Innovations vs Gimmicks

Games Other Halo
1

A simple experience is a safe, boring choice. Just because a huge player base loves a game, doesn’t mean that the game should be re-released over and over. When a dev team is experimenting with a new concepts like armor abilities or bloom, there is a risk involved: How the community will take it. If these features are successful, they are called inovation. If they are not, they are called gimmicks, crutches, catering to casuals, etc. Unfortunately, armor abilities and bloom were not successful in making Halo Reach superior to previous installments.

Here are some examples of how Reach could have sucked exponentially less with some minor changes.

Jet Pack: Instead of making the Spartan float around like some sort of Disney fairy princess, if the jet pack had more elements of piloting and momentum it would take skill to use properly. Also, map control (Elaboration in 3 2 1) I’ll break it down:

The main problem with jet pack is how it breaks map control. The only reason it breaks map control in vanilla reach, is because you can spawn with it. If jet packs spawned on map (Think MLG) they would be no different from stairs or grav lifts. They would just be another route to the top. I am unsure weather or not stairs break map control though, but i think that should improve it.

Jetpackers get crash damage. If some jetpacker flies headfirst into the ceiling, crash damage would chip away at his shields and stun him.

Jetpackers get physics. If a jetpacker is flying up, down, left, or right and lets go of RB, his momentum should carry him in that direction for some time before he comes crashing down with the weight of his jetpack. The ground will greet him with intense fall damage.

This system would allow the stupid to die regularly in jet pack related disasters.

Sprint: There are 2 problems sprint enhances.

Thanks to Reach’s airsoft gun sandbox, kills take a long time. Kills take so long, that people can run away before they happen. If Kill times were quicker, more like Halo 1-3, this would not be a problem.

Due to Reach’s melee system having the depth of Paris Hilton’s personality, Sprint + double beat down plagues many of Reach’s playlists. Bleed through would have prevented this from being such a tragic yet common occurrence.

Armor lock: The below stuff took me some time to come up with. It’s much more inspired than the common “Armor Lock just isn’t Halo. Throw it out along with any form of innovation.” At least try to read it. Armor lock is a delicate topic. I know. I am a victim too.

Armor locking would have 2 stages :recovering, and invulnerable. To get into the invulnerable stage, a pre-req would be full shields. At the press of RB, the player would have to fiddle with something on his left wrist, and do the current AL entering animation. As he enters, he is vulnerable and any for of damage he takes will through him out. During the entrance animation, the motion sensor would be replaced by a thin rectangular bar (Through -Yoink!- 2011 animation of course). (While in AL, he is free to move around, shoot, and annoy people as he pleases.)

This bar would show how long AL will take to overheat. It will take 10 seconds to overheat with no damage taken. From the point of time he is in AL, he can take 2 shield’s full worth of damage. Any form of damage will decrease the amount of time he has before it over heats. When it overheats, the AL effect will turn Red, and he will be 4x as vulnerable to damage. He can temporarily exit the invulnerability stage by pressing LT (Nades button), which will allow the AL bar to cool down. However, to enter again he will need full shields (So he doesnt enter AL as soon as someone shoots from behind) as well as a half second power up period. If he is sho In the half second power up period, he will act take damage as if he was in recovery mode, and be unable to power up till he gets full shields. This would reduce the effectiveness of Armor Lockers reactivating invulnerability as soon as they see someone. To exit AL mode and have normal shielding, you would have to hold RT for 3 seconds in recovery mode.

Why did I type up all this? The theme “Innovation is evil.” is common enough in the Halo Community to be mistaken for some USSR propaganda center. (I know not everyone is against innovation, and many threads are about: Innovate ______ for Halo 4) However, with the way Reach’s, ugh, “features” are stepped, crapped, and puked on… 343 probably won’t wanna take a risk.

TLDR: China called me about their wall. They are pissed.

2

Many of the arguments I see about AA integration was that they should have been placed on the map, like power-ups.

343 is going to do new stuff regardless of what the community wants. Halo would get boring to them otherwise. Sure, Reach didn’t work, but now they know what not to do, and can innovate accordingly.

3

Innovation and gimmicks are not, in my eyes at least, two sides of that same spectrum.

A gimmick is something that is either menial (a very small part) or generally detrimental to the game experience that is used as a core selling point. Most of the time, gimmicks are released in the press to cater to community demands or to wow people. Gimmicks, in this sense, can be either broad concepts or explicit new features. In this sense, “We’re going back to what made [former game in series] great,” is a gimmick. Sometimes, though rarely, it shows in the end result. But since this applies to Halo, let’s see it in that light. And through that light we see that that gimmick is indeed prevalent, especially with Reach. That phrase was said many times to advertise Reach, despite its fast difference from other titles.

