We all know him, the man, the legend; Mr. Halo himself. The one charming and funny game-developer out there that doesn’t spend his ViDocs and interviews sweating and stammering. The bald Prince Charming of gaming.
Now a couple of weeks ago, I had this fantasy on the bus. What if I could switch souls with people? I would put their soul in my temporarily comatosed body and assume control of theirs. Naturally my first thoughts was mischievous and more based on running around in traffic naked, tossing fruit at by-passers without having to deal with the consequences later on. Then I turned to controlling various heads of government to make the world a better place (the arrogance, I know…), but at some point I thought “Hey, what if I could take control of the people in charge of my favorite franchise?” and I started planning what I would do with the opportunity.
For those of you who’re still interested, here’s the changes I would’ve made.
VEHICLES:
Add visible healthbar to all vehicles. This will allow a driver to know exactly when to abandon the vehicle.
Add vehicle-shields to all light-vehicles. This will allow for the longevity of the vehicles on the battlefield, as long as they are piloted by skilled drivers. To clarify; this will not make the inhabitants of that vehicle stronger than they are right now, but it will make it feasible for you to pilot that vehicle yourself after you’ve killed the driver, assuming you didn’t deplete too much of it’s health in the fight.
Remove shields from Mantis. It is far too effective at the moment, and nothing should survive a single dead-on shot from the spartan laser.
Increase the mantis’ health to that of a tank.
One plasma grenade kills all light-vehicles except fully shielded Warthogs. A single plasma grenade will still kill the driver/gunner/passenger if proximity calls for it, as the vehicle-shields will offer them no extra protection against direct damage.
The driver of a multi-manned warthog would see other members’ shields, akin to the H:CE warthog healthbars. If you don’t remember H:CE or haven’t played it, this link will illustrate what I mean. The info on the left-hand side of the HUD would be moved under the info on the right-hand side*(which would represent the warthog’s shields and health)*, and the healthbars for the gunner and passanger would be replaced by a solid shield bar instead. The driver’s personal shields would be right where they are.
EMP will also drain vehicles shields in addition to deactivating it. This means that the overcharge followed up by the stick will be no less of an effective tactic against warthogs.
Increase Impact damage of wraith’s main cannon to balance it versus the scorpion tank. The splash-damage will not be affected in any way, and thus, the only one to notice the difference would be the scorpion tank.
WEAPONS:
Decrease the damage of the boltshot’s overcharge. A perfect hit should only deplete your shields (as with the mauler) and so you would have to execute them with a headshot or a second overcharge. I believe this would balance the weapon as a loadout option.
Increase the bolshot damage to 8SK. The option to kill a player with it using only headshots will make people less inclined to rely on it’s overcharge.
Increase plasma pistol dmg to 10SK. This will allow people to gain kills with the weapon for the related commendation.
Decrease bullet-magnetism for DMR. This will make players more inclined to prefer a BR, LR or CC for the smaller maps like Haven, while still keeping the DMR and LR as the optimal choices for the larger maps like Ragnarok.
Reduce headshot aim assist. This will increase the skill-gap between players.
Increase covenant carbine damage to 7SK. This will make the gun a more viable choice, and increase the variety of weapons we see in the average game.
MISC:
Allow option for boot after a single betrayal, if you watch the whole killcam. This will prevent people from booting one another in haste and without consideration, and offer the victim a chance to determine whether their betrayal was an intentional one.
Quitters cannot rejoin matchmaking before the match they quit ends, but they will be offered an option to rejoin that match as long as there is still room for them on their original team. This will keep people from quitting a game for arbitrary reasons, without punishing anyone who disconnected or simply had real-life business to attend to.
Players may deselect the option to join games in progress. Join in-progress would be on by default to fill the holes in the event of someone quitting a team, but those of us who simply wants to start their games from the get-go would be allowed to do so.
Friendly fire is always on. With the new booting system in place I don’t believe we would need to have friendly fire on to keep our ordinance drops for ourselves.
The two major gametypes will have a classic version. By which I refer to slayer and CTF, the two core gametypes of which Halo multiplayer was built on. There would be four classic playlists, “Slayer” & “Big Team Slayer”, and “Capture the Flag” & “Big Team Battle”. This would allow people to play these two classic gametypes with or without vehicles, as per their preference. The rest of the playlists would be in Halo 4 style, as this is Halo 4.
