Spartan ops could’ve worked. IF we had lives and IF the enemies got harder and harder. Had Some kind of timer on objectives, that if you didn’t clear or reach in time the mission would end, OH OH, and seriously decent mission scripts. Palmer and the other mission guide, can’t even remember his name, they had terrible, no, horrible writing.
The idea of spartan ops was actually brilliant. Loved the idea of those episodes, poping up once a week.
And if we visit NEW PLACES instead of going back to 1 place 17 times
> And if we visit NEW PLACES instead of going back to 1 place 17 times
Well, I know it needed that. But spartan ops was already very expensive to make, imagine if they added totally new places.
Rather than lives I’d rather have checkpoints and go for a campaign/MW spec ops style. Make them real missions, and relate better to the cutscenes.
> > And if we visit NEW PLACES instead of going back to 1 place 17 times
>
> Well, I know it needed that. But spartan ops was already very expensive to make, imagine if they added totally new places.
That’s why 50 missions for the season was to much. If anything, we should have been getting 2-3 missions a week that were a little longer and tied into the story taking place in the CG’s.
Reusing maps is fine if we have a legit reason to be, story wise - but for the most part, we never did.
> Spartan ops could’ve worked. IF we had lives and IF the enemies got harder and harder. Had Some kind of timer on objectives, that if you didn’t clear or reach in time the mission would end, OH OH, and seriously decent mission scripts. Palmer and the other mission guide, can’t even remember his name, they had terrible, no, horrible writing.
>
> The idea of spartan ops was actually brilliant. Loved the idea of those episodes, poping up once a week.
For Halo 5, I’d like the Spartan Ops to be more along the lines of side stories to primary campaign, or even historic missions. There’s 30 odd years of Spartans running around the galaxy killing things / blowing up stuff. I’m sure between the existing story lines, and some inventive writers, a micro-campaign could be developed. From any of the Spartan III headhunter teams (and I would really like that to be done in SPI armor), to the early missions of the Spartan IIs (against the insurrection), to the very early engagements against the covenant (whatever that scene was in FUD with Spartans and Insurrection against a common enemy) . . . the possibilities are not quite endless, but there’s a lot to work with.
For that matter, you could do some of the missions from the perspective of a covenant (imagine being the elite leading the team into the first flood chamber in Halo CE). The whole sequence can be sold along the same lines as Spartan Assault - revisiting historic campaigns and seeing how you (the player) would have gone.
Once the promotion for Halo 6 starts, yet another season of downloadable content could be added to assist with the bridge from Halo 5 to Halo 6 (key missions from the extended lore, and cutscenes filling in the gaps).
What could be an interesting twist is to do the missions in Halo 5 from the other character’s perspective (I’m working on the assumption that it will be similar to Halo 2, with two main characters - John 117 and the ONI Spartan). You would need to be careful with how the mission narrative played out in the original (as in you see the MC go off to infiltrate X whilst the ONI guy does objective Y, and at the end you haven’t actually seen how one of those two objectives was done - so you get to actually do the missing part of the story as part of the downloadable content).
They just need to make it feel like a true secondary campaign.
Yeah, it could have worked. But it didn’t. It didn’t so badly that I’d just rather not take the chance on it ever again.
The CGI was great but the gameplay was terrible. It could have been a lot of fun but it was poorly executed.
> Well, I know it needed that. But spartan ops was already very expensive to make, imagine if they added totally new places.
If they aren’t going to put any effort into it then they might as well not do it.
Either release a complete Spartan Ops and charge for it if necessary, or don’t release it at all.
Repeating the same map over and over and over is inexcusable, especially when that map doesn’t even remotely relate to what’s going on in the actual story… Spartan Ops should be its own unique campaign, and it should be done well.
The idea behind SPOPs was good, but it just needed working on a bit:
Firstly, the story side of it should have been dialed down a bit. It should not be an integral part of the saga but additional information to the current/past stories or a teaser to the next major installment. Perhaps introduce a sub-plot rather than touching on the main plot, eg. protagonist and (new) antagonist competing for something, then it builds up to a boss fight at the end.
Secondly, missions should be unique and make you want to play them on their own rather than continuously as a chapter. Spec Ops in MW2 is a prime example of this. There was a wide variety; from stealth missions, to breach missions, time-trial missions, objective based missions and wave based missions.
Thirdly, the maps do not need to be as big. 343 put a lot of effort into Spops making feel like the regular campaign with hidden alcoves and all sorts. For Spops, 343 should not waste resources making the game feel more open worldy like the campaign should, but more linear with a simple clear objective - as a spartan on a mission.
Lastly, make Spops challenging. Campaign - you die: get sent back to last checkpoint with enemies and that reset. Firefight - you die: GAME OVER. Spops - you die: Carry on - You die: Carry on… And as someone mentioned earlier in this thread, introduce a timer for some missions.
