I’m not sure if it’s too late to be making this list due to Halo Xbox One being too far into production already. But if it is I’m hoping most of these issues have been solved and if it’s not too late I’m hoping that they can be implemented into the Halo Xbox One game. Most of these issues on here have been mentioned quite a bit to you already 343. But I just want these issues to be discussed properly and not just you having to read things like “I want this or I dont want that”. I am going to give reason why these issues need to be resolved for the future Halo Xbox One title. Because then you have an actual reasons why these issues bother Halo players and why they are frowned upon. Some of these are issues and some are ideas. I’m not going to ramble on just give a quick explanation.
So here we go:
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Great in-game ranking system that makes you always strive for a goal and keeps you entertained. I’m positive we don’t have to worry about this. Joshua Menke should do a great job.
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Improvements to matchmaking, such as:
Players searching by themselves match with players also searching by themselves. Doubles match with doubles, Triples match triples and so on.
No more Join in Progress, it causes too much of a frustrating feeling for people who want to start off a even sided match when they start searching for a game. Instead they are thrown in a match that is half over and they’re losing. It’s just not enjoyable and if your players are getting frustrated and aren’t enjoying your game then that’s something you do not want. If you gave the Join In Progress player a little something extra for joining in games then it could possibly work such as bonus XP and the loss for that match doesn’t count if his team loses but if his team wins then it counts as a win. But as of now it’s too broken for it to belong in Halo. I would just personally like Join In Progress to be scrapped.
Have a quitting ban. I don’t know how many times players have quit out in matches I have played. And anyone who plays Halo knows if you dont have an even squad that matches the enemy team and your handicapped then you are 99% of the time going to lose no matter how hard you fight. This creates such a frustrating experience online and as I have said before the last thing you want is for players to get frustrated with your game. Their experience needs to be fun and top notch. Give players 3 quits for a 24 hour period. If they quit 3 times in that time period then ban them for a good amount of time such as a full day. Then when they return if they are still quitting out then increase the ban more and more each time. Punish these repeat offenders, you don’t want these players who are ruining the experience for everyone else to be playing your game.
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No sprint except in maybe BTB and Campaign (I’ll explain why only BTB and Campaign later). I know you have heard this a million times but this is how important it is. I mean just think of how much mechanics for Halo 4 you have changed just to accomodate sprint. You had to adjust so many great mechanics that existed in Halo just to make room for one thing that players (Both casual & competitive) don’t enjoy. We understand that you were a new studio and you were going up against the likes of heavy hitter FPS games like Battlefield and Call of Duty and you figured you needed to add this change (sprint) to keep up with these fast paced FPS’s. I even thought that as well for awhile but over these past few months I’ve learned a lot and played a ton of Halo 4 and realized that it doesn’t work in Halo. Halo was always a chess match type of game. It takes patience to make the right moves and with sprint in Halo 4 it doesn’t require that intellect anymore that kept you passionate and super involved about the matches you play. So I’m hoping Halo Xbox One has no sprint. Because I truly believe if it doesn’t then Halo Xbox One is going to end up having a similar population drop that Halo 4 had in matchmaking.
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Bring back Descoping. Just like no sprint I’m sure you guys heard this so many times and I’m 100% positive that it will be in for Halo Xbox One. But I put it on the list regardless. Due to the fact how important it is that descoping is brought back. Since descoping drops the actual skill that was used in gun battles and for sniping. If your game requires more skill then it increases the skill gap that is used in competitive gaming which makes for a much better experience for players because ranks and knowing who is better can actually matter and be shown. Plus not taking players out of scope when you shoot them is just frustrating. Especially when you shoot a sniper and right after you shoot him he shoots you in the head and your done for. All because he didn’t get zoomed out of scope.
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No more stopping the actions you do like moving or extracting a site or anything at all when you press the back/select button to check the scoreboard to see who is alive and dead. This is the first Halo that this has been in and I have no idea why it was put in. But please fix this. Your taking away a key strategy that players used to use when in game to determine their routes and how they help their teammates by making callouts to tell them how many are alive on the enemy team.
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No bloom on any weapons, at all. It creates too much randomness in the game and randomness is not good for Halo. Halo has always been a meticulous straight forward shooter and that’s what people loved about it.
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Decrease the unscoped and scoped sniper magnetism and range. It’s much too easy to shoot, especially with beam rifle. Make sniping a skill again.
