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[NullPointer]

These arent the Halo 2 days where its number 1 for years on end. Thats Cods spot right now. Will Halo ever be number 1 again? Doubtful without something drastic, its a different time now for games. Halo dominated at a time where there were little to no games that could compete because Halo was the innovator. For Halo 5 343 need to just go balls to the wall and do something radical. Catering to the overall shooter market (Perks, AAs etc) didnt work too well. Lets be honest here, it didnt. The Cod fans still play cod, imitating some of their features (Which have now become shooter mainstays, in the same way Halos online systems did) didnt attract masses of new players.

Innovations will though, just like they did before and always will. Innovation isnt about being the first, but being the best at doing something. For Halo 5, we need to see something big. Similar to Halo 2s lobby and party system. It wasnt entirely new, but it was the best system consoles ever seen. Cod 4s perk system wasnt something new, but they did it the better than anyone else at the time.

I hope 343 doesnt play it safe again in Halo 5. We need some innovation. I believe the 343 team is capable of this. They have the resources. They obviously played it a little safer with their first game and thats okay. Now they have their footing they need to kick it up a notch.

TLR = Halo needs to innovate the shooter market instead of playing catchup.

Amen to this. They need to push the genre itself forward and redefine multiplayer. That means avoiding recreating previous Halos and not appearing to ape COD. 343 needs to put more faith in the player to learn new things, or take the time to train them on what they need to know before being thrown into versus.

Thats honestly the biggest takeaway I see from Halo 4 and other games worried about bringing in a new and wider audience. You need to train the players. Throwing players into unranked matches does NOT count as training. I'm talking practice modes (you can even tie this into the fiction) that goes into level control, or other basic and high level concepts. If you train them, you don't need to make game systems so immediate at the expense of long term depth.

 

[Computron]

What's people's favorite methods for converting video into gifs? Computron?

Photoshop CS6.

CS5 and older might not be as good, and IIRC only work in the 32bit executable (So you may need to import a smaller file size, I dont remember).

Import video to frames and scale the dimensions down and cut the number of frames. Those two effect file size the most.

In some GIFs you can cut the framerate when you are importing and it can still look decent if you slow down the frame speed.
In others, you can cut down groups of frames that are very similar and extend the time of the one you leave to make up for the difference.

In a lot of shots you can cut the number of colors and use diffusion (you should pretty much always use that though) and get good results.
This part is done in the Save to Web and Devices panel.

 

[MaximumFlipFlop]

If you want to build something that drastically changes the formula, you build a new game. IMO innovation rarely happens within an old franchise that's several games deep, that's what refinement is for. Innovation comes from new IPs that have no strings attached.

 

[Blue Ninja]

I didn't like how 343 made the forerunners look. I think I'd rather have them keep on their armor and not show their actual faces. Keep a bit of the mystery alive.

Me too. I think designing a species like that has to be really difficult, though. On the one hand, I applaud 343 for not going the cliché "this is tall, pale human"-route, but on the other hand, his design doesn't exactly scream "ancient all-powerful species" to me. Having the Didact appear as this quiet, armored enigma, basically the Master Chief of the Forerunners, could've been really interesting.

The Didact was pretty much all wasted potential, though. I was hoping 343 would slowly introduce him over the course of the game, and make the player actually fear the moment when he came back to unleash hell. Instead he drops from a ball and is all like "Humans suck, you're gonna die now, laterzzzz."

 

[mhi]

Ahhh, the sweet sweet XP grind.

Thanks, market leading consumer behavior research.

 

[Duji]

On the other hand, if I, for the most part, enjoy the game, and want to have as good an experience in matchmaking as is possible, low population numbers are kind of bad news. So.

What if low population numbers now will make way for a far better Halo 5? It's assuming quite a bit, but still. As someone who does not enjoy Halo 4, it's really the only thing right now that I think will make a difference. For what little faith I have in 343, I am confident that they will look at the population numbers, realize something is off, and be sure not to repeat the same mistakes. ...But then again, camo sniping, a hated feature from Reach, remains in H4. So fuck, IDK. =/

 

[Trey]

What would you, Chambers (or anyone, really), do to innovate shooters? One what front(s) would you improve the genre?

