Ideal Halo 5 Design

[ChristopherRyan]

 

 

Introduction

I love Halo. Halo has been my favorite video game ever since I played it first at my friend's house, when I was a child. And not without good reason. Halo CE offered an incredibly fun, balanced, and competitive first person shooter experience that could entertain for days. My friends and I always seemed to find ourselves on Blood Gulch or Sidewinder, playing slayer or capture the flag. Those were some of the best video game moments I've ever had. The fervor continued all the way through Halo 3, the height of my gaming career. I didn't have xbox live in the Halo 2 days, so most of my online and ranked Halo-ing was done in Halo 3. The ranking system combined with the general fairness of the game, and its design philosophy created a formula that always kept me coming back for more. When I won I soared on the ecstasy of victory, and when I lost, I would curse my opponents, and re-enter matchmaking to redeem myself. 

 

All of this ended when Bungie released Halo Reach, and 343 made matters even worse with Halo 4. None of this is news; at the time of this writing in April of 2014, the failures of Reach and Halo 4 are well documented: armor abilities, sprint, high aim assist, loadouts, slow movement speed, instant spawn, ordnance, bloom, shield bleed through, descope, the list is rather endless.

 

It is quite obvious at this point that Bungie and 343 have transformed Halo into a game that conforms with the average modern shooter, ie Call of duty, Battlefield, sprint and classes, call-in rewards. Call of Duty has been immensely successful, so I think that 343 industries sought to emulate the features of this and other games in attempt to appeal to the players of those games. The ploy failed however, as the new Halo alienated its original formula and fan base, and failed to grasp the intended market for very long, because Call of Duty makes a way better Call of Duty than Halo does. 

 

So what will happen now, I wonder? I can not say. Perhaps 343 industries will release another Halo title that continues to go in the direction following in Halo 4's footsteps, with more loadout options, more customization, unlocks that affect gameplay, and the like. 

 

Perhaps they will learn from their mistakes and take a step back, to recreate the original Halo formula. The latter would of course be the better choice, but big business is a fickle and shallow thing, and its hard to say for sure what is going to happen. It is possible that 343 industries really has no control of this. Maybe this decision is made at a corporate level.

 

You might be wondering what the purpose of this writing is then. My intention is to outline exactly my opinion on how the Halo franchise should progress onward from this point. I have been along since the beginning, and I have a firm grasp what Halo is, and what makes it fun. I have filled a fair number of notebooks with drafts of this theoretical game, and have fussed over every point of the game for months and months now, in my own mind, building Halo up from scratch, not really innovating, but trying to pull the best from all of the Halo games, and filter out the worst, mediocre, and average. I care about Halo perhaps a little too much. Regardless of whether or not my words sway any minds or have any real affect, I would like to put them out there. I hope that I can participate in a movement that pushes Halo back into a what it used to be: fun.

 

Summary

This "build" of Halo that I will share with you is not a radical step forward in any way. It is actually more of a step back into the days of Halo's CE, 2 and 3, and would play very much like one of those games. My goal in this section is to communicate to you a summary of the features that would go into my "build" of Halo. I won't pretend that all of this information is my own, most of this information has been outlined before, and often, this build does include some new ideas though. After the summary, you will find the same points, but in much greater detail. This article is extremely long. Here, I go over literally every detail I can think about to make Halo the best game it can be. I have contained the rest of the article, the more detailed section, in a spoiler below to save space. Please check it out if you feel the need, especially if you would like to see my explanation for a particular decision you might agree or disagree with. I have organized the more detailed section with clear titles, so it should be relatively easy to find what you are looking for. Bonus points if you read the whole thing.

 

I have spent an immense amount of time on this. Please be respectful of my opinions, as I am respectful of your opinions. I intend to give you logical explanations to try and bring out thought provoking discussion.

 

Without further adieu, here is "my" Ideal Halo 5 build.

 

-No sprint. Sprint breaks Halo. Move and shoot! I really hope I didn't just loose most of you here. Feel free to check out my arguments in the spoiler section.

 

-Smaller maps to account for the lack of sprint, and to keep up the action.

 

-Fast base movement speed and acceleration for a powerful strafe, and to increase game pace.

 

-You won't be slowed when taking fire.

 

-Fast and deep crouch. Fast crouch walk (66% base movement speed) for improved effectiveness of the stealth function.

 

-No reticle bloom on precision weapons. No spread on the BR. There is no reason for programmed randomness.

 

-No custom Loadouts. No loadouts in most gametypes. Everyone will enter the game with the exact same capabilities.

 

-All weapons benefit from headshots. Some benefit more than others.

 

-Marksman Rifle (essentially a 4sk, no bloom, 2x scope, 16 round magazine DMR) and Assault Rifle Starts.

 

-The Assault Rifle is vastly redesigned and improved; it is a fast collapsing bloom weapon (Halo Reach's AR and Halo 4's AR were slow collapsing bloom weapons) that can do headshot damage. Burst firing will be more effective than ever, and the skill curve of the weapon will be higher than ever. Using the AR will be about using the correct length of burst at certain ranges, and then landing accurate headshots.

 

-Higher damage, faster kill times (somewhere between Halo CE and Halo 2,3,Reach). The marksman rifle, one of the slower killing weapons, will kill in 1.17 seconds.

 

-All pickup weapons are balance to have the capability to kill faster than the MR, requiring some extra effort or skill to wield.

 

-Lower Auto-Aim and Bullet Magnetism Values for increased skill gap.

 

-No ordnance. All weapons, grenades, armor abilities, powerups and equipment  spawn on the map, like in Halo CE-3 and partially, Reach. 

 

-No armor abilities off spawn. You must pick up armor abilities off of the map. 

 

-Armor abilities have fuel, limiting their use, and they can be picked up off of dead Spartans.

 

-There will be no HUD images displaying the location of pickups on the map.

 

-Pull out your equipment by pressing LEFT on the d-pad (the spartan will hold it in his left hand), and deploy it by pulling Left Trigger.

 

-Many grenades have been reworked into equipment, leaving frags and plasmas as the only two grenades.

 

-The reticle will be in the center of the screen, not slightly below center.

 

-You will be forced out of scope upon taking damage (Descope).

 

-No hit markers. Shield flare serves the purpose of letting a player know he hit the enemy. This is not a huge point, I would relent on this if I had to.

 

-Experiment with a sound que to signify hits, as a possible replacement for hitmarkers.

 

-No hit markers on grenades. These make them too useful as scouting tools. 

 

-No grenade indicators (the arrow that shows where a live grenade is in relation to your location).

 

-15m (short range) motion tracker that can distinguish between up and down. Short range to allow for play around the motion tracker's periphery.

 

-Shorter shield wait and recharge times (4 seconds wait and 2 seconds charge as opposed to 7 seconds wait in Halo 4)

 

-Health will be visible, and will fully regenerate if you lose only two bars of health. If you lose almost all of your health, it will regenerate to half.  There will be health packs on the map, which will begin charging your shields the moment you pick them up. If you have below half health, you are vulnerable to being one hit killed by a well placed frag grenade even with full shields. Plasma grenades have the capability to kill a full health, full shielded spartan when on the ground. You have 10 bars of health to start off with. 

 

-Your shields and health will drain from right to left, rather than from the outsides, to give more clarity as to how much of your shields and health remain. The shield and health bar will be located at the top middle of the screen.

 

-No instant spawning. Wait 4 seconds to spawn. I changed the timer from 5 to 4 to save everyone about a second on every respawn.

 

-Melee requires 3 hits to the front to kill, and 2 hits to the back to kill. If you land a melee to the back, a follow up melee to the front will kill. If you land a melee to the front, a follow up melee to the back will kill.

 

-Melee will bleed through the shields into health.

 

-When you melee, you will not move forward, or lunge towards your opponent like in Halo 2, 3, Reach, and 4. Rather, you will remain stationary like in Halo CE. The melee speed will be faster however. This does not mean that the melee will be significantly shorter range, it just means that you will not change location when meleeing, which can be annoying. The player model will appear to lean forward a large amount when meleeing.

 

-Players cannot assassinate others by holding melee, like in Reach and Halo 4.

 

-Instead, players must pull out their knife by pressing DOWN on the D-pad, and then they can assassinate others from behind by pressing Melee (LB) or Fire (LT). Players can unlock different knives, and knives can have skins.

 

-Assassinating an enemy will double his respawn timer (to 8 seconds) for that respawn, adding a tactical advantage and a risk/reward element to assassinations. Assassinating in previous Halo's was a risk/risk system, only giving the players a nice aesthetic to look at.

 

-Duel Wielding has been improved and rebalanced, and makes its return. Players can now melee and switch weapons without dropping their left weapon. Duel wield-able weapons are not found in pairs like in Halo 3, rather they are spaced out around the map, requiring a player to travel to two different locations to duel wield. Note that you do not spawn with a duel wield-able weapon. I do not predict that duel wielding will see much use, but it is an attractive feature that might help sales, and it's nice to be able to use the ability in campaign. 

 

-The weapon reload animations will make sense. In most games, the reload animation suggests that one bullet is left behind in the chamber. A fresh mag is inserted, but the extra bullet isn't accounted for. Instead of having the weapons be X+1 rounds, I want the round count to return to X, not X+1. So reload  animations will show the spartan pulling the charging handle back at the beginning, which would fictionally pull the bullet out of the chamber and stick it back into the magazine. This is a point of polish of aesthetics.

 

-Weapons will not automatically reload after the mag is empty. Players have to initiate all reloads always. This will get players to pay more attention to their ammo meter. Of course there is an option to turn this off in the options menu, but all matchmaking gametypes would have this feature.

 

-There should be a general lack of explosive barrels in Halo. Few to none. These only serve to amplify grenade power, and cause frustration. 

 

-Improved controls and user interface options. Left handed support. Multiple HUD layouts.

 

-Default Controls are similar to Bumper Jumper, to get everyone using the superior scheme. A bumper jumper-esque control scheme allows players to aim, melee, and jump all at the same time.

 

-An interesting point: when a player picks up the jet pack armor ability, the controls for Jump and Armor ability will switch, so you can use jet pack and aim at the same time. There will be an on screen que to remind the player that this is happening. By default, Armor Ability is on the A button, so without this feature, you would not be able to use the look stick while jet-packing. This feature can be disabled if the player so chooses. There are also many more control schemes available, and more options to customize the player interface.

 

-Jumping has been modified slightly. Instead of always jumping to the same height, you can preform a shorter jump by barely tapping the jump button, and preform the full height jump by holding onto the jump button ever so slightly. This helps players get up onto smaller ledges more quickly and efficiently. Of course, this feature can be disabled, and the hold time value required for the full jump can be adjusted to the players liking. Small (and quiet) jets will launch the spartan into the air when the full jump is used.

 

-The control scheme is designed to give the player the capability to drop any item they pick up, including weapons, grenades, AA's, Equipment, and ammo. You cannot drop a powerup, or your knife.

 

Default controls:

Left Stick: Move/Crouch (click) Right Stick: Look/Zoom (click)

Left Trigger: Throw Grenade/Fire Left Weapon Right Trigger: Fire Weapon, Fire Right Weapon

Left Bumper: Jump/Jetpack Right Bumper: Melee

A: Armor Ability Up: Flashlight

B: Switch Grenade/Reload Right Weapon Down: Pull out Knife

X: Reload/Reload left weapon Left: Pull out Equipment

Y: Switch Weapons Right: Drop Armor Ability (hold)

Hold B to drop Grenades

Hold X to drop Ammo

Hold Y to drop Weapon

Hold Left to drop Armor Ability

Hold Right to drop Equipment

You cannot drop Powerups.

 

-Completely revised and balanced weapon sandbox. 

 

-Completely revised and balanced vehicle sandbox.

 

-Revised Objective Gametypes that fall more in line with original Halo's. You can drop the flag, no throwing of the oddball, ect.

 

-Separate competitive ranked playlists and casual unranked playlists.

 

-Halo 3-esque ranking system. See NakedEli's Ideal Halo 5 Ranking System. Look it up.

 

-Fair and balanced in-game scoring system. Players earn kills (each kill is worth 1 point for the team's score meter), but they also earn personal points exactly equal to how much damage they do to the enemy. Say you do 81% damage to an enemy, and your teammate snipes him in the head for the remaining 19%. You earn 81 personal points and an assist, and your teammate earns 19 personal points and a kill. Players with higher personal point levels will be placed closer to the top in the post game stats. This is done to give a more accurate representation of how much damage a player did to the enemy team, and to help out players who frequently get their kills "stolen", or players who are more support oriented.

 

-Revised betrayal penalties and quit penalties. If you are betrayed even once, you will be presented with a option to kill your betrayer with the press of a button, and give him a triple than normal respawn time (12 seconds). You will also have the option to excuse the incident. You will respawn instantly after making your selection. Quitters will not be allowed to re-enter matchmaking until the game they quit out of is finished. Though they will have the option to re-enter the same game that they quit out of. If you are betrayed twice by the same person, you will have the option to boot him from the game, and he will not be allowed to re-enter any games at all until the game you are playing is complete. 

 

-Long lasting and fair progression system. Customizable aesthetics, nothing that affects gameplay.

 

-Players will not be allowed to play as elites in standard gametypes. I realize this is an unpopular decision, many of you want to play as elites, but they have different hitboxes, and are harder to headshot from behind, giving them and unfair advantage in this area, also Elites are much bigger than Spartans. Allowing players to play as elites in standard matchmaking means that not all players have the same capabilities and attributes. There could be elites in Invasion though, and we could have elite slayer as a separate playlist.

 

-Well rounded options menu in custom games to allow for game polish and refinement.

 

Well, thank you for reading this far. The section below is absolutely huge, and contains more detail than I think the average forum reader is interested in, or has the time to read. But please, feel free to check it out!

