The core Halo formula in relation to Halo 5

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Hey guys.

Simple question. Ive seen a lot of threads recently, asking questions about opinions on many of the changes Halo 5 has. A lot of the time, the idea of the core formula of Halo is brought up.

What do you define as the “core formula” of Halo? And how would you define Halo 5 in relation to that?

I think its important to understand what everyone feels about Halo. Video games are art. And like all other art, people have differ opinions on it. For any discussions, its important that people understand what you think Halo is/should be.

2

Halo was the first console FPS that had designated buttons for melee and grenades. Prior to that, you had to select your melee weapon or grenade from the weapons (like hit “Y” to cycle through all the guns until you get to grenade or baseball bat or some melee thing).

So from that came “The Golden Triangle” of gun, grenade, and melee. That was the Halo formula. As long as those three things are at the core of the gameplay, you got some good Halo fun.

If you add something that goes too far (like some Halo 4 abilities) that trump any of these, you gotta problem. I liked Halo 4, but it was quite different and there were aspects I didn’t like. Same with Reach’s armor lock; that thing wrecked the golden triangle: it would un-stick sticky grenades, absorb bullets, melee hits, etc. It was bad.

I found in Halo 5, the abilities didn’t take away from any of these. I thought it was very solid and played great.

3

Guns: check.
shields: check.
grenades: check.
Melee: check.
extras

equal starts: check
hipfire: check.
Map/power weapon control: check.

4

> 2533274883669557;2:
> Halo was the first console FPS that had designated buttons for melee and grenades. Prior to that, you had to select your melee weapon or grenade from the weapons (like hit “Y” to cycle through all the guns until you get to grenade or baseball bat or some melee thing).
>
> So from that came “The Golden Triangle” of gun, grenade, and melee. That was the Halo formula. As long as those three things are at the core of the gameplay, you got some good Halo fun.
>
> If you add something that goes too far (like some Halo 4 abilities) that trump any of these, you gotta problem.
>
> I found in Halo 5, the abilities didn’t take away from any of these. I thought it was very solid and played great.

I remember Bungie saying that they broke the golden triangle specifically, seeing as that is a fan designation. Vehicles and on map pickups kind of ruin a lot of the triangle. Can you explain it further?

I just want to understand. Its either that Bungie created the triangle by accident, and then broke it on purpose, or that fans created the idea of the triangle, and then Bungie broke it without knowing

5

> 2533274848599184;4:
> > 2533274883669557;2:
> > Halo was the first console FPS that had designated buttons for melee and grenades. Prior to that, you had to select your melee weapon or grenade from the weapons (like hit “Y” to cycle through all the guns until you get to grenade or baseball bat or some melee thing).
> >
> > So from that came “The Golden Triangle” of gun, grenade, and melee. That was the Halo formula. As long as those three things are at the core of the gameplay, you got some good Halo fun.
> >
> > If you add something that goes too far (like some Halo 4 abilities) that trump any of these, you gotta problem.
> >
> > I found in Halo 5, the abilities didn’t take away from any of these. I thought it was very solid and played great.
>
>
> I remember Bungie saying that they broke the golden triangle specifically, seeing as that is a fan designation. Vehicles and on map pickups kind of ruin a lot of the triangle. Can you explain it further?
>
> I just want to understand. Its either that Bungie created the triangle by accident, and then broke it on purpose, or that fans created the idea of the triangle, and then Bungie broke it without knowing

Well, a vehicle and a power up don’t necessarily ruin it. They’re perks. They’re rewards for successful map control. But if you’re good enough using the golden triangle, you can reclaim the map. If the vehicles and pick ups and power ups make this impossible, then it’s broken truly.

I felt armor lock broke it. Plasmas in loadouts and boltshot camping broke it. If the Boltshot was a pick up with say, 5 shots in it, and plasmas remained map pick ups, they’d be fine. Again, those are benefits of map knowledge.

Maybe they didn’t create it, I don’t know, but getting a few rocket kills or a mongoose splatter doesn’t mean that at the core, underneath it all, there isn’t still gun, melee, and grenade. And you can win a match using nothing but those three even if the other team is taking advantage of all the power weapons and perks (if you’re good enough) and as long as that’s possible, it’s not broken.

