Oh and the gravity is also a variable that randomly changes so it affects the rate of which the coin can fall. Its only fair for people who are new to coin tossing since it adds some novelty to the factor. God forbid you master flipping a coin to always land on the same side.(It is possible but extremely difficult, here’s a study.)
Finding out where weapons are on the map takes a few minutes of running around the map on your own or in forge and learning the layout. In 3-5 games a player will learn the basic elements of a map simply through experience. If you are catering to a temporary state of inexperience that disappears after a day or two and are designing a randomized weapon drop system to offset this then something went horrible wrong in the design process.
Instead of randomizing the weapon spawns why not set them to spawn at exact location and exact time into the match and have a HUD element that shows you where the spawn is and how long until it respawns again. It gives the aid to the inexperienced players and gives another level of awareness for the higher skilled player while keeping the gameplay as the same experience for both sides of the spectrum. Implement a system hybrid of ODST’s VISR mode and Gears 3 accentuated HUD when pressing SELECT which shows teammates, weapon spawns and objectives. Like the KoTH timer, have such a waypoint visible when the weapon will respawn, while your at it apply this to the flag/bomb reset timer so that players know the status of the flag.
This is an example of balancing the core game to appeal to both Casual and Competitive players and not alienating either side keeping them unified under the same gameplay. The last thing we need is a drastic divide between Casual and Competitive gameplay splintering the already fragile population.
As long as the weapon falls within a set of predetermined locations and also has a HUD notification of its drop point and a timer counting down from at least 30 seconds then not only will it work but it would work very well. A mobile spawn drop system is the most natural way to implement pickups when the gameplay evolves to incorporating entirely customizable player traits and weapons via loadouts. I have no problem with Halo adopting a loadout system alongside Arena/Pickup style gameplay as long as it is done properly and as long as traditional, core Halo gameplay is supported in its own gametype and matchmaking playlists.
> Oh and the gravity is also a variable that randomly changes so it affects the rate of which the coin can fall. Its only fair for people who are new to coin tossing since it adds some novelty to the factor. God forbid you master flipping a coin to always land on the same side.(It is possible but extremely difficult, here’s a study.)
>
> Finding out where weapons are on the map takes a few minutes of running around the map on your own or in forge and learning the layout. In 3-5 games a player will learn the basic elements of a map simply through experience. If you are catering to a temporary state of inexperience that disappears after a day or two and are designing a randomized weapon drop system to offset this then something went horrible wrong in the design process.
>
> Instead of randomizing the weapon spawns why not set them to spawn at exact and exact time into the match and have a HUD element that shows you where the spawn is and how long until it respawns again. It gives the aid to the inexperienced players and gives another level of awareness for the higher skilled player while keeping the gameplay as the same experience for both sides of the spectrum. Implement a system hybrid of ODST’s VISR mode and Gears 3 accentuated HUD when pressing SELECT which shows teammates, weapon spawns and objectives. Like the KoTH timer, have such a waypoint visible when the weapon will respawn, while your at it apply this to the flag/bomb reset timer so that players know the status of the flag.
>
> This is an example of balancing the core game to appeal to both Casual and Competitive players and not alienating either side keeping them unified under the same gameplay. The last thing we need is a drastic divide between Casual and Competitive gameplay splintering the already fragile population.
That’d be too simple a solution man… Its not fair that competitive players are better at the game ya know… Gotta try to muddy the waters and get rid of the skill gap. Makes the game fair for the casual players. 
As long as the weapon falls within a set of predetermined locations and also has a HUD notification of its drop point and a timer counting down from 30 seconds then not only will it work but it would work very well.
I believe the system is going to work similarly to how you wish it to already.
Why you believe it’s random locations and random time intervals is beyond me considering the information released since the reveal.
The system won’t be active in Objective games and is definitely said to not be random in locations.
Whether or not it’s random weapon-types or not, that has yet to be cleared up.
This sounds like it could work, but there is then the possible developement of players camping weapon spawns. If the game says that in this location, at this time, this weapon will spawn, every player may rush over there to get the power weapon they so desire. This gives others a chance to throw grenades & kill everyone, picking up quite a few kills and once the chaos has ended, the player who just racked up tons of kill will just grab the power weapon themself. Thats why I think 343 is going in the direction that they are, of course this is just my take on what could possibly happen. 
I think when people hear random weapon spawns they pay too close attention to the word random.
King of the hill has random hill zones. But in king of the hill can you not learn where the hills spawn and be able to predict their pattern. The hills are not truly random that they spawn where ever they please but in fixed locations that are chosen randomly after a set amount of time.
This is most likely how weapon spawns will work. They will arrive in one of a few predetermined locations that players will have to move to and fight over them after a set respawn time. This is no more random than a game of invasion slayer or king of the hill. Hell these spawns hell promote map movement if anything since you’ll no longer see players stop and wait in a location just for a new sniper riffle. You want that riffle, then you go and get it
Ohh, in King of the Hill I do know when to start moving to a new hill. The odds of gaining early uncontested access to a hill is greatly tilted in my favour by moving towards areas that link to multiple hill locations.
while your at it apply this to the flag/bomb reset timer so that players know the status of the flag.
Yes please.
> Ohh, in King of the Hill I do know when to start moving to a new hill. The odds of gaining early uncontested access to a hill is greatly tilted in my favour by moving towards areas that link to multiple hill locations.
The thing is that while the hill can be set to move in a sequenced order in the gametype settings, when it is random it can stay in the same spot if it so happens to be the next randomly generated location. This was never the case in Halo 3 but is so in Reach, unfortunately.
