Concerning Larger Player Counts for Halo

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

There is demand for larger player counts and while I do see a stretch into 10v10/12v12 and maybe 16v16(this might be pushing it) possible and welcome additions. Here is why anything above that will not work with the current game.

Why 32v32/64v64 do not work with Halo’s current iteration:

The sandbox(vehicles, weapons, mechanics) are not suited for large player counts. They must be completely rebalanced to suit massive player counts.

-Weapons: Few guns in the game are suited for truly long range encounters and no weapons are suited for massive encounters. The game would be rather dull with having only few weapons that are actually effective for such encounters. The weapons TTK, Kills per mag and effective range are simply suited for much smaller scales.

-Vehicles:Vehicle health and its mechanics also don’t work with large player counts. Say goodbye to vehicle combat as we know it, PP loadouts were already bad enough. To rebalance vehicles so they don’t get shredded, you’d have to adjust the health and the ways to kill it. If the solution is to make it immune to small arms fire, how do we rebalance ways to kill it? Do we spawn with and make Rockets/Lasers do mainly damage to vehicles and PPs/Power Drains a slow instead of a stun?

Map Design:I have seen people say map design will make it work, but it is not enough. To have map design suit the current weapons and vehicles, you’d have to have maps that prevent long range encounters and encounters with many people shooting at each other. This is essentially sectioning off combat in to multiple smaller scale games. At that point, you might as well play separate 2v2-8v8 games without unnecessary background noise and network traffic.

Solutions/Compromise:

-Spinoff: I was honestly against this solution at first, but after giving it some thought I think it actually is viable since people really do want it. I still see problems with 343 balancing two different FPS games, having mechanics split between two games etc. Either form of play will get more TLC than the other or neither get it and we end up with Two half–Yoinked!- games. Unless, they want to get another developer to do it.

I’d still rather see the FPS spinoffs just experiment with core mechanics and still play like a Halo FPS, rather than just do a complete overhaul and make a different FPS game, that’s just me. 343 should still prioritize and get Halo back to the arena style, but after giving it thought the spinoff is probably the best compromise. Hey we might even be able to see other vehicles that would be problematic in the previous sandbox if put in MP, like the Pelican and Scarab.

Any other compromises you got? Agree/Disagree?

2

The only argument that somewhat managed to convince me was that Halo doesn’t have enough long range weapons to support combat on very large, very open maps, that much is true. Other than that, I’m not convinced by your reasoning.

Kill times and magazine sizes aren’t suited for large scale combat? If we talk about combat density, we’ve definitely seen dense combat gametypes in Halo before, one of which is multi-team. Magazine sizes are completely adequate with the reload speeds of Halo and the long kill times actually work in favor of high density combat because the biggest issue there is often that players get killed too quickly.

When it comes to vehicle combat, the vehicles are well enough durable even for very dense combat. I mean, it’s not really difficult to get at least a Killing Frenzy when you jump in a vehicle in any Halo. I wouldn’t actually mind if there was more danger to vehicle users in BTB as long as the vehicles are up to the task and not as weak is they were in Halo Reach and 4. You ask how to balance vehicles? Halo 3 style vehicle health, not affected by small arms, and an adequate amount of anti-vehicle weapons on the map. As long as the vehicles aren’t vulnerable to small arms and snipers, everything is well.

Finally, when it comes to map design, you don’t need to compartmentalize the map for it to work. All you really need is large open areas for vehicles, and close quarters areas for players to traverse the map. At the scales we’re talking about, there are a lot of options to design an adequate map. Another advantage Halo has are teleporters. They are very effective for moving players around the map, which helps with one of the large logistical problem in designing large scale PVP, which is moving players around without boring them.

It’s definitely not that large scale combat can’t work with Halo. All you really need is proper map design and DMRs for everyone, maybe a couple new long range capable power weapons. No, the reason at least I don’t want large scale combat is because that comes at the expense of other gameplay. The more maps that get made for large scale combat, the less maps can be made for more traditional 2v2, 4v4, 8v8, 8 player FFA, and multi-team combat, which I personally prefer to 16v16 and 32v32.

3

> The only argument that somewhat managed to convince me was that Halo doesn’t have enough long range weapons to support combat on very large, very open maps, that much is true. Other than that, I’m not convinced by your reasoning.

