Well we’ve seen the new (and old) control schemes for Halo 5. I really like how Halo 4’s default, Bumper Jumper and Recon are all making it back, despite the number of left-stick-to-aim options. So I was thinking about a new control scheme that could still work. First, I’ll start by listing the most accessible buttons to the least.
RT, LT and the bumpers are easily the easiest to hit. You’re index fingers are on the triggers all the time while the bumpers are just a brush away. Next are fairly accessible buttons but have a tiny disruption to gameplay. This would be X, A, and the 2 sticks. All four get in the way of moving the sticks. It’s just a little bit but it could have an impact. Last comes the furthest buttons, Y, B, the D-pad. Pressing these means going out of your way. Now, I’ll look at the importance of each action in the game.
The most important actions would be those needed both very frequently and need to be instant decisions. These ones belong to the most accessible buttons. Here we only have Shoot and Jump as members of this category. Next, we have actions that are important, but not needed as much as Shoot or Jump. Sometimes, these actions are only available in specific circumstances. Here, we have Grenades, Thruster, Scope, Crouch and Melee. 2 of these can fill up the space on the “most accessible buttons” while the rest fill in the next tier. Last, we have the not so important/out of combat actions: Sprint, Action/Reload, Switch weapons and Switch Grenades.
Given the above, we can form our control settings. We match the most critical actions with the most accessible buttons and so on. Also taken into consideration is similarity to other controls for an easier time.
RT - Shoot
LT - Grenade
Right Bumper - Thruster (Interchangeable with Melee)
Left Bumper - Jump/Clamber
Right Stick - Smart Link
Left Stick - Crouch/Ground Pound
X - Action/Reload
A - Melee/ Spartan Charge (Interchangeable with Thruster)
Y - Switch Weapons
B - Sprint
D-pad - Switch grenades.
As you can see, it contains many elements from previous setups (why wouldn’t it?). The main thing about this is that it has a bumper to Jump, sprint is B (It’s should be an out of combat feature so that’s where it goes) and either thruster or melee gets A (Depends if you’re used to A for mobility or bumper for thruster). This is most similar to bumper jumper with Sprint, Thruster, melee and the action button switched around. Any thoughts?