Game Evolution
Before we jump into the gameplay specifics of this build of Halo, I want to talk about game evolution; in other words, what changes from game to game in a series. Obviously, something about the newest game in the series has to be different, better in some way, to provide incentive to buy the new game and play it over the old. It is important that games evolve. The question is: how?

It is perfectly fine for Halo to evolve, to improve, but these evolutions must not affect the core principles of gameplay. I think that Bungie was very successful in evolving each iteration of their game, up until Halo Reach, because the fundamental elements were left untouched. Sure, some weapons came and went, damage models changed, features were added, but the gameplay essentially remained the same.
When we start to shoehorn entirely new functions into the gameplay, simply to try and attract other players to our game, the gameplay changes on a drastic level. We will delve deeper into exactly why these new functions added in Halo Reach and Halo 4 hurt gameplay in the following sections, but here I want to give the reader an idea for how the Halo formula can be polished and refined rather than overhauled.

-Weapons can be added and removed to cater to the needs of a balanced weapon sandbox
-New aesthetics are harmless, and give players new imagery to enjoy
-The inner workings of the mechanics of the game can be refined, to increase play-ability and fairness.
-New maps are a great way to keep the community from falling into ruts, and encourages new strategies and tactics. Game devs must be careful to make sure that the new maps fall in line with old ones though, so the formula stays the same.
-Ranking systems and progression systems can be refined and polished to foster a competitive, healthy, and long lasting game.
There is plenty more, but I think you get the point. All games in a series need to share the same basic fundamentals of gameplay. Evolving the game should be about refinement, and polishing, not radical evolution. Adding in features like sprint, different armor abilities off spawn, custom loadouts, random ordnance, and ect, are quite innovative, yes, but they simply change the game far too much, and its fundamentals are skewed. In essence an entire new game is created. I don't really consider Halo Reach and Halo 4 true Halo games in this manner. They are too different from their predecessors.

Bungie and 343 industries obviously wants a customizable game that contends with COD and Battlefield. I see no issue in that, make an entire new game, but leave Halo alone. Which is exactly what Destiny and Titanfall are: brand new modern shooters that have elements and gamplay features that allow players to customize. These game's developers can really do whatever they want with these games with little repercussion, as there was no iteration before them. They are totally free to create whatever gameplay experience they want. If 343 wanted to release a totally new gameplay experience with loadouts and the like, they shouldn't have made a Halo title. Halo is an arena shooter, through and through.

Halo needs to stand its ground, and go back to being an arena shooter, because that niche isn't available in the current AAA market. How can Halo hope to compete with Titanfall, Destiny, COD, and Battlefield, as a customizable loadout game when it was originally designed as an arena shooter? All of those other games were built from the ground up to be customizable shooters. In my opinion, the market is craving a game that isn't like the rest. I know I am not alone in that I don't want loadouts. I don't want or need stupid gameplay gimmicks. I want to pit my skill against matched opponents, where I win by playing my best game among my competitors. I want to spawn with the exact same capabilities as everyone else, with the ability to make myself more powerful in game by surviving long enough to pick up power items from the map. I want to play a fair game.Titanfall, COD, Battlefield and Destiny are all basically in the same sub-genre of first person shooters, fun in their own right, with tons of toys to play with. Does Halo really need to contend for a spot among them? To copy them?
No. Halo should rise above the rest, go back and offer the same sweet formula that took the world by storm 12 years ago. Halo has the capability to be the absolute best first person shooter ever, given its gameplay roots and fiction.

All-Inclusive Philosophy for the Potential of Single Campaign Unit, and my Worries about Halo 2 Anniversary
This whole anniversary business is kind of screwy. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the updated graphics, but there are issues with just remaking the game with better graphics. Halo CEA was glitchy, and had poor terrain hitboxes. I honestly just play on classic mode. I prefer Halo CEA on classic to the original, because it allows me to use a better control scheme, that is all.

You will notice that my build is very all inclusive. I have tried my best in include almost every single weapon, grenade, equipment, armor ability, ect. This is done because I dream of one single campaign, that covers the entire Halo story from back to front, including story from the ancient past, going through early human insurrection, harvest, reach, Halo ce, the unyielding heirophant, halo 2, halo 3, halo 4, halo 5, and halo 6. I don't want segmented updated campaigns, I want one all inclusive campaign. It wouldn't be re-skinned, but redesigned from the ground up, keeping everything that works fabulously and plays on nostalgia, but not fearing to change things that are broken.
This is why Halo 2 anniversary worries me slightly. That game of course had no AR, no equipment and no armor abilities. No doubt if Halo 2 anniversary came out with a Halo 2 style mulitplayer, there would be a playable Halo again, but that almost leaves room for 343 to thoroughly mess up Halo 5 with more loadout customization and the like, because we, the people who want a game like Halo CE-3 are satiated, in their mind. The Halo 2 anniversary release could potentially put Halo in jeopardy by splitting the community down the middle. To be successful, it is important that there is only one Halo game to play, otherwise, the community is fragmented, and the two smaller portions will not survive as well as one, single thriving community.

If I were in control, I would not release a Halo 2 anniversary, I would release a Halo 5 beta piggybacked on an indie game like crackdown. This beta would be all inclusive, and would have armor abilities (not off spawn, but map based pickups with fuel) and equipment. Of course, this beta would represent these elements in a fair, balanced and playable way, and the game would share the core elements of an arena shooter with CE-3,and would not play at all like Halo Reach or 4. I hope I haven't scared any of you off by mentioning armor abilities. I think we can agree that the problem with armor abilities in their current representation is that they are flawed because they are available off spawn, and everyone can have a different one. Armor abilities can be viable, and can follow the core aspects of arena gameplay if they are overhauled like I have described above.

One Game, One Community
There are so many different iterations of Halo now; ways to play the game, and the community is more fragmented than ever. Sprint, no sprint, loadouts, no loadouts, radar, no radar. Wouldn't Halo be a better, a more successful game, if there was really only one way to play it? Currently, 343 plans to offer two separate play experiences, one that is essentially "Halo 2 reloaded" (sign me up), and another that is akin to Battlefield (they use this term), with large maps, large player counts, and customizable loadouts (gag, wretch). Also, there is MLG to consider. Traditionally, MLG gametypes are different than the standard matchmaking gametypes primarily because of the lack of a motion tracker, but the maps are also different, along with other things like modified movement characteristics.
First off, Halo doesn't need a Battlefield-like play experience. We can provide our player base with large scale battles in the Invasion and Big Team Battle playlists. We don't need sprint or loadouts because the scale of the game is larger, and adding this new experience will seriously split the community. It makes sense on a certain level to give players sprint because they are on a larger map, but consider this: with sprint, you generally have a low base movement speed, with the sprint speed. The average movement speed between sprinting and not sprinting would be about the same as a faster base movement speed. It makes more sense to not have sprint, even in large gametypes. Not to mention, if you fall into the pitfall of including sprint in a larger gametype, the combat mechanics will still be broken. I thoroughly cover why sprint destroys Halo gameplay in a later segment.
MLG is a slightly different beast. I think it would be better for the health of Halo, and a very noble thing to do, if the MlGers at least tried to play this build that I will lay before you, for the purpose of having one halo play experience. Yes, I know the advantages of no motion tracker, and I would even argue that Halo would have been better off from the start if Halo CE released without a motion tracker. But it has always been there, and it would be great culture shock if Halo 5 primarily did not support a motion tracker.
My theoretical build would release without an MLG playlist, in attempt to get all the competitive players who want to play slayer, or objective, in one playlist or the other, respectively. Alas, if the MLG crowd absolutely needs no motion tracker, I would relent and offer the hardcore playlist with motion tracker disabled. But hear me, that would be the only difference. There is no reason to have different weapon spawns, different maps, or different movement characteristics, especially if the default settings handle those elements well. If they don't, MLG would be the driving force for refinement and polish, helping balance the finer points of the game like spawns, and weapon placement, which is no doubt a work in progress, and an extremely difficult thing for a developer to get right the first time, on release. In this way, the default settings would follow along with MLG improvements, barring motion tracker.

Movement
-Movement speed and acceleration are to be high, to strengthen the effect of strafe, and to ensure quick transit around an appropriately sized map. Halo 2 had fantastic movement characteristics. The base movement speed is very low in Halo 4, and the time to accelerate up to full speed is rather high, so strafing back and forth is sluggish, especially in comparison to older games, and the MLG gametypes in newer games. Strafing is a huge part of Halo, and players are taught to do it in the campaign mode, with the slow moving bolts of plasma that are always shot at you.

-You must be able to crouch quickly, and low, to strengthen its effect in close range battles. you should be able to duck under shots and melees. You should be able to crouch walk rather quickly as well (66% speed). In Halo 4, the height at which you crouch to is pretty high, and the speed at which you drop into a full crouch is rather low. Combine this with high bullet magnetism, it isn't a feasible tactic to crouch in the middle of gun battles. You can aim at a spartan's waist, and when he crouches, your reticle will appear to be just over his head, but the bullet magnetism pulls the shots down. Throwing a crouch or two into a gunfight was a great tactic in previous Halo's, as you could use crouch to duck under shots and melee's.

-The control requirements for crouch have been different over the years. Halo CE was extremely strict. You needed to have the stick in the center (not moving) to be able to crouch. If you were moving, and you pressed crouch, your character would not do it. Additionally, while crouched, you needed to move at a slow speed to remain in crouch; if you moved too fast, you would be forced out of crouch. My build would allow you to crouch at any time, even if you are moving and your movement stick is all the way to one side or the other. Also, you will not be forced out of crouch if you move too fast while crouching. This crouch model is similar to Halo Reach.

-The maps are to be carefully sized to the movement speed of the Spartans. Maps in Halo 4 were large because of sprint, but in this build of Halo, there is no sprint, so maps need to be smaller to account for that. Smaller maps are better anyways. With small maps, you are always in the action, but with large maps, you have to search for quite a while to find someone. We need to not get caught up in thinking that "bigger" and "more" are automatically better. Sometimes smaller, and less, is better.
-Unlike in Halo 4, your movement speed not be slowed when you are taking damage. I realize this only happened when you were sprinting, and that my build does not include sprint, but it is still worth mentioning.

No Sprint
This point deserves its own section. The ability to trade your ability to fire for a faster movement speed breaks the game. This is a hotly debated topic. Sprint was introduced to Halo in the Reach days as an armor ability, and then was reintroduced in Halo 4 as a default ability. Sprint is a popular function, because it "allows players to get into the action faster", escape danger, and traverse the map more quickly. Players can also use sprint to jump further than normal. It increases the dynamicy of the game by giving the players another button to press; another ability to use.

This all sounds great in theory, but sprint changes the way the game plays on a fundamental level. Because players can move so fast, (and with the addition of instant-spawning and high shield recharge wait times in Halo 4), it is rather easy to be killed, spawn, sprint to where you were killed, only to find your killer defenseless with no shields because of the last encounter.

Also, it is very easy to escape situations that would have otherwise been certain death. Sprint has been frequently referred to as a "get out of jail free card". Sprint allows players to play badly and get away with it. When you are in danger with low shields, you need only hold a button to run on back to your teammates. The player who would have rightfully killed you now must choose to either not sprint, and continue to shoot in attempt to get the kill, or to sprint after the escapee in effort to chase to finish off the kill. We all know that chasing is extremely dangerous, as it is not difficult for the escapee to lay a grenade around a corner to even the playing field. Of course the shooter can choose to not give pursuit to the escapee at all, and make a call out to his team giving information about his weapons, health, and location, but this information is rather worthless, because by the time the shooter's team can respond, the escapee could have sprinted all the way across the map in one direction or another.

 

Sprint works flawlessly in games like COD, Battlefield, and Titanfall (with the pilots), because the kill times in those games are very fast in comparison to Halo. You only need 3 or 4 bullets out of an ADS automatic rifle to kill your enemy, so if a player makes a bad move, and puts himself in danger, there is no long kill time to save his life. He is instantly killed due to very low kill times. High kill times are what makes sprint not work for Halo, as a player has enough time to foolishly sprint into a situation, realize it is a bad one, and sprint away. This is why sprint is such a frustrating feature in Halo, but acceptable in other games. In those games, sprint is a great risk/reward system. You trade your ability to fire for a faster movement speed, which might reward you a tactical advantage at the the risk of coming upon someone else who is not sprinting, who will be able to fire upon you instantly, giving him the advantage. In Halo, sprint is a reward/reward system.

The picture painted without sprint is a different, and much cheerier one. First off, you have the ability to both move and shoot at the maximum movement speed (barring speed boost). Players will never be killed because they had no chance to shoot because they were sprinting. There is one less control to assign, making the controls simpler, and allowing for more options for control schemes. The movement speed for all players is the same, all the time, (again, excluding speed boost) adding consistency to the game, creating reliability of call outs, and increasing the potential for teamwork. Escaping will also require more map knowledge, as players cannot simply "go faster" than their opponent, they must demonstrate their superior map knowledge and traversal skills to go 4 or 5 seconds without taking damage to get some shields back, at which point the fight might resume. It is much easier to get your shields back if the person chasing you cannot fire. On the offensive side of the coin, it will be easier to kill people, as they won't be able to just run away from you when they are beat. No sprint will create skill gap, because players who put themselves in poor positions won't be rewarded for doing so. The reward is given to the players who use teamwork, callouts, planning, good positioning, controlling power weapons, power weapon spawns, and defensible locations. Sprint is an okay idea in theory at best, but a horrible idea for gamplay, especially in Halo.