Personally I’ve felt that Spartan Ops was just a watered down version of firefight and campaign, leading to boring and uninspired gameplay.
I think it should be about 5 to 10 missions per season, and each mission the length and quality of a campaign mission. Every season can be a new story arc, either involving our Spartans or of stories in the Halo universe that are from the comics and novels that some players haven’t experienced because they only know the games.
> Spartan ops could’ve worked. IF we had lives
This. It was just plain boring, I honestly couldn’t play it (note that I played every Halo campaign several times). I watched all the cutscenes on youtube.
> And if we visit NEW PLACES instead of going back to <mark>1</mark> place <mark>17</mark> times
No one caught the 117 reference? 
Serialized campaign levels are a cool concept, but obviously H4 missed big time. The most exciting part, for me, were the cut scenes, and I barely remember what happened in them now. It SpOps didn’t keep me engaged in the long run.
Extended campaign doesn’t appeal to me so much.
Call me old fashioned, but I like the campaign to be one defined experience with a clear beginning and end. Where’s the plot build up or the denouement otherwise? Where does one title end and the next one begin?
I’d rather another version of firefight for my online slaughter of enemies/achieving of objectives. It’s faster paced, more relative to scoring, and can be shared with friends without horrible network latency issues. The maps were less of an issue there, too.
Aside from things like skulls and other tweaks, I would have been perfectly fine if Spartan Ops had been half the length.
It seems odd, but sometimes its not good to throw too much content at the player. I liked the cutscenes, but nearly half the missions were all filler with no meaningful impact on the story being told. Whole episodes of missions were totally pointless.
Locations would not have worn out their welcome, as we would have only visited them maybe twice and in general the whole thing wouldn’t feel so cluttered. I really applaud the effort, but it seems 343 bit off more than it could chew in terms of delivering new and interesting content.
A. Story
As far as the overall story in Spartan Ops I didn’t think it was to bad. If you’re carefully paying attention it explains quite a bit about Infinity, Dr. Halsey, the Prometheans, and what happened after Halo 4. Even then many of the missions seem repetitive and things only get interesting after Infinity gets boarded. (One of the few maps that actually wasn’t played during campaign.
There are a few issues I have with the actual story.
1. Dr. Halsey getting treated like trash
Dr. Halsey being considered a war criminal yet her actions in creating the Spartans that basically saved all of humanity, and her expertise and knowledge on the covenant, forerunners, and even AI remains unparalleled. You can get on her in regards to ethics, but her actions clearly and obviously show which side she’s on.
2. The reintroduction of catastrophic planet like structures exploding is getting pathetically lazy.
I’ll give Halo 1 a pass since that was the 1st time said planetary structure exploding was introduced.
Halo 3 was extremely lazy towards the later end of the story. The last level was basically the last level in halo 1
Halo Wars had a more unique approach to it and tastefully introduced the cataclysmic planetary explosion event.
Halo 4 Spartan Ops decided to reintroduce this planetary explosion even by having the planet collide into the nearby star. Although not as blatantly bad as Halo 3, this was still lazy writing.
3. Failure to tie in other events or even bring them up in the Halo world not surrounding Master Chief
What happened to other surviving Spartan 2’s and 3’s after the war?
What happened to Lord Hood? There’s not even a whisper of his mentioning
What happened to the remaining Prophets, and the Brutes. Yes I know novels explain some of what happened but a game like this would enhance the story by at least acknowledging what happened. Halo is a rich world with interesting stories, allow the games to at least give us some imagination as to what else is going on in other stories beyond master chief.
Game Play
1. Repetitive Maps
2. Infinite amount of lives
Repetitive Missions
Plz Plz Plz, bring back lives and make each mission almost campaign length. Either give us lives or add checkpoints.
Spops really felt as bad as a truly terrible Campaign would be. If I had Spops as a campaign over Halo 4 Campaign, I would be a MIA.
Ditto the other posters.
Spartan Ops needs to be something worth paying for (and I would pay for it - especially if it meant MP maps were free), or it should not be done at all.
Besides, 343i may be able to kill 2 birds with one stone there. Take the SpOps maps and modify them (or at least use the base environment) to make map packs suitable for MP play.
> - Halo 4 Spartan Ops decided to reintroduce this planetary explosion even by having the planet collide into the nearby star. Although not as blatantly bad as Halo 3, this was still lazy writing.
Lazy writing sums up how I felt about almost all of it (in addition to the repetitive, thrown-together feel for the actual play). The dialogue in SpOps was shallow and juvenile.
> Take the SpOps maps and modify them (or at least use the base environment) to make map packs suitable for MP play.
I’d perhaps say that backwards: take MP maps and make them work for Spartan Ops. But of course, you say tomato, I say otamot.
It felt like such a novelty to play Ragnarok in multiplayer maps many times and then turn around and play it with AI bots.