How I'd Design Halo 4: An Essay

Games Other Halo
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I wrote an essay, article, tome of knowledge…Whatever you want to call it, on how I’d design Halo 4. The reason I am not posting it here is it would probably take up upwards of THREE full forum posts in text, and Destructoid’s blogs do not have a character limit!

If you’re in the mood for a very long read on some new ideas and general Halo goodness, take a gander. I imagine most of you will want to just read the “Multiplayer” section, so I hope I organized it well enough for you to do so.

I’d like to add that if you just read the little summaries and skim the article, and then plan to attack me viciously or refute my ideas…Well you aren’t in a position to do that. There is so much information packed into the actual text (Especially in Multiplayer!), that the summaries are really there for clarification and not a “quick fix” for the text.

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I don’t have the time to do a proper read, but I did skim it over. Over all, I liked what I saw. Bravo!

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> I don’t have the time to do a proper read, but I did skim it over. Over all, I liked what I saw. Bravo!

Thanks! I hope you do have time eventually, as there’s so much you miss if you just read the summaries.

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> > I don’t have the time to do a proper read, but I did skim it over. Over all, I liked what I saw. Bravo!
>
> Thanks! I hope you do have time eventually, as there’s so much you miss if you just read the summaries.

Eventually. I just have work soon, and gotta drive my sister to her job. When I get home tonight, I’ll give it a real read and give some honest feedback.

I will say, one idea that really caught my eye was the combat rifle.

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Mobile mods should not be equipted on spawn. It just kills the whole “Starting even” theme of Halo that a lot of people here seem to like.

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I hope to get around to reading it sometime soon. Couldn’t read something that long right now…

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> Mobile mods should not be equipted on spawn. It just kills the whole “Starting even” theme of Halo that a lot of people here seem to like.

There’s something to be said for that, but I think that cramming Mobility Mods, Armor Mods, and Equipment all into one map is overwhelming. As a modern FPS, I can’t see Halo 4 not having at least Sprint or a dodge-roll (evade) as a basic gameplay element.

I think I reached a decent level of balance on those three starters. Keep in mind they are not the AAs from Reach. Jetpack and Evade have been severely nerfed compared to their Reach counterparts, and if anything only give very minor advantages and differences off-spawn. Certainly nothing like Armor Lock or Camo!

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> > Mobile mods should not be equipted on spawn. It just kills the whole “Starting even” theme of Halo that a lot of people here seem to like.
>
> There’s something to be said for that, but I think that cramming Mobility Mods, Armor Mods, and Equipment all into one map is overwhelming. As a modern FPS, I can’t see Halo 4 not having at least Sprint or a dodge-roll (evade) as a basic gameplay element.
>
> I think I reached a decent level of balance on those three starters. Keep in mind they are not the AAs from Reach. Jetpack and Evade have been severely nerfed compared to their Reach counterparts, and if anything only give very minor advantages and differences off-spawn. Certainly nothing like Armor Lock or Camo!

Yeah I know what you mean, but I don’t think you got the point I was trying to make:
Players must spawn evenly. I mean I like the abilities, but people must spawn exactly for it to have ultimate balance.

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I think I love you.

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> > > Mobile mods should not be equipted on spawn. It just kills the whole “Starting even” theme of Halo that a lot of people here seem to like.
> >
> > There’s something to be said for that, but I think that cramming Mobility Mods, Armor Mods, and Equipment all into one map is overwhelming. As a modern FPS, I can’t see Halo 4 not having at least Sprint or a dodge-roll (evade) as a basic gameplay element.
> >
> > I think I reached a decent level of balance on those three starters. Keep in mind they are not the AAs from Reach. Jetpack and Evade have been severely nerfed compared to their Reach counterparts, and if anything only give very minor advantages and differences off-spawn. Certainly nothing like Armor Lock or Camo!
>
> Yeah I know what you mean, but I don’t think you got the point I was trying to make:
> Players must spawn evenly. I mean I like the abilities, but people must spawn exactly for it to have ultimate balance.

I do understand that sentiment. Trust me, I’ve maintained that AAs should be pickups in Reach for a long time.

Thing is, let’s say you put Mobility Mods on the map. They’re low-tier AAs, so you’d probably have them on a quick spawn at an easy to reach location. What’s so very different from that, and starting with them? The only situation I saw when coming up with this was that teams would get caught dead without any abilities on spawn in a spawn-trap situation.

I dunno. I’m not saying it’s a bad way of doing things. I’m just saying that I think the Mobility Mods are balanced enough to be starters.

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Strafe acceleration - I believe it was implemented to combat lag strafing. When you immediately accelerate to full speed the smallest amount of lag will cause you to do a mini teleport strafe. I agree though, its got to go.

