HCEA Multiplayer: Were Zero Bloom Really Belongs. And how to Balance the gametype/s to get the best

Games Other Halo
1

> For this balancing idea to work, DMRs and NRs shouldn’t exist in any maps of the anniversary playlist! This is very important, and I’ll be telling why at its due time, so keep reading.

As we all know, the 3sk pistol comes out in the 15th, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t test the best settings for CEA MP by now.

In the current Team Classic there are these top 3 reason why people don’t play:

  1. All are Forged Maps (gray gray and more gray…boring).
  2. Bloom and No bleedthrough are still there = not classic.
  3. Bad teammates, too good opponents; lack of ranking system, and this is due to its low population.

This playlist i’m talking about is the one that you can play straight from the Anniversary Disc.

Its default gametype should be Classic Slayer, which has:
Zero Bloom/Melee Bleedtrhough
AR/Magnum/1Frag
Default Motion Tracker
No Starting AA
120% Speed*
125% Jump*
150% Gravity*
110% Damage**
110% Dmg Resistance**
75% Melee Damage**

*+What those settings do to movement is make strafing more effective and that makes sprint not needed, also high jumps, but not as floaty jumps as the Halo 2/3 jumps

  • Dodging Rockets and Grenades becomes easier.

**What those settings do to weapons and melee is:
+Turns any niche weapon stronger (like CE), making them worth picking up.
+Turns melee into 2 hits kill (like CE), so that weapon + melee combo isn’t as cheap, then what it is at 90% or 100% melee dmg.
+AR becomes a 16sk (like in CE).

  • Grenades/Rockets are stronger, that’s why 1 frag starts is a must like in the current Team Classic.
  • Sniper Also becomes more OP, but it’s not a big deal.

^This should be the default settings for slayer and objective, but DMRs and NRs shouldn’t be left out completely, the more weapons that come to use the better.

Because there SHOULD be DMR and NRs in the playlist, but not in the map by default but as a gametype option instead:

Classic Rifles has:
Zero Bloom/Melee Bleedthrough
DMR/NR/2 Frags
Default Motion Tracker
Weapons on Map: Rifles*
No Starting AA
120% Speed
125% Jump
150% Gravity
90% Damage**
90% Dmg Resistance**
100% Melee Damage**
110% Shield Recharge***
110% Health Recharge***

*This setting turns Human Weapons in the map into DMRs, and Covenant Weapons into NRs. Human power weapons into Snipers and covy power weapons into focus rifles.

**This setting turns the NR into a 7sk and 4 shot and melee kill, and leaves DMRs as 5sk, also 3 shot melee kill.

***This gametype is just to bring DMRs and NRs into the playlist to add healthty variety. It’s the Team Rifles gametype from Halo 2, therefore shields/healthy should recharge faster.

If you wanna support this, keep it alive!

2

You should probably remove the 110% resistance. All that does is cancel out the 110% damage. And having the 110% damage is important for balancing all the niche weapons and power weapons so the Magnum won’t overpower them too much.

I find this damage setting is perfect for regular zero bloom too. It helps the AR, PP, and PR keep. While none of them can beat a magnum up close, they actually impact a DMR user.

3

no offense but no “classic” playlist with zero bloom settings should have a magnum start or more than one frag start.
I find that 100% everything and 75% melee makes for good gameplay. but I could see “classic” with an AR start and “classic reach” with dmrs

4

> no offense but no “classic” playlist with zero bloom settings should have a magnum start or more than one frag start.
> I find that 100% everything and 75% melee makes for good gameplay. but I could see “classic” with an AR start and “classic reach” with dmrs

Halo CE ONLY HAD the Magnum. How would it “not be classic” to include the Magnum? And only having 1 frag is supposed to be the tradeoff for grenades being ridiculously no-brain easy to use in Reach.

5

thats not what im saying, on bloodgulch and hangemhigh there were 2 magnums. Im not saying take it out by any means, thats what makes it classic, im saying have it be like CE where its a sub powerweapon to be a part of map control. Not a Dolphin gun that everyone spawns with.

