- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Seriously, I love the Halo universe but the campaign lasted me what… 2 weeks? The multiplayer has lasted 18 months and counting. The most important thing I can suggest is that Bungie give as much weight to the multiplayer aspect as they are to the campaign aspect.
Barring any lag…16 man teams would be sweet. Gather the absolute best “glitch” finders and beta test the hell out of multiplayer. Get rid of those glitches. Fix the host advantage.
Strategic weapons… such as smoke grenades and flash grenades would be awesome. Multiplayer stages with night and day options and weather patterns. More depth to the multiplayer stages would also be sweet. Most maps only allow for the same type of strategy… especially in objective games. I want variety. For instance, since Turf is a city setting… access to the city drainage tunnels would add variety and strategy to the map. More non-glitch access to the rooftops would add even more strategy. A larger version of Turf at night… moonlit but heavily shadowed. You’re standing there in the shadows guarding your flag and everything is quiet until, quite suddenly, the base is engulfed in liquid-blue light as multiple plasma grenades streak through the air. Muzzle flashes suddenly erupt as the attackers attempt to breach the base. Someone lights a flare and throws it in the direction of the attackers. Suddenly five Spartans emerge from the bright red glow of the flare all armed to the teeth.
Strategy for every single map would change depending on the weather and/or time of day.
There are a lot of possible game types for Halo2 but I can honestly say I think I’ve played them all. Customizability is the name of the game. Give me the option to assign Covenant weapons to one team and Human weapons to the other. Give me the option to make one team all invisible and the other not. Give me the option to turn off team colors if I don’t want to play Red vs. Blue. Give me the option to change the map from day to night or rain to shine. Give me the option to create a “mark” as in the game-type “President.” The opposing team can only score by killing the “mark” while the defending teams objective is to protect the “mark.” Let me assign a “mark” to both teams and the first team to kill the opposing “mark” wins the round. Let me force team changes, including all team configurations, through kills. Let me assign one team to Elites and one team to Spartans. Let me throw the “big weapons” that Bungie thought were too powerful into customizable game types.
Some people will say this throws the game off balance, but I say Bungie can do what they want with matchmaking while we do what we want with custom games. Sometimes… many times… we don’t want balanced games. Sometimes we want to option to unbalance a game and raise the bar of difficulty.
Please.. more than anything else… give multiplayer the attention it’s due because that is what has made Halo last as long as it has.