Making You Feel Like a SPARTAN

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Halo has been known for it’s online matchmaking for over a decade. With the upcoming halo game, the community hopes it will return to it’s core gameplay “mechanics”. But then what? Halo needs to evolve. It needs something new and exciting because we don’t want a halo 3 replica. Well here I will post my thoughts on evolving halo’s multiplayer while keeping balanced, core gameplay.

Making you feel like a Spartan
I believe this is one aspect Halo failed to accomplish in multiplayer. You are a spartan, a super soldier and this should be possible.

Kicking- Over the years, halo’s melee combat has become quite redundant. To make close range encounters more strategic, kicking should be implemented.The kick would be performed by double clicking the melee button. The kick is a slightly more powerful, slower attack that knocks back the opponent. The kick has no lunge and must be timed although it has a slightly longer reach than the classic melee. So now an close range encounter would look like this: Player one spams assault rifle and runs in for the melee. Player 2 times his kick and knocks player 1 back and shoots him in the head.
More animations- I’ve always wondered how a tank could magically flip itself over. Now in halo 5, your spartan will quickly put down his gun, grab the side with 2 hands and lift with all his strength. With two players it will take almost no time, but by yourself expect to be exposed for 4 seconds. Same goes for all vehicles although all medium sized vehicles can be flipped over easily by yourself. When you pick up a gun, I would like to see myself grab it, not just teleport into my hands. More animations also mean cool assassinations like stabbing someone with a needler. Assassinations should be in first person for the attacker.
Sprinting- Sprinting should return. There has been enough argument on this topic but you are a spartan, you can run. As long as instant respawn does not return, it should make gameplay more smooth. It is your choice to sprint, if you run right into someone and die then that is your fault not sprint.
Evading- Evade was an excellent tool in halo reach. In halo 5, it should return default replacing AAs. Evade can be a strategic ability to escape a grenade death. Grenades should be more powerful with this edition. You should only be able to evade once every 7 seconds to avoid overuse.
Grabbing ledges- I find it very frustrating when I cannot make a jump just out of reach. I am a great trick jumper and grabbing ledges would allow for more mobility. When the ledge is at eye level you can click the evade button to pull yourself up. This takes little time but it is your choice if you miss the jump. You can also click the crouch button to fall back down.
Pushing off walls- If you are next to a wall you should be able to click “a” to bounce off in the direction your joystick is pointing. With sprint activated you will be able to kick off farther and higher at the cost of your vulnerability. You can only bounce up the wall a foot or so to grab a ledge but can bounce farther off the wall.
Sliding- While Sprinting you can click the crouch button to slide a few feet and land in the crouched position. While sliding you can still shoot although it is less accurate. This is perfect for dodging a snipers second shot or slow moving rocket while feeling epic.
Spartan voices- Similar to halo reach firefight, you can customize your spartan voice and he/she will talk. Additionally, you can click down on the d-pad to call for backup from your team when you are surrounded, or shout out an enemy’s location if you are looking at them.

Please tell me your thoughts and ideas below. If you disagree with anything persuade me against my idea. If you simply hate this because you don’t like innovation or change, there should be a classic playlist and we can play every once and a while.

2

There’s change or the better and for the worse, I’m sorry but it seems like this is for the worst. IMO Halo has a solid melee system as it is, this straying even further away from the Halo formula.

3

If there was a “some are good” option instead of “most” and “I hate everything”, then I would’ve probably voted that.

Kicking, maybe. Change it to where you have to hold the melee button down, and maybe to charge it up, and that could be fine. Doesn’t seem too bad.

Bouncing off walls I don’t know about, maybe in certain hallways with vertical room, or just places specifically designed for it not to be intrusive.

Voices I can agree with, people who don’t have or don’t want to use a mic can still communicate with their team this way.

Sliding, I don’t see the point of it. You’re just moving forward a little faster while crouched. If you’re dodging shots, then moving closer shouldn’t matter, honestly moving toward the person shooting you is a general bad idea.

4

I like some of your ideas but ledge grabing, wall jumping, and sliding are unnecessary additions, they do not contribute anything practical to gameplay, just flash, so no. More animations is a must though.

5

> Kicking-

Conceptually, I can’t find anything wrong with this. I just don’t think a Spartan kicking people would look right though. Perhaps a stronger lunge instead.

