So, I was thinking about Halo, as you do while doing yard-work, and my mind happened to start thinking on Firefight and how it could be improved from its previous iterations. In my opinion the reason why Spartan Ops was not well accepted when it launched, by the community, was because it just didn’t recreate the feel that Firefight gave with the endless waves of enemies. Yes, it did give an objective which I thought was cool, but that was it, there was no horde mechanic to it and it just was not a suitable replacement for the cluster of fun that was Firefight. Every time I thought of this, I kept coming back to BO (Black Ops) zombies and tried to see what we could take from a relatively highly rated endless wave mode, that still had an underlying objective, and that is what I think we need. We don’t need zombies (although the flood would make a suitable replacement), cash, wall weapons, buy-able doors, boxes, or buy-able perks. What I think Firefight would truly need would be a mission, given to us at the beginning of the game, but that would take time and multiple waves to complete.
I had several ideas on how this could work and how the missions could be structured. The first thing that I thought of was whether or not we should play as our own Spartans. Now before you go ballistic on me, hear me out. Imagine before you drop into the map you get a cutscene, now having your own Spartans surround a hologram of Sarah Palmer as she describes your mission would be sick. The problem that I see would be that there would really be no kinda character development, because each of our Spartans are unique and we think of them in our own ways. My other proposal is that we bring back ODST’s. Now reimagine the cutscene with four ODST’s surrounding the table, being called by name and told their mission. Each character would have their own unique armor, voice, and personality that could be portrayed through dialogue between the characters both in the cutscene and in game, something that would be very hard to do with just our Spartans.
Regarding the mission aspect of the Firefight, I believe that the best way to pull this off is to give the players no help in the mission itself and hold off on opening certain key areas to the players until they reach a certain wave and have completed the previous portions of the mission. Now in no way would the mission be mandatory, if you just want to play endless waves of enemies, there would be no real penalty for not doing the mission. Yes, you may miss some areas that are connected to the mission, but the starting area would be large enough to be its own Firefight map without the opened areas. The reason I believe that there should not be help for the players, other then their pre-drop exposition, would be because it would make it a challenge and an adventure in and off itself. This would promote player exploration and collaboration to try and find and discover each new section of the mission and its requirements. I also believe that if you were to complete the mission that your would unlock an achievement and maybe even a little extra. Also when the mission is completed, the game would not end, but instead could just continue on as an endless wave mode.
Along with this change to Firefight I thought of several more smaller ones that I would like to see. First off, the revive system, this system was implemented into the campaign and I believe would be a cool addition to Firefight. Second, you know ordnance drops, how about we use those as a kind of reward system. You could set up your personal ordnance before each and every game, and as you got kills it would fill your ordnance bar eventually allowing you to drop in a resupply, perk, or power weapon of choice, although each item would have a different point value that would need to be achieved before being allowed to be called in. Finally, progressive enemy scaling in online multiplayer, so that as the game progresses and as you battle through the waves the enemies get harder and harder.
Now I know that these ideas are ambitious and probably are impossible for Halo 5, but I believe that they are cool and could make a much deeper and enjoyable experience in Firefight for all players. I would love to hear all of your guys opinions on this idea, as well as any other ways we could improve Firefight.
TL;DR - Although Firefight is fun, giving it an underlying objective, its own unique cast, and several other unique additions would add to the overall experience and make it a better gamemode.