Halo 5: 4 ways to improve multiplayer.

[Ghost Recon]

Halo 5: 4 ways to improve multiplayer.

Source:  http://www.xb1.co.uk/features/halo-5-4-ways-to-improve-multiplayer/

 

Over the last nine years, we’ve sunk more hours into Halo’s multiplayer than we’d feel comfortable revealing. And as much as we love the ongoing struggle between red versus blue, we can’t help but wonder if Bungie (and subsequently 343 Industries) has led the franchise into uncomfortable territory.

Halo’s multiplayer found success iterating on the classic FPS-action born from arena shooters. Halo’s at its best when it’s forcing eight evenly matched players into a tight a-symmetrical map; with whoever could best take advantage of what’s placed inside emerging the victor. Halo: Reach and Halo 4 changed this; introducing elements like customisable loadouts and character persistence. It felt out of place, a reaction to the success of Call Of Duty and Battlefield.

But Halo doesn’t need to imitate. Halo 3’s simple-yet-addictive multiplayer served over 11.5 million sessions, and 343 Industries would do well to remember that Halo leads the way when it comes to precariously crouching over an enemies face post-firefight. Here are four changes that can help Halo regain the multiplayer crown.

1. Ditch loadouts

What was 343 thinking? It’s tough to remember a time before Call Of Duty’s obsessive loadout tinkering became the norm, but Halo was always the go-to for skill-based multiplayer. Equally levelled players would go toe-to-toe with nothing but an Assault Rifle, two Frag grenades and littered weapons to claim victory. The opportunity to create loadouts – custom armour permutations and various weapon combinations from the outset of a game – threw the balance of Halo into disarray. 343 needs to ditch loadouts and let players duke it out over the Rocket Launcher.

2. Play to win

“No I’m not running for the flag, I’m watching my kill to death ratio.” There was a time when Halo was punishing. Every player obtained a rank that would rise with success and fall with failure. It made every game count – you weren’t fighting for an arbitrary average, you were fighting to increase your permanent rank, to take you into tougher fights and more lucrative bragging rights. This was shelved, and it’s let the K/D ratio-obsessive ruin the core experience. Bring back true skill ranking and force the campers and objective avoiders out into the open for an easy kill.

3. Reduce the weapon pool

Look, we love guns as much as you guys, but Halo has too many. As hard as it is to believe we actually just said that, we can’t help but dream of a time when the weapon pool is reduced in favour of simplicity. There’s no need to have the Battle Rifle, DMR, Light Rifle, and Carbine – they serve a similar purpose and are entirely unnecessary. Halo on Xbox One would do well to refine each weapon to its core purpose, simply introducing a Covenant and UNSC version of each. Oh, and bring back dual wielding, we miss the SMGs.

4. Take advantage of the Xbox One

Back in November, 343’s Brad Welch took to Twitter to offer the slimmest hint as to what we can expect from Halo on Xbox One’s multiplayer. “Going to make whatever future 60fps, dedi server Halo we may make as awesome as possible to as many fans as possible.” While he addressed issues like map size and loadouts directly, it’s this mention of dedicated servers that has us excited. Halo still suffers from host advantage problems, and dedicated servers would all but irradiate this particular nuisance. We can’t wait to see how the Cloud alters the multiplayer landscape.

Anything more you think Halo on Xbox One is going to need to change? Let us know in the comments below.

Find out more about what’s next for Halo on Xbox One with our special investigation in X-ONE issue 108 on sale now.

[RelevantEagle22]

1. KEEP LOADOUTS BECAUSE I WANT MY SKINS

 

2. Make the armor skins stand out more

 

3. The battle rifle is toooooooooooooo OP

 

4. Cortana need to return Evil

[ShockGazm]

I thought loadouts were a good idea, though when I think about it loadouts were pointless because people only really used the DMR and the BR (The other weapons were literally pointless being in the game, even if 1 or 2 of them could do descent damage) but I do agree that they should be taken out of Halo. Loadouts work with Halo 4 and that's fair enough, but Halo 5 needs to go back to being the Halo we all now and love. Halo 3 had unique multiplayer, lets see this implemented into Halo 5.

