New Custom Games Options You Would Like to See

Arnox_Immordium · November 14, 2014, 9:02am

I know everyone’s commenting on the recent footage released of the beta but I would like to draw attention away from that for a bit for two purposes.

1. To see what we would all like to be able to have access to customize the most in Custom Games.

2. To once again emphasize to 343 how awesome and important Custom Games are.

For me personally, I have two new things in mind that I would love to be able to customize.

Individual Team Traits. This would allow you to start a game with, say, the red team spawning with Rocket Launchers and fast movement speed but no shields and the blue team spawning with shields, normal movement speed, and Sniper Rifles.
Individual Weapon Traits. This would allow you to tune any individual gun in the game to your liking.

Also, 343, OFFLINE BOTS PLEEEEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEE!!! I beg of you.

Drowsy_Demon · November 14, 2014, 3:38pm

Offline bots would be too difficult to add. There are so many gametypes and maps in Halo games that you’d have to program a multitude of different behaviors for CTF, Slayer, Juggernaut, Living Dead, etc. as well as map pathing. You’d either get bots that are too stupid to pose a challenge or bots that have aimbots to compensate for their inability to strategize and move around the map to important zones normally like live players, and neither would be very fun.

To add to your list:

Option to turn on/off Sprint
Option to turn on/off each Spartan Ability
Option to adjust grenade damage (increments of 5% ranging from 0% to 700%)
Option to adjust the melee system (Bleedthrough vs no bleedthrough)

I agree strongly with customizing individual weapon traits. It’d be nice if for each weapon you could adjust

Scope magnification (2x, 3x, 4x, 10x, etc.)
Damage to vehicles (0 damage to x amount of damage per shot)
Maximum ammo you can carry
Bullets per mag/energy per charge for covenant weapons
Damage per shot/burst
Hitscan vs projectile
Melee damage (ranging from 0% to 700%) (I think CE varied melee damage based on the weapon you were carrying)

Yeah I don’t think they’re going to allow you to customize it to that extent but it’s a nice goal to shoot for. Individual Team Traits are also good. Infection is casual, but even so it is too easy for the survivors, so only the zombies should have radar.

Arnox_Immordium · November 15, 2014, 12:43am

> 2533274875705074;2:
> Offline bots would be too difficult to add. There are so many gametypes and maps in Halo games that you’d have to program a multitude of different behaviors for CTF, Slayer, Juggernaut, Living Dead, etc. as well as map pathing. You’d either get bots that are too stupid to pose a challenge or bots that have aimbots to compensate for their inability to strategize and move around the map to important zones normally like live players, and neither would be very fun.
>
> To add to your list:
>
> snip

Not true, man. Look at Unreal Tournament and Timesplitters. If they can make bots that are mostly compatible with every custom map, weapon, and gametype, (admittedly, one had to bot path one’s custom maps first in the UT games before they would be able to traverse it.) Halo can certainly do it too. Timesplitters had it to where they were able to navigate the map by using the items placed around the map.

Seriously, there’s a bunch of ways they could do this. But you know what? They don’t even have to make the bots Forge map compatible. Just have them restrained to the base and DLC maps. Or maybe forbid them in the custom maps until the map author bot paths the map.

flaming_shirukn · November 15, 2014, 12:52am

Select starting ammo
select player armor
select player armor based on loadout
select armor effect

Arnox_Immordium · November 15, 2014, 12:56am

> 2533274898131165;4:
> Select starting ammo

Oh, that’s a good one actually. Glad you mentioned it.