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Camo back as power up like OS. I don’t need to tell you how broken this feature is to give players a spawn weapon as powerful as camo. Put it back as a power up pick up like OS and this would be amazing and fix so many frustrating situations that you put your players in. Plus it adds to that classic Halo mechanic of going to pick up Camo on the map when it dropped and use it to your advantage in a situation which was amazing.
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No more auto pick ups of Flag, Oddball, etc. It’s a frustrating mechanic to deal with when your in a firefight with enemies and you happen to strafe over the ball or flag and you get killed because of it.
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No more getting to choose sticky grenade as spawn weapon. Put back as map pick up and increase damage and range. Stickys were such a great tool to use in Halo when you picked them up. Bring them back exactly how they were in Halo 2 with the big blue plasma emitting from them. I loved that, seeing those huge plasmas get thrown and seeing that big blue plasma get stuck on the enemy and him knowing he’s screwed and seeing that big blue inferno of an explosion and then seeing that awesome medal that would pop up with the words that said you stuck him. Would be so epic if this was in Halo Xbox One.
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Tweak Promethean Vision, reduce time when its in use and increase the interval in which it recharges to when you can use it again. Also don’t show the people in red who are crouched only show the blue outline when they are crouched.
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Tweak Hardlight Shield to be able to Melee through it. Have it take damage and break if enough damage is taken. Don’t change the fact that the spartan holding the hardlight can’t recharge his mjolnir armour shield while he uses it.
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I seriously would like for the Jet Pack to be removed from the game the great thing about Halo was how positioning was utilized in Halo. Everything was so grounded and you needed to learn jumps and routes to take to get to those areas you wanted to be in. And now with Jet Pack players are just lifting up in the air and tarnishing that once great skill of route decision making. It’s an unfair advantage to the ones using Jet Packs and the ones stuck on the ground using actual skill to get to top area for flanking and battling. Also their is nothing more frustrating then taking a guy no shield and he goes around a corner then you push him and he is nowhere to be found then all of a sudden you get two nades from the above and by time you realize it hes shot you down because he lifted 30 feet in the air. It’s a broken concept and it needs to be taken out. Please 343.
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Improved spawn system, needless to say the spawn system in Halo 4 needs work and some upgrades. There are some pretty ridiculous spawns that happen in the games I play. Enemy players spawning beside me and just general tweaks are needed for spawning. A forced spawn system would be nice.
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Improved menu and lobby. Menu music is way too loud. And lobby is just not user friendly. The names are sideways and it’s hard to keep track of everything. Just keep it simple but super useful. Just like in Halo 3 but with great improvements.
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Improved theatre mode. Let me see the other players first person views when I switch to them. Better fast forwarding and rewind system. Allow me to hear the in game chat that my team was making during the game. And allow me to record multiple clips back to back instead of just recording a piece of footage and then having to save it right away, would be great for montages.
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Bring back individual uses for weapons like the plasma pistol and plasma rifle (bring back the plasma rifle). Like in Halo:CE where the plasma rifle slowed players movements down. Have the plasma pistol be not completely useless. Something similar to Halo:CE and Halo 2 where the plasma pistol slowed players down if you shot fast enough and bring its use back as a noob combo. Would be a great strategy to have in the future Halo to pick up these weapons on the map and use them in scenarios just like classic Halos. Obviously the plasma pistol charged shot magnetism will have to be not as strong as Halo: CE but maybe around Halo 2’s. This weapon would have to be taken out as a spawn tool as well.
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Spectator mode, you know it’s important for competitive Halo. We know it’s super important because it helps excel your game to a competitive level so let’s just leave it that.
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Have Halo Xbox One be on MLG!!! This is probably one of the biggest things that needs to happen 343. You have seen the success of competitive Halo through the Global Championships. Even just this year League of Legends had their World Championships and when I tuned into Twitch there was over 400,000 people watching. Their was thousands in attendance and probably thousands more watching from other sites and places. This could be your game, competitive gaming is growing and this is the future of it. It’s amazing. Bring Halo back to MLG.
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No more random ordinances in Infinity Slayer. Give preset orders to what weapons and power ups each player gets from the less powerful weapons and power ups to more and more better weaponry and power ups with each kill and assist you get to earn these ordinances. Also when you choose to drop ordinances with the D-pad don’t make them drop at such random locations from where you wanted it go. It’s frustrating having to run around the map a mile away just to get your ordinance you called for.