Most gametypes will have a ranked version. The ranked playlists would be Lone Wolf, Team Slayer, Team Doubles, and Team Objective. The latter would contain most, if not all, of the objective gametypes featured in Halo 4. The competitive rank system 343i intends to add this spring will be visibly featured for each of these playlists. The reason for adding ranked playlists is so that the competitive crowd may have their playground with a limited risk of encountering inexperienced players, and so that the larger more casual crowd’s experience isn’t impaired by ending up against too many overqualified players in their social playlists.
Allow each player in spartan ops five respawns each, no more, no less. With a limited set of lives players would be more careful and tactical on how they approach the enemies in spartan ops rather than charging enemy clusters and thin them out by trading a spartan for a grunt. it would also add some merit to receiving a bonus for “Victory” in addition to the “Game Complete” bonus, if at least one player finished the mission everyone gets the latter, but only the ones who were still alive at the end are offered the former.[/l
> We all know him, the man, the legend; Mr. Halo himself. The one charming and funny game-developer out there that doesn’t spend his ViDocs and interviews sweating and stammering. The bald Prince Charming of gaming.
>
> Now a couple of weeks ago, I had this fantasy on the bus. What if I could switch souls with people? I would put their soul in my temporarily comatosed body and assume control of theirs. Naturally my first thoughts was mischievous and more based on running around in traffic naked, tossing fruit at by-passers without having to deal with the consequences later on. Then I turned to controlling various heads of government to make the world a better place (the arrogance, I know…), but at some point I thought “Hey, what if I could take control of the people in charge of my favorite franchise?” and I started planning what I would do with the opportunity.
>
> For those of you who’re still interested, here’s the changes I would’ve made.
>
>
> VEHICLES:
>
> - Add visible healthbar to all vehicles. This will allow a driver to know exactly when to abandon the vehicle.
>
> - Add vehicle-shields to all light-vehicles. This will allow for the longevity of the vehicles on the battlefield, as long as they are piloted by skilled drivers. To clarify; this will not make the inhabitants of that vehicle stronger than they are right now, but it will make it feasible for you to pilot that vehicle yourself after you’ve killed the driver, assuming you didn’t deplete too much of it’s health in the fight.
>
> - Remove shields from Mantis. It is far too effective at the moment, and nothing should survive a single dead-on shot from the spartan laser.
>
> - One plasma grenade kills all light-vehicles except fully shielded Warthogs. A single plasma grenade will still kill the driver/gunner/passenger if proximity calls for it, as the vehicle-shields will offer them no extra protection against direct damage.
>
> - The driver of a multi-manned warthog would see other members’ shields, akin to the H:CE warthog healthbars. If you don’t remember H:CE or haven’t played it, this link will illustrate what I mean. The info on the left-hand side of the HUD would be moved under the info on the right-hand side*(which would represent the warthog’s shields and health)*, and the healthbars for the gunner and passanger would be replaced by a solid shield bar instead. The driver’s personal shields would be right where they are.
>
> - EMP will also drain vehicles shields in addition to deactivating it. This means that the overcharge followed up by the stick will be no less of an effective tactic against warthogs.
>
> - Increase Impact damage of wraith’s main cannon to balance it versus the scorpion tank. The splash-damage will not be affected in any way, and thus, the only one to notice the difference would be the scorpion tank.
>
>
>
> WEAPONS:
>
> - Decrease the damage of the boltshot’s overcharge. A perfect hit should only deplete your shields (as with the mauler) and so you would have to execute them with a headshot or a second overcharge. I believe this would balance the weapon as a loadout option.
>
> - Increase the bolshot damage to 8SK. The option to kill a player with it using only headshots will make people less inclined to rely on it’s overcharge.
>
> - Increase plasma pistol dmg to 10SK. This will allow people to gain kills with the weapon for the related commendation.
>
> - Decrease bullet-magnetism for DMR. This will make players more inclined to prefer a BR, LR or CC for the smaller maps like Haven, while still keeping the DMR and LR as the optimal choices for the larger maps like Ragnarok.
>
> - Reduce headshot aim assist. This will increase the skill-gap between players.
>
> - Increase covenant carbine damage to 7SK. This will make the gun a more viable choice, and increase the variety of weapons we see in the average game.
>
>
> MISC:
>
> - Allow option for boot after a single betrayal, if you watch the whole killcam. This will prevent people from booting one another in haste and without consideration, and offer the victim a chance to determine whether their betrayal was an intentional one.
