some more "subtle" ideas and opinions

[Planet Etrius]

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.

[Trifle10]

the problem with the campaign search feature is that on halo reach, you would get a random mission and 3 choices: normal, heroic, legendary. most of the time we were playing normal. you can also choose None Of The Above and cycle through various missions 10 times. if 343 was to implement campaign search, you would get 3 random missions (excluding prolouge and epiloge) all on the same difficulity. if your allies quit out, you would be basically playing campaigin solo. and what if you wanted to put skulls on? the players in the co-op mission would be probably fighting over which skulls are activated and which ones they dont want

 

i get what you saying for spartan ops matchmaking, you basically want reach's firefight matchmaking playlists (1 to find 4 players, the other to do by yourself). i even thought it was a good idea to allow players to vote on different episodes, missions, and difficulites. the problem with that is, the votes would be scattered and 4 different episodes would have 1 vote each. not even the tie resolver would move a vote so another episode can have 2 votes. 343 should implement a matchmaking search system so you can search by episode, vote for the mission, and then vote for the difficulity

 

in addition to power-ups being present on maps for halo 1, halo 2, halo 3, halo reach, they should be on the maps and the ai cant pick them up. there are some weapons placed on the maps for episodes 6-10, though im not sure of any in particular. ordnance drops for spartan ops should give ammo or grenades. instead of you dying, waiting to respawn, and having to kill an enemy to obtain their weapon.

 

for map remakes, someone has to remake the map to its exact layout, has to submit it so the community can like it and submit it to 343 and hope they like it

 

with legendary skirmish, you left it blank

 

auto forging can have too many problems. how will guilty spark know what you want to build? what if 343 builds a map layout that you dont like? i rather stick to manual forging and just build off whatever idea comes my way. there would be way too much extra scripting that 343 wouldnt want to do to make "auto forging" choices balanced.

 

the problem with auto invite is, what if you didnt play any custom games with anyone else or cant get a custom lobby started, would it invite all your recent players who you met over halo 4 (only to have the invites turned down), or would it spam them every minute until they either A) block you or B} join

 

your last statement. you want to go back to halo one and have players look around for ammo, equipment, and vehicles without the prompt to pick it up. then you want a button to pushed that alerts all your allies where its at just so they can mess with you by telling you where its at and then taking it. would the same concept apply to Free For All or some other gametype?

 

to sum it up

• campaign search: NO
• spartan ops search: MAYBE
• power ups/weapons on map: MAYBE
• map remakes: TAKES TOO LONG
• auto forge: NO
• auto invite: NO
• scavanger hunt: NO

[The Stig]

The only main issue I want addressed at the moment is, in Legendary Slayer. They still need to make Flinch modified to make it much more competitive and as similar to descope as possible, Health and shield recharge rate/speed as fast as Halo 3, and Sprint Disabled.

[Planet Etrius]

 

the problem with the campaign search feature is that on halo reach, you would get a random mission and 3 choices: normal, heroic, legendary. most of the time we were playing normal. you can also choose None Of The Above and cycle through various missions 10 times. if 343 was to implement campaign search, you would get 3 random missions (excluding prolouge and epiloge) all on the same difficulity. if your allies quit out, you would be basically playing campaigin solo. and what if you wanted to put skulls on? the players in the co-op mission would be probably fighting over which skulls are activated and which ones they dont want

 

i get what you saying for spartan ops matchmaking, you basically want reach's firefight matchmaking playlists (1 to find 4 players, the other to do by yourself). i even thought it was a good idea to allow players to vote on different episodes, missions, and difficulites. the problem with that is, the votes would be scattered and 4 different episodes would have 1 vote each. not even the tie resolver would move a vote so another episode can have 2 votes. 343 should implement a matchmaking search system so you can search by episode, vote for the mission, and then vote for the difficulity

 

in addition to power-ups being present on maps for halo 1, halo 2, halo 3, halo reach, they should be on the maps and the ai cant pick them up. there are some weapons placed on the maps for episodes 6-10, though im not sure of any in particular. ordnance drops for spartan ops should give ammo or grenades. instead of you dying, waiting to respawn, and having to kill an enemy to obtain their weapon.

 

for map remakes, someone has to remake the map to its exact layout, has to submit it so the community can like it and submit it to 343 and hope they like it

 

with legendary skirmish, you left it blank

 

auto forging can have too many problems. how will guilty spark know what you want to build? what if 343 builds a map layout that you dont like? i rather stick to manual forging and just build off whatever idea comes my way. there would be way too much extra scripting that 343 wouldnt want to do to make "auto forging" choices balanced.

 

the problem with auto invite is, what if you didnt play any custom games with anyone else or cant get a custom lobby started, would it invite all your recent players who you met over halo 4 (only to have the invites turned down), or would it spam them every minute until they either A) block you or B} join

 

your last statement. you want to go back to halo one and have players look around for ammo, equipment, and vehicles without the prompt to pick it up. then you want a button to pushed that alerts all your allies where its at just so they can mess with you by telling you where its at and then taking it. would the same concept apply to Free For All or some other gametype?

 

to sum it up

• campaign search: NO
• spartan ops search: MAYBE
• power ups/weapons on map: MAYBE
• map remakes: TAKES TOO LONG
• auto forge: NO
• auto invite: NO
• scavanger hunt: NO

 

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.

[Trifle10]

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.

ah, ok. a map generator? now that would be something to see. as for map remakes thats what their probably doing. recreating maps that both 343 and the community liked. before champion was announced, we thought castle was the last pack since all other halos have followed the 3 map pack releases (though time btwn releases varied). elephants wont be coming back, unless 343 was to edit the campaigin vehicle on that one halo 4 campaign mission. the heavy variants from halo 3 were my favorites, though we played the non heavy variants 3/4 the time. maybe i should try to get back into halo 3, ill doubt ill still be as good as my youtube videos (search "thequaliva" and look for playlist "halo 3"). im also going to attempt some other remakes

[Planet Etrius]

nvm

 

ah, ok. a map generator? now that would be something to see. as for map remakes thats what their probably doing. recreating maps that both 343 and the community liked. before champion was announced, we thought castle was the last pack since all other halos have followed the 3 map pack releases (though time btwn releases varied). elephants wont be coming back, unless 343 was to edit the campaigin vehicle on that one halo 4 campaign mission. the heavy variants from halo 3 were my favorites, though we played the non heavy variants 3/4 the time. maybe i should try to get back into halo 3, ill doubt ill still be as good as my youtube videos (search "thequaliva" and look for playlist "halo 3"). im also going to attempt some other remakes

alright, cool

 

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