There was big population drop from Halo 3 to Halo: Reach and even bigger drop from Reach to Halo 4. The game lost like hundreds of thousands of players. That tells me something went really wrong. So let’s think about this way:
Halo 3 had:
-no loadouts
-no sprint
-no armor abilities
-ranks
-social and ranked playlist seperated from eachother
-great deal of maps (Pit, Guardian, Narrows, Construct, Heretic, Citadel and the list goes on) I never got bored playing those maps
-same starting weapons so it forces gameplay to flow, because players need to push for power weapons and long range weapons
-great “cartoon” graphics (I still think it looks better than any other Halo game)
-pickupable power ups (camo, overshield and custom power up) I liked the ball form of those powerups. And they were balanced pretty good
-descope
-ability to juggle the flag or ball
-the list goes on almost forever but I talk about these things in my comparision
Halo: Reach and Halo 4 had:
-sprint
-armor abilities
-custom loadouts
-no ranks in Reach, ranks came into Halo 4 but they were only online and because of the small population they didn’t work out at all. For example lvl 40 could match lvl 10s so it wasn’t balanced.
-no ranked and social playlists seperated, only social in my opinion
-unbalanced gameplay because of sprint and armor abilities (so many things going in at the same time so the gameplay became hectic) To my mind, armor abilities and sprint ruined traditional Halo because instead of only 1 pickupable power up in the map in a neutral position, camo became power up and it changed the game a lot.
- good graphics but to me it feels like it’s missing something. While I’m playing Halo 3 the game feels magical. I don’t feel that in Reach or Halo 4.
-Join session in progess in matchmaking. It ruined many games to me and it was one of the reasons that ruined the game for me.
-No ability to drop the flag in Halo 4. For example if other teams is all down and Im the only one in my team in position to pick up flag before they respawn but I have sniper and a rocket so if I want that flag I need to sacrifice the power weapons. So ability to drop the flag is essential.
So in this comparision I tried to prove the things that made the population skydive from Halo 3 to Reach and to Halo 4. Halo 3 was different from Halo 2 much but the differences in that are not so huge (hitscan br to non hitscan br). But Halo: Reach had sprint, loadouts, armor abilities that compleltely changed the game from traditional Halo. The population drop was huge and I thought that should ring the bell for the developer. But in Halo 4 there were more similarites to Reach than to Halo 3 and it showed. Community didn’t like the game at all and the population went from 400k to under 100k in 2 weeks. So what Im saying is that please stick to the roots. These new features aren’t a must to gain new fans. People who didnt play Halo 2 fell in love with Halo 3 although the core of the multiplayer was pretty much the same. And I know Im not alone with these thoughts so please listen. The game has to be connected. I prefer no sprint Halo but if there is going to be only 1 playlist with no sprint in Halo I don’t want that. It only seperates the community and diminishes population. We saw it in Reach. MLG and Anniversary vs every other playlists.
In my opinion Halo 5 needs:
-no sprint
-no armor abilites
-no custom loadouts
-same starting weapons
-ranks only in ranked
-ranking system (not essentially like H3’s because of cheaters but something like that. Something that matches people with same skill. It makes the game experience better and equal. Maybe something that refreshes every 4weeks to prevent cheating and selling accounts)
-social and ranked playlists
-fun multiplayer
-good maps
-pickupable power ups
-ability to drop and pickup flag with a press of a button (like in Halo 3 and Reach)
All im saying that Halo Xbox One needs to follow Halos roots. It will make the game fun to play and t will make the game popular and it keeps people playing. Halo 3 lasted 3 years before Reach with a huge population playing it. That’s something to aim for.
I’m sure I forgot to mention some things in this text but this is just generalized thoughts about what the next gen Halo should have. And of course Reach and Halo 4 had a lot of good in them and I’ve had good times playing them both but the greatest times I’ve had with Halo 3 which is definition of traditional Halo. I really hope the next gen Halo is going to bring Halo back to it’s glory and even further. Peace out. (Sorry about my rally English.)
> In my opinion Halo 5 needs:
> -no sprint
> -no armor abilites
> -no custom loadouts
> -same starting weapons
> -ranks only in ranked
> -ranking system (not essentially like H3’s because of cheaters but something like that. Something that matches people with same skill. It makes the game experience better and equal. Maybe something that refreshes every 4weeks to prevent cheating and selling accounts)
> -social and ranked playlists
> -fun multiplayer
> -good maps
> -pickupable power ups
> -ability to drop and pickup flag with a press of a button (like in Halo 3 and Reach)
I Don’t agree with this.