I feel like Halo 4 went the space magic route in campaign. While I liked the campaign, it really didn't feel like a Halo one.

This shit kills me.

Ya'll been playing a franchise where there was a galactic parasitic menace, plasma weapons accurately guided by magnetism over kilometers of distance, dyson spheres, and an array of moon-sized rings that could obliterate all life in the galaxy.

Now Halo 4 is too "space magic"?

 

[User 73706]

To change the topic for a moment, what were 343I/Kenneth Scott going for with the Didact's/Forerunner design?

What are they trying to evoke here?

The bulbous, ugly face is far from what I imagined the Forerunners to look like.
Is it a Mass Effect, he's renegade, err.. evil so his face must reflect that mantra?

Isn't it obvious? When the Didact was trying to find a mutation that would leave him immune to the flood, John Kramer and the Cloverfield Monster accidentally fell into the gene splicer!

Brainstorming activity of the day #117: let's try and figure out an ideal system for playlists using the following guidelines:

-10 playlists maximum.
-Up to two can be rotational.
-Keep in mind one may exist for sponsorships such as Virgin Infection or Ford Rocket Race or even DLC but hopefully not.
-Up to three different gametypes can exist per playlist.
-Community map integration is up to you.
-In this hypothetical, ranked and social playlists can be separate, all can be ranked, etc.
-Keep in mind each playlist would unfortunately be stuck to one player count.
-Let's pretend you can toggle join in progress on and off per playlist, too.
-To spice things up, up to two playlists can potentially have a mix of team AND FFA games.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

i wish....

Sucks for you.

But you're forgetting the fundamental tenet of post-CE Halo. That is, only the sniper rifle should be able to shoot more than 30 yards accurately.

Bungie made games they wanted to play and be good at. They've said many times how they're obviously heavily invested in pleasing the community, but ultimately they made their own games. Not bringing that up with any negative connotation attached, but maybe that's a huge reason why Halo's MP turned out the way it did.

 

[YourExWife]

It doesn't matter. To me less play-test can turn out to be better in the end. Just look at Halo CE. Im pretty sure they had very little professional play-testing (other than them playing builds whenever they were ready) and it gave a lot of randomness in the engine and such. Like people blowing warthogs in the air with stickies and posting videos of it online. That, today, would be probably caught and removed from the game since technically, its not intended. But it wasnt intended then either, and yet made the engine more interesting for some. Even turned that into a game of "how high can you get it".

Those little things seems kinda stupid, but its those little things that a lot of people find fun and fascinating about an engine. Play-testing , too often, removes that "randomness" of a game and that to me is not good.

Actually, I would argue that it depends on the developer. When Super Meat Boy was being ran on AGDQ's stream, they had Team Meat live on Skype during the playthrough. They had quite an engaging discussion about the game and their thoughts on the dev process and whatnot. There was a bunch of insight into the game and the behind-the-scenes that wasn't in Indie Game: The Movie. But, important to this discussion, they talked about the glitches and issues that the game has. They then mentioned that, like a certain other developer, their game inevitably got rushed and if they had more time and playtesting they could have fixed some of the problems.

This got a mixed reaction from the guys there. They were concerned that some of the glitches that make the game more fun and competitive would have been removed during the process. Then they clarified that their thought process was more along the lines of leave cool gameplay glitches alone as long as they don't break the game (like the Alien Hominid glitch that got patched out) but instead fix actual issues with the game. Stuff like having too many bandages, which in turn would lead to inaccurate completion percentages, or rendering issues, like where you can keep the screen an entire color if you exit a cutscene to soon. These things would be fixed, but stuff like using switches to push yourself through objects they thought was cool and actually contributed to the game. This kind of games-for-gamers mentality is needed in the AAA realm more.

Nice cross section but average in your month of FEB is still only 131,000.

That's not how averages work. You need equal intervals for your data or to coin a phrase from this thread today, it "won't mean shit." Throwing around statistical analysis without the actual math is pointless and stupid.

 

[Rickenslacker]

This shit kills me.

