Level Best As we quickly approach the month of October, much Halo goodness lies ahead. In the coming weeks, we’ll detail new features, including ones you haven’t yet seen. We’ll talk about Halo 5: Guardians playlists and game modes, and much more. You’ll see more sneak peeks at the story of Halo 5, as well as things like the REQ System, Spartan customization, and much more. We know you’re anxiously awaiting these details and more, and they will come in due time. Before we move on, I wanted to extend a special thanks to those of you who have provided your overwhelming and tremendously helpful MCC playlist feedback on Waypoint, Twitter, and r/Halo – the playlist team is evaluating your input as they work towards their next update, which I’m looking forward to discussing in the near future. Today, we’ll talk about Halo: Last Light, which drops in just four days, Warzone level progression, which will help detail the flow of a match, and more. Let’s get to it. Last Light This coming Tuesday, the next novel set in the Halo universe will hit store shelves – Halo: Last Light, by Troy Denning. The story showcases some of what Blue Team was up to in between the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4, led by Spartan-II Fred-104, one of Halo 5: Guardians’ playable Campaign characters. This makes Halo: Last Light not only a fantastic story contained in its own right, but also a great way to prepare for the arrival of Halo 5. To get up to speed, check out the official description below: It is 2553, and the three-decade long Covenant War that defined a generation has suddenly drawn to a close. Yet, in the remotest parts of human space, tensions remain that threaten to overflow into another full-scale conflict. Beneath the surface of the planet Gao lies a vast cavern system renowned for its therapeutic effects and rumored miraculous cures. But now Gao natives are turning up brutally murdered down there—violent acts that happen to coincide with the recent arrival of a UNSC research battalion protected by Spartan Blue Team, led by the renowned Spartan-II Fred-104. Maverick detective Veta Lopis of the Gao Ministry of Protection is only trying to do her job as the Special Inspector assigned to catch a serial killer—one who is possibly hiding within the Spartan ranks—but she never anticipates the situation spiraling out of control into an all-out crisis. When Gao is revealed to harbor ancient Forerunner technology that could solidify the UNSC’s military supremacy for centuries to come, Insurrection loyalists within the planetary government will do anything—even align with a vicious faction of what remains of the Covenant—to ensure that never happens… If you’re like us, and still want more, click here for a preview of the text. Lastly, Troy was nice enough to send over 10 signed copies of the book, and we’d like to give them away to you. While we often hold giveaways on Twitter and the like, it feels like this one should stay close to home, so we’re giving the signed copies away right here on Waypoint. To enter, simply stop by this thread and make a post to digitally drop your name in the hat. For more on the latest universe developments, be sure to head over to this week’s Canon Fodder: Infinity & Beyond. Progression of Power – Warzone REQ Level In the not-too-distant future, we’ll be talking more about the REQ System and the contents contained within. To prepare you for these info drops, this week we’re covering the REQ Level Progression system in Warzone. To help detail these systems, I grabbed designers Lawrence Metten and David Ellis, who are much more qualified than I am to give you the scoop. Take it away, gentlemen, before I say something entirely incorrect and terribly misleading. Lawrence Metten, Sr. Multiplayer Designer: In-match progression was one of the first things we built when we started prototyping Warzone at the beginning of Halo 5 development. We wanted Warzone players to feel their strength and available arsenal evolving over the course of each Warzone match. We also needed a system to prevent players from calling in game-changing power weapons or vehicles too early into each match. REQ Level is displayed in a bar at the bottom of the HUD. Medals, like Caster Kill and Warthog Destroyed above, feed into the bar to progress REQ Level. We landed on the REQ Level Progression system. Players start each match at level 1, and progress through a maximum of nine levels as the game advances. Great players may only take 12 or 13 minutes to hit max level, but players ignoring objectives or playing poorly will hit 9 much later, or potentially not at all. A higher REQ Level means more REQ Energy which is used to redeem weapon, vehicle, Powerup, and Armor Mod REQs. Boiled down, the higher your REQ Level the more powerful the tools you have at your disposal. REQ Level is represented by a bar at the bottom of the HUD. Medals feed the REQ Level bar; earn one for a specific kill, base capture, Boss Takedown, or more, and it’ll progress your REQ Level. Observant Halo fans have already noticed that certain Kill Medals are awarded in Warzone but not Arena. This is intentional, as all Medals in Warzone have a REQ Level reward associated with them and provide essential visual feedback for level progression. When you earn a Kill or Objective Medal, you’ll earn progress towards your next REQ Level. To reinforce that Medals feed into REQ Level, we’ve actually split out Medals like Halo 4’s “Vehicle Destroyed” into vehicle specific destruction Medals to provide clear feedback that we’re awarding different REQ Level values based on which vehicle was destroyed. Below are some of the new Medals players will be earning in Warzone. NEW WARZONE MEDALS Boss Takedown and Legendary Takedown Medals for eliminating Bosses AI Kill and Assist Medals such as Grunt Kill, Elite Kill,and Knight Kill for killing non-Boss Minions Vehicle Destruction and Assist Medals such as Warthog Destroyed, Scorpion Destroyed, and Phaeton Destroyed for destroying enemy vehicles Base Capture and Base Defense Medals for capturing and defending bases Medals aren’t the only thing that can progress your REQ Level, though. Many objectives award REQ Level progression to all teammates when completed. If you see your REQ Level increasing as you play, it’s likely that teammates elsewhere in the environment are capturing bases and eliminating Bosses. One of the best ways to progress your REQ Level in Warzone, as well as advance your team towards victory, is by going after the AI Boss adversaries. David Ellis, Mission Designer: One of the deadly AI enemy types you’ll be facing off against in Warzone are Bosses. Throughout the course of Warzone missions, Bosses will enter the battlefield, ready to melt the helmets of unsuspecting Spartans who dare challenge them. Bosses come from a variety of enemy factions, and at first glance they may seem familiar, but expect a bigger challenge than you might expect. These adversaries are the best of the best, decked out in heavy armor and wielding the baddest weapons. In addition to awarding Victory Points, Boss Takedowns progress the REQ Level of all teammates involved in the kill as well as awarding a small bonus to all members of the team. These fearsome foes come in two categories: Bosses and Legendary Bosses. Worth 25 and 150 Victory Points apiece, Boss battles quickly become frenetic firefights filled with teams looking to land the killing blow, earning all the rewards. For context, taking out a regular Boss is worth the same as eliminating 25 Spartans on the other team! If you’ve had a chance to play Warzone or watch any of the match footage from E3, gamescom, etc. you probably blinked when you saw 150 Victory Points for a Legendary Boss takedown. After extensive playtesting, we decided to lower that payout from 200 Victory Points to help balance the overall in-game point spread between base retention, killing Spartans, and taking out bosses. Before this change, the metagame had kind of turned into, “Let’s just kill bosses and win,” which is only part of the overall effective strategy for winning at Warzone. Minion AI defend bases and fight alongside Bosses. Eliminate them to progress your REQ Level. Level rewards for Minion kills are small but they add up! It’s worth mentioning in addition to Victory Points, Boss Takedowns significantly enlarge the REQ Level for everyone assisting in the battle, not just the killing player, while also offering a smaller bump for remaining teammates. That’s right, we don’t just reward the player who landed the kill shot. This REQ Level bump is based off of the perceived difficulty of a boss. For example, a Knight Boss is going to raise your REQ Level more