How would you improve Ordnance Drops?

I agree with all of your points.
While I'd like the option to turn off waypoints, I'd also like to have some control over how long waypoints appear for if I decide to use them. One of the most annoying aspects of Ordnance drops is that picking them up can give away your location. While I can see someone putting forth the argument that it adds to the meta-game, in some instances it's just ridiculous. I shouldn't have to worry about alerting another player to my location when I pick up a frag grenade that's set on Random Ordnance. At the same time, maybe I like the basic of idea of having a waypoint that alerts players to where weapons spawn, and I don't want to completely disable waypoints.
Let me set the waypoint to appear for 10 seconds, regardless of whether or not anyone touches it.
It would be even better if I could set the waypoint to appear 5 or 10 seconds before a weapon spawns, and control when the waypoint goes away. Maybe I want it to show up 10 seconds before the weapon spawns and go away as soon as it spawns. Maybe I want the waypoint to show up 5 seconds before the weapon spawns and go away 10 seconds after it spawns (again, regardless of whether or not someone has picked up the weapon).

Another interesting options would be if we could combine the attributes of Initial and Random Ordnances.
If I want an Ordnance drop to spawn a Rocket Launcher at the beginning of the game, an Overshield 2 minutes into the game, and a Rocket Launcher again 3 minutes later, I should be able to do that. Or maybe one of my power weapon locations also doubles as a hill location and I want the power weapon to spawn there at 2 minute intervals, except I don't want it to spawn there when the hill is located there.
Give me the ability to set more than one weapon to spawn in the same location. Give me complete control over which weapon spawns at which time. Allow me to set a weapon to respawn 2 minutes, 6 minutes, 8 minutes, and 12 minutes into the game, or two different weapons to alternate spawning at those times if that's what I want.

 

Had a reply.. it got deleted when I hit backspace or something. I've had this issue on Halo Customs, I guess it's because of the site shift over.

Anyways, the gist of the post (largely agree with you):

Weapon waypoints, if they are kept at all, should appear at the beginning of the match for 5-10 seconds and then never appear again. That way nobody will have gotten to the weapon in time for their opening strategy to be given away to any significant extent. Having the waypoints reappear every time the weapon spawns messes with timing for pickup-based dynamic timers and people who are right on top of the weapon spawn waiting. If the waypoint disappears right as the weapon's picked up, your position is given away. If the waypoint stays, it could confuse people into thinking the weapon is still there.

The optimal solution IMO is to have rank-based tips in the pregame lobby - for lower ranked players, it would say things about where the weapons are, how to work together with your team, go over listening for noises, etc.

Remove randoms if we are getting consistent weapon drops (saying this is sad). There is very little reason to ever have them besides for the one in a hundred minigame.

 

I'd tweak personal ordnance like crazy. Don't really mind initial ordnance - it actually is helpful with playing unfamiliar maps, which I do a lot of. Random ordnance can sit and spin, but it's not used that much in regular or forged maps as far as I can tell.

Personal ordnance is a mess though. The weapon selections don't always seem to be tailored to maps (though this is an option in the ricochet multi-team gametype, so I know they have access to it; they just haven't bothered). So you end up with splasers on non-vehicle maps and incin cannons/fuel rod guns on maps where that makes you a god. Frankly, I'd like to see ALL 1SK weapons dropped from personal ordnance. Focus on 'nades, power-ups, and mid-level weapons: needler, concussion rifle, scattershot, maybe the SAW (though that's pushing it, as grossly OP as that thing is). Leave out the binary, rockets, incin, sword, and snipers, and keep such tide-turning weapons where they belong - as initial ordnance that only appears in selected neutral locations and only drops in at fixed intervals. I just get really tired of games where everybody seems to have a different power weapon, and if the enemy team gets an early lead on you they benefit from a wave of SAWs, rockets and beam rifles that ensures you'll never come back.

The system also discourages movement and encourages camping, so I'd like to see that tweaked as well. I'd like something more evolved where personal ordnance can only spawn at fixed locations on the map (or within a large zone that works sort of like respawn zones do) and those would generally all be placed in neutral-ish areas, encouraging players to move out away from their base. The last thing I want to see is another game of Infinity CTF where a guy sits in his base, racking up points around the flag without moving an inch, and then personal ordnance drops him in a couple power weapons to aid the cause.

 

@Nutduster

Screw that. Let's just get rid of personal ordnance. If personal ordnance can only spawn at fixed locations on the map, it's still impossible for anybody to time / know what it is when players pick up the ordnance right as it drops. Does this guy have pulse grenades or a beam rifle?

