BladeWarrior23 BlogBladeWarrior23 Blog Server2012-12-10T21:36:00ZHomogenization: Why It Is Ruining Online Shooters/blogs/members/b/bladewarrior23_blog/archive/2013/03/07/homogenization-why-it-is-ruining-online-shooters.aspx2013-03-07T22:38:00Z2013-03-07T22:38:00Z<p>&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><img src="" border="0" alt="" /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><i>&quot;Umm...what is that thing lying on the ground back there?&quot;</i></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>First-person-shooters: the most dominant and popular genre of the past decade. In the past three or four years, it has become very polarizing. One of those reasons has been the shift from primarily single-player focused games, to games based around online multiplayer. While it really started with Quake and Unreal Tournament in the 90s, online multiplayer shooters were not really considered mainstream until 2004 when Bungie released Halo 2. When the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 arrived on store shelves, the genre became even more popular, games such as Gears of War, Halo 3, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Call of Duty 2 were all huge in the early years of the newly released consoles. In November of 2007, a game you might have heard of, called Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="white-space:pre;"></span><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>It was a huge game that changed the genre for better or worse depending on your view. Games before were still being built around the idea that everyone should start off equally and win by controlling weapon spawns and player spawnpoints on the map. Call of Duty 4 threw that idea out the window by giving the player the ability to spawn with whatever guns and items they wanted. Not only that but the idea of killstreaks, was a new way for the rich to get richer, so to say. The focus became on what you earned and creating the best combination of tools in your loadout rather than simply being able to out-aim and maneuver your enemy. A lot of people love this; I myself spent hours and hours playing CoD4 with my friends. There is nothing inherently wrong with this style of gameplay, I want to be clear about that before I write anything else. The purpose and intentions of this blog is not to hate on Call of Duty. My intent is to show why the success of Call of Duty has hurt online multiplayer shooters. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>Fast forward two years after CoD4 has released, the sequel, Modern Warfare 2 arrives. It quickly becomes one of the highest and fastest selling games of all time. The following year, another game in the series, Black Ops, arrives and outsells Modern Warfare 2. Now, once again, there is nothing wrong with the success the games had. What went wrong; was what followed their success. Publishers obviously took notice of what Activision was doing. Earning billions of dollars in a week, why would they not want a piece of the pie as well? After Halo: Reach released in 2010, it all began to go downhill for the genre. Reach was probably the last game that wasn&rsquo;t heavily influenced by Call of Duty. Yes, it had loadouts with different choices, but they were controlled and set, not customizable. Bungie could change them if something became overpowered or underpowered. As I said though, that was the last game to really follow the old-school, for a lack of a better term, formula. Games from Gears of War 3, to Halo 4, have light influences to heavy influences from Call of Duty. What&rsquo;s wrong with that? Well I am about to explain. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="white-space:pre;"></span><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>Games are developed around certain core ideas and mechanics. It requires delicate tuning and balancing to take those core ideas, and make a fun and balanced experience; especially in online shooters. The customization and mechanics such as instant respawn, work in Call of Duty because Infinity Ward built the entire game around those ideas. Trying to take an already established idea such as Halo, and throw them on top of a game you already have, does not work. Look at Halo 4, a game, whether you want to admit it or not, has strong influences from Call of Duty. Tactical packages and support upgrades are essentially perks. They are abilities you can pick in the menu, outside of combat, that can change the outcome of a game. Halo was always built around the idea that players started off equal, 4 fundamentally changes that with the armor mods. You also have instant respawn, which due to the shields players have in Halo, can create instances were one player has an unfair advantage. Say two players meet in a one on one duel, both players have battle rifles. Player A wins the duel and kills Player B. Player A did take enough damage so that two more bursts from a battle rifle will kill him. Player B, because of instant