 

Let me also remind the reader that Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 all had no sprint, and were amazingly successful and fun games. Reach and Halo 4 can be considered failures; quite frankly they just aren't as fun as the originals (there are hard population numbers to support this statement) and I firmly believe that sprint played a large part in that, along with other elements. The argument could then be made that Halo should be created with sprint, but without all those "other" elements (like instant spawn, high shield wait time, armor abilities, custom loadouts). I agree, this would be a step in the right direction, and would be a better game than Halo 4, but it would still have all of the issues that I mentioned above. Future Halo's would be better off without sprint, the whole notion quite simply flaws the game on a fundamental level. It is not worth it to add the feature to the game in hopes to draw people over from Battlefield, or Call of Duty, because it is not a "Halo" feature, and trying to make Halo conform to those games has caused problems in the past. We must take this step back to get on track before we can move forward again.

Some argue that sprint should be in single player, and to this I also disagree. Having sprint in the campaign will cause disappointment when players realize they can't use the ability in multiplayer. Some players might lean heavily on the sprint function to survive the campaign. Sure there is the speed running campaign community, but again, they will benefit from the high base movement speed. Including sprint in the campaign is extremely dangerous, as it gives sprint a foot in the door to matchmaking. Sprint should not be available in any default settings, single player or matchmaking. Though it should return as an AA for the sake of inclusion in custom games.

Targeting, Reticle, Reticle Position on screen, Headshot Dot, Bloom, Aim Assistance, Snap, Friction, Bullet Magnetism, RRR, FOV and Scope Mechanics
The reticle will be an extremely important and informative element of the game. It will tell you whether you are in range or not, and will tell you how close you need to be on target to earn a hit. Most reticles will have an "outer reticle" and an "inner reticle". The "outer reticle" will serve the purpose of distinguishing one reticle from another, and will serve some merit of visual legitimacy: to have the inner reticle touching the enemy, a good portion of the outer reticle must be covering the enemy, giving the appearance that the player is more on target than he really is. The inner retcle is what matters most though, as it represents that gun's degree of bullet magnetism. The inner reticle is usually fairly circular. The player must have the edge of the inner retcile touching his target to warrant a hit.

The reticle will turn red when the player is on target and in range. When the reticle is on target, but not red, this means the player is out of range. He can still fire, and hit the target, but beyond a weapon's red reticle range (RRR), the player will not benefit from the snap or friction functions of aim assist, which I will explain later on in this segment.

Most people know by now that console shooters require means of helping the player on target, as the very nature of the look sticks, and the gross motor movement of our thumbs makes precision aiming nearly impossible without help. To see for yourself, try to shoot and kill your teammate in campaign.

There are three elements that are at work when we talk about "aim assist". The first is bullet magnetism, which essentially allows the bullet to bend in its trajectory to hit a target. The second is "friction" which lowers your look sensitivity when you are on target, or close to on target, essentially increasing your look "resolution" in this area, making it easier to aim. The third is snap, which will actually reorients your camera towards the enemy. This is the most obtrusive element of auto aim, the element that causes the frustration when you are trying to hit one target, and another passes in front of your line of fire and pulls your aim away from your intended target. This element (in Halo 4 at least, I didn't bother to test it in other Halos), can actually make you look in the opposite direction that you are trying to look. Say you are slightly holding left on the look stick, but your target is slowly moving right. Your camera will actually follow the enemy, going in the opposite direction that you are trying to look!

Bullet magnetism was at its lowest in Reach, and we should seek to emulate that model. Reach showed us that we can still play the game with extremely low bullet magnetism. Take a look at the inner reticle on the Reach DMR and Needle Rifle. That small circle is the level of bullet magnetism you will receive. You will notice that they are much smaller than Halo 4's inner reticles. Interestingly enough, Halo CE had grossly high bullet magnetism on its utility weapon, displayed in the Pistol's large reticle. You need only place the edge of that monstrosity on your target to warrant a hit.

The degree of magnetism that a weapon is capable is communicated through the smaller circle inside the reticle. A player needs only have the edge of said circle touching his enemy to warrant a hit, the center of the reticle need not necessarily be covering the target. Bullet magnetism is explained fictionally by the size of the projectile being fired (larger projectiles have larger elements of Bullet Magnetism), and by the nature of the spartan's shields; they cocoon the spartan, enlarging him as a target slightly. When the spartan's shields are down, the degree of Bullet Magnetism should be reduced, to require extra precision and accuracy to finish a kill, as the target is now physically smaller. When firing at an unshielded spartan's head, a player must ensure that the Headshot Dot inside the smaller circle of the reticle is touching the enemy's head. Of course, if the player is not aiming for the head, but the body of an unshielded spartan, the headshot dot will not appear, but the player still must give extra precision to hit his target.

I feel like the field of affect for friction is small, but its affect is intense, causing a perceivable "stick and release" sensation when you go from on target to off target. This can lead to some problems with aiming. When you are aiming into its field of affect, your look speed is greatly reduced, and the transition from on target to off target is very sudden. This mechanic can be improved by increasing the field of affect, making the transition from on target to off target much more gradual, and not having friction slow down your look speed quite so much. This would make friction a much more subtle effect.

Snap needs a lot of work, and I'm sorry to say, but I'm not the one to imagine how exactly it can be improved. I do not fully understand how it works. Snap needs to be improved so that the game has a general idea of who you are trying to aim at, so it can ignore players crossing your line of sight. Also, I don't think this element should be capable of making your camera look in the opposite direction of your look stick. Maybe this is needed for good gameplay, I really don't know. All I know is this feature needs work.

All of these features can be described as aim assistance, and the general aim assist for any competitive FPS should be low, to decrease the amount of work the game does for you. The lower the aim assist, the higher the skill gap, and fairness of the game. Aim assist should be as low as possible. This is why the damage model for this game is higher. If we keep the same 5 shot kill DMR, 4 shot kill BR, ect, but lower aim assist, kill times will climb. Lowering aim assist and increasing weapon damage go hand in hand.
Just quick note about Bloom: Bloom is %100 inappropriate for precision weapons, as it adds randomness, but is applicable to some automatic rifles, namely the AR and SMG.

I would set the single player widescreen FOV at 86 degrees, the same as Halo CEA widescreen. Keep in mind that the lowest FOV was in Halo 3 at 70 degrees, and the highest was in Halo ODST at 88 degrees. High FOV creates an illusion of a faster base movement speed somehow, and increases combat effectiveness as you have more peripheral vision.

Descope should its return, adding balance and depth to long distance gun play. Flinch of any kind is absolutely unacceptable.
When you scope-in in all other Halo's, you actually are changing the performance of the weapon. You can test this by finding the outermost point of a spartan that will warrant a hit, and then zooming in to fire upon the same spot. You will hit your target when zoomed out, but not when zoomed in. This is problematic in that zoom alters a gun performance, where zoom should only give you a better view of the target. In my build, zoom will only do just that, and the reticle will grow larger when zoomed, rather than stay the same size.

An aesthetic point of the reticle: I would like to see the reticle represented better as a targeting function of the spartan, the reticle should quite simple display where the weapon in the spartan's hands is pointing regardless of whether or not it is pointed at the center of the screen, In other words, the reticle should follow where the weapon is pointing perfectly during melee, throwing grenades, switching weapons and reloading. I am positive that in many, or most of these instances, the gun would be pointing in a direction that is off screen, or very far from the center. To help the player stay on target while performing these actions, a small placeholder reticle will occupy the center of the screen (a small x, like in the very first moments in Halo CE where you are running to thr bridge from cryo). To help in this feature, the walking motion of the gun, in other words, how the gun bobs around in your hand, should be kept to a minimum, and represented in a way were the gun is always pointed straight forward towards the reticle; in this manner, the reticle won't bounce around when moving. We are Spartans here, we should be able to hold a gun steady with the capabilities of our Mjolnir Armor. In previous Halo's, the gun frequently bobs around to point in completely different directions than the reticle is showing; the most obvious affront of this nature is in Halo CE.

The reticle should probably also be located in the center of the screen rather than slightly lower than center. Halo CE was the only Halo game to have a centered reticle, but most other shooters have a centered reticle. I have checked other people's opinion's online, and most would prefer a centered reticle, or didn't even notice the change.


HUD Elements
-The shield meter will be located in the top center of the screen, and will drain from right to left (not from both sides, like in reach), as will the health, to clearly show what remains to you. It is more difficult to tell how much shields and health you have when they drain from either side.
-The Motion Tracker should be 15 meters, short range, to allow for movement around its periphery. It should be able to distinguish between up and down.
-When you are struck by fire while in scope, you will be forced out of scope (Desope). This adds depth to long range battles.
-When you are out of grenades, there will still be a grenade image on your screen with a zero next to it, rather than no image at all, like in Reach.
-The HUD will show you what your secondary weapon is.
-The HUD will show you the number of players that are alive on your team and the other's near the score.

Shields and Health
Your shields will charge much faster than in Halo 4 it (the shield wait time in Halo 4 was 7 excruciatingly long seconds). The shield wait time will be 4 (the same as in Halo 3) seconds, and the charge time will be 2. Your health will be visible, and will fully regenerate if you only lose two bars of health. If you lose almost all of your health, it will regenerate to half. There will be health packs on the map, which will begin charging your shields the moment you pick them up. If you have below half health, you are vulnerable to being one hit killed by a frag grenade even with full shields. You must play carefully to survive until you replenish the necessary health to be rid of this danger. You have 10 bars of health total at max health. Your health will replenish at a rate of 1 bar every 2 seconds. Meaning that if you had 1 bar of health, you would be vulnerable to a one hit kill by a frag for around 8 seconds.

All weapons benefit from hitting the head. This is a fundamental rule of shooters. Some might benefit more than others, but all benefit some.

Melee and Assassination
Melee will bleed through shields, into health. In Halo Reach, if your opponent had the tiniest sliver of shields, your melee would only take away that small portion, leaving his health untouched. This meant that you had to wait till the exact moment you broke shields to melee. I think this was eventually fixed, but I want to mention it anyways, so that it doesn't happen again.

When you melee, you will not move forward, or lunge towards your opponent like in Halo 2, 3, Reach, and 4. Rather, you will remain stationary like in Halo CE. This does not mean that the melee will be significantly shorter range, it just means that you will not change location when meleeing, which can be annoying. The player model will appear to lean forward a large amount when meleeing.

Essentially, melee has been nerfed, to prevent one hit kills from behind, and two hit kills from the front. Now, it will take two hits to the back, or three hits to the front. The repetitive melee speed will be faster to accommodate for this. I've always though melee speed was a little slow.
Taking away the players ability to one hit melee from behind gives the assassination function much more room and legitimacy. In Halo Reach and 4, assassinating is just for show; there is no tactical advantage in doing so, and the player is left exposed until the assassination animation is done. I view it as a mistake to assassinate players in these games, as the player is much better off avoiding the assassination function, and just going for the back smack. Many many times have I accidentally triggered an assassination animation when I intended to go for the back smack. Now players will kill in two hits to the back, still giving an advantage to hitting a spartan in the back.

Granting the player the capability to kill in 2 melee's to the front can make some melee battle's quite bland, and encourages new players to lean too heavily on the melee function. It is very easy to double melee an enemy, so newer or less skilled players will put themselves in bad positions to try and get that easy kill. They will give up height advantages and cover, and they become tunnel visioned on this one tactic. Changing the melee to a 3 hit kill to the front will extend close range battles and make them a little more interesting and unpredictable, with more variety. It will discourage solely using melee as a means to kill, and will encourage the combination of guns, grenades, and melee.
Assassinating has been altered to hold tactical value as well as aesthetic awesomeness. Players cannot assassinate by holding the Melee button when behind an opponent, rather, they must equip their knife by pressing DOWN on the D-pad (there will be many different knives to unlock, and knives can have skins), and then assassinate. This adds challenge to obtaining a one hit "melee" kill from behind. There is a large risk/reward factor here, as the person who is doing the assassinating is left exposed and stationary for a short time (the animations should be a little bit quicker). The benefit to assassinating an enemy player is that his repawn timer will be double the normal value: 8 seconds. Assassinating a player will grant your team a temporary advantage, as there are less enemies on the field. This melee and assassination model is better than previous ones because it adds depth and tactics to the game. Players must now think about the risk involved in stowing their gun to equip a knife, and there is a greater requirement for assassinating. Also, the function will get players to pay more attention to the names of the people they are fighting. It would be a good idea to assassinate an enemy player who is doing well to get him out of the game for an extra 4 seconds, but perhaps it would be a bad idea to assassinate a player who is doing poorly, as you would want them on the field as much as possible, because they are easier to kill.

Map-Based Weapons, Equipment, Powerups, Armor Abilities, Grenades
You may not earn any kind of ordnance. All auxiliary weapons, power ups, armor abilities, and equipment are only available for pickup on the map. Ordnance breaks the game because of its randomness, and because you no longer have to control specific points on the map to get power weapons. At any time, every member of the opposing team could have a random power weapon.

Every item should have a set respawn time, and that respawn time should be the same for each map that the item is found on. This helps with consistency, and strengthen's the player's ability to look at the clock, and predict exactly when a weapon or power up is going to spawn into the game. This is a tactic that I think was only really seen at higher levels of play, because the pros had the patience and motivation to memorize all of the different times for each map. This certainly adds skill gap, but I think that consistency is more valuable in this case. There are many other ways that my build promotes skill gap.

You do not spawn with an armor ability, but you can pick them up off of the map. They have fuel, so they can only be used for a limited time, and they also have overheats. They can be stripped from slain enemies, and reused. Armor Abilities won't project a hologram like in Halo Reach. The available armor abilities are: Thruster Harness, Jet Pack, Promethean Vision, Hologram and Active Camouflage. There is no armor lock, no hardlight shield, or any other defensive armor ability the Bubble Shield serves this role. Active Camouflage is a redundant ability not to be seen in online matchmaking, as it is available as a powerup and as an equipment in the form of invisibility and cloaking. For online multiplayer purposes, it is intended to use the Powerup version of the ability, but the equipment version and armor ability version are there in the game to allow for experimentation, and for campaign play. All armor abilities besides the Jetpack are carried on the Spartan's lower back plate.

