I feel quite a few of the Spartan Abilities in Halo 5 are pretty good concepts for the gameplay, though I honestly believe they can be implemented better. Here are my suggestions for Halo 6, to improve the Spartan Abilities.
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The Thrusters are like, the only way you can properly strafe now, it overpowers the traditional side-to-side movement too much. But the attributes can be tweaked with the base movement and the thrusters, so it could be perfectly balanced if the effort was made, and I’d like to see it done well. Thrusting and normal strafing should have their advantages and disadvantages, but really, the only reason the player wouldn’t want to thrust is because of the recharge delay. Thrusting is just automatically better than strafing. So again, just tweak the values of the base movement, and the thrusters. - The Ground Pound just breaks the pace entirely, because of how long it takes to charge. Again, I’d rather it be like the pancake kills of UT4, where all you have to do is drop from a high altitude, and your velocity will let you crush an opponent. The only thing you would have to worry about is finding a high enough place to drop from, and actually timing it so you can land on them. Being an automatic feature would feel a lot more natural, instead of having to sit there, be suspended in the air, and charge it by pressing another button (that just feels clunky and awkward). Overall, I feel this - The Slide feels restrictive due to the lack of steering, and not being able to use your weapon. I would make it so you can curve as much as you want during a slide, just by turning your character. And I would also allow the player to shoot, it would be balanced as you would only be allowed to shoot in the direction you’re sliding (as your view angle is controlling your movement direction too). If you have to be stuck moving in a straight line during the slide’s duration, and you also have no access to your weapon, then it doesn’t really flow well with the combat and the base movement. Part of movement is feeling natural. It contrasts with the movement and combat, instead of it being a natural transition that flows nicely. - As far as the Stabilizers go, it also feels restrictive, in that they’re automated when you zoom. Sure, you can disable the auto-stabilize, but that handles very clunky and puts you at a disadvantage (you have to be close to frame-perfect when clicking LS). The Stabilizer would be a lot more fluid if all you had to do was press A again in mid-air. It’d be easier than having to press LS, and allows for a greater feeling of player choice than simply having it be automated. I also wish you could do it in hip-fire, because why not? It’s not like you get to stay suspended in the air for that long. Again, movement should feel natural, not restrictive. If you can only do something zoomed in, then it doesn’t flow nicely with the combat as a whole, only the long range combat. - Sprint is balanced, but I feel it should be removed. The reason is, a major aspect that Halo CE/2/3 shared within their gameplay was the slower-paced style. Making the game flashy and fast-paced, it heavily contrasts the unique gameplay which the classic series had. It’s much better implemented than Halo Reach and Halo 4, I’ll give you that, it’s pretty much balanced out with the shield recharge delay. So I wouldn’t mind seeing this in a NEW arena shooter, I just feel that Halo had a unique gameplay style which should be better respected. The slower pace worked perfectly fine, because the maps were accommodated for the movement speed, and heck, the strafing/dodging was actually faster. UPDATE: Actually, I wouldn’t mind bringing back Sprint as *a recharging armor ability like from Reach. However, treat it like an on-map powerup that players have to collect, rather than it being a starting feature. The gameplay would still have the slow pace most of the time, you would just one extra item which would spice things up for whichever player collects it. I don’t mind it being like a collectable speed boost, as all the other players would still move at natural speed.*I do feel three abilities are perfectly fine with their current implementation, for the most part,
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Clamber might take out the timing skill of crouch jumping, but I realize the greater verticality can add to the strategic positioning of the game. So whichever gameplay mechanic they choose (crouch jumping or clambers), they both work well for the gameplay in their own way. - Charge is just another melee attack, really. Though since I want sprint removed, charge would have to be combined with the thruster pack. Perhaps just hitting melee while thrusting, it would have the same effect. UPDATE__: It should also have higher knockback so the enemy has a chance to fight back. - And as for Aim Down Sights, Halo was always a precision-based game, and really, it’s just another interpretation for that aspect of the formula. The most important thing, I feel its executed extremely well with the game’s movement. It’s similar to how Brutal Doom handled ADS, in that it doesn’t ever break the pace at all.Also, additional idea.
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I also wouldn’t mind a Halo game with a Dodge Roll in place of the thruster. A dodge roll would be nice because it’d feel more natural with the movement, it’d be like vaulting along the ground. It’d be a much smoother transition with normal jogging and strafing, as opposed to boosting yourself with a jetpack (if anyone’s getting tired of FPS jetpacks in 2014-2015). The only downside would be that it can’t be used while airborne, but at the same time, it would also make the normal jump-strafe technique useful by itself again, since you wouldn’t have the over-reliance on mid-air thrusters. If a dodge roll mechanic was done instead, I would make it like Evade from Reach where you can do it twice in rapid succession, however I would reduce the distance so it isn’t as overpowered. Unlike Evade, it wouldn’t have the hop at the end of the roll, because if someone wants to perform a leap, they would be allowed to simply jump at the end of the maneuver. (The small hop at the end of Evade, it always left the player suspended in mid-air, which made the transition between normal movement and the evade less natural). A dodge roll isn’t entirely necessary though, just an added idea, in case the thrusters ever become a tired concept.What do you guys think? Feel free to comment on my suggestions.