Drowsy_Demon · November 15, 2014, 1:43pm

> 2533274901464624;3:
> > 2533274875705074;2:
> > Offline bots would be too difficult to add. There are so many gametypes and maps in Halo games that you’d have to program a multitude of different behaviors for CTF, Slayer, Juggernaut, Living Dead, etc. as well as map pathing. You’d either get bots that are too stupid to pose a challenge or bots that have aimbots to compensate for their inability to strategize and move around the map to important zones normally like live players, and neither would be very fun.
> >
> > To add to your list:
> >
> > snip
>
>
>
> Not true, man. Look at Unreal Tournament and Timesplitters. If they can make bots that are mostly compatible with every custom map, weapon, and gametype, (admittedly, one had to bot path one’s custom maps first in the UT games before they would be able to traverse it.) Halo can certainly do it too. Timesplitters had it to where they were able to navigate the map by using the items placed around the map.
>
> Seriously, there’s a bunch of ways they could do this. But you know what? They don’t even have to make the bots Forge map compatible. Just have them restrained to the base and DLC maps. Or maybe forbid them in the custom maps until the map author bot paths the map.

Unreal Tournament was completely focused on multiplayer. I looked at the Timesplitters wiki and it said that you could only have 10 bots at a time and the bots can’t man gun emplacements or use vehicles, which is hardly a success story for adding in bots. Also I’m guessing that it is much, much easier to path bots with PC games as they are so many mods you can download for each game.

343i’s development resources are split between campaign, multiplayer, firefight/spartan ops, theatre and forge as it is. I don’t think they have the time or manpower to crank out bot support.

Not to mention that it would cut into subscriptions to Xbox Live, which actually gives monetary incentive for them to not implement a bot mode for such a popular FPS series.

Arnox_Immordium · November 16, 2014, 1:58am

> 2533274875705074;6:
> Unreal Tournament was completely focused on multiplayer. I looked at the Timesplitters wiki and it said that you could only have 10 bots at a time and the bots can’t man gun emplacements or use vehicles, which is hardly a success story for adding in bots. Also I’m guessing that it is much, much easier to path bots with PC games as they are so many mods you can download for each game.
>
> 343i’s development resources are split between campaign, multiplayer, firefight/spartan ops, theatre and forge as it is. I don’t think they have the time or manpower to crank out bot support.
>
> Not to mention that it would cut into subscriptions to Xbox Live, which actually gives monetary incentive for them to not implement a bot mode for such a popular FPS series.

Out of all the counterpoints you put up, the one with 343 having its resources split up with campaign, multiplayer, theater, forge, and firefight whereas UT was pure multiplayer is probably the most legit one. Ultimately, that’s gonna be the big deciding factor for them I think. BUT keep in mind, UT’s infamous AI actually first came from just one guy. Specifically, the guy behind the Quake Reaper Bot, Steve Polge. If just one guy can do that, I’m sure 343 can spare some money to hire just one guy to at least make some basic bots for its base maps.
Who cares if you could only have 10 bots at a time? (Also, they had to build that game for the lowest powered system they were shipping it on (Gamecube) which probably couldn’t handle that many bots along with everything else.) Furthermore, gun emplacements in the game were rarely used by regular players anyway and ditto for vehicles as there weren’t that many large vehicle maps in the game at all. And even FURTHER, in Halo 3/Reach/4, how many times have you gotten a kill with a turret WITHOUT ripping it off its stand and packing it around as a seperate weapon? As to vehicles, the code for them to handle vehicles is ALREADY half-written. (campaign) The bots don’t have to drive anyway. They can just ride passenger. (Would probably be preferable actually.) The AI in Halo 5 doesn’t have to be perfect.
No it wouldn’t cut in. Trust me. Call of Duty is a perfect example of a game with bots that also has massive matchmaking numbers. And you know what? Making bots for custom games would even be a help to balancing the weapons some. Obviously they’re not substitutes for actual human players nor will they ever be. But they can test some things and get glaring issues out of the way with them without having to call a team playtest every time they want to test something simple. It would help players practice their skills some and it would be awesome to be able to use them in customs even if they were restricted to base maps. In fact, if they’re in there, I expect them to be restricted to base maps. I’m just so tired most of all of for whatever reason, not being able to play with other players and because of that, getting screwed out of 2/3rds of the game’s content. No, no, no, no, no. Bots would GREATLY alleviate this problem.