Make Halo 5 more like Halo’s CE-3, and people who left the series will come back in swarms (trust me, I know many people who couldn’t put up with all of the gimmicks in Reach and just stopped, some people even with Halo 3). People complain CoD stays the same game; which is true, with just a few minor changes and tweaks. However, their community wants it that way, and each therefore title sells better than the one before it. You guys keep saying you want “Change” but all your changing is the amount of players (notice how week 1 players dropped out quicker than ever before). People don’t want to play a gimmicky CoD close when they boot up Halo. They want to play Halo. The numbers of returning players alone scream that.
Yet you say you don’t want a Halo 3.5; you want change. You now have Reach 2. You’ve run in a complete circle from where you started. What you don’t realize, is with complaining about the population dropping so early, is that you are saying you want a Halo 3.5. You want a game that is fun at first, but keeps you coming back. Halos 2 and 3 nailed that. Halo 2 wasn’t even touched by another game until Gears 2. Let that sink in. It held the spot for most played game for years, without interruption. Halo 3 was constantly going between first or second, all the way up to when Reach came out, 3 years later. It took on MW2, and still kept trading places with it. Why? Because Halos 2/3 had something for everyone. Want to play a competitive game with people around your skill level? Great! Just load up one of the many Ranked playlists. Want to just relax and mess around? No problem, load up one of Social playlists.
Also: The stats on Bungie, for Halo 3, were miles better than they are here for Halo 4. Sorry, but it’s true. Simple, easy to read, provided everything on one page, with map and gametype breakdowns a click away. Now? We have to dig through pages with these long and annoying load times, for stats that are incomplete in comparison.
Want to bring people back? Because it doesn’t need to start 2-3 years down the road when Halo 5 comes out. No, just give this game the right care, the core ideas of Halo are buried underneath the crust of gimmicks. And that crust is thick, but its possible to start trimming it, building Halo back to where it could, and should be. People don’t want to get rid of a few certain things? Make a playlist with them and without them. Don’t make everyone suffer, and leave a game with the potential this one has, because some are stubborn and can’t live without every playlist having their favorite gimmick.
Feel free to add anything else. Note: I decided not to touch on Custom Games, and their disappointing lack of options, because I could write another entire page on those alone.