-Thruster Harness: Thruster should keep you in first person, like in the original build of Halo 4, it should also launch you much further than Halo 4's thruster, but maybe not as far as Reach's evade. I also don't think the Thruster should launch you downwards when you are in the air. You should also be able to thrust twice in a row.

-Jetpack: The Jetpack is carried on the Spartan's back. I have always has a problem with the aesthetic way jetpack is represented, more specifically, the way weapons are carried on the back when jetpack is equipped. If you have a weapon on your back, it will go right through the jetpack model, sticking out both ends. The weapon should be kept on the back of the Jetpack, to avoid that visual disappointment. To help with this, make the Jetpack model relatively small, and make it so it doesn't extend quite so far out backwards from the spartan's body.

-Promethean Vision: Take away the motion tracker que.

-Hologram: Fine the way it is, though if its a pickup, it should be more powerful: in that you can fire off two holograms before suffering a cool-down.

-Active Camouflage (redundant ability)

-Sprint as an Armor Ability (Extreme Risk)

You can also pick up equipment like in Halo 3 on the map. My build would utilize both equipment and armor abilities at the same time in the same maps. The main distinction is that an equipment is a device that can be thrown or dropped, and is a one time use, and an armor ability stays with you To use equipment, press LEFT on the d pad to equip it. Then drop it by tapping LT, or toss is a ways by holding and then releasing LT. Some grenades (firebombs, pulse grenades, spike grenades) have been re-worked into equipment pieces, leaving frags and plasmas as the only two grenades available for pickup. Grenades that have been reworked into Equipment pieces are more powerful versions of their predecessors, but do not spawn in pairs. You can only carry one equipment at a time.

-Firebomb (in the shape of a spike grenade): This is mostly an area denial tool. Throw this into a tight choke point, and no one will be able to pass through it without dying. The fire needs to remain long enough to be useful as a area denial.

-Pulse Node (reworked pulse grenade): This equipment is going to function very similarly to the pulse grenade. The first blast will happen upon first contact with anything, and will wipe away shields. The second blast will come much sooner than the pulse grenade though, maybe a second or two after the first. This equipment will require fast reaction times to survive. Sluggish reflexes will get you killed when playing against this.

-Auto Sentry: The auto sentry could preform pretty much exactly like the halo 4 version, but in equipment form.

-Regeneration field: Represented well in Halo 3, although it recharged your shields so fast that melee battles inside of a regen field can be very chaotic and unpredictable. This version should try to avoid that chaos.

-Power drain: The field of affect on the power drain in Halo 3 was quite large, and didn't require much accuracy to use. I would like to see it be a little bit smaller.

-Bubble shield: The only change I would make here would be to not allow vehicles to pass through the bubble if they are going splatter speed, and that it will collapse if it takes too much damage.

-Flash flare (a more useful redesigned flare): This was represented horribly in Halo 3, it was a very gradual and long lasting flare that didn't really ever help anyone. It should act more like a flashbang in Counter Strike, or Call of Duty.

-Gravity lift (semi redundant): Yes, there is a Jetpack, but this will be available in matchmaking as well. Was perfect in Halo 3.

-Trip mine: Never really liked this one, but might as well bring it back.

The only two grenades in my game are Frags and Plasmas. I did this to avoid giving players the capability of carrying more than 4 grenades at a time in Multiplayer, and also to make it easier to switch between the two types. I don't know too much about the function of grenades, I admit. Plasma grenades should be more powerful than frags (capable of one hit kills when stepped over), with a longer fuse time. You should be able to carry 4 of each grenade in Campaign, but players should be limited to 2 of each in mulitplayer. You will spawn with 2 frags in most multiplayer gametypes. In Halo Reach, when you ran out of grenades, the whole Icon would disappear off of your hud, leaving me, and others, I assume, to doubt they are looking in the right place, leading to a small fruitless search of the screen. When you run out of grenades in my build, the grenade Icon will still be there, but with a zero next to it. That way it is instantly clear how many grenades you have.

There are three available powerups. Overshield, Invisibility, Speedboost. There is also a custom powerup. I got rid of damage boost because it is the opposite of overshield, and that it doesn't make sense on a fictional level. How exactly are you doing more damage? Nevertheless, you can make the custom powerup a damage boost if you want, so inclusion is satisfied.

-Overshield: One layer, with damage resistance. It should drain slightly, to encourage players to get into the fight with it, but not so fast as in Halo 3.

-Invisibility: You should be %100 invisible even when walking, though you should still appear on the motion tracker.

-Speed Boost: Fine in Halo 4

Basic Weapon Sandbox
The Halo Weapon Sandbox had been re-balanced so that more weapons of the Halo Universe are effective, namely, automatic weapons are far more accurate and use-able, but require a fair amount of skill to wield. The non-power weapons are all balanced to each other, and the Marksman Rifle is actually the slowest killing (but easiest to use) weapon in the game, (aside from the Spartan Laser) to provide incentive to pick up other weapons. This does not mean that the Marksman rifle is bad. It will see a ton of use, as it will be easy and reliable to use, and its 4 shot kill will be deadly. It will leave room for the rest of the weapons though. This Halo build allows for a diverse application of weaponry. Instead of having an overly effective utility weapon that kills faster than most other weapons (the Halo CE pistol), I give you an easy to use utility weapon, and every other weapon has the potential to kill faster, requiring some extra amount of skill, or effort to wield. Each individual weapon has its place in the sandbox, with its own advantages, application, and a distinguishing factor. Some weapons are used only in campaign, as they don't serve the purposes of a balanced multiplayer sandbox. In a lot of ways, the weapons are the most important parts of this game, provided the rest of the game is figured out. I have also outlined many aesthetical details that enhance the polish of the weapon's fiction and function in game.

You will start with the Marksman Rifle: a 4 shot kill single fire rifle, and the Assault rifle as your secondary in most gametypes.
There are no custom loadouts. Everyone will start with the same capabilities in most gametypes. There may be gametypes or playlists where players can choose from a selection of pre-made loadouts, but there games are not the core focus of the multiplayer. It is paramount that all players enter the game with the exact same capabilities.

Here, I want to explain my thought process and philosophy regarding starting weapons. Halo 2 was successful in toning down the power of the starting utility weapon (the Pistol) by making it a 4 shot kill, and they did change it into a rifle, but they took a strange turn and made the rifle a burst fire weapon (talking about the BR here). It would have been sufficient to just make it a 4 shot kill single fire rifle, but they further increased the challenge level of the weapon by making it burst fire. You see, a burst fire rifle requires the shooter to remain on target throughout the duration of the burst, in order to land all shots on target. If the shooter flinches off target for a moment, one or two of the bullets may miss. This adds another level of difficulty to the weapon, and makes pulling off perfect 4 shots rather hard, especially with the inconsistencies of the past Battle Rifles. In this sense, a burst fire rifle is fundamentally more difficult to use than a single fire rifle, provided there are no elements like bloom or recoil to consider. Now, to be fair, having the starting weapon be a burst fire weapon does have some merit, as it is a more challenging weapon to use than a single fire rifle, and the skill gap of the game is increased. On the other hand, I think it is better to have the starting weapon be a single fire rifle, and to have a burst fire rifle available on the map to pick up that can kill faster than the starting weapon at the cost of ease of use. It makes less sense to start the player out with a more difficult to use rifle, and allow them to pick up and easier to use rifle. Besides, the player has the Assault Rifle off spawn as well, and this weapon is highly skill based and takes experience to master, but it has a faster kill time than the Marksman Rifle. I know there will be an inherent desire to create gametypes

The Marksman Rifle: The starting precision rifle be a 4sk single fire rifle, named the Marksman rifle. It will have a 16 round magazine, so it would be capable of killing 4 players in one magazine. The weapon will not suffer from any bloom whatsoever, and only the slightest recoil. Where the reticule is pointing, the gun will fire. It will have a 2x scope, and fictionally will fire the 7.62x51mm, the same round as the other large machine guns. It has a single stack magazine. Its minimum kill time is 1.17 seconds. So why 4 shots instead of 5? As the reader will notice, the damage model for this game is higher than Halo 2 through 4. Because the DMR is a 4 shot kill, it carries much of the spirit of the Battle Rifle. Essentially, this Marksman Rifle is what the Battle Rifle should have been like in Halo 2 and 3. Having the weapon be a 4sk also strengthens the effect of team shot, because two players need only fire two shots each to bring down an enemy, rather than one firing 2 and the other firing 3, or 2 players firing 2 shots, and a third player firing 1 shot. The Player Model will reload the MR in a fashion that makes the ammo counter make sense. After reloading, I want the weapon's ammo count to always return to 16, so the reload animation must start with the spartan pulling back the charging handle, to stow the chambered round in the magazine, and then he will reload. This avoids the issue where the reload animation suggests that one round is left behind in the gun, and a fresh full mag is reloaded into the gun, but its ammo count doesn't account for the extra bullet.I dropped the "D" from DMR because DMR stands for designated marksman rifle, implying that one designated marksman in a fireteam would wield this weapon; but with it firing the same ammo as most machine guns, and it being easy to use, basically a battle rifle replacement, it would be very common among modern troops, and is very common online, among Spartans. There is not much that is designated about it. However, it would be reasonable to just leave it as the DMR, for the reason that that's essentially what it is, and what players know it by.

The Assault Rifle is an incredibly iconic image of the Master Chief, and represents the Halo series as a whole. It has received a lot of flack in the past, and still does, and perhaps rightly so, seeing its performance. The AR has always been a weapon to trade out for something, anything else. Its accuracy is bad, and there is little skill curve to using the weapon, as you can gain nothing for aiming for the head. The fasted way to kill your opponent with it other than melee is to simply land all the required bullets, anywhere. The weapon bows before the Halo CE pistol, the BR, Carbine, and any other precision weapon. I never understood why the AR was made to be so bad. People say that it takes no skill to use, because all you have to do is hold down the trigger, and that is certainly true with the way it is implemented now; there is no advantage to firing in bursts, or to try to be accurate as the bloom reset time is too high, and there is no advantage to aiming anywhere in particular on the player model. Here is how I would build the Assault Rifle: Make it a bloom weapon with an extremely fast collapse time, meaning that even if the bloom is fully maxed out, it will fully close very soon after the player ceases shooting, much faster than the slow-collapsing bloom reticles of Halo Reach's and Halo 4's Assault Rifle. This allows players to fire bursts quickly one after the other. With a slow collapsing bloom, you have to wait too long for the reticle to collapse before you can resume accurate shooting, and you take too much damage in the mean time. In this way, there is no advantage to bursting: you are better off just laying on the trigger at the cost of accuracy, this is what makes the Assault Rifle a bad gun. Also, make the maximum bloom around the size of Halo CE's AR reticle. Firing the weapon in small bursts of 2 to 3 will warrant accuracy just barely worse than the BR. Medium bursts of 4 to 7 would also be effective at medium range. The more bullets in a burst, the less accurate the weapon will become. Simply holding the weapon on full auto will cause accuracy to diminish to useless Halo CE levels after 12 shots. Players will have to learn to use varying lengths of bursts at different ranges, to get the most DPS out of the weapon, and they will have to land accurate headshots to finish kills quickly. This AR can be used effectively at medium range, with fast kill times if the player keeps it under control, but the weapon can easily get out of hand if the player holds down on the trigger. The weapon will strip shields in 9 shots, another 3 to the head gets the kill, so does 9 more bodyshots. The weapon will have a 48 round magazine, to allow it a higher rate of fire (for the coolness factor) than its recent cousins, but to still distinguish it from the SMG's 60 rounds. The AR will be capable of killing 4 players per magazine, but this would be extremely rare, and would not happen often or at all, in real gameplay environments. The Player Model will also reload the AR in a fashion that makes the ammo count make sense. After reloading, I want the weapon's ammo count to always return to 48, so the reload animation must start with the spartan pulling back the charging handle, to stow the chambered round in the magazine, then he will reload. This avoids the issue where the reload animation suggests that one round is left behind in the gun, and a fresh full mag is reloaded into the gun, but its ammo count doesn't account for the extra bullet. Fictionally, the weapon will fire a 7.62x39mm round, the same bullet as the MR, but a thinner and shorter casing, with a smaller powder charge. This is a change to the fiction that I have made, because in the original fiction, the DMR and AR fire the exact same round, which makes little sense. Also, the physical magazine size of the AR makes it hard to believe that 60, 48, or even 32 rounds would fit. The AR also has a triple stack style magazine. I would like to see the AR come with an option in the customs menu to have a 1.5x scope, with the scope shaped like the ammo counter display. Let the community decide if they should have access to this scope in online matchmaking. It will kill in .8 seconds, minimum.

It is a fairly important matter which gun is out when you spawn to some people. Some people prefer long range weapons, some prefer short range weapons. We are allowing players to spawn with both, why not allow them to choose which one is in their hands when they spawn? You would be able to toggle the option in the options menu, and there would also be a que on screen when you are respawning, to press the Y button to switch which gun you have out first.