Ya'll been playing a franchise where there was a galactic parasitic menace, plasma weapons accurately guided by magnetism over kilometers of distance, dyson spheres, and an array of moon-sized rings that could obliterate all life in the galaxy.

Now Halo 4 is too "space magic"?

Alien parasites and some mysterious ancient device made to eradicate it are one thing.

Having a vision being told you're the one and being imbued with magical immunity to whatever the bad guy is going to do is another.

 

[Trey]

Bungie made games they wanted to play and be good at. They've said many times how they're obviously heavily invested in pleasing the community, but ultimately they made their own games. Not bringing that up with any negative connotation attached, but maybe that's a huge reason why Halo's MP turned out the way it did.

Halo's MP turned out the way it did? It got more popular as it went along, until Reach. CE, 2 and 3 are rather different games. Bungie did a fair bit of listening to the fanbase - random people like Bigshow complaining about things does not invlaidate the work Bungie put into placating diehard fans while making the game more approachable to the masses.

 

[Plywood]

What are they trying to evoke here?

 

[NullPointer]

Alien parasites and some mysterious ancient device made to eradicate it are one thing.

Having a vision being told you're the one and being imbued with magical immunity to whatever the bad guy is going to do is another.

She didn't say that the Chief was "the one". But he's an example of the kind of evolutionary gifts the Librarian had seeded within humanity: Physical augmentation, power armor, AI pairing.

And since she can literally weave life, I don't think providing an immunity from the composer was all that much work.

 

[Rickenslacker]

She didn't say that the Chief was "the one". But he's an example of the kind of evolutionary gifts the Librarian had seeded within humanity: Physical augmentation, power armor, AI pairing.

And since she can literally weave life, I don't think providing an immunity from the composer was all that much work.

Yes I know she can literally do space magic that's why I was defending the statement; I'm not saying that it would be much work for a fictional character to do I'm saying that it is a thematic change in how Halo is handled.

Edit: Though I should clarify I'm not saying this is for better or worse I don't really care about how Halo story is handled either way.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I really do wonder how many of the people who stat whore every post and look at previous games user stats and populations etc actually played these games back when they were out and understand why they were higher. They obviously played it a little safer with their first game and thats okay. Now they have their footing they need to kick it up a notch.

TLR = Halo needs to innovate the shooter market instead of playing catchup.

A solid run down of the Halo/FPS landscape history, agree with it all basically. The TL;DR is spot on for Halo 5.

I'd like to see MS/XBL/343 do more innovation like Bungie did with Halo 2. We have all the netcode tricks, all the party systems and a feature standards bar to aim for between Halo/COD/BF3 etc. We have all the universe, character pieces, models, textures etc. I assume 343i have been far sighted with their studio and development resources so Halo 4 transforms them from using/familiarising themselves with Bungie tech to outright owning and developing their own tech/resources ready to unleash Halo 5 and new console resources. Use the benefits of being under MS and therefore XBL just like Bungie did to work with them and innovate beyond non MS studios.

In my opinion integrate XBL/Halo 5 services/features with streaming, rendering, spectator mode, tournaments, premium hosting/dedicated hosting plans, social sharing and focused playlists with more maps than gametypes or extraneous features beyond that. return customisation to gametypes and dedicated staff to handling this with the community and playlists weekly.

For Halo 5 we need better AI with the new hardware resources, better physics (Halo has been great at this and Halo 4 is no exception but next generation should open up more game elements for interactivity etc), AI allies/enemies that create larger or more immersive worlds. Episodic content could prove to be a nice window, a mode with a persistent universe could prove to be insane for Halo 5, I could see SPOPS turning into this. However campaign, story, coop and multiplayer need to be there of course.

Provide all the added features and streamline from the development/resources of Halo 4. After all between FUD, story, books, games, cutscenes, terminals, outsourcing, character models, textures, audio etc they should have the talent, experience, design/development and partners to drive this level of AAA across many systems.

Perhaps ditch Forge and open up Halo 5 to PC release some six months or 1 year after and polish the developer tools for PC editing that goes directly to shared matchmaking between xbox next generation and PC. After all the next console will run on windows 8 kernel.

