Multiplayer Immersion

Games Halo 5: Guardians
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This weekend, I got my Xbone. I spent half an hour playing with the Kinect before I actually played any games, then decided to play AC4 whilst I waited for my download code for Titanfall to install.

But now I’m playing it, and it’s a blast. Please note, by the way, that this is not a request for a mechanic from Titanfall to be implemented in Halo, only a conceptual way of design.

The thing that struck me most about Titanfall, (other than the fist of a big stompy robot,) was that despite its lack of realism intrinsic to anything sci-fi, it was unbelievably immersive. I’m not sure what it was that caused this, but I love it. Here are some non-gameplay-affecting ideas to increase immersion (and therefore fun) in Halo MP.

Battle damage: This has been talked about as being an aesthetic option before matches, and I’d be fine with that, but another option would be to simply apply a set 2d image of a gunshot scratch, plasma burn or hole caused by a sniper round onto the armour model of your character when hit. This wouldn’t be hard, and would take up minimal memory, whilst giving you the impression that that teammate running past you with huge scores on his gauntlets from sword blocking might have just had a good idea in running the other way.

One of the cool things that Titanfall does is give you battle updates in a selectable AI voice, such as that your Auto-Titan is currently being besieged by two enemy pilots and you better help it soon. Obviously this wouldn’t work in Halo, but seeing that we’ve got all these dynamic map elements now, how about if an AI voice (Perhaps purchasable a la firefight voices in Reach? (Roland. Gimme Roland. Or BB.)) gives you a heads-up if a player collapses a roof, blocking off a key bridge or corridor. That would go a long way to making you feel as if you’re part of a real military operation.

More realistic objectives: This is just a minor one: How does competing on who can hold a glowing skull for the longest time help us to train for fighting the Covvies, Fluddies and Promies? This is a minor one, but I’d love to see some more Invasion-esque objective games, such as a Generator Defence gametype, or something like that. Basically a meld of Invasion and Dominion.

Map design: Much as I love them, maps like Haven and Ragnarok are a little bit saccharine. We’re fighting a war, not having a picnic, the battlefield should reflect that. I don’t want every map like this though, god, don’t make the same mistake CoD made with its maps. Just a few darker, more desolate ones, possibly set in an Insurrectionist shanty town or ODST-style New Mombasa.

Spartan Personality: We’ve seen first-hand that S-IVs are a lot more gung-ho and loud than previous Spartan generations. Why not exploit this? In some sort of matchmaking setting, you could alter your Spartan’s personality to give them different responses in battle. A crazy one might whoop with joy when he does a warthog jump, or a serious one might mutter: “Tango down.” after a headshot. Obviously you could pick “strong and silent” to disable it entirely.

Gestures: This is me running out of ideas; throw the non-talkative guys a bone, will ya? I don’t want to have my fun or immersion ruined by some guy calling me a Yoink yoink yoinkety yoink yoink every time I get a headshot, or a noob when I place last in a match, but I still want to do some helpful communication. A couple of simple Kinect voice commands to perform gestures in-game would be great for this. Just things like “Go, go, go!” or “Heavy target inbound!” would be good.

Finally, a more interactive end-of match UI. Roland giving you combat analysis, quips and soforth. I just finished a fight, not a game.

Anyway, just a few ideas. Hope you like 'em, because not a lot of my ideas are liked. Discuss!

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I guess they tried to do that with Halo 4 by making Red v. Blue canon, but I find there is more room for improvment.

I liked the idea of more immersion, but since H5G will be returning to a more classic arena format, I don’t see this working out. That being said, there is still a possibility that 343 will return invasion, or somthing like that in another playlist; we just have to wait and see. Linking the story to multiplayer can never hurt, and could be cool if implemented properly.

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@CCC White Jezus

Classic can work with immersion. Really it can.

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would be fun if they totally embraced the whole “war games simulation” thing a lot more. I really like the presentation of that initial trailer’s map, with the in-map scoreboard and such.

I don’t think spartans should be overly flamboyant and I don’t think emotes are that great of an idea. They may have personality but they’re still professional and disciplined soldiers, and they should seem like they’re taking things seriously. I think it would be great if the Announcer were the AI who talked after the game, as halo 4 already established there’s a war games AI with that voice.

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> @CCC White Jezus
>
> Classic can work with immersion. Really it can.

Not disagreeing with you here.

