Santa Clause

He's making a list and checking it twice....

So this actually isn't at all about Santa but it is about making a list. I think we all have little details that we would like fixed in Halo Reach and I plan on brining them before Bungie in a well thought out argument in favor of some changes. Almost every single change we wanted from the beta made it into the final version of the game and unfortunately a few other little details slipped in or slipped by. That being said I think we know most of them but lets make a list. I'll write it all up and start a discussion on Bungie.net and then post the link to the forum here. I expect all of you to actively participate as this is the last halo game ever and we should have an active hand in shaping the first combat update which every halo has had since the dawn of Xbox Live.

I think I'll be categorizing everything as I go so don't be surprised if I reorganize a couple of times or add your thoughts into the main post. For any entries like that I will use the following nomenclature. * (Denotes an addition from your comments below.) ** (Is the recognition of any move or change of category.) Any other updates will be listed at the bottom in my notes.

Game Mechanics: This is perhaps the hardest section to really post in as it is extremely controversial and any changes here will dramatically effect the gameplay regardless. As for the armor abilities, I feel they are almost perfectly balanced. The melee feels great, shield popping is amazing and grenades feel pretty darn good too. Most of my overall grievances lie elsewhere so I'll leave it up to you guys to add your input here.

I do however have one thought to add. MLG 1.1 is out and for everyone who has had a chance to play I think many of you will agree, the changes to jump height, fall rate and run speed feel pretty good. I know they would cause problems with sprint but it's always something we should be thinking about.

Vehicles

I'm dreading getting to this so I'll come back to it at the end.

Weapons

The Sniper Rifle: The Sniper Rifle feels awesome, it feels powerful but honestly it's too powerful. It needs to be toned down just a tad. I'm not saying it should be completely nerfed but I do feel the Auto Aim could come down a tad and it shouldn't be the vehicle destroying monster that it is. I have no problem with it popping the top off the Scorpion I do however have a problem with a 50 Cal sniper rifle knocking the engine block out of a heavily armored futuristic tank in any number of shots. If you want to kill someone in a vehicle with the Sniper, you should have to shoot the person not the headlight.

The Concussion Rifle: It sucks, it needs a light damage increase to make it worth picking up. It lacks the brute shot shoot smack that made the brute shot a usable weapon. This isn't too priority for me though as it's not on very many levels. If any gun should do a lot of damage to vehicles though it should probably be this one.

The Plasma Launcher: While it needed a major nerf in the beta it now just plain old sucks. They nerfed every aspect of this damn thing to the point that there is no reason to pick it up. It needs some loving, any ideas?

Game-types

King of the Hill: The hill moves way too fast. 30 seconds is not enough to let anything play out in the hill. You can't wait to attack or assess the situation because if you do you get the last 4 seconds of the hill and it becomes more about where the hill moves than how you dispatch your opponents.

Another change I would like to see to King of the Hill is an alternate version which allows use of Armor Abilities in the Hill. Why turn off your 4th leg of fun? Invis and Armor lock make KotH fun. Why did they get rid of Jet Packs in KotH? Perhaps Crazy King is the Armor Abilities on version, King Classic is no armor abilities in the hill and so on.

Territories: I have a similar grievance to KotH with this one, how could you take away a large part of the game when you are in the hill. Bring them back, they are fun. Make a classic version and an AA packed version.

Capture the Flag: Where to start... First we need two versions again like ye olden days, CTF classic which is Flag at home to score and touch return and another version Multiflag which allows scoring when your flag is not at home with a reasonable return rate.

The return rate, I can't stress this enough but it seems Bungie will never get this right. Flag return rates should scale with the map. If i'm playing on a BTB map I should have enough time to get back once and maybe twice if I die quickly and really hurry. It shouldn't be the same time on Countdown, a map you can cross in one sprint, as it is on Hemorrhage a map more than 10 times the size of Countdown.

Finally, you shouldn't have to straddle the flag pole to return it. Honestly that's the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Not only that but it shouldn't instantly reset your return process when you step off the flag. That's insane... I think this can be easily argued do the overwhelming power of the large grenade radius. Which I personally agree with having in the game but in this particular case it breaks another rule. Therefore the flag return radius should be increased in order to fit the balance of the rest of the sandbox.

Arena

The Arena is pretty damn fun but I think they need to make it more competitive. Less armor abilities and no radar to start. Perhaps having an MLG arena along side the original version will solve this.

Map Glitches/Bugs/Exploits/Layouts

I have very little to say about this, just a few exceptions.

1. We need more arena maps, give us lockout and wizard we know you have them. Hook us up with that amazing version of Beaver Creek, Noble Creek. It's a great remake and we all know and love our favorite water bound fragging spot.

2. Swordbase, Bring back the sniper. I'll argue this on the forum but we've all been talking about how it took skill to use and it balanced the map etc etc. I have other thoughts about weapon configuration on this map and we'll get into them soon because It's defiantly something that needs to be addressed, this map plays like shit which is unfortunate because it was a great experience in the beta.

3. Over and under use of just about every vehicle on all the maps. On most of the maps there are far too many vehicles and power weapons to keep track of. While this is fun for a while it becomes less about the skilled use of these tools as much as it becomes how can we beat the other team over the head with an endless onslaught of power weapons and vehicles. Where's the finesse.

I'll leave the bug collecting or reporting up to you guys. Or just let me know what's bugging you. Pun intended....