Lessons from Reach for H4

Games Other Halo
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A wild wall of text appears! Please, If you quote, don’t quote the entire post.

Weapons (any not mentioned should remain the same as previous generations)
All Human weapons should do more damage to unshielded fores than shielded.

Assault Rifle- 32 round clip. Fixed Reticle bloom halfway between H3 and Reach in terms of diameter. Rips through unshielded foes like a hot knife through butter.

Pistol- Reach-style is preferable, however there should be recoil instead of bloom. (Like the h3 machine gun turret, the pistol should move slightly upwards forcing the user to actually stay on target.) if H3 style is used, make duel wield-able. 7 rounds should be enough.

DMR-12 round clip (15 is too much IMO if there is going to be bloom) Bloom replaced with recoil. Medium range/far range preferable.

BR-36 round clip. Spread should occur after somewhere between 50 and 100 meters or so (let’s say 75) to ensure that BR sniping does not occur. Designed for medium/ close range encounters that require precision.

New Gun Idea- Combine DMR and BR by having a 18 round clip and use the d-pad to switch between semi-auto and 3-round burst. (1 second delay to throw a switch on the weapon) if switched to 3-round burst when a even number of rounds are in the clip, the last shot will be a 1-2 round burst.

SMG- Duel-Wield-able. 60 rounds/ clip. Fixed Reticle with recoil.

Covenant plasma weapons should do more damage to shields than health.

Plasma Rifle-Covenant version of Assault Rifle, Should NOT be duel wield-able. 100 charge, drains like always. Slight Bloom should occur, not like the repeater but just enough that it stays in a range close to the assault rifle.

Plasma Repeater- Covenant version of SMG, should be duel wield-able. Should have more charge before overheat than the plasma rifle but at the cost of having higher bloom.

Carbine- Because plasma is harder to direct than bullets, THIS is the semi-auto rifle that should have bloom. Treat this like the covenant DMR.

Needle Rifle- less bloom but add recoil and make needles more powerful to counterbalance.

Spiker- Dual Wield-able Does very slight damage but to both shields and health at the same time.

Rockets- Same as reach essentially, lock on to ground vehicles.

FRG- Bounces if impacts a surface at less than 30 degrees, otherwise it detonates.

Grenade Launcher- Explosion radius equal to 1.5 frag grenades, does 1 frag grenade of damage, with .5 of a grenade radius of EMP.

Concussion Rifle- Same as Reach, affects shields faster than health.
Brute Shot-affects health faster than shields.

Sniper- Bloom halved but bullets travel slightly downward due to gravity. A special feature in the zoom of the sniper will show where the the bullet will end up so the shooter can adjust accordingly.

Beam Rifle- no bloom but only two shots can be fired in succession before a lengthy overheat

Focus Rifle/Sentinal Beam- only put one in the game, depends if you want zoom or not.

Turrets: Plasma does better against shields, machine gun is better against health, both move upwards as you fire.

Energy Sword- Lunge should be more fluid and players should be able to dodge it. Sword block should only affect the person blocking in terms of damage. Some cool swordplay would be nice.

Jackal Shield- gauntlet that fits on the left wrist, only works when there is a duel wield-able weapon equipped, acts as extra protection but hinders visibility.
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Duel Wield Properties
The grenade problem with duel wielding has plagued both H2 and H3. My solution is to use the same d-pad button that you would use for the DMR BR hybrid to put your left weapon at your side so you can throw grenades. Melee can be done by using the left weapon to strike the foe, with the right put at the side. This solves the problem of throwing your weapon when you melee. Dropping your second weapon is as simple as switching weapons.

The properties of both weapons must be maintained. Therefore the reticles must both exist on the same screen, however because you are holding two weapons, the reticles together will make a sideways oval shape (like a venn diagram) Then whatever bloom/recoil system affects the guns separately.
Grenades
Treat grenades as a melee times 1.5 when directly hit, decrease exponentially after that.
Plasmas should only stick when thrown directly AT a person, i.e. no arc of grenade then it suddenly jumps to the left or right to stick someone.
Armory
Psychological studies have shown that the more a person is able to customize their avatar, the more they will attach themselves to the game.
Helmet attachments should be a separate category and must be able to be purchased as separate pieces.
There is no such thing as over-cusomization so have at it! I want to make my spartan look as utilitarian as possible.

