The following was posted by HaloWaypoint forum user, “BurningHero74.” I have to say he makes some really good points and has some great ideas. I LOVED Firefight in both ODST and Reach. A mix of Spartan Ops and Firefight would be awesome to me.
Anyway, here’s BurningHero74’s thoughts for Halo 5’s Firefight (should there be firefight).
Firefight – “Welcome to the last day of the rest of your life.”
Firefight in Halo 3: ODST was a blast for me. It had me on my toes and made me feel like I was surviving for only the moment. As fun as Reach’s firefight was, it was mediocre for me. It was too easy and Arcade was a terrible mistake IMO. Firefight should and can add an incredible amount of replay value. Now, with Firefight being replaced with Spartan Ops in Halo 4, Halo Xbox One should include two “types” firefight.
Type 1 – Survival
I feel like this should be like Halo 3:ODST’s firefight. Endless waves of enemies. Each wave getting harder and ammo becoming more and more scarce. Skulls turning on every round. Lives not plentiful enough. A sense of dread at every moment. Just a good old fashioned firefight against the Covenant, Forerunner, and/or Flood.
HFFL: I have to say, I really like the idea of endless enemy waves. ODST really had that nailed down. Seeing how long you could last in Firefight, especially with a few of your friends was my favorite experience in ODST.
Type 2 – Objective
Here we have the Spartan Ops spice to add to Survival Firefight. Now the Firefight would still be a single map (like ODST and Reach) but now there are multiple options to flavor the game.
Ideas:
Generator Defense – Defend generator(s).
Reinforcement – Clear out all enemies. If you fail to do so, enemy reinforcements will arrive.
Shelter – Using Basic Editing, get a budget that increases every set and use your budget to place weapons, turrets, cover every set.
Protector – Protect a group of Marines. The more Marines you save, the more points you get.
Escape – Repair a Pelican to escape while defending yourself (If Escape is Disabled, Repairing the Pelican just nets you more points).
HFFL: Some of these ideas are great. I really like the idea of Protector.
Ending
You could enable/disable Endless mode when you customize the game settings so that if you want to play Firefight until you lose all your lives, that’s cool. However, if you want to play Objective and be able to “win”, an ending cutscene would play if you A) Survive all rounds (Survival) or B) Successfully complete your Objective (Objective)
HFFL: Ah this is a good idea. Having a cutscene when you complete objectives just adds to the experience.
Customization
Be able to customize game types and settings just like in Reach and be able to set waves, enemies, and skulls. Be able to enable TEAMS! Teams would try to survive longer, get more points, and/or complete an Objective first! Also, add in more options like Covenant Only, Foreruner Only, Flood Only, or a mixture of all! It would additionally add more replay value to be able to customize how many enemies you want in a vehicle during a round.
HFFL: Yes, these would be some great options for Firefight. However, I’d like to see these in FF matchmaking, not just customs. I didn’t play much of custom FF in Reach.
Bigger Firefight
With more hardware than ever, Halo Xbox One should have a Firefight that allows 8 players at once! Think of the possibilities! Think of the madness O_O Also, there should be an abundance of small firefight maps, some medium sized one, and one or two extremely large Firefight maps like a Spartan Ops map.
HFFL: Totally agree here. More gamers! If there could be teams even better. Having two teams of 4 that fight side by side would be fun, however the point would be to score more than the other team. That would definitely add more competition to Firefight. I had wanted to start a Firefight league in Reach but didn’t have time to get it running before Halo 4 came along.
Space Battles
Space battles. Battles in Space. ‘Nuff said.
HFFL: NOW you’re cooking with grease! I would LOVE to have space battles. We got a good taste of this in Reach, but it was the same mission all the time. Having Firefight space battles would be AWESOME!
Forge
Build your own Firefight map. Think of how much more Firefight could be! First you would make your map, set human spawn points, and then work on setting Ally drop pods, Enemy Drop Pods, and Phantom Drop paths. Then work on Enemy Movement and Ally Movement Paths (set a waypoint type thing to guide AI and prevent them from falling or running into walls). I had an idea that if this was implemented, I could make a shooting gallery with enemies walking into a Gravity lift. There is a multitude of games that could be made from adding such an aspect. And to people who want to do some sort of Rambo Turret Defense, well now they can!
HFFL: I have to again agree here. It’s about time we have FF with Forge mode.
Basically, Firefight has so much potential it hurts. It would be amazing to see much more added to Firefight and for Firefight to be added in Halo Xbox One.
Thanks for Reading.
HFFL: Thank you for posting a very well thought out, constructive post.
-Sal
Very nice to see others who enjoyed FF. And the potential is great, especially with a new XBOX on the way. Spartan Ops was okay, but left something to be desired. Playing firefight with more team mates/friends would make it more fun, especially with some sort of competitive scoring options. Having a meaningful objective to fulfill in FF would make it more ‘re-playable’ in my mind, instead of just killing things over and over, although fun it may be, it can get rather bland. Spartan Ops was fun, until it became more and more repetitive, the story was okay, and somewhat meaningful, but also got quite bland after awhile, it didn’t differ too much from a campaign in my eyes, but that is just me. Spartan Ops quickly became a ‘go do this and this and when you are done with that do it some more, and while your at it, do this and this.” Not all episodes were like that mind you, but sometimes it was quite repetitive. Some sort of game mode that has the best of both worlds is almost infinitely more appealing to me than choosing one over the other. I love the idea of forging our own maps, forging reminds me a lot of making things with Mega’s Halo Bloks. Making our own FF maps enables so many new things and introduces new variables of game play. I didn’t like generator defense in Reach that much, and it still seems a little un-fun to play alone. The idea of creating a structure in FF and then changing/ modding it at certain intervals opens up gameplay, and I generally like the idea, but I don’t want it to turn into a COD Zombies thing where you run around repairing the same barricades over and over. Those are just my thoughts though..
Totally agree. For me firefight was a way that kept me coming back ( gotta say alot more than spartan ops) heres hoping for Halo 5 !!!! And on that note now i REALLY want to play some odst hahaha
Sorry, but I hate firefight in both games. it was the same thing to me every time I played it. I like spartan ops way better, since we had objectives that we need to accomplish. Also there is a story line with spartan ops, its not just you are surrounded with enemies and you kill them waiting for the next wave then the game is done.
I hear ya. I like BOTH modes. I had a ton of fun with Firefight in Reach and immensely enjoy Spartan Ops in Halo 4. Doubtful we’ll get both modes in Halo 5. A hybrid of the two would be fine. Still, we Halo fans can be fickle. No matter what is done, there are going to be those who are happy with it and those who aren’t.
I completely agree with ALL of you. I would love to see these changes in firefight. I loved firefight in Reach, and now I’m hoping 343 will bring firefight back in halo 5 (or whatever the new Halo is named)