than say, an Elite. As Lawrence said earlier, your REQ Level determines what REQ cards are available for you to use. So, if you want to use your Scorpion tank card ASAP, you probably want to help take out Bosses. Not only does your team gain Victory Points, but now you’re cleared to use those higher level weapons and vehicles that weren’t available prior to the Boss Takedown. Defending bases and occasionally joining Bosses are weaker AI we affectionately refer to as Minions. Minions primarily defend their leaders by focus firing on any threats that come their way. Don’t sleep on the Minions. Taking them out first provides two benefits: it allows you to remove the Boss with fewer distractions, and Minion deaths offer a slight REQ Level increase to anyone who helps out in the fight. Teams who aggressively take out bosses in Warzone set themselves up for success. Here in the studio, we’re constantly seeing players attempt new strategies like sneaking behind enemy lines to take out Bosses or saving that rocket launcher barrage until the Boss’s health bar is almost empty. We can’t wait ‘till everyone reading gets a chance to find their own unique strategies for success in Warzone this October. Play of the Week Celebrating the “top” play of the week has become an all too enjoyable tradition. This week, we spotted a clip from a classic Halo 3 custom map and game type, and one of the first that was remade within MCC. In this week’s play, a sneaky Delpoyable Cover is launched at the Jenga tower, and does an uncharacteristically large amount of damage – sending the concrete dividers flying. A Spartan by the name of Well Rested slips from the wooden palette, but unlike other Spartans who have fallen to the depths of the skybox du Standoff, he looked down, and spotted a fellow Spartan who was making a last ditch effort to desperately grab hold of one of the relics of Tsavo Highway. While many players may have given up at this point, he instead jumped straight off of the player's head, and lived to tell the tale. Well done, Well Rested. If you’d like to play some Jenga yourself, you can watch a quick clip here, and download both the custom map (Jenga Tower v3) and game type (Jenga Bop) from the File Share: I Play Hockey using the “Find Player” search. Community Spotlight Several months ago, right around the time of Emerald City Comicon, an email thread circulated around the studio with the first images of the incredible, one-of-a-kind, true-to-scale Hunter cosplay. Immediately after seeing the pictures, we knew we had to meet the creators of this fine armor, so we sent Jay and crew out to Oregon to meet Alexis and Jeremie. To get the rest of the story, watch the first segment of this week's just released Bulletin: Before we go, we also got quite a kick out of Duji's Sticky Detonator Trolltage, which is a near-10 minute glimpse into the psychology of Halo players (particularly those stuck with a Sticky Det), and possibly the most dedicated, specific look at a Halo weapon we’ve ever seen. Give it a watch. Exciting times lie ahead, and I look forward to digging into the details with you over these next weeks. Until then, Bravo Source: Halo Waypoint
Halo and Football Manager developers behind new War Child games project Studios behind some of the biggest games in the world are set to create games for new compilation marking 20th anniversary of charity’s classic Help album War Child is marking the 20th anniversary of its famed Help album, with a video game version, uniting major studios to create new games Photograph: War Child Major video game developers around the world are set to collaborate on a compilation of new games for the charity, War Child. The teams behind blockbusting titles such as Halo 5, Alien: Isolation and the Football Manager series, will each be given six days to produce a game based around themes provided by the charity, which seeks to help children in conflict-affected countries, including Syria. The resulting compilation, titled HELP: Real War is Not a Game, will be available via digital download early in 2016. Read the entire article here: The Guardian
Required Reading Yesterday evening, we gave you a closer look at the REQ System in Halo 5: Guardians. Josh told of inspiration for the new system, and you saw, for the first time, new assassinations such as Back Breaker, new weapon skins like the Bracer Magnum, Mythic items such as the updated version of the battle-proven Mjolnir ODST helmet, Helljumper, plus Linda’s storied Sniper Rifle, Nornfang, and more. You’ve gotten a small glimpse into what the REQ system holds, and more is on the way in the few weeks until launch. Also, if you haven’t yet caught Mister Chief in his first ever speaking role, or prefer your tutorials to come from trademark-avoiding and copyright-tapdancing Spartan alternatives, be sure to check out his REQ System tutorial here, which covers everything in under five minutes. Stay tuned for more REQ goodness, and head over to the Xbox YouTube channel to catch the mega-unboxing of the Halo 5: Guardians Limited Edition, Limited Collector’s Edition, Limited Edition Xbox One Bundle, and accessories with Josh and Major Nelson, which was just released today. Get it while it’s hot. Building a New CTF Halo 5’s Arena Multiplayer brings with it the newest iteration of Capture the Flag. You’ve seen sneak peeks at the mode, as well as a full match from gamescom. This week, I sat down with some of the folks who have been hand-crafting the mode for many moons. Next, we’ll hear about CTF straight from MP Designer Max Grossman as well as one of our Pro Team members, Eric “GH057ayame” Hewitt. Take it away, gentlemen. Max Grossman, Multiplayer Designer Capture the Flag Design Philosophy When we learned that we would have the chance to build Capture the Flag in Halo 5, we were super excited – nervous, but excited. Halo games in the past have tried many different iterations of CTF, all of them succeeding in some ways and falling short in others. One of the things that we wanted to do with CTF in Halo 5: Guardians was distill the best parts of past versions of CTF and combine them to make the most fun, competitive version yet. After breaking down past versions of the mode, we came up with two core design pillars to guide the mode: Running the flag needs to be super fun and skillful, and the better team has to win. Your Team is Your Weapon “Your team is your weapon.” This is a phrase that is said at the studio all the time. In Halo 5, whether you are playing Campaign or Multiplayer, your team is the key to victory. A single player cannot win a game of CTF, the whole team has to work together to walk away with the win. The number one way to work together is by protecting your flag carrier. In Halo 5, when your teammate grabs the flag, they can no longer sprint, and they move at 80% of the base movement speed. While not totally defenseless, they will require support to be able to survive the long run back to the base. Protecting your flag carrier is only half the battle. When your team’s flag is taken by the enemy, you have to return it, but when the flag is pulled, the carrier doesn’t have a nav marker indicating where they are running. However, if you deal damage to the enemy flag carrier, you will “Spot” them for your team, showing the carrier’s position to your teammates for just a few seconds. Spotting allows teams to work together to find their stolen flag. Your team can’t score unless your flag is safe at home. This requires your team to simultaneously play offense and defense in order to score. This mechanic leads to some intense standoffs where both flags are away, and your team has some tough decisions to make: Do you leave your carrier alone and hunt theirs? Do you stay with your carrier and play defensively? Or do you wait 10 seconds for the Sniper Rifle to spawn before pushing? Making the right decision in these tense situations will separate the good teams from the great. Carrying the Flag The loadout for the flag carrier has been a point of contention among fans of the mode for years. We loved the offensiveness of the Flagnum in Halo 4 and decided to stick with it, especially with the flag-at-home to score mechanic. In these standoff situations, empowering the carrier with a gun allows them to help support their teammates that are trying to recover their own flag while also being able to defend themselves. However, for Halo 5, we removed the one-hit melee with the flag, and tuned the Flagnum to be the same as the Magnum, as we didn’t want to make the Flagnum overpowered. Flag dropping and juggling is also back by popular demand! Due to the movement reduction while carrying the flag, it is indeed faster to