[Unease Peanut]

1.

Loadout's aren't all that bad. It gives certain players a chance to play with what's best for them instead of getting stuck up with a gun they don't like. And there are still playlists with forced loadouts

 

2.

Agreed. I like the 'every game counts' thing. I'm stuck in halo 4 with not earning anything from playing games. It is still fun don't get me wrong. But it feels like I don't achieve that much.

 

3.

I like more guns! And all the different weapons do serve a purpose. They all have different stats and they all have a preferable playist style/technique. Would like Dual wielding back though!

 

4.

Dedicated servers YES! Also increased vieuwing distance would be nice. I hate seeing that one rock without texture from afar. Also let debris and weapons lie around for more that 10 seconds!

[Shun 'Kanamee]

1. Please bring back elites

2. Get rid of hitboxes

3. Make it the "Teabagging a dead guy in such a way where you are catapulted out of the map" type of gameplay we know and love

4. Make the weapon's stats more similar to what it was in old halo

5. Please bring back elites

6. I  elites so plz bring back elites

7. Did I mention I like elites?

[Delpen9]

-limit the loudouts to the primaries- assualt rifle WITH a magnum and plasma pistol (for team slayer and big team)

(i advocate for plasma pistol in loadouts)

-only make 2! loudouts possible.(other gametypes) and you unlock the third by being a certain skill rank   >29 out of 50

-make LESS havoc in big team. make weapons spawn without an ordinance. please....

-take away personal ordinances but keep them for weapon placement

-bring back the mauler and smg for dual wielding

-make the magnum dual wield-able but figure out a way to keep it's rapid rate of fire when you have only one. dual wield more effective if you have skill

-make the boltshot a pickup only weapon and remove the scattershot COMPLETELY (im dead serious)

-make the br an underpowered weapon to a slight degree... if nubs beat you with a dmr then you have an excuse

-replace spartan ops with firefight(loadouts will be the assualt rifle and magnum)

-put flood in firefight with elite play-ability

-replace flood mode in matchmaking with infection(just do it)

-bring back the chopper and hornet.

-use halo 2 maps as inspiration in halo 5. everyone will be happy

-remove concussion rifle, suppressor, and storm rifle and replace with brute shot and spiker

-bring back the credit system to buy a wide assortment of armor

-make the spartans look more weathered. strike a combination between reach and halo 4

 

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[SilentGamer64]

1. Most definitely. Loadouts are responsible for dumbing down many of Halo's weapons that had potential to be more unique. For example, H4's Plasma Pistol is probably the worst in the series. Why? Because it has the fastest draining battery ever. This was purposefully put in place to prevent continuous abuse of the noob combo as well as vehicle EMP's, since everyone was spawning with them. As a result, its semi-auto fire mode became nearly useless at killing. Grenades are another example, and every grenade in that game has a pathetic blast radius unless a grenade perk is used.

 

2. There will always be trolls that ruin the fun of the game through team-killing, sabatoge, and going off task of the objective. I do agree though that ranks can help fight that off by giving players an incentive to try.

 

3. I agree to an extent. It really depends on what is causing the pool to overflow. For example, reducing the amount of hitscan, headshot-capable rifles in the sandbox? Sure, especially when the only differences are projectile color, fire mode, and scope magnification. But other weapons do fit in the sandbox, and simply need to be altered. The Storm Rifle is a good example. A lot of people call it an "AR reskin", and I agree. But it doesn't have to be trashed because of that, instead it should be changed to function more uniquely compared to the AR. Why not add the headshot bonus that the CE plasma rifle had? Or the venting feature used by Reach's plasma repeater? There's plenty of options out there.

 

I'm down for limiting each faction to one weapon of similar function, but I know there would be a lot of controversy based on which weapons should stay, which should return, and which should go. Duel wielding and its related weapons should definitely come back though.

 

4. I am very interested in seeing what Halo XB1 is capable of on the new system, and hopefully 343i can use these new capabilities to introduce something new to Halo that wows the community (in a good way).