I think I posted this in the wrong place last time, so I’m trying here now.
I’ve seen alot of different threads going around about “wishlists” or suggested changes for Halo 5 matchmaking going around lately. I’m 26 yrs old and have been playing the games in this series since the beginning. I thought maybe I’d weigh in on where I stand on topics such as sprint, flinch, maps, weapon balances, etc. If you’re up for a good debate and a good read, strap yourselves in 
Sprint/Jetpacks:
So, like pretty much everyone else, I was pretty darn excited when Reach came out and Bungie introduced Sprint and Jetpack among other things. Who wouldn’t be excited, right? Sprint seemed to make sense because every other shooter out there had it as standard game mechanic. This especially made sense when you considered how movement speed seemed to slow down significantly in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. So why not, right?
And then there’s Jetpack. I don’t think I need to go in to all the reasons why Jetpack seemed like a great idea. But here’s the thing.
I believe sprint and jetpack have had an adverse affect on the maps since Halo: Reach. I didn’t have many complaints with reach aside from armor lock and the maps being pretty sub par. I will say that dlc maps for Reach were pretty good though. Any way, there’s many videos and discussions out there concerning sprint/jetpack that I tend to agree with. Sprint seemed to force all the maps to be bigger, which makes sense. But when you couple that with the ability to always start with DMR/BR, automatic weapons find themselves at a disadvantage.
Now don’t get me wrong, the weapon balance in Halo 4 is pretty much perfect. Best balance I’ve seen in the whole series. But the map sizes and the way they’re built (long hallways and wide open spaces) seem to accommodate DMR/BR over automatics. And I’m not talking about BTB maps. That’s a given that you should start with precision weapons. I’m talking about team slayer size maps.
One of the things I’ve always loved about Halo is it’s diverse sandbox of weapons/vehicles. It pains me when I see a Halo game that seems to facilitate the use of any one or two weapons more than any other, whether it’s by design or it just happened to turn out that way. Nothing got under my skin more than being pounded with BR starts in Halo 3, or DMR starts in Halo: Reach.
Jetpacks also had a negative impact in my opinion, although I don’t feel as strongly about this as I do about the aforementioned map size/build issue. It’s just my personal opinion that a map that has multiple levels of height should not be bypassed like they are when somebody uses a Jetpack. If I go through the trouble to fight my way to the top areas of a map, I feel a little cheated when some dude just comes flying in out of nowhere dropping grenades like a mad man. And if he dies he can just fly right back up to his high point of advantage again. I think players should have to play to the terrain of the map, not bypass it.
“Perks”
Now I’m just calling these perks, but you guys know what I’m talking about. Perks like explosion, gunner, stability, shielding, etc. At first I welcomed some change to the Halo formula. I was excited to see how it played out. I’m not a huge fan of CoD, but CoD does have it’s good elements. I thought it would be interesting to see Halo utilizing a “perks” type of system.
My problem with these perks is the randomness it brings to the game. And by randomness I mean this. I could be wrong, my memory sucks sometimes, but I believe Halo 3 is where they introduced showing your second weapon being on your back or on your leg, depending on the side. This gave you more information to help make a decision on how to engage someone, or whether you should just run away all together. No more surprise rocket launchers being pulled out of the back pocket at the last second.
The problem with perks is you don’t know what the enemy is using. So it’s like there’s this random variable when it comes to whether or not you win an engagement.
Let’s assume any example engagements I throw out there has both players competing at an equal skill level. Player 1 and Player 2 engage with DMRs in an open field. Player 1 has the steady perk equipped while Player 2 does not. Assuming no outside interference with the fight, Player 1 will win. Player 2 never had a chance from the beginning, but there’s no way he could have known his opponent was using the steady perk. This throws a randomness in to the game that I feel does not belong there. I don’t like random variables I can do nothing about.
Same thing goes for the explosion perk. You don’t know if someone has it equipped, and in the heat of battle when I’m trying to come through in an incredibly clutch moment facing great odds, I want to know that the game/weapons/grenades are going to behave the same all across the board. I don’t want random variables that I can not predict. I don’t want an engagement where I did everything right, but because the enemy had a magic perk in his pocket, I lost. I don’t want to have to worry about a grenade planted at an enemies feet MAYBE finishing him off after I’ve done enough damage to finish off any other normal person without an explosion perk.
Playlists/Map Selection
Hopefully this one shouldn’t take too long. There are alot of different ways to play Halo. Some people like having loadouts to choose from. Some people don’t. Some people like straight DMR starts. Some people like or dislike ordinance in the games. I’ve said this since Halo 3. DIVERSIFY THE PLAYLISTS EVEN FURTHER.
Make a DMR/BR starts only playlists for those who want it. I know there’s many that do (me not being one of them). Make other playlists where perks are allowed/not allowed. I know there are already playlists that take ordinance out of the equation, but put all these different game types in their own playlist so people can play what they want to play. Maybe a toggle system like BF 4 has?
I don’t know about you, but it drives me nuts when I get forced in to playing a specific game type I hate.
On the topic of maps. I’m going to be very brief on the topic of DLC because I know that’s been beaten to death on the forums already. Put simply, I paid for the maps. So I would like to use the maps. I don’t have a huge party of friends I can constantly play with who all have DLC maps, so I never see them. This is an honest question that I don’t intend to sound degrading to 343 at all, but is it really that hard to have the matchmaking system put you in games with others who have DLC maps on a semi regular basis. Honest question because I really am not a tech kind of guy.
Voting vs Veto system. Either or is fine with me I guess. I guess I’d lean more towards Veto system because then at least you wouldn’t have people voting for the same 3 or 4 maps.
I think we’d see more diverse maps being played if playlist were divided up like I suggested before. Because you wouldn’t have people vetoing an awesome map because that map came with a gametype they didn’t like.
My final thoughts. Maybe the answer isn’t removing any feature currently in the game. Everybody likes different aspects of this game, and dislikes others. Maybe the answer is really in dividing up the playlists.
These are all just my opinions.
Hope you get a look at this 343. Can’t wait for Halo 5!!