serious HW2 ideas and discussion

Games Other Halo
1

since the don’t forget halo wars thread says it has 123 pages, but actually has 124 pages, I decided I’d put my stuff into a less buggy thread.

yet more halo wars 2 ideas inbound. bear with me, this might get a little long…

The first step

Before anyone even thinks about halo wars 2 we must first understand what made halo wars a success. this can be broken down into some key attributes.

-A fluid control system; the halo wars control scheme utilizes all the xbox 360 buttons so that each of them fulfills all necessary RTS functions without needing multiple buttons to be held. this allows a player to pick up the controller and quickly learn how to play. I think it took me about 10 minutes to completely learn all the controls.

-Simple/linear teching; it was easy to learn that higher tech units and units with higher tech upgrades would always beat lower tech units with lower tech upgrades.

-static bases; the static bases are easily manageable and can be jumped too. this is really helpful because by pressing one button you can see your whole base and all your buildings.

-easy resource management; BUILDS MOAR ZUPPLY PUDS! CONSTRUCTERZ MUR WAREHOUZEZ! as you can see; its pretty simple.

-focus on combat and unit management; because managing the base and resources is so easy, players will be spending more time in combat/scouting/collecting crates/expanding. this brings players closer to the action.

-the story; the halo wars story line was pretty good and fits well with the rest of the universe. the cut scenes were mind blowing too!

we must, however, understand how other core attributes have changed over the games life time.

-the unit triangle; “vehicles beat infantry, aircraft beat vehicles and infantry beat aircraft”, sounds simple enough until you realize that infantry is a terrible counter to air because they do too little damage and need to outnumber the air by a huge margin to be effective. then you discover that the UNSC warthogs, which are supposed to be scouting units, are able to kill air, infantry, vehicles and buildings. they even destroy scorpion tanks with gauss even after they were patched too. this is just two of the many unit balance problems that have lead to the current meta of today.

-the UNSC leaders; the problem with the leaders is the complete lack of balance. anders has the best bonus by far, half price upgrades on everything means she can reach high tech upgrades quickly and afford to buy them giving her a huge advantage by being able to reach power turret tanks or gauss before anyone else. not only this, but she has access to the gremlin(which is the only usable UNSC unique unit). a single gremlin can stun up to about 4 vehicles when chain amp is researched; a group of 3 or 4 can stun a whole army or keep a small group stunned indefinitely. this coupled with the cryo bomb makes anders an unstoppable machine. you can’t even counter tank/gremlin with air because the cryo insta kills air units.
but what do the other leaders get? forge gets heavy pads which is not as bad as it sounds. in fact forge can pump out lots of units once he gets over the huge cost of his pads and has enough money to support his allies and replace lost units easily. he is let down though by his near useless unique unit that is expensive to upgrade and his under powered leader power. his super unit is also a downgrade which means he has less and less options the longer the game continues. the worst thing about forge though is his inability to insta expand on maps with free base slots, while all other leaders can. this makes his heavies worthless as two supply pads will outproduce 1 heavy.
cutter is the opposite. if he insta expands he can get a large economy thanks to his free building spots. if he can’t expand though he is at a real disadvantage because he has normal pads and pays full price for upgrades. this makes him weak early on but he is saved by a strong late game. the MAC blast is really powerful and ODSTs can extend a fight/finish units off/cover a retreat and of course take hooks. cutter will still probably lose to anders though; tanks+gremlins with cryo is just too good and anders gauss comes too fast. also cutter is the worst UNSC for making gauss.

