How to Fix the Community Split (IMO)

Community General Discussion
1

This will probably be a long post so buckle up.

As a Halo veteran, I definitely feel the pain of everyone who wants the classic style to return. But I’m also willing to compromise, because in the end Halo does need to evolve.
The problem with the current Halo, for most veterans, is that Halo didn’t evolve. It completely changed its identity. Almost every aspect of the Halo universe was changed in Halo 4. And anything that wasn’t, was shorty change later in Halo 5. Leaving us with a game that no longer holds any identity of who it was before.

Now the sad thing that Halo vets must realize, is that Halo will never do the 180 you want it to. Its simply just unreasonable. 343I has already created 2 games now with this formula and gained new fan base around it. To completely scrap it would be stupid as far as business is concerned. That’s the truth we must face. But it doesn’t mean that 343 can’t acknowledge Halo vets at all. There is were the real problem lies. You see in the new Halo games, its not just that things were simply changed that made us long time fans mad. Its that things were changed unreasonably. And almost no effort was made at all to acknowledge what Halo was. It feels like everything about what we knew as Halo was thrown away, all for that sake of 343I’s ego. They wanted this to be THEIR Halo, and they were gonna change everything just for the sake of change, with no intentions of actually continuing Bungie’s legacy. Which is what they were supposed to do. The simple way to put it, is that the new Halo games feel like off-brand Halo games. The transition of companies should have been seamless. instead its a giant fault line. Thats what Halo fans hate.

So now we have these separated communities. And its easy to make the arguments of why this shouldn’t have happened in the first place. But unless 343I has access to a time machine, I don’t think they’re very helpful. How do we fix the issues and look to the future instead of dwelling on all the past mistakes? with the hopeful announcement of a new Halo game in the near future at E3 2018, its difficult to give any sort of feedback that doesn’t seem far fetched. We’ve gone without news for so long now that nobody really knows what to expect. And everyone is starving for something. But I’ll give it my best shot to explain how I think 343I should handle this issue going forward.

The main thing that I think needs to happen, is for the to styles of halo to come together to try to coexist. With the addition of the Spirit of Fire back in the modern Halo universe, it actually makes this idea more reasonable, and more likely. So Let me break it up into the different controversies and how to infuse the two styes in each category.

Art Style-
The idea of combining art styles is actually very complex because there are hundreds of different things to account for. From designs of all different kinds of objects, to what colors and what kinds of shading should be used. In the case of stuff like vehicle and weapon design. 343I has already shown that Warzone works well for having LOTS of different types of vehicles. So why not not just have both? Lore wise, you have modern day UNSC vehicles and weapons. And you have the SoF age vehicles and weapons. These things simply being in the sandbox opens a lot of doors for the community, especially with the new forge.
When it comes to characters, I like to refer to HiddenXperia’s video on the elite design. While the new elites don’t have any attributes that make them “elite” whatsoever. They can still have a place in the Halo universe. As goes with the grunts and jackals. The idea has actually already been done in Halo wars 2. With the older grunts being the cannon fodder, and the newer grunt designs being used for the suicide grunts. These deferent sub-species of covenant can fill specific roles. The old elites being your average leaders and stealth. And the new bulky elites being used as heavies, carrying heavy weapons and turrets. The new jackals being the ones to go into battle with shields. And the old being the snipers. As far as main characters go. I think characters like The Arbiter need to return to their former design.
And finally color. Halo 4’s art design isn’t nearly as bad as Halo 5’s. While they are very similar, I can at least appreciate Halo 4. Halo 5’s Art design is brought down by its very poor use of color. in Halo 4 the colors at least blended well. In 5, they used the most basic choices in color. It almost seems like pulled them straight out of a box of Crayola markers. This can’t happen in Halo 6. Even if they don’t nail the classic look of Halo completely, anything is better than the color pallet of Halo 5.

If I could choose. Id want the style of Halo 2 Anniversary. It seems to already sorta mix the two styles very well and has some AMAZING skyboxes. Absolutely breathtaking.

