One of the top things I look for in games these days is customization. Whether it’s a wrestler in WWE, or a car in Need For Speed. Even though I don’t care much for those games I will spend hours customizing just for the fun of it. When the armor selection expanded in Halo 4 I almost died. I would strive for hours just to unlock some forearms I thought looked amazing. I think this concept should carry over into Halo Wars 2. Hear me out 343 buddies.
I’m sure the company have a lot more features and ideas to be added into the sequel. I believe that customization would be a HUGE plus to add. It’s another layer you can add onto the game. With Halo Wars all I could do is collect all the skulls and black boxes and that was all the replay ability the game had. After that it was just leader vs. leader, match after match. Nothing ever changed. The game was great but didn’t expand much. Having to unlock customization options can seriously help with this. No worries it does not have to get crazy in depth.
Of course this wouldn’t be for Campaign but for other modes. A few examples of this could be choosing a different style of outfit for you Marine or Elite infantry. Think of how heartfelt fans will get if the see the option to change the Elites armor from Halo 4 to Halo 3 armor. You can even add in special new armors made just for the game. Or they can change the Arbiter from Halo 3 to Halo 5. Or even change the color. You know a red energy sword is the coolest thing ever yes you do. This can even expand to vehicles and Spartan armor (Mark IV, Mark V, Mark VI, etc.) So even keep it simple with just colors armor variants and skins, or go into crazy detail. Either way I’m going to freak out and play for hours and hours so I can unlock as much as I can before the sun comes up.
A small branch of this idea wasn’t what I wanted to push but I at least wanted to bring it up. Weapon choices can help a player choose their own play style. All I had in mind was that UNSC Marines can have a loadout of either an Assault Rifle, SMG, or Battle Rifle. Of course leveling up the Units will give them better weapons, but as a basic Unit just add these basic weapons to change range or mobility. The upgraded Units can possibly have different weapons too. Like either a Saw or the almighty Grenade Launcher. The same concept would apply to other Units and species.
These are just some ideas I had in mind but they are ideas I strongly recommend. This would truly show that 343 can make this game personal to each player and will shine as a next-gen game. I have a love for Halo and Halo Wars is still a favorite of mine. I look forward to getting Halo Wars 2!
I like the idea of adding customization to players, but I don’t think changing the load outs of marine squads is really all that exciting. Maybe, unlockable skins for units, like the flaming warthog or honor guard wraith, or how you suggested the arbiter.
Now that I think about, it would seem very tedious changing each skin individually, but who knows.
> 2717573882290912;2:
> I like the idea of adding customization to players, but I don’t think changing the load outs of marine squads is really all that exciting. Maybe, unlockable skins for units, like the flaming warthog or honor guard wraith, or how you suggested the arbiter.
>
> Now that I think about, it would seem very tedious changing each skin individually, but who knows.
Yeah they don’t have to get too crazy with the options. Just a few option for each Unit is fine. Tedious? I don’t think so since Halo Wars only had about 10 different Units per leader, and Halo 4 armor had 7 different sections along with the color, Emblem, and Loadout options. That’s just my opinion though each person is different on the depth of customization.
All I would really want is emblems and the ability to change the colour of every team to be the same every game to you.
( for example: I could always be blue on my screen and my teammates green and yellow, but on my teammates screen I’m green and they are purple and our other friend is orange.)
But I am keen on skins just not individual selection, as said above, it would be annoying.
> 2533274882881665;4:
> All I would really want is emblems and the ability to change the colour of every team to be the same every game to you.
> ( for example: I could always be blue on my screen and my teammates green and yellow, but on my teammates screen I’m green and they are purple and our other friend is orange.)
>
> But I am keen on skins just not individual selection, as said above, it would be annoying.
The infantry Units would all have the same skin, rather then each to their own. If anything at least give vehicles skins. The Emblem idea would be cool too.