respawn, is immediately back in the action, he reaches Player A before Player A&rsquo;s shields have recharged, and kills him. With the 3 second respawn time previous Halo games had, Player A&rsquo;s shields would have recharged before Player B respawned, and when they met again, the battle would start off equal. Why would 343 add something that clearly creates unfair situations? Because they&rsquo;re trying to follow the leader rather than stick to the already established formula. Once again, I want to take a look at armor mods. I can&rsquo;t remember every ability off the top of my head, but I&rsquo;ll bring up one I do remember, which allows player&rsquo;s driving vehicles to be immune to the EMP effect that weapons like the plasma pistol have. This ability is chosen by the player prior to the game. The player firing that EMP blast has no idea that the gun he is using will not work against his opponent. It creates frustrating situations. You know an EMP blast disables vehicles, but it doesn&rsquo;t work when it should because someone has an ability you don&rsquo;t know they have. This breaks the core idea of what Halo multiplayer is, and creates a game that is less fun that it should be. All because a company, whether it be 343 or Microsoft themselves is trying to reach an audience they&rsquo;re never going to get. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="white-space:pre;"></span><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>Another game that changed for the worse is Gears of War 3. Epic decided to give players the choice to spawn with a gnasher shotgun like the previous two games, or a sawed-off shotgun that was all new to Gears 3. They took that customization from another popular game, and tried to force it into their own. It resulted in many fans of the series dropping the game because of one gun. A weapon that was only there to add something they thought would draw in another crowd. Gears of War: Judgment looks to carry this even farther, with instant respawns and more gameplay altering customization. Neither of those ideas fit the core premise of Gears of War, and it&rsquo;s another case of a company trying to mimic what is more successful. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="white-space:pre;"></span><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>I know people will read this and say, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re just afraid of change and progress.&rdquo; I&rsquo;m all for change of it makes the game better. Halo 2 brought a lot of change from Halo CE, yet it maintained the core ideas and did not fundamentally change the game. The definition of progress is &ldquo;<span>to advance toward a higher or better stage; improve steadily</span>.&rdquo; Taking ideas from what is currently the most popular and using them, does not always equal progress. It means you lack innovation or originality. You can add and innovate without changing the soul of your game. I&rsquo;m sure many people will also disagree that these ideas make the games worse. You&rsquo;re free to think that, but then you have to look at the issue of games becoming too similar. If I decide to play Battlefield, it is because I like Battlefield. If I decide to play Halo, it&rsquo;s because I like and want to play Halo. If I want to play Call of Duty, that&rsquo;s what I will play. I don&rsquo;t play Halo because I like CoD. Every game is not going to be as successful as CoD, or whatever the most popular game is at the time. Developing games is not a scientific formula you can follow. If that was the case you wouldn&rsquo;t see bargain bins in stores with games for $10 or games receiving 5&rsquo;s from Gameinformer or IGN. Call of Duty became popular because it did something different, not because it copied ideas from another game. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="white-space:pre;"></span><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>This is currently what is wrong with online shooters, nobody is trying to do something new or unique. They are all just playing follow the leader. Not only does this frustrate fans of games who liked them for what they are, but it makes everything feel like the same thing. I can only play Halo 4 for about three games tops before I feel like I&rsquo;m just playing Halo: Modern Warfare, and I turn off the Xbox in frustration. I can pop in Reach, which is over 2 years old now, and still enjoy it, because it feels different. I can play Counter-Strike today, and enjoy it, because it isn&rsquo;t more of the same. So, in summary, games need to stop looking at other games and stop hitting &ldquo;ctrl C.&rdquo; No genre is currently being ruined by this idea as much as first-person-shooters. If it continues, players will get bored because everything is the same, and then nobody will be playing. I don&rsquo;t think this is what developers and publishes want, and it&rsquo;s not what gamers want.