Gameplay-
I’ll start by saying that there isn’t really anything wrong with Halo 5’s multiplayer. As a standard multiplayer game, it’s fun. And theres no shame in liking it. The problem though is that it isn’t a good Halo multiplayer. And thats what the vets want. Im okay with enhanced mobility being in the next Halo game. Because it most likely will be no matter what. But what they need to do is give the long time fans a true Halo experience as well. And its actually pretty simple.
We all know that classic playlists are a thing, but they never really seem to cut it. What we need is a fully supported mode like Warzone and Arena, labeled “Legacy.” It will be its own branch of multiplayer with its own sandbox. Same engine and everything. Going back on what I said about having both types of weapons. They simply use new weapons in Arena and Warzone. And old weapons for Legacy. With each set specifically balanced to work within that set alone. Then you tweak the player stats to resemble a more classic play style. Create some Legacy only maps, maybe even some classics. And give the mode its own set of playlists. Now not only can both players play the game the way they want. But they also now have more options. And more variety is better.

You could even take it step further, and have Spartan IV models in the “enhanced mobility” modes, and Spartan II / III models in the Legacy modes.

And finally…
Progression, Unlocks and… Micro transactions (MTX)
I’ll make this one short and simple, because nobody really likes MTX, but they probably aren’t going anywhere. I don’t know how they’re gonna handle Warzone in Halo 6. The Pay-to-Win thing might be thrown way out of balance and completely noticeable. It may not. But for the sake of everyones sanity, keep it out of the progression system! Earning literally everything in the game through a randomized loot box, is not fun, at all. I want rewards for completing certain tasks. Giving everyone everything defeats the purpose of a game. Theres no challenge. And you cant have a game without challenge. If Y’all want a blatantly pay-to-win game mode, thats fine. But keep it out of the rest of the game. So others can avoid it, and not have it intrude on there experience.

I still kinda feel like it will intrude anyway, because thats how they manipulate you. People can’t be allowed to avoid it because then it wouldn’t work as they intended. Which is to literally scam you and ruin your experience in the hopes of getting you to buy stuff to make it your experience better…

SAY NO TO MICROTRANSACTIONS

2

Didn’t have enough space for a conclusion. But in conclusion, the only way I think we can get past all this controversy is for 343 to at least make an effort to join the two styles. The effort is what counts. If i see that they at least tried I will cut them some slack. But if no effort is shown in caring about the Community that built this game, then I have no hope, and no more chances to give 343 Industries.

3

Curious to know: you say that Halo 4 changed everything about Halo. What did Halo 4 change that Halo Reach didn’t already change, other than ordinance drops?

4

I agree with your points for the most part. Particularly about the art design. I really love 343’s spartan design, with the armour looking better suited to the faster paced enhanced movement of their games, but their spartans don’t look anywhere near as badass as Bungie’s designs. I want both types of armour to be available in the next game, kind of like what 343 did with the classic helmets.

I want REQ packs to exclusively give boosts and REQ variants. We should also be able to purchase armour and loadout weapons with REQ points, on top of the REQ packs. This would give 343 their microtransactions and the players the ability to get armour parts and loadout weapons they want. I also want spartan customisation to have helmet, visor, torso, arms and legs, more akin to Halo 3 and Reach

5

> 2533274817408735;3:
> Curious to know: you say that Halo 4 changed everything about Halo. What did Halo 4 change that Halo Reach didn’t already change, other than ordinance drops?

How about the design of almost all the weapons. All the vehicles. All the characters. Making sprint something that in Halo reach could be left out of game modes and maps. To being built in to the movement mechanics and core gameplay. The gameplay in Halo 4 wasn’t too shocking. Reach had the addition of amor abilities in what I assume was an effort to evolve equipment from H3. And it was 343’s job to judge whether or not those things should come back. Obviously making a choice that Halo fans didn’t like and further expanding on them by also adding them into the core gameplay through enhanced mobility, just like they did with sprint. But I think were the changing shines the most is in the art style. Like how Master Chiefs armor magically changes from 3 to 4. Rather than working on making sure they can correctly create the Halo style, then changing it in Halo 5 when it made sense. It would be like if in H3 he had a completely new set of armor after the cliff hanger. Its these kind of unnecessary changes that I’m referring to. Like I said, the problem isn’t that they changed stuff. Its that they change way too much stuff. Every Halo game changes things through the sequels. But none on the scale of Halo 4 and 5. They changed stuff so much that it looks completely different, and most of them were completely unnecessary.

6

> 2535412904380656;1:
> As far as main characters go. I think characters like The Arbiter need to return to their former design.

Really? I thought the Arbiter looked badass in Halo 5. In any case, I’m not so much worried about “art style” as I am about “ugly helmets”.