-the covenant leaders; the covenant operates differently from the UNSC but suffer less balance issues because of this. the only difference between them is the leaders.
the arbiter is the best covie leader in that he is versatile and powerful throughout the game from start to finish. while in rage mode he is good at killing every unit in the game and when not in rage can kill buildings well. his unique unit the suicide grunt is useful in attack or defense and does huge damage, though they are expensive. the only problem with the arbiter is that he can’t take hooks without taking serious damage and suicide grunts are weak even when garrisoned.
the brute chieften is very powerful early on but quickly becomes less useful than the arbiter. the chieften the fastest leader and has the most health; and a cheap effective leader power too. he also has brute squads which are just as beefy and dish out good damage to everything. nice upgrades for them as well; he also has a second unique unit the chopper which is really resistant to early game units and can camp lifts really well. this makes the chieften the best rusher in the game. when he reaches tech 2 he also gets birth right and even more health but its his late game that is lack luster and he just doesn’t do enough damage to kill late game units like the arby can. still he makes for an excellent tank. the main problem with the chieften though is he can’t really defend himself if he is rushed. this is because he does too little damage to other units and leaders to defend himself cost-effectively.
the prophet is arguably the worst leader out of all of them(including UNSC). since his super speed was nerfed in the first patch, he has become less usable. he has the lowest health of the leaders and while he gets a shield it is still really weak and with his lack of speed he can’t even escape from flamethrowers. his first upgrade is also a requirement as it allows him to survive 4 gunner hogs and actually do some damage. the prophet lacks the ability to defend an attack without over spending but also has very poor offensive potential because of his low damage. he can rush an arby in 1v1 but even then the arby can still win(pro tip, make ghosts against prophet). people can still win with the prophet but you have to recover from the amount of supplies you spend early on just to defend a simple brute or 4 hog rush. his leader power is also situational but that is in fact an advantage as you’ll be using it only once in blue moon. this means more money for units(if you haven’t crippled yourself trying to defend a rush) but also means you need to micro like a god because of the inherent weakness of covenant units. this makes it difficult to pull off a win with prophet.

make sure to add your ideas as to why halo wars is so good and what wasn’t good about it.
Part 2(and some actual ideas) coming soon.

2

welcome to part 2 of my ideas. this section is going to be about the story and campaign; the bread and butter of any game in the halo universe, and the campaign/skirmish AI. as I know very few details in the halo universe this is the section that I’d really appreciate contributions to as it will really help us to create a good story.

now as I see it the story and campaign should be played out over the course of the human-covenant conflict between the the years 2531-2549. this is a critical part of the univese as it is in this period where the largest battles take place and the story can show just how difficult it was for us poor humans as we were slowly and systematically slaughtered. the story would mainly focus on a young UNSC commander who is confident in his abilites; but as the war gets worse and worse he becomes much more conservative, cautious and eventually desperate in the face of defeat and consequently the extinction of the human race. the SoF will tie in with the story; part way through the campaign he will discover the fate of the spirit of fire and its crew. perhaps they were captured by the covenant and the commander attempts a risky rescue to prevent the covenant from learning earths location.

in the campaign the player(the commander) will start with few units and technologies and as missions progress will gain the tactical experience and rank to deploy more advanced units. all units and upgrades should be available for the next missions after the first act which will probably be about 3 or 4 missions long. as the campaign goes on the player will slowly have less and less upgrades and units to chose from as the UNSC loses more and more resources. this will make the final missions difficult as players will have fewer options and will have to take risks; straining the players tactical knowledge. the number of missions should stay the same but the missions themselves should be more difficult and take longer. the halo wars 1(calling it 1 because there will be a 2nd one) campaign held your hand pretty much the whole way; so now its time for mummy to let go of our hand and let us ride the bike ourselves. if we can think of a way space battles should also play a part at least in the campaign. would be interesting to see how bad the UNSC navy was compared to the Covenants.

also I think it would be good if there was a shorter but much more difficult covenant campaign. it would be about a young sangheili commander with the holy task of exterminating the blasphemous and unclean human race. at the begining he would see the human worms as demonic vermin hell bent on stopping the great journey. by the end though he would come to respect human honour and battle tactics; the seeds of doubt germinate deep in his mind. why not allow the humans a chance to embrace the covenant like all the other races? are the humans leading us into a trap? why do the humans with their lesser science and technology quickly gain control of the holy ancient temples left by the gods? why do the humans appear as ancient relics on our lumanaries? what are the prophets hiding from us? this would show the build up of tension and mistrust between the sangheili and san shyuum in the lead up to the great schism.
in the covenant campaign new units and upgrades will be gained much more slowly than in the human campaign; for example the spectre didn’t appear on the battlefield until 2546, quite late in the war.

