It’s around that time, H6 will be coming out in a year or two at the most. So this is basically the last chance to make any kind of change in development for Halo 6 as it’s not completely finished yet. But first I think it is important to say what I like or don’t like about Halo 5, so any 343 people reading, will see what I think they should continue or quit doing in the future. I mainly discuss multiplayer, but obviously H5’s campain had problems too. Let’s get into it, expect a long post.
Things I like:
THRUST, I think it could actually add something to the combat system, what I don’t like is how it changes the guns level of bullet magnetism which. I would prefer that the weapons would be playable without thrust so thrusting is less needed in a gunfight, making it more balanced when one player doesn’t have thrust up. Right now in H5 if a no thrust player is fighting a thrust player, the first will almost certainly lose because they are mechanically an easier target, not just because they don’t have thrust.
WEAPON SKINS - I love them, but wish there was a way to get them without the random chance of a req pack.
STABILIZE (Self-explanatory)
SPARTAN COMPANIES - Clans are an awesome additon to Halo, I wish they would have come at launch so people would have cared more.
MAGNUM (Magnum fights are awesome and addicting) in the future, I would want the pistol but with a rifle skin. I love the DMR from Reach, but a BR with similar range, fire rate, and kill time could work too. I think a pistol being the main weapon seems weird and looks boring. Only thing I would change is lower bullet magnetism, to add skill gap.
SOME MAPS - COLISEUM - looks cool and is the classic symmetrical, rocket and snipe map, good for flag and decent for Slayer, more maps like this or even remakes would be ok in future titles. PLAZA - has an amazing art style and functions well, much like a Lockout or Guardian in H5, more human maps looking unique and colorful like Plaza, less human maps looking grew and boring like Empire for example. REGRET - small and arena like, but looks awesome, took the normal Covenant style and changed it. Reminds me of a mix between Midship and Zealot I liked both those maps, so I like this one as well. TYRANT - although I don’t like how it plays (too many hallways and choke points and not enough lines of sight) I love how it looks, one of the most beautiful maps in the game, I also like how there is a sniper on a map that isn’t super easy to snipe on, more of that.
RANKING SYSTEM - The H5 ranking system is very good, placement matches work against smurfing and do a pretty good job estimating skill. At the beginning of the game Onyx was too easy to get but now it is all pretty good, I just wish it would have a bigger population which would make matches even more even, so a ranking system similar to this is needed at launch in H6.
STRONGHOLDS - Very fun game type and should be carried over in the future.
FORGE Halo 5’s Forge is awesome! Some great maps can be made, the problem is frame rate drops, and it’s not too intuitive. I think it is the best forge ever for Halo.
CUSTOM GAME BROWSER - Great, original, and fun. It allows people with fewer friends or fewer friends online to run the fun custom games that Halo is all about. Mixed with Forge and custom game settings (another good thing), custom games could make a real come back. The problem was H5 was these modes were too late to latch on with the biggest audience.
WARZONE - A good addition to Halo, I personally don’t like Warzone that much and spend my time in the HCS playlist but I think it is worthy to be in Halo for more casual players, I know my IRL friends like it a lot.
THE REQ SYSTEM, I like packs. I do however miss progression-based unlocks like in Reach, so a mix of both would be better in the future. I do like that 343 can make money from req packs so they don’t have to charge for DLC, it gives 343 an incentive to care about players after launch. So I think it’s a lesser of two evils.
POWER WEAPON PADS - I think they are more skillful because you have to fight for the weapons now, not just remember the times. They mainly affect matchmaking anyway as pros have coaches who time them.
Things I don’t like
AUTOMATICs - in competitive, I hate autos. They don’t take skill and don’t feel like Halo. Even with the update where now they take more skill, I wouldn’t like them. If they were like CoD or CS:GO autos and took skill to aim, I still wouldn’t want them in competitive. It’s something I want 343 to leave alone. Just go back to how autos always were in casual and make competitive settings without them at all. Sorry
RADAR - Once again I don’t like radar in competitive settings, how it is right now with just tracking abilities is good for Halo 5, if Halo 6 has sprint radar should be similar to this, if it has no sprint (hopefully), it should not have radar at all for competitive.
SPARTAN CHARGE - Annoying, overpowered, and pointless. In every Halo gaming being sprinted at and punched by a noob was annoying, 343 literally made that a feature smh. If sprint has to stay (hopefully not), then Spartan charge must go.
GROUND POUND - I don’t actually dislike it, but I don’t like how it messes with normal melees in the air. So at least remap the controls.
1-152 RANKING SYSTEM - It is boring. Bring back the military ranks like in H3 or the Halo Reach ones, Inheritor was awesome when you saw someone that high in the lobby. 152 is simply lame and pointless as you unlock nothing for ranking up other than req points.
OTHER MAPS. Empire, Overgrowth, Torque, Stasis, The Rig, Molten, and Riptide. Fathom all either suck outright as maps or are boring due to the too much human art style. None are memorable except that they are bad and or boring. Most also have bad sightlines and flow for any kind of competitive play. And are barely fun from a casual perspective either.
DELAYED CONTENT - BTB, Forge, Clans, Griftball, oddball, assault, Custom game browsers, social playlists, all should have been in the game at the beginning. That hurt Halo 5 a lot, there simply wasn’t much to do the first month of the game if you weren’t into Warzone or Ranked Arena. Most of that stuff was in every other Halo at launch and needed to be in H5 at the start too so their communities would latch on to the game. And things like Custom Browser, which are good additions could have helped the game earlier on when it had a peak population to hold on to. One of the biggest Flaws in H5 was how slow basic content came out.
DEDICATED SERVERS - They are good in a way but if you live super far from a server farm the game never feels quite right, and the feeling is only worse as the population drops. I would say keep them for MM, but allow players to pick which player they want the server to go to in a custom game or something.
PART 2 Incoming