> 2535412904380656;1:
> What we need is a fully supported mode like Warzone and Arena, labeled “Legacy.” It will be its own branch of multiplayer with its own sandbox. Same engine and everything. Going back on what I said about having both types of weapons. They simply use new weapons in Arena and Warzone. And old weapons for Legacy. With each set specifically balanced to work within that set alone. Then you tweak the player stats to resemble a more classic play style. Create some Legacy only maps, maybe even some classics. And give the mode its own set of playlists. Now not only can both players play the game the way they want. But they also now have more options. And more variety is better.

First of all, no, we don’t need Warzone. Halo never needed Warzone. The whole point of Warzone was to sell req packs, and every previous Halo was fine without it, especially when Warzone comes at the expense of BTB and BTB Heavies. Also, basically splitting Halo 6 in half is not only just a weird idea but also, don’t forget that more playlists = thinner population. If they went with your weird idea of giving Halo 6 some kind of double identity, then each side would effectively have half the population, and we’ve seen what kind of harm a low population can cause.

> 2535412904380656;2:
> But if no effort is shown in caring about the Community that built this game, then I have no hope, and no more chances to give 343 Industries.

I think what they need to do is show effort in caring about the Halo Waypoint community, instead of just the Halo Twitter and Reddit communities.

> 2535440264425395;4:
> I want REQ packs to exclusively give boosts and REQ variants. We should also be able to purchase armour and loadout weapons with REQ points, on top of the REQ packs. This would give 343 their microtransactions and the players the ability to get armour parts and loadout weapons they want.

Can we please not? Req packs need to be a thing of the past. Weapons and vehicles, and especially loadouts, should never come from progression, because that’s very unfair to new players. Halo should be about equal starts and having power weapons and vehicles on the map, not called in from everyone’s personal arsenal.

7

> 2535412904380656;5:
> > 2533274817408735;3:
> > Curious to know: you say that Halo 4 changed everything about Halo. What did Halo 4 change that Halo Reach didn’t already change, other than ordinance drops?
>
> How about the design of almost all the weapons. All the vehicles. All the characters. Making sprint something that in Halo reach could be left out of game modes and maps. To being built in to the movement mechanics and core gameplay. The gameplay in Halo 4 wasn’t too shocking. Reach had the addition of amor abilities in what I assume was an effort to evolve equipment from H3. And it was 343’s job to judge whether or not those things should come back. Obviously making a choice that Halo fans didn’t like and further expanding on them by also adding them into the core gameplay through enhanced mobility, just like they did with sprint. But I think were the changing shines the most is in the art style. Like how Master Chiefs armor magically changes from 3 to 4. Rather than working on making sure they can correctly create the Halo style, then changing it in Halo 5 when it made sense. It would be like if in H3 he had a completely new set of armor after the cliff hanger. Its these kind of unnecessary changes that I’m referring to. Like I said, the problem isn’t that they changed stuff. Its that they change way too much stuff. Every Halo game changes things through the sequels. But none on the scale of Halo 4 and 5. They changed stuff so much that it looks completely different, and most of them were completely unnecessary.

Weapons and vehicles have changed design in each Halo game. Halo Reach weapons looked very different from Halo 3. Characters have also changed each game. Cortana has looked different every game with no explanation other than artistic license. Chief’s Armor change was drastic but it was only BS because they tried to justify it with lore instead of just saying they took artistic license like with Cortana.

I’ll give you that mechanics changed quite a bit with 4, but then 5 rolled back some of those changes and I would say Halo 5 gameplay is closer to Halo 3 than Halo 4 was. But I don’t get which change you are saying was too much. Was Halo Reach to Halo 4 too much, or Halo 4 to Halo 5? When I played Halo 4, it still looked like Halo to me, and still felt like Halo for the most part. Really the only thing that did it feel “Halo” to me in Halo 4 was the music, but what composer could or should try to simply copy the work of their predecessor? And I feel like that sentiment applies to the rest of the game, too; I think 343i could have copied the Halo 3 or the Halo Reach formula to the letter, but what would that have shown? Bungie didn’t do that with their sequels. So then the questions becomes: if Halo has to change, but Halo 4 was the wrong change, and Halo 5 was the wrong change, then how should 343i have changed Halo? What should Halo 4 have been that would have been both sufficiently new and different but also being accepted by most fans? And the same question for Halo 5.

