To 343i,
Halo is an Arena style game when it comes to multiplayer, and arena based gameplay is “‘deathmatch’ with weapons, ammo and power-ups scattered throughout the map.”
Halo can maintain all of these and still have weather effects. These effects are criticized for being “unfair” but I find that a baseless argument for Halo. Most if not all Halo maps have had most maps with nice balance of indoor and outdoor gameplay, with teams often fighting for controlling the best part of the map which can be either domain.
A map like Zanzibar from Halo 2 could benefit from weather effects along with asymmetrical gameplay like CTF where the attacking team plays using the advantage of blinding weather while at the same time the attacking team can use that for cover for themselves.
Weapons will still play a greater role obviously but with the added weather their could be more ways for people to approach a situation.
My compromise would be to tell players to see weather as another ‘weapon’ to control to their advantage. Example: A map like Blood Gulch or another symmetrical map with both indoors and outdoors based gameplay, all players have a timer that tells about when the ‘storm’ will arrive. Players will then fight to control the indoor or outdoor areas based on what suits their play style. Two stealthy players would both likely confront each other in the outdoor section while two rushing players will confront each other in the indoor section, both situations involve FASTER gameplay, that is my hypothesis anyway.
Please 343i, add in optional weather effects. Just for some maps at least. Weather is just another ‘weapon’ that hasn’t really been used much probably because of last gen limitations. This is the time to use it. I see no downside for having some maps with weather effects designed into them. It feels like the natural evolution to Halo and is something players will like.