6

by the way legend, if you still have your ce disk put it in, halo ce had plasma pistol starts.

7

> by the way legend, if you still have your ce disk put it in, halo ce had plasma pistol starts.

Actually Halo CE’s starting weapon depended entirely on the map. For instance go to Rat Race and you will get an AR, or Hang 'em High will give you a Magnum. In the same way playing Halo 2 on Midship or Waterworks gave you a Plasma Rifle instead of an SMG.

The difference is that there is an alternate weapon starts (Generic as opposed to Custom), that will ALWAYS spawn the player with an AR, Magnum, and 4 frag grenades. This is what most players used as a default, and what would make the most sense as a starting pair.

8

> You should probably remove the 110% resistance. All that does is cancel out the 110% damage. And having the 110% damage is important for balancing all the niche weapons and power weapons so the Magnum won’t overpower them too much.
>
> I find this damage setting is perfect for regular zero bloom too. It helps the AR, PP, and PR keep. While none of them can beat a magnum up close, they actually impact a DMR user.

Trust me, the 110% resistance is needed, and it doesn’t cancel the 110% damage (weird but true) I swear my friend got killed by one frag when it bounced from his armor to his feet (and that’s not Halo).

In the classic rifles, when I only had 90% damage, one sniper bullet to the head wouldn’t kill, so I added less resistance (90%) and it became prerfect. It also nerfs the frags, so now there can be 2 frags per spwan with no problem at all.

9

Actually the damage grenade impact does is exactly enough to cause the grenade to kill in a single hit. So it would work.

But even then. Just go with 110% damage, trust me it’s better for the AR/Repeater/PP/PR that way. And the DMR becomes a 4 sk, NR a 5sk, which is actually the EXACT number of shots it takes to make their kill time exactly the same.

The AR in Halo CE killed in 19 shots btw. 7 drained shields, 12 killed.

10

> Actually the damage grenade impact does is exactly enough to cause the grenade to kill in a single hit. So it would work.
>
> But even then. Just go with 110% damage, trust me it’s better for the AR/Repeater/PP/PR that way. And the DMR becomes a 4 sk, NR a 5sk, which is actually the EXACT number of shots it takes to make their kill time exactly the same.
>
> The AR in Halo CE killed in 19 shots btw. 7 drained shields, 12 killed.

I know what you mean here, but if you read the first part, the only gametype supporting DMR/NR is Team Rifles.

The Classic Slayer/Objective gametypes are the gametypes that are meant to play as close to Halo 1 as possible meaning no DMRs and NRs at all in the Classic Maps, but only when the Team Rifles gametype comes to use which turns Human weapons into DMRs and Covy weapons into NRs, and power weapons to Snipers/Focus rifles.

Classic Slayer/Obective is meant to have powerful niche weapons, 3sk magnum and 3 hit melees.

I always thought that the CE AR killed in 16 shots and that the Reach AR in 19, weird… but you could be right.

11

I think for HCEA Matchmaking they should create a slayer variant for each map just like Halo: CE.

As for the damage modifications needed, for Halo 3 or Halo 2-like gameplay, make melee bleed through 90% because bleed through melees are ridiculous as they are now, and for CE-like gametypes, make melee 75%.

12

Ive tried a bunch of settings and 100% melee is broken, 90% feels too much like halo 3 AR melee with an AR or Repeater, and 75% is kind of a sweet spot (no 2 melee pummels and a good amount of damage before a kill)

13

> I think for HCEA Matchmaking they should create a slayer variant for each map just like Halo: CE.

That’s be pretty cool.

Same base traits, but different weapons depending on the map.

> As for the damage modifications needed, for Halo 3 or Halo 2-like gameplay, make melee bleed through 90% because bleed through melees are ridiculous as they are now, and for CE-like gametypes, make melee 75%.

The Classic Rifles is suppoused to be like the Halo 2 gametype, and because of the OP NR. I had to decreace the damage, and resistance to 90% and 90% (Again, for some weird reason, this is the only way that Sniper headshot kills).