the ai should follow tactics and strategies that were typical of the two factions during the war. the covenant were superior in space combat, could deploy infantry and armoured units to the ground much more quickly and had fast attacking vehicles like the ghost and banshee. they were also highly experienced in the use of special operations divisions, stealth and diversionary tactics both on the ground and in space.
covenant ai would likey use tactics such as these;
rush straight for the players base,
lure the player into a false sense of security by hiding units in odd places/using stealthed units,
attacking with a group of units from 1 direction and then attacking from another direction a few moments later,
booming to higher tech to unlock more units and upgrades(I’ll explain why this would be a good idea when I share my new upgrade system),
in space combat; will charge into battle(rush),
in space combat; will quickly charge shields first and then barrage the opponent from affar and will try to stay out of range of powerful weapons.

the UNSC displayed several diverse strategies; but their less advanced technology ment that the few UNSC ground/space victories were achieved through heavy losses and brute force tactics. the UNSC quickly realised that it could not sustain such tactics for long and quickly adapted to a purely defensive doctrine though they maintained almost continual harassment in an effort to disrupt support for the superior enemy forces. they leaned heavily on their stationary orbital platforms, numbers, stealthed mines and support from a planets surface to achieve(or rather attempt to achieve) victory in space battles. on the ground the UNSC stick close to their fortified bases and try to make use of orbital support as much as possible to harry enemy forces while attempting to evacuate civillians and high priority personell. the UNSC fights to the last man. one advantage of the humans over the covenant is the Office of Naval Intelligence; who consistantly scramble the minds of the poor covenant science lances and make it very difficult to locate human worlds. and of course deploy the highly trained spartan super soldiers to cost-effectively slaughter covenant forces that would probably require 10x the number of marines/ODST.
therefore the UNSC ai will use tactics like;
playing sim city(turtling),
using artillery/orbital strikes to bombard the enemy and slowly creep lines of units forward,
kit out spartans and use other units to distract the player/defend the spartans while they do what they were made for,
attempt a rush with orbital powers supporting it,
boom(so the unsc can get advanced units out),
and other similar stuffs.

also if 343i have the time and money they should continually support the single player and co-op experience by releasing special missions much like spartan ops; but on a much less frequent basis so that they can release good quality missions.

as I said before contributions to this section are probably more important than any other. it will help show 343i that a halo wars 2 can fit well with the rest of the universe and show how outmatched humanity was. at the very least it will make the master chief’s actions seem even more important.

part 3: units, upgrades, bases and teching will probably take much longer because there is a lot more to consider; so don’t hold your breath.

3

WOOHOO!!

4

watch this

will be making another with more detail and less of just jumping around

5

> watch this
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztepshdBwIU
> will be making another with more detail and less of just jumping around

I watched it. You played bad, nuff said.

6

One Idea they should do and it would turn out amazing (in my opinion), they need to make more of a focus on the hero’s, first off they will all need to be combat ready for this. Make it so the player can go to FPS mode with the hero and RTS view at a moments notice to control the hero and fight on the ground. This will make games way more interesting. And yes I know this could also cause some game play issues witch im sure you will all reply to.

7

My ideas:

playlist:

  1. straight copy from Halo Wars1. (1v1, 2v2 etc.) in Halo wars2 name could be Classic playlist.

  2. survival co-op: You have 2 mates to play with. You all have ur own bases and can build units. The Flood will attack to your bases at some point. You have to defend your own base and maybe help your friends. Maybe rounds or just random rushes from flood. Could be really fun! Imagine your base is doing fine but there are like 2x enemies attacking to your friends base. Then you must help him/her in order to succeed and move on.

  3. HC
    1v1,2v2 and 3v3: no bonus reactors or fences( you know those where you have to put units in) or any bonuses. Just you, your base, units and friends against enemies. Kind of a competive playlist.

Units: UNSC, Covenant and Forerunner.
I don’t have any further ideas for the units. Just balance everything and give something unique for every installation. Every1 has their own pros and cons but still keep it balanced. =)

8

I totally agree OP.

My thoughts:

Halo wars doesn’t need much doing to it

Just:

  • Improve graphics

  • Maybe bigger maps and free building rather than on pads?

