Before Firefight was announced to return for Reach last summer, we all speculated on what we would have liked to see. Most of us wanted matchmaking and customization, but looking at those in action makes me wonder if those desires are what ruined Firefight in Reach.
I am of the opinion that Firefight was better in ODST than it is in Reach because I believe Firefight to be about tactical survival. You and your team have to work together to last endless waves of Covenant. The survival genre isn’t new to FPS (or gaming); however, it’s a nice break from Campaign and Multiplayer and I love a game that offers it on the side.
I was glad to see Firefight get more attention in Reach, but I feel that it’s for the wrong reasons. Instead of emphasizing survival, players are instead using it for easy cR and kill-farming. Due to the laggier netcode, players would rather vote for games with explosive ordnance, as it is easier to use under stressed conditions. Firefight went from survival to “how many grunts can I rocket, and how many times can I do it a day before I rank up?”.
Obviously neither Bungie nor 343i are going to change the core FF experience. They feel that FF has evolved and the ‘arcade’ version is the standard for Reach. That’s fine and all, but fans of ODST’s version essentially got alienated. Firefight Limited fails to hearken back to the more classic experience, so with this thread I’m hoping my proposed changes for Firefight Limited will be able to satisfy players’ grunty thirst for ODST’s version.
Emphasis on Survival
In ODST, you had a limited number of lives to share between your team. Because your survival was critical to the combined strength of your team, players usually played tactically and worked with each other. Allotted lives are enough to force a player to change their playing style for fear of being eliminated, so it’s imperative that Firefight Limited maintains this setting. However, there are griefers (the true trolls by the way, which I am not) who go into FF LTD just to die and cause their team to be eliminated.
So to prevent this, each player should have 3 lives for the round. In ODST, you usually only invited people you knew to play with you (or people who wanted to survive for Endure). In a matchmaking setting, you aren’t going to get people with your same goal all the time, so your teammates wont always want to survive (or be capable of doing so). By distributing lives to each player, it ensures that each person plays smart lest they be eliminated for the round. This also means friendly fire remains off (which was ridiculous to have been overlooked by Bungie in the first place).
Weapons
In ODST, each person started with an SMG and Pistol (or sniper on Windward). These weapons are capable of getting kills if used properly, but for the most part you’ll need to pick up weapons the Covenant drop. You could only replenish these weapons a finite amount of times before the cache ran out, meaning you had to conserve ammo and juggle extra weapons back to your reserve. By allowing players to start with DMRs, Grenade Launchers, and other weapons, we decrease the need to pick up other weapons. Most people start with the DMR and pick off the Covenant from long range, which leads to selfish, shooting gallery type gameplay. In order to fully replicate the ODST experience, the only loadout for Firefight Limited should be AR/Pistol starts. The pistol is headshot capable, but you’ll have to pick up NRs from Jackals or DMRs from heretics if you want something stronger than it. The default AA should be Sprint.
The infinite ammo crates can stay because the Pistol will run out of rounds very quickly. This will allow players to replenish their starting ammo if they are unable to pick up other weapons. I’d personally rather see finite ammo crates; unfortunately, Firefight maps are not-configurable and I do not believe such a setting could be enabled with a newly scripted gametype. If they could be configured, I’d also like to see drop shields as pick ups.
The last weapon change I would suggest is to remove the Target Locator and Fuel Rod Grunts. Not only are FRGrunts annoying, but they come rather frequently, meaning explosive ordnance is always in surplus. We don’t want to make killing the Covenant too easy, so they will have to go. Everybody on the team shouldn’t have a FRG after wave 3.
Enemies
One reason people love Zombies in Black Ops is because after a certain time, the zombies cam swarm and overwhelm you. The frantic pace of the game mode gets players’ adrenaline running, which ODST also managed to accomplish at times. Firefight Limited needs to emulate that feeling of being overwhelmed, and to do this we’ll need to switch the enemies around. We need more Elites and less Jackals. We need more Chieftans and less FRGrunts. We need more Hunters and less Skirmishers spraying Needlers at us. In fact, I’d like to see nearly all of the Needler enemies eliminated entirely, as it does not provide any immediate danger and instead comes off as an annoyance. We need more aggressive and more deadly enemies so we are constantly on our toes.
The Covenant need to be intimidating, and I frankly don’t see it happening when a bunch of Jackals and Grunts are waddling their way towards me with Plasma Pistols. By making the Covenant more intimidating and deadly, players will be encouraged to work together and develop tactics and strategies in order to best slay them. We’ll see less running and gunning and more barricading and holding our defenses. Firefight will become about survival like ODST’s was.
Population
Logically, making Firefight Limited more difficult will turn off some players, correct? After all, it is not as popular as the other firefight playlists. Thankfully, we’ve learned how much of an influence credits can have on a player’s playlist choice, which is why I propose Firefight Limited offers cR jackpots and double cR earn per game from now on. With this change, more people will be able to experience the new Firefight experience. The survival based gameplay will provide a challenge that true firefight players and those simply in for the credits will enjoy.
I loved the cooperative atmosphere of ODST firefight. I completed Endure dozens of times on all of the maps and I loved every minute of it. It was a blast working with my buddies to survive the onslaught of aliens, so I’m hoping to someday see the Firefight experience in Reach hearken back to those days. If you also feel the same way, support this thread with your opinions about Firefight.