Of course there is room for improvement, and the OPs examples of battle damage, and spartan personalities could be great additions. I just find gametypes like invasion to have a better pallet for immersion, when compared to small arena type maps with red and blue guys running around.

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> would be fun if they totally embraced the whole “war games simulation” thing a lot more. I really like the presentation of that initial trailer’s map, with the in-map scoreboard and such.

This is what I was thinking. We finally have this brilliant tool to help us become more engaged and invested into each individual game, so I think we should make the most of it!

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> > would be fun if they totally embraced the whole “war games simulation” thing a lot more. I really like the presentation of that initial trailer’s map, with the in-map scoreboard and such.
>
> This is what I was thinking. We finally have this brilliant tool to help us become more engaged and invested into each individual game, so I think we should make the most of it!

Yeah, this.

Not a big fan of the constant white-out-the-screen and mind-bending explosion jitter that seems to be taking over games nowadays in the name of “immersion”. Given that war games is supposed to be a simulation, there’s a lot of ground that can be covered with that to help the players feel like it really is a competitive simulation. It would be fairly unique among the major FPSs, as well.

As far as the other stuff goes - visible damage, interactive map elements, etc., I’m all for those as well. I just don’t want the “realism” to be applied such that the maps are all hazy and dark and you can’t frickin see anything anyway . . . on top of which your screen is constantly whited-out or a blur. The clean look of Halo is beautiful and ought to be retained.

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> > > would be fun if they totally embraced the whole “war games simulation” thing a lot more. I really like the presentation of that initial trailer’s map, with the in-map scoreboard and such.
> >
> > This is what I was thinking. We finally have this brilliant tool to help us become more engaged and invested into each individual game, so I think we should make the most of it!
>
> Yeah, this.
>
> Not a big fan of the constant white-out-the-screen and mind-bending explosion jitter that seems to be taking over games nowadays in the name of “immersion”. Given that war games is supposed to be a simulation, there’s a lot of ground that can be covered with that to help the players feel like it really is a competitive simulation. It would be fairly unique among the major FPSs, as well.
>
> As far as the other stuff goes - visible damage, interactive map elements, etc., I’m all for those as well. I just don’t want the “realism” to be applied such that the maps are all hazy and dark and you can’t frickin see anything anyway . . . on top of which your screen is constantly whited-out or a blur. The clean look of Halo is beautiful and ought to be retained.

I would have to agree with this. I don’t like the loud ringing that comes from a grenade going off while my screen shakes uncontrollably. It’s enough that I get a damage direction indicator, grenade indicator, and a blinking shield indicator already. I don’t need 7 things to tell me there was an explosion near me. One or two is enough.

It’s a simulation and we are super soldiers with mechanical exoskeletons. It should be able to damper the loud explosion so our ears don’t ring, our visors can polarize to dim the sun, so I think they can prevent us from being blinded by an explosion.

Things like cosmetic damage indicators would be cool. They don’t have an influence on actual gameplay, aim, visibility, or anything like that, so I’m ok with them.

As for gestures, the only one I need is my ball sack on someones face when they die by my hand, and that one is already in the game so I’m happy.

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> I think it would be great if the Announcer were the AI who talked after the game, as halo 4 already established there’s a war games AI with that voice.

Its been too long. That AI would be rampant by now. ;p

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> > I think it would be great if the Announcer were the AI who talked after the game, as halo 4 already established there’s a war games AI with that voice.
>
> Its been too long. That AI would be rampant by now. ;p

Do dumb AI’s go rampant? I thought it was just the smart ones.

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Its not nice to call people dumb. AIs have feelings too.

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> Its not nice to call people dumb. AIs have feelings too.

I see what you did there… -_-

But seriously, do AI’s like Auntie Dot go rampant or not? We know Cortana did, and Roland will, etc etc, but if an AI’s programming/matrix is simplistic enough, will it degrade?

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> But seriously, do AI’s like Auntie Dot go rampant or not? We know Cortana did, and Roland will, etc etc, but if an AI’s programming/matrix is simplistic enough, will it degrade?

No, dumb AIs cannot think themselves to death because they do not learn anything that is outside of their set limits. They were solely programmed to fulfill a specific task, to operate in a specific field and hence will never think about anything more than that.

Smart AIs have no limits though, you can say they are freethinker. They are constantly learning, collecting and assimilating every single kind of data they get and once their memory core, which cannot be replaced, is full you could say they start to overload themselves with data.