&nbsp;</span><span></span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="" width="1" height="1">BladeWarrior23 I want to see announced at E3/blogs/members/b/bladewarrior23_blog/archive/2013/02/26/games-i-want-to-see-announced-at-e3.aspx2013-02-26T16:22:00Z2013-02-26T16:22:00Z<p>One of the most exciting times of the year for gamer&#39;s is E3, and it&#39;s only a few more months away. Unlike the past few years with not many new exciting announcements and games, I expect E3 13 to blow people away. We&#39;ll see the full unveiling of the PS4, the next Xbox, Nintendo&#39;s second wave of big Wii U games, and plenty more. If there has been any year in recent memory to expect big games and surprises, it&#39;s going to be this year. Being the optimist that I am, I have quite a list of games I&#39;m hoping are announced this year. Some of them may be me being more hopeful than anything, but there are a few that have the possibility of actually being announced. Here is my wish list for E3 2013.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Halo 2 Anniversary&nbsp;</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>There have been rumors of this coming to the Xbox &quot;720&quot; as a launch title for a while, and since Halo 2 is my favorite online multiplayer game ever, I&#39;m really hoping it is announced. Unlike the remake of the first Halo, Halo 2 originally had online multiplayer, so there&#39;s a good chance if 343 did decide to make it, they would include online. If I had to guess, it would likely be a co-developed title between 343 and Certain Affinity(who actually contributed significantly to Halo 4&#39;s multiplayer if you didn&#39;t know).</p> <p><strong>Zelda Wii U Tech Demo turned into a full game</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>The tech demo Nintendo showed of Zelda for the Wii U at E3 two years blew me away. It is the exact type of graphics/art I want to see from Zelda. We know Nintendo is hard at work on a Zelda for the Wii U, but we don&#39;t know what it&#39;s like. I&#39;m hoping they take the tech demo and turn it into the next Zelda game.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Fable reboot</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>The original Fable for Xbox was a really fun game, and I also really enjoyed Fable 2. Unfortunately though, slowly over the course of the series, Lionhead stripped away RPG elements and basically turned it into a fantasy adventure game. I want to see the next Fable get back the basics and be an old school fantasy RPG. Lionhead is rumored to be working on a new Fable game along with a new IP with MMO elements. Hopefully that Fable game ends up more like the original.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Star Fox 2</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>The first video game I ever finished multiple times was Star Fox 64. I had to have beaten it at least 30 times. I went back and take different routes, and discovered there was a &quot;real Andross&quot; that I hadn&#39;t fought the first 20 or so times I beat the game. Nintendo gave us two fun sequels in Adventures and Assault, but neither game was a true sequel to 64. I hope with the Wii U they create an all new Star Fox game that is totally vehicle focused. There have been rumors of the series&#39; return, even some with Metroid Prime developer Retro working on the game. Hopefully we&#39;ll see Fox&#39;s return this E3.</p> <p><strong>Star Wars Republic Commando 2</strong></p> <p><strong><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></strong></p> <p>One of my favorite shooters ever, and one of the most underrated games ever IMO. Republic Commando came out late in the Xbox&#39;s life, and never received the attention it should have. I&#39;ve been hoping for a sequel for years, and was really disappointed to read of a supposed follow-up title Imperial Commando that was cancelled. Lucas Arts&#39; has a Star Wars FPS in development currently, so I&#39;m hoping it&#39;s the sequel to Republic Commando.</p> <p><strong>Crackdown 3</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>I was one of many gamers in 2007 who bought Crackdown solely to play the Halo 3 beta. Unfortunately my uninformed self didn&#39;t know the beta had already ended by the time I had enough money to buy Crackdown. Luckily, I still got an amazing game. I played through the game at least 10 times, solo and co-op. Crackdown 2 was somewhat of a disappointment, but it only had 8 months of development time. If Ruffian, or someone else was given enough time to make a true sequel, Crackdown 3 would blow people away. Just imagine it on the next Xbox, open world, possible 8 player co-op, explosions and orbs, it would be amazing. There have been rumors of this as well, with Microsoft&#39;s Phil Spencer even adding fuel to the fire on twitter. Once again, we&#39;ll see this E3.