The Battle Rifle: If we deny the Battle Rifle as a starting weapon, it must be made to give players the incentive to pick it up. The Battle Rifle is essentially an alternative to the MR, which has the capability to kill faster at the expense of ease of use. In my build of Halo, the Battle rifle would fire a burst of 4 rounds instead of the traditional 3, and would kill in 3 bursts instead of the traditional 4. The length of time it takes to fire the 4 rounds is about the same as it takes older BR's to fire 3 rounds, maybe just the tiniest bit longer. It still has a 36 round magazine, so you only get 9 bursts before you have to reload. Changing that Battle rifle from a 3 shot burst to a 4 shot burst accentuates the fact that its a burst fire rifle, and adds to that challenge, but the trade-off is that you can kill a spartan with only 3 bursts rather than the traditional 4. In this manner, the Battle Rifle carries much of the spirit of the Halo CE Pistol, only requiring 3 trigger pulls to kill, but this weapon would be more challenging to use, and would not kill nearly as fast, killing in 1.02 seconds. Also, the weapon is not available off spawn in default gametypes. This Battle Rifle would be very accurate with each shot landing directly on top of the previous one, no upwards recoil or sideways skewing; there is absolutely no reason for programmed randomness. You won't be able to guarantee a kill by sweeping your reticle over an un-shielded head with this BR either; the 10th round would break the sheild, and the 11th and 12th must land on the head to kill. It does not matter if the 9th bullet bleeds through to the body, or to the head. It will also have a 2x scope, fire its normal fictional round, and boast a double stack magazine. It will kill in 1.02 seconds. This BR should sound fantastic; the Halo 4 BR sounder way too high pitched. Bring it down into a lower register, like in Halo 2 or 3. I thought the Halo 2 BR sounded the best.

The Magnum: With the Pistol replaced by the Marksman rifle, where does the UNCS handgun stand? The Pistol has been redesigned to have performance and capabilities more suited to its archtype. This Magnum is first and foremost a sidearm. However it is not as useless as the Halo 3 pistol or Halo 2 pistol (the only other duel wield-able pistols). It has the capability to kill faster than the MR, especially in close range. It has a very fast draw time, so it is practical to draw if you run out of ammo with your primary weapon. It also has a relatively fast reload time. It is a slightly spammy weapon, with a fair ROF, but players must be careful, because it has a short magazine (9+1). The Magnum will also have a fair amount of recoil, as it is a .50 caliber round being fired from a weapon without a stock, held away from the body. The weapon has a slightly higher bullet magnetism rating because of its large ammunition. Firing the weapon as fast as possible will cause the muzzle to climb, if no action is taken to prevent this. There is no bloom however. The Magnum will require 5 shots to kill, providing the 5th lands on the head. The magnum is peculiar in that is does not break the shield until the final killing shot. This means that the magnum cannot bust shields in one less shot than its minimum shots to kill. The Magnum will have a 9 round magazine, and the weapon is not capable of stowing the round back into the magazine by pulling the slide backwards, like other UNSC weapons, due the the large diameter and shape of the round, so when the weapon is reloaded, one bullet is left in the chamber, meaning that the Magnum is a 9+1 capacity weapon. When fully loaded, the Magnum can kill 2 players without reloading, but directly following that, you will load a 9 round magazine, and you would only be able to kill one player, and almost kill another, but not even strip his shields. The Magnum will also be the fastest drawing weapon in the game. It has a 2x scope. You can duel wield the Magnum. You cannot use scope while duel wielding. The magnum is capable in killing in .97 seconds.

The Particle Rifle: Halo 2 made strange decisions in bringing in the Carbine: the covenant's precision rifle. Instead of being an overheat weapon like the other covenant weapons, it is a reload weapon, just like UNSC weapons. The distinguishing factor of covenant weapons is their overheat and battery feature, and the carbine should have followed in that path (yes, I am aware of the Needler, Needler Rife, Fuel Rod Cannon and Concussion Rifle, but I would argue that those weapons should have overheat and battery features as well, emitting the needler and needle rifle, which never should have happened, on the account of the first being a homing weapon, and the second for existing because of the first). In this build of Halo, there is a new Carbine, called the Particle Rifle. It is essentially the carbine, only with a battery. Fictionally, the weapon will operate under the same principle of the beam rifle, only less powerful. It's a direct energy weapon, and the bolts traverse instantaneously, so no leading is required. The Particle Rifle will bust sheilds in 5 shots, and kill in 7 shots, provided the 6th and 7th hit the head. It does not matter if the 5th shot bleeds through to the head or not. It can fire 18 shots at maximum speed before it overheats. The Particle Rifle is a spammy weapon, requiring the player to fire the weapon very quickly to maintain its advantage. It also has a 2x scope. The particle rifle will be capable in killing in .92 seconds.

The Storm Rifle is the Covenant automatic rifle, and is the replacement for the Plasma rifle. Note that it can not be duel wielded. Plasma Rifles can though, and they are in the game as well. The point of this weapon is that it fires slow projectiles that require leading, and its projectiles do more damage to shields than to armor. This gun is mostly about wiping away shields, and racking up the assists, however the weapon can kill very quickly if players use it in a skillful fashion. It is challenging to use on the account of its projectiles: they only travel so fast, so you must lead your target. This weapon has no bloom either, like its predecessor, rather it fires all of its shots accurately. The plasma bolts are much larger than bullets, so the weapon experienced a boost in bullet magnetism. You can not "reload" this weapon, and let it vent its heat, like the plasma repeater. You must wait for the weapon to cool. This is a fundamental element of covenant weapons. The fiction in that is that it requires less moving parts, is more reliable, and cheaper. The storm rifle is capable of killing in .72 seconds. 5 shots will strip the sheilds, and 3 more to the head, or 6 more to the body will warrant a kill.

The Suppressor is re-worked,and has a completely different role than in the past. In this build, it is very accurate, and fires light speed rounds, so no leading is required. It has a very low amount of bloom. Using the Suppressor is about remaining on target for as much as possible to get the fastest kill. Burst firing won't be near as necessary as with the Assault Rifle, only needed at long range. You do need to hit a fair amount of rounds to warrant a kill, though. I really didn't like the weapon's model; I would have the weapon's model changed to something with a stock, and a less pointy muzzle. The Suppressor will kill in .88 seconds. It will strip shields after 16 shots, kill with 4 headshots, or 10 bodyshots

The Light Rifle is truly a Designated Marksman Rifle in function: it can kill in 3 shots when zoomed in, and has the disadvantage at close and midrange because of its slow killing burst fire mode when unzoomed. When unzoomed it fires bursts of 3, when zoomed it fires single shots. It has a 4x scope. When zoomed, the Light Rifle will kill in 1.12 seconds, and takes down shields in 2 shots, kills with 1 more headshot, or 3 more bodyshots. When unzoomed, it will kill in 1.21 seconds, and strip shields in 9 bullets, kill with 3 more to the head, or 9 more to the body. It will have a 30 round magazine.

The Spiker is the brute standard infantry weapon, and can be duel wielded. It fires slow, arcing rounds. It has the capability to strip shields in 12 shots, and will kill with an additional 2 shots to the head, or 8 shots to the body. It will have a magazine size of 42 rounds. Its minimum kill time is .84 seconds.

Plasma Rifle is still included in the game, despite the existence of the storm rifle. This is the duel wield-able automatic plasma weapon though. It will strip shields in 7 hits, will kill with another 3 to the head, or 8 to the body. Its minimum kill time will be 1.07 seconds.

The SMG makes its return. Of course it can be duel wielded. It can strip shields in 17 shots, kill with another 5 to the head, or 13 to the body. It will have a magazine size of 60, and a minimum kill time of .76 seconds. The SMG is slightly difficult to control, given its extreme ROF, thus, it will experience muzzle climb.

The Plasma Pistol will strip shields in 4 hits. Another 6 to the head will kill, or another 8 to the body. The plasma does not benefit that much from headshots, but it devastates shields, and it can be fired as fast as the player can pull the trigger. Retain the emp effect on vehicles, and drain effect when the overcharge is held. Reduce the charge time back a little bit, and reduce the auto aim.

The Boltshot was actually not represented no that badly in Halo 4. The only issue was that it was available off spawn, and that it couldn't kill in one magazine with the single fire. This version will also be projectile based, like the plasma pistol, not hitscan. It can strip shields in 6 shots, and another 4 to the head will kill, or another 7 to the body. It will have a 12 round magazine. It will also retain the ability to fire two charge blasts in one magazine.

Power Weapon Sandbox
Shotgun: Make the shotgun headshot capable, and more accurate, to get people to aim for the head. Keep the shell count low, around 6 or 8.

Scattershot: Make the scattershot less random, and the semi-automatic, slightly longer range sibling to the shotgun.

Energy Sword: Nerf the lunge distance, and increase base player movement speed when holding the sword. Make the sword drain energy as it is being held (this is not super necessary).

Flamethrower: a brute flamethrower would be a great addition to the halo sandbox. It would work similarly to a close range focus rifle, and might work similarly to the scorcher in Gears. You could also use the flamethrower as an area denial weapon, setting fire to the ground or walls.

Needler: Tone down the auto aim, increase the needle speed, and add AOE damage to all needles, even ones that don't hit the player. This way, the needler is less of a homing weapon, and more of an area denial weapon.

Phase Rifle: This is essentially a reskinned Focus rifle, only now its Forerunner, to give forerunner weapons an interesting power weapon.

Grenade Launcher: This was an amazing weapon in reach. Add a stock to the weapon!

Concussion Rifle: Take away the "concussive", bounce around affect, this is a frustrating affect. Make the rounds travel very fast, with no arc. 6 rounds per mag.

Brute Shot: A sibling to the concussion rifle. Make it more powerful, with 4 rounds per mag, and with arcing shots. Higher melee damage.

Railgun: Changed slightly. Now has 3 rounds in mag. You still need to hold the trigger a short while to charge the weapon, but now you can fire multiple rounds in succession. The weapon will only be a one hit kill if you hit the head, meaning of you can potentially kill 3 players per magazine.

Spartan Laser: Not much to say here. Maybe take away the targeting laser?

Rocket Launcher: I liked the arc effect, this adds some skill to the weapon, but I didn't like how the Halo 4 launcher sounded and looked when it was fired. It sounded very "compressed airy".

Fuel Rod Cannon: This weapon is grossly overpowered in Halo 4. Require a headshot for a one hit kill, or two body shots.

Incineration Cannon: This weapon should be re-balanced, but i'm not sure how yet.

Sniper Rifle: Make the sniper rifle sound more punchy, and take away the semi circles around the reticle, this is clutter. Make the sniper rifle's bullet magnetism very low, to increase the skill requirement of the weapon. This is explained fictionally by the weapon's sabot rounds, which make the actually projectile potentially very small.

Beam Rifle: Tone down the bullet magnetism, this weapon way to easy to use in Halo 4.

Binary Rifle: Require an "active reload" on the Binary rifle, making it similar to the longshot in Gears. Make the reload pass/fail (time penalty) rather than giving higher damage for a pass. This gives a little legitimacy to the weapon, and this way, I would feel more comfortable giving it the one shot kill anywhere on the body. Take away the beam when zoomed in, instead, give a que on the player model that shows he is zoomed in, similar to the way Halo 4 shows that PV is being used.

Campaign Weapons

There are some weapons that don't serve the purposes of a balanced weapon sandbox, but are still a part of the Halo story. These weapons won't be found in online matchmaking, but are still in the campaign, and are still available in forge and custom games.

Brute Plasma Rifle
Gravity Hammer (we already have the sword, a better version of this weapon)
Carbine (replaced by the particle rifle)
Needle Rifle (replaced by the particle rifle)
Saw (grossly overpowered)
DMR (a different rifle than the MR. No bloom)
Focus Rifle (replaced by the Phase Rifle)
Plasma Repeater (replaced by the storm rifle)
Sentinal Beam(s)
Sticky Detonator (unskillful version of the grenade launcher)
Plasma Bomb Launcher (I would be with never seeing this weapon again)


Scoring, Ranking, Progression
There will be a balanced and fair way of scoring individuals during and post game. Players will be encouraged to play for the win, over their personal stats. It is extremely important that Halo encourages "play for the win" over "play for yourself". Kills will be worth one point to the team, and the team as a collective must reach the score limit before their opponent to win. There are also personal points that a player earns, to display numerically how much of a contribution that player is making to his team. A player earns personal points exactly equal to how much damage he does to an enemy as he is killed. There is no bonus for actually getting the kill. If you do 81% damage to an enemy, and your teammate snipes him in the head for the remaining 19%, you will receive 81 personal points and an assist, and your teammate will earn 19 personal points and a kill. In post-game, the player with the highest personal points is ranked closest to the top of the board, not necessarily the player that got the most kills. This is done to ensure that players who only land finishing shots, while relying on their team to do most of the damage, are not so heavily rewarded. And also to ensure that players who end up getting their kills "stolen" are rewarded appropriately for the kills they helped their team earn. Some might argue that getting the kill should warrant an extra point reward for removing that player from the game temporarily and earning a point for the team, but I think that the honor of claiming that kill is reward enough.

Players also collect medals throughout the game that observe interesting feats, but they do not give players personal points. This is done to avoid false bloating of score on the account of medals like headshot, revenge, reload this, ect. Some medals might come with points, but that is only because a player completed an objective specifically related to the gametype. Such as earning personal points and a medal for pulling, or capturing a flag. There will not be wording announcing average feats of the game directly below your reticle, this is distracting, and unnecessary.

There will be level 1-70 ranks (70 for more ranks for distribution and resolution purposes, and its a 7 reference, though it could just as easily be 1-50 for nostalgia's sake). The ranking system should be designed so that more of the lower ranks have significance. Personally, I hit a max rank of 45 in Halo 3 lone wolves. With this new ranking system, I would place myself at say, rank 30 or 35, with another 35 or 40 levels above me that are above my skill level. Of course, if I were to improve my skill, I would be allowed to rank up. No rank locking would occur. In this way, higher ranks would be extremely legitimate, and people wouldn't feel so bad about not having a 50, or a 70, because it is common knowledge that it is neigh impossible to achieve those ranks, elevating those who do to near mythological status. It is absolutely critical that Halo has a balanced competitive ranked multiplayer experience. Assigning the player a rank and displaying it upon him as a badge of honor creates a desire in him to increase his standing, to be seen as a better player by his peers, and to pursue higher levels of play, more specifically, higher levels of personal skill and accomplishment. Ranking up to 130 is not an accomplishment, its a chore, and it only represents time invested in the game. Also, its an uninteresting number. A ranking system ultimately pays the player back for his or her time investment with self worth (in the land of Halo). Having a balanced game, and a competitive atmosphere to play it in go hand in hand.

