On the Topic of Customizationn

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Weapons and Loadouts

Leave loadouts in Custom Games and only very certain playlists in Matchmaking, for example, Invasion is a gametype that sort of needs them. And even in those (spesificly matchmaking), make sure the loadouts are balanced and the weapon variation is very low, meaning in one gametype with loadouts it will be Battle Rifles and carbines only, and in another, Assault rifle and SMG variants only and in yet another, DMRs and Lightrifles only. Of couse a few gametypes that do have loadouts will be exceptions to this rule such as invasion which needs it. By doing this we can eliminate the issue that Halo 4 had where you would lose not because of your skill, but rather because of what weapon you use.

Another Idea I had was making weapon customization like armor customization in the sence that it is purely athstetic rather than functional. You can unlock “attachments” for weapons that would not actually affect the way it works except for in ways that are purely cosmetic and will not acualy affect gunplay in any real way. For example You could use any of the different versions of the Assault Rifle from the MA5B to the MA57, or You can Chose a different scope on your Battle Rifle that will change the way your zoom looks but not change your magnification or aim assist or anything, Or you can change the lock on animation on your Rocket Launcher from That of Halo 3 to that of Halo: Reach, or you could equip a suppressor to your gun and change the sound a little bit but not affect the audibility or your position on the mini-map. These customizations could be done by a player and be applied to the weapon you spawn with and whatever weapon’s on the field that you pick up, except for other player’s personal spawn weapons.

By Having athstetic customization for weapons you can add a new level of personalization and add player incentive to unlock these parts and make there gun look how they like it.

TL;DR: Limit the usage of loadouts in core matchmaking to so that only a very few matches or only verry certain niche playlists and custom games actually have them, and Make weapon customization a purely athstetic feature like armor customization

2

No.

Load outs are a complicated mechanic that require a great deal of balance, work, time and fine tuning for not only the weapons in them but the vehicles, maps, player stats and equipment too. Just look at what happened in halo 4. IMO there was a lot of room for a potentially strong and unique load out system that would change Halo’s sand box in a positive way but there were so many errors that were both big and small that screwed it all up and we ended up with a broken ugly system. 343 have a chance to take another look at that system and make it as good as it can possibly be in Halo 5 but this isn’t the way they should be going about it.

You can’t just have 343 do all that work to make a balanced load out system and then have them only be used in 2 or three game types. It’s too much of a waste.

And if they don’t put as much work into refining the system as they could be in Halo 5 because it’ll only appear in isolated game types then I don’t want a load out system at all. It’s not the kind of mechanic you can leave half polished because if you leave it half polished it’ll be broken. With identical starts you can get away with things like the bloom on the AR being slightly off because it’s a map pick up and it isn’t going to affect game play as often. In load outs there’s a lot less room for errors like that to be made so if 343 can’t commit themselves to building a better more polished system in Halo 5 then they shouldn’t bother making one at all.

If a strong custom load out system is gonna be in the game then it should be the other way around. The majority of standard game types like Slayer, BTB, Objective, CTF, Invasion etc should be using a refined custom load out system in unison with a sandbox that’s been fine tuned for it while isolated game types like SWAT, Slayer pro (or whatever the next iteration is called), Snipers, Flood etc should be the game types that have pre-set starts.

I’d imagine that for a person that’s against load outs this would seem like a good compromise with people that like load outs. It’s not. As a load out supporter I’d rather just go back to identical starts over seeing the potential that load outs have once again be wasted and instead we end up something that could have been awesome but ends up falling flat.

3

^Pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

Furthermore, if you make loadouts truly balanced, there’s no reason not to include them in most settings. Because why exclude something that is balanced?

Funny story, I was playing Halo PC earlier today. I’d pick up the Shotgun, die, and spawn a foot away from another Shotgun and pick that one up immediately. This happened multiple times. The weapon respawn times were so fast I might as well just spawned with one to begin with.

If loadouts don’t return I’d at least prefer a stronger utility weapon with faster spawning weapons.