juggle the flag. There is a downside to dropping the flag though: as with previous titles, when the flag is dropped, a nav marker indicates its position to the enemy team. When a player picks up the flag, there is no nav marker to reveal where the carrier is going. The carrier is not highlighted with a nav marker when they pull the flag, allowing them to sneakily run the flag back to base if so desired. An example of using flag tossing / juggling in combination with Spartan Abilities (Thrust and Clamber) to take the quickest route back home, as demonstrated by BUK20. Being able to drop the flag also gives players access to the weapons they had previously picked up. When a carrier sees an enemy, they can now decide whether they want to duel with the Flagnum or drop the flag and fight with a stronger weapon. The ability to drop the flag also allows players to toss or pass the flag to teammates in areas that would otherwise be inaccessible to the flag runner, allowing for lighting fast runs that require immense amounts of coordination, and perfect timing. Before we go, I’ll let Eric “GH057ayame” Hewitt tell you a bit about his favorite CTF map, which we first showed off at gamescom. Eric “GH057ayame” Hewitt My favorite pick for CTF has got to be Coliseum. First and foremost, our map designers did a phenomenal job making this map extremely interesting, while keeping it symmetrical – not an easy feat in the slightest. With defined bases, routes, and power positions, it doesn’t take long for someone to appreciate Coliseum’s various options, especially for flag runners. After playing the map for over a year now, I can easily say that it’s one of the best mid-scale arena CTF maps that we’ve had in any Halo game. It has a few areas reminiscent of The Pit, but it reinvigorates those nostalgic memories with the new challenge of verticality. When you complement those heights with our Halo 5 sandbox, flag running becomes a brand new beast. Coliseum presents a variety of different routes for flag runners. Now, there are some really amazing flag runs that you can string together using the movement choices to your advantage, but I’d rather leave those for the community to find. There are a bunch of good hiding spots for those classic flag stalemates, too. All in all, I know that Coliseum will provide players with endless entertainment for all of those nail-biting and gut-wrenching CTF games that we all know and love! Make sure you thoroughly explore the map… there’s more to it than meets the eye. Halo: The Master Chief Collection We know you’ve been anxiously awaiting the details on the upcoming content update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and work on this update is nearing completion. This CU will address a variety of areas, including ranking, will add new systems for quitting and penalties, and will improve a number of community items from the lists you’ve put together. The full details and patch notes, as well as more status updates, will be provided as we get closer to release. The MCC playlist team has been reviewing your feedback that you’ve sent in on Waypoint, Twitter, and reddit on current matchmaking experiences, which has shaped the next upcoming playlist update, which is targeted to drop next week. Let’s get into details. Team Doubles The number one piece of feedback we’ve seen on Team Doubles is that Halo 2 Classic & H2A dominate the playlist, as the leftmost option. With only four players, this means that if one team wants to play H2 or H2A, they’re gonna get it. You’ve let us know that this isn’t ideal, and we agree with you, so we’ve sat down to discuss how we could overhaul the voting options for this playlist to allow for lots more variety. After the next update, they’ll look something like this: Slot 1: Slayer BRs on a mix of Halo 2 Classic, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, and Halo 4 Slot 2: Objective on a mix of Halo 2 Classic, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, and Halo 4 Slot 3: Slayer BRs on a mix of Halo 2 Classic, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, and Halo 4 In the new system, you’ll first be presented with a Slayer BRs option from one of the four games. In the second slot, you’ll find an objective game type, meaning that if both teams prefer objective, it will be played. Lastly, in slot 3, another Slayer BRs option will await, in the event that you don’t prefer your first Slayer BRs nor the objective game type. This system is quite different from other playlists – while it will allow for increased variety across the board, it also allows for the possibility of the same game appearing in two or even three slots. This will be rare, and the weighting ensures that over time, you’ll get a balanced mix of game types, rather than just Halo 2 Classic and H2A. We think this new system is appropriate to try out in Doubles, due to the aforementioned left-slot voting dynamic that occurs with only four players. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback on this playlist once you’ve had a chance to hop in and play some games. Additionally, we’ll also be making the following changes to Team Doubles: Removing Team Slayer SMG on Lockdown (H2A) Removing Team Slayer SMG on Warlord (H2A) Adding Warlock CTF (H2) Team Action Sack Action Sack is a whole bunch of fun, and we want to add some more. For starters, we’ll be upping the max party size from four to eight, meaning that you’ll be able to jump in with a full (or kinda-ish full) lobby and play a random assortment of chaotic game types, including the ones we’ll be adding (with a low weighting): Adding Team Splasers on The Pit Adding Team Splasers on Construct Adding Team Rocket Lasers on Isolation Adding Team Shotty Snipers on Lockout Adding Team Shotty Snipers on Ivory Tower Additionally, we’re looking at overhauling the voting options in the future to allow for the appearance of more wacky game game types, and slightly less standard game types, such as Team Duals. Stay tuned as we continue to work on this one. Team Hardcore In Team Hardcore, we’re ever-so-slightly increasing map variety for Halo 3. As some maps (Narrows, Heretic, The Pit, and Construct) are home to more than one game type, we’ll be slightly bumping down the weighting of these map/game type combos to ensure that you’ll see an even amount of Guardian Ball as well as Amp Team Slayer & Onslaught CTF. Halo 4 For Halo 4, we’ll be adding the following game types: Adding Ricochet on Skyline Adding Ricochet on Pitfall Adding Ricochet on Haven Halo 2: Anniversary For H2A, we’ll be increasing map variety by reducing some higher-weighted game types that you let us know appear a bit too often: Reducing appearance of Stonetown 1-Flag CTF Reducing appearance of Remnant 1-Flag CTF Infection Infection has been performing quite well, and we’ll be keeping it around for a bit longer before rotating in another playlist. We know hearing that Infection isn’t permanent just yet makes some of you sad. The playlist team has a few new experiences they’re working on, and we want to give a chance for these to enter the matchmaking lineup. Infection will be around until the next playlist update, and it will return, potentially as a permanent playlist if it outperforms future playlists that we’re thinking about. For this next update, we’ll be making just a few quick updates to Infection: Removing Braiiins on Avalanche Removing Braiiins on Standoff Halo 3 The most common feedback we saw for the Halo 3 playlist was a desire for more map variety, and that there was a bit too much King of the Hill, so we’ll be making the following changes to improve what you see in voting: Reducing appearance of Orbital Team Slayer BR Reducing appearance of Orbital Team Slayer Reducing appearance of Citadel KotH Reducing appearance of Boundless Team Slayer BR Reducing appearance of Boundless Team Slayer Reducing appearance of Last Resort Team Slayer BR Reducing appearance of Last Resort Team Slayer Reducing appearance of Last Resort KotH Reducing appearance of Ghost Town KotH Reducing appearance of Construct KotH Increasing appearance for Heretic Assault Halo 2 Classic For the Halo 2 Classic playlist, we’re also looking to add more variety and reduce redundancy. Here’s what’s coming: Removing SMG-start Team Slayer on Colossus Adding Team Slayer BR on Tombstone Increasing appearance of Sanctuary Team Slayer BR Increasing appearance of Turf 3 Plots Reducing appearance of Zanzibar Team Slayer BR Reducing appearance of Turf KotH Reducing appearance of Turf Team Slayer BR Reducing appearance of Elongation Team Slayer BR Team Snipers For Snipers, the most common request we saw was the addition of more maps, so that’s what