</p> <p><strong>Perfect Dark 2</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>One of the best shooter&#39;s of its&#39; era. Perfect Dark has never received the treatment it deserves. The sequel(I guess prequel technically) was originally on the Gamecube, then moved to Xbox, and then finally released on the 360. While Zero was a decent launch title, it was nowhere close to Call of Duty 2, or Gears of War. Rare was working on another game in the series title Perfect Dark Core, but it was cancelled due to poor management that plagued Rare for years. Rare was hiring people recently with experience in FPS development, and Phil Spencer also somewhat hinted at Rare making a comeback. I&#39;m hoping Joanna Dark appears on the E3 stage once again this year.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Mass Effect prequel</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>I don&#39;t know where Bioware can take the prequel or what they might do. I just want more Mass Effect. Take the combat from 2/3 and add the RPG elements and atmosphere from the original and you&#39;ll have an amazing game. I love the series and just want more. I know it&#39;s going to happen, I just want to see it announced this E3.</p> <p><strong>Agni&#39;s Philosophy turned into next Final Fantasy</strong></p> <p><strong><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></strong></p> <p>Every Final Fantasy game post XII, has been disappointing, or hasn&#39;t released. XIII and XIII-2 have been incredibly polarizing, and XIV has been a straight up mess. Versus, the game that actually appears to have potential has been nowhere to be seen for years. Square seems like they don&#39;t know what to do with the franchise. One bright spot was the Agni&#39;s Philosophy demo, it looks like a really unique world and setting. Square announced at the Playstation 4 reveal conference they would be showing the next FF at E3 this year. I just hope it&#39;s this demo as a full game and not another XIII style teenage soap opera game.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Super Smash Bros. 4</strong></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>If I had a dollar for every game I&#39;ve played of the Super Smash Bros. series, I&#39;d be the richest man alive. Nintendo has already confirmed the game will be at E3. I want to see more characters, more levels, and solid online vs. I also want to see Melee style gameplay over the slow gameplay from Brawl. Melee is the best game in the series, just make SSB4, Melee 2.0 from a gameplay perspective.&nbsp;</p> <p>Like I said, there are tons of reasons to get excited about E3 this year. I haven&#39;t been this excited in years. If even half the games on my list are there, I&#39;ll be good. The hardest thing will be these next few months of waiting.&nbsp;</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="" width="1" height="1">BladeWarrior23 does it have to be one or the other?/blogs/members/b/bladewarrior23_blog/archive/2013/02/23/why-does-it-have-to-be-one-or-the-other.aspx2013-02-23T17:52:00Z2013-02-23T17:52:00Z<p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p>In the gaming community, you often find people who have their own specific idea of how things should be. Gaming is something many people are passionate about, so you&#39;ll find very strong opinions on just about every topic. What&#39;s better, the PS3 or Xbox 360? Don&#39;t ask if you don&#39;t want a few paragraphs covering every reason someone believes one is better than the other. People often take sides like they&#39;re cheering for a sports team, and while this isn&#39;t exclusive to gaming, it seems to be very strong among gamers. You&#39;re either on #teamPS3 or #teamXbox, and this can include other aspects of gaming as well, not just your system of choice.&nbsp;</p> <p>When it comes to the idea of where the industry should head into the future, you seem to find very different answers. Some people want boxes dedicated to gaming only, much like we had prior to the current generation. Others want a jack of all trades machine that is basically a weaker desktop with gaming functions. There are even others who don&#39;t want consoles altogether and would prefer if gaming became more tablet and mobile focused. My question is, why can&#39;t there be options of everyone? Now I&#39;ll be very clear, I&#39;ve been gaming since the SNES days, I very much prefer console gaming and traditional handhelds such as the DS and PSP, but I think if gaming is going to truly grow and expand, every form of game playing should receive attention. There doesn&#39;t need to be an exclusive focus on one particular area. In fact, I think &quot;casual&quot; gaming and &quot;core&quot; gaming can benefit each other in certain ways. Games like Wii Sports and Angry Birds are simple yet fun games that take a lot less money to develop than a triple-A blockbuster such as Halo 4. Creating simple games that can bring in lots of cash can give companies extra money to spend innovating and pushing the boundaries for graphical powerhouses like Halo 4 and Uncharted 2. Also, these &quot;casual&quot; games are often introductions to other games for people who wouldn&#39;t traditionally play games. Almost like a gateway drug if you will.