Lets just talk about black market profile sales for a second. In Halo 3, it was relatively common for people to buy and sell "50's". I assume Bungie was upset by other people making off of their game, and maybe this was part of them throwing out their ranking system. This is absurd though, I would take it as a complement if people are so interested in my game that they are willing to spend extra money to be viewed well among their peers. Instead of just throwing out the ranking system (I'm certain that the black market wasn't the only reason to throw out the ranking system), I would discourage the selling of 50's (or in this build's case, 70's) by imposing rank resets at regular intervals, perhaps quarterly, or twice a year.

There will be a progressive Military Rank given to players to signify how many games they have won. Upon winning a game, the player will earn an experience. Each experience will bring the player closer to the next rank. More advanced ranks require a certain skill level achieved in ranked matchmaking. This is done to lure people over to the ranked playlists. If a player is unable to earn the appropriate skill level in ranked matchmaking, he will be rewarded with a "grade 2" and so on version of the same rank, like in Halo 3

Aesthetic Customization and Progression
My Halo would see the return of customizable aesthetics, in the form of unlock-able armor, armor skins, and weapon skins. Armor will be attained by progressing your military rank to unlock the armor, and then you will have to pay credits to purchase the item. Some armor will be given to you for completing challenges. Some armor will only be unlocked for view by ranking up in the ranked playlists, to draw people over to the ranked side of Halo. To help with incentifying playing for the win, players who win the game will earn about double the amount of credits than the players who lost. There should be an extremely diverse array of armor and skins to unlock, so that players who are faithful to the game and are still playing after a year or two still have things to unlock.
Customizable armor would be:
-Helmet + attachments
-Torso (would change the back as well)
-Left Shoulder
-Right Shoulder
-Arms
-Legs (changes feet as well)
-Visor color
-Knife
-Armor Skin
-Primary Weapon Skin
-Secondary Weapon Skin
-Knife Skin
-Male or Female (Being female will only change the shape of the spartan, making her more feminine looking, not smaller in any way at all. Being female will also not change your hitbox at all. Basically there is absolutely no advantage to being female whatsoever. It is only an aesthetic difference. There should also be a small text blurb explaining this when you are switching genders. This should help to avoid the instance where people think they are being clever by being female, in attempt to be harder to hit.
You will not be able to play as an elite, you will only be allowed to play as a spartan. Being an elite changes your hit box, makes it much harder to be headshotted from behind. This is unacceptable, as is gives you an advantage, and makes it so not all players are spawning into the game with the exact same capabilities.

I would like to see the return of Helmet Attachments. These were a great way to customize the facial appearance of a spartan.

I liked that you could choose your visor color in Halo Reach and Halo 4, but the amount of two tone visors was staggering. Also, a minor complaint, but the legendary visor was way to dark in Halo 4, and the Gold visor in Halo Reach was far too gold. Obviously these options are there to imitate the Chief's visor color, but they are just way off.

Skins will be handled differently. In Halo 4, weapon and armor skins were specific to one weapon, or one piece of armor. For example, you could only have the arctic skin on the Battle rifle, and you could only have the forest skin on the Hazop armor. I would like to see skins be less specific, and applicable to all pieces of armor or weapons and knives.

And I'll be frank, I'd like to see more good looking armor. The artwork for Halo 4's armor was very experimental, there were more "weirder" looking armor variants than there were "normal" looking ones. I'm sorry to say, but I thought that most of Halo 4's helmets were very outlandish and alien I liked a scant few. Halo 4's under suit looked way scaly, and large portions of it were team colored, rather than black. The Spartans just looked and felt power rangerish, toy like. Not to mention the pinkish and baby blue colors used for red team and blue team. I really don't know who thought that looked good. The red and blue I would use would be darker, more serious looking, and the under suit would be all black. Halo should look serious, battle scarred, slightly dirty, not pristine and baby like; benign. I felt that they really had the look of the Spartans locked down in Reach.

My build would represent the ammo a spartan is holding better. In Halo CE, the Chief had his belt, and that was great, but in rest of the games, the spartan models don't have any mag pouches on them, excepting specific armor pieces that had pouches and bags on them. Where are they getting all their ammo? First off, we need to see the Master Chief's model return to something where it is obvious he has the capability to hold ammo, something like a belt rig, like in Halo CE, or maybe something like a belly rig, where ammo is held on the lower torso. There should be a visible knife on the Master Chief's body. If the left upper chest position as seen in reach is unacceptable, for whatever reason, put the knife on his right thigh, or discretely tucked into his belt, if you really wan to hide it. Honestly, the knife on the upper left chest was one of the coolest aesthetic modifications to the Spartans ever. The lower back plate is unavailable, as that is where armor abilities will go. In addition, every single customizable torso piece will have ammo pouches on them, this should be a standard thing. The pouch on the left leg was also a great idea. Furthermore, have varying reload animations (not from the first person view, but when you are looking at a spartan who is reloading), where the spartan is pulling and stowing mags in multiple different pouches. Try to make the ammo and reloading on the player models look and real an as polished as possible.

Betrayal Penalties, Quit Penalties
We have all had it happen to us before: you manage to get the sniper rifle first off, and then your teammate starts firing at you. Or, you are about to return the flag, and someone starts to melee you. Some people are just selfish. In Halo 4, they made it so you can't do any damage to your teammates at all. This certainly solves the problem outright, but it also makes it so you can blatantly shoot or grenade your teammates. There is a certain challenge in not doing damage to your team that has always existed in Halo, and that should be retained.
In Halo 3 and Reach, and maybe in Halo 2, I can't remember, you were given the option to boot your betrayer from the game if you were betrayed multiple times. This does some justice, but still makes it possible for people to betray you for the sniper at the beginning of the game, or for a flag return, or for whatever other nefarious reason. People know how to work the system, they know how to betray you, get what they want, and not suffer consequences. And if you are the victim of a betrayal like that, you can't go and kill your betrayer to get back the weapon that was rightfully yours, because the game will give the other guy the option to boot you straight off, as you retaliated; took revenge. The betrayal penalty system needs to do instant justice, and there needs to be no way to benefit from killing your teammates on purpose.

In my game you will lose personal points for hitting your teammates, if the damage you do to them contributes to their death. If you accidentally do damage to a teammate, and his shields recharge, no harm no foul. But say you accidentally grenade your teammate for 56% damage, and then he is killed by the enemy. You will lose 56 personal points (this is represented as red numbers with a minus sign), and the enemy will gain 44 personal points and a kill. The same thing happens if you do damage to yourself, and then are killed before you get your shields back. The amount of effectual damage each player does to their collective team is displayed in the post game stats. For the most part, this function alone will cause players to be much more cautious around their teammates, especially with grenades.
If you are betrayed even once, you will be presented with an option to kill your betrayer with the press of a button, and give him a triple than normal repawn time (12 seconds). You will also have the option to excuse the incident. You (the victim) will also spawn relatively close to where you were originally betrayed, and you will spawn instantly, rather than after the 4.1 second default respawn time without a wait; this is an attempt to leave the victim to play the game as undisturbed as possible, and to give him a chance to recollect his weapons. If someone else picks up the weapon in the process, well that's unfortunate. Furthermore, if the betrayer decides to quit the game in frustration of the long respawn timer penalty, he will not be allowed to re-enter matchmaking until the game he quit out of is finished. Though he will have the option to re-enter the same game that he quit out of. If you are betrayed twice by the same person, you will have the option to boot him from the game, and he will not be allowed to re-enter any games at all until the game you are playing is complete. There will also be no such thing as a teammate killing you by accident, but it counting as a kill from the enemy because it happened within a certain time value. Friendly damage is friendly damage regardless of when it happens.

Controls/User Interface
The default controls are similar to bumper jumper, to get all players using the superior scheme. Having jump and melee on the bumpers as opposed to the buttons allows for both thumbs on the sticks when preforming these actions, giving the player to jump, melee, and look at the same time.

There will be a vast plethora control schemes available. Including ones that replicate the default controls of all individual Halo game. That way, you can have whatever controls you want. There will not be user-created controls however.

An interesting point: when a player picks up the jet pack armor ability, the controls for Jump and Armor ability will switch, so you can use jet pack and aim at the same time. There will be an on screen que to remind the player that this is happening. By default, Armor Ability is on the A button, so without this feature, you would not be able to use the look stick while jet-packing. This feature can be disabled, if the player so chooses. There are also many more control schemes available, and more options to customize the player interface. The controls are also designed to give players the capability to drop any item they are carrying, except their knife, if they so choose.

You can duel wield again. The capabilities of duel wield have been enhanced, but balanced in the fashion that duel wield weapons are not found around the map lying in pairs, rather, they are spaced out around the map, forcing players to go to 2 separate locations to pick up a pair of duel wield-able weapons. You can melee while holding two weapons without dropping one, and you can carry two weapons as your secondary without dropping one, at the cost of a slower weapon switch speed. To drop your left duel wielded weapon, you must press and hold Y. Duel wielding weapons will not cause the damage of said weapons to drop off.

Jumping has been modified slightly. Instead of always jumping to the same height, you can preform a shorter jump by barely tapping the jump button, and preform the full height jump by holding onto the jump button ever so slightly. This helps players get up onto smaller ledges more quickly and efficiently. Of course, this feature can be disabled, and the hold time value required for the full jump can be adjusted to the players liking. Small (and quiet) jets will launch the spartan into the air when the full jump is used.
The requirements for crouch are more lenient. You do not have to have your move stick sticking straight up to be able to crouch. Your character will crouch any time the stick is clicked, regardless of your motion, or the location of the stick.

Default controls:
Left Stick: Move/Crouch Right Stick: Look/Zoom
Left Trigger: Throw Grenade/Fire Left Weapon Right Trigger: Fire Weapon, Fire Right Weapon
Left Bumper: Jump/Jetpack Right Bumper: Melee
A: Armor Ability Up: Flashlight
B: Switch Grenade/Reload Right Weapon Down: Pull out Knife
X: Reload/Reload left weapon Left: Pull out Equipment
Y: Switch Weapons Right: Drop Armor Ability (hold)
Hold B to drop Grenades
Hold X to drop Ammo
Hold Y to drop Weapon
Hold Left to drop Armor Ability
Hold Right to drop Equipment
You cannot drop Powerups.

Available User Interface Options
- You can adjust the power level of vibration
-You can set your spartan to hold his weapon left handed, and throw grenades right handed.
-You can southpaw your sticks.
-You can southpaw your bumpers and triggers.
-You can adjust your X and Y axis look sensitivity independently.
-You can adjust your first level zoom sensitivity, as well as your second level zoom sensitivity.
-You can invert your look stick
-You can have toggle crouch, or hold crouch.
-You can disable the feature that switches your jump and AA when jetpack is active.
-You can disable the feature that allows you to use a short jump, only leaving the full jump.
-You can enable clench protection
-You can enable auto-look centering
-You can choose which of your starting weapons (MR, AR) you are holding when you spawn.
-By default, auto aim will be set to maximum, but players will be allowed to lower or eliminate auto aim if they so choose. This is to give relief to players who can't stand being pulled off target by a player they are not trying to target. Bullet magnetism can not be changed.
-You will also be able to choose from (not unlock) a few different HUD layouts. The purpose of this is to give players who preferred one Halo's HUD layout to another the option to essentially choose that HUD. The different HUD layouts won't look that different aesthetically, rather the location of the HUD elements will change.

Playlists
-There will be separate ranked and casual playlists. It is good to fill them each with similar gametypes, so that more advanced players can warm up in casual playlists, and so that people making the jump from casual to ranked have familiar ground to tread.
Ranked Playlists
-Team Slayer 4v4
-Lone Wolves 7
-Team Objective 4v4 (The team objective selection takes you to a new screen, where you choose the playlist you want to enter)
-King of the Hill
-Extraction
-Capture the Flag
-Assault
-Oddball
-Double Team (this playlist needs way less power weapons)
-Team Snipers
-MLG (My build of Halo would try to give everyone the playing experience they want. The style of game that MLG players prefer to play usually has no radar. At launch, there wouldn't be an MLG playlist, in the effort to get MLG players to try this newer, re-balanced version of Halo. MLG did Halo 4 this favor when it came out; they were diligent in not stripping away all of the new features right at the start, and gave them a try. Ultimately, it was found that this new form of Halo was unacceptable, but my version should be given that same chance, to see if there is a possibility to simple not have an MLG gametype. Halo would be stronger because of it, as all the pros would be playing in the same ranked TS playlists that most of the other Halo players are in. There would be only one version of Halo, not two that are slightly different. Alas, if my build of Halo doesn't satisfy MLG players, I would seek to make minor changes to make it acceptable, but if they absolutely cannot do without no radar and the such, they should be given their own playlist and gametype.

Casual Playlists
-Casual Slayer
-Rumble Pit
-Big Team Battle
-Casual Objective
-Invasion
Action Sack
-Infection
-Grifball
-Rocket Race
-Swat
-Shotty Snipers
-Multi-Team

Vehicles
Vehicles aren't really the main focus of this writing. Here is the list of drive-able vehicles that I would include in the game, and some details that I would like to see come to fruition.

