to 343i
for the newer halo you really need to look back at the past halo games, examine them, read through the forums and look for what you did wrong. if you dont have enough time to sift through all that then let me help you.
Halo as a game: halo is an arena shooter, and it always has been and thats the way it should stay.in this type of game, everyone starts on equal footing, works to get the power weapons and power ups to gain the lead, then maintains map control. custom loadouts do not belong in this game.
A dear franchise changing hands: when you came into the franchise to make halo 4, you wanted to close the obvious huge skill gap inbetween players. how? by implementing custom load outs, massive amounts of bullet magnetism, more 1 shot kill weapons, ordanance,insta-spawns and more aim assist.
true halo fans dont want this, yes it looks nice and neat on paper but in practice its an awful mess that killed off 70 percent of your games population in the first 6 months. you lost a large portions of your fans and arent getting them back.
Custom Games: you completely butchered custom games in halo 4, leaving out many playlist such as vip, assault, juggernaut and others. you simply need to add these back, and remove things like regicide. you killed alot of the features and accessibility and ease of the classic gametype “infection” you are very limited to what you can do, the flood forms are to overpowered, and you are simply stuck to one color. you could simply add the original “infection” gametype back and keep the flood mode in. provided you add alot of customizable options.
Ideas: if your going to make a halo game, then keep the core gameplay the same. make the game slightly slower paced, and remove sprinting, and insta spawn. this removes all the chaos in matchmaking, and removes alot of the frustration players have with killing someone, them immediatly spawning around the corner, running up to you and killing you because you have no time for your shields to recharge.
if you dont want to do this then have different playlist, akin to halo 3’s. which could be
Ranked classic
Ranked infinity
Social classic
Social infinity
whilst keeping the core gameplay from the first 3 halos in the game, you can simply add the infinity style gameplay ontop of it into another playlist.
Characters in matchmaking: the thing i always loved about halo was customizing my spartan, or elite. in the new upcoming halo i would love to see more armor, that is better looking than the ones in halo 4. whilst some of them were cool, alot of theme were totally left out and rarely get used by players.
you should bring back elites into matchmaking aswell, it was always fun to play as an elite, and be different. this was great for machinimas, and just hearing them die, and successfully killing one felt so great.
why not bring back invasion, and a spartan vs elite gametype. many people loved that in halo reach, and is still one of the most played gametypes.