Halo 1.5 ideas & suggestions

[Stark]

Nne of the suggestions you made that haven't been made elsewhere in the thread are anything but 'I don't like it'. Regenerating health has little or anything to do with multiplayer; it facilitates the fast twitch play Bungie wants by keeping up the pace. Arguably the only thing wrong with the rifles is that they make most of the other guns useless, because their 'defined role' was sucking, missing, and being unreloadable.

[Pulp Hero]

Regenerating health makes it much easier for the leading player in a multiplayer game to stay on top comparing to non regenerating health, because the player's health is continually whittled down without the regeneration.

The rifles are too good, I'm a DMR/Battle Rifle whore and I make an absolute killing with them. That's why a slightly better (but not as good as a DMR) assault rifle is the answer to a balanced middle range weapon.

For someone who is bitching about me wanting to kill the fast pace of the game, you don't seem to understand the purpose of plasma rifles- they drop shields fast. Maybe a new game should include recharging stations for them (as suggested earlier in the thread), or maybe a recharge that temporarily weakens the player's shields as it siphons off energy.

Most of my other suggestions were mainly cosmetic.

[Stark]

So what you really want is objective play and to stop playing DM. Halo's multi is suck in 1999, but I seriously doubt the average Halo player cares, and you don't need to break SP to 'fix' it.

[Pulp Hero]

How does it break SP? And was does objective based play have to do with anything? You aren't making sense.

[adam_grif]

It doesn't "Break" SP but regenerating health makes it much easier to balance the game because the designers can always assume that the player has full health when strolling into every new encounter.

[Stark]

Yeah, adding tiresome healthpacks and shit is going to totally change the flow the Bungie plans for all their games. Of course, simply having a 'multi Pulp Hero likes that isn't Halo' option in the multi server setup is probably better than 'change a basic element of the playstyle because Pulp Hero doesn't like it'.

And objective based play means a) you don't have to kill the 'top player' and b) nobody cares if you kill people at all. That Halo is so married to DM and TDM in 2010 is fucking mindboggling.

[Vendetta]

Regenerating health makes it much easier for the leading player in a multiplayer game to stay on top comparing to non regenerating health, because the player's health is continually whittled down without the regeneration.

That depends entirely on the lethality of weapons. Regenerating health doesn't do much good if you can be killed by a single headshot or grenade.

[aieeegrunt]

One of Halo's strengths is its clearly defined weapons. In Halo every weapon had a distinct purpose. That is one of the things that sets it apart from other high profile shooters; I am suggesting a return to the more clearly defined weapon roles that have been lost as the series has gone on.

My suggestion to give the assault rifle a zoom is not to make it more "tacticool", but to remove the need for a DMR/ Battle Rifle or relying on the pistol's zoom feature for some middle distance weaponry.

Can't agree more. Give the AR a zoom and more powerful bullets, restrict it to single shot when zoomed but spreads like a bitch when autofired and you can prune the weapon list dramatically. Sometimes less is indeed more.

Same thing with recharging health- it was a strength of the first Halo game to balance out the multiplayer and put some dents in the domination by better players.

Absolutely. In Halo CE it wasn't enough just to better than the opposition, you had to get the kill and not lose health in the process. There was a much bigger skill gradient. The noob could at least wear you down, either eventually killing you or forcing you to break for a health pack, this made the game more enjoyable for everybody except assholes. The regen health Halo's by the time the guy spawned and you fought again your health would regen, thus making his efforts pointless. This is fun for no one, again except assholes.

Yeah, I fucking know about the armor abilities in Reach, but this thread is about incorporating improvements from subsequent games into a remake of Halo, if you haven't heard. Some of the armor abilities are useful and should be brought forward.


How do these or other suggestions make this game "not Halo"?

....but making it Gears of Call of Halo with iron sight mechanics which negate strafing does not apparently. Hey what's this zoom button? And I'm knocked out of zoom when taking hits? There's your suppression mechanic right there.

[Sarevok]

The recharging shield+non regen health was perfect. It protected you from death by a thousand paper cuts. At same time it ensured permanent damage for taking risks. It was quite simply the best of the both worlds.

[Stark]

It really wasn't, because the health section was so small it was dramatically less relevant. If the health section is larger, the regenerating shield is meaningless. Having to use specific tactics to bring down shields quikcly? OMG THINK OF THE NOOBS!

