How do we fix Halo?

Community General Discussion
1

First off, I want anyone who enters this thread to have actual points backed up and biases thrown out. The instant any of these enter the thread, it will become a whole mess of NewGen v Veterans. We have enough threads with promise tainted by this bias. I personally like sprint, but I can see where veterans are coming from when they complain about it. Try look at it from both sides of the coin.

I’ve been playing Halo since Halo: Reach and I’ve loved the game since. I loved Halo 4 and enjoyed it, yet playing Halo 3’s campaign was a better experience. However, as I have grown, and learned to look at the facts, I’ve noticed that the Halo community isn’t what it once was. I’ve heard of the ‘golden age’ in Halo 3 where the community was well respected and numbered over anything we have today. I want the community to regain its status and return to that ‘golden age.’

The point of this thread is to discuss what problems currently face Halo, solutions, arguments against said solutions, and in general how to make sure everyone gets what they want.

For problems to Halo, this is the list I’ve come up with.

  • Poor story and campaign. (The unspoken consensus on H5’s campaign seems to be a deeply negative one. The story is the worst we’ve seen in Halo, and the campaign wasn’t as immersive or unique as H3’s campaign.) - Change in art style. (Most players want a grittier, dirtier art style, rather than H5’s shiny chrome one. There might be some dispute on this.) - Half-baked launch. (Admittedly, 343 was playing it safe for H5, so I’ll be lighter with this one. I think they now know what we want, so they’ll fix this in Halo 6." - Poor File Browser. (I can’t go search for new maps to play on like back in Reach.) - Community Cartographers. (Don’t know much about this one. I’ve heard there is corruption or something to that degree within the CCs, and some of them don’t speak for the community.) - **The Sprint Civil War.**The whole argument between sprint and no sprint has split this community in two and shaved off players since Reach. Since Halo 3, we’ve lost approximately 7 million players. (H3’s sales were at 12 million, H5’s at 5 million. Math is simple.) Of course, this isn’t just because of sprint, but it is likely a main reason. We need to stop this debate before it destroys the community, and we can’t do it by simply dismissing one side or the other with Nostalgia or “CoD fanboyism”. There are likely more problems than I’ve listed, but these are the most obvious.

Now for solutions, new or ongoing, to this problem:

  • New, good writers. (I don’t want to point fingers, but the community seems to have singled out a problem they want to see gone. All I want is a better story, and better writers may be the key to this.) - An art style change back to something like Reach or H3, with more grit. (Using Halo Wars 2’s trailer as example, this seems to be already happening. Of course, it isn’t the actual game, so we don’t know for certain.) - Reach-level File Browser or better. (File browser can have filters to search for maps like Grifball, BTB, No-Sprint, etc. Players can ‘like’ maps and maybe vote for them to be added into matchmaking. This can also help Community Cartographers search for good talent in the Halo community.) - A system of some sort put in place so the community can directly influence the Cartographers. Classic no-sprint playlists with forged maps to accommodate for the lack of sprint. (This appeals to the veterans so they have some multiplayer to themselves, whilst the pro-sprint players have the rest.)This is all I have so far, please do reply with your own thoughts, and remember to not be toxic, have actual points backed up, and throw out as much bias as you can.
2

I agree having an unbiased conversation is necessary to move on…I don’t know that you are going to get it here. For example I myself am unable to remove my bias against Sprint. The last sentence of your post kind of grated me. We have had three iterations of mainline Halo games that include Sprint and have declining sales. Shouldn’t the next game be based on a non-Sprint formula (with Sprint friendly forge maps for the Pro-sprinters) as this is the only way to see how much Sprint , in and of itself , has effected the population?

3

Sorry for making the bias hard on you. I’m just going on the assumption that 343 keeps sprint as a main feature for Halo 6. It seems very obvious that they are going to keep sprint. But nonetheless, if Halo is going to continue being relevant, let alone keep it’s relevance, it needs to cater to the anti-sprinters.

Besides, if Classic Playlists are put in Halo 6 and so many past fans return to the point that classic playlists have more players than standard playlists, then the following Halo game may see the expulsion of sprint as a whole.

4

<mark>This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.</mark>

WE FIX HALO BY GETTING RID OF 343.

5

It’s a difficult subject to tackle, there’s a small minority that don’t see anything wrong with H5.

I’d agree we need far better writers, I’d be in favour of a grittier art style for alien and even human worlds however I think the Forerunner installations, planets etc should keep this crisp clean art thing, that’s just how I imagine Forerunner architecture to be.

Personally I’m in favour of keeping sprint - I can feel your hatred people (hahaha) - it just makes sense to me that Spartans should be able to sprint as a basic function.