  • Officer Units: What they will do is organize troops in a certain radius and improve tactics. Option to improve tactics (say three levels), option to increase radius (again 3 levels).

  • Maybe introduce some vehicles from other games (not invent new).

  • Don’t modify GUI, doesn’t need it.

9

part 3: units, upgrades, bases and teching

welcome to part 3. this is by far the biggest section and hopefully your eyes won’t bleed from reading through the huge text wall heading your way. I will express what I believe are my most radical ideas; but this is a discussion so feel free to disagree with me. so long as you have a good idea of how to change/replace/improve what I suggest. some of this stuff can get complicated quickly(as I found out) so take things slowly.

Customisation

even halo has fallen prey to it. the fact is that gaming as a whole has changed and players now expect some level of customisation and particulary a form of ranked unlockables(due to the success of CoD 4 no doubt). ranked unlockables cannot work in an RTS game however. I think it was Tom Clancy’s End War(?) where the system was used but it created some horrible imbalances(apparently, I never actually played it). the game was just a grind-fest of hard battles against higher ranked players until you could unlock the emp and actually start a match on an even playing field. not very fun indeed.

the only way customisation could work in an RTS as far as I can see is to have everything available from the start; essentially removing the rank/level based unlock system. this would make the game as fair as possible as everyone has access to the same tools of mass destruction. of course players will then need an incentive to play matches to rank up and I think something on the line of paint schemes and perhaps choosing the player’s preferred team colour would be good.

lets start with picking a leader. there are six leaders in HW1 and so I will say that there will be six leaders in HW2. the 3 leaders in the two factions(UNSC and The Covenant in case you’re tired) will have general behaviors when chosen to be the player’s character/custom faction. who the leaders are, what their leader powers are and any bonuses they give will be discussed in a different section which will be some time off completion. feel free to discuss your ideas about the leaders in the mean time.

if the player chooses one of the three UNSC leaders he/she can expect to customise;
the orbital support power which will be either;
-supply crate drop
-ODST drop(ODST’s will be available to all UNSC leaders, tech level required is debatable)
-sentry turret drop(classed as a building, drops anywhere so long as you have line of sight)
-counter intelligence(completely disables the enemy’s HUD and hints like “base under attack!” and “upgrade complete”, prevents the enemy from using any kind of special power. all for a short period of time)
-anything else you guys can think of.

each UNSC leader will come with its own preset units that can’t be changed. however the player can choose from different upgrade paths for each unit to use in game. upgrade progression will be the same as in HW1; higher tech allows you to research more upgrades down the path, each upgrade slightly increases health and damage of a unit. the upgrades are permanent, allowing you to down tech.

picking a covenant leader will allow you to pick the units you want to use. note that picking the brute chieften allows you to pick brute infantry and vehicles but disallows any elites and elite produced vehicles. you would only be able to have 3 infantry, vehicles and aircraft but you could, for example, have the ghost specter and revenant as your 3 vehicles and so on.

covenant units will have only 4 upgrades each but will have access to any of the 4 when the temple is built. you can have up to 3 upgrades per unit made up of any combination of the 4; 1 for every tech level. you can also un-equip an upgrade so you can swap it for another one! this way the covenant can adapt their units for almost any given situation and respond immediately in a crisis. this rather different upgrade arrangement would require some obvious adaptions to the circle menu. instead of the upgrades appearing on the left and the units on the right; the units will go across in a line. 1 in the center, 1 in the center left and 1 in the center right. pressing A would bring you into another circle menu with the selected unit in the center and the 4 upgrades in the ‘corners’ of the circle menu. I don’t think that this arrangement would slow down the gameplay significantly.

You should also be able to pick up to 3 of your own special upgrades in the temple for which I will try to come up with a bunch of them.

Units

units in halo wars will be slightly different in halo wars 2; for one there will certainly be a lot more of them. in addition the halo wars 1 units i would like to see all of these included in HW2 as build-able and up-gradable units;

Elite major squad,
Spec ops elites,
Heavy elites(elites with fuel rods or plasma cannons),
Drones(where the hell were they in HW1?),
large packs of brutes(I’d say 6 plus),
Berserker brutes,
Mongoose,
Rhino tanks,
Spectre,
Revenant,
Shadow,
Prowler,
Pelican,
Spirit,
Phantom,
(Seraphs?)