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We need leaderboards and in depth stats. This gives your players so much more to play for besides their ranks. Competing against your friends and the world and people in your match lobby for supremacy in the leaderboards. Stats give players that interesting in depth look into how they play and how they are with each weapon, map and whatever else. Just like ranks though I believe we will have these because I believe Josh Menke will do a great job and include this.
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Improved playlists. More selections and better selections. I have an example list of some playlists that could work. Such as:
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Assault (Change the objective game mode every week)
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Team Objective (Oddball, KOTH, 1-Site Extraction, Assault, Capture the Flag, Ricochet) (4v4)
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Capture the Flag (5v5)
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Infinity Slayer
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Legendary Slayer
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Team Throwdown (I think throwdowns name should simply be changed to something like MLG or Pro Gaming. It just makes it more noob friendly so people looking at the list see this name and know exactly what it has in it. Which is the game modes from Ghostayame that the pro’s use in tournaments)
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Community Throwdown (Mix of Throwdown settings/game modes and Community voted settings/game modes)
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Rumble Pit
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Team Doubles
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Team Snipers
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Multi-Team
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SWAT
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Team Action Sack with Flood & Grifball
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Big Team Battle (16 vs 16)
And whatever other great playlists you guys can come up with.
These next few ideas are coming from casual side of Halo in me. I’m a bit of a mix of casual/competitive I like both sides of Halo. I lean more towards competitive but still like taking it easy once in awhile and just play a game that is a blast with friends and or all by my lonesome. So here we go:
As you can see I also put Flood and Grifball in with Team Action Sack in the playlist section above. I believe it’s time to do this. I see Action Sack as a playlist where all these amazing mini games in Halo can be played which is why I would love for all the games in Action Sack to include all these great games such as Grifball, Flood, Tremors, Tower of Power, Michael Myers, Gun Game (just like Call of Duty, every kill you get you get a better weapon. When someone assassinates you or beats you down then you go back a weapon) and everything else in Action Sack. Imagine all these amazing games in Halo that we all grew up playing plus new ones that you guys could come up with all in this great playlist. This needs to be done.
- While I’m on the subject of Flood. This game mode needs to be fixed. Most lovers of the game infected didn’t like the tweaks you guys made to the game, me included. Just switch it back to how infected was normally played with the flood being able to move at the same speed as everyone else. And no more armour abilities, just simple and classic
Infected. Make great maps for this. The greatest map to play this on was Halo 2’s Foundation where the survivors would hide in a room and melee boxes in the way to try and block the door and hordes of infected would come through the door. It was so much fun to play. Also I liked the way you made the Flood Spartans look, that was great. Other than that please bring back classic infected settings
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Environmental damage in BTB and just all around more madness. That’s what we play BTB for to have a blast and more madness would create this. Everything should be affected by the damage the players do. All the way from the sand and ground creating craters from explosion to trees bursting and flying and toppling down to huge building structures that come crashing down creating havoc. Also have more players 32 vs 32 battles or even 16 vs 16 if 64 players is not possible. Have a wide array of vehicles from driveable pelicans to warthogs and tanks. And have huge maps, with all this chaos and these number of players your going to need to have huge maps. And I can just imagine the sick maps you guys can make from the epic landscapes and beautiful space canvases that exist in the Halo universe. This is why I would like BTB to have sprint. It compliments the chaos that makes BTB exciting. Example: You get hit by an explosion and your warthog you were driving flips over and is damaged beyond repair so you get out and start running for cover. Hit a wall and hide behind it. Get your shield and start laying some covering fire for your teammates. Same goes for Campaign for sprint. Stuff like this would make BTB amazing. Mix that in with Environmental damage and it would be mind blowingly fun.
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Bring the pelican to BTB multiplayer already. People have been asking for this since Halo:CE. So why not give them this? Have one pilot, one gunner and 6 extra seats for transport available on the pelican. Let the pilot have two sets of ways he can drive the pelican from the touch of a button he can go to jet mode which turns the pelican fast and jet like. Then have a chopper mode once he presses the button again this turns the thrusters down and lets him hover for when he wants to land, provide cover fire with his chain gun he can use or just to manuever around areas with the slower more better handling speed.