Armor Abilities
AL has taught much about Armor Abilities. ONLY SPRINT/JETPACK SHOULD BE IN LOADOUTS!!! I put jetpack in the loadouts because it allows for great mobility around maps. Armor abilities should be treated like equipment from H3 and should be spread throught the map accordingly. Treat AL like a power weapon.
Loadouts
Because the major rifles have been counterbalanced as above, loadouts can include multiple weapons. i.e carbine/plasma rifle+sprint, smg/pistol+Jetpack. This makes gameplay varied without having everyone picking the same loadout for AL+needler.
Bloom vs Fixed Reticle vs Recoil
Bloom is the widening of the reticle. It should only be implemented in very fast firing guns or plasma weapons.
Fixed reticle means that the reticle doesn’t expand or contract, projectiles randomly hit within the reticle zone.
Recoil is the GUN moving, not the reticle expanding. This is how modern projectiles usually behaves. The bullet out of an M14 goes out pretty much straight, not at random angles from the barrel.
Other Things That Should be Implemented.
If you put something in a map, expect players to use it. Soft kill barriers should only be in places that are obviously outside the map, not on places where players might want to go for a better spot to get kills. Soft kill barriers ruin the whole sandbox experience.

This is going to be a M rated game, so why is there so little blood when people are being stabbed by swords and exploding from supercombines? I’m not asking for Mortal Kombat level gore, but add it in when it should exist.

I will talk about vehicles later, I’m just tired of writing right now.

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Vehicles
Falcon vs Hornet:
I would prefer the falcon, but modified slightly to allow for a front gunner and passenger seats for objectives.
Hornets are pretty awesome but feel slow compared to other vehicles.
Halo 3 Banshees were the best. The Reach version wasn’t as good because you could have the overpowered banshee bomb as your rt weapon.

The chopper should make its return as a heavy one person vehicle. I’m not entirely sure if they should have any changes added to the way they operate, they were pretty awesome in H3.

The Spectre. That long forgotten covenant warthog from H2 needs to be brought back in Halo 4. Granted, it needs a lot of work, considering that it looks like a 2-person ghost, but I believe that there could be a great rebirth of this vehicle if 343 works on it.

AA Wraiths have been a fan favorite and I think they could serve a particular niche in the new multiplayer.

As far as phantoms and pelicans: If a better way of piloting them can be found, then by all means add them in as a kind of mega tough to destroy but only show up once per game vehicle.

If scarabs are to be introduced, they need to be a facet of an invasion type game where either the goal is to destroy the super strong scarab, or the elites that are piloting the scarab have to protect the scarab while grabbing something from the UNSC.

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>

I stopped reading when i saw “Bloom”.

So please 343 no to everything.

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^really? I suggested that if bloom is to be used that it should only be in the plasma weapons to maintain proper bullet trajectory. I hate bloom as much as you do when it comes to precision weapons.

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VERY, nice post OP.

Looks like you put a lot of thought into it, and I agree with the majority of your points, especially the Bloom for Plasma weapons.

I suppose, when I think of what Halo 4 will be like, I want it to be as far away from Halo Reach, and as close to Halo 3 as possible.

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> VERY, nice post OP.
>
> Looks like you put a lot of thought into it, and I agree with the majority of your points, especially the Bloom for Plasma weapons.
>
> I suppose, when I think of what Halo 4 will be like, I want it to be as far away from Halo Reach, and as close to Halo 3 as possible.

I just used H3 as a base and included Reach’s weapons and systems in a way that doesn’t destroy multiplayer. I think that Armor Abilities are great, but they were not implemented correctly. Reach could have been so much better than what it is now, and I just don’t want 343 to make the same mistakes if they implement some of the same systems.

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If jetpack is going to be a loadout it should be nerfed a bit, because as it stands now it’s way more useful and powerful than sprint.

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> If jetpack is going to be a loadout it should be nerfed a bit, because as it stands now it’s way more useful and powerful than sprint.

I think Jetpack is fine the way it is currently. Sprint is effective in its own ways, mainly so that you can find your opponents quickly and take them down. Downside is that you have to pause for a second while you raise your gun.

Jetpack has the advantage of enabling you to go places never imaginable in a halo game without trick jumping. The problem with that is that you become a Huge target and you are usually shot down before you can get anywhere you need to go. (besides the soft kill barriers ruin the point of jetpack)

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Halo 4 should not have ANYTHING with Reach in it.

Bloom and Armor Abilities ruined Reach and made it into a game that doesn’t feel like Halo at all. Halo 4 should have MP based on H2 and H3.