8

343 messed up by thinking Reach was part of the main trilogy. They should’ve left Reach in its own universe as a spinoff game and based H4’s gameplay off of H3. Oh, well.

I don’t really agree with your idea for gameplay. I don’t think the people who quit Halo when H4 came out are going to come back because H6 has a classic playlist. It’s the equivalent to 343 giving them the middle finger and all it would do is just split more of the player base at launch. 343 just needs to make one kind of game and do their thing. If they continue the trend of what they’ve been doing, then they should know what’s going to happen and they have no one to blame but themselves.

9

> 2533274904158628;6:
> > 2535412904380656;1:
> > As far as main characters go. I think characters like The Arbiter need to return to their former design.
>
> Really? I thought the Arbiter looked badass in Halo 5. In any case, I’m not so much worried about “art style” as I am about “ugly helmets”.
>
>
> > 2535412904380656;1:
> > What we need is a fully supported mode like Warzone and Arena, labeled “Legacy.” It will be its own branch of multiplayer with its own sandbox. Same engine and everything. Going back on what I said about having both types of weapons. They simply use new weapons in Arena and Warzone. And old weapons for Legacy. With each set specifically balanced to work within that set alone. Then you tweak the player stats to resemble a more classic play style. Create some Legacy only maps, maybe even some classics. And give the mode its own set of playlists. Now not only can both players play the game the way they want. But they also now have more options. And more variety is better.
>
> First of all, no, we don’t need Warzone. Halo never needed Warzone. The whole point of Warzone was to sell req packs, and every previous Halo was fine without it, especially when Warzone comes at the expense of BTB and BTB Heavies. Also, basically splitting Halo 6 in half is not only just a weird idea but also, don’t forget that more playlists = thinner population. If they went with your weird idea of giving Halo 6 some kind of double identity, then each side would effectively have half the population, and we’ve seen what kind of harm a low population can cause.
>
>
> > 2535412904380656;2:
> > But if no effort is shown in caring about the Community that built this game, then I have no hope, and no more chances to give 343 Industries.
>
> I think what they need to do is show effort in caring about the Halo Waypoint community, instead of just the Halo Twitter and Reddit communities.
>
>
> > 2535440264425395;4:
> > I want REQ packs to exclusively give boosts and REQ variants. We should also be able to purchase armour and loadout weapons with REQ points, on top of the REQ packs. This would give 343 their microtransactions and the players the ability to get armour parts and loadout weapons they want.
>
> Can we please not? Req packs need to be a thing of the past. Weapons and vehicles, and especially loadouts, should never come from progression, because that’s very unfair to new players. Halo should be about equal starts and having power weapons and vehicles on the map, not called in from everyone’s personal arsenal.

As for The Abiter. I was mostly referring to the general anatomy of elites. His armor is -Yoinking!- cool but for some reason he has a completely different body shape which doesn’t make much sense. That scene from H2A where he’s talking to locke actually shows what he looks like with the older elite style but in the cool new armor.

Regarding warzone. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I like it or the MTX it brings with it. But the reality is that its probably gonna come back. Its made them far to much money and as much as Id like to see it removed. Its not going to happen. The problem with your arguments is you don’t see the reality of how things are. You only see what you want. and some things simply aren’t reasonable. I know it sounds -Yoink- to just “accept the truth” but idea here is to compromise because trying to change things outright hasn’t really worked has it?
Also your argument of splitting population doesn’t seem too convincing. If they made the game entirely classic Halo the population would go down to mostly classic fans. If they made the game all newer Halo the population would also go down to people who like newer halo. No matter how you slice it people from each community would still be playing the game that they like. At least in this situation, both modes are there for people to try if they ever want more variety. therefore creating a better chance for the communities to come together.

10

> 2535412904380656;9:
> As for The Abiter. I was mostly referring to the general anatomy of elites. His armor is -Yoinking!- cool but for some reason he has a completely different body shape which doesn’t make much sense. That scene from H2A where he’s talking to locke actually shows what he looks like with the older elite style but in the cool new armor.

I was mostly talking about his armor, so I agree with you there. I can barely tell the difference between the “old” and “new” Elite designs, anyway. They’re both ugly, if you ask me.

> 2535412904380656;9:
> Regarding warzone. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I like it or the MTX it brings with it. But the reality is that its probably gonna come back. Its made them far to much money and as much as Id like to see it removed. Its not going to happen. The problem with your arguments is you don’t see the reality of how things are. You only see what you want. and some things simply aren’t reasonable. I know it sounds -Yoink- to just “accept the truth” but idea here is to compromise because trying to change things outright hasn’t really worked has it?