Warthog: Change the sound from Halo 4's to something that sounds more like previous warthogs. It sounds so high pitched. Also, increase the sideseat FOV from 180 degrees to 210 degrees. Keep the chain gun overheat, and keep the bloom operation. Experiment with the idea of limited ammo, locations on the map to reload, and the actions required to reload.

Gauss Warthog: Tone down the ROF and power of the gun, this vehicle is grossly OP.

Rocket Warthog: Not much to say here, kind of weird to use. Give the ability to fire one rocket at a time, rather than all of them at once, all the time.

Transport Warthog: Not much to say here

Mongoose: Represented well in all halos

Scorpion Tank: Keep the arced shots.

Mantis: Completely overhaul this vehicle. Make it so you can reload your rocket pod.

Pelican: Could see use as a pilot-able vehicle in invasion gametypes.

Sparrowhawk: The UNCS answer to the banshee. VTOL.

Longsword: Human fighter for invasion and big team battle

Shortsword: Human fighter for invasion and big team battle

Sabre: Human fighter for invasion and big team battle

Broadsword: Human fighter for invasion and big team battle

Hornet: I though this vehicle was so ugly.

Falcon: Represented well In Reach

Vulture: Kind of like that huge gunship in Avatar. Could be used as an arial elephant, or mammoth in invasion or big team battle.

Elephant: The mammoth is cooler

Mammoth: Replacement for the mammoth, could see use in invasion or big team battle.

Ghost: Sorry guys, boost has to go, just like sprint. Move and shoot!

Banshee: Halo CE banshee was perfect, you are severely limited in what you can do with the banshee in other halos, you can't fly straight down, for example. I would like to see the ability to fly uninhibited in 3 dimensions, and to roll.

Wraith: Not much to say here.

Anti Air Wraith: Nothing to say.

Specter: Kind of pointless, I admit, with the warthog in existence.

Revenant: I thought this vehicle was pretty overpowered.

Seraph: Covenant fighter for invasion and big team battle

Heavy Banshee: Covenant fighter for invasion and big team battle

Other Covenant fighter: Covenant fighter for invasion and big team battle

Spirit: Didn't like how you couldn't destroy the gun.

Phantom: I liked how grunts manned the guns, and you could shoot them out, in Halo 3 and 4. Halo 2's Phantom was difficult to play against because you needed rockets or stickies destroy its guns.

Lich: Companion to the Vulture

Scarab: Companion to the Mammoth

Chopper: Worst vehicle to control ever. It slides all over the place. Work on this.

Prowler: Shares the same pointlessness as the specter

Campaign, Forge, Theater, Spectator

-The campaign will cover all essential plot points, and do an far more effective way of communicating the story and lore of Halo to the player in game, without the need for auxiliary media such as books. Through new levels played by other characters, terminals, secrets, dialogue, and cut scenes, this build of Halo would offer a complete rendition of the Halo story in one contained unit, featuring completely redone classic campaign levels, and brand new ones before and after, covering time periods stretching way back to the precursor and forerunner days. The campaign would offer new weapons, equipment, vehicles, and enemies through time and history, and would be a campaign of far greater magnitude than any other in the past, perhaps nearing 100 hours. The multiplayer would use weapons and equipment from the most recent era. Campaign doesn't go without balance either. All enemies need to be enhanced to fight more intelligently, and to be more offensive, communicative, and realistic. The level of difficulty of the game should rely on the combat effectiveness of the AI, rather than the simple advantage of damage output and high health. This build of the campaign would give the player higher health, and greater capability for doing damage. Because of this, players would generally find themselves fighting more enemies that are weaker, but more cunning, and dangerous because of that. The campaign's AI's should try to emulate the conditions that players might encounter online.

-There will be a spectator mode for MLG casting, and theater mode that works correctly, has proper fast forward, skip forward, and rewind features, and can support more than one person in the lobby.

-Forge and firefight should return with revisions, but there should never be any forge maps put into the main playlists. I pay money to play the developers game, not some random dude's tinker toy map. If you want to incorporate fan designs into the game, I think that's all fine and good, allow a forge map playlist, and remake the best forge map on a professional level and release it as a full map that doesn't lag online, that can be played in the standard playlists. Forge maps are always so bland, and they all look alike. Forge also needs some new features. I would like to edit the landscape, place trees, and change the weather. I'm not a forger, I'm sure the community can think of more things.
Spartan Ops was a poor replacement for firefight, and this is why: Firefight was a proper horde-mode, that didn't have an end (at least in Halo 3 odst). The goal of a horde mode is to give players the challenge of making it as far as they can. Spartan ops was essentially online campaign matchmaking. I don't even remember any of the spartan ops missions. They left such little impact on me. Bring back firefight!

 

Wow, if you made it this far, you win not one, but two whole steaming internet cookies

[Twinreaper]

Reach was not a game for the community or fans. Reach was designed and developed as a way for Bungie to create and use everything they ever wanted in a Halo game since it's inception. I invite you to go on Youtube and shift through various dev diaries about Reach.

 

Overall I like the direction of the build you describe. If you have Halo 2 for the PC, I invite you to try out my Powerhouse map, with refined weapons that function very much like you describe.

 

You did lose me on a couple points. The term Bloom, or as it is more accurately called "weapon error", has existed on all weapons throughout the franchise. I just cant get behind the idea of having any weapon with no deviation angle or error. I understand the point you make with percision weapons, but that would be devistating to players. The BR as you exampled, in my eyes has a good blend of spread that really makes a player work for that full 3 burst actually hitting.

 

Im not sure what you meant about Bumper Jumper. Im assuming you want the game to have only that scheme in which you called it superior. I have played the Legacy Inverted Default on a 1 sensativity for nearly 15 years. Making a certain layout or button assingment does not sit well with me. For me, I feel my scheme is superior.

 

Again though, overall I like the ideas you laid out. Although some of them are not likely possible due to the current engine and limitations it proposes. But a very nice job on laying it all out and explaining it in great detail. In the future, dont fret about TL;DR posting. Im very well known for doing that, and in my eyes, the longer the post; the more thought that was put into it.

[ChristopherRyan]

Reach was not a game for the community or fans. Reach was designed and developed as a way for Bungie to create and use everything they ever wanted in a Halo game since it's inception. I invite you to go on Youtube and shift through various dev diaries about Reach.

 

Overall I like the direction of the build you describe. If you have Halo 2 for the PC, I invite you to try out my Powerhouse map, with refined weapons that function very much like you describe.

 

You did lose me on a couple points. The term Bloom, or as it is more accurately called "weapon error", has existed on all weapons throughout the franchise. I just cant get behind the idea of having any weapon with no deviation angle or error. I understand the point you make with percision weapons, but that would be devistating to players. The BR as you exampled, in my eyes has a good blend of spread that really makes a player work for that full 3 burst actually hitting.

 

Im not sure what you meant about Bumper Jumper. Im assuming you want the game to have only that scheme in which you called it superior. I have played the Legacy Inverted Default on a 1 sensativity for nearly 15 years. Making a certain layout or button assingment does not sit well with me. For me, I feel my scheme is superior.

 

Again though, overall I like the ideas you laid out. Although some of them are not likely possible due to the current engine and limitations it proposes. But a very nice job on laying it all out and explaining it in great detail. In the future, dont fret about TL;DR posting. Im very well known for doing that, and in my eyes, the longer the post; the more thought that was put into it.

About controls: Several other control schemes interface options would be offered, including the capability to have the controls you outlined. Only, the default controls that everyone starts with will be similar to Bumper Jumper, which I name superior because the melee and jump controls are on the bumpers, where normally they are on the colored buttons. Using the jump and melee functions on non-bumper jumper-style controls require the player to take their thumb off of the look stick, so they can't aim while performing these tasks. Allow me to copy paste the relevant paragraphs from the spoiler section,

 

Controls/User Interface

The default controls are similar to bumper jumper, to get all players using the superior scheme. Having jump and melee on the bumpers as opposed to the buttons allows for both thumbs on the sticks when preforming these actions, giving the player to jump, melee, and look at the same time.

There will be a vast plethora control schemes available. Including ones that replicate the default controls of all individual Halo game. That way, you can have whatever controls you want. There will not be user-created controls however.

An interesting point: when a player picks up the jet pack armor ability, the controls for Jump and Armor ability will switch, so you can use jet pack and aim at the same time. There will be an on screen que to remind the player that this is happening. By default, Armor Ability is on the A button, so without this feature, you would not be able to use the look stick while jet-packing. This feature can be disabled, if the player so chooses. There are also many more control schemes available, and more options to customize the player interface. The controls are also designed to give players the capability to drop any item they are carrying, except their knife, if they so choose.

You can duel wield again. The capabilities of duel wield have been enhanced, but balanced in the fashion that duel wield weapons are not found around the map lying in pairs, rather, they are spaced out around the map, forcing players to go to 2 separate locations to pick up a pair of duel wield-able weapons. You can melee while holding two weapons without dropping one, and you can carry two weapons as your secondary without dropping one, at the cost of a slower weapon switch speed. To drop your left duel wielded weapon, you must press and hold Y. Duel wielding weapons will not cause the damage of said weapons to drop off.

Jumping has been modified slightly. Instead of always jumping to the same height, you can preform a shorter jump by barely tapping the jump button, and preform the full height jump by holding onto the jump button ever so slightly. This helps players get up onto smaller ledges more quickly and efficiently. Of course, this feature can be disabled, and the hold time value required for the full jump can be adjusted to the players liking. Small (and quiet) jets will launch the spartan into the air when the full jump is used.

The requirements for crouch are more lenient. You do not have to have your move stick sticking straight up to be able to crouch. Your character will crouch any time the stick is clicked, regardless of your motion, or the location of the stick.

 

Default controls:

Left Stick: Move/Crouch Right Stick: Look/Zoom

Left Trigger: Throw Grenade/Fire Left Weapon Right Trigger: Fire Weapon, Fire Right Weapon

Left Bumper: Jump/Jetpack Right Bumper: Melee

A: Armor Ability Up: Flashlight

B: Switch Grenade/Reload Right Weapon Down: Pull out Knife

X: Reload/Reload left weapon Left: Pull out Equipment

Y: Switch Weapons Right: Drop Armor Ability (hold)

Hold B to drop Grenades

Hold X to drop Ammo

Hold Y to drop Weapon

Hold Left to drop Armor Ability

Hold Right to drop Equipment

You cannot drop Powerups.

 

Available User Interface Options

- You can adjust the power level of vibration

-You can set your spartan to hold his weapon left handed, and throw grenades right handed.

-You can southpaw your sticks.

-You can southpaw your bumpers and triggers.

-You can adjust your X and Y axis look sensitivity independently.

-You can adjust your first level zoom sensitivity, as well as your second level zoom sensitivity.

-You can invert your look stick

-You can have toggle crouch, or hold crouch.

-You can disable the feature that switches your jump and AA when jetpack is active.

-You can disable the feature that allows you to use a short jump, only leaving the full jump.

-You can enable clench protection

-You can enable auto-look centering

-You can choose which of your starting weapons (MR, AR) you are holding when you spawn.

-By default, auto aim will be set to maximum, but players will be allowed to lower or eliminate auto aim if they so choose. This is to give relief to players who can't stand being pulled off target by a player they are not trying to target. Bullet magnetism can not be changed.

-You will also be able to choose from (not unlock) a few different HUD layouts. The purpose of this is to give players who preferred one Halo's HUD layout to another the option to essentially choose that HUD. The different HUD layouts won't look that different aesthetically, rather the location of the HUD elements will change.

 It appears I have neglected to mention Legacy settings, my bad. some additions:

-Players will be allowed to legacy their sticks

-Players will be able to adjust the hold time for the full jump to their liking

 

About bloom: It is possible we are talking about two separate things when we talk about bloom and weapon error, but I think they are the same. Bloom introduces randomness into the precision weapons, meaning that sometimes, even though you are fully on target, your shot might miss, or hit, depending on the game's "decision". This is what I have a problem with. Battles where players are firing their weapons at full ROF are decided by a flip of the coin, basically, not the players' skill, or accuracy. Without bloom, players can fire at maximum ROF with no ill affects.

 

About the BR: Let me first copy paste my segment on the BR

The Battle Rifle: If we deny the Battle Rifle as a starting weapon, it must be made to give players the incentive to pick it up. The Battle Rifle is essentially an alternative to the MR, which has the capability to kill faster at the expense of ease of use. In my build of Halo, the Battle rifle would fire a burst of 4 rounds instead of the traditional 3, and would kill in 3 bursts instead of the traditional 4. The length of time it takes to fire the 4 rounds is about the same as it takes older BR's to fire 3 rounds, maybe just the tiniest bit longer. It still has a 36 round magazine, so you only get 9 bursts before you have to reload. Changing that Battle rifle from a 3 shot burst to a 4 shot burst accentuates the fact that its a burst fire rifle, and adds to that challenge, but the trade-off is that you can kill a spartan with only 3 bursts rather than the traditional 4. In this manner, the Battle Rifle carries much of the spirit of the Halo CE Pistol, only requiring 3 trigger pulls to kill, but this weapon would be more challenging to use, and would not kill nearly as fast, killing in 1.02 seconds. Also, the weapon is not available off spawn in default gametypes. This Battle Rifle would be very accurate with each shot landing directly on top of the previous one, no upwards recoil or sideways skewing; there is absolutely no reason for programmed randomness. You won't be able to guarantee a kill by sweeping your reticle over an un-shielded head with this BR either; the 10th round would break the sheild, and the 11th and 12th must land on the head to kill. It does not matter if the 9th bullet bleeds through to the body, or to the head. It will also have a 2x scope, fire its normal fictional round, and boast a double stack magazine. It will kill in 1.02 seconds. This BR should sound fantastic; the Halo 4 BR sounder way too high pitched. Bring it down into a lower register, like in Halo 2 or 3. I thought the Halo 2 BR sounded the best.

