- Shai Hulud
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- Exalted Mythic Member
With B.B. gone, the passion of Bungie.net has lessened.
Sorry for making this it's own thread, but it seemed better to consolidate these ideas into one post separate from all the other large threads already there.
This is a collection of ideas I've mulled over since Reach's launch that I would like to share and get feedback on. More of a thought-exercise than anything else, really. Anyway, I will not say that my ideas would be best for a Halo: Reach game, I only present these ideas, based on the thought that perhaps Reach's gameplay will be a natural progression of not only Halo gameplay, but FPS gameplay in general.
(Note that these ideas are also based off of the assumption that we'll be playing as Spartans/Elites again, at least in competitive multiplayer)
I.) Shields and Health:
Many modern shooters have abandoned the health system in favor of a self-regenerating player stamina feature. Halo 2, Halo 3, Call of Duty, and Gears of War have all used this. You take damage, but if you're out of the fight for long enough, the damage you took regenerates rather quickly. To me, this always seemed like a decision that was made to simplify the hud and increase the pace of gameplay. In other words, you wouldn't have to worry about what number or percentage your health was, and you wouldn't have to stop your progression in a match in order to find a health pack.
I don't really think bringing the health system back a la ODST would be a good decision for competitive multiplayer gameplay, unless you're made more damage-resistant without your shields. In Halo 2 and Halo 3, I would argue that you don't last long enough without shields to make having a "health bar" and health packs placed strategically around the map worthwhile. Your health is a bit insignificant when compared to the shield system. If the damage you could take unshielded were greater, I can see how bringing back a health-system would be a good choice for gameplay, and being more resilient unshielded could also solve a number of other problems, which I'll discuss later.
If the amount of base "health" you have outside of your shields does not change, then I think it would be interesting to see the health itself be less regenerative. So if you know you've taken a lot of damage, you have to change your fighting style, even if you don't know just how much you are hurting. It'll get to the point that once you're unshielded, you'll go down very fast. This would not involve any sort of stamina/health indicator on the HUD, or any regeneration packs placed on the map.
II.) Melee:
This can easily come down to a choice based on aesthetics, so I'll try to keep this tied strictly to gameplay. My problem with the whole lunging system is that in many cases, it doesn't make a lot of sense, physically. I'd like to see the melee system be made more realistic in that if the lunge is going to stay, make it something you can only do while you're on the ground. You shouldn't be able to change your momentum in mid-jump by using a melee; it doesn't really make any sense.
I was also thinking of what it would be like if lunging were changed to be something the player actually controls. For example, let's say you're charging at an enemy player. You want to melee him, but you're not really close enough. Tap the A button (jump), and then immediately afterwards, press (and hold?) B. This will cause your jump to be more forwards than upwards, lunging you towards the target. Otherwise, you would not lunge, and would simply need to be point-blank to melee.
I realize that taking away a default lunge makes the melee mechanic more difficult, or even more frustrating perhaps, than it is in Halo 2 and 3. But I'll admit that I'm a little biased, in that I think there should be less of a focus on melee in an FPS like Halo.
For melee weapons, I would argue that the same should be applied. Yeah, the sword-lunge is cool, but I've always thought it would be much better without it. If the sword is a one-hit kill weapon, its high damage should be it's only advantage. Giving a point-blank weapon the range that is given to the swords in Halo 2 and 3, and the Hammer in Halo 3, doesn't really make much sense in terms of balance, to me. Less people would use it, sure, but you're taking a knife to a gunfight: realistically, there shouldn't be many uses for it anyway. And with the Hammer, since it's an area-of-effect weapon, I think that increasing the explosion damage and taking away the lunge it has would make the weapon more reasonable without changing its overall power too much (and the do-it-yourself lunge mechanic could apply to both of these weapons too).
III.) "Cover System" and Weapon-mounting:
Probably one of the most arguable features that could be added. Let me start by saying that I do NOT think a cover system akin to Gears of War or other games like it should be used in Halo. I'm only proposing a "what if" idea, in the sense of what a cover system might be like if Bungie took the idea and made it something of their own.
I have a few ideas for this, but not a lot that would be feasible for number of buttons on an Xbox controller. One idea I had was to keep cover something easy to use. No buttons you need to press; you just walk behind a box or crate or wall or whatever, and there, you're in cover. Just like in the Halo games we play now. But to take it a step further, let's say you have a sniper-rifle, or some other sort of mountable weapon (like an LMG, perhaps even the Rocket Launcher (debatable)). I've always thought it would be nice to actually use the mounts featured on the sniper rifle, in order to increase accuracy. Now, I know one could argue that as a Spartan, your accuracy should be much better than what one would expect from sniping in a game like Call of Duty 4, but I've always thought that the sniper rifle, just as a weapon in general, would be better balanced and more challenging to use if it were given a "bob" when trying to aim it while moving around (which is what most snipers do; they move). When standing still, this could be decreased, and when crouching, the stability becomes even greater. However, let's say you crouch behind a wall or object that is about as high as your waist, and you pull out the sniper rifle. The moment you zoom in when next to that wall, the rifle (or an LMG, something with mounts), will automatically be mounted on the wall, giving you the greatest stability possible. This would inherently create areas specifically tailored to snipers. This would make snipers and other mounted-gunners harder to hit, as they'd be mostly behind cover, but so long as they're zoomed in, they're effectively "stuck" to the wall they're taking cover behind and mounting on, limiting their mobility if they're occupied with a target.
IV.) Modified Weapons and Starting Weapons:
Before anyone get's off their rocker at me for suggesting weapon mods in Halo, don't worry, I'm not advocating that Halo gameplay be turned into Call of Duty where you can put silencers, scopes, grenade launchers, whatever, on your weapons. None of that would make sense in Halo, as we know Halo today.
What I had in mind was something more akin to weapon variants. The best example to use would be the Assault Rifle. In the books, there are several different versions: MA5B (Halo 1), MA5K (Ghosts of Onyx), MA2B (could be wrong on the alphanumerics, that was featured in a chapter in The Fall of Reach), and the MA5C (Halo 3). These different versions of essentially the same weapon would bet slightly tweaked from one-another in terms of potential accuracy or range, average accuracy or range, clip size, firing rate, and damage per bullet. If you average them out, they're all the same weapon (just as the Spiker is essentially the same as the Plasma Rifle (something Bungie themselves have been quoted saying)).
As a more specific example, let's compare the MA5B and MA5C (Halo 1 and Halo 3, respectively). As it stands, these are not the same weapon in essence. They would both have to be tweaked and rebalanced if featured in the way I'm describing for Reach. However, let's say that the way they shoot remains the same. The Halo 1 AR would have a greater potential accuracy and range than the MA5C when fired in bursts, but with full-auto, the weapon becomes wildly inaccurate at medium ranges. The MA5C would have a greater overall accuracy and range, with less recoil and more control, but also less of a difference in accuracy when fired in bursts, decreasing it's maximum effective range to something less than the MA5B.
These different versions of the same weapons would be choices for starting weapons in basic gametypes (I.E., Slayer, not Slayer BRs). All other weapons would not have modified versions, as they would be weapons you pick up on the ground. Featuring different versions of the same weapon to pick up from spawns on the map could make gameplay a little too complex (though, there could be ways around that; different versions for different maps?). As in Gears 2, you could select which weapon you prefer to start with by default, but before a match starts, you'd be able to choose a different version based on what map you're fighting on. Closer quarters map? Perhaps switch from your MA5C to the MA5B for more effectiveness at close range.
[to be continued...]