It’s not that I don’t accept it. I have no delusions about how likely Warzone and the req system are to return. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to talk about what should happen. I will say req packs need to be a thing of the past as much as I want, even after Halo 6 is confirmed to have them. It can’t hurt to talk about what should happen, even if it’s highly unlikely.

But yes I can talk about compromises too. There are conditions under which I could potentially be ok with Warzone and the req system returning. I just don’t always want to preface my posts with those, when I’m talking about what should happen.

> 2535412904380656;9:
> Also your argument of splitting population doesn’t seem too convincing. If they made the game entirely classic Halo the population would go down to mostly classic fans. If they made the game all newer Halo the population would also go down to people who like newer halo. No matter how you slice it people from each community would still be playing the game that they like. At least in this situation, both modes are there for people to try if they ever want more variety. therefore creating a better chance for the communities to come together.

Well like I said, your idea is just weird, not necessarily bad. If there weren’t any population concerns, then I wouldn’t really care, but I tend to agree with Lukepowa; I can’t imagine many of the “classic” Halo fans would come back just because half of Halo 6 is “classic”. Especially if it has a req system.

11

> 2533274817408735;7:
> > 2535412904380656;5:
> > > 2533274817408735;3:
> > > Curious to know: you say that Halo 4 changed everything about Halo. What did Halo 4 change that Halo Reach didn’t already change, other than ordinance drops?
> >
> > How about the design of almost all the weapons. All the vehicles. All the characters. Making sprint something that in Halo reach could be left out of game modes and maps. To being built in to the movement mechanics and core gameplay. The gameplay in Halo 4 wasn’t too shocking. Reach had the addition of amor abilities in what I assume was an effort to evolve equipment from H3. And it was 343’s job to judge whether or not those things should come back. Obviously making a choice that Halo fans didn’t like and further expanding on them by also adding them into the core gameplay through enhanced mobility, just like they did with sprint. But I think were the changing shines the most is in the art style. Like how Master Chiefs armor magically changes from 3 to 4. Rather than working on making sure they can correctly create the Halo style, then changing it in Halo 5 when it made sense. It would be like if in H3 he had a completely new set of armor after the cliff hanger. Its these kind of unnecessary changes that I’m referring to. Like I said, the problem isn’t that they changed stuff. Its that they change way too much stuff. Every Halo game changes things through the sequels. But none on the scale of Halo 4 and 5. They changed stuff so much that it looks completely different, and most of them were completely unnecessary.
>
> Weapons and vehicles have changed design in each Halo game. Halo Reach weapons looked very different from Halo 3. Characters have also changed each game. Cortana has looked different every game with no explanation other than artistic license. Chief’s Armor change was drastic but it was only BS because they tried to justify it with lore instead of just saying they took artistic license like with Cortana.
>
> I’ll give you that mechanics changed quite a bit with 4, but then 5 rolled back some of those changes and I would say Halo 5 gameplay is closer to Halo 3 than Halo 4 was. But I don’t get which change you are saying was too much. Was Halo Reach to Halo 4 too much, or Halo 4 to Halo 5? When I played Halo 4, it still looked like Halo to me, and still felt like Halo for the most part. Really the only thing that did it feel “Halo” to me in Halo 4 was the music, but what composer could or should try to simply copy the work of their predecessor? And I feel like that sentiment applies to the rest of the game, too; I think 343i could have copied the Halo 3 or the Halo Reach formula to the letter, but what would that have shown? Bungie didn’t do that with their sequels. So then the questions becomes: if Halo has to change, but Halo 4 was the wrong change, and Halo 5 was the wrong change, then how should 343i have changed Halo? What should Halo 4 have been that would have been both sufficiently new and different but also being accepted by most fans? And the same question for Halo 5.

Halo 4 to me looks very far from Halo. And Halo 5 took it a step further. I think the reason People don’t see reaches changes as of big of an issue is mainly because it was accepted as a side game. But even through all of reaches changes it still has that Halo charm that I just don’t get when i look at 343’s games.

