“Not really. There are multiplayer guys working on multiplayer and campaign guys working on campaign. With Spartan Ops likely cut and the huge number of new employees that fled into 343i both by the end of Halo 4’s dev cycle and after it, time shouldn’t be too much of a negative factor. Resources, on the other hand, are a different beast but I still think it’s more than manageable to include Legendary and Infinity settings off the bat.”
As I do agree that 343i have both a team for both multiplayer and campaign, we also must not assume that all of these new employees at 343i are working solely on Halo Xbox One. It’s a known fact that 343 currently has multiple Halo projects in the works such as Halo Xbox One , The Halo Television Series, as well as an unannounced project Halo Project that is in the works. Nevertheless even if 343i did have a hugely significant staff increase we must also consider that 343 is working with a whole new system, The Xbox One, and must find out the kinks of the system in order to create a formidable product. Nevertheless, 343i will have a shorter development cycle than most other Halo games to date and will still prove to be a herculean task trying to implement all of the core aspects of the Halo experience while still being able to please the community.
“This is just wrong. The community is already fragmented and the only way to make a product like able by all is to give both sides what they want.”
It would be more fragmented than it already is. Imagine Halo Xbox One launching with both Classic and Infinity Playlists. We will see a huge divide amongst two separate communities of Classic and Infinity playlists that 343i has to listen to. The reason why it would cause more of a divide rather than now is because Halo 4 did not launch with any kind of classic playlists in mind and most classic players had to conform and play Infinity Slayer. 343i kind of forced these settings on to the classic players making them play these gametypes that they didn’t enjoy. As a result it didn’t fragment the community as much as it would have if Halo 4 launched with both Classic AND Infinity playlists in mind.
“This is just wrong. Having Sprint in the campaign (for instance) would not be a bad thing and would not render it unplayable. Besides, the campaign has always had unique features that differentiate it from multiplayer.”
Although I see your point, let me answer it with a rebuttal. The original Halo Trilogy’s campaign was heralded for it’s open environments and wide-open level design. With the inclusion of Sprint and Armor-Abilities, however, make the missions feel smaller as you are able to traverse these missions more quickly and with more bravado. This result in a more seemingly linear approach to the campaign. I mean, look at the difference between Halo 4’s campaign and Halo 3’s. The difference is enormous as Halo 3 had more open level design as well as more robust encounters that felt as if it had more than one way of dealing with them. (The Covenant Double-Scarab battle anyone?) Look, I agree that armor abilities and sprint do add a lot to the campaign but you must also realize that it poses some threat to the campaign level design from previous games that many classic players do enjoy.
“That is arguable. I think there are ways to make everyone happy here too. For instance, making sprint only give an extremely small speed boost (like 10-20%) and making the default speed in classic playlists higher. But to be honest, Infinity can live without Sprint and it can live with the more OP/game breaking AAs (Jet Pack and Camo, for instance) as on-map spawns. Infinity as it is today is not what it will look like in Halo 5, nor is today’s Legendary. Both variants will be improved on and if both are taken into consideration at the game’s conception, both can work on the same maps and gametypes with only slight tweaks.”
Look, I do understand the point you are trying to make, but Infinity settings do play a larger role in map design than you may think. Believing that scrapping Sprint, Jet-pack, and Active Camo will not just solve the problem. Other problems persist on map flow such as random ordinance drops, personal ordinance, loadouts, instant re spawns, and once again, armor abilities. Making maps that are able to implement both styles of play are mediocre at best and near unplayable for one side or the other at worst. With the argument of how Infinity and Legendary settings being improved upon in the future installments is pure assumption. When 343i were talking about the development of Halo 4, they said that they would include some sort of playlist at launch (or in the near future) that will appeal to classic fans. They hadn’t done it at launch and they still have not done it successfully. Legendary still does not have a classic Halo feel with it’s inclusion of sprint, although it is a step in the right direction. Think back upon all of the promises that 343 was unable to keep because of a limited development time. Or perhaps a lot of the features they removed such as Campaign Theater or Custom Games Gametypes. Assuming that 343i will improve upon both play styles and have them both ready at launch is only getting our hopes up just to get them smashed back down. Look, I would love to proven wrong here, but unless 343i gives us some concrete details on their multiplayer, as a community, out voice must be heard in order to create a more focused Halo experience.