Yep

: bring back the needle rifle and focus rifle.

Like the NR, don't care one way or other about the FR

: If the Prometheans return,
: give them something unique this time; "shotgun firing orange
: pellets" or "AR firing orange rounds" don't cut it. If you
: can't think of something original and distinct, don't bother.

Triple yes. never add stuff because you feel obliged.

: Oh, and
: bring back the classic plasma rifle, the flamethrower, the grenade
: launcher, fire grenades, and the silenced SMG.

Agree on all but the fire grenade. I quite like it but think that two grenade types is optimal. But give us more of each kind in campaign. If MP players are worried about grenade spamming then restrict them in MP.

So, as a general principle, don't let MP balance issues or MP player gripes spill over into Campaign balance decisions. MP is a level playing field. Campaign is you against many; you are always outnumbered.

: 2) Heads-up Display. The HUD needs to have a health bar, a secondary weapon
: indicator, and a compass. Because some information I just need to know.

Have a few good default HUDs and let the player customize; do the same for control schemes.

: 4) Fall damage should be a bigger factor. It was perfect in Reach.

Yes

: CAMPAIGN

: 1) Story & Characters. Where we go from here is anybody's guess. Halo 4
: did set up plenty of story threads. Halsey is the captive of Jul Mdama.
: This needs to be explored in detail. Jul should be one of the primary
: antagonists of Halo 5. Let the Didact sit this one; with Requiem, the
: Composer, and his ship destroyed, which means he may have no means of
: replenishing his Promethean forces, and he's probably too injured to do
: much of anything. John should probably be Consider bringing ONI in as a
: new antagonist. Sarah Palmer and her hand-picked S-IVs could be tasked by
: ONI with bringing down the "renegade" Chief and Halsey; having
: her make a face-heel turn would give us the satisfaction of killing her
: ourselves in an awesome fight against other Spartans. The lack of human
: enemies in the Halo series has been surprising, considering that the
: potential for them is there. Bring back the Arbiter and Half-Jaw.
: Considering having the surviving S-IIs actually be in the game.

I don't think that John would want revenge for Sarah being nasty to his mommy. Maybe it's time he stopped regarding her as such and started to be an adult. That means reevaluating his standing with her and the UNSC. He can still respect her, still be (to a degree) on her side but he wouldn't automatically do everything she wants and he would let her know when he disagreed with her.

Yes to more open levels. I think that they prioritized graphics over everything in Halo 4. Hopefully the xbox one will have enough power for outstanding graphics plus big worlds, lots of dropped weapons, and lots of enemies. Halo 4 felt as resource starved as h2. Both games were last hurrahs of old tech.

: Also, no "on-rails" sequences

Yes

: 3) Artificial Intelligence. 343I should also be using the power of the XBO to
: make some stellar AI. Enemies, particularly Elites, should use good
: tactics, make good use of cover, etc. It should at the very least be as
: good as it was in Reach. Allies should likewise not be complete idiots
: this time. They should know how to fight and how to frickin' drive. If
: making them smart makes them too good, then bump down their damage output
: or how many friendlies you have at any given time.

I agree but, in addition, they need to think about character and 'theory of mind'. The AI guys need to understand what made the original game NPCs feel so real. Is wasn't just how they performed at fighting. That stuff is very important but it was also the combat dialog and the way that Grunts had a constant stream of consciousness combat dialog. You knew what they were thinking.

The AI guys need to be looking for in game triggers, events and situations to look out for that let them trigger combat dialog and behaviors that show that the units are thinking beings.

Pulling that off demands close cooperation between AI programmers, to put in hook/triggers, level designers to setup situations or set level-specific/ story contexts, sound guys to record combat dialog, and animators to provide custom animations.

