User:RoadDoggFL/Halo 3 Wishlist

Taking suggestions in the discussion page. --RoadDoggFL 22:27, 26 June 2006 (EDT)

General
Fall Damage - Bring it back.

Health Bars - Guessing when I'm going to die was fun for a while. Now stop it.

Physical Representation of Both Weapons - If a sniper has a sword as his backup weapon, let me see it on his belt. Grenades would be nice, too.

Steal Weapons - I was only going to put this in the MP wishlist but I realized that if backup weapons are visible in campaign, then enemy units in campaign could be the targets of this as well. I want to be able to sneak up behind somebody and hold X to take their backup weapon off his back. Maybe bigger weapons could take a second or two to remove but imagine sneaking up behind a camper and rather than killing him and having him alert everybody of your location you take his backup rocket launcher and send one flying to the sniper that's been giving you a hard time. I REALLY feel this idea has some potential, and it'd allow for some serious trash-talking moments, nothing's worse than being killed by your own weapon.

Smoke Grenades - A lot of people want a lot of new grenade types, inlcuding EMP, flashbangs, incendiary, whatever. I just want smoke grenades. It's just a personal preference but I feel that smoke grenades could really fit into the Halo world.

Sprinting - I remember that this was supposed to be in Halo 2 so how about it makes it into Halo 3? Of course, MS completely messed up with the 360's controller by moving the black and white buttons rather than adding two new shoulder buttons/triggers/"bumpers." Oh well, I still REALLY want sprinting in Halo 3.

Prone - I was thinking that it could be all GR-style and up and down on the D-pad would be stance control but Close Combat: First to Fight did a pretty good job, I think. Altering it a bit to work with Halo it'd be something like this: Click and hold the left stick to crouch (like normal, or it could be a single click if you enabled toggle crouching), and double-click to go to prone. Prone should probably be a toggle command, then while in prone you click and hold the left stick to go to a crouching position (letting go would bring you to prone, tap jump to go to standing) and double-click or tap jump to go to standing. Now going prone would really allow a slower paced game to come out, but still the decreased mobility would make you a prime target for grenades.

Leaning - Let me scope out a room before I enter. I just want to poke my head around a corner so my entire body isn't exposed.

Mantling - Jump and hold A or jump and press and hold A to grab onto and pull yourself on top of any ledges you get near. This would make for some fun MP matches and probably some interesting level designs.

Toggle Crouching - Let me set the option in my player profile since I often wish I didn't have to hold down the left stick to crouch walk. Giving us an option (with the default set to "off") would really help our thumbs out in many situations. Also, a second setting that lets you decide if you want jump to serve as a crouch toggle deactivator would be good too, I can imagine some cases where being toggle crouched and hitting A would make me expect to be standing.

Dodging - Every other character in the game can dodge. I suggest that they use UT's method of double-tapping in a direction to roll in the direction you moved the stick.

Stealth - All of these moves would serve to give the player more control over how he wants to play the game. Of course, their use should be required very seldomly, I'm not trying to change the game, I just want more options of how I want to play the game. So guns blazing would still be a viable option.

Complete Controller Customization - This, I think, is what would really tie the above things into the game quite nicely. People have suggested adding classes or different attributes to the skins for MP. But what if the "class" you play as is determined by the set of moves you can execute? What if the difference between playing stealthily, going run-and-gun crazy, and playing a nimble sniper able to get into the most insane crevices is just a matter of choosing your moves so you can play how you want? Doing this, along with having Bungie include far more actions then there are buttons (I've considered even asking them to go so far as to make animations/actions that are utterly useless in-game and would only serve a purpose for machinima. It'd be nice if, say, Church could knock on Caboose's head in RvB to illustrate that it's just hollow) would allow people to make their character their own beyond choosing a skin or an avatar with two colors and a background.

More Customization - Yes, I'm drilling this one in there. But specifically, I'd love to be able to turn off/down the auto-aim on my profile. Hell, Bungie could hold competition with "No Auto-Aim" rules. Why not? It's no mouse and keyboard, but what's the harm in letting those who really want to test their skills do so?

No More Pop-In Textures - Let's see, wait a few seconds or ruin every FMV sequence? Tough Choice.

Motion Tracker - 2 ideas:

(1.) Rip Conker's Bad Fur Day's radar system off and make the dot on the radar have a black border above it or below it depending on if the person represented was above or below you

(2.) Make the dot turn a lighter or darker if the person's above or below me.