With the direction the story has taken in H5, 343i obviously have to see it through now, I just really wish that someone has spoken up in a story meeting and said No! this is not the direction we should take. This is supposed to be the reclaimer trilogy, in my mind that has always meant Halo was building to a point where Humanity would ascend to hold the Mantle or Reclaim the majority of forerunner tech throughout the galaxy.

It seems like so many ideas were input and then forgotten about - Chief’s connection to the Iso-Didact, the Janus Key, whatever it was the Librarian did to Chief to “accelerate his evolution” (H4)

In short, I think there is little wrong with the gameplay of Halo, it’s all to do with the story - H5 was advertised as a hunt for Chief, a rivalry between Locke and John. The adverts, the accusation of Chief being a traitor and the Hunt the Truth series built H5 into something that sounded really really interesting. What we got didn’t resemble what was advertised prior to launch. I’m still surprised that some massive fanboy didn’t try to sue 343i for false advertising (maybe they did and I just didn’t hear about it).

For me personally, having a 15 mission campaign where we played as Blue team for 3 of them is a slap in the face, having another 3 (i think) missions where you walked around going from point A to point B and then back to A, smacks of filler - so they can say yes we have a large campaign. I was not the biggest fan of playing half of Halo 2 as the Arbiter, but at least H2 was split pretty half and half.

Really to fix Halo - we need Doc Browns Delorean.

6

> 2533274820195416;5:
> It’s a difficult subject to tackle, there’s a small minority that don’t see anything wrong with H5.
>
> I’d agree we need far better writers, I’d be in favour of a grittier art style for alien and even human worlds however I think the Forerunner installations, planets etc should keep this crisp clean art thing, that’s just how I imagine Forerunner architecture to be.
>
> Personally I’m in favour of keeping sprint - I can feel your hatred people (hahaha) - it just makes sense to me that Spartans should be able to sprint as a basic function.
>
> With the direction the story has taken in H5, 343i obviously have to see it through now, I just really wish that someone has spoken up in a story meeting and said No! this is not the direction we should take. This is supposed to be the reclaimer trilogy, in my mind that has always meant Halo was building to a point where Humanity would ascend to hold the Mantle or Reclaim the majority of forerunner tech throughout the galaxy.
>
> It seems like so many ideas were input and then forgotten about - Chief’s connection to the Iso-Didact, the Janus Key, whatever it was the Librarian did to Chief to “accelerate his evolution” (H4)
>
> In short, I think there is little wrong with the gameplay of Halo, it’s all to do with the story - H5 was advertised as a hunt for Chief, a rivalry between Locke and John. The adverts, the accusation of Chief being a traitor and the Hunt the Truth series built H5 into something that sounded really really interesting. What we got didn’t resemble what was advertised prior to launch. I’m still surprised that some massive fanboy didn’t try to sue 343i for false advertising (maybe they did and I just didn’t hear about it).
>
> For me personally, having a 15 mission campaign where we played as Blue team for 3 of them is a slap in the face, having another 3 (i think) missions where you walked around going from point A to point B and then back to A, smacks of filler - so they can say yes we have a large campaign. I was not the biggest fan of playing half of Halo 2 as the Arbiter, but at least H2 was split pretty half and half.
>
> Really to fix Halo - we need Doc Browns Delorean.

Agreed. I personally am all for sprint as well, I just understand where veterans are coming from when they say they don’t want to, and enjoy H3’s play style. The biggest problems facing Halo concerning Halo 5: Guardians is the campaign and the community in-fighting. Hopefully they’ll fix the campaign for Halo 6, but the community problems are mostly up to us to solve.

7

What has ruined Halo is the community has forced 343 to stop making it cool. The weapons aren’t cool, the enemies aren’t smart or difficult, and the multiplayer is attempting to emulate a game from ten and more years ago including all of it’s problems, not just the good things.

8

My main complaint with Halo 5 is the gun balance. I enjoyed the game-play of the original trilogy much more because it didn’t reward picking up map weapons (besides power weapons) as much as Halo 5 does. It seems in Halo 5, unless the skill gap between the two players is significant, whoever has the best loadout will win a firefight.

I thought the way the original trilogy rewarded great aim with your utility weapons was awesome. If you were great with the pistol or BR it didn’t matter if your opponent had a Brute Rifle or Needler, because you had a chance to win.

As far as sprint goes, I do think it actually slows game play down. I thought the base speed with no sprint lead to more consistent firefights, and it allowed you to move around the map more tactically without someone coming from nowhere to spartan charge you. Also, I’m not sure I buy that “you need sprint for WarZone” argument because the original trilogy had some much larger maps than Halo 5, and to me the speed seemed fine. I had no complaints back in the day running from one base in coagulation to the ledge for instance, because I knew if anyone wanted to come get me, they would need a vehicle or to make that some long trek.

I personally think the “balancing” of guns and spartan abilities both contribute to this major change in dynamic of play. I think the more significant problem is the balance though.