After logging in roughly 250+ hours into Halo 4 online, much like jumping from Reach to 4, going from Halo 4 to Halo 5 is an entirely new experience that should be treated as such. Do not expect the same results as you did regardless of how well you did in the past. This is an entirely new game with new fundamentals and style.
Halo 4 held your hand compared to Halo 5.
ordinance drop
343i said ordinance drops reduced camping, but what a lot of Halo vets argued was that ordinance drops ruined the importance of map control in the past Halo games. You can be randomly rewarded with a power weapon, power up, or nothing much useful, without having to control the map. This system doesn’t reward the teamwork and coordination needed for map control from the Halo games in the past.
In Halo 5, where power weapons now have a timer on them, encourages map control since players will gravitate to those areas to get those power weapons or power ups. This means map control once again is important and running around aimlessly is punished.
shield recharge
Your shields recharged in Halo 4 during sprint which means you can get away with a lot of mistakes. In Halo 5, your shields do not recharge if you sprint. It’s a high risk/high reward if you decide to sprint since you may be picked off easily or get barely be able to get away. If you decide to sit behind cover, you take the risk of being naded. Halo 5 encourages the player to find an escape route in the map. These maps, especially with new abilities like thrusting, sliding, and clambering, have so many options to get from one point to another. Be creative.
Radar/Promethean vision
While the radar has been 25m in past Halo games, Halo 4 introduced Promethean vision which gave players even more reason to play defensively in addition to the 25m radar. At this radar range, it was possible to play a majority of the game by just watching your radar and reacting to it. On top of that, with Promethean vision, you can spam the ability to allow you to see even further than your radar which encouraged even more camping and defensive play. Other spartan abilities such as hard light shield, camouflage, hologram, and regen field to an extent also encouraged defensive play.
In Halo 5, the radar has been reduced to 18m, which makes sense. You should only look at your radar in anticipating close range fights. You should be looking and hearing what is going on in your surroundings in mid range fights. Reducing the radar encourages movement, pushing the pace, and being on the offensive. Even though Halo 5’s radar has been decreased, 343i has given tools to make players more aware of their surroundings. Spartan abilities such as spartan charge and ground pound make very distinct noises which can be anticipated. Grenade hit markers and Spartan chatter give players valuable information where the other team is. The carnage report above your radar lets you know who has what weapons and who is spawning. When you get hit, a marker appears on around your reticle shows the direction the shot was fired from. All these new features make up for the decreased radar, it lets the player be more aware of what is going on without having to rely on radar.
Camouflage
This spartan ability was a loadout instead of a powerup in Halo Reach and Halo 4. Since multiple people can use this ability, it become more of a nuisance than a game changer in past Halo games. In earlier Halo games, getting the camo could have the potential to change the entire momentum of the game. Bringing it back in Halo 5 means that power ups are just as important as power weapons.
In short, Halo 4 was about defensive, slower paced game play where one person could carry an entire team, especially if he got a lucky ordinance drop since there is less reliance on map control and therefore less teamwork. In Halo 5, map control and team work is more important again. It’s harder for one player to carry a team and with the reduced radar, offensive and mobility is encouraged. I welcome all the changes in Halo 5, THANK YOU 343i.