Why do players hate AAs!? Because players spawn onto the map with them, they have unlimited use. Equipment was map pickups, they had very limited use.
Thats why people hated AAs.
If AAs was map pick up, and limited, people would be more willing to love them, they’d be an upgraded version of equipment.
Custom loadouts. in matchmaking is a no go, that I’ll agree with.
Custom loadouts in custom games, don’t care, but there should be gametype settings that allow hosts to pick between custom loadouts, limited loadouts, and no loadouts.
PvE, like fire fight and spartan ops should have custom loadouts.
I Agree with this.
As a halo player from the beginning, 343 needs to go back to the roots of halo. The moment armor abilities were added to halo, it has lost its unique fluidity of gameplay. Sprint, Jetpack, armor lock, shield, etc don’t work in halo. Not only are they detrimental to the smooth flow halo once had, they make the quick kill, high action moments extinct. Halo never needed armor abilities, Halo needed to stay unique to itself and to its fans.
Halo reach had the ability to be an even better game than it was. One day, I joined a friend’s custom game lobby, and he put on MLG’s no bloom no sprint gameplay. It felt sooo good! It felt even better than halo 3. Everyone’s bullets were hitting, the gameplay was intense, and it was the most fun i had in reach. This further exemplifies that reach could have been still been a great game without AA. It never needed them.
Halo 4 is affected by a terrible skill system, like reach, a terrible implementation of over powered weapons and armor abilities, and not enough small maps. To revive halo, 343 needs to exactly was OP has stated.
Agree 100%
Just look at how much has changed From Halo 3 to Halo 4
Ton and most of it was for the worst .
We need to go back !!!
All Halo 5 needs is similar weapon and movement mechanics to Halo 3.
This way classic gametypes can easily be made without having to extensively modify the base game.
Bungie was smart with Reach in that they gave players the ability to remove whatever new features they disliked.
I Agree 100% -I also hope they make the graphics somewhat more ‘cartoony’ and more clean/sharp.
sigh
These are NOT what Halo actually NEEDS. This is just what you want or think should be in the game for whatever reason.
And believe it or not, I’m not trying to be insulting here. Having and sharing your opinion is fine. But to say that these things are what Halo NEEDS? No.
What a Halo game needs:
> It NEEDS to have:
>
> Polish: Hardly any bugs. I’m talking like Halo 3 clean. Halo 4/Reach were pretty clean as well, nevertheless, some things still showed through.
>
> Good Net Code: All Halo’s have delivered on this for the most part so let’s not break tradition.
>
> Customizability: Again, all Halo’s have had this to some extent and 5 should be NO exception. More control is almost always a great thing. Depends on what we’re talking about in the end though of course.
>
> Balanced Gameplay: Nothing should be OP’d. Nothing should feel underwhelming. All gameplay elements should all work wonderfully right out of the box.
Also, I should edit Polish to instead say that it entails that all features in a game be completed fully and satisfactorily.
A lot of halo 4s concepts are just badly implemented but not flawed inherently. For example, loadouts in halo 4 allow you to spawn with the plasma pistol. So what’s the solution to that? Remove the plasma pistol. Not only that, but equal starts is not the same as identical starts, if the carbine and br are fundamentally equal, than why shouldn’t I be able to choose which one I start with?
AAs are the same deal, if they were better balanced and didn’t interfere with map design, they wouldn’t be a problem. You can’t seriously tell me that hologram is broken, or that autosentry is broken (I will say it is a stupid ability though). Thruster pack is probably the only ability that requires some form of skill to use effectively. Dodging grenades takes skill in timing, and so does the ninja technique.
Ordnance as is, is horrendous, but it can be reworked to be more balanced. The link below is how I would have made ordnance.
Link: https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst228423_Evolution-of-ordnance.aspx
What actually needs to removed are things that can not and will not work. Sprint, flinch and perks are examples of mechanics that need to go. Sprinting will never work in halo, flinch ruins long range combat and perks ruin any kind of equality. On top of this, they all seem to make the game much more generic and unoriginal.
Once 343 recognizes what needs to go and what needs to be fixed, then we are able to add more to the game in a significant way, that also supports the core of halo.