This is just my personal wishlist for whatever Infinite is. I’ve been playing Halo since its inception, and online multiplayer since H2. I have enjoyed them all to varying degree. I never really “gave up” on Halo until H5, and primarily because the multiplayer game felt too much like work with the same pistol. Grinding ranks at some point required finding teammates with live mics. I don’t follow the story all that much so it’s not particularly important to me individually. I enjoy the multiplayer action quite a bit.
If I could design the perfect Halo multiplayer game, it would look and play almost exactly like H3 with notes as below:
Maps:
- 12 completely new, well designed, all original maps to start, and a schedule to release 3 new maps every 6 or so months. 4 small maps, 4 medium maps, 4 large maps - 4 of small and 2 of the medium maps for ranked slayer 4v4 - 2 of the small and 4 of medium maps for social slayer (5v5 or 6v6) - 4 large maps for BTB gamesPlaylists:
- Social Slayer (5v5 or 6v6): AR/pistol starts, less sweaty, more solo/casual, mostly based on your visible rank, with maybe only split screen parties allowed
- Team Slayer (4v4): intense, BR starts
- Team Objective (4v4): intense
- Team Hardcore (4v4): most intense
- Team Snipers (4v4) (can use some of the larger maps for this, maybe also do like a Sniper School map where you’re spawned directly across from one another and there’s an objective like a flag)
- Multi-Team (2v2v2v2): fun and casual
- BTB (8v8 to 10v10): no major changes here
- Ranked FFA (8 players): no major changes here, AR but some game types include BR starts
- Team Action Sack: (Rockets, maybe bring back Grifball, maybe throw in some kind of PUBG style large-scale elimination game for overall weirdness and in the interest of appearing more ‘modern’, whatever that means)
Main Improvements:
- A best location feature where you can pick your top 4 server preferences in order for (possibly slower) match making.
- H3 MLG movement speed (110%). Make AMasterChief Strafe Again.
- Jumping closer to H2 height.
- Slightly faster weapon switching than H3.
- H2 Hitscan BR, basically H5 netcode w/less magnetism
- a pistol with less accurate medium range and higher TTK against BR. Maybe with a BXR type of close range slap and hipfire combo (but would lose to sword/shotty)
- H5 AR
- H3 grenades that bounce and throw like H5 grenades
- No sprint, no ADS, fewer animations in multiplayer. Go make the single player game interesting and big and fun and leave the classic arena multiplayer style alone.
- I would prefer removing grenade markers but I’m ambivalent about them
- Maybe include thrusters, make them omnidirectional when in the air so you can execute interesting avoidance techniques, but put them on a larger timer so they can’t be constantly used in battles
Movement:
I don’t like sprint. At all. I’m biased against it, mainly because I think it reduces shooting skill. All that running means a person firing a shot at a sprinting player needs greater aim assist and magnetism to hit the target. Which would be fine if you could then strafe away from another person’s shots in combat, but it simply doesn’t work. It’s insanely easy to aim in H5. There are other reasons I don’t like it, map size bloat, map control, etc. But yeah, in general either solve the strafe/sprint aiming paradox or remove sprint.
For solo and non-competitive gaming, I would be completely fine w/a casual Big Team Battle that incorporates sprint (and the higher magnetism/aim mechanics involved). Just build bigger sprint-ready BTB maps. I don’t see why this would break the game at all, BTB is meant to be casual fun. I didn’t like Warzone as much as others but I could see why people would like it.
Final Thoughts:
- Don’t appeal to a younger crowd because you think they enjoy some kind of cartoonish ease of play where you can fire a shotgun at someone, miss entirely, and still ‘hit’ them cough Fortnite cough. I’m old enough to have kids and let me tell you, they enjoy challenges (and splitscreen) - I think H3 nailed the console arena shooter. I think it’s perhaps the greatest multiplayer arena shooter ever made. The playlists were perfect, the maps were excellent and unique in their own way, there was no real ‘grind’, there’s the right amount of magnetism, weapons were mostly great, ranks weren’t insane and didn’t require extravagant grinding, the only truly imperfect thing was the lack of BR hitscan. If H6 was nothing more than a reskin of Halo 3 with a new story, I’d be all over that. - I know the plan is for Halo to be on PC, but allowing point/click keyboard and mouse multiplayer will be the death knell of the game, because you’re going to separate whatever is left of the player base even further than it already is around certain things. - I doubt any of these suggestions will be taken literally by anyone at 343, and it’s fine to disagree and say I’m too old school, but it feels a little good to get this off my mind.
