VivaLebowski

My personal favs are always little Forerunner Arena's (Guardian) or big ass spaces (The various iterations of Gulch). But people love all sorts of stuff so it should be a mix of Human and Forerunner maps...I don't think anyone is desperate for Covenant style maps, at least, I'm not. Would love to see the return of classics from Halo 3. It seems to me that Halo 1 and 2 have been thoroughly canvassed for remakes though including a new version of Gulch is mandatory. Nice to see a return of Valhalla too, even though they are supposed to be similiar.

I do see the value of having a random Veto and thus making sure there is allot of variety BUT I would still marginally have to favor Voting. I think that's one of things Reach got right that 343 needs to keep. PS. Its Ironic that you didn't make a poll for this haha.

All this just proves my point. We should judge a feature by its own merits and by how effectively it is implemented. Not just because it is new. Progress can be very bad and very good, so best to judge individually. But I will concede this, Constant, with Sprint in particular I do not care that much either way. That said, the scale of Halo maps does make it helpfull in terms of mobility and Halo maps are getting bigger. Hemorrhage dwarfed Blood Gulch. In the future, not necessarily this Halo but say the Halo's on the next gen,I'm anticipating larger maps and larger teams. Having a high degree of mobility for everyone on foot might well necessitate Sprint as we see certain maps get larger and larger. goes without saying that 343 needs to keep at least half the maps the small arena style that we all know and love too though.

While arguing in another thread it occurred to me what went wrong with the introduction of Armor Abilities. AA's were envisioned as the follow up to previous Halo's equipment and Power Ups. But those things had been "power ups". They conferred an advantage on purpose. Where Reach went wrong was trying to apply things which were meant to make you more powerful in such a way as to make everyone equally powerfull. In Halo 3 the Bubble Shield is not meant to match Active Camo. It is not supposed to be a level playing field. In Reach, Bungie tried to modify all these preexisting things than throw in some new ones without making an effort to make the different AA's balance each other Rock,Paper,Scissors style. So the core problem is trying to adapt things which are inherently asymmetrical in gameplay terms to be symmetrical, and the result of this contradictory approach is you get AA's which are either lame knockoffs of previous versions (Active Camo) or Overpowered (Armor Lock). And this says another thing about the future of Halo...if 343 makes an armor customization system which changes peoples abilities but is not necessarily the Armor abilities of Reach, it doesnt have to have the same problems because rather than trying to adapt things which are inherently unbalanced to be balanced, 343 will likely be starting off from a point of "what little changes can we give people to customize themselves while remaining balanced?".

3rd person might be better for your survival, but your sacrificing that already when you even bother with the assassination in the first place. 1st person is more immersive and more fun and that is what should count, not the survivability of the person doing the action. Halo was made first person for a reason. The exact same argument you make for assassinations and/or vehicles could be applied to Halo in general, and while it might not necessarily have been disastrous for Halo from the beginning if it had been 3rd person, it would not be the game we know and love.

I have no objection to all these things being included one way or another, just as long as its not "loadouts" at the beginning of the game.

@Constantly The problem with your argument here is that Sprint is universal. I run, you chase. Its as simple as that. And don't appeal to me about trying to get that "last shot" off as they run around the corner...I was the guy running around the corner. And as a result of that tiny amount of lag between when they pull the trigger on their TV and when I move around the corner on mine, I will die even though I am already around the corner. Its one of my pet peeves. People's Sprint rate should be decreased dramatically whenever they are hit by anything, as in Gears of War, and that alone would help solve some of your problems.

Reach's problem was that it tried to find a comfortable spot between COD's classes and Halo's symmetrical gameplay. The result was a failed feature which was too tepid to really feel significant but at the same time just annoying enough to piss allot of people off...for example, one AA is not made to counter another AA. There was no concept of balancing AA's against each other because the damn things were envisioned as the successor to Halo 3's equipment and power ups, things which you didn't have from the beginning. In effect, Reach tacked tried to apply asymettrical powers in such a way so as to be symmetrical, failing to realize that you simply can't have both. So both the AA's which were being represented were flawed. Active Camo, Bubble Shield felt weak and insignificant. AL simply failed. Sprint and Jet Pack both worked reasonably well but would have been better off if they were universal, which happily, seems to be precisely what is happening.