we’re doing: Adding Stonetown Adding Remnant Adding Bloodline Adding Isolation Adding Blackout Adding Rat’s Nest Adding Exile Adding Solace We can’t thank you enough for your comprehensive feedback, and encourage you to continue to provide us with thoughts as we continue to tune the matchmaking experience with each update. Play of the Week Next up, we’ll take a look at some of the finest gameplay from the past week, which just so happens to come in the form of a Halo 3 double feature. Our first comes from a household name in the world of competitive Halo. HCS Pro Eric “Snip3down” Wrona pulled off what he himself called “the most insane Killimanjaro.” https://twitter.com/EDWSnip3down/status/643640335999082496 That’s not all, though. Something about Standoff CTF + Mongoose creates amazing moments, because this is the second time we’ve seen this game type in this series. This time though, it’s a defensive maneuver that made the charts, as we couldn’t end this week’s segment without giving a shout to P1TBULLLL’s incredibly clutch and brave flag stop. There’s 25 seconds left in the match when the video starts, and… Community Spotlight For this week’s Community Spotlight, I teamed up with Forger, Streamer, YouTuber, and all around great guy, Ducain23. I posed one question to him: If you could recommend any single MCC custom game type & map to Halo players, what would it be? Ducain23: The map I’ve chosen is "Duplex" by NukedLceCream and GoldDiggerAlpha. This is a beautiful twin-tailed collision course track where you can decide which way you want to go in order to hopefully avoid (or hit) people. The tracks banked waves, jumps, and aesthetics fit perfectly together without feeling confusing or irritating to race on. Also, you have the choice to drive on two separate tracks before and after the turnaround, but you need to be careful because there might be another driver heading straight towards you. This is a map that any Halo race fan should download and try with a full lobby! That’ll do for this week’s update. I do hope you enjoyed. Bravo Source: Halo Waypoint
[Behind] Enemy Lines Gameplay preview tours from across the world have concluded, and you’ve been on the receiving end of a healthy drop of brand-new Halo 5: Guardians content over the past few days. You’ve seen a look at new cinematics, Campaign gameplay, developer interviews, and just today, a sizeable amount of Arena goodness, with brand-new multiplayer gameplay previews. We hope that you like what you’ve seen so far, and whether the footage makes the wait shorter or longer, that you’re excited to play in just over 30 days. Our friends Fenris447 and Unyshek from the Halo subreddit took the time to put together some discussion mega-threads for this week’s Campaign footage and reviews, and also today’s Arena drop. Chances are that you’re still catching up on gameplay videos, and truth be told we are as well, so we're quite thankful that these fine folks took the time to compile these mega-threads. If you’re looking to get up to speed on everything from this week, these well-organized threads are a fantastic place to start. Now that you’ve bookmarked all of the videos and articles you’d like to delve into, let’s get a closer, behind-the-scenes look at some of the new things you saw this week, straight from the folks who created them. We’ll kick things off with Blue Team. Breaking and Entering You’ve now seen the introduction to both Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris. For the Osiris opening cinematic, we grabbed some production commentary (which you can check out here), so it felt appropriate that we also dive into what it took to create Blue Team’s opening. Today, we’ll hear from Cinematic Animator Matt Campbell. Matt Campbell, Cinematic Animator Being a huge Halo fan, I was thrilled when I got the opportunity to be the animator for the Blue Team cinematic. The opportunity to showcase Chief’s legendary team (for the first time in a Halo game) was a challenge I was more than willing to embrace. This was going to be the first time we saw Chief and Blue Team in the game, so we knew it had to be a powerful moment. We also wanted to create a moment that felt different than our opening cinematic – featuring Fireteam Osiris. Blue Team is a highly efficient, close-knit group of Spartan-II soldiers. Unlike Locke’s team, the members of Blue Team have participated in hundreds of combat missions together. That war-forged experience led to an unbreakable bond that we wanted to embrace and showcase in order to create a sense of contrast between the two squads. The scene presented some unique challenges: “How can I make a group of faceless heroes feel like family members?” We set out to construct these very small and intimate moments for Chief and his team, like Chief's interaction with Fred. Something as simple as a nod or glance really had to read just right. Of course I also had to consider, “How can I make them feel more tactical and efficient on the battlefield?” because at the end of the scene, we have to jump back into action. We talked a lot about the Blue Angels squadron, and how they fly in formation, incredibly in sync, all knowing exactly where each member of the team is and what purpose they have moment to moment. In the end, we really just loved how everything came together - the incredible environments, FX, lighting, character models. And big props to our audio team. They did an amazing job. I hope the fans really enjoy it. Here’s a look at a few pictures and images from our process. To open the cinematic, we had Bruce Thomas (our mocap actor for Master Chief) use a basketball as a helmet stand-in: Snipped: Click HERE to read the rest of this discussion about animation [Behind] Enemy Lines Let’s switch gears to the other side of the story. On Wednesday at midnight pacific time, one of the campaign missions that filled your social timelines was Enemy Lines, which follows Fireteam Osiris on a daring mission to recover a Forerunner Constructor hidden beneath the war-torn surface of Sanghelios. Fighting alongside the Arbiter’s forces, you will have to break into a Covenant encampment guarded by fanatical warriors, dodge plasma cannons in an ancient temple complex, and then face off against the Kraken – a massive siege platform that can only be taken out with a combination of air power and close-range combat. If you haven’t yet watched some of the gameplay, you can head to our friends over at ReadyUpLive, Halo.fr, and more at the aforementioned campaign megathread. Now that you’ve seen some gameplay, we’ll hear from World Lead TJ Perillo, Senior Designer Chris French, Lead Animator JuanCarlos Larrea, and Lead World Artist Nicholas Bell on the mission design and art of Enemy Lines. Enjoy, friends. TJ Perillo, Sanghelios World Lead When we were first kicking around ideas for the Sanghelios missions, there was a lot stewing in the pre‑production cauldron. New heroes. New abilities. New commitments to co-operative play, exploration, and open-ended gameplay. That’s a lot to account for when creating new content, and it’s gotta be bigger, better, faster, and funner (funner?) than anything we’ve done to date. So we took a feet-first orbital drop onto Sanghelios to see what we could stir up. Enemy Lines was our first foray into what’s new with Halo 5, and we went big. We envisioned this mission as a kind of rollicking escapade – high adventure, rife with opportunities for swashbuckling derring-do: narrow escapes, aerial boarding maneuvers, jungle gym battlefields - challenges where bravado and flamboyance are called for and rewarded. Just the thing to put players squarely in the tungsten carbide boots of Fireteam Osiris. Art, Design, and Narrative came together and cooked up a cool backdrop: crisscrossing forbidden ruins along the frontlines of a war you have no stake in. Awesome. Meanwhile we iterated for months on the Temple Grounds combat space, aka “the big bowl.” This was our petri dish for combat with the new Spartan abilities. The lessons learned there were propagated out to the other combat spaces and on to the rest of the game. Chris French, Senior Designer The ‘Big Bowl’ combat space is where, early on in production we needed to prove out having a very large encounter with multiple paths and tiers the player could fight through. It needed to be a showcase for Halo’s open level sandbox. We wanted to show off the new Spartan abilities and how they are useful in a major sandbox encounter. We also needed to get the AI engagement metrics feeling good in a huge space while not overwhelming and frustrating the player. An in-development overhead shot of the “Big Bowl” ‘Big Bowl’ went through a lot of growing pains