This coupled with the UNSC units having multiple tech paths and covenant being able to pick their units; will give Halo wars some much needed versatility.

If you’d like a much more detailed walkthrough of each unit and what I think it should be like then inbox me(before I get banned please). it includes upgrades, cost and build times but I left it out so as to condense the amount of info entering your piddly little brains.

10

Buildings and bases

Same as before but with a twist. this time not only would you have a static base but also a build radius around it(as UNSC). you would construct buildings as if you were using a leader power. up on the D-pad and then select what building and where to put it within your build radius. wouldn’t include reactors or the field armoury and perhaps not even the air pad; but should include some sort of communication outpost or something similar to increase the build radius in a certain direction.

The covenant would construct off-base buildings in a different way. instead of a build radius they would rely on the engineer to deploy beacons. these beacons could then be selected like a building and told what to become; since covie have the better technology all buildings except the temple and shield generator for obvious reasons would be available for construction. this means covie can build anywhere so long as they can get an engineer to the right place and efend the beacon until the building is finished.In addition to buildings both factions should also have some base defenses they can build like turrets, cover and walls. UNSC buildings would be deployed instantly in drop pods and then start a cooldown timer for all buildings. Covie would have no cooldown but must defend buildings ans they go up.

11

Teching and special upgrades

Covenant special upgrades

Teching should be pretty much the same and i don’t see anything wrong with it accept that UNSC has a much easier time of it. To get Tech 4 the cheapest way the maximum amount of supplies the UNSC needs to save up is just 1000 supplies for a 4th reactor. covie has to save 1000 and 2000 for techs 2 and 3, respectively. in addition UNSC can then sell their 4th and even 3rd reactor getting about 700 supplies back and replacing them with depots or more supply pads.

I currently don’t see any solution to this problem without changing a core element of the game so instead the covenant should have some beastly special upgrades to make saving up all that cash actually worth it.

Since covie units will start out stronger than UNSC units but won’t receive damage and health bonuses when upgraded I thought about adding two veterancy upgrades for all covie units; ending in a starting veterancy of 2 stars. I also thought about adding a third upgrade to increase the maximum veterancy from 3 stars to 4. The upgrades will be 3 seperate upgrades and so take up all 3 slots(If you want huge amounts of veterancy and nothing else). the 2 veterancy upgrades would be available at tech 2 for a large amount of supplies and the max veterancy increase at tech 3. 4 star MEGABRUTE FTW! These upgrades would also immeadiatly increase veterancy of all units that are already built.

I also thought about adding either two seperate population upgrades(+10 for each) or one big one(+20) if you just like spamming banshees or whatever. big one at tech 3 or the 2 little ones at tech 2.

Another upgrade that would be good for covie is a tech 2 upgrade that decreases the cost of all units by 30% and then rounded up to the nearest multiple of 10. for example the covie leader costs 400 supplies but after the upgrade has finished would cost just 280 supplies. a 200 supply banshee would cost 140 supplies, the wraith at 350 would only cost 250. This would make it so much easier for the covenant to tech up while making units; like the UNSC can currently do.

Forerunner shield should be changed too so that it increases shield strength, decreases shield recharge delay by a lot, increases shield recharge rate and allows all shields to absorb EMP blasts. still a tech 2 upgrade

an Upgrade to increase covenant building strength thats available at tech 2 would be beast(would increase health of off-base buildings too).

a Tech 1 upgrade that decreases the construction time of buildings, turrets and walls for people who want to be really aggressive and take over the map ASAP.

If you plan on losing your leader a lot; a tech 1 upgrade that automatically rebuilds your leader instantly for free; but with a 2 min cool down period(if your leader dies again within 2 mins you have to spend 400(280) to build him again; and you still have to wait for the timer to decrease.

an upgrade that allows shield generators to be built by beacons. the generator would have a radius around it in which any player or allied covenant building will have a shield. maybe it could even shield turrets and walls.

an upgrade that allows you to construct the covenant mega turret(would help with breaking a turtle or if covie wants to play sim city). Tech 3 upgrade and very expensive. also an upgrade to increase the number of barrages the mega turret can fire from 1 to 2 that is even more expensive.

the turret upgrade should be included as a choosable upgrade and upgrades all turret types accept the mega turret. it is unique when compared to the other upgrades as it is an upgrade path with 2 upgrades at T1 and T2 respectively.

