I think everyone agrees that ODST had the best Firefight of ODST and Reach. It had limited Ammo, health and grenades and the enemies were actually coming for you. As well as actually increasing in difficulty.
What ODST lacked was Wave customization, to change what came and when.
Reach on the other hand had that, well, it had way too much customization. Things like Spartan and Elite traits. It should only have been wave settings and loadouts. Weapon boxes should only have had a limited amount of ammo in them, regen shield should have been taken out as well. Or they could have made the AA’s as drops and everyone started with sprint, an assault rifle and a magnum.
I understand Bungie’s decision to make firefight MM limited to a few sets because not everyone got time for a full fledged 2 hour game. They could have had a playlist for it though.
So what did ruin Firefight? I would have to say Arcade for the overall experience, and unlimited ammo for the survival.
Survival isn’t jetpacking over everything with a fuel rod knowing that your ammo and lives would never run out. Firefight Limited was all good and fun but it sadly got overrun by Arcade.
Looking at Halo 4 I can’t say that Spartan Ops has taken Firefight’s place since the missions are short and you yet again have unlimited lives.
Yes yes I know that the avarage working man doesn’t have time to restart a mission he was just about to finish when a suicide grunt came around the corner. I also know that the kids who shouldn’t be playing Halo 4 according to the rating doesn’t feel good about themselves when they can’t finish that mission for the tenth time when they die in the various ways they do. So therefore we get unlimited lives so the business man can get his points and get to do other things while the little children get to feel good about themselves knowing they completed a Spartan Ops mission all by themselves, completely ignoring the fact that they died 500 times and only grinded the enemy out one by one. Extreme case I know.
I’m having my speculations about Halo 5 being a release title for the next gen xbox, I’m also sure i343 is working on it this very moment as well. I think that when the console is announced we’ll see a short announcment of Halo 5 as well, but that’s just me.
Back to the topic, survival.
With my speculation about the next gen thing I’d like Halo’s survival to be expanded on, large scale expansion.
> They should be huge, think Forge world or even New Mombasa big. In that case we would only need a few because of the variety we could have in the maps themselves. We could have proper vehicles combat in them, long range firefights, close quarter shootouts.
> Basicly every survival mode uses waves. I say skip this and keep them coming. Put a timer in and a kill counter. There should be pressure on at most times. Breathers are allowed but there should still be some action going on. Players should work together or die alone. Let one person get a new weapon while the others let him catch his breath. For this occasion lesser amounts of enemies should be present.
> It wouldn’t spawn enemies far away from the players to prevent usage of resources but it could calculate where someone is going and then spawn enemies there for them to encounter. If nothing happens the enemies could despawn. Furthermore the smart spawn would also see where the players are at and what they are doing. Incase someone starts sniping, Wraiths could start appearing to bombard the sniper, or other snipers could spawn to lay down sniper fire on the player sniper. If someone is in close quarters, the game starts spawning enemies equipped for close quarters, and so on. The system will try to always outsmart the players
> I can really see ordnances working in this mode, as well as pile up. This could be used to send for weapons, possible marine assistance and vehicles. An example would be that a Scorpion tank would cost five ordnance points, and you only get to use them at specific places on the map, such as open spots for Pelicans or garages large enough to house a Scorpion. Weapon drops could be anywhere on the outside, it would work just like now, and Marine reinforcement only at specific times, or at specific houses or something. Different sorts of AI turrets could also be placed I guess. Air strikes too perhaps or something similair.
> To some extent I could also go as far as to have the maps somewhat forgeable. Before anyone starts shouting that it would be too difficult, hear me out. There are Dynamic Bots that learn the map as they play, I’d hope that something along those lines would work in this environment. How much forge? Not that much, perhaps a little more than the regular multiplayer map but not to the same extent as the designated forge maps.
> It would be nice if the player count could be upgraded to atleast 8 players.
> Now and then the game could spawn an objective, perhaps have a ship crash and the players get the objective to retrieve something from it, or perhaps the enemy is setting up a base camp and the objective is to destroy it otherwise they get stronger, guard an area to help marines repair something, taking out VIP targets, escorting VIPs, you get the what I’m going at. Tasks that help the player if they complete it, and strengthen the enemy if they fail or doesn’t bother doing them.
> I really hope that new Forerunner enemies show up, three different types was kind of a let down. Anyhow, Forerunners and the Coventant, a bonus would be the flood. That would make for awesome gameplay, and for epic threeway and even fourway battles.
> One thing I think this mode could really use instead of lives is a system where the player goes down into a last stand. Friendly players could revive their ally. If the player dies in last stand he won’t respawn. To get back into the game he/she needs to be bought back through ordnance points at the same places the marines can be bought. The penalty of dying is losing all ordnance points and equipment the player had.