In Reach, we have health packs and the pistol has a scope. Those are two relatively small changes compared to things like Invasion, Armor Abilities, and Bloom. Speaking of Bloom, in the above sense it is not considered a gimmick. Though obviously it plays a big role in the game, it was not made a big deal of in announcements, it did not get much coverage, and Bungie made to attempt to use it as an advertising tool. Armor Abilities are arguably gimmicks. They were definitely a large selling point and played a big part in advertising the game. They are by no means, however, menial. Whether or not they are detrimental is its own argument. With the new Title Update though, the detrimental nature of Armor Abilities is up in the air.

Innovation, though, is separate from gimmicks. Innovation is a major change in direction for a game series brought upon by a big new feature. The publicity that said feature (or its innovative value) receives is irrelevant. Conversely, the change does not have to be liked. Innovation usually has a positive connotation though. What is required of a new element of gameplay to be innovative is that it must be carried on by future games in that series and possibly by other games outside that series. For example, Call of Duty 4’s Custom Classes. That was interpreted by all of the games that came afterwards in that series and by a few other games here and there. To make a reference to Halo, the two-weapon system pioneered by Halo the first is now a staple of first person shooters.

4

I wrote this because so many people are saying that the next Halo’s should be modeled after H1/H2 because of their simplicity. Good points though.

5

> I wrote this because so many people are saying that the next Halo’s should be modeled after H1/H2 because of their simplicity. Good points though.

Everyone I have seen that said this said it should be taken back to its roots. Yes you got that right, but then they say “innovate from there”. Yes we hate Reach, yes we want the core Halo experience back, yes we want new and well integrated innovations. We aren’t “afraid” of or “hate” change, so long as it is GOOD change.

6

It seems that additions to the Halo sandbox work well if the new capability lies internally with the Spartan, as opposed to externally like with Armour Abilities. Dual-Wielding, vehicle-boarding and pulling off turrets were things the Spartans could simply do, and supported the formula of all men being spawned equal while still deepening the rich combat.

Well, Halo 4 could improve on this mos def. An idea that came to me quickly was this: If the player so chooses, he/she can shed some armour in the field for a faster gait and higher jumps at the cost of reduced shield strength. A very quick and clean affair, maybe magnetic plates that fall away at the touch of a button. Naturally, once the armour is lightened, you can’t pick them back up again. This would be useful for running power weapons or a special team strategy where agility trumps fortitude.

The Spartan is the best thing Halo has in terms of multiplayer. Maybe the best way to move forward is to develop what they’re capable of at the raw level.

7

> It seems that additions to the Halo sandbox work well if the new capability lies internally with the Spartan, as opposed to externally like with Armour Abilities. Dual-Wielding, vehicle-boarding and pulling off turrets were things the Spartans could simply do, and supported the formula of all men being spawned equal while still deepening the rich combat.
>
> Well, Halo 4 could improve on this mos def. An idea that came to me quickly was this: If the player so chooses, he/she can shed some armour in the field for a faster gait and higher jumps at the cost of reduced shield strength. A very quick and clean affair, maybe magnetic plates that fall away at the touch of a button. Naturally, once the armour is lightened, you can’t pick them back up again. This would be useful for running power weapons or a special team strategy where agility trumps fortitude.
>
> The Spartan is the best thing Halo has in terms of multiplayer. Maybe the best way to move forward is to develop what they’re capable of at the raw level.

I definitely agree with this as a reasonable way to deepen gameplay, without completely changing the game. I feel like evade is the one thing that could be very easily be made permanent as well. For example, you could hit crouch and ‘A’ together to do a roll. This however would destroy crouch jumping.

8

The concept of armor abilities is actually quite a good one, but it’s implementation in Reach was just horrible.

In my opinion, an armor ability should only give you a slight advantage (maybe at the cost of a minor drawback while using it) since it’s something you have available throughout the game. Sprint and evade are fine for that; both give you slight advantages but aren’t gamebreaking. Drop shield, armor lock, and jetpack, however, are too powerful.

So, 343i should give us back both equipment and power-ups on top of armor abilities.

Sprint, evade, and jump pack (doubles your jump height when used; press A to jump normally, press LB to jump twice as high; 5 seconds to recharge) as armor abilities that you select at the start of a round and cannot be changed upon death/respawn.

Drop/bubble shield, energy drain, regenerator, trip mine, and armor lock as equipment. They have to be picked up and are one-shot use only.

Active camo and overshields as power-ups like in H2/H3.

9

> > I wrote this because so many people are saying that the next Halo’s should be modeled after H1/H2 because of their simplicity. Good points though.
>
> Everyone I have seen that said this said it should be taken back to its roots. Yes you got that right, but then they say “innovate from there”. Yes we hate Reach, yes we want the core Halo experience back, yes we want new and well integrated innovations. We aren’t “afraid” of or “hate” change, so long as it is GOOD change.

This. This exactly.