For your reference only because you asked: been playing since Halo CE launch day OG xbox, Halo 3 multiple 50's, never got into MLG, more casual player than competitive since Reach launched and ranked objective was lost. Used to have CE LAN's with friends every month (carting TV's and xbox around), used to play splitscreen with my brother when we lived together over a decade ago and have not turned Halo matchmaking off since Halo 2, 3, Reach or 4. I was also a member of a large clan in 2 called Australian BTB. I Own Halo Wars and ODST but really only ran through their campaigns once or twice.

 

[u4iX]

"Harvest was incorrectly labeled as small." -Bravo

 

[Zeouterlimits]

She didn't say that the Chief was "the one". But he's an example of the kind of evolutionary gifts the Librarian had seeded within humanity: Physical augmentation, power armor, AI pairing.

And since she can literally weave life, I don't think providing an immunity from the composer was all that much work.

Never been a fan of the geass concept, invalidates so much of what each individual does, if they were compelled to by the genetic manipulation of another.

 

[NullPointer]

"Harvest was incorrectly labeled as small." -Bravo

Hahaha. Well, no shit.

Never been a fan of the geass concept, invalidates so much of what each individual does, if they were compelled to by the genetic manipulation of another.

I see it more as genetic memory, the kind of seed ideas that can lead to leaps in inspiration that defy previous convention. Seeds of genius, waiting to be expressed, but nothing quite so specific.

The way its used to advance plotlines though can be pretty heavy-handed.

 

[Striker]

"Harvest was incorrectly labeled as small." -Bravo

Are they symmetrical?

 

[u4iX]

Hahaha. Well, no shit.

I wonder what party incorrectly labeled it.

This video on HaloWaypoint seems to be the source for the incorrect label.

 

[Zoso Achilles]

I don't give a shit about UU's in halo 4. When I log on to play, the total number of people who have played over the course of the day means nothing to me. One million people played today? Okay, where are they right now while I'm trying to find a game? It's meaningless. Actual useful information would be what peaks the population hits for a day, what time/time-span the peak occurs, and the rate of decay away from that peak. Because like I said, I care about the current population when I'm trying to play.

Try all you want to compare population stats to previous halo games, keep arguing how some data shows one was doing better than the other, it doesn't matter. For me, the defining metric of how well the game is doing is my ability to find quick, high quality matches during peak hours. Halo 4 hasn't been living up to that standard for me lately (and the population graphs juices keeps posting attests to that), and I can compare that to my experiences with reach and halo 3 to to "determine which was doing better."

 

[dalVlatko]

Nice cross section but average in your month of FEB is still only 131,000.

You missed the point

That average is meaningless because these are not peak hours

If the hourly population at whatever time on Thursday February 21 was 158k we can assume that it was around that for every weekday

If the hourly population at whatever time on Saturday February 23 was 221k we can assume that weekends saw hourly populations of 200k+

This weekend the peak hourly population of Halo 4 was ~120k with the weekdays being ~90k

 

[Trey]

Yes I know she can literally do space magic that's why I was defending the statement; I'm not saying that it would be much work for a fictional character to do I'm saying that it is a thematic change in how Halo is handled.

Edit: Though I should clarify I'm not saying this is for better or worse I don't really care about how Halo story is handled either way.

I find a bright light eradicating all life in all its various, complex forms much more space magic-y than the Librarian evolving the Master Chief to be immune to indexing.

The Forerunners were always written to be godlike space wizards. I suppose having them active in the narrative is jarring to some people.

 

[NullPointer]

I wonder what party incorrectly labeled it.

Well you guys called that stuff from the get-go. Hard to think of any level with a warthog as small.

I still can't believe its in the 4v4 slayer rotation.

 

[EagleBurnn]

Am I the only one that never even glances at the total numbers? I just never to think to do that

 

[Computron]

Halo 3.

 

[VivaciousJazzy]

I wonder what party incorrectly labeled it.

This video on HaloWaypoint seems to be the source for the incorrect label.

But in the IGN interviews they still defend it being a small map when asked.

 

[Gazzawa]

Harry Potter X Halo
JK Rowling to write the script for the game.
Day 1.
Dat pacing

 

[neoism]

Sucks for you.