> More animations- I’ve always wondered how a tank could magically flip itself over. Now in halo 5, your spartan will quickly put down his gun, grab the side with 2 hands and lift with all his strength. With two players it will take almost no time, but by yourself expect to be exposed for 4 seconds.

I don’t think every single thing needs an animation or to be realistic. But, I guess punishing people for managing to get their vehicles overturned isn’t a bad idea.

> Sprinting- Sprinting should return. It is your choice to sprint, if you run right into someone and die then that is your fault not sprint.

No, it shouldn’t. Sprint is unnecessary when your character already moves at immense speeds. All it does is promote “catching people with their pants down” or “running away”. It IS the fault of sprint, because such things wouldn’t be happening if the mechanic didn’t exist to begin with. It’s basically “move across the map at a decent pace with significant risks, or slow yourself down for safety”. I hate that, I just want to move.

Instead of including sprint, we could raise movement speed to Quake levels.

> Evading-

No comment. I’m iffy on evade/thruster as we already have strafing.

> Grabbing ledges- I find it very frustrating when I cannot make a jump just out of reach. I am a great trick jumper and grabbing ledges would allow for more mobility.

If you’re a “great trick jumper” there shouldn’t be a single (legitimate) jump in the game you find difficulty with. At best, climbing is a small crutch. At its worst, it’s very intrusive and almost replaces the jump mechanic.

> Pushing off walls- If you are next to a wall you should be able to click “a” to bounce off in the direction your joystick is pointing.

Ignoring sprint and climbing, I’m not against wall jumping, so long as you can only do it off a single wall. This could actually be a good thing.

> Sliding-

Meh. Doesn’t strongly impact the game one way or another.

Oh, and for -Yoinks!- sake, disagreeing with modern features doesn’t mean someone “hates change”. I hate those specific features. Not all change is for the best, nor should it be treated as such.

A feature should be evaluated on how well it works with the game, not how new or old it is.

6

> Halo has been known for it’s online matchmaking for over a decade. With the upcoming halo game, the community hopes it will return to it’s core gameplay “mechanics”. But then what? Halo needs to evolve. It needs something new and exciting because we don’t want a halo 3 replica. Well here I will post my thoughts on evolving halo’s multiplayer while keeping balanced, core gameplay.

Agree, Halo could be so much more other then an arena shooter. But it’s human nature to fear/hate change and only natural for some to most of the Hardcore/Competitive players to want to stick to the old style of play. Change adds new things and keeps the game from getting stagnate and boring (COD), guessing people didn’t like the change that took place in H4 because instead of slow change over time (a decade) H4 was extreme and to much too soon (I guess). Personally I have no problems with H4 other then a few things that get in the way (Explain letter on).

> Making you feel like a Spartan
> I believe this is one aspect Halo failed to accomplish in multiplayer. You are a spartan, a super soldier and this should be possible.

Heavily agree, one such issue is the weapons (Human weapons). You have guys in power armor that are heavily armored and with personal shields. Then you have modern weapons with 20 century ammunition that make short work of the Shields and portray the armor to only offer as much protection as Kevlar body armor. A way to fix this is for the weapons to have better canon stats that fire more powerful ammunition at a higher Muzzle velocity with a greater effective range (canon wise). And maybe even better look weapons then what we are seeing.

> Kicking- Over the years, halo’s melee combat has become quite redundant. To make close range encounters more strategic, kicking should be implemented.The kick would be performed by double clicking the melee button. The kick is a slightly more powerful, slower attack that knocks back the opponent. The kick has no lunge and must be timed although it has a slightly longer reach than the classic melee. So now an close range encounter would look like this: Player one spams assault rifle and runs in for the melee. Player 2 times his kick and knocks player 1 back and shoots him in the head.

Sounds like a good idea, but to be fair for the other player for not being able to fire back. Both players won’t be able to do anything during the kick, the kick will deplete the other players shields but the other player won’t be able to get the first shot and vice versa, both will be able to fire on each other at the same time so not give the other player an advantage and possibly easy kills.