</p> <p>&quot;Core&quot; games can also benefit from casual games, in that it is a needed reminder that the purpose of playing games is to have fun. Often times these big budget games are so focused on features, graphics, and content, the developers leave out the core of the game which should be fun gameplay. For example, I recently bought Borderlands 2, and after a few days of playing it I was just bored. Gearbox focused so much on adding a crazy amount of content, that I feel like they ignored the core gameplay, which is just a boring shooter. I know many will disagree with me on Borderlands 2, but that&#39;s how I feel about it.&nbsp;</p> <p>There&#39;s also the issue of controls. Either you are a pro-motion controls, or pro-traditional controller. There seems to be very little middle ground. I am also not a fan of the Wii-mote or Kinect but I realize it can create fun experiences for other people. Not only that, but because of Kinect, a company like Rare was able to find success they hadn&#39;t had in a long time. I, like many others would love for Rare to get back to the days where they were making classics like Banjo-Kazooie, Conker&#39;s Bad Fur Day, and Perfect Dark, but because they did something new and different they were able to stay open(they likely would have been closed) and now the rumors point to them working on a traditional core IP for the new Xbox as well as another entry in the Kinect Sports series. As long as companies don&#39;t force a control style into a game that doesn&#39;t work, and continue to make games for both audiences there should be no problem with multiple control options.&nbsp;</p> <p>Another area where there is often debate, is the retail vs. digital download argument. This also includes pricing arguments. Every game does not need to be a $60 blockbuster, and it&#39;s also not financially possible for every game at that price to sell millions of copies. Every game does not need to be a $1 project on the iOS or Android app store, or a F2P game or a $10 to $20 game on Xbox Live Arcade or PSN. Every game should choose a pricing model/distribution method that works for that game. Something like Call of Duty should stay with what works, a $60 retail game. A game like Mark of the Ninja would bomb horribly as a $60 retail game, that&#39;s why you find it on the Xbox Live marketplace. The majority of MMOs should not expect to stay afloat with a subscription model, very few people can pay $15 a month for multiple games, let alone one. If companies were more open to changing their price, and basing their budget around that price, more games and companies would be successful. For example, say Microsoft decided to make a F2P League of Legends style game featuring characters from games like Halo, Gears, Fable, Perfect Dark, Ninja Gaiden, Banjo-Kazooie, etc. Would that work if they sold it at Gamestop for $60? No chance. With a F2P model, they could give you the base game for free, and charge for additional items. With a game like that, and all that possible content they could sell, I think it would work. Obviously, they can&#39;t spend 3+ years on development with the kind of graphics in Gears of War if they want to make money back on something like that. It would just have to be managed correctly. Would a sequel to the multiplayer only Shadowrun from 2007 work now with the $60 retail method? No, the first game didn&#39;t, a sequel in an era where less smaller games are being purchased at retail definitely would not. What could you do? Sell it as digital download game on XBLA at $20. Put up adds on the dashboard for it, and you would definitely find a crowd willing to buy and play it. The amount of new and different experiences we could get if companies would just adjust budgets and find the best method to sell their game would be amazing. What doesn&#39;t need to happen, is a company trying to force everything into one model. Crytek has stated following the release of their current projects Ryse and Homefront 2, they will switch exclusively to F2P. That is not going to work with every game and could ultimately harm the company. That is the opposite of what should be happening.</p> <p>So, in conclusion, I think the gaming community and industry need to become more open to different options. Options and choices are better for everyone, there is no reason to force one thing down everybody else&#39;s throat. Don&#39;t oppose a F2P game solely because it&#39;s F2P, look at the game and what it&#39;s doing. If it doesn&#39;t work with that method, oppose it because it&#39;s a bad decision from the company making/releasing it. If a game like Shank 2 releases in stores for $60, oppose it because it&#39;s a poor way to sell that particular game. As the people purchasing this content, we have the power to basically dictate what companies do. Let&#39;s support what works and oppose what doesn&#39;t, not choose sides like it is a game of football.