And the reason I say that 343’s changes are bad, is because they weren’t changes that needed to happen. A lot of the changes were simply because they wanted to make Halo drastically different which was not what it needed. Like Master Chief’s armor for example. His armor needed to change eventually. But they just did it at the wrong time because they just felt the need to change everything. They changed as much stuff as they possibly could. And then when Halo 5 came around they looked at everything they didn’t change and decided to change all that too. Its not really one specific game. But more the collective overhaul that went down between 4 and 5. If you look at something like the wraith, in all the Halo games prior It stays basically the same with only small adjustments to add detail. Because it didn’t really need to look deferent. Thats how people knew it looked and it stayed. But then come Halo 5. And 343 goes “what haven’t we changed yet” and with the wraith being one of those things, it got changed. Why? No reason. Im sure they attached some lore reason to it after the fact. same argument goes for the scorpion, and the pelican, and literally everything else.

Yes Bungie changed stuff in their games. but they didn’t change literally everything like 343 did collectively between 4 and 5. In Halo Reach the banshee changed drastically. But you didn’t see them completely remodel everything else as well. Everything else just got smaller detail changes.

12

> 2533274904158628;10:
> > 2535412904380656;9:
> > As for The Abiter. I was mostly referring to the general anatomy of elites. His armor is -Yoinking!- cool but for some reason he has a completely different body shape which doesn’t make much sense. That scene from H2A where he’s talking to locke actually shows what he looks like with the older elite style but in the cool new armor.
>
> I was mostly talking about his armor, so I agree with you there. I can barely tell the difference between the “old” and “new” Elite designs, anyway. They’re both ugly, if you ask me.
>
>
> > 2535412904380656;9:
> > Regarding warzone. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I like it or the MTX it brings with it. But the reality is that its probably gonna come back. Its made them far to much money and as much as Id like to see it removed. Its not going to happen. The problem with your arguments is you don’t see the reality of how things are. You only see what you want. and some things simply aren’t reasonable. I know it sounds -Yoink- to just “accept the truth” but idea here is to compromise because trying to change things outright hasn’t really worked has it?
>
> It’s not that I don’t accept it. I have no delusions about how likely Warzone and the req system are to return. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to talk about what should happen. I will say req packs need to be a thing of the past as much as I want, even after Halo 6 is confirmed to have them. It can’t hurt to talk about what should happen, even if it’s highly unlikely.
>
> But yes I can talk about compromises too. There are conditions under which I could potentially be ok with Warzone and the req system returning. I just don’t always want to preface my posts with those, when I’m talking about what should happen.
>
>
> > 2535412904380656;9:
> > Also your argument of splitting population doesn’t seem too convincing. If they made the game entirely classic Halo the population would go down to mostly classic fans. If they made the game all newer Halo the population would also go down to people who like newer halo. No matter how you slice it people from each community would still be playing the game that they like. At least in this situation, both modes are there for people to try if they ever want more variety. therefore creating a better chance for the communities to come together.
>
> Well like I said, your idea is just weird, not necessarily bad. If there weren’t any population concerns, then I wouldn’t really care, but I tend to agree with Lukepowa; I can’t imagine many of the “classic” Halo fans would come back just because half of Halo 6 is “classic”. Especially if it has a req system.

If were talking realistically here. We know 343 isn’t going to stray away from the new Halo Games. And so the only way to get the classic Halo community to come back then would be to create an entirey separate game devoted to those people. Which to be completely honest already exists but they -Yoinking!- broke it. And i just don’t really see them taking the time to create an entire new game just for a certain group of people. Maybe other studios could. But 343, yeah i doubt it. And it would be a more reasonable thing to at least try to combine it with the new game. Thats Speaking realistically.

If we’re speaking about what should happen. Then all the way 343 needs to do a complete 180 and go back to how this game should be played, completely alienating all the people who might actually like the new style. I really don’t like the “trying to appeal to everyone” attitude they have.

But I just don’t see the point in speaking about what should happen if we know very damn well that its far from reality. Its nice to dream and hope that Halo will turn around. But Id rather talk about whats more likely to happen so that maybe some steps can be taken to fixing something. because its obviously very broken, and id rather compromise than just sit in sadness about how great this game once was

13

343i’s “ego” whatever that may be can’t be as bad as fans’ ego on parroting arguments from youtube.

Reach changed everything from 3 as much as 5 changed everything from 4. You can argue which style is better, but you cannot say Reach had “smaller detail changes”.
Reach was also Bungie’s last Halo game. The fact that it’s considered a spin off does not change the amount of work they put in it was the same as any mainline Halo game. It is Bungie’s ideal Halo, for better or worse.