Sequenced spawning of KoTH certainly is the best way to approach a weapon drop system or at least have 3-4 predetermined locations that it can spawn in.
I don’t really like the idea of a notification popping up on every bodies screen saying that the power weapon has just spawned here.
> I don’t really like the idea of a notification popping up on every bodies screen saying that the power weapon has just spawned here.
And why is that?
It makes it completely fair for everyone regardless of skill or map knowledge which is the only way to do it otherwise it is entirely random.
What if all the weapons fall on the Red side of the map? What is Blue team supposed to do?
The “problem” with your system is that promotes power weapon camping even more then today. As it is now, people have some idea of where and when power weapons spawn, but only the user (Reach) knows exactly when to pick up the next copy.
If people knew where and when a power weapon would spawn, they would make sure to camp the best ones (sniper, rocket) instead of “playing”. The new system gives everyone a fair chance to get power weapons, if you want to, and rewards teamplay since you’ll most likely have to fight to get it.
Camping power weapons won’t be possible since you’ll never know what weapon will appear when and where.
@ Stealth Ninjahh
Somehow I think that 343i, professional game developers, has made sure that the weapon spawns are not one sided. If they managed to put decent weapon spawn with the usual system, they should be able to manage this new system too 
> The “problem”
>
> @ Stealth Ninjahh
> Somehow I think that 343i, professional game developers, has made sure that the weapon spawns are not one sided. If they managed to put decent weapon spawn with the usual system, they should be able to manage this new system too
Ok I hope you’re right
> As long as the weapon falls within a set of predetermined locations and also has a HUD notification of its drop point and a timer counting down from 30 seconds then not only will it work but it would work very well.
This sounds like a nice idea, but how many weapons are on any given map? I think the HUD would get too crowded with waypoints and end up confusing EVERYBODY.
If the waypoints are part of loadouts than your idea may work. Player A has a sniper rifle waypoint, Player B a rocket launcher …
Now I understand not all weapons are on all maps. So to fix this problem there should be a prioritization option in the loadout menu where a player picks his/her top five weapons.
> The “problem” with your system is that promotes power weapon camping even more then today. As it is now, people have some idea of where and when power weapons spawn, but only the user (Reach) knows exactly when to pick up the next copy.
> If people knew where and when a power weapon would spawn, they would make sure to camp the best ones (sniper, rocket) instead of “playing”. The new system gives everyone a fair chance to get power weapons, if you want to, and rewards teamplay since you’ll most likely have to fight to get it.
> Camping power weapons won’t be possible since you’ll never know what weapon will appear when and where.
random doesn’t give everyone one an equal chance to get the weapons, that is just a perception when in reality it is just luck, its not fair for a person to be given an advantage over the other out of luck, the overall out come of such mechanics causes extreme defenseive play which promotes less map movement and more camping.
weapon camping isn’t an issue, it just means that you left a guy sit in one spot for a significant amount of time, its your own fault for letting him stay there and for not taking him out before the weapon spawns so you can grab it instead of him, the weapon camper is also a very very poor teammate since he is putting his team down a person while he selfishly waits for a weapon to spawn and when it does, he gets taken out, he is handing the game to the other team.
weapon camping only works at low level play where people just walk around not caring about power weapons, map positioning and such (kind of how i play lolz)
i went through all this in my topic
> > The “problem” with your system is that promotes power weapon camping even more then today. As it is now, people have some idea of where and when power weapons spawn, but only the user (Reach) knows exactly when to pick up the next copy.
> > If people knew where and when a power weapon would spawn, they would make sure to camp the best ones (sniper, rocket) instead of “playing”. The new system gives everyone a fair chance to get power weapons, if you want to, and rewards teamplay since you’ll most likely have to fight to get it.
> > Camping power weapons won’t be possible since you’ll never know what weapon will appear when and where.
>
> random doesn’t give everyone one an equal chance to get the weapons, that is just a perception when in reality it is just luck, its not fair for a person to be given an advantage over the other out of luck, the overall out come of such mechanics causes extreme defenseive play which promotes less map movement and more camping.
>
> weapon camping isn’t an issue, it just means that you left a guy sit in one spot for a significant amount of time, its your own fault for letting him stay there and for not taking him out before the weapon spawns so you can grab it instead of him, the weapon camper is also a very very poor teammate since he is putting his team down a person while he selfishly waits for a weapon to spawn and when it does, he gets taken out, he is handing the game to the other team.
>
> weapon camping only works at low level play where people just walk around not caring about power weapons, map positioning and such (kind of how i play lolz)
>
> i went through all this in my topic
I have yet to see a rebuttal.
Here is a GIF of an AFK screen grab captured in the latest Halo 4 Multiplayer Interview Video on Game Informer showing the icon for a weapon drop: http://i.minus.com/ibgRS9dgiQon1e.gif
And since I’m such a nice guy:
> Its funny, because one explanation/justification for armor abilities in Reach was because new players didn’t really understand when and how to use equipment in Halo 3.
>
> Now, the justification for moving away from static, timed power weapons is because new players don’t know where power weapons are, or when they will appear. Now you don’t need to watch the clock or learn the map… who cares! Wait for the blinking light to tell you where to pile-on.
>
> Maybe it will be a good thing… its not like more experienced players will just camp the power weapon and grenade the hell out of it while Command Derp and his split screen buddies make a dash for rockets.
<mark>Frankie</mark> says:
> You need to learn the map. They do not spawn in random places, or times. There are systems within systems for time. They can be learned. And there will be new strategies for drops.
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