UNSC passive cards

I like all the UNSC upgrades and I don’t think the UNSC needs any new ones. however if covenant units are inherently stronger to start with( a bit of a reversal of faction strength) then it seems only fitting to include an advanced alloy upgrade or something available at tech 1 in the field armoury that reduces the effectiveness of all plasma projectiles(nearly all covie units). this wouldn’t affect projectile weapons, fuel rod cannons or laser weapons and it affects all UNSC units and buildings. I want plasma weapons to be extremely deadly so this upgrade will be a must have. it also slows down the UNSC’s super quick teching.

but what about brutes and their spikes and brute shots? what about hunters and banshees and their fuel rods? what about locust and the scarabs laser beams? well there isn’t enough space in the field armoury for upgrades to counter all of the covenants uber alien technology, so you’ll just have to use brains over brawn, or hog rush.

But if you still can’t win with only your head then you obviously need some passive help. I remember in Age of Empires 3 that you could pick these card things that would give you special abilities, extra resources, deploy special troops(minute men were awesome) and other things. so why not pick three of these passive cards to help you fight the evil covenant or the other rebel UNSC forces.

I’ll try and come up with a bunch and you should come up with some of your own(make sure that they aren’t over powered). this can be a replacement of the eco abilities the UNSC has so that the only difference between the UNSC leaders is their leader power and units.

possible cards list;

start with 400 extra supplies. 1200 instead of 800 supplies.

all bases start with +1 base level. same as cutter’s eco ability.

all mechanical units are resistant to EMP and return to normal functionality sooner.

Disruption bomb cool down reduced by half from 4 and a half mins to 2 mins 15 secs.

bases have +2 turret slots(6 instead of 4).

first 3 buildings on every base build in half the time.

no charge for sending resources to an ally.

can use the healing power twice for double the healing power.

start with a larger build radius.

support power cool down reduced by 30%.

leader power cool down reduced by 30%.

start with 2 mongoose instead of one.

Immune to the counter intelligence support power.

buildings and turrets on a static base are more resistant to all forms of damage.

freshly built units are 30% more resistant to damage for 15 seconds.

instantly build up to 4 population worth of a chosen unit for free(one time use). for example if you chose the scorpion, as soon as the vehicle depot is built you can instantly create a free scorpion tank but only once. if you picked flame throwers you would get four free flamers straight away. if you chose warthogs you could get four hogs and so on(reactor first 4 hog rush). you couldn’t get a vulture for free though since that takes 6 pop.

Units gain veterency easier.

all units are 10% more resistant to projectile weapons except fuel rods.

Infantry are 10% stronger and have 10% faster movement speed

all vehicles have decreased build time

all enemy units shooting aircraft recive a -10% accuracy penalty

Picking any three of these should cover any disadvantages the UNSC may have in the begining and make the UNSC strong throughout the match.

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Game play

Maps

in truth the maps in halo wars are biased towards certain leaders(1v1) or certain leader combos(2v2, 3v3). this doesn’t nescesarryly stem from imbalances in the maps themselves but from the many unit and leader imbalances.

the main problem with all the maps is that there is a lack of hooks to take over and few points on the maps that need to be controlled. there also isn’t anywhere near enough garrisonable cover for infantry which is partly why infantry blows(the other is that infantry is just in general poop). if halo wars 2 is ever made then for the love of god put more hooks and cover in the maps.

there should also be feature in halo wars 2 that was in the E3 2007 alpha version demo. the abillity for some units to jump small ravines and use ramps. this not only denies parts of the map to heavy vehicles and infantry; making transports very important, but it also allows the smaller vehicles to get to places other units can’t and would be interesting to see. mongoose, warthogs, ghosts, choppers, revenants, spectres and prowlers would all be capable of jumping over these crevecies.

