Community halo 4 ideas

Games Other Halo
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Hey, I thought we should help 343 with some Ideas for multiplayer so i decided to help us get started. I’ll add good suggestions to these posts and address problems with these ideas. If you don’t feel like reading everything I wrote, just leave your suggestions/ideas below :slight_smile:

For Halo 4 to be successful, it needs to have a lot of changes. However, 343 needs to make sure the core mechanics of the Halo games are kept intact and improved. We will be addressing the multiplayer in this thread.
Here are some of my general ideas we can add many new features, but stay true to Halo’s fast paced action, addictive gameplay, and overall feel.

Ranking: Their NEEDS to be ranked vs unranked playlists. Even the casual players lose out with a lack of ranked playlists because they will get matched up with players who utterly demolish them. For the most part, it should be modeled after Halo 3’s, but it doesn’t need to be 1-50 as long as similarly skilled player are matched up together. I think that they should be add in a detection of how the player is fairing in his games. If they are consistently out/under-performing the people they are playing, the rank should loosen up until they find a more fitting rank. This would prevent rank lock ups and make de-ranking less effective. The most important thing this ranking system would accomplish is pairing similarly skilled players together, because it would mean that the skill gap could be large while the game would still be accessible to casual players.
Sandbox:
Strafing: It plays an important role in the sandbox because it is one of the primary factors in effective kill times. As strafing becomes more effective at throwing off bullets, the kill times start to go up. Halo 4 needs to have a very effective strafe, powerful weapons, and low aim assist to be appeal to a wide player base. The casual players would still have faced paced gameplay because the weapons are strong and their accuracy should be good enough to deal with the undeveloped strafes. The more experienced players will be in a constant battle to get their weapon’s potential kill times while strafing to prevent their opponent from doing so.

In every game since Halo 2, there has been a go-to “Utility” weapon. This weapon was effective in most scenarios and how good a player was depended on his efficiency with this weapon. While a weapon like this is not inherently bad, it made most of the other guns in the game useless. This was somewhat justified since it was “harder” to use than the other weapons in terms of aim assists and magnetism, but unfortunately was so much more powerful that you were better off using it even if you were bad with it. I will draw out a sample sandbox below to demonstrate the advantage of decentralizing the power from a utility weapon.

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Magnum:
Fire rate a bit slower than the H1 Magnum
3 shot kill with 9 bullets per magazine
Accuracy of Halo 3 pistol

Assault rifle:
Very fast fire rate (about Halo 1 AR speed)
Kills in 12 shots if the last three are headshots
Kills in 20 if all are body shots
Aim Assist at Halo 3 BR levels
Accuracy at Halo 3 BR levels

Battle Rifle:
3 burst kill
Similar to Halo 3’s in bullet travel time (leading long range shots is necessarily)
No BR spread (The thing where the 3rd bullet swerves randomly)
Extremely accurate
Halo 2 in accuracy. Ideal human weapon in Mid Range because its much more accurate than the pistol, and a good contender for long range thanks to its scope.

DMR:
3 shot kill
Noticeably slower fire rate than the BR
As accurate as scoped BR without scope
Twice as accurate with scope

Shotgun:
1/3 of the current spread
Smaller cross-hair to show increased accuracy
Increased effective range
Capable of killing in one shot up to a warthog (length) away
Kills in two shots up to two warthogs away
Damage drops off dramatically after that point

Rockets:
Faster moving than H3 rockets
Weaker damage in blast radius than H3 rockets
A ragdoll effect for those caught in the blast radius (they get knocked down and are vulnerable)

Covenant (or whatever the Chief fights) weapons:
Basically mirror the human weapons in niche
High damage and fire rates
Slow bullet Travel time
Require a lot of leading to be effective
Effective against people going down predictable routes (common in objective games)
Ineffective against good strafes

If the sandbox was something like this, no weapon would be dominant in all scenarios. The Battle Rifle would still be good in many, but a player who uses the BR blindly would probably lose to a pistol user in a close range encounter, and DMR user in a long range shootout. This would encourage decision making, and give weapon combos specific strengths and weaknesses.

Armor abilities:
These should be pick ups on maps that players fight for control of. A player who dies with an Armor ability, would drop the armor ability that could then be picked up by the enemy. The abilities would work in your advantage if used correctly, and against you if misused. Examples of how they could be done right:

Speed Module: While enabled, the player glides moving twice the normal speed. The player can still fire weapons and throw grenades, but would freeze for 1.5 seconds if shot while using it. It could be used to enhance a strafe or move towards a call out, but would be ineffective for escaping because of the freeze effect. This ability would have a battery, and be unusable once it ran out.

