TAKE COVER!

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Spartans are supposed to be advanced soldiers. However, when you’re on the battlefield, all you can seem to do is run, walk, crouch, and shoot.

Halo 5 Guardians should give us something new, something that no other halo game has ever had. I think that should be the option to take cover.

How would that work? Well let me explain.

For example, say you walk up to a barricade. Instead of simply crouching behind the barricade, you would use the barricade to take cover. This would allow you to shoot at your enemies while being provided protection by the barricade.

Now you might be saying that seems unfair to your enemy. However, when taking cover you head would still be exposed, allowing you to see what you’re shooting at, giving your enemy the ability to kill you with a headshot or headshots. Not to mention that when actually firing your weapon, you will automatically exit your cover position in order shoot at your enemy. This would leave you entirely exposed until you stopped firing and automatically took cover once more.

When taking cover you would also be vulnerable to enemies behind you. This would give your enemy the opportunity to shoot or assassinate you, putting you at the disadvantage.

What if my enemy runs in front of the cover position I am using?

If an enemy runs in front of the cover position you are currently using you can simply melee him so long as he really close to you. This would work similar to firing your weapon: you would momentarily exit your cover position, melee your enemy, and then take cover again.

How will this cover system work? Well it is quite simple.

Instead of crouching, when you hit the crouch button, you would take cover so long as there was something to take cover behind close by. However, if there was nothing close by to take cover behind, when you hit the crouch button you would simply crouch.

For example, say you want to take cover using the barricade I mentioned in my previous example. If you were close (say one or two feet away) then when you hit the crouch button you would immediately take cover. However, if you were too far from the barricade or any other cover position then, when you hit the crouch button, you would just crouch.

When would I be unable to take cover?

You would be unable to take cover if you were too far from a cover position (as I mentioned in my previous example), if the cover position was already occupied by other players, or if it had been destroyed.

Note: An enemy cannot take your cover position while you are firing your weapon as long as you don’t exit your cover position in the process.

Wait, the cover positions can be destroyed?

Yes, certain cover positions can be destroyed, but only after suffering large amounts of damage. For example, a few shots from a rocket launcher or a spartan laser would be able to destroy a cover position such as a barricade.

What would I be able to take cover behind?

You would be able to take cover behind objects such as barricades, walls, and other similar objects.

Please leave comments and questions below

2

Why? This seems redundant when you can just crouch behind a barricade and cover your head. It limits the potential glitches and saves time. Do you know how difficult something like this would be to program?

If you can be killed by a headshot then whats the point? I’d rather just be able to crouch and cover my head, without having to worry about jumping out every time I decide to fire my gun.

Sorry OP but it just seems like change for the sake of change. I’m sure we’ve all wanted campaign to be more realistic feeling, but there’s really no point as it would just ruin gameplay. This idea just seems overly-complicated for no reason.

3

> Now you might be saying that seems unfair to your enemy. However, when taking cover you head would still be exposed, allowing you to see what you’re shooting at, giving your enemy the ability to kill you with a headshot or headshots.

My head is or isn’t going to be exposed if I just crouch behind cover, depending on the height of the cover. And I can enter/exit crouch at any time.

I assume the only real difference would be a 3rd person over-the-shoulder view while ‘taking cover’, which would make hitting ranged targets more difficult.

Unless we can also lean off the sides of cover, which I don’t really support as standing slightly to the side of cover leaves you more vulnerable and doesn’t empower cover as much.

> Do you know how difficult something like this would be to program?

Not really. Time consuming yes, but plenty of games have cover systems.

4

Hmmm…

It does seem well nerfed, but I don’t know about this. Usually other games that have this feature or something similar to it are games in which the players have relatively low health. Being that Spartans have shields a feel like the encounters would be much too drawn out. Although their heads are showing, it would still be difficult to kill them with a non-precision weapon after they duck back behind the cover. Perhaps if a grenade could easily jerk them out of cover than it would not be too overpowered. But I really don’t know what to think about it. I like it but I feel like it would be overused.

5

Um…I feel like you’ve been playing too much Rainbow Six or something OP.

6

Or I could just take cover myself by crouching.

7

I admire your desire to add something new to Halo, but honestly, I don’t think this feature would do any good for gameplay. Rather than promote movement, which is essential in Halo, people would be tempted to just sit around behind cover all day.

8

> I admire your desire to add something new to Halo, but honestly, I don’t think this feature would do any good for gameplay. Rather than promote movement, which is essential in Halo, people would be tempted to just sit around behind cover all day.

+1.

I enjoy the need to move in Halo to be effective. However, if you make it more profitable for players to camp, then camping will occur more often - and from protected positions - which will reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of movement. If that occurs, I will stop playing Halo.

9

Nope

Why be stuck to cover, like literally attached, when you can make use of cover yourself?

The cover system gives you a certain amount of time and animation to stick to and stick off of cover. I rather be able to save time by having free control over my movement.

It ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

10

> Or I could just take cover myself by crouching.

Why didn’t I think of that?

11

A cover system in Halo? No.

12

You can already do all this stuff it’s called hiding behind a wall or crouching behind something. All of this stuff is aleready possible plus most things that can be used for cover make some part of your body stick out already maybe just vaulting off of things would be enough

13

A cover system in a first-person shooter. Has that been done correctly before? Actually has that ever been put into an FPS at all?

14

> A cover system in a first-person shooter. Has that been done correctly before? Actually has that ever been put into an FPS at all?

I believe that has been FPS with cover system but wasn’t really emphasized on.

15

> I admire your desire to add something new to Halo, but honestly, I don’t think this feature would do any good for gameplay. Rather than promote movement, which is essential in Halo, people would be tempted to just sit around behind cover all day.

This. There isn’t a need to add this into Halo.

16

Could it work? Eh, maybe.

But on a personal level I don’t think that I’d get any personal enjoyment out of it.

It’s also time and resources that I’d rather see be put towards other things and it’s also a mechanic that could be broken it’s first iteration so it’s a potential risk too.

Sorry but it’s a no.

17

Nope. Halo’s gameplay revolves around being mobile. Mechanics like cover, vaulting, and ledge-grabbing actually inhibit this by tying your character to a specific place for an amount of time. There should be no “latches” or “magnets” when it comes to movement.

18

Ehhhhhhh…

No

Why can’t Halo remain as Halo instead of straying further away from what we all know and love? Sure, bring in new features but not anything that makes the game unrecognisable from what it has been (for example, sprint which just turns Halo into a more generic shooter).

19

I really don’t see this working well. What button would it go to? Most games that implement a cover system are games that have no jumping involved, like GoW or at least one Ghost Recon game.

Having it mapped would be difficult since we already full on the controller. On top of it, we are dependant on mobility. If we get caught into cover when we meant to jump or whatever, it can lead to frustrating moments.

It’s not a good idea. It doesn’t address the problem, which doesn’t exist or enough people care enough about. Halo’s method of taking cover is fine as it is. Changing it because it isn’t realistic enough for you isn’t a good enough reason to convince me.

20

I voted no
For the same reason i dont want to play “Call Of Halo” i dont want to play “Gears Of Halo” i do want to play this game called “Halo” though

Lets keep as many mechanics from other games out of halo as possible. Instead lets take what is already there and make it better.