Not getting into the microtransactions argument because I agree with you.

But as for you main argument, splitting resources for 2 separate play styles is not the ideal way (if there is an ideal way). A game needs focus in order for longevity. Halo 3 was successful in doing this with it’s core gameplay being the same across most modes. (Even if I didn’t like it, but that’s me being off tangent). Both communities wouldn’t be coming together if gameplay is literary split between old and new. There’s already enough problems in balancing for one play style. If 343i has to cater to one then they should. One good playstyle is better than 2 mediocre ones. I would choose classic with the good elements of new stuff that compliments it.

Also Spirit of Fire is not likely to appear aside from spin offs, especially with last years news of “simple, chief focused story” Doesn’t mean old stuff won’t return just the tacked-on lore reason may be different.

14

I am fully with you on this! But with the art style part, I couldn’t have said it any better!! I think bringing diversity within the designs, especially the aliens, would be a great idea! In humanity we have short people, tall people, bulky people, fat people, skinny people & even people of color. Why not apply the same type of characteristics to the Elites, Grunts, Brutes, etc.? We can have dark skinned skinned & tall elites as we had in the recent games coexist with the smaller light skinned elites as we seen in Halo 2 Anniversary. And we have hairy big brutes as we seen in Halo 2 coexist with the bald and smaller brutes like the ones in reach?

15

> 2535412904380656;11:
> > 2533274817408735;7:
> > > 2535412904380656;5:
> > > > 2533274817408735;3:
> > > > Curious to know: you say that Halo 4 changed everything about Halo. What did Halo 4 change that Halo Reach didn’t already change, other than ordinance drops?
>
> Halo 4 to me looks very far from Halo. And Halo 5 took it a step further. I think the reason People don’t see reaches changes as of big of an issue is mainly because it was accepted as a side game. But even through all of reaches changes it still has that Halo charm that I just don’t get when i look at 343’s games.
>
> And the reason I say that 343’s changes are bad, is because they weren’t changes that needed to happen. A lot of the changes were simply because they wanted to make Halo drastically different which was not what it needed. Like Master Chief’s armor for example. His armor needed to change eventually. But they just did it at the wrong time because they just felt the need to change everything. They changed as much stuff as they possibly could. And then when Halo 5 came around they looked at everything they didn’t change and decided to change all that too. Its not really one specific game. But more the collective overhaul that went down between 4 and 5. If you look at something like the wraith, in all the Halo games prior It stays basically the same with only small adjustments to add detail. Because it didn’t really need to look deferent. Thats how people knew it looked and it stayed. But then come Halo 5. And 343 goes “what haven’t we changed yet” and with the wraith being one of those things, it got changed. Why? No reason. Im sure they attached some lore reason to it after the fact. same argument goes for the scorpion, and the pelican, and literally everything else.
>
> Yes Bungie changed stuff in their games. but they didn’t change literally everything like 343 did collectively between 4 and 5. In Halo Reach the banshee changed drastically. But you didn’t see them completely remodel everything else as well. Everything else just got smaller detail changes.

Isn’t it possible that you are looking at Halo 4 and 5 from an inherently biased view? Reading your comment “But even through all of reaches changes it still has that Halo charm that I just don’t get when i look at 343’s games”, it sounds to me like you have this feeling that no one except Bungie could ever make a Halo game, hence why you could accept Halo Reach but not Halo 4.

I disagree with you saying that 343i has changed “everything” about Halo over the course of their games. You bring up the Wraith as another example of needless change, but how was the Halo 4 or Halo 5 version of the Wraith too much of a change compared to the change of it from Halo CE to Halo 2, or from Halo 2 to Halo 3? It’s a situation where it sounds like you were much more sensitive to all the changes that 343i made, but I question whether or not bias is in that sensitivity since you notice 343i’s changes much more than Bungie’s changes. I was able to play 343i’s games and still see them as Halo games, despite the changes, so perhaps I have a higher tolerance for aesthetic changes than you. But even if that’s all this boils down to, I don’t think it’s fair to say that 343i should have just sought to be Bungie 2.0. They’ve made mistakes, yes, but art style changes, no matter how drastic or numerous, are hardly the biggest.

16

I’m actually perfectly fine with Halo 5’s microtransaction system. Let’s face it: microtransactions are here to stay, and as system’s go, Halo 5’s is far from the worst.