Jet Pack: Placed near the center on vertical maps, it would be fuel based and would be capable of flying as long as there was fuel left. There would be enough fuel in a freshly spawned jetpack up to 8 times as the Reach one can. The Jet Pack could be used to help establish map control and break set ups. The verticality of the maps would give Jet Pack users a huge advantage in mobility over others. However if they lose an encounter, the enemy can pick up the Jetpack and use it against them. This would give vertical maps an intense feeling, as the Teams would battle for the Jet-Pack since it would be crucial in maintaining map control.

Armor Lock:

To enter armor lock, a player would need full shields and go through a fairly lengthy animation (5 seconds) while vulnerable to gunfire. If shot while doing the in this time frame, the player would be knocked out of the animation. Once the player has gone through the animation, they can walk around, their radar is deactivated, and their armor emits bright blue color.

As soon as they enter armor lock, their suit begins to heat up, it starts of heating up at a rate of 5% per second. Each time the suit takes enough damage to pop shields, the rate of heating doubles.

While they are in armor lock, they can also temporarily deactivate it too let the suit cool down. (Holding left trigger) While the suit cools down, they have no shields and their suit emits a red armor lock color and the heating drops at a rate of 5% per second. Once the the suit is 100% cooled down, they can reactivate the standard shielding (Releasing left trigger) or re-activate armor lock (pressing left bumper).

If the heating reaches 100% the player is forced to enter a cool off stage, and will be unable to enter until the heating drops below 50%.

Controls recap:
Hold left bumper through animation to enter (letting go won’t exit AL after the animation is done)
Hold right trigger to cool down with no shielding (Releasing will reactivate armor lock)
At 0% heated:
-pressing bumper will exit armor lock
-releasing left trigger will exit armor lock

Armor lock would be very powerful, but only in the right hands. It would be effective against disorganized teams, and in most 1v1 situations. However, Armor lock turns into a liability when facing a well armed opponent or when ambushed by the opposing team. It would best be placed in central areas of asymmetrical maps

Dual wielding:
Basically the same as Halo 3 except:
Individual Weapons don’t lose damage when dual wielded
(There is no weapon on your back)<-*EDIT: There is a weapon on your back
You can dual wield any two weapons (but scopes are disabled)
Dual wielding 2 traditionally two-handed weapons (BR, SR) will make the reload times extremely long
When Dual wielding, the Aim Assist is brought down to an unscoped sniper level

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Maps: These need to be well thought out. The weapon/Armor Ability placement should promote movement and allow for well-organized teams to gain map control. There should be both symmetrical and asymmetrical maps, but the asymmetrical maps should be balanced enough that they can be used for more than just objective gametypes.

Invasion 2.0: Invasion didn’t really reach its true potential because it was basically a gimmicky tweak for slayer. Invasion 2.0 should have more user interaction in the Maps, and the objectives should be more dynamic than just stand in the blue zone. The games should also be less linear, and give the teams more flexibility for how they want to carry the mission out.

An engineer class could have the ability to destroy/repair the security system so the enemy team won’t be notified when they are making progress in their objectives.

A demolitions class would spawn with C4 that could be used to open new routes to objectives.

An assault class would specialize in taking out enemies

A sniper class would help watch from behind and cover teammates

A spec ops class would have the ability to identify enemy positions

Some more specific invasion modes below:

Secure the core: Basically the same as the current invasion (but butter maps, plan flexibility and classes)

Secure the Data: Break into the database and secure secret info.

Holdout: Protect an important area until reinforcements arrive. Defenders have 10 lives each.

There could be a spec ops version of each invasion gametype, where instead of being 6v6, it would be 4v8. The team of four would have access to much better equipment, but be down in man power. This would be a available in the playlist with a max part size of 4 so the parties wouldn’t be broken up.

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Though I can bare with Reach armor abilities, that does not mean I want them in H4. Sprint feels nerfed with.the whole freeze.when shot. I’d rather run and not be able to shoot while doing so, then freeze. All the other abilities can blow off. Make sprint default. 3 shots for dmr is too short and 3 bursts for Br. Same goes for pistol, it’s too short of a kill time. I agree with maps excluding AAs, so that out ruled my decision. Duel wielding should still allow you to have another weapon on your back. Agree with unique invasion and ranked/unranked playlists and everything else.