> More animations- I’ve always wondered how a tank could magically flip itself over. Now in halo 5, your spartan will quickly put down his gun, grab the side with 2 hands and lift with all his strength. With two players it will take almost no time, but by yourself expect to be exposed for 4 seconds. Same goes for all vehicles although all medium sized vehicles can be flipped over easily by yourself. When you pick up a gun, I would like to see myself grab it, not just teleport into my hands. More animations also mean cool assassinations like stabbing someone with a needler. Assassinations should be in first person for the attacker.

For the vehicles it might slow the flow of the combat as you take your time to flip your vehicle. But sounds like fun as it would encourage players to not flip their vehicles and reckless drivers would learn really fast. And it be cool to acutely see your self or show you flipping or trying to flip the vehicle. And more assassination animations are always good.

> Sprinting- Sprinting should return. There has been enough argument on this topic but you are a spartan, you can run. As long as instant respawn does not return, it should make gameplay more smooth. It is your choice to sprint, if you run right into someone and die then that is your fault not sprint.

I love sprint and don’t want it out completely like some. But I also found some issues with sprint, such as in small maps when you are more prone to run into the enemy and if you run a corner and you find your self in this position, the other player would be able to get the first shot and you would most likely lose. A way to fix this is to increase base speed by 10 or 20% so as to encourage less use of sprint and for sprint to be use more strategically such as running across large open fields.

> Evading- Evade was an excellent tool in halo reach. In halo 5, it should return default replacing AAs. Evade can be a strategic ability to escape a grenade death. Grenades should be more powerful with this edition. You should only be able to evade once every 7 seconds to avoid overuse.

Agree.

> Grabbing ledges- I find it very frustrating when I cannot make a jump just out of reach. I am a great trick jumper and grabbing ledges would allow for more mobility. When the ledge is at eye level you can click the evade button to pull yourself up. This takes little time but it is your choice if you miss the jump. You can also click the crouch button to fall back down.
> Pushing off walls- If you are next to a wall you should be able to click “a” to bounce off in the direction your joystick is pointing. With sprint activated you will be able to kick off farther and higher at the cost of your vulnerability. You can only bounce up the wall a foot or so to grab a ledge but can bounce farther off the wall.
> Sliding- While Sprinting you can click the crouch button to slide a few feet and land in the crouched position. While sliding you can still shoot although it is less accurate. This is perfect for dodging a snipers second shot or slow moving rocket while feeling epic.
> Spartan voices- Similar to halo reach firefight, you can customize your spartan voice and he/she will talk. Additionally, you can click down on the d-pad to call for backup from your team when you are surrounded, or shout out an enemy’s location if you are looking at them.

Agree, nice ideas.

7

> I like some of your ideas but ledge grabing, wall jumping, and sliding are unnecessary additions, they do not contribute anything practical to gameplay, just flash, so no. More animations is a must though.

Actually, they do. Play a game like mirrors edge and brink and then come back to Halo. It feels in every way dated and clunky because maps just do what you’d naturally like them to being a squishy bipedal creature that jumps, grabs, and slides. Destiny is adding at least the latter and Titanfall is definitely bringing the ledge grab to the FPS. Are these just showing off? No, they’re making their games more rich and immersive by naturally increasing the number of ways you can move about their environments. Halo would do well by following suit.

8

> > I like some of your ideas but ledge grabing, wall jumping, and sliding are unnecessary additions, they do not contribute anything practical to gameplay, just flash, so no. More animations is a must though.
>
> Actually, they do. Play a game like mirrors edge and brink and then come back to Halo. It feels in every way dated and clunky because maps just do what you’d naturally like them to being a squishy bipedal creature that jumps, grabs, and slides. Destiny is adding at least the latter and Titanfall is definitely bringing the ledge grab to the FPS. Are these just showing off? No, they’re making their games more rich and immersive by naturally increasing the number of ways you can move about their environments. Halo would do well by following suit.

“Everyone else is doing it, so let’s do it too!” Is the worst kind of logic ever, of all time.

If it fits into the gameplay and has a purpose, then it can be added. If it fits into other games and looks cool there, then there is no reason to believe it would work well in Halo.

