Invasion in Halo 4 and beyond

Now, I know if I bring up this topic, this will also bring about the argument to bring back Elites, and to be fair I would love to have those hinge-head’s back as a playable character in Multiplayer (as long as they are as customizable as the Spartan IV’s in a way, and further the picture of the stealth elite practically stole my heart from it’s bad–Yoink-)

But the point of this topic is this:
Invasion.

Please do not take this from Halo, I for one thought this game mode was outstanding and awesome, it felt like a true tactical game type in which you really had to work with your team to take down the objectives and push back the enemy. (Not including the horrendous creation that is Invasion Slayer, but that is another matter entirely)

343 Industries, please hear me and the possible other fans out there, please do not take away Invasion, please put it into Halo 4 and if Elites are not a possibility then at least give it another name for the different team’s like Tactical Combat (or something creative that fits what I am trying to stress.)

One thing I know I wished for was a Big Team Battle variant of Invasion, god that would have made my day. That would have been a true battlefield if I ever saw one in Halo Multiplayer.

But I digress, I now turn the topic to the community and ask you a question and/or questions:

Do you want Invasion(or something similar) back in Halo 4?

Do you want it to be as it was in Halo: Reach? If not, then explain why or what changes you would make?

If we could have Invasion would you want a Big Team Battle variant type where it’s at least a 12 on 12(or more) game type?

Please post your comments and opinions below, but please, be thoughtful and mature in your responses.

With Regards,
Shadow Wolf.

I wholeheartedly agree. I always felt Invasion had massive potential but saw little support. It got boring fast as you only ever played two maps.

Having it as a 24+ player gametype would hinge on there being that capability. While I’d love a freakin’ huge Invasion game, I’m not hedging my bets.

I’d be totally happy with it as it’s own playlist but supported a hell of a lot more. New maps, etc. I don’t think it can’t work with Spartans v Spartans. (But Elites v Spartans is awesome) Given that the Infinity is a training facility it gives you a huge scope to justify things like these. It makes sense that they’d train them in these gametypes.

The gametype itself is very fun and requires communication and understanding to play effectively consistently. It’s a great gametype that I would absolutely love to see revamped.

> I wholeheartedly agree. I always felt Invasion had massive potential but saw little support. It got boring fast as you only ever played two maps.
>
> Having it as a 24+ player gametype would hinge on there being that capability. While I’d love a freakin’ huge Invasion game, I’m not hedging my bets.
>
> I’d be totally happy with it as it’s own playlist but supported a hell of a lot more. New maps, etc. I don’t think it can’t work with Spartans v Spartans. (But Elites v Spartans is awesome) Given that the Infinity is a training facility it gives you a huge scope to justify things like these. It makes sense that they’d train them in these gametypes.
>
> The gametype itself is very fun and requires communication and understanding to play effectively consistently. It’s a great gametype that I would absolutely love to see revamped.

I for one see it as the perfect training for Spartan IV’s if they are to be considered at all for SPARTAN OPERATIONS(Spartan Ops), think about it, it has that competitive edge of team versus team like Slayer and Regicide do, but at the same time it would promote team-work and allow for players to meet other players who they can work well with and consider for Spartan Ops. as well as, story-wise, prep themselves for what operations they are most likely to come across and deal with. That being said, Invasion or a game-type like it would be perfect in many aspects like teamwork, leadership, figuring out your perfect load-out, figuring out what tactics to employ and how best to utilize them.

Honestly to me it seems like the perfect training for Spartan IV’s in general who are to be considered at all for Spartan Ops.

I definitely believe that they should keep a more strategic game variant in the game but I have something a little different in mind.

I don’t know if you guys have ever heard about a game called Natural Selection but it is a really cool idea that blends the rts and fps genres and I believe something like that could be put into the game using something similar to forge. There could be two teams of 7 (if the player cap is still 16) and one person on each team could be the monitor and could build structures and place turrets, vehicles, weapons, etc, and the other 6 players would try to accomplish the objective which I think a mix of Assault, CTF, and Territories would work pretty well.

Each team would start with a base pool of credits ,that the monitors would be able to spend on placing offensive or defensive items, and lives. Of course the more powerful the item the more it costs. More credits would be earned by killing enemies or taking over strategic territories on the map. Then when you take over a territory it would give you a small area around it for the monitor to place a sniper nest or turret bunker or something along those lines.

And ultimately the goal would be to either capture the opposing teams flag and return it to your base or reduce the enemies life pool to zero, similar to Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest in WoW.