Another thing - you can't put the weapon spawn locations in power or semi-power positions, otherwise they'll lead to the scenario you mentioned with camping for killstreaks/ordnance/whatever you want to call it. So the weapons have to be far out of the way of in-control players. Those areas (far from enemy players) also tend to be places where the down teams spawn.. so ordnance in your system might end up something like compensation for losing control. Spawned in the back of the base on Adrift, free scattershot/boltshot/whatever to take control again. meh....

Also, t's impossible to predict with any method preferable to random guessing. Any apparent "randomness" should be player controlled and somewhat predictable to a player who knows how to manage the game well. Personal ordnance will always fail the latter unless it's reduced to very few options - something like grenades or primary weapons - in which case, why even bother.. placing those things on map gives the map designer more control. Want people to nade down a weapon? Put a grenade or two where you want them to nade from.

 

Well to be candid, I'm fine with just removing it. I go out of my way to NOT play gametypes that involve it, which is why I haven't set foot in the infinity slayer playlist for months. I'm just trying to think of modifications that would make it more tolerable, more competitive, and less damaging to the game, because I'm pretty sure 343 isn't removing it.

However, I'm pretty sure they won't do anything I suggest, either...

 

343 removing any of their trash is highly unlikely. It's too jarring to remove waypoints on weapons and objective carriers or add descope. Of course, things like removing regular powerups and leaving temporary AA models in the final game isn't confusing to new players at all. Right?


IMO: Talking about what we can do "realistically" is useless because only the least useful things we suggest are realistic. If anybody wants to bet that the AAs in Halo 5 won't recharge and won't be given off spawn, that's OK with me, but you're going to lose your money. The release of Halo 4 has drained most of my expectations from the series under 343.

Hopefully Bravo, Quinn, and others who have joined the franchise after the launch can make it better.

 

at least ordnances cost nothing in forge. if regular weapons spawns could be free too... also, on one hand, you can see ordnances from far (sometimes too many information on screen), on the other hand, regular weapons spawns can be hard to spot, and forgers have to come with various tricks to make them stand out. a middle ground would be fine.

 

The ability to drop weapons/power ups at your feet devalues weapons/power ups placed on map.

Having to stop, call in your POD, wait for it to drop, then pick it up goes against the fast paced nature of Halo gameplay.

One solution would be to automatically give the player perks at specific kill intervals. 3 kills gets you a faster reload, 5 kills makes enemy footsteps louder, et c. This way you don't devalue on map power items, don't have to stop to get your reward, and aren't rewarded with drastically over powered advantages.

On a semi related note about things being dropped from the sky I think it would be neat if when a Warthog respawned that it got dropped off by Pelican, or come up from the floor like how they moves planes to the top deck on aircraft carriers, or something other than just appearing. It would increase immersion and give maps character.

 

Love the Pelican drop idea - and not only would it increase immersion,it would coincidentally go along with 343's agenda of making the game a little friendlier to new players, by giving a big fat visual indicator of when and where new vehicles are up. The only question is how to integrate a thing like that into maps that are wholly or partly enclosed, especially forged maps.

 

I honestly wouldn't get rid of personal ordnance completely. As long as the drops are Armor Abilities and/or extra ammo. Players shouldn't spawn with an AA and I think it'd be better if they get the AAs from personal ordnance. But no power weapons from PO. That's just retarded.

As for Initial Ordnance, I agree with Nooooch. Being able to toggle the ammo count would be great and I also don't know why it wasn't an option with Initial Ordnance in the first place. Leave it to 343 to forget the basics. :/

 

Why is extra ammo good? You can still call in a DMR from the top of Complex..
Why are armor abilities good to get for free?

Essentially, what I'm trying to say is: Why is anything good for free? Your argument addresses the idea that "rocket launcher for free + rocket launcher is powerful = bad," but ignores the "anything for free is bad" argument.

 

That kinda skirted around the question - why is anything good for free?

 

Extra ammo is a bit of a grey area for freebies.

On one hand you could say that forcing players to collect ammo from corpses encourages map movement.

On the other hand if you are holding down a power position and absolutely murking then why should you have to sacrifice your superior position to obtain ammo?

 

I would say that "holding down a power position and absolutely murking" is more of a map design problem than anything.

Ex: Midship Pink 3: People went up there, and it was a strong power position, but people didn't run out of ammo while hanging out up there often...

 

Ordnance Drop in any form added absolutely nothing of value to the game. From that perspective I cannot see keeping them no matter what improvements one can think up.

Every benefit that has ever been enumerated has also come at the cost of shallowing the game with a net loss every time.

 

OT...I would let it rot in the hell that it came from.

