Fellow Halo fans please don’t crucify me over the title. I don’t like Call of Duty style aim down sights any more than most of you.
But, there is a compromise that I feel might be the future of Halo game design! Which is great news for 343 Industries!
The reason I, and maybe other Halo fans, dislike aim down sights Call of Duty style is because we prefer having a nice reticule aim icon that shows where we’re shooting better than iron sights.
However, the player character animation of bringing the gun up, shouldering it, and looking down the sights does look far superior to Halo’s simple blank immediate cut to the aiming reticule icon view.
So here’s the compromise design mechanic that I think is actually better than BOTH game design mechanics:
The aim down sights animation of shouldering the gun can be implemented into Halo as a FAST TRANSITION into the aiming reticule icon view, but that view will remain the same as it has always been, as well as the speed of going into it.
The only difference would be a new animation transition into it of aiming down your gun sights.
The control would still be the same: click the zoom button, and you immediately transition into the zoomed aiming reticule icon view through a transition animation of aiming down your sights that is just as fast as that transition currently is in Halo games.
What do you guys think? Do you like this Halo style aim down sights idea? Do you think 343i has to add aim down sights of some style other than the current zoom in Halo? And if 343i did/does change from zoom to strict, literal CoD/Destiny/BF style aim down sights would you hate that in Halo games? (I would, but I would be okay with a transition animation that is instant like I described). Do you guys understand what I’m trying to describe?
Poll question: Do you like this idea/ would you be okay with this idea implemented in Halo 5 or Halo 6?
When you scope in, the scope instantly appears then takes a very, very small amount of time to zoom in to the proper magnification. The only way this would be just as fast is if you pulled your gun up and were immediately at full magnification once you started looking down the scope. Even then, making it that fast its barely going to be noticeable.
Unsurprisingly I’m biased and like the original transition better anyways.
> When you scope in, the scope instantly appears then takes a very, very small amount of time to zoom in to the proper magnification. The only way this would be just as fast is if you pulled your gun up and were immediately at full magnification once you started looking down the scope. Even then, making it that fast its barely going to be noticeable.
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> Unsurprisingly I’m biased and like the original transition better anyways.
There is enough time right now to have an animation of shouldering the gun. It is also noticeable to most players now that zooming in Halo feels crude or abrupt, not smooth like aiming down sights which is why most FPSs are now adopting aiming down sights. It’s even noticeable to me now after playing some other games since Reach and 4 were terrible games.
I do think the animation is needed but Halo has the superior actual aiming while looking down sights/ zoomed in.
> There isn’t aiming down a sight… because it’s smart linked to the HUD. So there is no need to looking into the sights… superior tech anyways.
That was lore specific to why the Halo CE Pistol had a zoom.
If you look at the players in Halo, the guns are shouldered, and the Spartans are aiming down the sights through the scopes. That’s pretty obvious.
Also, as a tournament paintball player, I can promise you if you have a helmet with a linked sight to scope, you would still have to shoulder guns to aim them. You can’t shoot guns from the hip accurately. Guns must be shouldered to be aimed accurately, so the animation still makes sense.
And even putting that aside, random players would not get the concept of a linked scope to helmet sight.
Also everybody I’m with you on Halo’s zoom being better than aim down sights. If I had to choose between CoD style aim down sights or Halo style zoom, I wouldn’t even hesitate to choose Halo style zoom.
However, aiming down sights is becoming the standard in FPSs for a reason, which is that the animation of shouldering the gun looks like proper, realistic animation of movement. That is more important to most FPS players than the superior zoom of Halo apparently.
So you have to realize, aiming down sights is inevitable for Halo if Halo is to remain one of the top FPSs out there, or the very top one.
And because of that inevitability, I thought of this way to implement aiming down sights into Halo so that Halo can remain popular AND retain its great game play design.
If my idea isn’t good that’s fine, but I do want to make the point with this post that Halo fans need to take how to tackle the aiming down sights mechanic seriously because if we don’t think of an alternate idea CoD style aiming down sights is inevitable in Halo.
My only problem with ADS is that it takes up a button to use. Halo’s clicking in is far superior. Looks-wise, I don’t really care; it’s functionally the same. For me, it comes down to just not enough reason to waste a trigger button…
> It is also noticeable to most players now that zooming in Halo feels crude or abrupt
I was not aware you alone are “most players”.
> why most FPSs are now adopting aiming down sights.
For the sake of immersion and/or gameplay design. Halo does not need any form of ADS feature for gameplay, and as for immersion I personally prefer the current zoom. I’d admit I’d prefer some blur and such to make the zoom less choppy, but still.
> Add my idea or Halo will suffer the dark path of being codified!