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Bring back Blood Gulch and Midship. PLEEEAAASSEE! I’ll cry some manly tears of joy if this happens. And don’t give Blood Gulch a random name just return it’s name to Blood Gulch again. That would be great. Unless there is a reason why this can’t be done then that’s fine just bring us back some Blood Gulch and Midship.
So with that said 343 I’m seriously hoping Halo Xbox One is all this and it is amazing because I believe with two back to back games that the Halo community didn’t enjoy as much as they should have with Reach and 4. I think Halo Xbox One is the last chance before competitive Halo is long gone and Halo players in general lose that hope in their game, you do not want that. None of us do. No pressure right? Lol anyway if I came off ignorant in some spots that was not my intention and I apologize if I did. You guys are doing an amazing job and I really mean that I just want our beloved Halo to be the best it can be.
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Better connection with servers (PLEASE! I know there’s going to be dedicated servers, but I think the seriously need to work with the connection).
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Mix the new art style with the darker and linear older art style. It’ll look a lot like the Halo Xbox One trailer.
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Bring back Hornets.
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Elites in multiplayer.
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Add back some older weapons.
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For custom classes, get rid of the Boltshot and Plasma grenades and put them back on maps.
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The multiplayer needs to be complete during the release of the game.
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Make remakes of Lockout and Bloodgulch
I know this is asking a lot, but I hope 343 puts some of these back in!
For a while there I thought I might’ve found the one post about suggestions that I completely agreed with, but then you mixed Zombies and Grifball in with Action Sack.
Zombies needs it’s own playlist, Bungie caught on to this when they realized that every Living Dead weekend in Halo 3 had a Ton of people playing. Reach’s Living Dead playlist sucked for several reasons, but it normally held 10k players. Were it not for Flood sucking even more, then Halo 4’s playlist could have had similar numbers.
This is not a minigame, it’s an extremely popular gametype that has long exceeded that label. If anything I’d suggest remaking popular community maps, or brand new versions if time is found, so that there would be 5 Zombie maps in the playlist off launch: 1 Journey map, 2 Open Survival maps, 1 Defend the House map, and 1 Drive or Die map.
Grifball has always been a popular gametype as well, there’s no need for consolidating it when it has had a history of a loyal and numerous player count.
Lastly, with all these gametypes like: Jenga, Michael Myers, Gun Game, Fiesta, Team Splasers, Golf?, Race, etc. there is no benefit to consolidating 2 of the most popular similar gamemodes into Action Sack.
I dont know how much of this is going to get looked at, let alone implemented, but man! How did you write so much? Where did you find the time? lol.
On a serious note, i do think that the flood were lacking in terms of appearance, compared to what i’m used to anyway. If 343 listens to the many member who are suggesting that multiplayer be divided in two; Competitive, casual, and then further divided into sub-lists; classic + social for both playlists, then this could be very well achievable. the casual list can have all of the gametypes that do have armor abilities and perks in what not in the social section, whilst in the classic section, they can be in the form of equipment. In the competitive list, you’ll have pretty much close to nothing except for weapon pick-ups on maps BUT this way 343 atleast will be catering for both communities. Those who enjoy classic Halo can play in the competitive list and those who don’t mind the new additions can go to the social list! This can happen, IT IS DO-ABLE. The devs just need to know how to handle it properly.
I was in a train of thought and never really thought that one thoroughly. Great points you made and I agree with it I just want some Grade A playlists and Grifball and Flood/Infected should have their own playlists but I still would love Action Sack to include some of those amazing custom gametypes that we played in previous Halo’s. Like Michael Myers, Tremors, etc. Thanks for your input hopefully 343 is listening.
Haha yah It took me awhile to conjure this monster up. But yes I agree that is one thing I should have put on the playlists section that the communities of casual and competitive should have seperate playlists to choose from. Halo 3 did a great job on this and it should make it’s return in full force and some tweaks and upgrades.
> I was in a train of thought and never really thought that one thoroughly. Great points you made and I agree with it I just want some Grade A playlists and Grifball and Flood/Infected should have their own playlists but I still would love Action Sack to include some of those amazing custom gametypes that we played in previous Halo’s. Like Michael Myers, Tremors, etc. Thanks for your input hopefully 343 is listening.
It’s no problem, I usually forget about things in the detail that I would like to when posting. And with the monster of a post you wrote I’m impressed with how well you put things down.
I hope they listen too.
Thanks man. I hope for the same outcome.