Some ideas I had to improve Spartan Ops

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Hello! I wanted to share some ideas I had to improve Spartan Ops in future tittles.

I. My first idea involves the use of waves on missions. As you start the mission, you will be on Wave 1. Basically, you will be progressing through the waves if you eliminate all hostiles. But you will have objectives to complete. The longer you take to complete them, the harder the mission will become. To prevent players abusing this system by leaving the last enemy alive and completing the objectives, some ramdom waves will have to be completed in order to advance.

Let’s say you reached a hill on wave 8 and your objective is wait for backup. Then wave 9 starts and you have to survive the wave in order to complete the objective.

II. Now let’s talk about my second idea. Fireteam Crimson is supposedly made of 4 Spartans. My idea is, you can play as any of them. You will be able to change their appearance, and each of them will be specialized on a certain weapon (sniper, shotgun…). As you play with different Spartans, you will unlock Armor modifications specific for their role on the team. This will improve their performance.

III. Third, setting up your missions.

Having different ways to complete a mission is key. So this brings us to the bots. Every member of Fireteam Crimson can be controlled by AI if the player enables it. So lets say you can complete a mission by blowing a everyone up (bring the entire squad) or infiltrating.

For this example, let’s say you want to use the infiltration strategy. Enable Crimson’s sniper to be controlled by AI. The sniper will help you eliminate targets as you progress, so you will avoid detection. Coordinated attacks are a must.

To prevent players letting the bots do all the job, they can still be killed. Let’s use the Halo 3 Arbiter’s system for these situations. If they “die” you have to complete the wave in order to get them back in action. Regeneration field could also be an option.

Also, setting up your game involves SKULLS!! 4 Options for this:

  • No skulls enabled. Play safe.
  • Classic firefight system. You face stronger enemies as you make progress.
  • Manually activating skulls. Your intel lets you know what is to come.
  • Random skulls. Your emenies may surprise you once you encounter them.

IV. Allied forces. We see few of them on Season 1. In my opinion, it does not feel like there is a major UNSC occupation on Requiem. More like you only fight with the Marines that didn’t find a place to hide.

My idea is, add a lot of them on some missions. Who else wants to experience a large battle a-la-Tip of the Spear? I am sure it is not just me… With the processing power of the Xbox One and the Could computing, I am sure it will be possible.

V Ever been on that situation where you are surrounded by strong foes and you simply know you will die? Let’s introduce “Requisitions”.

The idea is to select one item before the mission in case of an emergency. For example, you are going on a big battle and your vehicle was destroyed. 3 enemy tanks are closing in. Request your package and get a Scorpion, or Lasers.

It would be awesome if you could request some ODSTs to hot drop near you. Call a Hornet to provide air support, or even a Longsword run! Of course this feature is limited to one use per game. The options could be:

  • Light vehicle (Hogs)
  • Armor (Scorpion or some other cool vehicle that might be introduced)
  • Infantry (ODSTs)
  • Air support
  • Heavy weapons

Also… Keeping both Spartan Ops and Firefight should be taken into account. Only this time, Spartan Ops IS Fireright with story.

I might have other ideas I will post later. For now, tell me what you think.

2

  1. You brought up an excellent point, leaving the last enemy alive did make things a bit too easy. Now for a game mode like Campaign, I would miss having that kind of control, but in this case, it should be accounted for.

  2. This sounds like a decent expansion of what was possible in ODST.

  3. Would add replay value to Solo, could make up a little for the scaling issues in Spartan Ops.

Would be nice to see Arby’s invincibility system again. I hate having unkillable allies, not only does it make things easier but it’s also an inconvenience (i.e. you have to swap for their guns, which might not be a good idea during a battle. Sometimes you don’t even get the option). It’s just plain lazy to make allies like that instead of improving their AI.

I like the skull option idea. Exactly what we need.

3

I pretty much agree with you, Siul. Especially Skull options and I think we need to have points and medals appear on screen, similar to Firefight.