and iteration to get the metrics of the encounter to feel right. One of the first things we did in this space was to isolate this one giant encounter space into two large symbiotic encounters. This allowed us pace out the fight with a slight break in the middle and allow the front half AI to adjust to the choices and actions the player made early on. We spent a lot of time fine-tuning sight lines and secondary routes to allow as much freedom for the player as possible and just let the player engage in the Halo sandbox anyway they would like. We learned a lot from this encounter space and we used this knowledge to build other large spaces throughout the campaign. Snipped: Click HERE to read the entire discussion about Sanghelios and the Kraken Halo: The Master Chief Collection Just yesterday, we released our latest playlist update for MCC, which adds variety across many playlists based on some of the feedback you’ve sent over. We hope you enjoy these changes, and look forward to hearing your thoughts. The playlist team is continuing to review feedback, and currently looking at improvements to the Big Team Battle and Team Slayer playlists, trying out several rotational playlists including a 4v4 Halo: CE playlist, and more. Snipped: Click HERE to read the details of the playlist update. Work on the upcoming content continues as well, and the team is aiming to deliver the update within the next few weeks. As we briefly touched upon last week, one of the updates includes new penalty systems, including temporary bans for excessive negative behavior, including: Quits Betrayals Idling Tuning of these systems is nearly complete, and we look forward to sharing the full details on these and other improvements very soon, as the team works to set a final release date. We’ll provide status updates each week until release. Play of the Week This week’s play is a classic move performed on a remastered map. If you played a fair bit of Halo 2 Classic, you likely remember this maneuver, which is the Big Team Battle equivalent of the TDT cap. In this clip, HAL0 M4N and friends (guy mandude66, its Bibz, & Nobelnaga) perform a near-flawless execution on the Warthog-hood-assisted-triple-totem, with a perfect getaway just as the enemy catches onto their mischief. Total flag cap time? 48 seconds. Community Spotlight Our friends over at ForgeHub have hosted another round of their Forge contest series, and the final winner just happened to be announced today. We’ve kept an eye on the finalists, and wanted to give them the spotlight. To give you a breakdown of the contest, here’s famed Forger Psychoduck, who has also thrown together some quick video overviews of each winner. Psychoduck: ForgeHub and HaloCustoms have partnered up to host the third installment in the Meet Your Maker forge contest series. This contest focused on maps designed for 5v5 capture the flag play. The goal was for participants to create experiences which incorporate vehicles into more traditional core Halo gameplay and to maximize the interaction between infantry and vehicles in a tighter, more refined setting than traditionally seen in Big Team Battle maps. The community came together and built some incredible maps, but these three stood above the rest. Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest! Third place: Entrenched by SixteenthMatt Here’s a description from Forger Warholic: Entrenched uses natural terrain in unique ways to create a space that is both very drivable and packed with vertical overlap. The higher attacker base compared to the lower defender base creates an interesting dynamic where flag pulls are often contested over long periods of time on the way back to the base. The long, open platform at offense base serves to prevent easy captures, requiring that defense team has control of the major power positions to be able to score. To watch the video, click here. Second place: Blockus by MartianMallCop Blockus is a 1 Flag CTF map that provides a really balanced interchange between infantry and vehicular spaces. The trenches along the map and overarching terrain provide unique ways to bring those battle interactions together. The map was originally inspired by High Ground and attempts were made to invert some core design pillars to create an entirely new experience. The flow pattern is created by two figure-eights with well crafted sight lines and route restrictions. Blockus provided enjoyable gameplay from the initial testing lobbies and significantly improved over time from the feedback provided. The trenches on the map provide great direction for infantry movement and tossing up the flag through the hole is one of the most rewarding experiences when picked up by your teammates and captured. The dynamic combination of running the flag solo through mid trench and requiring a hand off to teammates was really interesting for us. To watch the video, click here. First place: Unearthed by MOO43 Unearthed is a one-way symmetrical squad map designed for Multi Flag CTF. The map is sloped horizontally when facing out the bases to create interesting power positions and open key lines of sight on the map. Each bunker styled base contains a sniper and a Warthog. Rockets are placed on the highest peak of the map with an Overshield in the depths of the caves. The map's terrain and structural route restrictions generate a basic horseshoe shaped vehicle path. While simplicity may be your first reaction, the vehicle paths can be broken up by a combination of creativity and a Class A vehicle license. Maneuvering and jumping with the Warthog on Unearthed can be a rewarding experience as you can effectively change the expected course of arrival to the enemy base. We've enjoyed Unearthed from the moment we first played it. Balance, strategy, team coordination, beauty, you name it...Unearthed has it all, while providing an interesting and entertaining objective experience. To watch the video, click here. We’d like to congratulate each of the winners in this contest, and encourage you to grab the maps from their File Shares – just press “A” while hovering over your name in the in-game MCC roster, navigate to “Find Player,” and search for the corresponding gamertag. That’ll do for this week. The next time we talk, it’ll be October, and less than a month until the launch of Halo 5: Guardians. I hope you’ll join us then. Bravo p.s. Whether you’re a football fan or not, be sure to tune into Sunday Night Football this weekend. Source: Halo Waypoint
Halo Community Update - Forging Ahead This week, you learned more of what’s to come in Halo 5: Guardians, and saw new sneak peeks at Halo: The Fall of Reach. You’ve listened as Maya’s situation rapidly escalated from bad to worse in the latest episode of Hunt the Truth. You’ve joined us in the celebration that Halo 5 has gone gold, which means that everything is just beginning. Not just for you, but for us as well. This week, we’ll take a closer look at Halo: The Fall of Reach – The Animated Series, more new Forge tricks, the upcoming MCC update, and more. Let’s get into the details. That’s Our Boy If you aren’t yet familiar with Elysium City Primary Education Facility No. 119, or the origins of subject Number-117, you’re in luck, and you’ve come to the right place. As we announced at E3, Halo: The Fall of Reach – The Animated Series (which tells the origin story of the Master Chief and the SPARTAN-II program) is on the way and will be included with the Digital Deluxe, Limited Edition, and Limited Collector’s Edition of Halo 5: Guardians. The animated epic releases on launch day, and since we’re getting awfully close to that date, I grabbed some time from Executive Producer Kiki Wolfkill to get the latest. Bravo: Hey, Kiki! The last time we had a chance to talk with you about The Fall of Reach was July, and lots has happened now that we’re less than three weeks away from launch. First things first – where are we at? Are all aspects of post-production wrapped up? Kiki Wolfkill: At this particular point, the edit is final, the sound mix has been final for a little longer, and on an animated project, the concept of color balance and IQ – that is - image quality finalization is a little different so as far as the picture’s concerned, tiny tweaks and fixes and improvements. But that doesn’t mean it’s all done – the team has to work on materials to support the launch, like trailers, images for the menus and so on. So I’m hesitant to say it’s 100% finished, but it’s pretty close. The latest trailer just dropped yesterday – can you tell us about a few of things we get a sneak peek at? Honestly you’re seeing the main themes and tone of the film. Folks who’ve read the book or the comic book adaptation