Campaign:
-needs to be less controlling. Killing off enemies not only kills immersion but ruins collections and potential combat. Killing off players on the spot (a la collateral damage) is also a cruel reminder I’m in a video game. Also, blowing up vehicles or forcing us out of them. That’s just wrong. I liked how the Scorpion Apex mission didn’t force us out or blow up the tank. I liked how I could bring a Chopper or Hog across the gap on Tsavo Highway.
-needs more options. Dying 5 times quickly reverts players to second last checkpoint. Yet this seems to have been a temporary fail safe in Halo 2. You’d think by now the devs would let us select an option in the pause menu…
Also, let us turn on/off skulls without restarting a mission (if scoring existed, they could just reset the score). Halo 2 let us do that and it made collecting, tricking, etc. much more convenient and enjoyable.
When I’m gathering a bunch of Brutes on The Storm, they tend to die by marines. So I turn on Tilt to help them survive. But when it’s time to fight them, it’s tedious. If it were in Halo 2, I’d have turned off the skull, which would make them normal again. Also, when I’m gathering a bunch of Grunts on Sierra 117, I turn on Catch for future battling. But that makes the setup chaotic and inconvenient. If it were in Halo 2, I’d turn the skull on after doing the collecting.
And of course, why can’t we quit without saving? I have to sign out or exit to dashboard (which won’t let the film appear in Theater) then return to the game. It’s incredibly repetitive not to mention annoying to friends (if they have notifications on).
-needs AI collections. Look at the trilogy! The game allowed enemies to follow you deeper into the level if you skipped them. Even allies if you saved them. But Halo 4 (also Reach) has marines stay in their spawn zone and never has enemies even try to intercept me. Not only does this inconvenience potential battling but it tells me the enemy isn’t even trying to stop me or adjust their tactic (like on The Covenant, in the first and third towers. They would all head to the entrance if you activated the elevator).
-needs a better weapon despawn system. In CE and Halo 2, dropped weapons only disappeared when you weren’t looking at them. Also, if you picked one up, it never disappeared afaik. In Halo 3, weapons can deload at random, with the death of enemies, or at loading points. In Reach, they can disappear anytime and in Halo 4, they despawn too fast.
-needs better use of enemy waves. I felt the Ghosts and Wraiths that normally had to be destroyed for the Lich to come down was a waste of potential battling. It should have been just infantry and after the Lich was destroyed, then there should have been a wave of Phantoms carrying vehicles (obviously, there should be enough so that we can’t destroy them all with the Target Locator). Hell, when the Mammoth’s disabled, why not have a bunch of Ranger Covies try to board it and steal info from the computers? That’d have encouraged me to fight instead of skipping.