Would be interesting to have skin packs to apply to leader factions kinda like texture packs for minecraft. URF skin pack for UNSC leaders, or heretic skin pack for covenant leaders.
i think customization would be awesome
Just keep the customization simple yet in depth and very intricate like in the Earth21XX games
on these you could choose an infantryman and vehicles weapon [which ranged from pistols and rifles to mini nuke rocket launchers], armor [various armors having better resistances to different damage], equipment [Radios, medkits, repair tools, shields Ect] and ‘skin’ then save this as a ‘blueprint’ which then let you produce those units you’ve designed [along side the ‘canon’ game units] This kind of system would let us build armies we want to build while not bogging people down. Best part about this is it could be used on the fly to counter enemy custom units as well
Base unit [The basic hull of a vehicle and the standard infantryman with no armor or weapon’s]
Weapon 1 [Guns ect]
Weapon 2
Weapon 3
Weapon 4
Engine [Vehicle Only]
Secondary Engine [Vehicle Only]
Armor
Equipment 1 [Shields, repair pods, troop transport bays, healing pods/bays ect]
Equipment 2
Equipment 3
Equipment 4
Equipment 5
Primary Skin/Decal
Secondary Skin/Decal
Tertiary Skin/Decal
Primary Colour
Secondary Colour
Tertiart Colour
Weapon Colour
Light’s Colour
For infantrymen you would be able to choose the different weapons and equipment of each individual squad member [with the squads becoming more and more expensive the more powerful weapons you give them. So an infantryman squad all with spartan lasers would be much more expensive than one with all Magnums]
Tanks and other vehicles would also become more and more expensive as you went on and added more powerful weapons and equipment.
I think this kind of customisation system would be great as it would let us make a wide veriaty of vehicles and units letting us mix and match the parts of everything
> 2533274842166627;9:
> …
hmm?
> 2533274882881665;4:
> All I would really want is emblems and the ability to change the colour of every team to be the same every game to you.
> ( for example: I could always be blue on my screen and my teammates green and yellow, but on my teammates screen I’m green and they are purple and our other friend is orange.)
>
> But I am keen on skins just not individual selection, as said above, it would be annoying.
> 2533274870790671;8:
> Just keep the customization simple yet in depth and very intricate like in the Earth21XX games
>
> on these you could choose an infantryman and vehicles weapon [which ranged from pistols and rifles to mini nuke rocket launchers], armor [various armors having better resistances to different damage], equipment [Radios, medkits, repair tools, shields Ect] and ‘skin’ then save this as a ‘blueprint’ which then let you produce those units you’ve designed [along side the ‘canon’ game units] This kind of system would let us build armies we want to build while not bogging people down. Best part about this is it could be used on the fly to counter enemy custom units as well
>
> Base unit [The basic hull of a vehicle and the standard infantryman with no armor or weapon’s]
>
> Weapon 1 [Guns ect]
> Weapon 2
> Weapon 3
> Weapon 4
>
> Engine [Vehicle Only]
> Secondary Engine [Vehicle Only]
>
> Armor
>
> Equipment 1 [Shields, repair pods, troop transport bays, healing pods/bays ect]
> Equipment 2
> Equipment 3
> Equipment 4
> Equipment 5
>
> Primary Skin/Decal
> Secondary Skin/Decal
> Tertiary Skin/Decal
>
> Primary Colour
> Secondary Colour
> Tertiart Colour
> Weapon Colour
> Light’s Colour
>
> For infantrymen you would be able to choose the different weapons and equipment of each individual squad member [with the squads becoming more and more expensive the more powerful weapons you give them. So an infantryman squad all with spartan lasers would be much more expensive than one with all Magnums]
>
> Tanks and other vehicles would also become more and more expensive as you went on and added more powerful weapons and equipment.
>
> I think this kind of customisation system would be great as it would let us make a wide veriaty of vehicles and units letting us mix and match the parts of everything
Another idea is all the Units on your side could have a preset Skin Pack. For example: A Halo 3 pack would have your Elites and Spartans and other Units modeled as they are in Halo 3. The same for a Halo 4 pack. Also a Halo: Reach pack, and so on. Please pleas please 343! 
I wouldn’t necessarily have weapon and armor choices increase damage output. Just different have different stats. Like how some games have different stats for different guns (range, accuracy, handling, speed, rate of fire, etc) similar stats would apply towards the Units often when you increase the speed of rate of fire the damage or accuracy goes down and other scenarios have this trade-off perk system. This way the player can do their own style. Whether they want to rush their enemy or play defensive, or they would want to get up close with their Units or keep their distance. Thus introducing new levels of strategy.