Um, no. I don’t think adding or removing an ADS animation will have any significant effect on how the game appeals to gamers at large.
> My only problem with ADS is that it takes up a button to use. Halo’s clicking in is far superior. Looks-wise, I don’t really care; it’s functionally the same. For me, it comes down to just not enough reason to waste a trigger button…
Maybe I didn’t explain it in the original post, although I’m pretty sure I did, but the controls would be the same. You would click the stick in to transition through aiming down sights into the zoomed mode, exactly how it is right now.
> > It is also noticeable to most players now that zooming in Halo feels crude or abrupt
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> I was not aware you alone are “most players”.
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> > why most FPSs are now adopting aiming down sights.
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> For the sake of immersion and/or gameplay design. Halo does not need any form of ADS feature for gameplay, and as for immersion I personally prefer the current zoom. I’d admit I’d prefer some blur and such to make the zoom less choppy, but still.
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> > Add my idea or Halo will suffer the dark path of being codified!
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> Um, no. I don’t think adding or removing an ADS animation will have any significant effect on how the game appeals to gamers at large.
I say most players for two reasons: first all FPS players I talk to dislike Halo zoom and like aim down sights, and secondly most players must prefer aim down sights since it’s basically becoming standard in FPSs now. I could be wrong of course.
You say Halo does not need any form of ADS, but then say it does need a transition between none-zoomed and zoomed-in. That transition should be an animation of aiming down your sights, that is completed at the same speed that it currently takes to zoom in. I don’t see how you’re disagreeing with me here honestly lol.
It looks like we disagree about an ADS transition animation making Halo more appealing to other FPS players.
I don’t think ADS (or your animation) should be added to scoped weapons. It’s already stated that the scope is linked to your HUD.
On the other hand, I’d like to see ADS on the scope-less weapons such as the Magnum and Assault Rifle. Unlike the rest of this community I don’t think ADS will bring forth the apocalypse and give everybody -Yoink!- and an -Yoink- on our foreheads.
I’d also wouldn’t care if it wasn’t added. Both ways are fine.
> I don’t think ADS (or your animation) should be added to scoped weapons. It’s already stated that the scope is linked to your HUD.
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> On the other hand, I’d like to see ADS on the scope-less weapons such as the Magnum and Assault Rifle. Unlike the rest of this community I don’t think ADS will bring forth the apocalypse and give everybody -Yoink!- and an -Yoink!- on our foreheads.
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> I’d also wouldn’t care if it wasn’t added. Both ways are fine.
Do not make blanket statements, they do nothing but offend.
-Slow movement when in combat
-The flinch mechanic
-Weapon obscuring a large proportion of the screen
-inaccurate hip fire
-slow zoom in animation
Remove those things and I don’t really have much of an issue with it from a gameplay standpoint.
Canonically a Spartan’s hud can smart-link to the weapons scope or zoom camera. What you see when zoom in is actually a digital display. There would be no harm in Spartans centralizing there weapon when zoomed, could be used to tell if a person is zoomed in or not from a 3rd person perspective, but you wouldn’t really see it from the first person view.
I wouldn’t want weapons that cant zoom like the AR for example to loose scouting binoculars in favor of ADS. But I understand Precision automatics are fun. It’s something Halo is missing. I would be quite happy for the AR to behave something similar to a Destiny Auto Rifle just without the zoom/ ADS function. And I would be quite happy for the Storm Rifle to be able to zoom, allowing the return of the Plasma Rifle.
> The aim down sights animation of shouldering the gun can be implemented into Halo as a FAST TRANSITION into the aiming reticule icon view, but that view will remain the same as it has always been, as well as the speed of going into it.
From a gameplay perspective, you’d have to slow down the zoom too much to see the gun being lifted up. I’ve always liked Halo’s zooming more than CoD’s because it’s instant (not just really fast, but instant) and doesn’t impede my movement capabilities (by making me slow, etc.)
From a universe perspective, it makes no sense why a Spartan would aim down the sights of a weapon that is smart-linked to his visor.
> > There isn’t aiming down a sight… because it’s smart linked to the HUD. So there is no need to looking into the sights… superior tech anyways.
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> That was lore specific to why the Halo CE Pistol had a zoom.
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> If you look at the players in Halo, the guns are shouldered, and the Spartans are aiming down the sights through the scopes. That’s pretty obvious.
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> Also, as a tournament paintball player, I can promise you if you have a helmet with a linked sight to scope, you would still have to shoulder guns to aim them. <mark>You can’t shoot guns from the hip accurately.</mark> Guns must be shouldered to be aimed accurately, so the animation still makes sense.
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> And even putting that aside, random players would not get the concept of a linked scope to helmet sight.