The fact that sprint is in the game does not make Halo "like" other shooters. Gears 1 had sprint, does Gears qualify as fast paced? What determines the speed of the action is health, shields, weapon damage, not how mobile people are. If EVERYONE has Sprint, when one person runs away, the other person runs in pursuit. Hopefully, 343 will take us back to Halo 3 or 2 levels of shield, health, whatever. If anything, Reach's problem was that the Sprint AA was not universal. I'm not a fan of Reach compared to the other Halo's so don't accuse me of shilling for that but don't make these melodramatic proclamations about what "We" want. I just played H3 doubles last night with my friend as we used years ago...real nostalgia rush there. And you know what? If we all had Sprint it would not have been that different.

You watch the latest video? U Mad?

I wouldn't say that's really true...if I had an armor setting which say, IDK, gives me +5% shields but 10% less health, and represents this change by a slight cosmetic change to my armor, are you going to say this is a Reach style armor ability? If I unlock an attachment which gives me 5 more shotgun shells in battle, are you going to say this is an armor ability? How about something which makes my melee lunge distance bigger? There are a whole lot of things 343 can do with armor customization which would not necessarily resemble Reach's AA's. I think the abilities that Reach had should return but not as "Loadouts". Sprint should return but be universal, JetPacks should be modified as thrusters and return but be Universal (I could elaborate on that but it'd take awhile), Bubble Shield should be equipment, Hologram should be equipment, Camo should be a powerup and Armor Lock? AHHH! Just give us Over Shield as a power up too! I want my Red and Blue orbs or Triangles back!

I'm wondering what your "research" is...Boats in forge? Who thinks that is a pressing issue? I certainly have not heard about anyone even considering that until now.

In terms of what features they keep versus what they throw out, they should definitely look more to 3. But Reach did do some things right, such as the voting for maps r the playlist variety. I don't think its as simple as "make it like Reach or 3". Reach simply happened to have more bad changes than good, but 343 should take the good stuff from both Reach and 3.

Anyone who asks for a return to elites in matchmaking is A-okay with me. Forge able enemies would also be good, though people gotta understand, actually implementing something like that would probably be really difficult for the developers...plus, you gotta think about how people would actually control these AI in their forge...would the AI have different difficulty levels, movement paths, weapon sets, etc etc...it could easily get pretty complicated. Being able to hold to throw a grenade farther seems like a bit of a stretch to me...its not as if that's what people do in real life, you just throw the grenade at a higher angle with greater strength...the current mechanics of aiming high to throw far seems good to me BUT being able to cook a grenade would be really cool with a Frag, as long as you could make it pretty clear how close the grenade was to detonation.

Dual wielding might seem redundant, but if you ask people, everyone seems to have something they love. My friend loves double SMG's, I see other people posting love for the Maulers. 343 should just make it painfully obvious that dual wielding is awesome for CQC, even better than the AR but has big accuracy falloff versus the AR. Might be interesting to see Double Needlers return too...yeah they might be overpowered, but thats why you limit the spawn rate and clip size of Needlers on the map.

I dont care too much how it happened, all I know is that the new Chief model looks seriously badass. Yet one more reason why I am cautiously optimistic that 343 is going to do this thing right.

I'm definitely supportive of moving back to 3's ranking system BUT I don't think there was anything wrong with the way Reach did it with Armor since it was all Cosmetic. That said, I think certain pieces of armor should be reserved for achievements or in game commendations, so yeah, a mix is best. Say, for example, to get the Shotgun shells you need to get a certain KD with the shotfun, or to get the camo, neck cloth like the one Jun had, get a number of assasinations. That way, the most bad ass pieces are reserved for people who really hone their skills or put effort into one thing so they can really show off their status. Though its true that we can't really say because we don't know how any of the armor systems are gonna work and what is cosmetic versus what changes your abilities and what not.

