I’ve felt inspired to share this idea based on the wonders worked by creative fans in the community of this series. Really I’d enjoy to talk about some fun things that could be done with Halo’s gameplay, weapons, vehicles, mechanics, and systems plucked from my imagination and yours, if you choose to. I’ll go first, I arranged mine in a list.
- More advanced combat puzzles
This isn’t so self explanatory, so I’ll do what I can to convey the idea of a combat puzzle, basically it boils down to the bells, whistles and features of your combat system, and to greater extent the enemies, weapons, and resources at your disposal. I do not mean to veer off topic when I speak of the game, but I think DOOM Eternal has set a precedent to create more engaging, interesting, and complex systems to support the combat loop, gameplay, and of course these puzzles themselves, which basically sum up to tests of your knowledge of game mechanics, similar in a way that bosses test you but without needing to have all the resources poured in to a one time enemy like that. More advanced combat puzzles I believe could fling halo forward in the fps genre as these puzzles and this kind of decision making is much more engaging, and fun for players. - Auto-Run
In my opinion an addition like this would make a good be-all-end all to the rampant sprint debate, with no need to holster your weapon while moving, and increasing the pace of gameplay, I don’t think it’s a poorly informed choice, since th only reason classic halo’s movement speed was low was because consoles had slower inputs around the inception of CE, and it was made slow because the console shooter landscape at the time was very uncertain, but now that console shooters and their players have advanced, (and as much as I love the classic methodically paced gameplay, growing up with it,) it’s not really necessary or very appealing to keep the old walking pace, and it removes the downsides of sprinting. - Advanced armor system
Alright now passing the threshold of things that can be realistically done or mesh well with gameplay, I have a concept for a more complex health system that I’d like to share, I don’t know if it’s balanced, or really good, for that matter, but it’s an idea that I’ve dwelled on alot and may add considerably to gameplay.
Basically it covers local damage across the spartan’s body, and armor, also including local armor ratings for each section of your body. I’ll admit it’s more of a survival/military sim esque system, but it’s got a lot of potential, like how weapon types interact with each health bar, doing a specific type of damage, for example: concussion rifles as plasma weapons would be great against shields, but not do much to un-breached armor other than bounce you arond, but if breached, the plasma sears your flesh and the blast can rupture your organs; Or more simply, a plasma grenade when it sticks instead of sitting there it sparks as it melts right through your armor, maybe even boring directly into your skin to make a much more deadly and violent explosion. Next example for environmental interaction, if your armor is breached in say, space, or another otherwise hostile atmosphere, then that completely changes the gameplay dynamic of the environment, and if your suit is breached, you’ll quickly suffocate or take damage from exposure. Injuries could be a real hazard, like a bullet taking out your shooting arm, or worse, one of your legs, you have to watch out for weak points in your armor, like shield generators, the neural interface at the back of your skull, or something simple like the visor itself. This armor and health system could also extend to vehicles and enemies as well, maybe you could shoot at a jackal’s exposed hand and immediately cripple it, forcing him on the defensive and disabling his combat capabilities; Or youhave to pay extra attention the engine of your vehicle isn’t targeted too much or it might disable the whole dang thing! Next, armor and health pickups, the armor itself automatically stops bleeding, but you can’t heal wounds by yourself without say, a biotech pickup containing those healing nanomachines, like from halo wars, or you could pick up armor bits to build up your suit back to full strength after getting lit up by enemies. I imagine it would be far from easy to implement, the outcome makes it at least worth exploring for me though. - Physics simulation/Map desifn
Next some physics simulation stuff, I could go on, but to leave it simple it’d be very interesting to see some form of environmental destruction or more fun interactive set-pieces in maps, though I can’t say much further.
To cap it off, firstly, thank you a lot for reading, I know this post is really long, just over half the character limit even! Share your own ideas in the reply, I’d really like to get a discussion going. Also I didn’t include new vehicles or weapons, in my post since one could go on and on about stuff from the expanded material or units from halo wars or just fanmade stuff that’s popped up over the years, but to keep from going on any longer, I’ll leave it to you to suggest that kind of stuff. Have fun!