 

If we're talking solely about making minor technical improvements to the current system, then I'd suggest revamping how drop timers for Ordnance work.

Let the Forger set base time intervals for Ordnance in the map variant itself. Then, add a Custom Game option called "Ordnance Drop Rate" with values like "Half Rate", "Map Default", "1.25x Rate", "1.5x Rate", "Double Rate", and so on. This allows mapmakers to better adjust Ordnance to suit their maps.

Now, if we're talking about how 343i could improve Ordnance from a design perspective, outside of the constraints imposed by maintaining Halo 4? I got some ideas.

Modify Initial Ordnance. Drop timers should work as described above, to create consistency with placed-on-map weapons. Furthermore, it should be possible to apply Run-Time Min/Max limits to an Initial Ordnance drop and have those limits apply to the dispensed weapon rather than to the drop itself.

Remove Personal Ordnance. It's a randomized killstreak that allows people to get rewards solely for killing, without any sort of strategy involved. By its very nature it devalues a much better system: map pickups. It's also slow, clunky, and facilitates camping in a power position (since you can get ammo refills and power weapons without ever having to leave).

Modify Random Ordnance. Make it function similarly to the weapon drops in Invasion Skirmish, but with these changes:

• Instead of requiring a team to "capture" the drop location, simply use that time as a warning period.
• Randomize only the drop location (choosing from Forger-specified areas), not the weapon that is dropped.
• Clearly indicate what weapon will be dropped.
• Allow the Forger to set a Run-Time Maximum on the drop. If the maximum is hit (too many of the weapon on the map), then...
  • DON'T interrupt the spawning rhythm. Continue to (attempt to) spawn the weapon at regular intervals.
  • DO display a HUD message during the warning period (and possibly change the color of the drop's waypoint to red) to warn players -- something like "ROCKET SPAWN BLOCKED -- TOO MANY ON MAP."
  • DO force-delete "garbage" copies of the weapon if, when it comes time to spawn, the max limits are still reached or exceeded.
    • A "garbage" copy of the weapon is one that is empty or near-empty, dropped on the ground, and not near any living players.
  • DO fail to spawn the weapon if, when it comes time to spawn, the max limits are still reached or exceeded, and deleting garbage copies of the weapon didn't help.
• Allow multiple random drops to function concurrently. Forgers could be given eight "channels" to work with and could place Random Drop Locations that support a channel option similarly to Teleporters and Trait Zones.
  • For each channel:
    • The weapon to spawn
    • A delay in seconds between spawn cycles
    • A warning period in seconds, prior to the spawn
      • ...such that the weapon itself spawns every (delay + warning) seconds.

The benefits to this approach are:

• There is enough randomness to add variety, but not so much as to break predictability or strategizing. The randomness here encourages map movement and discourages lengthy, stagnant setups, but (assuming a competent Forger that can place drop locations effectively) does not make strategy and positioning worthless.
  
• The warning period allows teams to actually attempt to fight over the random drops, and waypoints and indicators encourage this behavior.
  
• The warning period prevents one team from getting lucky: even if they happen to be at the drop location when it's selected, they still have to defend the location from the other team for some time.

 

If you intend to maintain the drop's way point, then you shallow the depth of the game.

Correct. The randomness shallows the game by eliminating the ability to remember what the enemy has acquired.

Wrong. Randomizing the location removes the need to think about map control, shallowing the game rather than making it play deeper.

Let me explain what I mean by shallowing the game and then perhaps it will become clear why OD in every form has harmed Halo.

When you have random weapons appearing out of no where, you no longer have any reason to think about what weapons the enemy has, because you can't possibly know. When you have weapons randomly dropping, you no longer have any reason to think about when a weapon will drop, because you can't possibly know. When you have weapons dropping randomly all over the map, you no longer have any reason to think about how to control strategic areas of the map, because you can't possibly know what area is going to become strategic. When you know what weapon is available and where it is located on the map through a way point indicator on your hud, you no longer have to think about where a weapon may be, because you will always be told by the game.

If you no longer have to think about any of these things, what do you have left to think about? What does the game devolve into? Just killing each other, nothing more. The depth of the game is gone, and the game is a shallow shooter.

It was the intent of 343i to make the game easier for noobs to play, thinking that they would become more dedicated to the game. By removing the depth of the game and making it easy to think about (all you need to do is think "shoot the other guy"), they were hoping to make it more fun for the noobs. In other words, they tried to make it easy to play by requiring less thought during the game play. This is clear from the design and the statements that have come out of 343i. I understand their strategy, but I cannot endorse it, since it has lead to a collapse of the Halo population entirely.