 

I am confused by your statement about the BR. Are you saying that the spread is helpful to players? Or that it is a necessary challenge to players?

 

In my opinion, the inherent challenge in using a BR is keeping your reticle on target throughout the duration of the burst. My version of the BR would fire all bullets exactly in the center of the reticle, no deviation, no upward recoil, to more accurately test the skill that specific skill (keeping on target). Again, here we see the fate of gun battles taken out of the game's engine, and placed in the players hands.

 

Thank you very much for you non-inflammatory response to what I know are unpopular views on this board  

it looks like my formatting in the control scheme section is a little messed up, let me fix that:

Default controls:

Left Stick: Move/Crouch                                                                             Right Stick: Look/Zoom

Left Trigger: Throw Grenade/Fire Left Weapon                                         Right Trigger: Fire Weapon, Fire Right Weapon

Left Bumper: Jump/Jetpack                                                                       Right Bumper: Melee

A: Armor Ability                                                                                           Up: Flashlight

B: Switch Grenade/Reload Right Weapon                                                Down: Pull out Knife

X: Reload/Reload left weapon                                                                    Left:Pull out Equipment

Y: Switch Weapons                                                                                   Right: Drop Armor Ability (hold)

Hold B to drop Grenades

Hold X to drop Ammo

Hold Y to drop Weapon

Hold Left to drop Armor Ability

Hold Right to drop Equipment

You cannot drop Powerups.

[Twinreaper]

With the BR, it does take skill to land all three projectiles from the burst with accuracy. I will warn you though, I have removed all error, magnetism and auto aim on the BR and DMR in Halo 2, and its nearly impossible to get a kill with a full clip. There needs to be a balance in play so that battles dont get dragged out. In terms of bloom, people often mistake bloom for what it really is. Bloom is and was never a tagged definition. Players refer to bloom as the reticule expanding and contracting. All this is, is simply a visual representation of the weapons error angles and . It just wasnt until Reach and 4, that the player was given a visual to show them where the shots would error to, after a certain rate of fire was hit.

 

I believe the amount of error is minimal and it hasnt changed very much from title to title. Think of it as a visual distraction if you will. By showing the player where the general error is, it kind of fools you in a way to thinking that the weapon is acting up, when in reality, it is still firing in the same manor as the previous titles.

[ChristopherRyan]

With the BR, it does take skill to land all three projectiles from the burst with accuracy. I will warn you though, I have removed all error, magnetism and auto aim on the BR and DMR in Halo 2, and its nearly impossible to get a kill with a full clip. There needs to be a balance in play so that battles dont get dragged out. In terms of bloom, people often mistake bloom for what it really is. Bloom is and was never a tagged definition. Players refer to bloom as the reticule expanding and contracting. All this is, is simply a visual representation of the weapons error angles and . It just wasnt until Reach and 4, that the player was given a visual to show them where the shots would error to, after a certain rate of fire was hit.

 

I believe the amount of error is minimal and it hasnt changed very much from title to title. Think of it as a visual distraction if you will. By showing the player where the general error is, it kind of fools you in a way to thinking that the weapon is acting up, when in reality, it is still firing in the same manor as the previous titles.

 

I think you might misunderstand me about the BR.

 

I never said there would be no bullet magnetism, or no auto aim, only less, say, %80 of Halo 4's values. "My" BR would have about the same bullet magnetism as the Reach DMR (the lowest value of bullet magnetism we have seen on a console human utility weapon, aside from the needle rifle, which had the absolute lowest), and just a little bit less auto aim (snap and friction functions) as Halo Reach and Halo 4. Recent Halo games are helpful with their reticles in the sense that the inner reticle usually represents the amount of bullet magnetism for that gun.Interestingly enough, Halo 4 has a relatively low amount of bullet magnetism compared to Halo CE, 2, and 3.

 

Imagine the inner circle in the reticule of the Halo 4 br. To warrant a hit with the gun, you basically need to have that circle touching your target, not necessarily the exact center of the circle. The exact center of the circle could be pointing at thin air, but if the edge is touching the target's player model, you get a hit. This is the degree of tolerance for error the game will allow you (bullet magnetism). I am also unaware of any spread on the Halo 4 BR.

 

Remember the reticle for the Halo CE pistol? It was much larger than the inner reticle of all Halo 4 precision weapons and you only needed to place the edge of it on the player model to get a hit. We know that auto aim functions are required for gameplay purposes on console, my point is to keep them as low as possible, while still retaining playability.

 

The only thing my BR would lack is the spread from bullet to bullet, and any upward recoil. All bullets simply land in the same spot.

 

Related to reduced auto aim is decreased kill times. Kill times in Halo 4 were around 1.5 seconds, my build has kill times around 1 second, and my build requires less hits to kill: 4 shots with a zero-bloom DMR type weapon, and 3 bursts from an accurate BR. All weapons in my build benefit from bullet magnetism and auto aim, except the sniper rifles, which will receive less, not none.

 

What weapons had bloom that were in past titles? I know the Pistol had it in halo CE if you used the automatic fire function, but using the feature was foolish. The carbine? I thought it was just inaccurate? Obviously the Br doesn't have bloom. What does that leave?

[Twinreaper]

As I don't have time to list or even illustrate with pictures, the error/spread/bloom for each weapon, I invite you to rather open the map files and go through the tag data yourself.  It will save us both time, and teach you about some of the structures and mechanics.

 

As for the CE Pistol......I hate that weapon, and it sucks!  It is the only weapon to date that had a firing error/spread/bloom that went past the confines of the reticule.  On top of that, it's deviation error for high firing rates was even greater than that of the Assault Rifle.  Simply put, I don't even count the CE Pistol as a weapon.  It's a mistake of a weapon in my eyes.

 

I did however pull the assault rifle data for Halo 3 and Halo 4.  You can see the structure change as well as the data.  They are very close, but are different in many ways.  I also pulled the BR data also, but did not have time to pull both Halo 2 and 3's BR data.

 

http://www.freewebs.com/twinreaper/as_3_error.png[/img]

 

 

 

I really wish I could find the thread I started way back during Reach's release.  I had a comprehensive guide of all the weapons from every title, with all their damage, error, firing rates, blooms and recovery times all listed out.  If anyone does happen to find it, please link me.  My search of the forum leads me to believe some items were cleaned up after being so old, or possibly I'm just retarded and couldn't find it.

[Hugo I]

lol keep dreaming bro, halo has changed its direction and bungie/343 isnt turning back the armor abilities or anything....

[ChristopherRyan]

What a defeatist attitude. You may be right, but that doesn't mean we who care should stop trying.

It makes little business sense to release a Halo like Halo 4, and I am trying to show 343 that logic. Very few people actually enjoyed Halo 4, so why whould anyone by a Halo 5 that is similar to Halo 4? On the other hand, multitudes of people enjoyed Halo 2 and 3, so it makes more sense to go with that formula.

[Twinreaper]

Agreed Chris.  If that was the attitude a lot of players had, we would not have seen the changes we got with Halo Reach after months of protest and posting our opinions.  Airing out our desires, letdowns and opinions of all nature only serve to help the developer see where he/she went wrong.  There is no hope to be lost, or anything to be sad about in this respect.  As long as we are honest with ourselves and the developer, it can only serve as a learning experience.  If enough people would voice their opinions and be true to their own feelings on the matter, I'm sure many things could get accomplished.

[Vaulting♥Frog]

I am all for different opinions on a topic and you have a wonderful one. It is one I don't agree with at all but wonderful none the less. To me this would create a game that I would hate playing, Just as I hate playing Halo 2 and 3 online. Even Reach is annoying online to me. Halo 4 is amusing to me, but got old after all the changes happened. Sure the weapons were rebalanced but the changes to the maps (like adding huge amounts of vehicles) are not enjoyable for me.

 

Its a long read, but worth reading, even if I don't agree with it. Well done.

[Delpen9]

I'm sick of shooting the head and having 1/3 BR bullets zip passed the neck, without aim magnetism forcing contact. It seemed cheap because even if the random deviation in the bullets is slight, it is too detrimental when aiming for the head and occasionally the neck. I notice that the aim assist even loses effect sometimes in that region, either as a glitch or an unknown function; but this causes the bullets to stray away from the head often-times, even when the reticle is centered on the head. Irritatingly, this is just a minor nuance in the game, or a distraction I suppose; similar to the bloom effect in H:R. 

[ChristopherRyan]

TwinReaper: Thanks for the support, I was worried I had worded my response to Hugo a little harshly, and maybe I did, but the fact of the matter is if we want to see 343 take the Halo franchise back into its arena shooter's roots, we must voice our opinions loud and often, and frequently regurgitate each other's good ideas. Let me remind you all that this writing was generated by rooting through the internet to find the "community's opinion". Most of this information I present you is the same that we see all over the internet, barring the positive opinions about Halo 4, which I can't consider community opinions, because the origin of these players is doubtful, seeing the tactics 343 used to grow (swap out, rather) their community. how many have even played Halo 3 or 2?

 

Old and Ugly: I'm only curious, did you read the whole thing? Props if you did! I tread very lightly when I say this next bit: I don't think Halo (the original formula) is for you, my friend. The era of Halo 2 and 3 was the pinnacle height of the success of Halo not only on a business sense, but a game play sense. There is a false notion that Halo is a game that can and should be enjoyed by every last teenage boy, young man, and grizzled ancient alike, but that is not the case. It is simply impossible to please everybody all of the time, only some of the people some of the time. This is a bitter truth, and 343 has gotten themselves into a rather tricky situation, because they now have two separate and distinct audiences to choose from. I think we could all agree than an attempt to appeal to both at the same time would create a game that neither side is very happy with.

 

There are many different genres of shooters out there, and many different games to play, thankfully. The most prominent being what I refer to as "The Modern Shooter", which I classify as a game that has aim down sight, sprint, load-outs, a vast plethora of un-lockable  gameplay changing items, some kind of in-game kill-streak or performance reward, and generally, fast kill times. These games are fun more because there are lots of guns and toys to play with, and less because the actual gameplay is fun. They are also impossible to balance. Why did I just use the word impossible just there? Because that is the correct word to use. If you give the player to choose between Choice A, and Choice B, they will never be perfectly balanced, because of the simple fact that Choice A is not Choice B, regardless of how closely balanced they appear to be. On the other hand, we have arena shooters, which are characterized most notably by the notion that all players enter the match with the exact same capabilities, and they have the opportunity to "customize" their player in game by picking up items off the map, that everyone has equal chance to fight over and earn. One characteristic of arena shooters the 343 needs to focus on is the fairness aspect of the game, and the fact that the outcome of battles should be determined as much as possible by the performance and skill of the players, and less by the functions of the game.

 

I'm curious as to why you "stick around" Halo, despite your dislike of the arena shooter genre, as you describe? I would assume that you are attracted to the fiction and universe of the game? The Spartans? The sandbox? The general sci-fi look? 

 

And again, Old and Ugly, thank you for your honesty, but also, thank you for your non-inflammatory response.

[Vaulting♥Frog]

As a rule if I post a responce to a topic it means I have read everything in it, so yes I did read all of the posts in here in their entirety. That being said I absolutely agree that no game with ever please everybody. Nor should it, otherwise we are all just grey blobs who are identical in every aspect.

 

For me personally Halo CE was the peak of Halo when it first came out. Its multiplayer was actually enjoyable for me (mostly because I did it in a LAN party setting) and the story was top notch. All the "improvements" from Halo 2 to the multiplayer I didnt care for. Same with Halo 3. None of it was enjoyable to me. The environment it created just wasnt for me. Fact of the matter is, most multiplayer stuff I just dont care for. If it doesnt have a story I just dont give a crap about it.

 

So yes, I stick around Halo for the story. Quite honestly I would rather not see any multiplayer in any Halo game beyond a co-op campaign but thats just my preference. To me multiplayer environments are not enjoyable. Too often there are children in games which are not age approprate, nor do they know how to communicate effectively (or approprately for that matter). The other side I constantly encounter is the ultra serious players who take everything personally. They rage at every little thing that happens out side of their favor. Neither of those groups are people I care to be around.

 

I flat out refused to play Halo 3 online simply because of that kind of stuff being so wide spread.

 

The only reason why I do multiplayer at all is because I am keeping in touch with friends that I know. If it werent for that then I wouldnt do any multiplayer at all. When I do play multiplayer though I play for as much fun as I can get out of it (which isnt much to be honest). With the suggestions you layed out I wouldnt even get the bare minimum of enjoyment ouf of the game that I do get currently.

[ChristopherRyan]

Even the spoiler section?? I'm impressed.

 

Yeah I get you about the people you find in matchmaking. I wish there was a way to deal with that.

[Vaulting♥Frog]

The only way to deal with it is to cut out humans completely (which just wont happen). That's why I keep my multiplayer game time to a minimum.

 

Even playing Titanfall I am annoyed to the extreme. I love the game mechanics but the players are just dragging it down. I really only have fun when I get a group of friends that I know online and we rock out in Last Titan Standing. Beyond that I stick to the campaign playlist (which still has an interesting story). I only wish it was more involved, perhaps even letting the player participate in the Titan Wars (conflict before the one being played out in Titanfall).

 

Oh and your opinion is far from being unpopular on these forums, or most other Halo forums for that matter. There are plenty of people asking for what you have laid out. Unfortunately the nature of the constant evolution of multiplayer gaming, its fans and the lack of respect for single player stuff these days has basically turned me away from online gaming. It is a stress fest with the added bonus of players in lobbies who have no business playing the game in the first place (talking about age appropriate games). I don't think any multiplayer could ever come close to the level of enjoyment I got when Halo CE first was released. The lack of an online element, to me, was a huge bonus.

 

But that is just me.