Is that possible in Reach and Halo 4? Barely in Reach, and in certain Halo 4 gametypes (or to whatever extent the players abused the loadouts). Is it in CE, H2, and H3? Yes, to varying extent. Is it possible in Halo 5? Yes. A least it was in the beta.

6

Vehicles and powerups/equipment are map advantages that can be earned. AA’s and SA’s are handed out to you for free upon spawning. You didn’t earn those abilities, the game gave them to you. If sprint was turned into a speed boost power up, or if charge became a melee lunge bonus powerup, those would respect Halo’s core. In their current ability forms, they do not.

7

> 2535432359236232;6:
> Vehicles and powerups/equipment are map advantages that can be earned. AA’s and SA’s are handed out to you for free upon spawning. You didn’t earn those abilities, the game gave them to you. If sprint was turned into a speed boost power up, or if charge became a melee lunge bonus powerup, those would respect Halo’s core. In their current ability forms, they do not.

Actually, they do.

They respect the core because everyone has them, they are universal. They are an extension to the core, they aren’t something that interferes or conflicts with it. Everyone can sprint, everyone can charge, everyone can clamber, everyone can thrust. That’s the key here. You aren’t picking 1 from 8 abilities, thus changing what everyone might have, it’s all just another button on the controller at your disposal at any point. The charge and ground pound are an extension to melee. The sprint and thrust are an extension to movement and strafing. The clamber is an extension to jumps. The slide is an extension of ducking. None of these things are disrespecting the core.

  • Guns
  • Grenades
  • Melee
  • Map ControlAll still intact, and as useful as ever.
8

Rom
The core Halo formula can be defined best through the golden triangle. The new abilities don’t really disrupt this formula, its just a few should be better adapted to fit this formula; Let me shoot and use thrusters, basically making it a dodge feature and that’ll work, for example

A few should just be scraped all together for several reasons, but the biggest is sprint. It doesn’t necessarily break the golden triangle, but like with thrusters I cant shoot while sprinting so it doesn’t fit the triangle. But if you make me able to sprint and fire, then there is basically no reason for forward running anyway unless you did some major tweaking to balance it out.

For the most part, Halo 5 isnt incompatible or destructive to what I would say the core elements of Halo are. Its just some of the things that have been implemented don’t mesh all that well with it or have issues that detract from gameplay without adding too many positives

9

Not an easy question. Let’s just focus on the very basics for now.

Halo
Emphasis on strafe duels and unrestricted, omnidirectional movement. Vertical, interesting map design. Control of the map via precision weapons (AR Starts are NOT Halo, the game lacks the fast item respawn times and fast movement to make that even remotely viable). Streamlined use of melee and grenades. Items on the map to compete over, weapons with unique traits viable in different situations. Significant, recharging ‘health’ to further enforce strafing (no, that doesn’t mean two second killtimes, it just means not dying the instant someone hits you). The game is mechanically simple. Everyone starts out the exact same (I don’t entirely agree with this, but you’re going to hear it everywhere, so whatever).

Millitary Shooters
The player is very restricted, moving slow outside of a sprint, having to stop to aim, dying easily, and generally being incapable of jumping. Map designs reflect this by being elongated and flat. Map control via precision weapons is still emphasized. Grenades tend to be A LOT less useful and more restricted. The player chooses their weapons upon spawn, with differences between weapons being quite minuscule. Gameplay tends to revolve around preparing and positioning, instead of moving and shooting (which isn’t bad, but just completely different and incomparable to what Halo is).

Halo 5
The player is somewhat more restricted than a typical Halo game. More emphasis is put on forward movement, and being able to fire your weapon comes at the price of being forced to slow down relative to sprint speed. Players still start out equal and the other aspects of the core still hold true. I think most ideas are hated not because they “break the core”, but rather just because they are fundamentally imbalanced.

10

My core formula would be:

1: equal starts (no BRs because they are power weapons)

2: map control and power weapon spawn control.

3: good flow of combat; ie you use all resources at your disposal like grenades melee and guns