Oh man, delete weapons because you make other weapons the same! Halo has no alt-fire for ... some... reason. It's pretty sad when people can complain about it being so hard to kill highend players when a) matchmaking b) teamplay c) who cares about k/d, but Halo is a pretty primitive game MP-wise. The idea that 'lose zoom on hit' is a meaningful 'suppression' mechanic is utterly laughable; in other games WOBBLING THE WHOLE SCREEN is totally ineffective.

Also itt irons negate strafing. BTW, Gears has no irons. Oops.

[aieeegrunt]

Indeed, it made the gameplay much deeper than running, gunning and then hiding in a corner for a few minutes. Reach improved it the only way it needed improvement, which was making it so you didn't automatically pick it up by strafing over it. This prevented you from accidentally grabbing it when you were at 90% health and shafting a team mate that was in one red bar left territory.

[Stark]

You know there are games with higher lethality than Halo, but regenerating health, right? Hell, some games even put the timer so long that it has no practical use in combat beyond 'health packs are lame', and - biggest shock of all - some games even have teamplay so that other people can provide healing.

This is probably difficult to understand for people who only play Halo multi, of course.

[Bottlestein]

Moar plasma grenades. Plasma grenades that you can detonate after an arming delay.

A half-life type "Gravity Gun"

Also, you get the gravity hammer, along with a jetpack that makes you move like a Ghost. And then, in this mode, you play all the campaigns

I second all the previous posts suggesting Master Chief, and some of the enemies move like UT.

[Stark]

I kinda wish instead of adding a pile of guns that either suck or make existing guns redundant, they'd kept the factions distinct. As it is both sides have a similar but different example of each weapon type, which just adds to the redundancy. Since the Cov is so factionalised, continuing with the Halo thing of distinct weapons would have been more interesting - and as a bonus the player couldn't just carry the two battle rifles around all the time.

[Pulp Hero]

It really wasn't, because the health section was so small it was dramatically less relevant. If the health section is larger, the regenerating shield is meaningless. Having to use specific tactics to bring down shields quikcly? OMG THINK OF THE NOOBS!

Oh man, delete weapons because you make other weapons the same! Halo has no alt-fire for ... some... reason. It's pretty sad when people can complain about it being so hard to kill highend players when a) matchmaking b) teamplay c) who cares about k/d, but Halo is a pretty primitive game MP-wise. The idea that 'lose zoom on hit' is a meaningful 'suppression' mechanic is utterly laughable; in other games WOBBLING THE WHOLE SCREEN is totally ineffective.

Also itt irons negate strafing. BTW, Gears has no irons. Oops.

See this is my issue with what you are saying.

Apparently you want a game that isn't Halo. You want iron sights and medic classes. You keep talking about how the MP is so primitive, and want to add all kind of widgets that have no place in it.

And yes, I will "think of the noobs" that's exactly it. Good players will still beat less skilled players, but it won't be a complete assraping. No one has a good time when a game is that one sided.

And unzooming a sniper is effective if you know how to do it.

I am talking about minor tweaks to create a game very close to the original Halo, but with the strengths of its predecessors, you're talking about...well I'm not sure what you want. It seems you are just taking every opportunity to bash the games and vaguely suggest they be something totally different than they are.

[Stark]

Halo isn't (or shouldn't be) married to multiplayer circa 1992. If you're going to complain that running around like a chicken with its head cut off is more 'balanced' with xyz feature so that you can 'get the top player', that's great, but DM and TDM still suck.

You know what I do when matchmaking puts me in a match with players outside my skill level? I leave. I don't demand the game change (well, outside the appalling matchmaking every game has, but whatever).

When all you care about is the multi, and Counterstrike is actually for-serious better multi, you've got a problem. I feel there's a difference between 'what should Bungie have done to make the entire series not shit, particularly regarding their awful storytelling and bogus balance' and 'change multi to be what I want because I'm too lazy to just change to a different game'.

I mean holy shit, my k/d is a terrible .96 and I just had a round where I contributed, had fun and outscored higher-ranked players. Give the players something to do besides shoot each other? NOT ON BUNGIE'S WATCH LOL

[aieeegrunt]

I see in the December edition of OXM that Team Deathmatch is being added to Gears 3. According to Cliffy B, this is because the majority of players want some objective play, but mostly they just want the old arcade spawn and kill.

Welcome to 1992!