This aspect of the Halo AI has decayed over the course of all the games. For example: in the first game there were animations and dialog to sell how terrible it was to be stuck by a sticky; it made sticking an enemy so much fun. Those reactions tended to keep enemies at bay whilst they died. So it made using the sticky a good option. By halo 3 a stuck Brute would just charge you. In theory it was a berserking so it was a reaction but it wasn't fun to be on the receiving end and no different from taking down his armor. It did add strategy to the game. The strategy was: don't use stickies. :-)

Another example of the decay was the decision in Reach to make the Covies 'more scary' by having them not speak English. I agree that campy Elites with plummy accents were a travesty but you lose lots by having incomprehensible Grunts. (I think that Grunts were Halo's ace card, the main reason its AI felt like real people.)

In Josh Holmes' interviews - I got the impression that he viewed combat solely as strategy and tactics. That may be one of the reasons that the Prometheans were flat and boring enemies. The other reasons were: poor damage indicators and death animations (or lack of).

: 4) Quick-time Events. Don't have 'em. Plain and simple.

Yes. Quibble about boarding animations accepted; frankly I wouldn't miss assassinations. No tears shed by me if they were gone.

: 5) Enemies. Bring back the Brutes, the Drones, and Engineers. Unless they can
: be reworked to be an enemy that is interesting and fun to fight, then
: scrap the Prometheans; say they were all wiped out when Requiem was
: destroyed.

Don't particularly want to see brutes or Drones but maybe the story should address former covie frictions.

If we HAVE to have Prometheans then let them be proper Forerunner Prometheans. If they can't make them stellar then drop them - same for any game feature.

: 7) Have skulls be items you have to find.

Meh

: 8) Difficulty tuning. Ever since Halo 2, it's been the trend to make enemies
: as overwhelmingly powerful as possible on Legendary. However, it's a
: design decision I disagree with.

Me too. Extreme damage encourages sniping from cover or running past fights. When I played Halo 4 for the first time I quickly realized that the game demanded rapid, prolonged, accurate fire from the DMR/LightRifle/Whatever. I was OK with this for a while. It was good exercise and it was something I couldn't have done in the first game (I was too inexperienced in using a pad). But about half way through the game it became a chore. The next time I played through the game I just stopped playing or skipped levels.

: Quality enemy AI, coupled with good encounter & objective design and
: proper utilization of the other aforementioned difficulty-altering factors
: would result in a challenge that legitimately tests the player's skills
: rather than just their patience.

Halo 4 was a grind for me.

: Despite the enemies inflicting less
: damage in Halo 1, the game is to me still as challenging as Halo 3, Reach,
: and Halo 4 (if we go by total number of deaths) but it was balanced in a
: way that made its challenge fun instead of frustrating. If it were up to
: me, I would reduce the base damage output of the enemies back to Halo 1
: levels and would focus on those other, better ways to enhance the
: difficulty.

Yes.

I don't do MP so no comments from me.

: 3) Forge needs to be something far beyond what it has been thus far. I'm not
: talking about slight improvements. I'm talking new tools, vastly expanded
: budgets, a proper successor to Forge World, and, well, everything here .

Yes, yes. I'd like to be able to make caves and subterranean 'buildings' and connect them to the surface via ramps and tunnels which I should be able to continue into roads which should be able to span gorges as bridges. Proper cliff-side roads would be nice too. Make campaign locations forge-able.

: 4) Have a damn beta this time. That way, all the little kinks and everything
: are ironed out before release so there doesn't need to be constant fixes
: and balance tweaks every several months. I might even get an XBO before I
: planned on doing so if there's a beta.

Yes, they said that they didn't need one. They were wrong. Maybe they knew that they needed one but a manager said, "No." (that's what usually happens :-)

: OTHER STUFF

: 1) Art Design.

No mutants (unless they are X-Men) (I'm actually a mutaphile or whatever-it-is)

: 3) Theater mode. Even though the XBO will have a "game DVR"
: feature, I still want saved films to return. And I don't mean just for MP,
: either. I mean for all modes, including Campaign.

Yep