The DMR is a 5sk and the NR a 7sk, but got a killtime of 1.7 seconds similar to BR/Carbine.

Melees are 50% in Classic Slayer (CE like), because of the niche weapons + melee combos, it’s now a 4 shot + melee with the Plasma Pistol, so now it’s not just 2 shot + melee which is pretty cheap. Besides, I remeber CE beeing 3 melees to kill, but even if i’m wrong, 50% damage is good for the gameplay.

As for melee beeing 100% and not 90% in Rifles, it’s because after a melee you still need to hit 3 DMR shots to finish the kill, and when using DMR + Melee combo, it’s 3 DMR shots and 1 hit to kill similar to how it has in Halo 2, but for NR, it’s 4 shots + melee to kill (which isn’t a problem, I hope).

14

Before posting, I took my time and tryed the settings from the OP (with a guest). And I have to say, that you got everything right, exept for the fact that there’s no 3sk magnum yet. I tryed AR/PP/PR killtimes and melee combos with them and they feel right, it’s just that rockets are nuke launchers lol.

I haven’t tryed the other settings yet, so I’ll be posting later to tell you what I think about classic rifles.

15

> Ive tried a bunch of settings and 100% melee is broken, 90% feels too much like halo 3 AR melee with an AR or Repeater, and 75% is kind of a sweet spot (no 2 melee pummels and a good amount of damage before a kill)

I agree with the bolded part.

Remember that 50% melee is for the CE-like gametpyes, because it takes too little shots (9 AR, 3 PP and 4PR) with 75% melee, I think that 3 melee (50%) kill is more skillful, therefore better for the gametype.

Besides, CE had 3 melee kills if I remember right.

16

the point of the new classic playlist would be to make it feel like halo 1.
the halo 1 grenades make halo reach grenades look like firecrackers. they have a massive blast radius.

it took two melees while moving to kill someone and three if you were standing still. the plasma weapons had plasma freeze to make them more useful and that would help balance against the pistol. the rockets flew faster and had such a massive blast radius. it could kill a fully overshielded player.

halo 1’s arena style play was absoleutly PERFECT. the only flaw was unresponsive jumping which was more of an annoyance than a problem.

that is why halo 2 was so much worse than than 1, because bungie tried to FIX it.

what you should ask for is if 343 can just make EXACT halo 1 multiplayer. you dont fix whats not broken.
i guarantee you if you just turn on you old xboxes and play with a few friends with the understanding that halo 1 does not and should not play with the later versions you will find it is flawless.

17

halo ce on lan might have seemed fun but the mechanics were far from flawless. Magnum being a three shot and default as a spawn tool had no balance and kill times were too quick, in the most mild lag the game plays terribly because of bad netcode and no hitscan (a feature in h2 and hreach)
I suggest you play halo: ce for windows or mac against other players online before judging if a game’s mechanics are “perfect”

also.
You dont know what youre talking about nades; halo ce nades were balanced and worked, halo reach nades are portable nukes, and if you spawned with four reach would be worse than anything.

18

magnum will NOT be in basic team slayer. IDK why. There better not be a Classic rifles mixed in with classic slayer, as its not really classic. It can be its own playlist if it wants, though.

19

I love the idea of NO SPRINT. SPRINT is terrible. 120 percent movement FTW.

20

> > Ive tried a bunch of settings and 100% melee is broken, 90% feels too much like halo 3 AR melee with an AR or Repeater, and 75% is kind of a sweet spot (no 2 melee pummels and a good amount of damage before a kill)
>
> I agree with the bolded part.
>
> Remember that 50% melee is for the CE-like gametpyes, because it takes too little shots (9 AR, 3 PP and 4PR) with 75% melee, I think that 3 melee (50%) kill is more skillful, therefore better for the gametype.
>
> Besides, CE had 3 melee kills if I remember right.

Come to think of it, I haven’t tried 50%… I thought if I put it on 50 it would take four melees… I guess I was wrong. Oh well. Now I know what to do next time I get on Reach.