Bungie made games they wanted to play and be good at. They've said many times how they're obviously heavily invested in pleasing the community, but ultimately they made their own games. Not bringing that up with any negative connotation attached, but maybe that's a huge reason why Halo's MP turned out the way it did.

tomorrow yeah I agree, they made a game til they loved it, it worked out for them and the fans....343 just wasted so much time changing everything they shouldn't have just so it could be more there game. That's understandable though if they would have copied to much they would have gottin shit for it too. But they just got to caught up in that and forgot to make a good game...They really if anything need to learn from this and completely "finish" a game and not fix it later...also dont release it a week before one of the biggest fps games in the industry...more than anything Reach releasing in Sep helped it keep a mil players well into a year after release.

 

[u4iX]

But in the IGN interviews they still defend it being a small map when asked.

That's what sucks; they either didn't catch it, thought it was actually a small map, or just decided to "go with it."

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

I don't give a shit about UU's in halo 4. When I log on to play, the total number of people who have played over the course of the day means nothing to me. One million people played today? Okay, where are they right now while I'm trying to find a game? It's meaningless. Actual useful information would be what peaks the population hits for a day, what time/time-span the peak occurs, and the rate of decay away from that peak. Because like I said, I care about the current population when I'm trying to play.

Try all you want to compare population stats to previous halo games, keep arguing how some data shows one was doing better than the other, it doesn't matter. For me, the defining metric of how well the game is doing is my ability to find quick, high quality matches during peak hours. Halo 4 hasn't been living up to that standard for me lately (and the population graphs juices keeps posting attests to that), and I can compare that to my experiences with reach and halo 3 to to "determine which was doing better."

I agree. Thats why i wrote the wall of text on the previous page about it.

-snip-

This is a great post. Some great ideas too. I agree with most of it. I doubt we will see the streaming features added though. Would be quite costly and it was Fyrewolf i think made some great points on why it wouldnt work a few pages back.

Spartan ops has massive potential if they fully expand it next game. Its fairly gimped right now and lacking in, well most areas. Bigger story, investing in new environments and encounters and it could be a fantastic mode. As it is now all it does is show the potential for an episodic co op mode for Halo 5.

Fixing the things on many lists posted here would serve to pleasing the existing fans of Halo sure, but in terms of growing the franchise or even hinting at a chance of taking the crown back... Not so much. The game wont change through TUs to a degree that would allow Halo 4 to be king.


What innovations do people think Halo 5 needs to become the shooter king again?

 

[Tawpgun]

Like I mentioned before, at NYCC, when we wanted to play on Haven, some of the employees said the map was too small for 4 v 4.

It was kinda worrying.

We then played 4 on 4 on Complex, Ragnarok, and I think even Exile.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

Halo's MP turned out the way it did? It got more popular as it went along, until Reach.

So Halo 3 was better than Halo 2 and Halo 1?

CE, 2 and 3 are rather different games. Bungie did a fair bit of listening to the fanbase - random people like Bigshow complaining about things does not invlaidate the work Bungie put into placating diehard fans while making the game more approachable to the masses.

Yes Bungie did listen to the fans, but not the ones they probably should've listened to. Any slightly competitive player begged for a consistent single shot rifle after Halo 2, but we didn't get it. Instead, Bungie reverted the BR back to being inconsistent even after Halo 2's TU fix and fans like you (probably) would say things like "use the Carbine then"... Competitive players begged for a weapon that functioned like the Halo 1 Pistol, but so many people (including Bungie) made jokes and used the defense of "overpowered 'Pistol' was dumb" because it was.......... a Pistol. That was seriously the basis of 95%

Spoiler

(made up statistic guys, chill)

of the arguments against reviving such a weapon instead of entertaining the obvious idea of changing it to have a rifle skin.

I don't know what you're implying with the bolded so I'll just reserve judgment until you clarify.

tomorrow yeah I agree, they made a game til they loved it, it worked out for them and the fans....343 just wasted so much time changing everything they shouldn't have just so it could be more there game. That's understandable though if they would have copied to much they would have gottin shit for it too. But they just got to caught up in that and forgot to make a good game...They really if anything need to learn from this and completely "finish" a game and not fix it later...also dont release it a week before one of the biggest fps games in the industry...more than anything Reach releasing in Sep helped it keep a mil players well into a year after release.

