By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
Posted by: Sir Yancelot
--Halo 4 will have loadouts called Specializations. Rather than everyone rolling out with the same weapons online, players bring customized gear into battle. Everyone packs a primary and secondary weapon, armor abilities (including Active Camouflage, Jetpack, and Hologram) and a grenade type.
You don't know whether this is going to be in every playlist. The only evidence we have of this being the case is in the Regicide game mode.
Note that it's not a jetpack anymore, it's a thruster pack designed for quick-fire boosted jumps (think Halo 3 Brute jump pack on a smaller scale).
--Weapons still appear around the map, but they appear in random spots via drop pods.
It's not random, 343i have said that each map has a unique cycle of weapons and people can learn the order and places they spawn. If anything, this encourages people to move around the map instead of sticking to just a few choke-points.
--The respawn time in Team Slayer is instantaneous rather than reliant on a clock.
Like this makes any significant difference to the usual 3 second respawn. This allows a player to jump back into the fight and speeds gameplay up.
--Sprinting is an innate ability everyone can use.
As has become the standard in 99.99% of contemporary FPS titles. Sprint was the most-used AA in Reach, why neglect the rest of the AAs when you can make sprint a primary function?
Players can also use an ability called Forerunner Vision to peek through walls, Batman style. The X-ray vision upgrade is an armor ability you'll equip.
And it apparently lasts about 5 seconds, it's not permanent like the VISR from ODST... This is a pretty effective counter against camping.
--Abilities are unlockable via Spartan Points, the currency fueling the in-game economy. Points unlock additional Ops missions, armor abilities, and cosmetic upgrades.
We don't know how this is going to work in the game nor what impact it's going to have. This is something that cannot be judged yet.
--Multiplayer is somehow connected to the single-player campaign.
Pfft! This is just grasping at straws. Multiplayer is only connected to the campaign through the fact that multiplayer matches are just simulations in the UNSC Infinity's War Room.
--There is no longer a Firefight mode.
So? Firefight has had its time, it was perfect in ODST and utter bollocks in Reach. In ODST, because of things like weaker melee, less health and the 'rationing' of ammunition/supplies you were made to work together as a team to take down enemies. It was a very cooperative-driven experience and proved to be incredibly rewarding when you were doing well.
In Reach there's no aspect of teamwork at all. People just horde the power weapons with unlimited ammo along with jetpacks to get above the enemy and rack up the points for credits, you don't even have to care about others because friendly fire isn't on and you can pretty much guarantee that they're going the same thing as you with your rocket launcher/fuel rod and jetpack... Frankly, we all said we wanted to customise our Firefight experience but when given those options... well, I can't find more than a dozen-or-so gametypes that don't say "1,000,000 CREDITS QUICK!" or some -blam!- like that.
--You can now join games in-progress
How is this a bad thing? Ever play Halo 3 where you have half your team quit out on you or you have to boot someone who betrays you for the power weapons while the other team attacks with their full numbers? This means that you still have a fighting chance, not a bad thing at all.
Your points are all either misinformed or just plain foolish...
[Edited on 05.30.2012 12:04 PM PDT]