ATV!!!!! - Just an amazing vehicle idea. Prone to rolling, no cover from any angle, slides on ice (unlike the somewhat comparable Ghost), and no weapons to speak of (at least I'd hope not, firing a single-handed weapon at any significant speed while still steering would be ineffective at best, useless most often, and actually detrimental at worst) all add up to a vehicle that's gotta be fast as hell for the sake of balance. This really appeals to me. Back in Halo this thing would've been a flag runner's wet dream: "Is the flag in that hog? Maybe it's hiding? Oh, damn! They already scored!" Just screams of being a very noob-unfriendly vehicle, the kind of thing that's an absolute lethal addition to a good strategy in the hands of a skilled driver.

Flamethrower - Halo PC showed it could be balanced.

Transport Hog - This is kinda more for MP, though it definitely has its uses in campaign. This would be a much better fit for Halo's style than the Pelican because it doesn't really require any drastic changes to the game to accomodate for it.

Water Vehicles - Just thinking of an island-hopping scenario is cool, I'd like to have small conflicts dispersed throughout the area with plenty of cover to allow the player to really take control of encounters (one of Halo's strongest characteristics, in my opinion). I'd like to try out some water-based combat, have maybe two kinds of human water craft (a high speed personal watercraft and something slower and sturdier for more transport-oriented purposes) and maybe one Covenant-based (I want to emphasize that giving the Covenant equivalent counterparts to each piece of human hardware and vice versa is a quick way to make a boring game). The emphasis here isn't so much on water-based combat, but more the use of water (an extra element) as a means of rapid transport to gain favorable position on the map. So accordingly, the watercraft won't be packing too much firepower, a LAAG is reasonable, but I figure something a bit weaker would fit nicely. The last thing I want is people camping from the water on somebody's spawn point (even though it's probably inevitable).

Drop Current Weapon - How many times in MP has somebody who's terrible with a sniper rifle been hogging it, and when you finally convince him to give it up you have to run around looking for a weapon for him to swap out with. This could help in both campaign (swap with a friend, or leave a rocket launcher for a Marine or ODST to pick up when he passes by) and MP (the above example). I figure maybe holding X and hitting Y would be a good combo that you don't find yourself executing accidentally.

Lock-On Rockets - Ok, first time I saw this in the E3 2004 video I died a little on the inside. Anyway, I understand the need for rockets to lock-on to aircraft, but please please PLEASE take it off of ground vehicles. Give us back the sense of accomplishment we used to get when we took out a speeding hog carrying the flag back to base. Yes, a personal preference but any noob with a rocket shouldn't be able to take people out from more than 50 yards.

Campaign
Communicate With Marines - But only if they can communicate back. I don't want to be barking orders at them because they're not in the same branch. Things like "cover me" should really go both ways, and if a Marine tells you a follow him, it'll let Bungie set up some gripping moments by controlling what happens to the lead man (ie: you get in front of the guy you're supposed to follow and you die).

Humans Lose - How awesome would that be?

Reestablish the Covenant - Alien allies? Screw that. Brutes and Prophets manage to kill the "heretics" who side with humanity before word of their motives gets out to the rest of the Covenant and they kick some human ass. Perhaps only to succumb to a Flood onslaught?

Ties With the Books - It'd be nice if Bungie made sure that at least future books didn't conflict with the games' universe and that Halo 3 didn't effectively take a crap on the work done by Mr. Nylund.

Wide Open Levels - You knew you were in for a treat with Halo when you exited the tunnel on the second level only to see a massive landscape before you complete with plenty of trees and rolling hills. I want to get goosebumps when I scan the horizons in Halo 3.

Make Marines Badasses - I know the emphasis here is to show how powerful the Covenant is and how MC really is humanity's last hope, but please don't make the Marines such idiots and cowards. Most importantly, for close engagements they should be putting some serious lead out and barely missing.

Multiplayer
Black and White - A black team and a white team would be cool. I know it was avoided because of race and balance issues, but they're the best colors for player models so I just want to use them.

Operate Vehicles With the Flag - Way to kill my fun, guys.

Detailed Stat Tracking In-Game - It's not too much to ask, let me track how many kills I have in a CTF match or how many assists I have in a Team Slayer. The stats could be accessed from the stats menu, but specifically I'd like to be able to customize which stats are displayed when I hold back. These customizations should be saved to profiles, and have almost limitless display possibilities (stipulate that you want shot accuracy to be displayed in games with Sniper weapon sets, if you want). And yes, that includes customizing how players are sorted (keep 1st-16th designations for who's in the lead with objective points, but if I want the person with the most assists to be on top when I check scores, why not?).

Flag Must Be Reset - I only want this as an option, but wouldn't it be nice if you could set up your gametype so that the flag HAD to be touched to be returned? Flag contesting did pretty much fix my complaints, but if a team can't touch their own flag then why should they get it back at their base?