If AAs do return, then I’ll just have cope with it. Not so sure about Sandbox rules …
I read the whole thing, your welcome xD.

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LOL Thanks.
The minimum kill times are really fast but most people won’t be able to get them because of the lowered assists and faster strafing. The kill times will be about the same length for most people, but best players will be rewarded with fastest kills. Most people should be 5 shotting with these weapons once all these factors are considered.

The Speed ability isn’t supposed to be sprint. Its supposed to be more of a speed enhancement that can’t be used to negate the consequences of bad decisions. Sprint made that all too common in Reach.

If you can tell me why the armor abilities are bad, I will remove them from the post.

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I heard that the magnum is going to have 12 shots and i heard there is a map called hazard.

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> LOL Thanks.
> The minimum kill times are really fast but most people won’t be able to get them because of the lowered assists and faster strafing. The kill times will be about the same length for most people, but best players will be rewarded with fastest kills. Most people should be 5 shotting with these weapons once all these factors are considered.
>
> The Speed ability isn’t supposed to be sprint. Its supposed to be more of a speed enhancement that can’t be used to negate the consequences of bad decisions. Sprint made that all too common in Reach.
>
> If you can tell me why the armor abilities are bad, I will remove them from the post.

They are a crutch for bad players.

/thread

But in all seriousness, you need to rethink some of the things in your post.

Armor Lock would be 10X worse like that. It would be like a permanent Overshield.

Jet Pack doesn’t belong in Halo, as it ruins map control. And we were fine without Sprint for 9 years, because we moved faster than a -Yoinking!- turtle like in Reach.

The 3sk pistol was great in Halo 1, but it probably can’t fit today. And a 3sk BR/DMR? Everyone would spawn with a Power Weapon.

The Shotgun’s range has been fine for 10 years, it doesn’t need to be changed now.

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> >
>
> They are a crutch for bad players.
>
> /thread
>
> But in all seriousness, you need to rethink some of the things in your post.
>
> Armor Lock would be 10X worse like that. It would be like a permanent Overshield.
>
> Jet Pack doesn’t belong in Halo, as it ruins map control. And we were fine without Sprint for 9 years, because we moved faster than a Yoink! turtle like in Reach.
>
> The 3sk pistol was great in Halo 1, but it probably can’t fit today. And a 3sk BR/DMR? Everyone would spawn with a Power Weapon.
>
> The Shotgun’s range has been fine for 10 years, it doesn’t need to be changed now.

Just because the jetpack changes map-control doesn’t mean it ruins it. Controlling the jetpack would be an important part of the set-up. Anyways, its not like the whole team SPAWNS with it. Thats the reason the it was broken in Reach.

AL would be a lot more powerful like this, but the current armor lock isn’t really that powerful. It is, as you said, a crutch for bad players. However, the armor locker is still very vulnerable. As he soaks up damage, his time of invicibility shrinks considerably. This armor lock is basically a glass-cannon. Its very powerful, but just as vulnerable. The fact that the damage impacts the time would make Guerilla tactics extremely effective since they will effectively be doing damage even when not firing. (Because of the increased drain speed).

Heres a scenario:

A player encounters an armor locker.

The Armor locker has been in AL for 5 seconds so he has 15 seconds left.

They exchange blows, and the Armor locker wins the confronation, but took a 3 body shots from a DMR.
The encounter lasted 5 seconds, so the armor locker now has 5 seconds of invincibility left (because it overheats twice as fast now)

The player the Armor Locker killed calls out the Armor-Lockers location and a team mate gets to the location and finds him trying to get AL to cool off, and shoots him in the head.

The 3 shot kills would only be a lot harder to achieve with lower aim assist/bullet magnetism and faster movement. This means only the best people can get 3 shot kills, while the average killtimes would be 4 to 5 shots. The fact that a better player can kill faster than worse players widens the skill gap. In the more recent Halo games, it was too easy to get the minimum killtimes, so i can see why you think they would be power weapons.

And that was the reason I thought a versatile shotgun would be needed to have a proper niche in the sandbox. If the old shotgun was thrown in with these weapons, it would be limited to camping doors since a the other weapons would have no trouble killing someone charging directly at them. The versatile shotgun would need a buff to definitively be a power weapon.