New Halo Competitive Gametypes: Competitive Console Gaming

[aardvark09j]

Hello and welcome! My name is Joseph, but you can call me Aardvark or Broseph. I am here to introduce a collection of Halo 4 gametypes that I think truly recapture that competitive Halo magic again, while at the same incorporating some of the new features from Halo 4 that were done right! Before we get into specifics about these gametypes, let's talk about how this gametype came to be and how I want it to become a new platform for the competitive Halo community!

 

Back in the Halo: Reach days, I was starting to really get into competitive Halo. MLG and AGL matches were absolutely sensational in my eyes. I loved them. When V7 settings came around in Halo: Reach, however, I didn't really like them that much. Not sure what it was that I didn't like about these settings, but I certainly wasn't a fan of them. It didn't stop me from watching matches or playing the game, in fact it did something better. It inspired me to make my own competitive gametype. Eventually though, I wanted something more from that, I wanted my own competitive Halo platform, with official leagues and tournaments for competitive players to compete in! Thus, The Kingdom of Hell Pro League was born! ... it died pretty early on though. For a lot of reasons, one of the most prominent being that, as you can tell, that was just a horrible name.

 

I was young and had no Idea what I was getting myself into. I made a website using webs.com because I don't know how to program and that website was a disaster as well. The idea behind the website though was perfect. Give competitors and the public easy and quick access to full career stats and season stats for each and every competitor. Not only that, but I made promises of footage for every single match in every single season, to be published on the website and to YouTube complete with an entire archive of past matches organized by players, teams, seasons and brackets. Still, the website was poorly built and ultimately the entire project got nowhere. On the plus side, though, my gametype and its compatible maps made by myself made it pretty far on the most downloaded list, which certainly shocked me! Still, KOHPL didn't last.

 

When I realized KOHPL had failed, I had a determined attitude. "We'll try again!" , I said confidently. And try I did, in Halo 4! This time though my cousin and I actually put some thought into the name. In the end we decided on Competitive Console Gaming! We wanted something simple, that didn't lock us down to one game but also was straightforward enough for people to know what it was right away. So with the name CCG fresh in our minds we set off to make a new website and competitive community. Still working in Webs, the CCG website was a tremendous improvement to the KOHPL design. It looked almost Halo Waypointish with dark-blue and black colors and had a far better layout than the past design. This is where we started to get more likely to succeed and we could feel the rush of excitement we would get before the finals of an AGL tournament!

 

I've been working on the CCG gametypes for a little over a year now. I in fact thought that I was finished at one point and saved my "final" gametypes as V1 gametypes. It was time to spread the word! But then the unthinkable happened... the Halo community seamed to just drop off the face of the Earth! I was as if everyone just stopped playing, and stopped looking for Halo related content. At first, this was scary. I thought, "We don't stand a chance now!" But I did some digging around the internet, and I found that clearly, people still wanted Halo. They were asking all the same questions as me. "What happened to all the Halo content?" "What happened to AGL?" I then realized that I should see this as an opportunity. I made it my mission to help bring back competitive Halo, but in a new form. So I got back to work.

 

However, after going back and playing the gametypes with my friends and my play testers for a few months we said, "This needs more originality!" So I said screw it! I decided instead of focusing on the website, and thinking of how to get my platform out on the Halo scene, I would focus on finishing the platform. I took my time with the maps I was making for the gametypes, I spent hours of my time in the gametypes settings alone, just analyzing everything and putting pieces together. I spent SO many hours play testing my maps with these gametypes.

 

Now, a year later, It has finally paid off! FINALLY, CCG Settings are a truly competitive, unique, and fresh Halo experience! But there is still work to be done. There are still things that need to be worked out. First and foremost, I need you lovely guys and girls! I need the Halo community! I know the mother of all gaming communities still exists, she just needs to be awoken! That is what I hope to do with Competitive Console Gaming!

 

Now let's talk about what makes these gametypes unique!

 

Before I tell you anything, I should tell you that I think that the one thing that was balanced in Halo 4's Infinity settings were the armor mods. The weapons were horribly unbalanced and made the whole thing a wreck. The Tactical Packages and Support upgrades though, are a different story. They instead let the players decide on one situation they want to have an advantage in. Everybody gets two, but these advantages are not pocket shotguns, mini-sniper rifles, or map destroying jet packs. These actually allow the player to play the game their way, while still providing a fair and balanced experience. 

