Let's talk about Specs

[DonFerrari]

Shadow1980 said:

trunkswd said:

The latest we will be waiting for Xbox Series X gameplay and games is June when E3 was supposed to take place. Microsoft plans an all digital event. 

I know. I just hope it's no later than when E3 was supposed to be. This has been the longest wait for any real information for a Halo game, measured by how many months until release. We already had information on and footage or screenshots of gameplay at this point for every Halo game by this point, but we've had no real information about the how the game plays other than the return of split-screen. Plus by time Infinite releases it'll have been five years since Halo 5. Somebody who was in seventh grade when Halo 5 came out will be a senior in high school when Infinite comes out. That's a long wait, and I crave info.

DonFerrari said:

What better way to evolve combat than using the mechanics from the first?

Not necessarily, but I do think that if you take the wrong path, you need to backtrack and try a different path. Halo 5's "Spartan abilities" mechanics simply didn't feel like Halo to me. Infinite sprint, rapid dodges with a thruster pack, high-impact charging melees, and so on were core attributes of the player character. It was simply too fast-paced and twitchy, and was also a more maximalist "look at everything you can do!" approach. It had significant impacts on things like weapon balance and level design. Spartans were always "walking tanks," but in Halo 5 they're more like fighter jets than tanks. And I didn't like it. I've tried to give Halo 5's multiplayer a chance, but I hardly touch it anymore (since the start of September 2019, I've played only 33 matches in Arena). Once the MCC got fixed, I default to that now. I've played more MCC in the past week than I have for Halo 5 in the past six months. Halo has a certain "feel" to it that Halo 5 completely overturned. Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer is to me probably the best Halo has played in a long time.

Some recent games have seen the developers make conscious efforts to go back to the series' roots, often times while still finding ways to change things up. RE7 went back to more traditional survivor horror, but moved the perspective to first-person. Doom 2016 went back to a more classic-style fast-paced gameplay centered around killing demons with big guns and moving really fast, but still added new mechanics that meshed well with the traditional. Super Mario Odyssey moved back towards a more Mario 64-esque approach for level design and core 3D platforming after two Galaxy games and the 3D World/Land games, but still added new mechanics (namely Cappy and his associated abilities) that meshed well with old-school 3D Mario platforming.

What I'd like to see in Infinite is a similar "return to the roots" approach to the core mechanics, while finding new ways to innovate that don't drastically overhaul the core formula.

With Halo 5, 343I decided to focus on changing the base abilities of the player character, but in older games the innovations almost always revolved around some sort of sandbox element external to the player, either with new weapons, vehicles, and gadgets or some new form of interaction with those things. In Halo CE, there was the simple but effective and innovative "golden tripod" of guns, grenades, and melees. In Halo 2 & 3, they added new mechanics that revolved around elements in the sandbox, such as vehicle boarding, dual wielding, single-use deployable equipment, and detachable turrets. They weren't base abilities (i.e., core abilities usable at any time with a press of a button, like a melee attack or jumping), but rather abilities centered around interactions with things external to the player character. Armor abilities, introduced in Reach and carried over into Halo 4 (with some slight changes), were often treated as base abilities (and sprint did become a base ability in Halo 4), but weren't necessarily so, and only a handful of them (sprint in Reach, thruster strafe in Halo 4, and jetpack in both) affected mobility. For one, you were limited to one ability at a time, so maps had to be designed to function well if nobody has sprint, or if nobody has a jetpack. Furthermore, in campaign you found modules to equip to use an armor ability, and even in Reach's multiplayer you could add those modules to the map in Forge instead of having players spawn with an ability. So, while you normally spawns with an AA in Reach and Halo 4, they were functionally more like reusable versions of Halo 3's equipment. And while Halo 5 did focus more on changing the core attributes of the player character, it did have one gameplay change I liked that was an interaction with the sandbox, and that was seat switching in vehicles.

Infinite should innovate along similar lines to those older Halo games, namely through new sandbox elements and interactions with them, such as interesting new weapons or disposable gadgets, or dynamic map elements. They should innovate through AI design. They should innovate through level design and new play modes. But the core abilities should preferably stick to "walk," "jump," "crouch," "shoot," "punch," and "throw grenades," with the combat in general having the slower, more methodical approach of earlier titles instead of the fast-paced twitchy approach of Halo 5.

YouTuber Favyn did a more in-depth video on this subject a couple of years ago if you want to watch it:

Hey man don't worry, I was just making a joke because the name of the first is "combat evolve", hence the best way to evolve the combat mechanics was redoing the first one =]