>
> - Quitters cannot rejoin matchmaking before the match they quit ends, but they will be offered an option to rejoin that match as long as there is still room for them on their original team. This will keep people from quitting a game for arbitrary reasons, without punishing anyone who disconnected or simply had real-life business to attend to.
>
> - Players may deselect the option to join games in progress. Join in-progress would be on by default to fill the holes in the event of someone quitting a team, but those of us who simply wants to start their games from the get-go would be allowed to do so.
>
> - Friendly fire is always on. With the new booting system in place I don’t believe we would need to have friendly fire on to keep our ordinance drops for ourselves.
>
> - The two major gametypes will have a classic version. By which I refer to slayer and CTF, the two core gametypes of which Halo multiplayer was built on. There would be four classic playlists, “Slayer” & “Big Team Slayer”, and “Capture the Flag” & “Big Team Battle”. This would allow people to play these two classic gametypes with or without vehicles, as per their preference. The rest of the playlists would be in Halo 4 style, as this is Halo 4.
>
> - Most gametypes will have a ranked version. The ranked playlists would be Lone Wolf, Team Slayer, Team Doubles, and Team Objective. The latter would contain most, if not all, of the objective gametypes featured in Halo 4. The competitive rank system 343i intends to add this spring will be visibly featured for each of these playlists. The reason for adding ranked playlists is so that the competitive crowd may have their playground with a limited risk of encountering inexperienced players, and so that the larger more casual crowd’s experience isn’t impaired by ending up against too many overqualified players in their social playlists.
You forgot to add that the warthog is over powered and should be nerfed.
> You forgot to add that the warthog is over powered and should be nerfed.
I would have to respectfully disagree with you there. Most of the 'Hog runs I’ve witnessed or been a part of in Halo 4 has been very short and seldom caused a great deal of damage to the enemy team or their war-efforts.
I have fond memories of runs in the original trilogy where we would completely and utterly decimate the enemy team over and over again, dodging the few players skilled enough to stop us, but I realize that one needs to account for the game experience of the enemy players as well and so that situation shouldn’t be replicated in the newer Halo games.
p.s. The original post is quite long, and I’m not sure if it was necessary of you to quote it. Would you mind if I asked you to edit it out of your reply?
> Thank god your not frankie. I like maybe 5 of your ideas.
God has nothing to do with it.
I’m glad you liked at least five of my ideas, that means I’m not completely out of my mind at least. Would you care to elaborate on the changes you did care for?
This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not call out individuals. This includes forum members, moderators, administrators, and non-forum members.
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.
> Thank god your not frankie. I like maybe 5 of your ideas.
Didn’t Frank O’Conner oversee the game and allow the pathetic explosion of the Linch to happen in the game? No. No one is “Mr Halo” when you make a game worse then Halo 2.
OP, you failed to mention anything about Campaign. Thread fail.
With everyone being able to spawn with Plasma Pistols, I think the Mantis isn’t even a threat, therefore shouldn’t be nerfed at all. Hell, if you’ve noticed with the campaign and multiplayer versions of the mantis, you’ll know that the Mantis in multiplayer is already nerfed to hell in comparison to the Campaign/Spartan Ops monster when comparing the chainguns of the two. Plus, when you overcharge EMP a Mantis, it can’t fire back, only stand there and wait for the inevitable jack of death. You can even stun it multiple times as you walk towards it to prevent it from moving at all. Plus, if the pilot decides to get out, it takes a long time for him to leave, which means you can easily kill the pilot and steal the Mantis.
Also, regarding the vehicle health bar idea, is visible damage and beeping noises not a good enough sign that death is imminent?
This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not call out individuals. This includes forum members, moderators, administrators, and non-forum members.
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.
If i was Frankie for a day…hmm…lets see… what would I do… OH YEAH! I WOULD VISIT THE FORUMS AND START GETTING A CLUE ABOUT WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANTS!
This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not call out individuals. This includes forum members, moderators, administrators, and non-forum members.
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.
> If i was Frankie for a day…hmm…lets see… what would I do… OH YEAH! I WOULD VISIT THE FORUMS AND START GETTING A CLUE ABOUT WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANTS!
OP did great, and quite honest I think the OP’s idea are actually pretty good! Campaign doesn’t need to be tweeked! who does that perhaps OP can say something about Spartan Ops, there are changes in there that could be done, but overall I love the whole Vehicle health bar idea, because I have noticed for each vehicle when its getting to close to death, and it beeps alerting sounds.
