be using each loadout at one time (limit loadout 1 to 1 person at a time, limit loadout 2 to 4 people at a time etc) for both custom firefight and MP. Playlists: Invasion could do with TU settings, although it is a big new addition to reach and should also retain a default playlist as well. I think there should be 3 default playlists and the rest all with TU settings (aside from the one classic anniversary playlist.): Default: FFA - mix of FFA slayer and objectives Team - mix of slayer and objective, team size 4-5 (squad slayer yay) Big Team - mix of big team slayer, objective and invasion gametypes. (team size 6-8 ) Give TU users invasion as well and everyone is happy. This one may or may not be possible to add in so long after the release, but I think would please a lot of users: Add a new silver skull to firefight and campaign that turns on TU settings. You may chose to add this feature to both custom and matchmaking firefight or just custom firefight, but either way it is certainly a good idea that allows players to play the game their way and jump straight from campaign/firefight into MP with the same settings. Considering it is apparently easy for developers to turn TU on/off in matchmaking, so a simple 0/1 (off/on) value from a skull should be very easy to impliment and a feature that gamers shouldn't be denied. TL;DR Incase you didn't like my rambling here are the changes/things that should stay the same I think should be added/kept to/in the next TU: (Don't comment complaining about them if you haven't read the full post which goes in detail about my reasons for these changes.) Bloom: 85% Armor lock nerf: good, keep it. Bleedthrough: off, keep it off. Melee Damage: 50% (dont panic, read the post) Assault rifle tweaks: Slightly toned down spread/recoil/bloom. Plasma Repeater Tweaks: Slight damage done to shields buff, damage done to health stays the same. Spiker: Damage doen to health buffed until the weapon is capable of beating an AR in close quaters so long as each spike/round hits. Buffed melee damage (on par with RB/B attack of grav hammer). Slight nerf to shield damage, to balance it with plasma rifle and keep the two from being too similar to one another. Sniper spawns with 24/24 ammo in firefight (custom and matchmaking, both weapon drop and loadout/spawn) TU Invasion added to matchmaking Keep vanilla invasion, big team, normal team and ffa to keep vanilla fans happy and to not go back on promise. TU settings skull for campaign and custom firefight, maybe for matchmaking firefight (players vote for skull on/off). Ability to limit each loadout to a certain amount of people when editing game options in custom MP and firefight. (e.g. loadout 1 limited to 1 person, loadout 2 limited to 4 people etc etc). The Classic Anniversary is great with zero bloom, super pistol, no armor abilties, 110% shield regen, 120% player movement speed and 50% melee damage modifier. But I'm not here to talk about classic, I'm here to discuss the TU settings and how they can be modified for next months TU to make the game even better.

What I'm expecting to see from Halo 4 is Zero Bloom. Yes, Blooming is that seriously annoying thing in Halo: Reach where a lot of weapons' reticules increase as you shoot more for a period of time. It just makes most of the kills lucky not skill, except for the first shot with a weapon that blooms. Who agrees?

Ok after what has turned into a long chat we not only chatting about bloom so go ahead discuss what we want in H4 and what we dont like Even though they may already be a thread mentioning all this i was far too lazy to look thorugh all the theads to comment so hey here we all again Simple list to get ''Halo'' to the top of the list once again! Those who luv Halo stick by no matter what but hey following simple step on those who play the game and enjoy will only make H4 better! Now that MW3 sucks its time for 343 and Halo to make it to the top and stay there So here's what ill suggest: 1. NO Bloom 2. No Sprint, armor lock, evade, Jetpack or anything on those terms which give one an advantage once they one shot to either run away like a **** or evade around the corner or like most people do is use Armor lock.... Newbs!!!! 3. Fix the Beat-down system ( Not two beat-Downs) - Hate out BR'ing one to then beat him down which he still survives like a spunge! Was'nt like that in H2 or H3, when in a BR fight you can easily out BR someone but if both are to go for a beat down you should die after, not have to beat him down again for the 2nd time!!! 4. Back to the normal Ranking system 0-50 5. Lastly make some proper maps! For one im a competetive player so seeing the community go out and make old H3 maps or H2 was a good thing but was a let down for Halo and Bungie not having any maps which stand out in Reach! and dont say Countdown, all you get is kids running around throwing nades all day long! Thanks 343 and hopefully we'll see a great game in the near future with Halo4