I’d also like to see lots of on map obstacles like destroyed buildings and just really mountainous and hilly terrain. this would slow down movement and block LoS to ground units. this would affect different units in different ways; for example the scorpion needs direct LoS to fire on a target because its projectile fires in a straight line, while the wraith could shoot over the hills and mountains because it fires in an arced trajectory.

it would also be cool if supply crates could re-spawn randomly in different areas of the map and maybe even veterancy crates.

massivley different

For those who’ve read the books(I haven’t so please correct me if I get anything wrong) you’ll know that plasma and laser weapons are pretty deadly and kill in one shot near enough or melt through the thickest of armours; imagine a ghost taking out a scorpion because irl such a vehicle would. well it isn’t going to be like that for the sake of balance but it will be more realistic. no longer shall the halo wars mentality be “tanks and wolverines steamrolls everything”, but instead “tanks and wolverines would steamroll everything, if only those pesky marines’ rockets couldn’t 2 shot my tanks”.

in the shooters it takes just 2-3 rockets to take out a scorpion, so why shouldn’t it take that much in HW2? not only would infantry be much better than it was before but players will have to think up more complex strategies rather than just mindlessly spamming 1 unit type. with the increased availability of cover infantry can become a serious threat to everything; given that in the halo universe infantry can have rocket launchers, missile pods, anti-materiel rifles, portable lasers, heavy machine guns etc. this can be balanced out by massively increasing the cool down for the rocket ability and lowering the rate of fire of hunters and heavy elites.

vehicles aren’t going to be useless though. scorpions will still take a beating and with one well placed shot will kill a whole marine squad when out of cover. thats what would happen in the shooters right? it would kind of be like company of heroes where infantry protects the tanks from other infantry squads armed with anti-tank weaponry while the tanks protect the infantry from vehicles with HMGs and of course other tanks. of course there isn’t any air units in CoH but I’m sure we can figure a way to balance things out. hopefully we can get every unit to have a use this time unlike the crappy cyclops which never ever needs to be built ever unless the enemy makes only buildings and turrets.

while all this may never lead to a completely balanced meta it should open up a bus load more viable options to the player. if you one day decide to make infantry, you actually can.

Game modes

Standard is always going to be the most popular game mode but it doesn’t mean we can’t have others. Deathmatch is loved by so few but ignored by so many so I don’t think it would be good to bring it back a second time. I’d love to see a

territories game mode where you have to capture certain zones around the map. having more zones than the enemy would reduce the enemy’s score and when it reaches 0 you win. the zones could also give special bonuses and even tech levels.

a survival game mode where you have to survive increasingly difficult waves of covenant, rebels, flood and forerunner machines.

a game mode where you can only build a single unit that is picked at random. if you’re not happy with what you’ve got you can re-roll and see if you get anything better. otherwise its the same as standard so if you get vultures or the scarab then you just have to hope that you last long enough to get them out.

a free for all game mode on a symetrical map. will you team up or go it alone?

Special co-op missions that are released every so often.

maybe a sort of cops and robbers game mode where teams compete to catch the most rebels. weapons are disabled.

can’t think any others except a forge mode but that could be difficult to implement. please make up some of your own game modes please.

13

Firstly, I’d like to apologize for taking so long to finish this. its mainly due to my laptop breaking then having no internet for 3 months then being busy with other things.

secondly I’d like to apologize for breaking the forum rules and making a second fourth account, I know its bad but I just wanted to finish this and share it with everyone. I love halo wars and it is without a doubt my 3rd favorite game, only beaten by star wars battlefront and Time splitters who have a joint first place in my books.
also I forgot the login for pompous pudding and I can’t remember it at all. too bad it was an awesome name.

I hoped you enjoyed reading my ideas and I hope you add some of your own to the mix!

