DLC: What Else is Possible?

Games Other Halo
1

I’m not looking for suggestions or anything here; I just want answers.

So armor DLC was previously believed to be impossible unless it was already pre-programmed into the game. This seemed to be the case, until Halo: Reach, where 343 Industries had apparently made some sort of breakthrough,nas indicated by the appearence of the GRD helmet. Sure, it was essentially a broken-down EOD helmet, but it was, nevertheless, a breakthrough.

And now comes armor. If things like ODST and Ricochet were already in the game, hackers would’ve found it by now. The Infinity Armor pack shouldn’t exist… but, yet, it dies.

So now we have new armor and weapon skins. But, and here comes the question: is this the farthest 343i can go? Can they change a weapon modelto something else completely, like turn Halo 4’s MA5D into Halo: Reach’s MA37? Or even beyond that: can new weapons be added? Maybe the Storm Rifle can be used to bring back the Plasma Rifle and its crimson Brute variant?

The answer: I have absolutely idea. I don’t know programming. Which is why I’m asking you, the community: can new weapons be created if previous weapons are used as a starting point?

2

That’s a good question and cool things to think about. I, myself, have no idea. Keeping the thread alive to see an answer because I am curious.

3

I’d rather see 343i address the severe problems with this game’s core mechanics than spend time on aesthetics.

4

The way I understood it is that before all the weapon and armor data was hardcoded into the map. I suggested back on the Bungie Reach forums that they tweak the engine so that there is a blank map that holds all the data. It wouldn’t have to be sophisticated at all, even just a small cube would work. Then when loading a multiplayer map, it loads the map itself and the blank map. The map itself has all the collision meshes, textures, etc. It is what everyone actually sees and plays on. Then the blank map is also loaded at the same time and hidden in a wall or floor. The plus side to this is if you wanted to add new armor, weapons, vehicles, Forge objects, etc. you would just have to replace this one map and all the other maps would inherit the changes. Whether or not that is something that is possible I don’t know. While I have programming experience I have not programmed any of the Halo games so am unfamiliar with what can be done and can’t. But since the issue had to do with what is stored in the map data this sounds like a reasonable solution.

5

> I’d rather see 343i address the severe problems with this game’s core mechanics than spend time on aesthetics.

Yeah, wondered when someone would whine about the game. There’s always at least one on every thread…

6

I bet they could. And if they do that then they could also raise the level cap to something that takes time and dedication. Like say 300? That would keep people busy.

7

I want a DLC to include new Campaign missions. There could be so much potential to that.

8

343i stated that it is possible for them to add vehicles to Halo 4 through dlc but unfortunately it’s not in their current interest.

9

> I want a DLC to include new Campaign missions. There could be so much potential to that.

A Spartan Ops Season 2 falls under that criteria.

10

> I bet they could. And if they do that then they could also raise the level cap to something that takes time and dedication. Like say 300? That would keep people busy.

Actually, the only reason we can go past SR-50 is because of the Specializations. Unless they add more, along with armor and Tactical Packages and whatnot to go along with them, I wouldn’t expect the level cap to go up. Besides, it already takes time and dedication; I haven’t seen a lot of SR-130s around on Multiplayer.

11

> > I bet they could. And if they do that then they could also raise the level cap to something that takes time and dedication. Like say 300? That would keep people busy.
>
> Actually, the only reason we can go past SR-50 is because of the Specializations. Unless they add more, along with armor and Tactical Packages and whatnot to go along with them, I wouldn’t expect the level cap to go up. Besides, it already takes time and dedication; I haven’t seen a lot of SR-130s around on Multiplayer.