Bring Back the Good Maps - And I don't mean Hang 'Em High. I hate Hang 'Em High. I want Sidewinder. I want Damnation. I want EVERY Halo PC map made by Gearbox, and I don't want them "redone." If Bungie ABSOLUTELY MUST remake the maps to show off how cool they are, let me choose if I want to play a direct port of the old maps. Hell, It'd be really cool to be able to pick the old character models while we're at it.

Extensive Weather Options - Check boxes and sliders everywhere, and let me save that data as a separate file to apply to a selected gametype and let me give it a decent-length title. And also let me change the amount of variation in the game. If I want a blizzard to clear up 20-30 minutes into my game, why the hell not?

VEHICLE DAMAGE TOGGLES - If I don't want the hog to blow up then the hog shouldn't blow up.

More Vehicle Damage Suggestions - Ok, I'm going to pretend that the people at Bungie have souls and will let me toggle vehicle damage... this is in regards to how the vehicle's occupants should take damage:

With vehicle damage on: The vehicle you're riding in should have a condition diagram to let you know when it'd time to ditch. I'm thinking the kind of HUD item present in Destruction Derby, probably NASCAR, and I guess Gran Turismo games. The meter would go up where your ammo indicator used to be (right under small icons identifying what weapons you're carrying) and damage to vehicles would be location specific. Now, with your vehicle's viability greatly hindered, ONLY rounds with trajectories that you intersect should cause you any damage. It's a simple concept and the people who think realism is really that prevalent in Halo will all love this and leave me alone. Also, when a vehicle's taken too much damage and explodes, you should probably take like 75% damage (that's all of your shields and half your life, people). So if you're hurt, you're dead but if you have an overshield, you're just pissed at the wasted shield.

With vehicle damage off (as God intended it): Every hit sustained by your vehicle affects your health, but shots that hit the vehicle should do... say, a third damage while direct hits obviously do full damage.

Halo's Physics - You know, in a perfect world Bungie would manage to let you choose the physics and I'd only play in games with the original physics so people who think Havok's all that great can have their fun too. But the fact is that that won't happen. Hell, I know the old physics aren't coming back but I guess that'll be left behind along with the fun of the original. Too bad Bungie listens to the wrong fans (I bet there's a Pelican in Halo 3 MP).

Ammo - Ammo lying around the level's a good idea, Halo 3's MP maps should have more of that. But if the weapon's not on the level we don't need the ammo. It's not like somebody's gonna sneak a sniper rifle into a sword match and get pissed when he runs out of ammo.

AI? - GIVE ME BOTS! Really, I'd love to have complete control over each individual bot. Give me memory for like 32-64 individual bots, and let me create and save teams with different lineups for use in any games I might want to play. But when I say complete control, I mean set affinities and priorities for weapons, vehicles, objectives, covering allies, the works. DEFINITELY let me set the accuracy on their shots and let me start on this undertaking with predesigned templates (camper, vehicle whore, captain, etc). Bots would add so much to the game, but I realize they'd be hard to perfect so it's not a big deal that they've been UA until this point. If something like what I'm talking about is ever really effectively pulled off (like UT but on crack) then I'd love to see it implemented in Halo.

More Skins - This is mainly for Brutes, Marines, and ODSTs in MP. They'd only have to be skins and they could even have shields. I can understand why skins like Grunts wouldn't be allowed (though it'd be nice in Custom games or as an option to allow in Custom Gametypes) but Brutes, Marines, and ODST's are all generally the same size so I think it could work.

Custom Gametype Control - No weapons on map, no ammo on map, no grenades on map, no powerups on map. We've been playing "honor system" boxing matches since 2002 easily, how about you let us create a gametype in which we respawn with no weapons or grenades and go wild with the melees? You'd have to be able to melee with no weapon, I think it would make a very nice diversion.

Infinite Grenades - THESE GAMES WERE SO MUCH FUN!!!! Come on, bring them back and increase the player limit. It's not like anybody's going to turn the option on in a real game... Imagine a boxing match with three guys up on a cliff sending down smoke grenades for even more chaos and confusion.

Shield Changes - I'm putting this in MP because it would make campaign impossible. But how about your shield's regenerative properties degenerating in accordance with how much damage they've taken and how many times they've recharged? Maybe once you lose your shields and they come back, they come back at 90% or they're less effective at protecting you and drop faster and recharge slower?