The three things which make it stand out from other systems are:

  • NO DUPLICATES (This is why I do not like the Halo Wars 2 MT system) - It is reasonably feasible to unlock every item in the game without paying a single cent (I have on my current account after having it for just over a year) - It actually made the developer money which let them provide us with nice things like free DLCI am also all for unlocking things as rewards for commendations.
17

> 2535405449919732;16:
> I’m actually perfectly fine with Halo 5’s microtransaction system. Let’s face it: microtransactions are here to stay, and as system’s go, Halo 5’s is far from the worst.
>
> The three things which make it stand out from other systems are:
> - NO DUPLICATES (This is why I do not like the Halo Wars 2 MT system) - It is reasonably feasible to unlock every item in the game without paying a single cent (I have on my current account after having it for just over a year) - It actually made the developer money which let them provide us with nice things like free DLCI am also all for unlocking things as rewards for commendations.

The only part I don’t like is that armor and customization is a part of it. It seems to work well for Warzone. And even though its by definition a Pay-to-Win system. Its balanced in such a way that doesn’t effect the game too negatively. I like that they made the MTX for a specific game mode only. But the part that makes them intrusive is all the customization items. Those things need to go.
But like i said. I feel like adding all the unlocks into the MTX was a way to keep people from avoiding them. Otherwise people could just not play Warzone and not have to worry. They throw armor in there and all of a sudden, even if you don’t like Warzone, you still gotta open up those packs to get the other stuff. Not to mention the over flooding of reskinned items to dilute the pool. Its incredibly manipulative.

18

Art style: don’t care. This is irrelevant to me. I just can’t see this as a factor that attracts or drives away players. Sure, we all have opinions, but is it really a game-maker or game-breaker?

Microtransactions: Here to stay. Arguing over their toxicity is entertaining and sometimes even enlightening, but is still ultimately pointless.

Gameplay: Trying to figure out where H6 gamplay should fall on the continuum between CE and H5 is ignoring an entire world of other gameplay possibilities. Saying that Halo can’t explore options other than fast-to-twitch, 4v4, small-map, overly-complex-motion gameplay is the next nearest thing to sounding the death knell for this game. If I hear one more person say you can’t do X because “that’s not Halo” then I’ll remind them that what is Halo has a pitiful population and the world at large has gaming preferences which scoff at how formulaic Halo has become, even with the variation between main line titles. They’ve left us behind and we are so rigid and parochial and insular that we deserve to be left behind. The game doesn’t have to be this complex, it doesn’t have to have the steepest learning curve in shooters, it doesn’t have to conform to any one of dozens of preconceived notions of what makes Halo Halo. It needs a population. If people would rather play Rocket League and PUBG and Overwatch and Destiny then 343 needs to do some soul-searching and re-think what makes a game fun to play instead of just assuming the game is intrinsically fun when all evidence says otherwise.

19

> 2535412904380656;17:
> I like that they made the MTX for a specific game mode only.

Except when that mode comes at the expense of BTB Heavies, and probably like, everything else Halo 5 should have had at launch. I don’t mean to get off-topic but I can’t help pointing out how it might seem like the req system doesn’t affect arena gameplay, until you think about how much it affected 343’s priorities during development. If the req system and Warzone come back in Halo 6, I only hope they don’t make those mistakes again and neglect BTB because of it.

20

How to fix the split in the community? You don’t.

You will never place both of these two now wildly diverging gameplay styles in one game and be able to please everybody. Development time and resources are not infinite and your only have to look at Halo 5 to see where compromise gets everyone. No dev BTB maps, no Forge at launch, missing core gametypes, etc.

I totally understand the sentiment behind trying to find a middle ground, it would be great if everyone could come together with 343 finding that absolutely perfect middle ground, but it just isn’t very realistic. Compromise in this case is more akin to compromising structural integrity than finding middle ground. Whether it is old Halo or new Halo, both experiences are held back by the needs of the other. “Old Halo” is compromised by the changes of “new Halo” and “new Halo” will always be held back creatively by the legacy concerns of “old Halo.”

The best solution for everyone is for 343 to commit wholly to one direction: either admit “new Halo” was a mistake and go back to basics or go full steam ahead with “new Halo” and stop bothering with token concession to “old Halo.” Just let people be able to either move on or enjoy their preferred experience to the fullest. These half-measures are not going to going to make anyone happy or at least as happy as they could be.