343 Industries gave us Halo 4 with a pool of new features. Many are dissatisfied with many of the elements now in play that add more random factors to gunfights and wander away from Halo’s usual arena play. We need to understand that stripping Halo 4 of AAs, bloom (which is less of a factor now), ordinance, and sprint totally from MM is not going to happen at this point, as they are defining features of Halo 4. We can, however, take what we’ve been given by 343 and help turn what we’ve been given into a more balanced playing field that embraces the new features.
As time goes along, it is only an asking matter of when maps built from the community begin entering MM. This will likely begin sometime after the File Share’s fix, and is when MM should begin a turnaround.
Go play Halo 3 Matchmaking, then Reach, then Halo 4. I had recently gone back and played Halo 3, playing Rumble Pit. Swords, Infection on “haunted house” maps. Default maps also were given variants which brought new changes to gameplay such as Boundless, Pit Stop, and Sandtarp. Reach carried seemingly less leisure game variants and less alternations of maps, relying heavily on Forge World to deliver, which wasn’t all too bad except for the colors. I’m assuming the reason our on-disc forge maps haven’t been added to MM on release because of that, but I believe it would be highly beneficial to the map rotations.
While I understand that Flood is lacking on the custom games side of things, that doesn’t mean that its online component can’t receive an upgrade either. This includes uniquely built maps and game types as well.
More importantly, Halo 4’s usual game modes need to be shaped with the modification of ordinance and load outs. Playlists should be condensed more similarly to previous games to carry in a wider selection of games to play and boost player counts per playlist. The current state of the playlists should have helped 343 notice which game modes were more popular, and set their occurrences in new playlists accordingly to be voted on. Or, with the current vote system, 3 different game types could be represented each time to make the chances of getting a certain gametype chosen easier.
There should be a split in the playlists: social and competitive. Social will carry most of what Halo 4 currently offers, specifically Infinity Slayer, some objective choices, as well as FFA variants. Competitive, on the other hand, can implement revised gametypes and maps built more toward a balanced fight. Big Team Battle - not Infinity - will be here so that plasma pistols are not load out options endangering vehicle battles. Loadouts may include choices of Battle Rifle, Light Rifle, DMR, and Covie Carbine. These may be with or without a Magnum sidearm. I’m not sure how Tactical/Support packages should work here just yet. Assault Rifles should be available at a team’s spawn.
While some game variants may have armor abilities in load outs, I think that others should include them solely as initial/random ordinance drops. Power ups should be ordinance as well. Personal ordinance should be removed from competitive, and with power ups and AAs occupying ordinance there should be a more controlled rate of power weapons available. Bolt Shot and Plasma Pistol will be available on the map.
I hope the community is at least experimenting with alternative modes of play in forge and customs. 343 gave us Halo 4, we just need to show them how we can make these features work for the best, especially once forged maps start popping up in MM. I won’t go too specific on this for now. I’m going to experiment myself with gametypes and may add more here later. Thoughts are welcome.