Button mapping - I’m all for it as long as crouch and zoom can’t be mapped off the stick clicks. There is a certain skill involved with aiming and zooming using one stick. Ghandi hopping sacrifices some mobility as you mash L3.

I like your mobility mods but I would prefer to have sprint and thrust pack all the time, not either or.

Remodulate and Shield Repel sound like the Jackal Shield, or something similar, could fill both roles. I’m not a fan of Phalanx because a team rolling together already has the advantage of multiple targets and team shot.

It seems like you are mixing power ups in with equipment. Just remember that powerups, like Overshield, require no button presses from the user to function while equipment does. Power ups are passively used, equipment is actively used.

I agree with no bloom on precision weapons.

I don’t agree with a button dedicated to switching fire modes. Too much though for the player and too hard to balance, like optional dual wielding.

I agree with including a classic playlist.

I agree with including a map making utility.

Good essay. It seems like you are on the right track.

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I’ve been reading this, and I just hit the spot where you proposed morphing the jetpack into a jump-pack of some sort - a double jump. I just stopped back in the thread to say “Yes.”

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Turns out I have some time, so here’s a full response:

Gameplay: Nothing to disagree with here. Faster movement, higher jumps, staffing. Love it all.

Campaign: I don’t mind the chief being alone the whole time, but I’d like to get the sense that other stuff is going on, something very absent from Halo 1 and at times, Halo 2. Halo 3 and Reach did well, I think, in showing that there was more going on that what you saw as the player. We know that the UNSC is going to be a major player in Halo 4, so I’d like indicators that the UNSC is there, in the form of radio chatter if nothing else.

Multiplayer: To start, Mobility Modifiers. I love the idea of these. The only thing I might want to change is to make these basic abilities, like the roady run and rollout of Gears of War. The boost pack would give a 1 or 2 second boost to a jump if the player held the button down. Evade and sprint would have a meter like in Reach, but this one would be shared. Like you said, just tone down the rollout, and it’s good.

As for armor mods and equipment, I would say cut a few out and just combine them. Make then scattered on the map, and single use, even overshield and active-camo.

The Sandbox: I liked everything I heard from this end. I am tempted to change the BR to single shot, make it more of a ranged weapon than the Combat Rifle, but that’s me. I’d be fine either way.

Firefight: Loved this to. After playing Horde 2.0, I felt Halo’s Firefight would do well to add some kind of economy. Just two thing’s I’d want to add: Set preferences, including skulls, and the ability to return to a classic, ODST firefight. You know, turn off the expanding map and economy and other stuff for a traditional firefight experience. I love the new, but as you said, let people have their classic fix.

Forge: I love the idea of a true map editor for the PC, but I think Forge should have two modes. You’d have a traditional Forge-Mode on the Halo 4 game disc, for the basic stuff, or for people who don’t have a computer able to handle the full forge mode. Then, there’d be the full terrain and map editor/creator described in the article for the PC.

So, those are my thoughts on your essay, Mr. Glitch.

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Not 5 shot Pistol. It needs to be 4-shot. It helps toward the weapon itself and it adds in a layer of formality with the “BR.”

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> Not 5 shot Pistol. It needs to be 4-shot. It helps toward the weapon itself and it adds in a layer of formality with the “BR.”

No way. The only reason the pistol was powerful in Halo 1 was because a programmer decided it should be.

When Halo 2 came around, the pistol needed to be nerfed because of the addition of precision weapons. The pistol should return to what it was in Halo 2 and 3: a support weapon.

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> Campaign: I don’t mind the chief being alone the whole time, but I’d like to get the sense that other stuff is going on, something very absent from Halo 1 and at times, Halo 2. Halo 3 and Reach did well, I think, in showing that there was more going on that what you saw as the player. We know that the UNSC is going to be a major player in Halo 4, so I’d like indicators that the UNSC is there, in the form of radio chatter if nothing else.
>
> The Sandbox: I liked everything I heard from this end. I am tempted to change the BR to single shot, make it more of a ranged weapon than the Combat Rifle, but that’s me. I’d be fine either way.

As for the Chief being alone, I was throwing out all pre-known information here. This is how I would want to run the show. I think maybe showing that the UNSC had BEEN there wouldn’t be so bad, but just showing up and realizing the UNSC practically have a city there is just…It ruins some of that mystery.

It’s like “Oh wow! New planet! New world! Holy sh-…Oh wait, the UNSC is here. Oh hi guys. Oh wow you have all this equipment. So you’ve figured it out already? Okay…Well…I guess I’ll go do missions for you and stuff.”

POOF. There goes all sense of mystery and wonder that was built up since 2007 about the new shield world. You don’t get to explore it on your own, you have ONI or the UNSC watching your back. No fun! I honestly think this was a huge blunder on 343s part.