> I definitely believe that they should keep a more strategic game variant in the game but I have something a little different in mind.
>
> I don’t know if you guys have ever heard about a game called Natural Selection but it is a really cool idea that blends the rts and fps genres and I believe something like that could be put into the game using something similar to forge. There could be two teams of 7 (if the player cap is still 16) and one person on each team could be the monitor and could build structures and place turrets, vehicles, weapons, etc, and the other 6 players would try to accomplish the objective which I think a mix of Assault, CTF, and Territories would work pretty well.
>
> Each team would start with a base pool of credits ,that the monitors would be able to spend on placing offensive or defensive items, and lives. Of course the more powerful the item the more it costs. More credits would be earned by killing enemies or taking over strategic territories on the map. Then when you take over a territory it would give you a small area around it for the monitor to place a sniper nest or turret bunker or something along those lines.
>
> And ultimately the goal would be to either capture the opposing teams flag and return it to your base or reduce the enemies life pool to zero, similar to Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest in WoW.

That is actually quite the game type you have there, I would be hard pressed NOT to play that.

At the same time, however, I can see one very big problem with this.

Monitor’s.

Since this is on the UNSC Infinity and it uses a combat deck of sorts, having Monitors that could spawn up those things would be a hindrance and one would wonder where the hell a forerunner construct such as that came from and why it hasn’t been captured and studied yet?

At the same time, to fix upon your idea, I could see that working as something in Forge Mode if you wanted to do it exactly how you explained, but if we were to make it more coherent to the story and mechanics of Multiplayer, I would say instead of a monitor, make it a Leader of the team who can call in to higher command to place such things in certain positions via a map in the visor, in which you can then see place-mats and other such things in which to do this for your side of the map.

Back on the topic of Invasion, I actually have a ground-breaking game type idea that takes quite a bit from Battlefield 2142:

Even though Halo 4 is not going to have Elites and so on, the idea is that on one side you have a UNSC Frigate and on the other side a Covenant(or similar, more Halo 4 beneficial, enemy) Frigate. All players start off in a Fire Base below said Frigate or on the Frigate itself in which they can (if they are on the Frigate) take airborn Troop Transports such as a Pelican, or even an Assault Jet or Helicopter, such as a Hornet/Falcon. (or if they are in the Fire-base) Take Troop Transport Carrier’s, Warthog’s, Tank’s, etc. and go capture points on the map where there are EMP based missile silo’s or something of more Halo-esque feel to it, said captured Armaments would then fire on the enemy Frigate and lower it’s shielding mechanism.

Once the shields are breached, you then have to take an Aerial Troop Transport, or a Ground Troop Transport(that has Ejectable Drop-pod capabilities or launches you to allow for Jet-pack help the rest of the way onto deck) to the Frigate, board it, and attack certain points within the Frigate(all the while dealing with constant Enemy fire as this is a spawn point for them, within a certain portion anyways) and after taking out said points in the ship, make way to the now exposed Core or Drive of the Ship and attack them till it is destroyed, and before the ship can explode, quickly vacate the ship and get off safely for an extra medal.

Besides that, there would also be one person on each team who could become the commanding officer of said team and use resources such as Orbital Striks, EMP Blasts, UAV’s, Supply Drop’s and so on to help out your team as they fight to win the game type.

Invasion was a fantastic game type. I for one rarely play it for ONE reason - people quiting. It just ruins the entire game. If even one person quits, it’s usually enough to mean you lose the game. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, you need BODIES inside those capture points and if you don’t have someone to back you up it’s impossible.

BUT - 343i are introducing join-in-progress, so, if they keep invasion… YES!

Anyone else with opinions or ideas/comments?

> Invasion was a fantastic game type. I for one rarely play it for ONE reason - people quiting. It just ruins the entire game. If even one person quits, it’s usually enough to mean you lose the game. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, you need BODIES inside those capture points and if you don’t have someone to back you up it’s impossible.
>
> BUT - 343i are introducing join-in-progress, so, if they keep invasion… YES!

Yes, indeed.

Too many times I’ve had team-mates rage-quit in the middle of the game and had to go at it with just myself and a couple of other hard-headed teammates not willing to back down just yet and sometimes even won it (which made the victory just a little bit sweeter, I admit)

But with Join-in progress, if they keep the game mode that is, this would be AWESOME.

Yes please, in the biggest maps possible please.

> Yes please, in the biggest maps possible please.

Yes, indeed. See, I love Halo, I do, but one thing bugged me about some of Halo: Reach’s really large maps.

You didn’t feel like you were in a real battlefield unless it was Big Team Slayer or something. Tactics, Gameplay, Leadership, all these things were perfect with Invasion and Invasion, in turn, was perfect for these.

If we could get much bigger premises of these so that we may really bring about the tactical side of Halo, then this is definitely a must in my opinion.

Any other idea’s/comments? Seriously, I believe this is a debatable and interesting matter/topic

Removing Elites from Matchmaking should not have any negative effect on Invasion. Matter of opinion, but I think it would be smart to have just Spartans vs Spartans. Everybody starts out the same, and it all comes down to map control and skill more than a combo of those + physical advantages (which the Elites had).

