RE: Retro's H4 Wishlist
I mainly disagreed with the silenced SMG as the starting weapon, the implementation of AAs into weapons, and--although I agree with the implementation of a hub level structure--some of your elements weren't feasible to me. Or more precisiely my view of what Halo 4 should be.
Mostly, though, I want to scrutinize your weapon AAs idea. I feel this will not work for a variety of reasons. Generally, you would be shoehorning most of the power-ups and gameplay augments into single pickups. Meaning that player(s) would have even more of an advantage over one that still has basic spawn weoponry. The obvious answer would be to balance the starting weapon AAs against those of the other weapons' AAs, but then you would have to consider both the weapon's firing capability and its AA. That's a lot of power to put into each weapon, especially if base player attributes makes it difficult to compensate. You would have to balance maps and the weapon placement therein to compensate for two variables, as opposed to the current one. There also runs the issue of power overlaps if there is a imbalance of the weapon to AA ratio, or vice versa, possibly skewing the sandbox.
However, I'm not anti-AA, and I feel they can be reasonably added to the Halo sandbox if they are properly implemented. Some want to rid the franchise of AAs all together, as an entire idea, leaving Halo at its basic point and shoot dynamic that . That's lazy and stale. Fuck that idea. Fuck them, too, if they complain. So let's hash this out.
I propose we keep certain equipment as possible loadouts (like grenade types, starting weapons, perhaps ammo types), grant certain abilities like evade and sprint to players on a fundamental level capped with a stamina guage (and balance level design and other gameplay elements to compensate for this, as you would balance level design to compensate for the ability to jump or crouch), and leave the likes of overshields and invisibility as passive pickups. And allow all of these elements to be modified at the player's discretion.
This way, every player would have enough options at a base level to deal with everything in the sandbox if the player is sufficiently skilled, there would be incentive to capture power-ups to gain an edge, and individual loadouts will still be possible which fosters variable (albeit possibly more "Random") gameplay if players so desire.