9

> > I like some of your ideas but ledge grabing, wall jumping, and sliding are unnecessary additions, they do not contribute anything practical to gameplay, just flash, so no. More animations is a must though.
>
> Actually, they do. Play a game like mirrors edge and brink and then come back to Halo. It feels in every way dated and clunky because maps just do what you’d naturally like them to being a squishy bipedal creature that jumps, grabs, and slides. Destiny is adding at least the latter and Titanfall is definitely bringing the ledge grab to the FPS. Are these just showing off? No, they’re making their games more rich and immersive by naturally increasing the number of ways you can move about their environments. Halo would do well by following suit.

Mirrors edge and Brink were okay games at best. To add to that, they weren’t unique because the whole action industry was doing it. Halo didn’t, and it remained unique. Just because somebody else jumped on the band wagon doesn’t mean Halo should too. If you feel like actual Halo is clunky and outdated, maybe it isn’t for you.

10

> > I like some of your ideas but ledge grabing, wall jumping, and sliding are unnecessary additions, they do not contribute anything practical to gameplay, just flash, so no. More animations is a must though.
>
> Actually, they do. Play a game like mirrors edge and brink and then come back to Halo. It feels in every way dated and clunky because maps just do what you’d naturally like them to being a squishy bipedal creature that jumps, grabs, and slides. Destiny is adding at least the latter and Titanfall is definitely bringing the ledge grab to the FPS. Are these just showing off? No, they’re making their games more rich and immersive by naturally increasing the number of ways you can move about their environments. Halo would do well by following suit.

Um… Go play brink again, I bet you a fiver you don’t find more than a few dozen people online, its community was dead after only a few months. I’m not against additions that make for fast kinetic gameplay(like sprint or thruster pack), but you reach a point when these additions become a hindrance on competitive gameplay.

11

> <mark>Mirrors edge and Brink were okay games at best. To add to that, they weren’t unique because the whole action industry was doing it</mark>. Halo didn’t, and it remained unique. Just because somebody else jumped on the band wagon doesn’t mean Halo should too. If you feel like actual Halo is clunky and outdated, maybe it isn’t for you.

I’m going to have to disagree there Forthencho, both games were pretty unique concepts when they were released, and while Brink bombed, Mirrors Edge was really good and had great reviews if i recall correctly.

12

> Um… Go play brink again, I bet you a fiver you don’t find more than a few dozen people online, its community was dead after only a few months. I’m not against additions that make for fast kinetic gameplay(like sprint or thruster pack), but you reach a point when these additions become a hindrance on competitive gameplay.

Because the game was terribly balanced, structured, and optimized. Movement though, which is the ONE quality I reference if you recall, was better than Halo’s because it let you interact with the environment in a more precise way that, above all else, maintained flow. Just try interacting with a table between the two games to see the difference. You don’t need ONE other person online to do this by the way and in general I suggest you stop judging the worth of individual gameplay mechanics based on the overall mass of sheep attached to the product. There can be good or even great ideas buried under something that simply never found mob appeal (or in this case had severe technical issues and an ill-conceived format.)

13

> Halo didn’t, and it remained unique. Just because somebody else jumped on the band wagon doesn’t mean Halo should too. If you feel like actual Halo is clunky and outdated, maybe it isn’t for you.

Technological innovation is NOT a bandwagon. Take for example Duke Nukem Forever. Are you going to laud it for staying true to the design principles of the 1990’s? No, you’re going to decry its outdated mechanics and level design and ask for something more progressive. Though Halo isn’t at that sad point yet there are definite elements (ex. movement, weapon balance) that are getting there now and in just a few short months the distance is going to further narrow. Though change may cost Halo it’s after-school special individuality, its a worthy sacrifice to enable better gameplay and perhaps even allow for developments beyond the market standards (which by the way is where Halo CE found its first footholds. Grenades and melee attacks were by no means new features for the FPS, but integrating them into a smooth control layout certainly was.)

14

> Though Halo isn’t at that sad point yet there are definite elements (ex. movement, weapon balance)

Elaborate.

> Technological innovation is NOT a bandwagon.

Pretty much everything I currently see being praised as “innovative” I’ve seen years ago.

Ijji Gunz had wall jumping, wall running, climbing, etc before Mirrors Edge was even conceived as a concept, and it was melee/shooter hybrid at that. That was in 2004.

Mech combat has existed since at least the first Xbox, and the abilities like catching and throwing bullets are clearly inspired by games like Bioshock, which in turn is probably inspired by something else.