4

Once again people in this forum don’t know how to read more than two words before making judgments about the post. Not only did I say that loadouts would be restricted to very specific instances in game, but they would only consist of the most Closely functioning weapons so that they would be balanced, meaning;

The Carbine and Battle Rifle loadouts Only in one gametype

and the DMR and Lightrifle loadouts only in another gametype

and Assault Rifle/SMG variants only in another. Doing this minimizes if not eliminates the effect of the variation between weapons

Nobody even seems to have read the second paragraph… This is why I don’t come here often. This is why the guys over a Bungie.net laugh at this place

Mega066 concepts like this have been implemented in the past and have worked more than Fine. We have had Slayer BR’s and Slayer DMRS in Halo 3 and Reach Respectively each worked fine and my proposal is no different from this except it would add a second (and possibly) a third weapon to the mix.

The reason I came up with this idea is that DMR’s and Battle Rifles simply don’t mix as Loudout weapons, they were never meant to. They were never balanced against each other so that people could spawn with both at the same time, Just like people were never meant to spawn with both the Assault Rifle and Tha Battle Rifle at the same time. The Battle Rifle and carbine however are in the same tier of weapon as each other so Having people spawn with either one as a choice would work since they have very similar range, function and kill time. The same applies to the DMR, Light Rifle and Needle Rifle, which is why in Slayer pro you could spawn with Either the Needle Rifle or the DMR in Slayer Pro, again they are similar enough functioning weapons that the two competing does not affect the overall gunplay. I only seek to reimplement this.

The Loudon system would obviously be a lot more lenient in Custom games and Asymmetrical gametypes like Invasion and Infection where certain roles are required to be played and changing advantages is nessisary.

In the rest of the core matchmaking since we will will be spawning with the same weapon we can have both the other Loudout weapons spawn on the map with little consequence (as long as there aren’t too many DMRs) like how we had BRs spawn on maps when we spawned with Assault rifles.

Ramirez: Because a lot of people don’t want to play with loadouts but another large group of people do. Halo has the capability to support both sides so why shouldn’t it, however having loadouts nomater how balanced they may seem creates a since of randomness, which is not good for competitive play, that said, loadouts and even Armor Abilities are an excellent tool especially for custom games and should not die nomater how much the Halo Trilogy purists claim it should. We need to find middle ground without hurting what each other likes about the games.

5

> Once again people in this forum don’t know how to read more than two words before making judgments about the post. Not only did I say that loadouts would be restricted to very specific instances in game, but they would only consist of the most Closely functioning weapons so that they would be balanced, meaning;
>
> The Carbine and Battle Rifle loadouts Only in one gametype
>
> and the DMR and Lightrifle loadouts only in another gametype
>
> and Assault Rifle/SMG variants only in another. Doing this minimizes if not eliminates the effect of the variation between weapons
>
> Nobody even seems to have read the second paragraph… This is why I don’t come here often. This is why the guys over a Bungie.net laugh at this place

I apologize if this is how my post came off but I assure you that I’ve read and understood every word of your post and I can vouch that Ramir has probably read and understood your post too (god knows he’s taken the time to read larger walls of texts of my own creation in the past).

But why is the second paragraph so important? It’s discussing meaningless aesthetics, not how the sandbox will work. If I’m reading it right it has nothing to do with what I’m trying to get across.

And with all due respect I think you may have glossed over my post a little to lightly yourself.

I’ve already said and thoroughly explained why restricting load outs to very specific instances is a terrible idea as well as waste of time, work and resources on 343’s behalf. Your wording here almost suggests that I want this kind of restriction in place.

IMO this weapon restriction you’re suggesting isn’t making load outs any better. You’re just removing the variables instead of balancing them. Instead of fixing and perfecting the system you’re watering it down and degrading it as much as possible thinking that it counts as a compromise between identical starts and full custom load outs. If custom load outs are gonna work than 343 have to put the work in to make sure that every weapon option is balanced, not separate the options just because it’ll be easier than balancing them. If they’re gonna take this route that leaves them with more room for imperfections in the balance of the weapons then they had might as well go back to identical starts because the sand box isn’t going to gain anything worth while from this system.

And even if this system was worthwhile it’ll still mean almost nothing considering it isn’t even part of the core mechanics so what’s the point in the long run?