will be familiar with the main elements of the plot, but the fact is many Halo players haven’t, so we tried to make sure we saved some surprises for them. You do get a glimpse at Sequence’s distinctive animation style, a combination of highly stylized imagery and sophisticated 3D CG is unique, and it’s evolved specifically for this project. The 3D CG actually uses a combination of hand built and heavily modified assets from the game, but you’re also seeing a lot of the custom work – like seeing Chief’s Mjolnir armor design – a design that’s modeled to be authentic to the original game, but without the fidelity constraints the original Xbox had to endure. In fact, you’ll see that armor evolve in the series’ chronology. What have been some of the key steps in the collaboration process with Sequence? How do you ensure we get everything right? Sequence has been an incredible collaborator, and the process has basically been us joined at the hip for much of this year. The first step of course was a script. Heath Corson did a remarkable job capturing the essential elements and characters for this radical new way to look at a beloved story. After that it became very much an evolutionary process of storyboarding, iterative improvements, and of course, performance. We captured our actors first and Sequence animated to those performances. Hardly unique but we feel it’s the best way to get the essence of the performances into the animation. The sheer amount of data shuttled between Sequence’s Vancouver studio and 343 here in Kirkland has been astounding. Reviews, edits, suggestions for changes and improvements, cuts – and even the odd “Eureka” moment – those have come constantly from both sides as we work together to get it across the finish line. As with any book, we’ve all got our own versions of how each scene from the story looks. When watching early review cuts this summer, I loved seeing how some of the early scenes from the book are depicted. Were there any specific parts of the story that you were really excited to tell? We’ve added a moment or two in the service of the story, but you’re right, there are tons of scenes I wanted to see – the fight in the gym, the assault on Watts’ compound, but the stuff when they’re kids. It has an emotional undercurrent that can really be elevated with simple things like eyes and music. I think newcomers to the story will sometimes be shocked by some of the prevalent themes. I’ve also heard murmurs about some really good music. Can you tell us anything about the score? Tom Salta scored this for us, and we’ve worked with him before on Spartan Strike and Spartan Assault – and fantastic as those pieces were, I think he’s really outdone himself and created something really special here. Some of it is quite moving. But he also knows how to capture action perfectly. Before we go, let’s talk about launch day. Would you recommend that fans fire up the Halo Channel and watch before pressing “start new campaign” in the Halo 5 main menu? I mean, that’s the only way to do it, right? Absolutely. Fans should feel free to engage in any order, but I think if they watch this first, they’ll have a profoundly different appreciation for the nature of Blue Team’s relationship in the game. Thanks for chatting with us, Kiki! -- Halo: The Fall of Reach – The Animated Series will be available on the Halo Channel on October 27. We’ll see you then. Forging Ahead This week, Josh Holmes and Lead Designer Tom French gave you a sneak peek at Halo 5’s brand new Forge mode, which has been truly ripped apart and built from scratch to allow you to build faster and easier. Watching the Forge feature set come together has been quite special – the team pored over years and years of community feedback to re-think Forge – the tools, the controls, the objects, lighting, colors, surfaces, terrain, selecting, grouping, and so much more. The true test of these efforts, though, was when we brought in some of the world’s finest Forgers, a select few from our Community Cartographer group. These five gentlemen (The Fated Fire, Psychoduck, Nokyard, Ducain23, and Warholic) were the first people outside of 343 walls to get hands-on with the new Forge and give us their uncensored feedback. Getting used to the new controls took a day or so, but you can hear some of their thoughts (and see early look at some of their creations, as well as new Forge tools) right here. It was a blast having these guys join us for a full week - building late into the night day after day, and providing real-time feedback, which resulted in our dev team making code changes and kicking off new nightly builds that incorporated the updates. Their feedback on all aspects of the new Forge will ultimately help us deliver an even better Forge in December, and we’re also looking forward to your feedback that’ll shape the future of Forge updates and improvements post-launch. I personally wanted to see some more of what’s on the way in the new Forge, so this week, I grabbed some time from the legendary Tom French and producer Mike Byron, who showed us a closer look at some of the new features. Take a look below, and click on each of the images to view the full-size GIF. Colors With over 100 colors, up to three color locations on most objects, and level reference colors, you have complete control over how you want your map to look. FX With fire, smoke, sparks, and more, you can add personality and storytelling to any map. Grouping Grouping objects allows you to work with collections of objects faster and easier than ever. Build it, group it, dupe it, and then you have two or more! Magnets Revised magnets give a live preview of what they will snap with when the object is released, creating a fluid experience with them. Magnet selection can even be influenced by targeting them. Cartographer tested, cartographer approved. Projected terrain So magical we don’t even know how it works (it just does)! Seamlessly blend terrain, rolling hills, and sweet jumps into the canvas or use them to build your own floating level above the ground. Let’s Get Physical Over the summer, we heard feedback that some of you who were thinking about grabbing the Halo 5: Guardians Limited Collector’s Edition prefer a physical disc instead of a digital copy, and we let you know that we’d provide an option for fans to exchange their digital copy for a physical copy at no additional cost. This week, with help from our friends over at Xbox, we announced the details of this program, which can be found here. The offer is good from October 20 through November 1, requires that you don’t redeem your digital code right away, and that you follow the instructions in the above link. To set expectations, arrival times of discs will vary, and while teams at Xbox will be making every attempt to deliver by October 27, it is not guaranteed. If not being able to play at midnight is a bummer, it’s worth the reminder that the code that is included with the LCE will allow you to pre-download the week prior to launch to ensure that you’re ready to rock on launch day. REQonomics The next blog in our series of REQ content arrived just this morning, where Josh discusses REQ economy and tuning. You’ll get an overview of your starting REQ bundle, how to earn REQ packs, average REQ Points (RP) earning rates, REQ Pack cost, and of course, a new sneak peek at nine new REQ Cards, including the Breach stance, Ruptive Assault Rifle skin, a Legendary rifle, and more. Get all of the details by heading here. Halo: The Master Chief Collection Earlier this week, the latest content update for MCC entered certification. We’re anticipating that the update will be available early this coming week, and ahead of the update, are providing patch notes for what’s on the way. Take a look below. Upcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection Content Update Notes Implemented new systems and temporary bans for matchmaking penalties. These include penalties for: Quits Betrayals Idling Note: Leaving the game before finishing (any time from the start of voting until the game concludes) will result in a loss for your ranking and a penalty to your Xbox One reputation. After this update, if you quit, betray, or idle too many times during a set period of time, you will be temporarily banned from playing matchmaking. If you continue to engage in negative behavior after the temporary ban has lifted, you will continue to receive temporary bans that are subsequently longer in length. Players will now receive a quit penalty and rank penalty for quitting any time after matchmaking voting begins in all matchmaking playlists, both ranked and unranked Added matchmaking betrayal booting for Halo: Combat