Too true! Though that's really only with Reach. The Halo 3 Warthog did not suffer nearly as bad from this...they definitely overdid the physics with Reach, yet one more way they made Vehicles in Reach suck by comparison to 3.

ike other people have said the best route is to have the choice. Vehicles have always been a blast in Halo for me, but actually having gotten into Battlefield with Bad Company and BF3 on the consoles, that stuff really shows you how intense and immersive having the first person take on Vehicles is. Driving a tank in BF is such an effing blast, but being able to switch into 3rd person is also really cool and helpfull. I think Halo can be the same way. I think the trend should just be more towards first person in general, but ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS give people that choice. After all, having 3rd person vehicles, turrets, is pretty well established and its cool to be able to actually look at your stuff and get that peripheral view. At the same time, Halo was conceived as a first person game for a reason, and even though I will always be a Halo fan over any other series, Battlefields 1st person assassinations > Reach's 3rd person assassinations and Battlefield 1st person Tank > Reach 3rd person Tank.

I have allot of problems with Reach, but Sprint did not invalidate its core "Halo-ness" it simply didn't. Yeah, it changed the "gameplay" but as I already covered and I'm sure you agree, you can't judge something simply because it changes Halo's gameplay. I was playing Big team Slayer on Sandtrap in H3 just a few hours ago...boy, it felt good. And looking back, if I could sprint somewhere and everyone else could, would that really alter my feelings about the game? No. At worst, we can say Sprint isn't really a good or bad feature. You have this notion for what "Halo" gameplay is and I challenge you to define it. For me its a few things: A good degree of symmetry on both teams, good gameplay and aesthetically pleasing map design, straightforward vehicular combat, etc etc. I can go on. If Reach went wrong with Sprint at all, it was maybe not making it universal. If 4 has Sprint for everyone and now no one can choose Armor Lock, I will be happy. Point is, Sprint does not inherently go against what is Halo gameplay. You seem to disagree, so identify what element it is thats so important and then explain how Sprint contradicts that. Also, in sales, Reach beat Halo 3. It was not a flop. I think allot of Halo fans, myself included, agree that Reach was definitely not all it could be, but don't throw the word flop around because A) Reach wasn't a flop and how well it did financially doesn't have that much to do with how good a game it is.

Heres a bit of a rant about two arguments I am always reading. 1) "But that's not Halo!" -Traditionalist Halo player complaining about changes. 2) "Adapt" -Progressive Halo player complaining about people complaining about changes. Neither argument means much of anything because neither argument really says much of anything about the nature of the change being made. The first argument isn't as bad because there are a few cases when it actually applies...for example, I personally don't think the perk system in Call of Duty detracts from Call of Duty but it certainly does not belong in Halo, so I guess its okay to say "But that's not Halo!" but then (for example) when people talk about something like universal sprint or 1st person vehicles, people say "but that's not Halo!". Yeah...its not Halo because it hasn't been in Halo. Might as well say Brutes "aren't Halo" (before Halo 2) or Forge isn't Halo (before Halo 3). What I'm wondering is what is this strange intangible "Halo-ness" which we are comparing these new elements to? Then you get people saying "adapt", like when talking about changes in Reach. This is even worse than the previous argument because at least saying something wasn't Halo was making some sort of value judgement about something...with "adapt" we could be talking about any change in the book and the progressive Halo player might blindly insist that the change is for the best and that we should blindly keep singing the particular Halo game (and its developers) praises even though people might very well know in their heart of hearts that the new element is at best neutral in terms of improving the game and at worst completely stupid. Point is, the community should just judge a particular element by its own merits, not based on a need to freeze Halo as it currently is, or to deceive yourself into thinking that the last Halo is as good or better than the last.