> Mega066 concepts like this have been implemented in the past and have worked more than Fine. We have had Slayer BR’s and Slayer DMRS in Halo 3 and Reach Respectively each worked fine and my proposal is no different from this except it would add a second (and possibly) a third weapon to the mix.
>
> The reason I came up with this idea is that DMR’s and Battle Rifles simply don’t mix as Loudout weapons, they were never meant to. They were never balanced against each other so that people could spawn with both at the same time, Just like people were never meant to spawn with both the Assault Rifle and Tha Battle Rifle at the same time. The Battle Rifle and carbine however are in the same tier of weapon as each other so Having people spawn with either one as a choice would work since they have very similar range, function and kill time. The same applies to the DMR, Light Rifle and Needle Rifle, which is why in Slayer pro you could spawn with Either the Needle Rifle or the DMR in Slayer Pro, again they are similar enough functioning weapons that the two competing does not affect the overall gunplay. I only seek to reimplement this.

You’re right, these weapons aren’t balanced to go against each other as of right now. But that’s why I want a perfected load out system. In a perfect system we’ll be able to have a choice over any close, medium or long range rifle and we’ll have maps as well as a sand box that properly supports it.

You’re asking 343 to take the easy route instead of asking them to actually balance the weapons and if they’re not going to bother balancing the weapons then IMO they had might as well go back to identical starts where they don’t have to be as careful.

> The Loudon system would obviously be a lot more lenient in Custom games and Asymmetrical gametypes like Invasion and Infection where certain roles are required to be played and changing advantages is nessisary.
>
> In the rest of the core matchmaking since we will will be spawning with the same weapon we can have both the other Loudout weapons spawn on the map with little consequence (as long as there aren’t too many DMRs) like how we had BRs spawn on maps when we spawned with Assault rifles.

This isn’t a compromise that’s going to satisfy me and I can imagine it’s not going to satisfy a lot of other load out supporters.

Again, this isn’t fixing load outs, it’s just degrading them, removing variables and pushing it to the side hoping that we’ll still be satisfied.

Maybe if your forced BR/CC starts or AR/SR starts were standard that might satisfy a few people but IMO much more people will be satisfied if all weapons from all three range types were balanced to go against each other as well as tuning other things in the sandbox to work in unison with load outs.

> Ramirez: Because a lot of people don’t want to play with loadouts but another large group of people do. Halo has the capability to support both sides so why shouldn’t it, however having loadouts no mater how balanced they may seem creates a since of randomness, which is not good for competitive play, that said, loadouts and even Armor Abilities are an excellent tool especially for custom games and should not die nomater how much the Halo Trilogy purists claim it should. We need to find middle ground without hurting what each other likes about the games.

The way in which you suggest we satisfy everyone isn’t going to work. Like I said in my first post; load outs are a complicated mechanic and if they’re going to be in the game they’re going to require a lot of work and 343 aren’t going to waste that much work by restricting them in the way you’re suggesting. It’ll also leave the system in a degraded state that a lot of people aren’t going to want to see at all.

6

Main points of original post:
-Leave loadouts restricted to specific playlists.
-Gametypes divided by weapon class (AR / Medium Range Rifle / Long Range Rifle).
-Aesthetic Weapon Customization (don’t care strongly either way about this).

We both pretty clearly addressed the first two.

> Because a lot of people don’t want to play with loadouts but another large group of people do. Halo has the capability to support both sides so why shouldn’t it

You’re:

  1. Making the differences between weapons almost meaningless.
  2. Putting them into only a small portion of overall matchmaking.

I mean, #1 I can somewhat understand, but then if the only choice you are given is between BR and Carbine I don’t see how that affects competitive play or why it needs to be so restricted.

> however having loadouts no mater how balanced they may seem creates a since of randomness, which is not good for competitive play,

I’ll just briefly explain two out of three executions of the concept I can think of.

Execution 1: All weapons fill the same role with the same functionality.
In this case they are literally reskins.

Execution 2: All weapons fill same role with different functionality.
As would be the case between a BR and Carbine. In a perfectly balanced system this just leads to equal / practically identical weapons with different skill sets, i.e. weapon choice comes down to what you are best at doing and not what is best for the situation. This doesn’t lead to any (at least meaningful) randomness.

Execution 3 is weapons fill differing roles, but that’s not something I currently feel like going in-depth about.

7

Thanks for the feedback. I revised the thread here:
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst246649_My-Idea-for--Customization--Revised.aspx

Please check it out