Evolved Matchmaking voting now randomizes winner in the case of a tie, rather than selecting the left-most option Made a variety of improvements to ranking calculation Fixed an issue which could result in ranking down after winning a match Emblems and clan tags, in addition to gamertags, are now hidden while searching for a match Updated Team colors to always appear correctly in Forge mode The level of menu music will now drop when other players join a lobby / are connected to other players Fixed an issue where menu music could cut out after a game or on startup The controller schematic for H1 "Boxer" now correctly matches the in-game control layout Improved Classic/Remastered UI launch settings for Halo: CE and Halo 2 Campaign Improved matchmaking messaging to players Fixed an issue where lobby player positions could shuffle after a promotion to party leader Fixed an issue where players could select and use nameplates that they had not unlocked Fixed an issue where profiles could match into a game after the match started Made a variety of fixes for players who could become stuck at the “Downloading Latest Data” screen Fixed the glitched Who Needs Them? achievement Improved a variety of compatibility issues Made a variety of stability improvements Following this content update, we’ll be releasing the next playlist update (which we detailed a bit last week). Lastly, the team has been making some back-end adjustments to improve matchmaking consistency across a variety of regions, and have seen improved for results for players in Australia and beyond across all playlists – keep us updated with your findings, and stay tuned for the latest on what’s to come. Play of the Week You might say that this week’s top play is rather non-traditional. In week’s prior, we’ve seen some pretty incredible snipes, multi-kills, getaways, Jackal kills, and more, but this week’s play is a whole new one. Oddly enough, the community member who submitted the clip, xGranadier, is actually the victim of this event. The star, in turn, is the Gungoose, which casually rolls up and decides to opt for a specific celebration over their fresh corpse on Bloodline CTF. I’ll let the Gungoose do rest of the…talking. That’ll do for this week, friends. I’m happy to say that there is plenty more on the way, and also that I am particularly excited about Monday. Let’s do this again soon. Bravo Source: Halo Waypoint
Launch Playlists were announced earlier this week. Warzone 24 players on massive maps with REQs and AI adversaries. Halo multiplayer has never been bigger Warzone - Escape from A.R.C Warzone - Raid on Apex 7 Warzone - March on Stormbreak Warzone Assault Destroy the Power Core or defend it in this asymmetrical Warzone mode variant. Warzone - Dispatch Warzone - Array Warzone - Summit Team Arena Play on the very best modes and maps Halo 5 has to offer. Breakout - Gambol Breakout - Trident Slayer - Coliseum Slayer - Eden Slayer - Plaza Slayer - Empire Slayer - The Rig CTF - Coliseum CTF - Truth CTF - Fathom Strongholds - The Rig Strongholds - Eden Strongholds - Empire Slayer Work with a team, vanquish your opponents. Slayer - Coliseum Slayer - Plaza Slayer - The Rig Slayer - Truth Slayer - Regret Slayer - Fathom Breakout Halo 5's premiere high lethality single-life elimination mode. Breakout - Gambol Breakout - Trident Breakout - Trench Breakout - Crossfire Breakout - Altitude Free-for-All It’s you against everyone else. Slay your way to victory. FFA Slayer - Eden FFA Slayer - Regret FFA Slayer - The Rig FFA Slayer - Plaza FFA Slayer - Orion FFA Slayer - Pegasus SWAT No shields, no motion tracker. Aim for the head! SWAT - Eden SWAT - Regret SWAT - The Rig SWAT - Plaza SWAT - Orion SWAT - Pegasus SWATnums - Eden SWATnums - Regret SWATnums - The Rig SWATnums - Plaza SWATnums - Orion SWATnums - Pegasus Weekend Social A weekly playlist that features a mode voted on by the community via Halo Waypoint/Channel. The weekend social playlist will features modes selected by the community, and offer bonus XP and REQ Points. Additionally, the most popular modes have the potential for becoming their own playlist. Source: Halo Waypoint
Below you'll find the 65 achievements, worth 1000 gamerscore, that will be available at launch. Spoiler Source: Halo Waypoint
I hate this game and won't be playing it because I'd be at such a disadvantage because of HAVING TO ****ING MUTE IT TO COPE WITH IT.
Sound is from halo 5, Kraftwerk's Taschenrechner and some heart rate monitor. Recorded video and sound separately. I can't stand the constant beeping in Halo 5.
It's sounding like we'll get that with one of the first DLC packs. At the very latest we'll get it in the forge update, since we'd be able to make a Grifball court then. Can't wait to take one into Warzone and knock some hogs and Ghosts off the edge on Stormbreak.
November Sneak Peek Over the past week, we’ve been playing with you, reviewing feedback as we tune existing experiences, and also preparing to deliver new ones. Today, we’ll talk about recent and upcoming game updates, as well as brand new content that will soon be on the way. Welcome to the weekly update, where we’ll talk about all of this and more. Playlist Updates & Additions Just a few hours ago, the latest Halo 5: Guardians playlist update went live. Thanks to your community votes, Shotty Snipers is available this weekend, and it’ll be around until the early morning hours (pacific time) on Monday. Jump into the playlist to enjoy a chaotic mix of long and close range combat as well as some increased XP rewards. But this playlist update doesn’t stop there. We’ve made a few additional changes based on your feedback from this past week, starting with the removal of Orion from all playlists. We’ve pulled the map from matchmaking in order to patch some exploits and make some additional improvements before re-adding it to appropriate playlists. Next, based on feedback regarding map variety and rotations, we’ve added 15 additional map / game type combinations to existing playlists. To see a full breakdown of which game types have been added and where, head over to yesterday’s blog. We’ve also made some additional matchmaking changes in today’s update. The first of these was an update to the “One or more members of your fireteam has high latency to the dedicated server” error message. Previously, this message blocked players in error, preventing you from playing with the other player(s), and we’ve now removed this restriction. Also, we’ve been keeping an eye on feedback from international players regarding Warzone matchmaking, and found that we were a bit too aggressive in filtering players during matchmaking. After reviewing the current parameters, we’ve made adjustments that will allow Warzone matchmaking to not only allow players to find matches quicker and easier, but also allow for improved matchmaking for players across the globe, thanks to updated searching parameters that also better prioritize players in your region. Today, thanks to your reports, we were able to confirm that the changes did indeed improve matching for players across multiple regions. We need to do some additional tests to ensure that the changes don’t negatively impact any playlists, so we’ve temporarily disabled the changes, and will be re-adjusting the parameters once these changes are verified. In addition to the other items mentioned last week, the team is also hard at work preparing updates for things like Warzone Assault tuning tweaks (more on that with design next week), updating SWAT respawn time to 3 seconds and turning off SWAT friendly fire, CSR tuning tweaks, Seasons & seasonal rewards, actively monitoring and updating ban thresholds, and more. Also, we know many of you are excited to get you Teishin Raikou Armor set, but may not have received yet – don’t you worry. We’re tracking all eligible players, and will roll these out once we’re able to process all of the player data – there are lots of you. We’ll be taking about these updates and plenty more in the weeks to come. But now – onto the reason many of you may have joined us today. The new stuff. November Update: A Sneak Peek In just over a week, the next Halo 5 content drop will be here, and with it comes Big Team Battle in Arena matchmaking, brand-new REQs, and a whole ton of juicy vehicular combat. Today, we’re giving you a sneak peek at what’s in store, and over the course of the next week, we’ll be providing you with more details.To start, we know many of you are ready for some vehicle-based carnage in Arena, and dying to jump into some classic 8v8 matches. You’re in luck. Before the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta, Josh Holmes approached me and asked “can we