: There's so many things that I think need to change. The list is fairly
: extensive. My article "Building the Ultimate Halo Game"
: outlines many of the things I'd like to see in a future Halo game, but
: I'll summarize some of those things here, plus address some Halo
: 4-specific things that aren't mentioned in my article.

: GENERAL GAMEPLAY

: 1) Weapon Balance and Variety. Make sure there's no "one gun to rule
: them all" situations. The mid-range rifles should not dominate at all
: ranges. Automatics should own them up close. Minimize weapon redundancy;
: bring back the needle rifle and focus rifle. 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. Oh, and
: bring back the classic plasma rifle, the flamethrower, the grenade
: launcher, fire grenades, and the silenced SMG.

I was rather fond of the BR in the Halo 2 and Halo 3 campaigns and I used it more often then any other weapon. Although it seemed that there was never quite enough ammo for it available, if my memory is correct!

: 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.

Yes.

: 3) Controls. The number of layouts needs to expand beyond the half-dozen or
: so we typically get. At the very least we need an additional layout
: similar to the default layouts from Halo 1 & 2, i.e., something like
: this:

The default control layout never really bothered me. Well, maybe, except for the somewhat ubiquitous X button that had multiple uses.

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

Fall damage was never much of a concern for me. So no opinion from me on this one.

: 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 would really love it if the Chief gets to toss Palmer out of an airlock in space while the Chief puffs on a triumphal cigar watching her die a slow, painful death. I've said that here on the forum about a dozen times....and I'm sticking with it, well except for the cigar part, which I think would be cool to witness too! I am somewhat intrigued about a pissed off Halsey seeking revenge against ONI. But the character I'm more interested in is the Master Chief. I've been lugging his big green ass around for 10 years now and I want to see him kick some serious ass again. It's my opinion that Cortana is not dead. I think the Librarian adjusted Cortana and cured her rampancy, and I believe were will see Cortana given a physical body somtime in the future games. Hopefully that will end her pissing and moaning like we heard on H4!

I also wouldn't mind seeing Elites as allies again and maybe the Arbiter and Half-jaw making a return. I would like to see Johnson come back and assume his role like he had in Halo 1. It's just not quite "Halo" without Johnson on the battlefield.

: 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.

The Reach Elites were really no better at using cover then they did in the previous games. What I saw mostly was the Elites in Reach disengage from the battle and just stand behind an object or they would simply run off and leave the battle area. I don't consider that to be advanced battlefield tactics. The Nobel Team members was mostly useless on the battlefield. Emile always ducked behind objects with his shotgun and he rarely shot anything, even if I ran out and engaged a group of enemies. I played Reach for a little over a year before I witnessed Emile getting his first kill. I was driving the Mongoose and Emile actually killed two grunts with his shotgun in the area where the two Scarab were. Poor Jorge rarely got a kill too, but at least he was an expert at shooting trees, vehicles, rock, the ground...and me! For me, I would rather not have a bunch is mostly useless AI teammates like Noble Team following me around. As far as the driving AI characters, I personally believe if all of the processing power of all the super-computers was used to control a marine driving me around in a Warthog, it still would screw it up.

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

I swear if I have to push dozens of damn buttons in Halo 5, I'm going to frisbee the disk out my front door.

: 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.

I pretty much hated the entire Halo 4 campaign so I won't go into that.

The Halo 3 Brutes were far more enjoyable for me to battle then the truncated versions in Reach. I think it had a lot to do with their combat dialogue and their reactions to having their armor shot off. Combine that with the Catch Skull running, when a Brute with his armor gone would stick an object with a spike grenade and then he's stupid enough not to move out of the way before it exploded was always entertaining to me. I would not be disappointed if we never saw another bugger again. I hated them in previous games and especially the shielded ones in ODST Firefight. I still call them drunken flying-rats because of their erratic flying. I never really considered the Engineers as enemies. In ODST they were used as suicide bombers and they were very easy to kill.

: 6) Bring back Campaign scoring.

Yes.

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

I'm on the fence with this one. I didn't miss having to hunt them down in Reach.