NOTE: This post is inspired by Trio of Kings’ earlier post about his own ideas on Firefight. I’m posting seperately because my ideas are very different. I would include a link but the mobile site is very bad at that. Anyways…
Here’s what I believe. Firefight could be the most adaptable mode yet. With potential for so many gake modes, a wide variety of enemies, and such a massive arsenal of weapons and vehicles, I believe anything could be created here. I’ll give short descriptions on all of the important things.
Modes:
- Holdout: Holdout would be the traditional Halo: Reach survival mode we all know and love. It would be highly editable - players could have one life or unlimited, face off against any number of waves against any kind of enemy, and be equipped with any weapons. It would play just like Reach’s firefight and have the same custimization options. This is for all Firefight players who like it as it is. Weapons/rewards would be retrieved upon winning a round, like Reach.
- Tycoon: I think the best comparison I could find here would be to Gears of War 3’s Horde mode. The main gameplay feature with Tycoon would be a point-based purchase system - this is how the player would get new items. Killing enemies and completing objectives given every few waves will give the player this money. With money, they can buy all sorts of things, including weapons, vehicles, AI support, fortifications, or map-specific elements. Waves would work similarly to Horde; the number of waves would be preset, but with each wave more enemies with better weapons would appear. At each 10th wave, there could be some sort of boss and at the 11th wave enemies reset to their first wave power but with some extra modifiers. The wave thing could probably be changed around by the players, though.
- Dynamic: This is for players who want a completely different experience on each reset, even when playing the same map and gamemode. Waves would still escalate in difficulty but could have different kinds of enemies each wave. For instance, wave 6 would contain Covenant. Wave 7, however, contains Flood. Wave 8 could even combine them, with both factions coming in from different entry points. Another feature of dynamic would be (lots of) map-specific events. For instance, if playing in a Forerunner Ruins area, one special objective could be to deactivate a pillar that suddenly activates. Also, these objectives would have specific enemies to spawn with them. For instance, you’d have to kill Prometheans while deactivating the aforementioned pillar, but you would kill Flood when a Flood nest pops up nearby. Weapons and rewards would be obtained through objectives, and would also occur randomly. Something that could be turned on or off would be a modifier wheel, which provides some effect (good, bad, or neutral) every few rounds. Dynamic would be the gamemode with the most possibilities.
- Dynamic Tycoon: This one kind of speaks for itself. It combines the dynamic elements with the point-based weapon acclimation system. One of the prime differences would be that money would be awarded from missions instead of other things, and that most things on the map will cost anywhere from the same to 3 times more due to money being easier to acquire.
Enemies:
- Covenant:
Grunts: low health, variety of weapons (plasma pistol, needler, fuel rod cannon, can wield plasma cannon, can drive shades/ghosts)
Jackals: low health, fast, defensive/sniper roles (wield either energy shields and plasma pistol or needler, OR storm rifle, covenant carbine, beam rifle)
Elites: variable health and weapons, practically any role and any weapon; different tactics based on ranks (some use jetpack or stealth modules), drive any Covenant vehicles
Hunters: tank role, wield heavy armor and shields, weapon similar to fuel rod, strong melee attacks
Drones: flight, low health, plasma pistols or needlers
- Prometheans:
Crawlers: low-to-medium health, quick, can walk on walls, use several Promethean weapons depending on class (boltshot, surpressor, binary rifle)
Knights: high health, can summon one watcher, can teleport, higher ranks have the ability to warp to enemies and slash them with blade, use all Promethean weapons excluding boltshot
Watchers: medium health, flight, flee when near death, provide hardlight shields for crawlers/knights, can throwback grenades, can summon crawlers/turrets, can revive knights, use boltshots
*Paladins: very high health, tank role, use hardlight chaingun and hardlight battleaxe, can stomp similarly to Mantis
- Flood:
Infection Form: very low health, often seen in swarms, can turn elites/humans into combat forms, *can combine into carriers or podwires, no attack other than jumping on enemies
*Podwire Form: low health, can jack into and control vehicles, can control knights/watchers/paladins, no attack
Carrier Form: low health, explode when shot enough or near enemies, release infection forms upon explosion, slow, no attack other than explosion
Combat Forms: low-to-medium health, can use practically any weapon, **can use vehicles, some elite forms have shields, occasionally come back to life unexpectedly
Pure Form: medium-to-high health, have three forms: quick w/ no attack, immobile w/ turret like spike shot, or tank w/ heavy melee, rarely spawn infection forms, adaptable with environment and scenario
- Not a real enemy or ability. All other enemies and abilities are real.
** Possible in Halo 2, but no other games in the series.
Other Features:
- Map-Specific Features: I did already mention this but I want to touch down on a few specifics. Mainly, dynamic would truly be dynamic as each map would have such different objectives and occurences. Some other features might be specific things, like a gate that opens and closes every 5 minutes, or MAC turrets that can be activated to shut down enemy air oppostion temporarily.
- Map and Objective Editing: Before anybody tries using AI pathfinding as an obstacle, Far Cry 4’s editor creates navigation mashes for you - AFTER you create the terrain. Even if we can’t build maps from scratch, we should still be able to edit elements of maps or create spawn points or custom waves for maps. Just saying.
Summary: Anything is possible with Halo 5 firefight. Hopefully, 343 will do something with the fabled survival mode. What do you guys think of my ideas? What are some of your own?
