I had not touched arena in several months and with the new august season, I wanted to give it a shot since I’ve never been an arena guy. I played some slayer and other Gametypes in the past but now I was coming back and I found that nothing changed…I still hated it. I personally think that Halo 5’s arena is focused so much on catering to pro-competitive players and for a casual laid back player like me, I find that it’s almost impossible for me to enjoy a game of arena even when the score is 23 to 0. I also noticed that a lot of people disliked Reaches multiplayer for not being competitive but I loved Halo 4 and Reach! Halo 4 was the game that got me to play MP more instead of just doing customs in reach. I just wanted to know what your opinions are on this subject…
Its decent
The gameplay is fun, and equal starts are amazing.
That being said, I quite dislike Arena, overall. The 18m radar is still bad, even though I’ve gotten used to it, and there are very few gametypes. There are no attacker/defender 1-side objective modes, no King of the Hill, no Oddball, no VIP… All of the maps are pretty much the same too : geared to 4v4 competitive play, an open center with paths that go around the exterior of the map, clear vantage points that give power over the middle of the map. Are the maps decently good? Sure. Are they fun, varied and feel good to play on? More or less.
Bungie’s 4v4 Halo was a lot better. Not only was the pace better due to not having Sprint and an actual usable radar, but the maps were just more interesting. Where are the multi-level maps like Countdown and Construct? Or our small asymetrical close quarters maps like Lockout and Guardian? Attacker/Defender maps like High Ground and Zanzibar? And 4v4 maps with vehicles like, again, Zanzibar and Harvest? Or even just straight up different maps like Powerhouse and Ascension?
Halo 5 Arena is fair, competitive and bland. But honestly, what else would you expect from a game made by a pro team? Halo 4 was far too casual, but Halo 5 is far too “pro”.
> 2533274808386392;3:
> The gameplay is fun, and equal starts are amazing.
>
> That being said, I quite dislike Arena, overall. The 18m radar is still bad, even though I’ve gotten used to it, and there are very few gametypes. There are no attacker/defender 1-side objective modes, no King of the Hill, no Oddball, no VIP… All of the maps are pretty much the same too : geared to 4v4 competitive play, an open center with paths that go around the exterior of the map, clear vantage points that give power over the middle of the map. Are the maps decently good? Sure. Are they fun, varied and feel good to play on? More or less.
>
> Bungie’s 4v4 Halo was a lot better. Not only was the pace better due to not having Sprint and an actual usable radar, but the maps were just more interesting. Where are the multi-level maps like Countdown and Construct? Or our small asymetrical close quarters maps like Lockout and Guardian? Attacker/Defender maps like High Ground and Zanzibar? And 4v4 maps with vehicles like, again, Zanzibar and Harvest? Or even just straight up different maps like Powerhouse and Ascension?
>
> Halo 5 Arena is fair, competitive and bland. But honestly, what else would you expect from a game made by a pro team? Halo 4 was far too casual, but Halo 5 is far too “pro”.
I would love to see Halo 6 come with a casual and Competitive system. Competitive would be ranked and have symmetrical maps, no sprint/spartan abilities and Casual could be a non-ranked playlist with sprint on a mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical maps and spartan abilities. What do ya think? PS: I don’t claim to be a professional at this but I’m just a dude throwing ideas out.
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> > 2533274808386392;3:
> > The gameplay is fun, and equal starts are amazing.
> >
> > That being said, I quite dislike Arena, overall. The 18m radar is still bad, even though I’ve gotten used to it, and there are very few gametypes. There are no attacker/defender 1-side objective modes, no King of the Hill, no Oddball, no VIP… All of the maps are pretty much the same too : geared to 4v4 competitive play, an open center with paths that go around the exterior of the map, clear vantage points that give power over the middle of the map. Are the maps decently good? Sure. Are they fun, varied and feel good to play on? More or less.
> >
> > Bungie’s 4v4 Halo was a lot better. Not only was the pace better due to not having Sprint and an actual usable radar, but the maps were just more interesting. Where are the multi-level maps like Countdown and Construct? Or our small asymetrical close quarters maps like Lockout and Guardian? Attacker/Defender maps like High Ground and Zanzibar? And 4v4 maps with vehicles like, again, Zanzibar and Harvest? Or even just straight up different maps like Powerhouse and Ascension?