Weapon/Item Respawn Timers - One thing that many Halo 2 critics sorely miss is the weapon respawn system of Halo. I must admit that using timer programs or watches that beep at regular intervals isn't a tactic I ever became familiar with, so I don't share their sentiments. But I do agree that Halo 2's weapon respawn system is flawed. So while I oppose the easily tracked system of Halo, I also dislike the one-sided system of Halo 2. The last team with a particular weapon knows when it's coming back. At least in Halo everybody knew when it was coming back (if they had the necessary tools to keep track of it), what I'm thinking about is a proximity-based system that modifies each weapon's respawn timer. Also, the magnitude of the modification depends on the current score (maybe things like Kills, Deaths, or even Kill:Death ratio could be factored in as well); so if the team/player that's in the lead by an extremely wide margin is waiting for a power weapon or a power-up, they'll be waiting for a while and will simply have to make due with what's readily available. But if the team/player that's lagging behind needs some help and is waiting for, say the rocket launcher, the weapon's respawn timer will be sped up slightly (or greatly, depending on how this would be balanced) so they can get the weapon in their hands and try to stage a comeback. Close games are more exciting than blowouts, and changes like this would make blowouts all the more impressive.

Player Respawn System - Right now there's a set list of locations where players can respawn and the game chooses which one you'll find yourself at for you based on the locations of your enemies and allies. Well series like Ghost Recon have given players a choice where they want to come back, and while some trickery might have to be pulled off to balance objective-based games (so players can't just choose to respawn on top of the flag if they get killed by the offense's assault), it really beats respawning on the opposite side of the base when your team mate's waiting for some backup to do a flag run.

Spectator Mode - I realize that network conditions may be affected by this, and I really think that if spectating is going to be done it should be done right. I'd love for players to be able to use a free cam mode to view games currently in progress (or even saved on Xbox Live, I'm sure plenty of people would be willing to see exactly how a tournament championship match went down), though viewing the match from any player's view would be useful as well. My main concern is that having a spectator would lag the game up, I don't know if there's a way around it, but if there's a way to broadcast the game data to an MS server that hosts the spectators in a separate game then I'd imagine that this would be ideal.

Mini-Games - Things like Race (I miss it, btw... :, Hog Warz, Bumper Cars (don't ask the difference, Bungie can figure that one out)... hell, even things like ultimate frisbee could fit, I think. I'm pretty sure these stupid little games wouldn't take too long to implement compared to other things, and they'd give people something to do when those epic four-hour matches are finally over.

Survival - Ok, everybody wants online campaign. I honestly don't really care since Halo 2. I'm just not too terribly interested in the story anymore and I guess it shows in the fact that I want the Covenant or the Flood to win. But anyway, I'd love for a survival-type gametype in multiplayer. Something where the max allowed number of players can hop into a level and face wave after wave of increasingly difficult AI-controlled opponents. Players killed in a round can respawn once the last AI opponent is killed and ammo/health/powerups can become available for maybe 30-45 seconds until the next round begins.

Xbox Live
Banning - You can avoid people now with Xbox Live Gold, but it'd be nice to be able ban them outright from joining custom games you're hosting.

Server Lists - Matchmaking is flawed. If I want to play a big game on Coagulation while none of my friends are online I'm screwed. Traditional server lists would be a nice option, they don't even have to be ranked. Though perhaps if Bungie kept a forced template for different categories (I don't mean anything too specific, just ensuring that certain rules are followed to allow for ranked games such as team auto-balance), custom games that used one of those templates could be set as ranked gametypes. But if traditional server lists are a no-go then maybe...

Party Lists - Party leaders can check and uncheck which maps and gametypes they're up for playing (this could influence matchmaking, too) and solo players can search for parties that meet their search criteria. Also, distinguishing between turning up parties that have certain settings checked and those same settings actually selected (ie, if you want to join a party that's specifically actually playing CTF on Containment rather than just a party that's ok with it but currently playing something else). Both of these, of course, lead me to...

Game Search Results - Give some network conditions about the servers/parties your search has turned up. List the party leader's gamertag, ping, and bandwidth along with the gamertag, ping, and bandwidth of the person who would be your ideal host.

Dedicated Hosts - Let somebody with a fat pipe T3 just leave his 360 on all day or night running a host server/party for others to enjoy. It could work like Unreal Championship and just display game information on his screen. And while I'm dreaming...

Host Our Games - We are paying $50 a year, it'd be nice if MS hosted our games for us... You know, just a thought.

Vote New Party Leader - I know it could be used to hijack rooms, but it'd be nice to let the majority decide who they want to lead the party (also, a "best network conditions" option would be a nice touch for those simply hoping for a lag-free game).

