Moved topics
I have a lot of ideas for a potential Open World RPG set in the Halo universe. But a lot of my ideas on the combat may be considered COD-y or something, though I may argue they are more Battlefield-y or Far Cry-esque. I want to deposit my ideas here and see what you guys think.* Hold-to-aim ADS (Don’t kill me) Before you say “Too CODy!” That peeves me off! Just because it’s affiliated with COD, it’s instantly demonized? There are tons of games that are nothing like COD but still use Ironsights. Deus EX: HR and MD had a much slower pace and relied more on stealth but every gun had ADSing. Fallout: New Vegas had such sights but unlike COD, was not so on-rails and didn’t always rely on combat to entertain you. In conclusion, COD did not invent ironsights, guns are guns and guns have sights and scopes that are meant to be looked through, not because I want to imitate COD.
*Medical system
I imagine the medical system to be semi-realistic, like Fallout. Just sticking a needle into your arm and expecting broken bones to heal won’t cut it anymore. You would need to treat each injured body part individually. Limbs have a health bar that reaches 100% and your overall condition is shown by a health bar underneath your shield bar ah-la Halo: Reach. Each medical item serves a certain purpose. Stitch-kits will heal the affected limb by 50%. Bio-Foam seals the wound and stops bleeding effects. PSM (polypseudomorphine) treats Pain Effects. Speaking of Pain allow me to explain debuffs. There are various debuffs that will hinder your performance. the most common being Bleeding. Bleeding is mostly caused by sharp projectiles such as needles, spikes, bullets and blades. The point of bleeding is obvious, to slowly lower the health of the limb it’s being affected by. Depending on the limb and how long the bleeding effect has persisted, it will start to hinder your performance. EG. you get shot in the leg and the bleeding is left untreated, you will start to move slower and eventually you won’t even be able to sprint. Bleeding will eventually stop itself but will still leave you with all of the damage it caused to your limb. Now, onto pain. Pain is caused by any form of direct damage. Pain depends on the current state of a limb and like bleeding, will hinder your performance. If, say your leg, is only 90% damaged it will only cause a little pain which will add a transparent, blurry vignette at the corners of your view. The more pain you feel the more that blurry vignette will grow until it encompasses most of your screen, making it very hard to see enemies that are within that view. Now, you may think that all of this will lead to a very difficult gameplay experience, but the debuffs won’t always happen, they start when you have taken enough damage within a certain amount of time. EG. you get shot 15 times without a shield within 5 seconds. Also, these medical items are not rare and can all be found in medkits scattered around the world. All of these medical features are here to encourage you to keep your shield up to prevent these sorts of things and upgrade your shield whenever possible, because you will come across tougher enemies that will damage your shield more easily if not regularly upgraded. which leads me to my next point…
*NPC Health, Shields and Armor
The health bar system for NPCs is similar to Mass Effect. Red=Unarmored (Grunts, Jackals, Drones): Self explanatory. Yellow=Armor (Brutes, Hunters, Vehicles): Non-regenerating armor on top of normal health, vehicles only have armor and no health. Blue=Shields (Elites): Regenerating shields. But don’t think that’s all they’re limited to though, Some high ranking Grunts, Jackals and Drones may have Armor, low ranking Brutes may be unarmored or a vehicle may have external shields.
*Armor, shield and weapon upgrades/skills
As with any Halo, you can customize your armor as you see fit for your own vision of the ultimate killing machine, but it doesn’t stop at aesthetics. You can upgrade the efficiency of your armor in all sorts of ways. Varying from an increase in ammo capacity and stronger shields to your shield emitting an EMP blast when it depletes or a hot plasma explosion every time you perform a ground slam. Now, onto weapons. You can choose from any weapon iteration in the halo universe. Want an MA5B, MA5C and MA5D in the same game? Why not? Each weapon iteration has it’s own pros and cons. The MA5B has an extremely fast firing rate, decent damage but fails in accuracy while the MA5C has a decent rate-of-fire, low damage but excels in accuracy. All of these cons can be made pros with a weapon customization system that lets you customize your weapon down to it’s receiver, ammunition, sights, buttstock, grip and attachments such as lasers, suppressors and grenade launchers. Onto weapon skills. The more you use a weapon, the more proficient you will be with it. This includes faster reload animations, better handling and overall accuracy. You can carry up to 5 weapons total. One two-hander in your hands, one two-hander on your back, two one-handers on your thighs and a melee weapon such as an energy sword, energy daggers, knife or the Machete from the difficulty emblems that was cut from Halo: CE.
*CQC and assassinations.
While using a melee weapon, you can perform CQC takedowns that are basically assassinations from the front. If an enemy’s health is below the damage threshold of your current melee weapon, you will lock into a quick animation scene of you slicing through your enemy with CQC melee moves.*Blood and gore
There won’t be any gore per se but there will be a lot more blood coming from an enemy’s corpse. When enemies are shot, their bodies will now show bloody bullet holes that, for some reason, are never present in the original halo games. When near an explosion, enemy corpses will not lose limbs but will be scorched or covered in bloody shrapnel cuts. Blood will also slowly pool around a stationary corpse.
*Player customization
Players can customize their character a number of ways but the most important being the use of Origins. Origins let’s you choose how your character came to be. Your character starts out as a Spartan but which generation? You decide! Each origin impacts how NPCs react to you. If you’re a Spartan-II, the marines may see you as some sort of ultimate warrior and either despise or idolize you. It also impacts how major characters know you. If you’re a Spartan II for instance, Halsey may act like she knows you personally, where if you’re a III or IIII she will be more distant or resentful.Those are my ideas so far. Tell me what you think.