After 9 months of waiting we all got to finally see Halo 4 in action. Though our first look was very brief, it combined with a flurry of new info has been enough to completely blow up these forums with equal parts praises and rants and people complaining about other people complaining.
I realize a lot of you saw what you thought may be the end of Halo. Sprint, Armor abilities, Progression system, and now this “perk” debacle. The short glimpse and the knowledge of those few details were enough for a lot of people to right the game off.
Well I’ll tell you what I see. i see a game that has a lot of potential. I see a game with a foundation for greatness. i see a game, that if we come together right now, can be all we ever wanted. But I need you. We all need one another to band together and support this thread right here to show 343 what we want. We want a no gimmick, competitive Halo 4 day 1 and this is what needs to happen.
First we address the good for today. The graphics are good, the maps are built for more competitive play, The BR returns, no bloom, increased movement and jump heights.
The fact that these changes are in the game tells me we have a lot to work with.
Now the concerning issues. Sprint is in the game, there is some sort of progression system, armor abilities, customizable loadouts, and some sort of “perkish” feature.
Some of those words are down right cringe worthy for a Halo fan, and even i myself was a little unsettled when I first read them. But I quickly got over it and realized that Halo 4 can still be the game we want it to be. With bloom gone, the BR returning and movement made into a more fast paced speed, the core foundation for Halo 4 has the chance to create very competitive environments.
If 343 does this right and listens to us. It can do all of its innovative new stuff and still offer the non casual community a great experience. All we have to do is design the playlists to which the new progression based custom multiplayer is seperate from the competitive traditional multiplayer without creating to many playlists and splitting populations too severely.
Lets say we gave 343 specific playlists in which they could do whatever they wanted in.
There can be a seperate section of the playlists devoted to this progression system. It will remove the position of the Social Playlist so now we have
Ranked Playlists
Progression Playlists ( for lack of better name)
Community Playlists
Cooperative Playlists
Action Sack
in the progression playlists, 343 industries can do whatever they want. They wanna add perks? fine. They wanna add armor abilities? fine. They wanna add flying purple hippos that drop napalm strikes over the maps? fine. Do that here. This is the section where 343 can take all there ideas that the comp community gets upset about and throw them in. it is exciting because now there isn’t a social playlist. There is simply the game, and the competitive game. The progression playlists will no longer act as a casual playground or a break from ranked endeavors. It is now a very big part of the game that includes a lot of innovations in gamemodes. When your flying around with a jetpack and leveling up your character, it isn’t as if you are playing the lesser part of the game because it is “social” You are simply playing the game.
The progression Playlist will include
Free for All
Team Slayer
Team Objective
Big Team
that’s a good foundation. Depending on the popularity and community wishes after the game is announced, more playlists can be added to this section.
Now we get to the Ranked Playlists. These playlists are for you. the thought of jetpacks and loadouts make you sick. People starting on uneven grounds and enhancing there character with perks is unacceptable to you. Well this is where you need to be.
playlists include
Lone Wolves
Team Slayer
Team Doubles
Team Objective
Team Swat
Team Snipers
Team Classic
MLG
These playlists are completely void of any custom loadouts and progression system. There are no perks, and armor ability spawns here. In Lone Wolves, Team Slayer, Dubs, and Objective everyone spawns with the same thing, all armor you have acquired in progression system loses its " perk" bonuses and simply becomes an aesthetic piece. Your loadouts are not able to be accessed and everyone spawns with the exact same thing. If, and this is a big if, armor abilities were to be featured in any of these playlists they would be item pick ups. ( sprint is up for debate with these)
In playlists like Team Swat and team Snipers, it wouldn’t make sense for loadouts or " perks" to be present because these 2 modes are both weapon specific, skill based modes. I do however feel sprint belongs in these playlists. In snipers we are going to be in open environments and need a way to get around quickly and with swat everything is a 1 shot kill precission weapon game. I do believe there should be a classic variant in each playlist with no sprint and in Classic Swat it is just you your br and pistol. No sprint or other precission weapons on map.
Finally for ranked there is the MLG. Have faith they will make an incredibly competitive experience and with the emphasis already shown on the BR and arena style maps, one of Reach’s biggest problems with MLG have already been fixed.
The coop pl is simply
campaign matchmaking
Survival Firefight
All it needs at start, add more later depending on population
and Action Sack
Action Sack ( custom crazy gamemodes)
Living Dead
Griffball
Race
action Sack is for party gamemodes. wouldn’t make sense in Ranked because they are just for fun, but wouldn’t make sense in progression because everything is set.
Now lets head on back up to progression for a minute. With the progression playlists your loadout is carried over between playlists. the 4 playlists here are almost there own game. There will be no Slayer BR’s, or specific types of gamemodes because you have your own loadout that you can choose from everytime. I also feel like it should have its own rank.