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> In Halo 4 and especially in Halo 5, we have seen a ton of big, new ideas implemented into Halo. Is this mass implementation of new ideas healthy or harmful for Halo?
What constitutes “healthy” or “harmful”? These are terms that are just completely subjective without further elaboration. On one hand, mechanics such as Armor Abilities, Spartan Abilities, and ordnance drops have harmed my ability to enjoy Halo. On the other hand, I’m not qualified say what their impact on the financial success of Halo has been. So, the question whether these new ideas are healthy or harmful is ambiguous.
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> Put yourself in the developers’ position. If you worked on developing Halo games, would you experiment with new ideas you have, and implement them in the game for the fans to try out?
If I was a designer and I had an idea for a mechanic that I thought could be good, of course I would try it out. With that said, I would do everything I can to test that the idea really satisfies the subjective notion of “good” in my head. But beyond that, I would have no way of knowing whether the subjective notions of “good” of fans conflict with my subjective notion of “good”. If I have lots of fans, chances are it’s going to conflict with someone.
There’s a greater problem here that what if the fanbase fundamentally disagrees with me on what a fun game is? In principle they shouldn’t, because they play the game because they like it, and I work on the game for the same reason. But still, I’m not going to agree with everything on every fan—namely because all the fans won’t agree with each other on everything—and the question arises, who should I make the game for? Am I making a game I want to play, or should I make decisions I don’t like to satisfy the fans?
As a fan it’s easy to think that developers should base all their decisions on what the fans want, because the fans will ultimately be the people who play the game the most. But the reality is that you’re not going to enjoy making a game that you don’t like to play, and when you don’t enjoy it, you’re not really going to be able to judge the quality of your work. So, ultimately developers will have to base some of their decisions on what they like.
Of course this is all vastly complicated by the fact that a big game like Halo is not the product of one man’s work, but the effort of a large group of people, some of whom are bound to disagree with each other on some things. So, ultimately the developers are just trying to do what they think is the right thing to do, and the implementation of every feature comes down to that same judgement.
So, after that long digression: if I was a developer, I would try features I think are worth trying out if I thought that to be the right thing to do. That’s the only rational option.
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> Finally, are you glad that the opportunity to try something new with Halo was presented with the implementation of new mechanics and game modes?
As I said, I don’t like most of the new mechanics 343i has implemented, so obviously I can’t say I’m glad to try them. But at the same time, I’m not the one making the game, so it’s not my decision what will and won’t be in the game. And if I was in that position, I’d totally be trying my own ideas. So, I can complain, but I’d be stupid to think I have any moral or rational high ground in that argument.