I am very interested in Titanfall, but it’s nothing new. Well, it’s specific combination of mechanics (pacing, jump height, etc.) probably are, but the individual mechanics are not.

I do see a major bandwagon mentality. Whatever IGN and the like praise as ‘revolutionary’, people follow it.

15

I appreciate the feedback and understand your concerns but I think we should be able to move differently to account for different situations. Everything here is available for everyone to use at any given moment, you have to decide what is best for each situation. Take kicking for example. There is really no way it could drag down combat. It will add a bit of strategy to your close range encounters. Instead of simply punching at eqch other instantly, you can outsmart your opponent. Same goes for evade and the others. You now have a chance to counter their attack within any circumstance. Just think about it. Halo 3 returned for free, yet I don’t see halo fans staying with it. Most of you realize change is needed and I hope we will have a innovative game that we all can enjoy.

16

> Technological innovation is NOT a bandwagon.

Sprint, Loadouts and so forth are not technological innovations. Those are color screens, 3D games, mouse and keyboard and so on. Features in a game that utilize current technological equipment is not technological stuff.

> Take for example Duke Nukem Forever. Are you going to laud it for staying true to the design principles of the 1990’s? No, you’re going to decry its outdated mechanics and level design and ask for something more progressive.

Even though I haven’t played Duke Nukem Forever, I kind of know what went down in that game that made it so unpopular among the Duke fans, and general FPS gamers overall.

For example
-2 gun slot system ala modern shooter
-Regenerating health ala modern shooter
-Apparently a lot of puzzles ala Half Life style
-Bad physics
-Bad aiming mechanics
-Crap texture rendering

Angry Joe review

Stop using DNF as a example of not “modernising” the franchise. It did “modernise”, and it went down in flames. Not because it didn’t modernise, but because the “modern features” removed old aspects that made the game fun.

17

> > Technological innovation is NOT a bandwagon.
>
> Sprint, Loadouts and so forth are not technological innovations. Those are color screens, 3D games, mouse and keyboard and so on. Features in a game that utilize current technological equipment is not technological stuff.
>
>
>
> > Take for example Duke Nukem Forever. Are you going to laud it for staying true to the design principles of the 1990’s? No, you’re going to decry its outdated mechanics and level design and ask for something more progressive.
>
> Even though I haven’t played Duke Nukem Forever, I kind of know what went down in that game that made it so unpopular among the Duke fans, and general FPS gamers overall.
>
> For example
> -2 gun slot system ala modern shooter
> -Regenerating health ala modern shooter
> -Apparently a lot of puzzles ala Half Life style
> -Bad physics
> -Bad aiming mechanics
> -Crap texture rendering
>
> Angry Joe review
>
> Stop using DNF as a example of not “modernising” the franchise. It did “modernise”, and it went down in flames. Not because it didn’t modernise, but because the “modern features” removed old aspects that made the game fun.

There are tons of examples of games that have innovated and went down in flames. Gears of war is an example. Gears of war 3 has higher population than gears of war judgement. Halo 3 higher than Halo 4, and more.

There are also tons of games that haven’t innovated like Counter Strike, and Team fortress and is doing just as good in terms of population as any other game.

Saying that Halo needs to innovate it something you or I don’t know.

What I know is that innovation is destroying Halo’s balanced gameplay.

18

Part of the reason i liked halo reach and halo 4 more is because we are starting to feel like spartans. So i’m all for more of that.

19

> > > Technological innovation is NOT a bandwagon.
> >
> > Sprint, Loadouts and so forth are not technological innovations. Those are color screens, 3D games, mouse and keyboard and so on. Features in a game that utilize current technological equipment is not technological stuff.
> >
> >
> >
> > > Take for example Duke Nukem Forever. Are you going to laud it for staying true to the design principles of the 1990’s? No, you’re going to decry its outdated mechanics and level design and ask for something more progressive.
> >
> > Even though I haven’t played Duke Nukem Forever, I kind of know what went down in that game that made it so unpopular among the Duke fans, and general FPS gamers overall.
> >
> > For example
> > -2 gun slot system ala modern shooter
> > -Regenerating health ala modern shooter
> > -Apparently a lot of puzzles ala Half Life style
> > -Bad physics
> > -Bad aiming mechanics
> > -Crap texture rendering
> >
> > Angry Joe review
> >
> > Stop using DNF as a example of not “modernising” the franchise. It did “modernise”, and it went down in flames. Not because it didn’t modernise, but because the “modern features” removed old aspects that made the game fun.
>
> There are tons of examples of games that have innovated and went down in flames. Gears of war is an example. Gears of war 3 has higher population than gears of war judgement. Halo 3 higher than Halo 4, and more.
>
> There are also tons of games that haven’t innovated like Counter Strike, and Team fortress and is doing just as good in terms of population as any other game.
>
> Saying that Halo needs to innovate it something you or I don’t know.
>
> What I know is that innovation is destroying Halo’s balanced gameplay.