And yes: Invasion should be back. It has massive potential but never lived up to that. Too few maps to play on (which also were so big that spawning points were half a minute away from action…which really is breaking the flow of Invasion), not enough action, broken spawn system etc.

Tweak it, and bring it back.

  • More maps
  • More “smaller” maps (H3’s Highground for instance would be great: smaller = closer to the action = more action = faster gameplay = more intense = more fun)
  • More objectives (Extraction, Assault, Territories, VIP, KotH)
  • No more “fixed” objectives per round. Make each game have its own random mix up objectives.
  • Fix spawning

And there can be more things. But those are a few things to patch up the flaws of current Invasion:
-Spawning
-Lack of action
-Maps (number of maps and size of maps)

By tweaking it, adding some stuff and maybe trimming it down in other areas, Invasion can finally live up to its potential and be a truely great addition to the game. Because quite honestly…it’s SOOOO boring right now.

> > Yes please, in the biggest maps possible please.
>
> Yes, indeed. See, I love Halo, I do, but one thing bugged me about some of Halo: Reach’s really large maps.
>
> You didn’t feel like you were in a real battlefield unless it was Big Team Slayer or something. Tactics, Gameplay, Leadership, all these things were perfect with Invasion and Invasion, in turn, was perfect for these.
>
> If we could get much bigger premises of these so that we may really bring about the tactical side of Halo, then this is definitely a must in my opinion.

Yes, Battlefield and battlefront are big scaled, and damn they´re fun and intense.

Invasion and many other objective modes just suit for those big maps.

I’d love for Invasion to return, but with more maps and support from the devs.

Invasion is the best Halo gametype ever conceived. But the fact it had 3 maps, and you’d get the best one once every 6 months, it got very stale. I still play Invasion to this day, but I’d love more maps, and bigger maps.

I’d like Invasion to return in a bigger and better format for Halo 4. If Elites can’t be included due to story reasons, I can see why. It just occurred to me that the possible reasons for Elites being tossed out the window may be due to the “New” enemies filling that spot.

I could be wrong.

> I’d love for Invasion to return, but with more maps and support from the devs.
>
> Invasion is the best Halo gametype ever conceived. But the fact it had 3 maps, and you’d get the best one once every 6 months, it got very stale. I still play Invasion to this day, but I’d love more maps, and bigger maps.

Yes, what i´d do to see at least forge world maps.

I’ve been thinking about Invasion and I’ve thought, maybe Some Spartan Ops missions will have Invasion like structure?

> > I’d love for Invasion to return, but with more maps and support from the devs.
> >
> > Invasion is the best Halo gametype ever conceived. But the fact it had 3 maps, and you’d get the best one once every 6 months, it got very stale. I still play Invasion to this day, but I’d love more maps, and bigger maps.
>
> Yes, what i´d do to see at least forge world maps.

Forge World maps in scope, Halo CE Anniversary Maps in depth and girth of capabilities.

> Removing Elites from Matchmaking should not have any negative effect on Invasion. Matter of opinion, but I think it would be smart to have just Spartans vs Spartans. Everybody starts out the same, and it all comes down to map control and skill more than a combo of those + physical advantages (which the Elites had).
>
> And yes: Invasion should be back. It has massive potential but never lived up to that. Too few maps to play on (which also were so big that spawning points were half a minute away from action…which really is breaking the flow of Invasion), not enough action, broken spawn system etc.
>
> Tweak it, and bring it back.
>
> - More maps
> - More “smaller” maps (H3’s Highground for instance would be great: smaller = closer to the action = more action = faster gameplay = more intense = more fun)
> - More objectives (Extraction, Assault, Territories, VIP, KotH)
> - No more “fixed” objectives per round. Make each game have its own random mix up objectives.
> - Fix spawning
>
> And there can be more things. But those are a few things to patch up the flaws of current Invasion:
> -Spawning
> -Lack of action
> -Maps (number of maps and size of maps)
>
> By tweaking it, adding some stuff and maybe trimming it down in other areas, Invasion can finally live up to its potential and be a truely great addition to the game. Because quite honestly…it’s SOOOO boring right now.

What he said^

> > > I’d love for Invasion to return, but with more maps and support from the devs.
> > >
> > > Invasion is the best Halo gametype ever conceived. But the fact it had 3 maps, and you’d get the best one once every 6 months, it got very stale. I still play Invasion to this day, but I’d love more maps, and bigger maps.
> >
> > Yes, what i´d do to see at least forge world maps.
>
> Forge World maps in scope, Halo CE Anniversary Maps in depth and girth of capabilities.

I really hope they added Forge maps.