So with the new release of Halo 5 Beta gameplay the community has blown up with excitement, opinions and questions.
One of the topics that I’d like to address, which is my one of my main purposes in writing this, is one that has blown up in forums and is the introduction of a ADS style zoom to many weapons. While this new system doesn’t have the same positive or negative affects found in other FPS games it does still present a change in Halo’s gameplay. One of the things separating Halo from other FPS games was it’s unique style of gunplay. The new Smart Scope may look to change some of this specifically the way the zoom works. This change may be largely to attract new fans to the series by making this along with a few other gameplay elements similar to other shooters. Many say this is a problem because it represents changes to Halo that aren’t needed while others say that from a gameplay perspective it hasn’t effected much. But why is this? One aspect may be level design.
One of the things 343i looked to do when making Halo 5 was to bring Halo back to it’s arena roots. And based off what we’ve seen so far they have lived up to that. The new maps look great. However we have yet to see any large maps. That’s not to say there won’t be. Undoubtedly we should see some in the upcoming Beta if not the game at launch. But the reason for mentioning this is that perhaps the new smart scope may work differently on larger scale maps as these new scopes look to have slightly less magnification and thus it’s a possibility we may see less large scale maps in the upcoming game.
What I’m getting at is that the reason the new Smart Scope may not affect gameplay as much may be that the majority of maps may not call for a need of higher magnification.
Halo 5 also brings with it new mobility aspects, Spartan Abilities, game types, (undoubtedly) weapons and of course story.
While I may not be happy with everything I do still look forward to seeing where the story goes and how this new installment in my favorite franchise will be.
So what are your thoughts? What do you look forward to seeing or hope to see?
Could be wrong about the scope magnification, maps and stuff but it’s a thought I had. Just some speculation for the moment.
I think the smart scope will encourage more players to engage others at longer ranges. My kneejerk reaction to this is dislike since I’m not a fan at all of cross-map tomfoolery but then, we also have new evasion options so it may be easier to get out of such things. Who knows? We really might have to play the beta in order to see just how everything’s going to work together. I’m staying very positive and looking forward to all these changes. (Assuming we can customize them in Custom Games as well.)
I think that the main thing that separated Halo from other games was the fact that it did not use iron sights but more so than that would have been the map design. Yes Halo is an arena style first person shooter however Halo’s roots are not there but rather in large scale maps with vehicular combat. Just check out the Halo 1 videos before it was even announced on Xbox or before it was even first person and was just 3rd person. The game was meant to be more like Tribes/Destiny with 3rd person perspective. So in closing what I am saying is that I do not think of this as a bad thing to have the iron sighting because honestly it is just the evolution of how first person shooters are played and Halo has to acknowledge evolution regardless of its’ roots. Now if the medium/large scale maps are of good quality design I do believe that Halo’s core will remain intact. I am of course a person that believe strongly that Halo 2 was a de-evolution from what Halo 1 was and that Halo 3 tried to mesh the two a bit more and that Halo reach did it the best and then Halo 4 took a step forward and 3 steps back to Halo 2 and thus is why that game was not received as well (the maps were horrible). The gameplay in Halo 4 I thought was pretty good and honestly I did not understand why we did not have smart scoping there since the gameplay had been tweaked as much as it had. Heres to sprinting and smart scoping in future Halo games I am all for it as long as the level designed remains the jewel of gameplay.