Us “complainers”, at least speaking for myself here, are concerned over three things and only three things.
- Unlockable mods and armor abilities.
The problem with this is that it takes away the idea of “fair” play, in Halo one never had to worry about a player in the opposite team having the advantage due to something that the player he is facing has not “unlocked” yet, any little thing like re-loading faster, running faster, or more capacity per clip can change the outcome of an engagement almost definitely.
Halo has always been about “if he has it? So do I, it’s just that he is better at using it than I am and therefore I should get better with that”.
The reason so many prefer Halo over any other MP is because of this equality.
- Instant respawn.
The issue here is a bit hard for you to understand seeing as how almost no one sees the flaw of such a mechanic due to countless hours of games like CoD, but the flaws at least to me are obvious.
Lets assume that you are in an engagement in Halo 4 with the new Instant respawn feature active, you are facing two memebers of the opposing team on a fairly small map, something around the size of “Zealot” from Halo: Reach, and you manage, with your skills, to defeat both opposing players, and in turn are left in a very fragile state, even probably with a less-then-ideal weapon.
In Halo: Reach you would be able to reassert yourself by leaving the area, regaining your health and shield and if you knew the map well enough, you would also upgrade to a far more ideal weapon for the fights that will come your way.
But with Halo 4, if this new feature is brought in, this would be nearly impossible, your chances of being killed by the first opponent you took out would be almost guaranteed due to the fact that he was able to instantly respawn after you killing him, with the weapon of his choice and armor ability of his choice and “Perk” of his choice to make sure he takes you down before your shields probably even have a chance to reach full capacity.
The outcomes of matches would no longer be decided by key engagements throughout the duration of the match and instead may turn into a match of everyone heading to the same spot over and over again just to “mop up”, this of course would be done by both sides seeing as how it would be a sound strategy.
- The last thing we are concerned with is “drop-in, drop-out”.
The issue here is that it will no longer promote the investment into the match that was once there for all previous Halo games.
Get too frustrated due to getting whooped, its fine! Just quite and it will be ALL better.
That is not Halo, every match was YOUR match, no one was going to come in or out, the guys on the other team were set as your advesaries, your team was also set, wins and losses depended on your investment in that match, you didnt have to worry about “walking” into a match that was already practically over just to see the screen tell you you’ve lost.
And yes while this does “fix” the issue with quitters, it really only conforms to their ways as opposed to being on the side of people who only “quit” when they get dropped by their bad internet connection and who don’t quit just because they are getting their -Yoink- handed to them.
One last thing too, while it may not be as big of a deal as the three issues stated above, it does deserve some attention.
Making sprint an ability that is standard pretty much makes the person using jetpack the most mobile thing in the game, so the combination of sprint with any other armor ability might not be as advantageous as someone who masters their movement in a map by being able to not only move quickly on the ground but also able to move quickly in vertical spaces.
I know that to some of you, these options sound great but I do believe that these changes are not the type that will improve Halo, Halo has always been a franchise that was able to burn its own trail, not follow in ones made by others.
I think there are ways to improve Halo that do not involve having to include these features from all the other online shooters.
My two cents.