get a “Pro Team” equivalent of the best community Forgers to help us build Forge?” to which I responded “Yes. Yes we can.” Fast forward a few months, and we’ve brought some of the community’s top Forgers in the studio: Warholic, The Fated Fire, The Psycho Duck, Nokyard, and Ducain23. As you saw in the Forge reveal, these gentlemen provided feedback on Forge tools and features that ultimately resulted in a wide variety of improvements across the feature set. During their time here, they also started working on large-scale Big Team Battle maps that were inspired by classic battlegrounds including: Sidewinder / Avalanche, Standoff, Burial Mounds, Longbow, and Headlong. As you saw in the latest episode of The Sprint, each map maker selected a classic map on which to base their Big Team Battle map design. These guys built day and night, continually preparing and perfecting their maps for the next playtest with the multiplayer and level design teams. At the end of the week, we had solid canvases that offered a wide variety of BTB combat, and this meant that it was time for the maps to be handed off to the team for continued iteration and development. The Forgers continued to provide feedback and direction for the map, and the team here at the studio continued to iterate on flow, polish, spawn and objective placement, look and feel, and more. For the past few months, these maps have been playtested and polished in preparation for the release of Big Team Battle, and in just over a week, the first four maps will be available in Arena matchmaking. Here’s a quick look at what’s to come: Deadlock Inspired by: Standoff A collaboration between Nokyard and the Multiplayer team Stolen Forerunner knowledge has made war a glassy plain of death on which few can find purchase. Basin Inspired by: Valhalla A map designed by the Multiplayer team Shake the dust from your feet. Guillotine Inspired by: Headlong A collaboration between The Psycho Duck and the Multiplayer team By day, a deadly urban battleground. By night, a playground for the reckless. Recurve Inspired by: Longbow A collaboration between The Fated Fire and the Multiplayer Team The wide arms of this training site embrace every instrument of destruction. Be sure to stay tuned next week, when we’ll dive deeper into these new battlegrounds with the folks who created them. New REQ Content This next update includes a ton of sweet new REQ content. Over the next week, we’ll be filling in the above graphic to reveal the content, but here’s a preview of what’s on the way: Keep an eye on Waypoint and Twitter for these REQ reveals in the coming days. The content is scheduled to drop the week of November 16, and we’ll have more details on what’s to come starting next week. And, to keep up to date on all things REQ System, stay tuned here. Halo 5 Aiming & Controllers Hey everyone – Chris King (Halo 5 - Lead Sandbox Designer) and Scott Sims (Halo 5 – Lead Sandbox Engineer) here. Thank you all for your passionate feedback on Halo 5, the team has been actively following as much as we can and have identified one issue we really wanted to respond to. First things first, in the grand scheme of things, this is happening to a small number of people. Most folks are having a good experience and the last thing we want to do is inject either placebo effect or confirmation bias into your gameplay feel, so bear that in mind if you’re having no issues, and just enjoy the dry but interesting technical data. But this is good news for those who are suffering. Aiming is the core of any first person shooter experience, and the way Halo controls is key to making Halo, Halo. Weapon aiming is a complex subject and something that the sandbox team obsesses over every day. There are a huge number of factors that feed into the feel of aiming, be it controller hardware, acceleration curves, turn speeds, player movement speeds, aim assist, or weapon fire rates. When we started development on Halo 5 we had some very specific goals with regards to aiming. We wanted to provide a best in class 60fps shooter experience, embracing competitive play, with an increased skill gap, while still retaining the essence of Halo. To preserve that Halo feel we chose not to re-write any of our base control systems, but instead to perform targeted retunes to balance for the higher framerate and myriad of other changes made to our movement and weapon systems. Throughout the project we have worked hand in hand with the Pro team, Microsoft User Research, and test teams and of course absorbed the awesome feedback from the Halo 5 Beta to tune and validate our control systems to what we believe to be the sweet spot for fine control with fast turn speed across all aiming ranges, on all weapon types. Players have identified that, by design, the game is a shade “harder” than it used to be, but we are seeing players adjusting to the new speed and precision pretty quickly. Unfortunately, some players have identified an issue that occurs due to variance in controller hardware, commonly referred to as “slow turn” bug. This can cause players to become unable to, or inconsistently reach what we call a “pegged” state. The “pegged” state is a region in the outermost range of the analog aim stick in which we blend the players turn speed to a much faster rate. This issue is compounded as the control input fluctuates depending on multiple factors - if you are applying even the slightest bit of downward pressure (clenching), moving the stick around the edges a bit (which is why it’s even more problematic when aiming diagonally), or torqueing the stick on the edge a bit more than normal on some controllers. The good news is we have a fix for this issue that introduces no perceivable change to the current feel of the game. This change is going through test and pro team validation now and we will have it out to you soon. One thing that has become clear in absorbing all your feedback is that Halo players want choice when it comes to controls. And with that in mind, we are also working on another little pet project that will allow even more precise tuning. This update will offer more custom fine-tuned control over controller settings (hint: independent vertical/horizontal sensitivities, the ability to calibrate your own dead zones, more granularity in sensitivity, and more). We hope to have that out for you in December and we will follow up with more details later. Thanks for all the passionate feedback, know that the team is reading as much as we can. See you on the battlefield. Play of the Week This week’s play may not need any introduction at all, as it already has 77,000 views this week. The Warzone match score is 786 – 772, and A Winking Cat has just called in the Spartan Laser. The rest of the story can be told by this clip. It’s worth the full watch. Community Spotlight: Halo TrackeR Bravo: Hey, xorth! Thanks for sitting down with us today. I think I speak for many a Halo fan when I say it’s exciting to see Halo Tracker being talked about so much since the launch of Halo 5. For those unfamiliar, can you tell us a bit about the history of the site? xorth: Absolutely, thanks for having us! The site opened in May of 2010 with player stats, leaderboards, and a ton of other features for supporting Reach and then Halo 4. As avid Halo players, we found great value in displaying the stats in many different ways, tracking over time, and being able to do dig deep. The main reason I started the site was to get better at Halo and I hope that it helps others as well. Since they we have gained a bunch of volunteer staff who spend their free time helping the site become better simply due to their love for the game. For the rest of this interview, click the link at the bottom of the post. And with that, this week’s update comes to a close. We’ll see you in matchmaking this weekend, and we’ll be back with more on the new upcoming content next week. Talk to you then. Bravo Source: Halo Waypoint
I did NOT expect to be able to adjust vertical and horizontal aim sensitivity independently. That's pretty awesome!
Is it just me or does the pot seem poorly distributed. For one, the number of people qualifying in each region seems off, and I feel like the semifinals should offer a bigger pot. How about $100,000 for Europe and break it down percentage wise for everyone else, although you also don't want to ignore the differences in currency if any of these are cash. I'm all for a fat prize pool but let's consider the efforts of all the players and give people more incentive to want to form a team and compete locally.
Distribution is just like your normal major, winner gets 50% Why does the number for each region seem off? Seems fine to me.