Fair enough, I’ll try my best to convince you then :slight_smile:

> Kill times and magazine sizes aren’t suited for large scale combat? If we talk about combat density, we’ve definitely seen dense combat gametypes in Halo before, one of which is multi-team. Magazine sizes are completely adequate with the reload speeds of Halo and the long kill times actually work in favor of high density combat because the biggest issue there is often that players get killed too quickly.

Halo’s weapons have an average KPM at about 2-3 and average ttk of 1-2 secs. What happens when an engagement where there is 20 player shooting at each other then? Weapons in Halo are not going to be effective when suddenly the average encounter is 8x larger. The problem with our kill times and Kills per mag is that it is only meant to kill so many players at once. Kill times need to be lowered if anything for larger scales so you can actually fight more people at once. In Halo, when you play even BTB you are still not engaging all 8 players at once. In the end for large player counts you’d need weapon balancing.

> When it comes to vehicle combat, the vehicles are well enough durable even for very dense combat. I mean, it’s not really difficult to get at least a Killing Frenzy when you jump in a vehicle in any Halo. I wouldn’t actually mind if there was more danger to vehicle users in BTB as long as the vehicles are up to the task and not as weak is they were in Halo Reach and 4. You ask how to balance vehicles? Halo 3 style vehicle health, not affected by small arms, and an adequate amount of anti-vehicle weapons on the map. As long as the vehicles aren’t vulnerable to small arms and snipers, everything is well.

I honestly wish it were this easy. The reason you can get a kill frenzy is because there are only so many players shooting it, hijacking it and so many power weapons available on the map. When you multiply that number, vehicles just don’t last long. Even if you do it that way, the weapons used to kill it have to be rebalanced. In BTB there are max 2 splasers, PPs on your side. In 32v32 you need specifically more and you’d have to rebalance them so you don’t have those weapons affect infantry, we might even have to spawn with them. Do we still have Splasers/Rockets OSK on vehicles? I still feel like you need a vehicle sandbox overhaul.

> Finally, when it comes to map design, you don’t need to compartmentalize the map for it to work. All you really need is large open areas for vehicles, and close quarters areas for players to traverse the map. At the scales we’re talking about, there are a lot of options to design an adequate map. Another advantage Halo has are teleporters. They are very effective for moving players around the map, which helps with one of the large logistical problem in designing large scale PVP, which is moving players around without boring them.

Like I said before I wish it was this easy. If we have close quarter areas how do you prevent large scale encounters and long sight lines? Weapons like I said are not meant to fight so many people at once. If the vehicles are in open areas, how do you balance player vs vehicle combat?Its not just about moving players around the map without boring them, its making sure that when they move around the map it is affect on gameplay. If we have teleporters and mancannons or whatever to move people, how do we stop enemy players from spawn camping the most efficient way to move around the map? It just opens so many balance issues that simply won’t be solved with just map design.

> It’s definitely not that large scale combat can’t work with Halo. All you really need is proper map design and DMRs for everyone, maybe a couple new long range capable power weapons. No, the reason at least I don’t want large scale combat is because that comes at the expense of other gameplay. The more maps that get made for large scale combat, the less maps can be made for more traditional 2v2, 4v4, 8v8, 8 player FFA, and multi-team combat, which I personally prefer to 16v16 and 32v32.

Agree with the gameplay part. BTW thank you, you are the only one to actually give an argument with reasoning on how it can work. Halo’s sandbox is still designed around smaller player counts, though and it has its boundaries. Not to mention arena gameplay won’t work with this.

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> Halo’s weapons have an average KPM at about 2-3 and average ttk of 1-2 secs. What happens when an engagement where there is 20 player shooting at each other then? Weapons in Halo are not going to be effective when suddenly the average encounter is 8x larger. The problem with our kill times and Kills per mag is that it is only meant to kill so many players at once. Kill times need to be lowered if anything for larger scales so you can actually fight more people at once. In Halo, when you play even BTB you are still not engaging all 8 players at once. In the end for large player counts you’d need weapon balancing.

But is an engagement with 20 players realistic? I can’t imagine such an encounter unless there is a huge incentive for all players in the match to go to one location, which means gametypes like Oddball and KotH, neither of which is intended for big team matches. When you have a really big map with multiple routes and no central objective, you’re not going to get these huge engagements.