 

Through manipulation of the Halo 4 gametype options, I have made a competitive gametype in which everyone spawns with a Battle Rifle, 2X Frag Grenades, no armor abilities, and in most cases no secondary, but players still can have the tactical package and support upgrade of their own choosing. This means a couple of things. If you are like me and abandoned your personal loadout editor a long time ago, time to open that baby back up again!  But don't bother editing their armor abilities or grenades (actually feel free if you like wasting your time) and just focus on the two armor mods that best suit your play style! One of the coolest things that these gametypes bring to competitive play though, is weapon skins! While the gametype forces all players to spawn with BR's the game still recognizes the players' selected BR weapon skins, so if you are a competitive player who loves your weapons skins and is sad that they never get any use, now they can!

 

Pro Tip: if you want to see a super secret weapon skin and have the Champion's Bundle weapon skins, use some of those nifty Assault Rifle skins in your loadouts and see what happens!

 

 

Now onto the more basic stuff, in CCG game variants each player does 15% more damage. This means that each precision weapon's shots-to-kill has been reduced by one. Additionally, players' radars only show ally movement and their ranges have been increased by 40 meters. Two gametypes are exceptions, however, those two being FFA and Ricochet where the radar functions normally and reverts back to its normal range.

 

Now onto the maps. Even back in the KOHPL days, I wanted to include maps from as many different forgers as I could into the mix, not just shipped maps and maps made by myself, so I have compiled multiple maps to be compatible with CCG settings and I am going to list them here for you right now! Keep in mind, the map pool may grow and these decisions are not final, however, it is most likely that if a map is on the following list it will make it into the final map pool. Here we go:

 

Cryptic by Sgt x Slaphead

Acidic by aardvark09j

Cyclone by aardvark09j

Status Bloom by aardvark09j

Treetops by MockKnizzle008

Angst by IKorlash

Splashes by SE7ENGINE

Townsville by aardvark09j

Simplex by Big Papa SaLot

Stigma by Squally DaBeanz

 

You will be able to find some of these maps on my file share, but in the future I will have Waypoint links to these maps so you can download them there. My gamertag is aardvark09j

 

And there you go! Shout out to all of those VERY talented forgers who made those maps listed above. Now for the slightly lamer stuff here are the shipped maps that will be thrown into the mix:

 

Abandon

Adrift

Haven

 

Now I have a question for those of you who are interested in playing CCG in the future. If CCG gets big enough I plan to eventually start holding online tournaments and events and possibly official leagues in the future. My question is, if I were to do this, how many of you would be okay with certain DLC being required to participate? I know it may be a little bit early to ask that, but I want to know what you guys think. If DLC were required, only the Majestic Map Pack and Champion's Bundle maps would be required. Keep that in mind when typing your responses down below.

 

Currently, a CCG prototype website is being built using webs.com, however this is just being used as a temporary test site to see what an official CCG website might look like. Until then, you can get any and all info regarding CCG including news updates and game nights, here on the forums, or you can follow CCG on Twitter @CCGOfficialT . Stay here and hang on, because I've got a lot more incoming

 

So there you have it ladies and gents! CCG is a big endeavor for me and hopefully for the Halo community as a whole. If you are reading this post and you're on board, then please, spread the word. We all want Halo to make a return, but it's up to all of us to make it happen. In fact, let's make #HaloComeback a thing! Tweet about it, tell all of your friends, get excited, and let's start playing some Halo! aardvark out!

 

Halo 4 Life

[Mr Biggles]

I don't want to burst your bubble but

Halo in the competitive scene, in terms of Halo 4, has really long gone, i'd wait for Halo 5 and start there.

[Caboose The Ace]

Comptive Halo 4 really is gone....

 

But keep trying and get ready for Halo 5.

 

I fully support your efforts and congratulate you.

[aardvark09j]

I beg to differ, Mr. Biggles. Besides, I recognize that competitive Halo is gone, but that doesn't mean that it can't come back and having that attitude means it won't. Also, Halo 5 is still a very long ways away. We still have 18 long months before Halo 5 drops and there is no reason not to bring Halo 4 and its community back in that amount of time.

Edited May 30, 2014 by RedStarRocket91
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