Oh I was talking about Halo's MP changing since Halo 2 and where we are today. Not just with 343 and Halo 4 :b

 

[Rickenslacker]

What innovations do people think Halo 5 needs to become the shooter king again?

I think the best innovation that could be asked for current day Halo is to get rid of loadouts so everyone spawns equally and return normal weapon spawns.

 

[789shadow]

I think the best innovation that could be asked for current day Halo is to get rid of loadouts and spawn everyone equally and return normal weapon spawns.

That would be seen as removing features, Halo 5 sales bomb.

 

[Rickenslacker]

That would be seen as removing features, Halo 5 sales bomb.

It would be an objective success.

 

[Petrichor]

I think the best innovation that could be asked for current day Halo is to get rid of loadouts and spawn everyone equally and return normal weapon spawns.

What weapon would everyone spawn with though? I'd like it to be something like the Halo 4 AR personally but I can't see the majority of halogaf going for that...

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

I think the best innovation that could be asked for current day Halo is to get rid of loadouts so everyone spawns equally and return normal weapon spawns.

Thats really a small scale fix. I was thinking more big innovations for Halo 5

What weapon would everyone spawn with though? I'd like it to be something like the Halo 4 AR personally but I can't see the majority of halogaf going for that...

With some balancing, I think the loadout system could work. Maybe ditch the perks, or come up with something completely new?

 

[AlimNassor]

What? Don't tell me you like Flood.

 

[Rickenslacker]

What weapon would everyone spawn with though? I'd like it to be something like the Halo 4 AR personally but I can't see the majority of halogaf going for that...

AR and precision weapon like CE's Slayer Pro. People can have their AR rushing lemmings while people who actually want to play a real game can pick them off.

Thats really a small scale fix. I was thinking more big innovations for Halo 5

Dedicated servers.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I think the best innovation that could be asked for current day Halo is to get rid of loadouts so everyone spawns equally and return normal weapon spawns.

Better suits for playlists/settings. Keep everyone coming back I say.

 

[EagleBurnn]

What? Don't tell me you like Flood.

I like CE Flood

 

[xxjuicesxx]

What weapon would everyone spawn with though? I'd like it to be something like the Halo 4 AR personally but I can't see the majority of halogaf going for that...

Simple.

Spawn everyone with a AR/BR. In appropriate playlists.

Problem fucking solved. Btw I solved this problem years ago. I'm just waiting to implement it.

 

[Silly.Mikey]

I really do wonder how many of the people who stat whore every post and look at previous games user stats and populations etc actually played these games back when they were out and understand why they were higher. I played online in Halo 2 since launch and have played Halo games online since.

Back when Halo 2 came out, it was the premiere online shooter for consoles. Nothing compared in terms of features and online systems. The lobby system that bungie pioneered, the friends list accessibility, the matchmaking, the playlists infrastructure etc was all new to console players and was a huge deal. People never seen anything like it. I know i hadn't seen anything like it before. This was reflected through its constant dominance of the Live activity charts. Solid gameplay, brilliant online mutiplayer and the best features made Halo the console shooter king.

Halo 3 was in a similar position. It was the follow up to the premiere shooter on xbox. There simply weren't as many shooters that could compete with its features. The online play was unmatched. Forge, theatre and Campaign co-op brought something fresh since Halo 2. Halo 3 piggybacked off the success of Halo 2 and was again one of the most played games as there were few alternatives or substitutes with comparable features/quality. Cod4 dropped around this time, doing soemething different with their perks system and people took notice.

Fast forward to Reach and the landscape is completely different. Other games have similar if not better features. Halo was no longer the innovator. Also the Cod juggernaut was in full effect. Cod was now the premiere shooter on consoles. Gamers no longer went to Halo for the best features and online play as there were many substitutes available (Not just Cod). And developers werent looking at Halo for ideas to imitate. All eyes were on Cod. The hardcore Halo fans didnt like some of the changes and stopped playing. Sales were still great, but with so many options available, it meant gamers no longer played one game and one game only for a long period of time because there was so many options. Shooters were the dominant genre and so the pop. count dropped from that as well as other factors.