&nbsp;</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="" width="1" height="1">BladeWarrior23 I Would Change Multiplayer in Halo 5/blogs/members/b/bladewarrior23_blog/archive/2012/12/10/how-i-would-change-halo-5-multiplayer.aspx2012-12-11T02:36:00Z2012-12-11T02:36:00Z<p><img style="max-width:610px;" src="" border="0" alt="" /></p> <p><span>Most of the current members of GIO probably don&#39;t know me or anything about me. I&#39;ve been here since 2003, and most people here during the years I was active 03-2010, know how big of a Halo fan I am. I replayed the campaign in Halo CE at least 200 times. I had 3 friends on my street during the Halo 2 era that had Xbox Live, and I would go to whoever was home at the time to play Halo 2 online. For me, Halo 2 is the pinnacle of online first-person shooters. The gameplay, maps, and online setup all came together to create the best online experience I&#39;ve had. Halo 3 had me excited like no other game ever has. The Halo 3 thread here on the GIO forums was just insane. Everyone was going crazy the two weeks leading up the launch. I played over 5000 games of Halo 3 online. I had an awesome crew I played with the three years the game was out before Reach. Even though Halo 2 was the superior game in my opinion, Halo 3 is my favorite because of the memories it created. The trilogy, at least for me, is as close to perfection as a video game trilogy can be. The amount of time I&#39;ve invested in it is more than I ever want to know.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p><span>Fast forwad, it is 2010. From the beginning, you know the end. I only wish that had actually been true. I wish I had known what was about to happen to Halo multiplayer. Halo: Reach, the game that showed Bungie wasn&#39;t perfect. While I loved the campaign, the multiplayer had some issues that frustrated me. Reticule bloom, armor lock, a lack of quality maps, and slow movement speed irritated me like the other Halos never did. I still liked the game and played over 2500 games online. I was eagerly anticipating Halo 4 the entire time though, hoping new developer 343 Industries would bring back what I loved about Halo multiplayer prior to Reach. Well, unfortunately, that didn&#39;t happen. 343 took what Reach did, and expanded upon it. It definitely wasn&#39;t what I wanted to see. I still am enjoying Halo 4 somewhat, but I don&#39;t feel the urge to drop what I&#39;m doing to go play Halo like I had prior to Reach. The rest of this blog will explain how I would change the multiplayer in Halo 5, and the reasons behind the changes.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><strong><span>Simple is better</span></strong><span></span></p> <p><span>Anyone who has played Halo games since the beginning will tell you each Halo has added another layer of variables to the combat. Halo 2 added dual-wielding and expanded the weapon sandbox. Halo 3 added equipment and expanded the sandbox even more. Halo: Reach added armor abilities, and Halo 4 added armor mods. Each game has made the simple yet complex multiplayer more complicated. Well, sometimes, simplicity is better. Halo was always about being placed in an arena, evenly matched with your enemy. Whoever could take advantage of what was placed inside that arena the best would come out on top. Now, outcomes of matches are determined by things you choose in menus before the game even starts. There is nothing wrong with this idea itself, but it doesn&#39;t work in Halo because that isn&#39;t what Halo is about. It works for Call of Duty or Battlefield because the games are built around this idea. With Halo, they added this in after the fact. It doesn&#39;t fit or work. For example, if a user has a ability that allows them to reload faster, and the other user doesn&#39;t, in a one on one situation, the user with the ability to reload faster will have the advantage. This isn&#39;t decided by something inside the battlefield if you will, it is decided prior to the game. This breaks the everyone starts off even idea Halo used to be based on. So, in summary, everyone should start off equal, and who wins should be 100% decided by how they take advantage of what is on the map. </span></p> <p>How to fix it ? Well for one, drop the weapon sandbox back down to the size of the first 4 Halo games. It is too large in 4, and too many weapons have overlapping roles. There is no reason to have a DMR, Light Rifle, BR, and Carbine. Keep two at the most, preferably the Battle Rifle and Carbine since the DMR&#39;s 3x scope makes Big Team maps frustrating. Reduce the number of instant kill weapons to one or two, instead of 4 or 5. Remove armor abilities, and bring back equipment which is something you have to earn on the map rather than spawn with. Take out armor mods that give players advantages they didn&#39;t earn they just unlocked by playing a lot. I know people don&#39;t like the removal of features in games, but this would create a more balanced and fun game. Also, vehicles should be treated as power weapons, not faster methods of transportation as most of them have become. There should also never be too many of them on one map. Ragnarok has two Warthogs, two Banshees, and two Mantises. This creates gameplay that is entirely centered around taking out the vehicles. It is not fun. You might disagree at first, but think about how annoying it is to spawn, ping a Mantis with 4 or 5 DMR rounds, die, repeat, die, repeat, and then finally kill it after you&#39;ve already given the other team multiple kills. Halo needs a more focused combat experience. It currently does not have that.