Idea for Halo 5 regarding Armor Abilities and Equipment

[TheyCallMeJimmy]

I have an idea for Halo 5 that I think would strike a balance between the "armor abilities" of Reach and 4, and the "equipment" found in Halo 3.

 

Instead of having armor abilities attached to loadouts, or having equipment found on the map, imagine if every spartan had access to all the abilities, and they were as powerful as their Halo 3 counterparts (i.e. the bubble shield is a proper shield, as opposed to a rice paper wall).

 

The limiting factor here, as opposed to availability (Halo 3) or power (Reach and 4), would be a system of 'adrenaline' or 'suit energy' (Remember Unreal Championship on the original xbox?). Every player has access to all the abilities, but they are limited by how much "energy" they have.

 

I imagine a basic match could start each player off with 50% energy. Energy could replenish slowly over the course of the match, at a rate of 1% per second, maxing out at 100%. Now the abilities would obviously cost varying amounts depending on their power: a bubble shield, being a powerful game-changing effect, might cost 80% or 90% of your energy. However, something simple like sprinting could cost a mere 3% energy per second. Things like the jetpack and active camoflauge would cost more than sprinting: the jetpack could cost 10% energy per second and the cost for camo could vary with how fast you're moving.

 

The glory of this system is that it allows multiple avenues upon which to balance a given ability without compromising its power: if an ability was too strong, it could be made to cost more as opposed to making it weaker. This was a facet of game balance that was missing from Reach and 4.

 

Energy could also be gained by various means: perhaps every kill could grant you 10%. There could also be energy pickups on the map, to reward map control with more frequent ability usage. Perhaps these means could bring your energy above 100%, allowing you more time on the jetpack or camoflauge, but a natural degradation would kick in above 100% energy at the rate of -1 energy per second, to prevent players banking massive amount of energy and ability usage.

 

Anyway, thoughts and suggestions are welcome. The numbers are obviously hypothetical and would need to be fine-tuned and whatnot.

[Sikslik7]

Armor abilities have been confirmed not to be in Halo 5: Guardians. However, there will be new Spartan abilities, like hijacking vehicles etc. (This is all in the words of Frank O'Connor at E3).  It will be interesting to see what they have in store for us. 

[TheyCallMeJimmy]

Hmmm... so are the armor abilities making a return in any other way? Like, is active camo back to being a pickup? And I thought hijacking vehicles was always a thing

[Twinreaper]

Not gonna lie, first thing I thought about when I saw "adrenaline" or "suit energy", was Crysis ripoff. They pretty mich just up.and stole the ground stop feature they used at E3 as it is.

[TheyCallMeJimmy]

Oh I've never played crysis, but I wouldn't be opposed to them taking ideas if it made their game better. (They added perks and loadouts for 4)

And pardon me for asking because I didn't watch any E3 stuff, but what is the ground stop feature?

[Twinreaper]

It was real quick during the E3 trailer, here is the stuff here... E3 halo ground pound...

 

 

Ok, now watch the stuff in Crysis 2, and tell me it's not a straight ripoff...

 

[TheyCallMeJimmy]

Hahaha oh wow I see what you're saying. I'm not actually opposed to this ground pound though lol. It seems like it would be situational and hard to pull off.

 

But I still think suit energy and having all the abilities would be good for a Halo game. Either that or go back to Halo 3 and have everything on the map; none of this class-loadout bologna.

[Twinreaper]

I'm not sure how I feel.  I love Crysis more than Halo, so it's hard for me to accept seeing what i saw.  But as you suggested, who kows.  maybe these elements will blend and work well.

[Buns]

Hmmm... so are the armor abilities making a return in any other way? Like, is active camo back to being a pickup? And I thought hijacking vehicles was always a thing

Active Camo will most likely be a pickup

 

Yes hijacking as always been a thing but Spartan Abilities are universal to ALL spartans like hijacking. It is something all Spartans can do.  

[Particular Justice]

So what happens when you get 100% energy? How would pick which Ability you would want to use?  

[Twinreaper]

Ity would likely be a d-pad toggle or possible re-assignment of the key pad similar to how Crysis does it.

[HIWBC]

I think they're listening much more to the old school Halo fans now .

[Caboose The Ace]

^

 

Well abilities are not being scrapped,  Spartan abilities are replacing armour abilities.

[Mr Biggles]

^

 

Well abilities are not being scrapped,  Spartan abilities are replacing armour abilities.

Armor abilities are going to be a lot less game-changing now though.

[WonderWombat]

Will Spartan Abilities actually replace armor abilities or is that just speculation? If it is an option it just seems like a renaming of armor abilities and Frank's comment didn't make it sound like that.

 

In the video we clearly see a guy ramming a person with his shoulder, a guy sliding into cover, and the ground pound thing. I just think these are things we will be able to do. Just seems like the shoulder thing would be a weak melee attack that could stumble an unexpected enemy possibly by holding the rb button. Sliding could be while sprint press button to slide. And the ground thing would just be while high enough hold button to fly straight down.