There has been a lot of debate recently about slayer pro being put in (some say jammed in) to the Infinity Slayer playlist. I’m not going to take sides on this debate because as far as I’m concerned neither is the experience I’m looking for a slayer playlist.
Infinity Slayer has loadouts and ordnance which are features many of the players enjoy, but are also responsible for less balanced, less pure competitive gameplay. Armor abilities, support and tactical upgrades provide players with powerful tools and abilities that they start with every time they spawn. Add into that the ability to start with Plasma grenades and any of the 7 loadout weapons and any 1 of 3 secondary weapons (one of which is 1 shot kill) and you have a situation where people spawn with a tremendous amount of power and have little need to find their favorite weapons/grenades as they are already in their inventory. This type of gameplay can be fun but someone looking for more skill based and competitive gameplay will inevitably find it lacking.
On the other hand we have slayer pro. Here everyone has four choices of weapons and apart from that starts with the same equipment and the ability to pick up grenades off the ground, which should never be an ability that you don’t have in Halo to begin with. Here there is more balance but you still have people starting with their favorite rifle, and no matter how many times you kill them you cannot get that DMR out of their hands. (Or whatever weapon it happens to be that they’re using.) Also you don’t have a motion sensor which is and has been an integral part of Halo gameplay from the beginning. On the lack of motion sensor alone I say no thank you to slayer pro.
What I would be satisfied with for a team slayer playlist (and a ffa one too) would be a classic slayer playlist. Everyone would have resupply, two frags, and a magnum to start. Aside from this they would all have the same primary weapon which would vary game to game based on vote. (AR, BR, DMR and Covenant Carbine would fill this role best in my opinion) Additionally, there would be no marking of map weapons visible to all players. The weapons would just spawn in the same spot every so often and people would come to know where to expect weapons to spawn. There could also be armor abilities that spawn on the map and can be picked up. I’m not sure whether or not Sprint should be disabled in this playlist. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to disable it because that puts more emphasis on control of key map areas and one static speed makes it so that you can anticipate movement around the map of other players and it also shifts emphasis back onto vehicles that have seen a diminished role, particularly the mongoose.
I understand that I will most likely not be able to ever see a playlist like this take shape in Halo 4. It’s a shame too because I think it would be really enjoyable and would be a nice change of pace from the infinity and pro styles of gameplay. If it’s never going to be brought in to Halo 4 I would ask that you ay least entertain the possibility of having some classic playlists in Halo 5.