Problem solved:

Specialization: Mastery

A virtually limitless specialization, acting normally for the first 10 levels, and progressing onwards, unlocking something new every 10 or 20 levels. For example, I hit level 130. I begin and open up the Mastery specialization. I go through all 10 levels of Mastery, unlocking the armor, weapon skin, armor skin, and armor mod. But unlike other specializations, this one is programmed to keep on the move. And for a certain amount of levels (say, 100 or so levels more) you unlock something new. So now that I’ve completed the first 10 levels of Mastery (currently SR140 so-to-speak), my next unlock comes at SR160, and it would unlock something new, such as a player card Stance. Then at SR180 I would unlock a weapon skin. And at SR200 I would unlock an Armor skin. And so on and so forth…

NOTICE: Everything stated above is untrue in terms of statistics within the current state of the game. All data used was for demonstration purposes.

12

> I’m not looking for suggestions or anything here; I just want answers.
>
> So armor DLC was previously believed to be impossible unless it was already pre-programmed into the game. This seemed to be the case, until Halo: Reach, where 343 Industries had apparently made some sort of breakthrough,nas indicated by the appearence of the GRD helmet. Sure, it was essentially a broken-down EOD helmet, but it was, nevertheless, a breakthrough.
>
> And now comes armor. If things like ODST and Ricochet were already in the game, hackers would’ve found it by now. The Infinity Armor pack shouldn’t exist… but, yet, it dies.
>
> So now we have new armor and weapon skins. But, and here comes the question: is this the farthest 343i can go? Can they change a weapon modelto something else completely, like turn Halo 4’s MA5D into Halo: Reach’s MA37? Or even beyond that: can new weapons be added? Maybe the Storm Rifle can be used to bring back the Plasma Rifle and its crimson Brute variant?
>
> The answer: I have absolutely idea. I don’t know programming. Which is why I’m asking you, the community: can new weapons be created if previous weapons are used as a starting point?

That would be pretty cool. But for the Plasma Rifles they’d need to be brought back as a secondary. Not replacing the Storm Rifle.

13

Its easier to make the Reach AR skin than it is to add in a plasma rifle.

Skins is basically paint on an object. To add in new weapons, it would require new animations and textures.

As for ranks, yes. But, 343 stated that the Halo 4 UI is not easy to change. So it is very unlikely we will see new ranks, especially at this point where we are almost halfway in towards the development of a new halo game.

14

Ever since Halo Combat Evolved, all weapons/vehicles/whatever were stored in the map’s “metadata.” What that means is, 343 could add new weapons/vehicles/whatever in a new map pack.

We could have gotten a UNSC flying vehicle in Forge Island.

However, simply releasing a Title Update will not add new weapons/vehicles/whatever, because of each maps metadata. For example, Erosion has its own specific pipes. Those pipes are not obtainable in any other map because it doesn’t exist in the metadata.

Imagine how great it would be if we could use the green screen on any map!

Don’t let this “sad” news hold you back, because a simple title update (similar to the weapon tuning) could potentially allow 343 to add these missing features to an extent.

In my opinion, they should focus on CUSTOM GAMES, and not some pointless gimmicky “Champions DLC.” We were all hoping that 343 would even mention Custom Games at RTX, but they didn’t speak a word about it. Maybe Richochet is Assault?

Odds are, it isn’t, just another specific gametype that has little to no customization.

> As for ranks, yes. But, 343 stated that the Halo 4 UI is not easy to change. So it is very unlikely we will see new ranks, especially at this point where we are almost halfway in towards the development of a new halo game.

This statement is almost completely false. 343 has already proven script-specific options, and even if they can’t add the options in game, Halo Waypoint could easily serve this task. They could even release an APP to handle all of it.

It’s probably even possible to reimplement de-scope!

The only obstacle to the above is…it’s expensive!

343 chose to make a money grabbing DLC Bundle because that will make money.

Releasing an expensive TU after cleaning their reputation with the weapon tuning isn’t beneficial to the company, and it doesn’t earn any sales.

However, if you create an eye-appealing DLC, with a ton of new pointless additions, 90 percent of current players will buy it!

If you release an update that fixes Custom Games and adds new vehicles, you will have spent millions of dollars and will have no way of earning it back.

Expect the future of Halo 4 DLC to be a bunch of Bundle packs. Halo 4 is a sinking ship, and we all know that a “fix” won’t repair the damage.