Bigger Games - 16 players is all well and good, but we all know that 32 really is the least people expect for Halo 3. Clean up the netcode, why can Ghost Recon run so smoothly on PCs but a game of 16 Halo 2 players (all of which are on broadband connections) always has at least 2 or 3 laggy players?

Fix Standby - People tell me this isn't Bungie's fault. But why, then, have I never been standbyed in any other game? Ever.

Detailed Stat Tracking - Kills, deaths, hits, shots, accuracy with each weapon. Check boxes to see combined stats. +- system with each weapon (how your team did while you were equipped with a specific weapon), how you did with each weapon. Let me be completely OCD about this.

Persistent Stat Tracking - See the added total stats of all of your games in an unspecified or specified timeframe. I want more than just "last two weeks" or something... let us choose days of the week, check days from a calendar, SUPPORT DIFFERENT TIMEZONES, all while still being able to combine stipulations (stats from every other Wednesday in the past three months (ex, Jun-Aug) and the month two months prior (ex, April). Being able to sort by ranked, unranked, custom, gametype, certain settings (eg, see how you fare in CTF games with no vehicles) would be a very nice touch and would propel Bungie's online system to the forefront. People playing other games will ask developers "why doesn't [your game] do that?"

Level Cheating Countermeasures - How about some built-in detection systems to watch out for people who are purposely de-leveling? You could start by keeping data from every game stored, including friendly fire and grenade/splash damage history. Players who have particularly low kills, high damage against team mates, things like that can be flagged as potential de-levelers to be identified and banned fom matchmaking. And while I'm at it...:

Hide Matchmaking Levels - It wouldn't so much deal with de-levelers as it would just help solve the ridiculous pissing contest levels have amounted to. Maybe a display of every player's past ten games record to identify who's hot and who's cold, it wouldn't accurately represent skill, but neither does the current level system.

Blacklist (things I don't want)
Multplayer

Pelicans - Just the thought of Pelicans in multiplayer irritates me. Unless Bungie's going for a seriously exponential leap in Halo 3's multiplayer scope, I don't see a place in it for Pelicans. It just seems that Halo really shines at smaller, infantry-level conflicts. But if the scope is dramatically increased I'll still be kind of disappointed, even though I asked for more players earlier small games are just that much more intimate. Besting and being bested by one or two players throughout a match really get rivalries going, how much will the game lend itself to that when there are several square miles on the map and dozens of players on each team? These are just general gripes, but keeping that close LAN party feel probably should be up there on Bungie's priorities while doing tweaking and balancing.

General

Dual rockets - You know, I've actually heard of people asking for this without any sarcasm. I know, crazy.

Dual Swords - Hiyah! I never wanted the sword in Halo 2. I figured there'd be no reason for it as long as you can melee or run backwards to avoid the sword-wielder. Well that was before lunge melees were unveiled, and man do they suck. But anyway, I could only imagine that one of the only things worse than a sword whore is a dual wielding sword whore. Sounds like a blast.

Dual Anything - just spare the game and get rid of that crap.

Insane Auto-Aim - Yes, it was done to deal with lag. But rather than change the whole game and ruin those that actually occur under ideal conditions, why not just put more effort into cutting down on lag? How about starting by convincing Microsoft to reveal if Xbox Live is as much of a bandwidth hog as I think it is, or even better, getting them to cut down on that. I know this is really nitpicky, but it seems that PC players are laughing at our laggy all broadband 8 player games. It just doesn't make any sense.

Hit Boxes - I'd rather a game be too hard than too easy. Hell, isn't that what the ranks are for?

Hostages - Seriously, this isn't Splinter Cell.

Lunge Melees - You know things are bad when hand-to-hand combat has auto-aim. Try it, stand in front of an opponent, aim next to him, and melee. Hey, look at that! You hit him!

H2 PP Tracking - Tone it down, return the PP to its Halo glory. Rapid-fire semi-auto, plasma freezes you (but tone that down from Halo, just make it slow the target down instead of literally freezing them completely), PP overheat keeps you from switching weapons instantly, etc.

Portable Turrets - Think camping's bad now? Just wait until people figure out what they can `glitch into (and out of) with a mobile turret that they can turn at will. I'm thinking finding a corner, setting it up, and rotating around so the majority of your body has glitched through the wall.

Over-Interactive MP Levels - I like environmental damage as much as the next guy, but at the same time all those walls crumbling and where those pieces fly to needs to be coordinated between all of the 360s. So I could see it reach a point where lag is created by crumbling environments. If 16 people driving and shooting creates lag, how would adding evironmental damage coordination help things?

Mines - Fisher Price: my first defense!