I’m really glad people are liking the idea of the Combat Rifle. Again, I can’t take total credit for the idea, but I did come up with a lot of the mechanics myself. I think it’s an absolutely stonking BRILLIANT concept, and one 343 should really pay attention to!

> I don’t agree with a button dedicated to switching fire modes. Too much though for the player and too hard to balance, like optional dual wielding.

This was a bit of a dilemma for me as well. I didn’t like the idea of only including it on one weapon, but I felt the need for the Combat Rifle to have the option of Full Auto. The other way I was thinking of doing this was to set a ‘cadence’ through Bloom implementation. I.e, you could fire the bursts faster than the full reset. This would allow you to spam it like an automatic at close range, and then use the cadence at mid range for headshots.

The problem I ran into with that is that you could potentially spam a headshot with the burst fire mode. I didn’t want that. I get that this is a complicated weapon design, but I think the switch is for the best.

As for some of your other points about MM and AMs, those were all theoretical abilities. I just wanted to give the reader a sense of what I wanted to go for with a decent number of examples. I gave them enough thought to not make them overpowered or game-breaking, but if I really were in charge of Halo 4 I seriously doubt all of those would be in the game.

> I’ve been reading this, and I just hit the spot where you proposed morphing the jetpack into a jump-pack of some sort - a double jump. I just stopped back in the thread to say “Yes.”

Hi Zome!

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> > I don’t agree with a button dedicated to switching fire modes. Too much though for the player and too hard to balance, like optional dual wielding.
>
> This was a bit of a dilemma for me as well. I didn’t like the idea of only including it on one weapon, but I felt the need for the Combat Rifle to have the option of Full Auto. The other way I was thinking of doing this was to set a ‘cadence’ through Bloom implementation. I.e, you could fire the bursts faster than the full reset. This would allow you to spam it like an automatic at close range, and then use the cadence at mid range for headshots.
>
> The problem I ran into with that is that you could potentially spam a headshot with the burst fire mode. I didn’t want that. I get that this is a complicated weapon design, but I think the switch is for the best.

One way to solve the problem is to model it after Gears 3’s retro lancer. It’s powerful, and can be used effectively at range and close up. It has a high rate of bloom and recoil to counter the fact that it’s very powerful.

That’s, at least, another possibility.

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> > Not 5 shot Pistol. It needs to be 4-shot. It helps toward the weapon itself and it adds in a layer of formality with the “BR.”
>
> No way. The only reason the pistol was powerful in Halo 1 was because a programmer decided it should be.
>
> When Halo 2 came around, the pistol needed to be nerfed because of the addition of precision weapons. The pistol should return to what it was in Halo 2 and 3: a support weapon.

The Pistol is a precision weapon. If you make the Pistol “just a Pistol” then you’re defeating balance. Halo has no room for “support” weapons because it’s illogical for balance. With a more powerful Pistol, at least we retain the icon for CE and give it a purpose, because they can’t take it away, either.

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I have to admit, i agree with almost everything you say, great job and a lot of hard work thinking there!

I am a little concerned though, did you mention any type of Halo 3 style equipment? if you did then i must of missed it, but i really wan my radar jammer back as equipment-not invis, and my power drain and flares

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> > > I don’t agree with a button dedicated to switching fire modes. Too much though for the player and too hard to balance, like optional dual wielding.
> >
> > This was a bit of a dilemma for me as well. I didn’t like the idea of only including it on one weapon, but I felt the need for the Combat Rifle to have the option of Full Auto. The other way I was thinking of doing this was to set a ‘cadence’ through Bloom implementation. I.e, you could fire the bursts faster than the full reset. This would allow you to spam it like an automatic at close range, and then use the cadence at mid range for headshots.
> >
> > The problem I ran into with that is that you could potentially spam a headshot with the burst fire mode. I didn’t want that. I get that this is a complicated weapon design, but I think the switch is for the best.
>
> One way to solve the problem is to model it after Gears 3’s retro lancer. It’s powerful, and can be used effectively at range and close up. It has a high rate of bloom and recoil to counter the fact that it’s very powerful.
>
> That’s, at least, another possibility.

Other than I don’t think the Combat Rifle should be very powerful. It should be just powerful enough to compete with the rest of the sandbox if the user knows what they’re doing.

Making it powerful but jumpy was another option I thought of, but it made it too powerful at close range, eliminating the need for an SMG or straight up Assault Rifle.

> I have to admit, i agree with almost everything you say, great job and a lot of hard work thinking there!
>
> I am a little concerned though, did you mention any type of Halo 3 style equipment? if you did then i must of missed it, but i really wan my radar jammer back as equipment-not invis, and my power drain and flares

Thanks so much!

I mentioned the Bubble shield and EMP Grenade, which is basically the power drainer.

Again, those were just suggestions though. Flares and Radar Jammers could work in there somehow, I’m sure.