&nbsp;</p> <p><img src="" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p> <p><strong><span>Randomness is not fun</span></strong><span></span></p> <p><span>Reach added a little bit of randomness to combat with reticule bloom. Even if you paced your shots you weren&#39;t guaranteed to hit your target. It was an annoying mechanic but you could overcome it. Halo 4 made it worse by adding random ordnance drops. Gone are the static weapon spawns that encouraged movement and map control. This was also a core aspect of Halo multiplayer that is long gone.&nbsp;You might have a match now in Halo 4, where say a game of Infinity Slayer is tied 550-550. A random rocket launcher drops right in front of one of the players, he uses it gets a double kill, and two more quick kills, and finishes off the ammo with one last kill. This kind of outcome shouldn&#39;t happen because a weapon randomly dropped. It is not balanced, fun, or fair. 343 claimed they added random ordnance because it took away the advantage skilled players had of knowing where weapons spawned and how long until they spawned after they were picked up. The goal was to create a more accessible environment online. Well they way they did it, doesn&#39;t really work. The easy and simple way to change this and make it work for both skilled players, and newcomers, would be to have weapon drops with set locations, but keep the weapon icon the appears on the screen when it drops. Leave the icon up for about 5 seconds, so it doesn&#39;t stay until it is picked up and clutter the screen. This seems like a common sense way to fix the problem 343 claimed existed(although I&#39;ve never heard anyone complain about static weapon spawns in Halo) and makes it work for both types of players.&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>&nbsp;Promote the importance of winning, not kill/death ratios</strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Right now, a problem infecting every online shooter, is the k/d obsession. Everyone is concerned with making sure their k/d is as high as possible. This idea has promoted camping, people not attempting to capture objectives, and other behavior the ignores what should be the goal of winning. I think the best way to change this would be to remove the k/d ratio or spread stat from the game. Still show the kill number and death number in the post game stats, but don&#39;t give an overall k/d ratio number. Every match should matter as well. Ranks should be based on winning and losing. Taking out join-in progress games would have to happen though. Every match starts off equal, if it is Team Slayer, 4 on 4 would be the number of players at the beginning. If you win, you gain two EXP points. If you lose, you lose one EXP point. If you quit, you lose two EXP points. Your rank should never stay the same, it would be entirely based upon your winning and losing. This would be your true skill rank. You would also have Halo 3 style military ranks that are based on EXP ranks, but your EXP doesn&#39;t go away for those ranks. While this clearly isn&#39;t as detailed or in-depth as it would need to be for an actual game, it gives a clear idea and outline of how it should work.&nbsp;</span><span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>I know this blog may come across as Halo: Reach/4 bashing, and I don&#39;t mean it to be that way at all. Both games are fun, but both have problems that could be fixed if the developers would understand what Halo games are really about at the core. I feel like right now the last two Halo games are like delicious cakes, with layers of disgusting icing on top. Both still have that amazing Halo core gamplay, 4 moreso than Reach because of bloom and movement speed, but the other stuff added makes them frustrating games to play at times. I&#39;m really interested to hear what other Halo fans think of these ideas, or even fans of multiplayer shooters in general. I feel like this is the total opposite of how developers are making multiplayer games in the current days. So please, give me some feedback!</span><span></span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P.S. I plan on posting an entire blog in the future about multiplayer maps, a large portion of which will be Halo related, so stay on the lookout for that!</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="" width="1" height="1">BladeWarrior23