In any game, a single player is only intended to go against a few players at maximum. If there are so many opponents against you simultaneously that you have no time to reload, you wouldn’t survive even if you didn’t have to. You’re constantly losing health, and if you have no time, you will eventually die from a single hit.

Unless you are in a really bad position, there is always the possibility to back behind the corner to reload. If you don’t have the possiblity, you are either out in the open, or completely surrounded. In any case, even if you had infinite ammo, you might be able to do a bit more damage, but ultimately you couldn’t survive.

It doesn’t make a major difference how much health you have. In a game with little health, you can kill opponents faster, but you’re also more likely to die a sudden, unexpected death. In a game with a lot of health, you will kill slower, but you can always back away when your health starts going too slow, and go again when you get it back. Neither system is less optimal in any way.

> I honestly wish it were this easy. The reason you can get a kill frenzy is because there are only so many players shooting it, hijacking it and so many power weapons available on the map. When you multiply that number, vehicles just don’t last long. Even if you do it that way, the weapons used to kill it have to be rebalanced. In BTB there are max 2 splasers, PPs on your side. In 32v32 you need specifically more and you’d have to rebalance them so you don’t have those weapons affect infantry, we might even have to spawn with them. Do we still have Splasers/Rockets OSK on vehicles? I still feel like you need a vehicle sandbox overhaul.

I don’t want the vehicles to last that long, that’s the point. Getting the Killing Frenzy shouldn’t be that easy. I’ve always been extremely bothered by the fact that I can jump into a Scorpion and get 40 kills because there simply aren’t enough opponents coming at me at once. Same goes for the Banshee. It’s a bit less extreme for small ground vehicles like Warthogs, but give a good driver and it’s really easy to maintain the right distance to all opponents. I would be happy if there were more players attacking vehicles.

But again, when it comes to large scale combat, if the maps are larger, nothing really changes. If a map is two times larger and has twice the amount of players power weapons and vehicles, you’re going to find a very similar gameplay experience. If there are two main paths instead of one, the players are going to divide to those approximately evenly, and so are the weapons and vehicles. It all really depends so much on the map. You can absolutely make a map that will be too small, have absolute chaos, too many weapons, and so on. But you don’t have to. The map can be arbitrarily large to the point that everyone is having trouble finding opponents. It all comes back to map design.

> Like I said before I wish it was this easy. If we have close quarter areas how do you prevent large scale encounters and long sight lines?

A large encounter is created if all players for some reason flock to a single location. How to solve that? Make multiple locations. If you have two main paths that both need to be defended by the teams, you can’t have all players from one team going to one because then the other team gets to push through the other and can attack from the back. How about long sight lines? Walls. Walls are always good for blocking sight lines.

> If the vehicles are in open areas, how do you balance player vs vehicle combat?

Players have (few) weapons that can take down vehicles from a distance. Vehicles need to seek cover (not found in the open) and get closer to the players to get kills. Players also have numerous ways to kill vehicles if they get close enough. It’s a symbiotic relationship. All you need is space for players where they have an advantage against vehicles.

> If we have teleporters and mancannons or whatever to move people, how do we stop enemy players from spawn camping the most efficient way to move around the map? It just opens so many balance issues that simply won’t be solved with just map design.

If one teleporter to a location is not good enough: make another to its vicinity. If the enemy team can still safely camp both: put a third one tha allows flanking somewhere else. The idea is simple: the more paths you have, the harder it is for the opponents to control all of them. Eventually, you will end up in a situation where everything flows well enough.

> BTW thank you, you are the only one to actually give an argument with reasoning on how it can work.

Thanks, I’m always happy to disagree!

5

I think 32 vs 32 game types is just fine as long as there are big maps to support it.

It will be a cluster-YOINK!- but it will be fun. I only see it serving well in big team objective based games like KoTH, Dominion, Oddball or Extraction.

The only problem with this is that it will inevitably draw comparisons to BF.

For me, IDC as long as it is Halo.

6

If it would please you guys to read it, I actually put together a gametype concept about a year ago that tried to roughly provide a way for 16v16 to work. Shout out to Ramirez for the input he put forth in the topic.

“Warzone”

What do y’all think?