Halo 4 sold a shit ton. Thats a fact. 2 months in and the hardcore fans are disowning it in droves (Ex: HaloGAF). The casuals have a new Cod to play as well as a number of other games with again, comparable features and quality. The AAA shooter market has more than just Halo nowadays so of course the numbers are lower. Cods the reigning king right now. And in the mind of the more casual fans (Large number of my friends in college) Halo plays second fiddle to Cod, whereas Halo was the King before.

These arent the Halo 2 days where its number 1 for years on end. Thats Cods spot right now. Will Halo ever be number 1 again? Doubtful without something drastic, its a different time now for games. Halo dominated at a time where there were little to no games that could compete because Halo was the innovator. For Halo 5 343 need to just go balls to the wall and do something radical. Catering to the overall shooter market (Perks, AAs etc) didnt work too well. Lets be honest here, it didnt. The Cod fans still play cod, imitating some of their features (Which have now become shooter mainstays, in the same way Halos online systems did) didnt attract masses of new players.

Innovations will though, just like they did before and always will. Innovation isnt about being the first, but being the best at doing something. For Halo 5, we need to see something big. Similar to Halo 2s lobby and party system. It wasnt entirely new, but it was the best system consoles ever seen. Cod 4s perk system wasnt something new, but they did it the better than anyone else at the time.

I hope 343 doesnt play it safe again in Halo 5. We need some innovation. I believe the 343 team is capable of this. They have the resources. They obviously played it a little safer with their first game and thats okay. Now they have their footing they need to kick it up a notch.

TLR = Halo needs to innovate the shooter market instead of playing catchup.

Ya i agree. Even if they would have pleased everyone in here, im positive that it would still be second to BO2. COD is king now plain and simple and youre absolutely right: there is a lot better competition now on consoles then there was in the halo2 days. People in here think that a few additions or removals will change everything. It wont.

 

[Dirtbag]

Am I the only one that never even glances at the total numbers? I just never to think to do that

I never do, I usually just boot up and auto-pilot into the playlist

 

[Trey]

So Halo 3 was better than Halo 2 and Halo 1?

I find arguing which is better is a fruitless endeavor. We'll all have different opinions. When it comes to listening to fan feedback though, it then becomes a matter of identifying what criticisms Bungie listened to and the reality of being a system flagship and the sales expectations that carried.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Thats really a small scale fix. I was thinking more big innovations for Halo 5



With some balancing, I think the loadout system could work. Maybe ditch the perks, or come up with something completely new?

The short list of what I posted above (not to duplicate but simplify & expand):

1. Persistent universe/story game mode beyond campaign and multiplayer to replace SPOPS.

2. Dedicated servers for improved features like streaming, regional matching, even host your won xbox for such services. I own multiple xbox consoles, let me use them for other Australian gamers. Even pay a premium XBL Platinum service for such things.

3. Alter playlists to a core 4 or 5 and use toggles for everything else thread link about this Player choice of maps & gametypes

4. Cross platform PC & xbox next gen together, both windows 8 based.

5. Ditch forge & release PC editing/mod tools instead, even a paid service to really support it fully. Direct feed back into core matchmaking.

6. SmartGlass spectator and real time feeds.

7. Potential for website or PC or console spin off of RTS in real time to multiplayer e.g. Dust or Aliens vs Marines or Warsoup.

 

[JB1981]

When is King of the Hill coming back ?

 

[Petrichor]

Simple.

Spawn everyone with a AR/BR. In appropriate playlists.

Problem fucking solved. Btw I solved this problem years ago. I'm just waiting to implement it.

I like the sound of this, but what do they do with all the sidearms in the sandbox? People may pick up plasma pistols lying around the map to combat vehicles, but why would anyone pick up a magnum when they spawn with a BR? They could always just remove them I suppose - the sandbox as of Halo 4 is a little flabby and could certainly do with some streamlining (no need for the sword AND hammer to exist as they are, concussion rifle is a poor man's brute shot, and the storm rifle is horrible)