Rushing at enemies while shooting an assault rifle. Dancing around while shooting a battle rifle. Annoying double melees. These are all products of the limitations of Halo’s core gameplay, which has always been simply about draining two health bars from an enemy player. After ten years, I think it’s about time some real depth was added to Halo’s core gameplay.
How about instead of simply draining two health bars from an enemy player, you can also cripple her/his armor or systems, giving semi-automatic weapons an excuse to be extremely useful in combat without having to make them several times more powerful than automatic weapons.
Perhaps instead of players rushing toward each other for a double melee, they have access to a few powerful melee attacks and perhaps the ability to counter a melee attack. Making the melee abilities of players more dangerous would give every weapon in Halo an excuse to have greater range, which would make melee attacks a risky tactic of last resort.
(If you think double melees in Halo Reach are bad, you haven’t played Crysis 2. The annoying melee system in that game makes Reach look like a god.)
I’m sure there’s thousands of ways to add depth to Halo’s core gameplay. My ideas might be good. They might be awful. I’m curious to know what your ideas are and how you think they can improve future Halo games.