I sense that you’re very angry. It’s not healthy to spend too much negative energy on others’ opinions, especially not when they’re regarding something as trivial as video games.
I don’t feel as if I failed at making a thread, though I had hoped my ideas to be met by a more positive crowd than what has been so far. And “Mr. Halo” is more or less Frank O’Connor’s nickname as the head of the Halo franchise, it doesn’t actually refer to the quality of his work.
Last, but not least I’d like to say that this thread wasn’t about the campaign of Halo 4, but more about balance updates for Halo 4’s multiplayer. Though I will state that I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign, and on the top of my head, there is nothing I’d like to change about it.
There’s nothing to be changed in the Campaign huh? Right. So you’re just a Multiplayer gamer? I won’t even go into detail about the issues with Campaign mode. I might bore you. Oh and the anger comes from paying $430 for a BETA.
Health Bar on vehicle i can see useful, but still not necessary, just jump out when you see smoke or hear beeps XD.
Removing the shield from the mantis would make it useless, it can take nearly no damage when shields are down, the shield are its primary Defense, id rather reduce the strength of it and make it a one-hit kill with Splaser.
The Boltshot i love right now, tho i agree its abit lame you can start with a shotgun.
Warthog is currently not that OP but a skilled driver and gunner can do some serious damage, right now, IMO its only the maps decimating the Warthog. Valhalla got shitloads of bumps whilst Sandtrap in H3 didnt making it optimal there.
> There’s nothing to be changed in the Campaign huh? Right. So you’re just a Multiplayer gamer? I won’t even go into detail about the issues with Campaign mode. I might bore you. Oh and the anger comes from paying $430 for a BETA.
First of all I would like you thank you for your kind, encouraging words. I greatly appreciate them.
At first when I read the part of your comment about Spartan Ops, I couldn’t come up with anything that I felt needed change. Not any changes that I would be capable of suggesting objectively, anyways. But as I thought about it I remembered one small thing that annoyed me, and that was the infinite lives we have. It makes getting experience for both “Game Complete” and “Victory” kind of silly. I’ve added the lives to the miscellaneous section of the original post.
Id rather they put in a Ingame Poll wich asks for what options they would like to see in the future, getting the thousands of players ingame to answer rather than reading a forum with 500+ wich is nearly half full of trolls or people who want Halo 3.1
> Health Bar on vehicle i can see useful, but still not necessary, just jump out when you see smoke or hear beeps XD.
>
> Removing the shield from the mantis would make it useless, it can take nearly no damage when shields are down, the shield are its primary Defense, id rather reduce the strength of it and make it a one-hit kill with Splaser.
>
> The Boltshot i love right now, tho i agree its abit lame you can start with a shotgun.
>
> Warthog is currently not that OP but a skilled driver and gunner can do some serious damage, right now, IMO its only the maps decimating the Warthog. Valhalla got shitloads of bumps whilst Sandtrap in H3 didnt making it optimal there.
>
> Just my take on it.
I suppose you’re right about the mantis being too fragile without shields, but I still believe it should die from a single shot from the spartan laser or a wraith mortar. I’ll add increased health to the original post.
And yes it is true that you can tell when your vehicle is about to expire, but a healthbar would make matter so much simpler in the heat of combat. Also, the stages of destruction isn’t as accurate as a healthbar. It’s more like judging by the color of the healthbar in H:CE than the amount of bars, like; 8/8 bars is blue health, 6/8 is yellow health, and 3/8 is red health. We still have those three stages, but it would be nice to know if you have two more bars you can push out of your ghost, or if you need to jump ship right away.
> I suppose you’re right about the mantis being too fragile without shields, but I still believe it should die from a single shot from the spartan laser or a wraith mortar. I’ll add increased health to the original post.
>
> And yes it is true that you can tell when your vehicle is about to expire, but a healthbar would make matter so much simpler in the heat of combat. Also, the stages of destruction isn’t as accurate as a healthbar. It’s more like judging by the color of the healthbar in H:CE than the amount of bars, like; 8/8 bars is blue health, 6/8 is yellow health, and 3/8 is red health. We still have those three stages, but it would be nice to know if you have two more bars you can push out of your ghost, or if you need to jump ship right away.
Yea i see your point. Dunno tho if it can be implanted at the moment due to the games coding as some peeps have been babbling about ALSO!
Your idea of Booting is a nice attempt but it wont make a diffrence, it will always be a boot, trust me. Humanity can go to hell XD
