First of all, happy thanksgiving for those who celebrate thanksgiving. Now, I would like it if people do not flame me for this post. I am sure I may rustle jimmies, but I feel that Halo 4 just doesn’t have a very good competitive edge to it. Let me say this, Infinity gamemodes are FUN, but at times can be a little irritating. Not everything is perfectly balanced. The game is great! It’s fun, and I’m sure once the CSR (I believe that’s what it’s called) is implemented good and skilled matches will arise. However, there are balancing issues that need to come to light. There are three options.
Option A-You change the entire game, altering the entire game to fit a more classic style of play. Not ideal.
Option B-Keep the game just as it is, keep this new style of play across all the boards. Again, not ideal.
Option C-Keep Infinity gamemodes, as well as traditional classic playlists.
Option C seems like the best bet. The last thing 343i wants to do alienate either communities. If you keep the playlists as they are, you don’t give the competitive community any where to go. If you get rid of Infinity, casual players are forced to play something they may not like. This would not be good for 343i. I believe Halo 3 did it right. They had social playlists for people who were geared to a casual playstyle. Things like Action Sack or Living Dead and Grifball. Then they had ranked playlists where competitive players were matched equally on balanced maps with equal footing for each player. Each community lived in harmony, and that’s part of the reason the game was so successful.
Now, just before I say my proposal, I am prepared for the “Oh, go back to Halo 3” or “Slayer Pro bro”. No. This does not cut it. To those that tell me to go to Halo 3, well one, that game has under 20,000 players. Not very good matches anymore. Plus Halo does need to change, it needs to evolve. However changing the entire game is not the way to go. It needs to be the same basic game, with additions to the game that make it better. Now for the Slayer Pro argument. Slayer Pro is a step in the right direction. However a step is not going to get you to the city.
Now here is my proposal. There should be four playlists that replace Slayer Pro. Before we go into the specifics of each playlist, I will discuss the changes that are basic to all four playlists. First let’s start with weapons.
Battle Rifle-Changed to Four bursts to kill. Three to the chest, one to the head.
DMR-Lower Aim Assist and bullet magnetism greatly. Make it a skill weapon. Make it hard to use at close range. Make it a Mid-Long range weapon. Remove Bloom.
Getting shot out of scope needs to return. No more flinch. Personal Ordinance should be changed to Speed Boost in the powerup spot, and Frags in the grenade spot. (Pressing down on the D-Pad cancels the Ordinance.) Armor Abilities replace equipment, and Sprint is removed from default. No more loadouts. Power weapon on set timers, with set spawn points. Basic weapons strewn about the map in set timers and spawn points.
Playlists will consist of this.
Team Slayer-4v4, straight up team slayer. Battle Rifle starts. Assault Rifle secondary. Symmetrical maps only. Haven, Adrift, Solace, and community maps.
Squad Battle-6v6, mixed objective and slayer. Gametypes consist of CTF, dominion, team slayer, and bring back assault. DMR starts with Magnum secondary. Power Weapons on fixed timers and spawns, as well as basic weapons. Large maps both symmetrical and asymmetrical. Vortex, Complex, Longbow, Meltdown, Exile, and community maps.
Lone Wolves-8 players, FFA, small maps. Slayer, Regicide, KotH, and Oddball. Choose between AR, BR, or DMR starts for Slayer. Regicide has BR and DMR variants. KotH is AR starts and Oddball is BR starts. Small maps, Haven, Adrift, Solace, Abandon, and Community maps.
Team Objective-4v4, Objective gametypes small to medium sized maps. Symmetry depends on gametype. KotH, Oddball (with ball-passing), all CTF variants, all assault variants. BR starts.
Here are my proposals for a more competitive playlist. I don’t understand why one would disagree with this, as it doesn’t remove Infinity for those who like Infinity, plus it can bring more players to the game. Competitive players have their place, and Casual players have their own. Thus, everyone wins. It’s much like Halo 3. It can contribute to large success of this game, as well as adding more custom game options. Sorry for the long read, but I thank you for reading if you did.