I was thinking that to give the Halo gameplay more depth and a sense of player choice, 343 could add optional objectives in the game.
In Campaign for instance, let’s say the player’s mission is to assault a fortified base. An optional objective could be to clear a nearby landing zone so a Pelican can drop off reinforcements, power weapons, and/or vehicles to make your job a little easier. Or the objective could be to destroy a power core that would disable automated turrets around the base. Of course, these being optional objectives, you could just skip all of that and simply assault the base.
In multiplayer, these optional missions would have to be both gametype and map specific, as this feature doesn’t belong in every gametype. But these objectives could be hacking a door that would open a vehicle bay or armory, or activating a barrier to fortify an area. Maybe an objective could be to set up a radar dish that will boost your teams motion tracker range. Your opponents secondary objective would be to destroy it. Although I do stress again that this doesn’t belong in every gametype. There are tons of possible secondary objectives.
These are just some suggestions I came up with. If you can think of cooler objectives or a better system for this, by all means share.
Didn’t New Alexandria do that? I think there was one or two optional objectives?
I wouldn’t mind it, it could add replay value and make the campaign longer.
I can imagine some cool achievements coming out of this.
Sounds good! I’m fully on board with it.
In the halo 5 community suggestion thread, we were discussing the possiblity of flashback missions. They would be optional(perhaps a box appears saying ‘play flashback mission’) possibly appearing in terminals.
through this, we would be able to play as the didact/ancient-humans/precursors… without ruining the timeline. It would also mean the introduction of weapon classes such as ancient-human weapons.
Its just another way of extending the universe for interested players.
> Sounds good! I’m fully on board with it.
>
> In the halo 5 community suggestion thread, we were discussing the possiblity of flashback missions. They would be optional(perhaps a box appears saying ‘play flashback mission’) possibly appearing in terminals.
>
> through this, we would be able to play as the didact/ancient-humans/precursors… without ruining the timeline. It would also mean the introduction of weapon classes such as ancient-human weapons.
>
> Its just another way of extending the universe for interested players.
I would love to play as the all-powerful Didact. These two ideas could correspond seamlessly.
> Didn’t New Alexandria do that? I think there was one or two optional objectives?
They weren’t exactly optional.
You had to wait until the optional objective reached its mark or died before you could continue if I recall…
OT: I like the idea, not so much the suggestions. I think alternate ways of assaulting or infiltrating the base would be nice however.
maybe when you get to a terminal, instead of watching some confusing useless cut scene, you could play a flashback mission.
> maybe when you get to a terminal, instead of watching some confusing useless cut scene, you could play a flashback mission.
Yes.
Someone asked how this system would work. I was thinking that your primary objective would be the traditional blue waypoint, and any secondary objectives would be a smaller red waypoint. I’m no game designer though so there’s probably a better system.
> maybe when you get to a terminal, instead of watching some confusing useless cut scene, you could play a flashback mission.
I kinda meant that anyways, sorry for not being to clear about it.
Here’s my previous post:
> I was going to post a link to a previous thread but for the life of me, i can’t find it. It wasn’t a long post so I’ll mention it anyways.
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> What I touched on, was the idea of flashbacks. Anyone who played x-men legends will know how this worked. (basically you talked to a character and then an option would appear saying play ‘[insert time period here] Flashback’.
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> Now this could be beneficial as you could expand on the universe without constantly pushing it forward.
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> What the OP suggested was playing as the didact. I didn’t like the idea of playing as him in the current point in time but playing as him when he fought the old?-humans and the flood. And there you’ve brought back an era in time not seen in game with the flood without messing up the timeline/story.
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> What this could entail is seeing the precursors for the first time, battling (as/against) the pre-historic humans (introducing a new weapon class) and fighting the flood again (on a larger scale?)
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> -This is actually coming to me as i write-
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> EDIT:
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> This could be implemented as side missions through a terminal or something or part of the main campaign (which I’m less in favour of) they should be kinda obvious but not completely hidden like easter eggs.
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> Benefits include missions that are condensed (story-wise) little need to lead up to the event and getting straight into it.
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> Ancient humans 1
> Halo 4 terminals
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>
> The idea of side missions made Batman Arkham City an amazing game IMO.
>
> Anyways I’ll leave that to mull around…
Halo has had optional mission objectives in the past but you’re right, it’s something that can certainly be looked into. In Halo 4 there was an optional mission on Composer, if I remember correctly, where you had to defend a small group of scientists so that they could open a door to a room which contained a few auto-sentries and a sticky detonator.
> Halo has had optional mission objectives in the past but you’re right, it’s something that can certainly be looked into. In Halo 4 there was an optional mission on Composer, if I remember correctly, where you had to defend a small group of scientists so that they could open a door to a room which contained a few auto-sentries and a sticky detonator.
I remember that, now. if 343 could expand on that, it could be a pretty cool system.
I’m all for flashbacks and optional objectives in the campaign. As for multiplayer, I can see this greatly expanding Dominion to a whole new level. Likes the comms relay suggested already, or a landing zone for timed Pelican drops. Or the door hack. Perhaps controlling a medical bay for speed boosts. Or an armory for damage boosts. Maybe even a teach lab for overshields. Jamming beacon. Controlling a training room for less flinching and less bloom. Perhaps this could alter into an entire different gametype as well.
There’s a lot that could come from this.I`m all for it being in Halo title.
> Didn’t New Alexandria do that? I think there was one or two optional objectives?
IIRC, you still had to accomplish those tasks.
> Halo has had optional mission objectives in the past but you’re right, it’s something that can certainly be looked into. In Halo 4 there was an optional mission on Composer, if I remember correctly, where you had to defend a small group of scientists so that they could open a door to a room which contained a few auto-sentries and a sticky detonator.
There were also the airlocks, though they weren’t necessarily objectives.
> I’m all for flashbacks and optional objectives in the campaign. As for multiplayer, I can see this greatly expanding Dominion to a whole new level. Likes the comms relay suggested already, or a landing zone for timed Pelican drops. Or the door hack. Perhaps controlling a medical bay for speed boosts. Or an armory for damage boosts. Maybe even a teach lab for overshields. Jamming beacon. Controlling a training room for less flinching and less bloom. Perhaps this could alter into an entire different gametype as well.
This guy gets it. I’m all for a specific gametype that heavily uses this feature.
This idea could be ramped up even more with massive battles. Each team of say 32 could come in squads of 8 and your squadcould get different bonuses like Damage Boost or Speed boost while you whole team could have access to airpads, armories, and vehicle depots.
This is something that Brink did really well, and it’d be interesting to see an implementation in Halo’s Campaign and possibly even Multiplayer.