Halo 4 didn’t have halo’s core mechanics. As I said, I want that to return to halo 5. And please tell me why these features would destroy balance.

20

> Kicking

Kicking is not one of those fundamentally flawed ideas I can easily see the problem with. By pushing an attacking player away slightly, at first sight it seems like a mechanic that could actually add a little something to melee combat. There might be an issue with it I haven’t thought about, but as of now it seems surprisingly not bad. Only one aspect that worries me is the animation.

> More animations

Which gets me to why animations are bad. To be clear, I’m using a kind of special definition of animation here: any animated action that prevents the player from executing other actions for a period of time. By this definition, running is not an animation for the player can still do other things like shoot. Grenade throw and weapon switch on the other hand are animations because they prevent the player from shooting for a very short period of time.

Of course, grenade throws and weapon switches are very short and are really no issues. However, four seconds in an animation flipping a tank (even two) and even a second picking a weapon are animations I wouldn’t like to be locked into. There is a very actual reason why shooter still use the teleport method for picking up weapons despite the technology having existed for a long time. Taking the control of their character away from the player is bad. It’s a choice the player cannot reverse.

A player may decide to pick up a weapon when no opponents are around. If just as they start the animation, an opponent comes into sight, there is nothing they can do. You could always blame the player, but the reality of it is that shooters are too fast. The player should always be able to correct their “mistakes” to the latest moment possible. This means that animations should be as short as possible.

> Sprinting

Sprint has been discussed to death. Unless you have a convincing argument how sprint dramatically improves gameplay, don’t beat the dead horse.

> Evading

To me, Evade is a double edged sword. On one hand, I absolutely love it. It’s a great, skilful movement ability with some really fantastic applications. It’s good for strafing, it’s good for surprise attacks, it’s good for certain jumps, and it’s good for escaping.

But then, on the other hand, it’s too good. Evade accomplishes essentially the same as sprint and more. It’s the perfect way to escape an encounter you are losing. You don’t even have to worry about spending time turning around because you can evade backwards. it has the same problems as sprint.

> Grabbing ledges

Again, I refer back to why more animations is fundamentally worse. Additionally, it makes difficult jumps easier, something they shouldn’t be. It allows you to correct badly timed jumps. When talking about the animations, I sarcastically referred to “mistakes”; things that are largely out of the player’s control. Failing a jump is a real mistake, completely the player’s own fault and it’s not something they should be able to correct.

Jumping has traditionally been one of the aspects that differentiates skilled Halo players from less skilled players. If players were able to grab ledges, we would lose yet another differentiating factor and the skill spectrum would become even more narrower.

> Pushing off walls

Could this work? It’s not one of those things I rule out as ridiculous at first sight. Provided it only worked sideways, no extra height, I could maybe see it being utilized in a meaningful fashion. It could have applications in both jumping and strafing.

> Sliding

Again, something I would categorize under “not horrible”. It does have some purpose, it’s not overly powerful. Whether it would be good in practice or not, it doesn’t sound bad to me on paper.

The bottomline is: I disagree with the “making you feel like a Spartan” thing. I’ve never really been immersed by animations. As a matter of fact, as is clear from this post, I despise the kind of unnecessarily long animations that are added to game; animations that are supposed to “immerse” me. The fundamental problem there is that taking the control away from me does not make me more immersed, it makes me less immersed. What immerses me is freedom. I need mechanics that give me meaningful choices. What I don’t want is “would you like to grab this ledge to partcipate in this wonderful on-rails section?”.