The following 5 elements are essential for providing a competitive experience in Halo 4.
- Sandbox Weapon Balance (threesixxero has a great post covering this topic, I’ll just summarize the key points)
There are 3 classes of weapons: power weapons (sniper, rockets, etc.), regular weapons (AR, needler, etc.), and utility weapons (god pistol, BR, etc.). These 3 classes need to work together seamlessly, with no weapon being too strong or too weak. Power weapons are almost exclusively insta-kill, but are balanced by having long spawn times and/or requiring much skill (sniper). The regular weapons class has the greatest variety of weapons, and each weapon should fill a different niche, or role, with minimal overlapping. Utility weapons specialize in medium range, but should not be limited to that. A kill with the minimum amount of shots required from a utility weapon should beat any regular weapon in its own niche, simply because the utility weapon is the most skill intensive weapon in the game, except for the sniper. An average utility weapon user should be limited to medium range, and should get dominated by a regular weapon in its niche.
- Skill Gap
Each weapon class should contribute to the skill gap in a unique way. Power weapons encourage teamwork to secure the weapon, and also awareness of when the weapon will respawn (spawn timing). But no power weapon should guarantee free kills, and should take some amount of skill to use effectively (yes, even the sword). With regular weapons the key is knowledge (knowing what niche each weapon is most effective in). Also, the ability to force encounters to play to your weapon’s niche is very important. Aim is the largest factor with utility weapons. Since they kill slightly faster than regular weapons, they are very difficult to use to compensate. Utility weapons should have a large gap between the fastest possible kill time and the average kill time (how fast an average user can kill with it).
- Perfect Kill Times
Kill times determine the balance between slow and fast-paced, as well whether a game is individual or teamwork-oriented. The ideal kill times for Halo are somewhere between CE’s and H2’s, which both were medium-paced games that valued teamwork and individual skill equally. The CE pistol killed in 0.6 seconds, while the H2 BR killed in 1.4. So the ideal utility weapon should kill in around 1.0 second (remember, though, it is very difficult to achieve this). Regular weapons should be balanced accordingly, with kill times somewhere in the 1.2-1.4 second range, so they will still dominate the average utility weapon user in their respective niches. Power weapons are typically insta-kills.
- Grenade and Melee
Grenades and melee are crucial to Halo gameplay, forming two thirds of the Halo “triangle.” They should work in tandem with weapons, not dominate them (as we saw in Reach), nor should they be useless. In Halo, grenades and melee should assist your weapon in getting kills, rather than being individual weapons themselves that can pick up kills unassisted.
- Casual Playlists
Having casual playlists in MM is possibly the most important part to providing solid competitive gameplay. Here, casual players looking to play exclusively for fun can have equipment, vehicles, and even AAs without comprising competitive gameplay. It’s almost impossible to find the perfect balance between competitive and casual gameplay, so they should be kept separate.
Thoughts? Please give feedback on what you think.
Update: Thanks for the feedback everyone! So far we have 55 agrees/signs. Let’s keep this thread alive!