I originally posted this on 343industries.org but I do actually want someone to read through it.
A huge fear inside me comes along with what I’ve seen and heard about Halo 4. The most worrisome thing is that with all of the specializations, customization, and continuation of the Halo Reach armor abilities, the core Halo experience seems to be feverishly fading away.
For convenience I’m going to blurt out the purpose of this post here, and everyone else willing to actually read my argument can continue through my thoughts. Please make an entire playlist of Classic in Halo 4. Not a couple maps from an old game and only a few game types. I mean a complete classic works. Team Slayer, CTF, Assault, etc. Parallel to the playlist Halo 4 will have, it needs a classic playlist. No specializations. No awkward title updates. No spawning with your own hand picked weapon load out. No armor abilities. Just pure, balanced Halo.
Here is the argument. If you don’t like to read, stop here. What makes Halo so great is how perfectly balanced it is. Everyone spawns with the same load out, everyone has the same chance to reach the power weapons just as quickly, and the only thing that earns more kills is having more skill than your opponents. The maps and weapon placements are just about the pinnacle of balance. This has set Halo apart from shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield. In either of those games all a player has to do to net more kills, is pump a little more game time in than his or her opponents. The more you play, the more weapons, attachments, perks, skills, abilities you unlock. This makes for a very unbalanced and discerning game for all players, especially the new. It is a horrendous experience to play a first match of either of the previously mentioned games with some basic assault rifle, and a sloppy pistol, only to face an opponent with abilities that make his aim more stable, his target acquisition quicker, and position less visible, plus a super sized version of your own weapon.
The armor abilities in Halo Reach threw balance out of the window and now if I want to play something that requires more skill than chance (the armor abilities are very rock, paper, scissor-esque) I am limited to a very small amount of options. My huge selection of choices are Anniversary Classic and its 2 or 3 maps, or SWAT.
As far as customization goes, it is fantastic and should be implemented at any appropriate time, IF, all changes are aesthetic. Redundant as it may sound, throwing weapon attachments onto your DMR should only make it look cooler. But if 343 is absolutely hell bent on making Halo 4 the least balanced Halo to date, please, please, please, give me the option to play without the changes. I don’t asked that the game be scraped, and I understand some players would much rather have it resemble Call of Duty, but would it be to much trouble to give us gamers that fell in love with Halo because of it being so much about raw skill an option to play Halo how it was meant to be played?
The solution is very simple. Just like how Halo Reach has the main multiplayer playlists of Anniversary, Competitive, Cooperative, and Community, Halo 4 should have Competitive, Classic, Cooperative, and Community. I don’t feel like this is asking for a lot considering that nothing completely new would have to be introduced to the game, but rather the new actually regressing. Halo should never be comparable to big shooters that so many casual gamers play. Halo should always be Halo, in all of its pure balanced fragging glory.