14

What I would like to see in a possible Halo Wars sequel:

  1. Same control setup (the setup was as close to perfect as is physically possible for an RTS on a console)
  2. A slightly easier campaign (the campaign was great, but the Legendary on it was so incredibly difficult, I’d rather go and complete Halo 3, ODST, Reach, and Halo 4 SLASO rather than play through Wars Legendary Solo)
  3. Relatively the same form of a campaign (other than the difficulty of playing it on Legendary, I absolutly loved the campaign on the other difficulties)
  4. A higher scale of warfare in multiplayer (instead of just having 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3…why not make a 4v4, 3 way 2v2, 3 way 3v3, 4 way solos, or some other crazier form of teaming that would intensify the multiplayer experience to an even better degree)
  5. A change in multiplayer listings (keep Standard, Deathmatch, Reinforcements, but add something like King of the Hill “control the hill to earn points, hill changes location every minute, first to earn 1000 wins” or a Conquest "Claim bases to earn points, steal enemy bases to earn bonus points, First team to either reach 25 points or be the last team standing wins)
  6. Add a save film option at the end of games, plus ability to use a proper theater mode for getting better videos of all the crazy things that occur in-game (with full visibility, no matter which team you were on)
  7. Leave the ranking system relatively the same as the currently existing system (it was difficult as hell, but proved itself to be a challenge, especially for the ‘Running the Show’ Achievement.

So in other words, loved Halo Wars, only want a crazier multiplayer, with a slightly easier campaign, and cool toys to play with when I’m not in a game.

15

Halo Wars 2… A W8 game that may work on the X1?
X1 has the most potential for greatness, the PC and tablet have the easiest potential to unleash.

If one were to take the majority of the engine from Spartan Assault but set it to Halo War’s style of RTS resources, builds and heroes, but then allow heroes/champions to be played like Spartan Assault does for the main characters… We have just a start.

For X1 play, the controller options can be an amalgamation of HW for the 360 and SA for the PC with the Kinect allowing for easement and speed of menu navigation and troop control through voice and hand (much like allowing for a layer of Tom Clancy’s End War RTS voice-only, but it’s just a layer with hand interaction). However with MP being so hectic, I don’t know if VC’s are good for the game. The amount of chatter between players and “ship’s AI” would be as hectic as a real battle for a handler and that may be sensory overload… Maybe.
2nd screen use would also help ease RTS element execution, in fact it would likely be the best option for X1 users over hand and voice controls, even though voice and hand controls would be awesome as a layer.

As I started to ramble, all the elements I just mentioned have to be fluent in their way and done in a manner that only a few times will I feel like I’m playing either game and the controls were not intended to work with each other or on their own.

Star Wars: Rebel Assault would be a good start to comparing how 2 games can come together to make a fluid multiple-gamemode experience.
In RA we would disable a base or ships fighter support in a first person flight shooter gamemode only to follow up with third person shooter boarding/assault gameplay.

HW2 would have space and land RTS overall gaming but the ability to setup attacks, switch to a hero (character or ship) and then execute those attacks is what would begin to set HW2 apart from SA and HW. And with the space battles, we have a third gaming element.

As mentioned, we would have RTS overall and SA-type ground fighting for our heroes on said ground but in space, well we’d have a first person shooter like Crimson Skies.
When it comes to the heroes and large bases or capital ships, rather than having to destroy them always with an assault from outside, we could actually board/infiltrate areas into a gameplay sequence very heavy on the side of SA for VIP extraction, bomb placement, espionage, etc.

MP PvsE and PvsP could have players controlling an army from outside while insertion runs are done by other players inside bases/ships.
The gameplay would be such that we could have any combination of generals controlling the RTS elements similar to how HW generals interact now, with others playing as heroes either on the RTS field or inside a ship/base, all at once.

Oh and upgrading… Due to the new insertion elements, generals can fortify the inside of their bases with security forces like the outside…
But to boot, ya know how in HW we can hold our reinforcements inside? Well those guys can be extra firepower inside the bases/ships until called forth by the general.
Vehicles can wait inside their bays and be able to shoot in some regard as they are also destructible to heroes on the inside looking to complete an objective.
A general of their base can choose where to station groups of infantry as they are trained as a means of fortifying the inside of their base against insertion until called for.

And of course a self destruct and/or outside destruction of a base/ship can and will kill heroes inside said base (unless they can get out).
But this element is tricky to balance as a destroyed base, if it’s the last one, leads to defeat for that general. If they have only 1 base and they self destruct to kill a hero (which will come back), they’re out of the match because it’s only the hero that temporarily “died”, it’s a greater loss for the self-destructor to do this because they indeed a lose a base for sure.