4

I agree with most if not all of what you had to say, but…

> Hello! I wanted to share some ideas I had to improve Spartan Ops in future <mark>tittles.</mark>

I’m sorry I couldn’t stop laughing at this.

5

> I agree with most if not all of what you had to say, but…
>
>
>
> > Hello! I wanted to share some ideas I had to improve Spartan Ops in future <mark>tittles.</mark>
>
> I’m sorry I couldn’t stop laughing at this.

Aw… Didn’t see that lol -_____-

6

The ability to have bots in Spartan Ops would definitely add another layer to the gameplay. Which would make repeat play throughs more entertaining.

Good read.

7

A few question is the AI system suppose to be only solo or whatever until or four player spots are filled so it feels like a squad based game; and the on/off feature is that where a player in-game can just watch his bot play for him/her… if so this would lead to major boosting so probably not.

8

> A few question is the AI system suppose to be only solo or whatever until or four player spots are filled so it feels like a squad based game; and the on/off feature is that where a player in-game can just watch his bot play for him/her… if so this would lead to major boosting so probably not.

If you want to play solo, but at the same time need some support with different strategies, then thats when you would activate the bots. It would also be available for co-op, and an AI would take control in case a player leaves the game.
Of course, covies that are killed by bots would not count for any kind of commendations/challenges of your own.

9

> <mark>To prevent players abusing this system by leaving the last enemy alive and completing the objectives, some ramdom waves will have to be completed in order to advance.</mark>

I agree with the whole post, but, there is a more simple way to fix this kind of problem. Just do what Treyarch did the with the CoD:Zombies.

If the zombies cant hit the player in a certain amount of time, or the player is too far away, the zombie dies.

This prevents the players from abusing the system by leaving one enemy alive, since it would die if the player gets too far away from it, or if the players/enemy does not get hurt it in a certain amount of time.

10

First things first: there need to be checkpoints and not just infinite lives.
I don’t think SpOps will return (sadly) but there is so much to improve on it that releasing an updated version of it with the next Halo could be such a huge (and positive) change that 343i may yet embrace the idea. I really hope they didn’t decide to scrap it (mostly because the cutscenes were awesome), but it seems they did.

11

> I agree with the whole post, but, there is a more simple way to fix this kind of problem. Just do what Treyarch did the with the CoD:Zombies.
>
> If the zombies cant hit the player in a certain amount of time, or the player is too far away, the zombie dies.
>
> This prevents the players from abusing the system by leaving one enemy alive, since it would die if the player gets too far away from it, or if the players/enemy does not get hurt it in a certain amount of time.

How about we use what was done on ODST FF? When only one Covie squad was left, then another wave started.

12

I think it will be cool if you put the Flood into the mix. How about every covenant that dies, their body stays there… forever! So when there is like 200 dead covenant by round 10, a huge (500) amount of flood infection forms come from the sky in several drop pods and you have to kill them quickly or they will take all of the covenant body’s host.

OR they come on a crashing covie ship like in Halo 3 The Flood mission. And when it crashes somewhere on the massive map which is littered with forerunner structure, underground caverns, vehicles, ruins and hills/ mountains, you will need to go and find the crashed ship, venture inside of it and detonate its engine to destroy the ship, and if you don’t, the ship is infinite spawn flood.

This would also work with a covie super carrier, which you would need to find a way onboard, ether through jet pack, hijacking a phantom or banshee or finding the heavily defended UNSC facility which has a MAC cannon, which only has 2 shots the entire game.

You could also do cool things like call down ODST’s to assist you and orbital strikes.

You also earn rewards, like armor ability’s, codes that activate forerunner structures that can call down sentinels to aid you, or unlock door that lead to more of the map.

There also could be Prometheans involved.

WHO WANTS TO PLAY THIS!!? I DO!!

13

I added a couple new ideas to the OP. Read and tell me what you think.

14

I have an idea, but IDK how well it would hold up. What if there’s a chase mission not similar to the car chases in CoD, but more similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX0ZhhOd0Hg

I just like the idea of a fast-moving vehicle battle.