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A lot of cool stuff in this post!
Not really liking both the DMR and Battle Rifle in the same game since they’re both main designated weapons.
Having the Battle Rifle as a close/mid ranged weapon would be pretty sweet.
Concussion Rifle and Brute shot in the same game doesn’t really sound right. I’d rather have the Brute Shot :slight_smile:

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> Halo 4 should not have ANYTHING with Reach in it.
>
> Bloom and Armor Abilities ruined Reach and made it into a game that doesn’t feel like Halo at all. Halo 4 should have MP based on H2 and H3.

AA are glorified equipment from H3, the problem is that you can use them over and over again, which is why I said treat them like equipment and spread them around the maps MLG style (the only good idea to come out of the mlg playlist so far).

Perhaps a better solution would be a compromise. Have AA, but have a set expiration on them. i.e. Jetpack has 100 seconds of charge before it becomes a useless part of your spartan’s look.
Or, in the game options, maybe there could be a feature to have a set number of recycles. i.e. you can sprint only 4 times for the whole duration before it goes poof.

Bloom as a concept is wrong for human ballistic weapons(except maybe for things that have a super fast fire rate), I offered a way for 343 to work around this if they wanted to have bloom in their game: only have plasma weapons have bloom, then counterbalance with stronger damage towards shields to counter the decreased accuracy.

My plan makes almost every weapon feel different from one another, giving certain incentives to pick it up.

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> A lot of cool stuff in this post!
> Not really liking both the DMR and Battle Rifle in the same game since they’re both main designated weapons.
> Having the Battle Rifle as a close/mid ranged weapon would be pretty sweet.
> Concussion Rifle and Brute shot in the same game doesn’t really sound right. I’d rather have the Brute Shot :slight_smile:

The reason why I included both the DMR and BR is because if you are on a medium-long range map, the DMR would be used for better precision at long ranges due to the removal of its bloom and instead it recoils.

The BR would be used primarily in smaller-medium range maps for laying down burst fire on opponents with precision.

This allows 343 to actually tailor their game modes to the maps they create rather than have a bunch of maps and a bunch of gametypes that they would have to somehow fit them together. This is the problem that led to Arena Zealot and the removal of over a third of a pretty cool map.

As for the concussion rifle and brute shot being in the same game, I would like to have a multiplayer where every facet of the universe is included in the multiplayer, and the harsh removal of brute weapons made the brutes seem lamer than usual in terms of the campaign.
I agree, the brute shot was pretty awesome :slight_smile:

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My only question is this: Why do you want so many guns?

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> Halo 4 should not have ANYTHING with Reach in it.
>
> Bloom and Armor Abilities ruined Reach and made it into a game that doesn’t feel like Halo at all. Halo 4 should have MP based on H2 and H3.

This

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> > Halo 4 should not have ANYTHING with Reach in it.
> >
> > Bloom and Armor Abilities ruined Reach and made it into a game that doesn’t feel like Halo at all. Halo 4 should have MP based on H2 and H3.
>
> This

I third this

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I disagree with:

Pistol: No recoil. We are the Chief! The Reach pistol would be a good pistol without bloom and a slower ROF.

DMR: This weapon should not return… If it does it needs 15+ bullets. The Pistol from CE, BR from 2 and 3, and the DMR from Reach all had the ability to get three kills in one clip. No need to change that.

BR: Bring back the H2 BR without all the auto aim.

Carbine or Needle Rifle: Only need one of these weapons unless 343 changes the mechanics of one of them.

Frags: No explosion on impact.

Sniper: Gravity shouldn’t effect the bullet.

Sword: Return the H2 sword. Instant lunge after switching to it. No sword Block.

Armor Abilities: Sprint makes running away way too easy. Jetpack removes map control advantage on vertical maps.

GET RID OF THESE ANNOYING KILL AREAS.
Just put an invisible wall and let us find a way past it!

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> > > Halo 4 should not have ANYTHING with Reach in it.
> > >
> > > Bloom and Armor Abilities ruined Reach and made it into a game that doesn’t feel like Halo at all. Halo 4 should have MP based on H2 and H3.
> >
> > This
>
> I third this

4th this!

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> My only question is this: Why do you want so many guns?

Obviously, you can’t have ALL of the guns on one map, but it allows for unique options for map creators to have when designing the playable space.
There are already a lot of guns in the halo franchise, the problem is that, especially with the full auto smg style weapons, they are all starting to feel the same with no real noticeable differences between them. (This was the problem inherent with the Brute plasma rifle, do I want a red gun or a blue gun?)

This versatility between weapons allows for a greater multiplayer experience because it expands the gamer’s ability to create their own style of play without turning it into COD where there are 10 ARs and everyone uses the ones that are clearly better than the others.