Meanwhile the customization options in Firefight will keep me busy for a long time; I have'nt touched Horde since, and I doubt I ever will. I will most certainly have to get a second xbox though; both my wife and my daughter love Reach, and there is that uncomfortable staredown for the second controller when I start playing. Poor primitive Halo. Reach certainly raised the bar as far as multiplayer goes, I can't wait to see what Horde looks like in Gears 3 now that Gears has been delayed for a year and they have time to encorporate some of those ideas.

And that is my clever attempt to wrench this thread back on topic; a Halo CE remake must have Reach's firefight. The larger maps like Sidewinder, Blood Gulch and Damnation could certainly work and defending the Cartographer Island with 7 other Spartans from wave after wave of Covvie landing craft would be fun.

[CaptHawkeye]

I played maybe 1 or 2 matches of Warzone in Gears 2. I had my fill of that game mode in the first title. Gears 2 upwards of 90% of my play was Horde mode.

Reach's "Horde Mode" sucks because you respawn right in the middle of a fight. So there's no tension in keeping team mates alive and fighting the Covenant at the same time.

[aieeegrunt]

Every match of Firefight I've played you have a limited life pool, so every death counts, I have no idea where this "unlimited respawns" bullshit is coming from. Failing to keep your team mates alive results in your life pool emptying. You can pick your spawn point in Firefight, the game will even warn you in bright bold letters if the spawn point you have selected is enemy occupied, you only respawn in the middle of a fight at your own choice. Horde's implementation is different but the end result is the same; lack of teamwork scrubs your squad from the game. I see that Gears 3 will have a "self revival" mechanism if you are downed, but I don't know if that applies to all or just parts of multiplayer or single player or whatever. I'm assuming that Gears 3 Horde will have more customization options when it comes out, that would definetly get me back into playing it.

[Vendetta]

Every match of Firefight I've played you have a limited life pool, so every death counts, I have no idea where this "unlimited respawns" bullshit is coming from.

Firefight Matchmaking on Reach is unlimited spawns on most game modes. It's a competitive high scores game not a survival mode, you're not in a team, you're competing to see who can kill most things most impressively.

The only mode that required teamwork was Generator Defence, which no-one played because it wasn't rocketfight. The competitive nature of matchmaking FF is why they turned off friendly fire in it, because people used to deliberately take each other's shields off so they died but it wasn't a betrayal, leaving a power weapon or a herd of enemies to kill.

I see in the December edition of OXM that Team Deathmatch is being added to Gears 3. According to Cliffy B, this is because the majority of players want some objective play, but mostly they just want the old arcade spawn and kill.

Or maybe they just want to not be spectating for half a match, because standard competitive Gears is Team Survival, so when you've been killed once you're just spectating for the rest of the match. Which is significantly more dull than actually playing the game. This is why no-one plays Gears 2 but people still play Halo 3 and CoD4 even though those games have had two sequels in the intervening time.

[Stark]

Going by my Reach experience, people play Halo because they're morons. I don't think I've ever played team survival; everyone plays annex or guardian, which have waved respawns.

And Hawx's point is that in Firefight dying doesn't affect your team as it does in Horde, because nobody has to go out of their way to help downed people or work with a reduced team. There's no decision making beyond 'how much do we whine about this guy stealing our lives'. Like anyone plays pub horde games anyway.

[aieeegrunt]

I must have missed when the OP got changed from "Halo 1.5 ideas" to "stereotypical fatty nerd bitch fest about popular item X". Seriously, we need a "Too Cool for School" sticky or something where people can indulge their inner Comic Book Guy. If I really wanted to, I could retort with a bunch of rhetorical bullshit about Gears supported by "everybody I know" and "nobody does X" anecdotal "evidence" but a) I'm not going to validate the poo flinging monkeys by emulating them, b) I enjoy playing Gears as well as Halo without having to bash something else OMG COD sucks! c) I need to stop feeding the trolls.

[CaptHawkeye]

Chill out dude.

Wow, are you saying that I listen to what my friends say about a game before I buy it? It's almost as as if...we have the same taste in games?

[Stark]

I guess he misses the part where we're well aware of the flaws of the Gears approach and won't get butthurt if he mentions them.

That said, the idea that 'how do we make Halo 1 better' isn't going to involve a whole lot of laughing at how broken Halo is/has become is pretty daft.

[CaptHawkeye]

Hey man, sounds like you're being a rhetorical poo flinging monkey. Stop critiquing my virtual totems so much you NERD.