> >
> > Halo 5 Arena is fair, competitive and bland. But honestly, what else would you expect from a game made by a pro team? Halo 4 was far too casual, but Halo 5 is far too “pro”.
>
>
> I would love to see Halo 6 come with a casual and Competitive system. Competitive would be ranked and have symmetrical maps, no sprint/spartan abilities and Casual could be a non-ranked playlist with sprint on a mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical maps and spartan abilities. What do ya think? PS: I don’t claim to be a professional at this but I’m just a dude throwing ideas out.
I think your idea is good, with the exception being that both casual and competitive should not have different gameplay, just like how it was in Halo 3. If social has sprint and Spartan Abilities, so should ranked and vice-versa. A player should not feel alienated by switching between both. Plus, having both systems would mean that you would need to design maps for both sprint/Spartan Abilities and maps that don’t use them, which ends up creating either too few maps, or many maps that aren’t very good.
I think the best way to go is to develop one solid core gameplay, and have ranked and social playlists be limited by name, rank, the ability to have guests (which will hopefully return in Halo 6) and, at the very most, small changes like radar distance. That way, we have great maps on which everybody can play, but the pro team can still adjust things to their liking, and create their competitive maps using Forge.
> 2533274808386392;5:
> > 2533274923241939;4:
> > > 2533274808386392;3:
> > > The gameplay is fun, and equal starts are amazing.
> > >
> > > That being said, I quite dislike Arena, overall. The 18m radar is still bad, even though I’ve gotten used to it, and there are very few gametypes. There are no attacker/defender 1-side objective modes, no King of the Hill, no Oddball, no VIP… All of the maps are pretty much the same too : geared to 4v4 competitive play, an open center with paths that go around the exterior of the map, clear vantage points that give power over the middle of the map. Are the maps decently good? Sure. Are they fun, varied and feel good to play on? More or less.
> > >
> > > Bungie’s 4v4 Halo was a lot better. Not only was the pace better due to not having Sprint and an actual usable radar, but the maps were just more interesting. Where are the multi-level maps like Countdown and Construct? Or our small asymetrical close quarters maps like Lockout and Guardian? Attacker/Defender maps like High Ground and Zanzibar? And 4v4 maps with vehicles like, again, Zanzibar and Harvest? Or even just straight up different maps like Powerhouse and Ascension?
> > >
> > > Halo 5 Arena is fair, competitive and bland. But honestly, what else would you expect from a game made by a pro team? Halo 4 was far too casual, but Halo 5 is far too “pro”.
> >
> >
> > I would love to see Halo 6 come with a casual and Competitive system. Competitive would be ranked and have symmetrical maps, no sprint/spartan abilities and Casual could be a non-ranked playlist with sprint on a mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical maps and spartan abilities. What do ya think? PS: I don’t claim to be a professional at this but I’m just a dude throwing ideas out.
>
>
> I think your idea is good, with the exception being that both casual and competitive should not have different gameplay, just like how it was in Halo 3. If social has sprint and Spartan Abilities, so should ranked and vice-versa. A player should not feel alienated by switching between both. Plus, having both systems would mean that you would need to design maps for both sprint/Spartan Abilities and maps that don’t use them, which ends up creating either too few maps, or many maps that aren’t very good.
>
> I think the best way to go is to develop one solid core gameplay, and have ranked and social playlists be limited by name, rank, the ability to have guests (which will hopefully return in Halo 6) and, at the very most, small changes like radar distance. That way, we have great maps on which everybody can play, but the pro team can still adjust things to their liking, and create their competitive maps using Forge.
Yeah, I quite like sprint in Halo 5 (but I kinda understand why people don’t like it in competitive) but I think that the biggest problem with the Arena Mode is no social playlists at launch… (also splitscreencough) I really liked BTB in Halo 4 (excluding load outs) but that was really fun and didn’t feel super sweaty like it does now but I think that would be great I imagine it would look like this:
Arena
Social/Ranked
Then game modes for each including classics like KOTH, Oddball, Headhunter, CTF, BTB, etc.
(I’m unsure on where Action Sack would fit… I love it but it’s not really ranked and it feels like it would be weird to make exclusive to social so maybe this?)
Arena
Social/Ranked/Action Sack