{"id":27217,"date":"2016-06-25T16:02:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T21:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/?p=27217"},"modified":"2016-06-25T16:02:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-25T21:02:28","slug":"community-update-warzone-firefight-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/?p=27217","title":{"rendered":"Community Update: Warzone Firefight Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint, added commentary by my in BLUE I will also specifically bold certain points in the article in GREEN as a point of focus to take note of<\/span><\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

BY\u00a0B IS FOR BRAVO<\/p>\n

\n

Welcome to the Warzone Firefight preview, friends. Next Wednesday,\u00a0the\u00a0newest Halo 5 content release\u00a0will arrive, and it\u2019s bringing a bunch of friends with it. Between new maps, the Warzone Firefight game mode, Campaign Score Attack, new vehicles and REQs, new enemies, a new Forge canvas, and plenty more, it includes a ton of goodness that we hope you\u2019re excited to jump into when it drops on June 29.<\/p>\n

To get you ready for Halo 5\u2019s biggest release yet, we\u2019ve prepared this Community Update with extensive developer commentary on a few of the things you\u2019ll find next week. Additionally, the live stream team is hard at work putting the finishing touches on next week\u2019s show, which will take place on Tuesday, June 28 at 2 P.M. PT sharp. Don\u2019t be late.<\/p>\n

Today, we\u2019ll hear from designers, developers, and artists on some of the things they\u2019ve built for you, plus a bit more. Let\u2019s get into it. Also, if you haven\u2019t yet caught the full REQ Reveal for Warzone Firefight,\u00a0you can catch it here.<\/a><\/p>\n

WARZONE FIREFIGHT<\/h2>\n

\"h5-guardians-wz-firefight-urban-banner-e76cffb0d4c749f0b7346a6929134cfd\"<\/p>\n

Since beta, the Warzone Firefight team has been reviewing your feedback and putting in the time to make updates before the final release. To get the details, I chatted with the some of the folks who are doing said hard work. Take it away, guys.<\/p>\n

DAVID ELLIS, MULTIPLAYER DESIGNER<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with Warzone Firefight (What\u2019s wrong with you? 😊), it\u2019s our brand-new 8-player Co-op mode where you and your Spartan squad must overcome 5 rounds of increasingly difficult objectives to rack up huge scores and emerge victorious. If you are familiar with Warzone Firefight, then chances are you participated in our pre-release beta back in April. And believe me, you were not alone. We were blown away by the community response to beta. Whether internal telemetry, community forum posts or social media replies, we gathered a treasure trove of information and used that data to update and improve the entire Warzone Firefight experience. Your participation and subsequent feedback helped to inform our work for the June release. What\u2019s changed since then you ask? (Even if you didn\u2019t I\u2019m going to tell you anyway because that\u2019s why I\u2019m here).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\"h5-guardians-wz-firefight-sanctum-01-d53546c8f0e143c0b66e57341673cac1\"<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> Before David gets into the new stuff, just take a look further into that pic above. First is one of the new armor sets. While you only see the back of it, In like the way that it’s a two-toned look, again, at least from the back. Besides this being a Sanghelios location, that spire near top mid appears to be Forerunner. So we may just get some additional lore to the map. A pair of Crimson Knights is on the attack while we see the new WASP in the background coming to aide the Spartans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the beta, we\u2019ve done a top-to-bottom difficulty tuning pass across our scenarios to ensure success percentages are more in line with our desired metrics. One particular pain point in the beta was the dreaded \u201cDefend the Garage\u201d objective on Escape from A.R.C. Less than half of the squads that encountered this particular threat completed the task. That was the largest single outlier we saw in the beta and probably too tough for Round 3. To help simplify things, we\u2019ve updated our HUD and UI elements to better inform you of your success rate<\/span><\/strong> or lack thereof (more on that later.) We\u2019ve also simplified the logic of the objective. You no longer have to kill the designer-prescribed number of enemies without them capturing the location to complete the round.<\/strong><\/span> Now, you simply need to keep the enemy from capturing the location before times runs out<\/strong><\/span>. However, aggressive players will have the opportunity to complete defend objectives faster by clearing out the majority of the attacking forces. You\u2019ll want to make sure and communicate your Warthog run away from the base ahead of time to make sure you always have friendly forces in the base to block capture progress.<\/p>\n

Yet another change we\u2019ve made to up the challenge since the beta relates to the respawn timer and adding more of a \u201cpenalty\u201d for dying. After numerous playtests and internal discussions, we settled on a design where the respawn timer increases by 5 seconds for all players after successfully completing each round, so dying in Round 5 will have a bigger impact on your squad\u2019s damage output than earlier rounds<\/strong><\/span>. This change will require greater team coordination and communication if you want to consistently succeed. And now to talk a little bit about other additions we\u2019ve made since the beta is David Garza, game dev extraordinaire.<\/p>\n

DAVID GARZA, GAME DEV EXTRAORDINAIRE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey everyone, I’m super excited for you all to finally get a chance to play our new mode! However, the flip side of that coin means I’m now faced with the unenviable task of making incremental UI improvements sound fun and exciting! Joking aside, the feedback we got from you during the beta was incredibly valuable and we hope these improvements will make it so that things are more clear and there are less barriers in between you and fun.<\/p>\n

One of the big pieces of feedback we received from the beta was that it wasn’t always obvious what round you were in or what the goal of any given round was.\u00a0 So, to help remedy this, we added a brand new splash feed that shows up at the beginning of each round<\/strong><\/span>. It shouts, loud and clear, the round number and what you need to do to succeed. It’s front and center and literally comes in with a “splash” (hence the name).<\/p>\n

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Another thing you’ll notice when you fire up Warzone Firefight is that we’ve made some updates to the mini scoreboard in the bottom right of the screen<\/span><\/strong>. Aside from showing your own personal score on the bottom half, we’ve also updated it to display your team’s progress towards the current round’s objective on the top half.\u00a0 Depending on the goal, the scoreboard will look and act different in order to inform your squad as to how the round is shaping out. For instance, if the goal is to eliminate 100 Grunts, a red bar will fill from right to left as your team takes each one out.\u00a0 Or if, for example, your team needs to defend the Armory, a blue bar will slowly shrink from left to right as the enemy AI captures the base.<\/p>\n

HFFL: Those are some needed and very welcomed additions to the screen. This will make it a bit easier to follow during gameplay.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"crawlers-ddb872842fd34c2d93d42c8aea68bfc8\"<\/p>\n

Another part of the update that I’m personally really excited about is the changes we’ve made to how we show your personal score. We wanted to make personal score more obvious, and more fun. With that in mind, we’ve added a round-to-round scoreboard. During the intermission phase in between each round, we’ll post a report card of sorts that displays how you’ve done in the previous round.<\/strong> <\/span>The scoreboard will show every point you’ve earned this round, as well as highlight any bonuses you’ve received for awesome play. For instance, if you are able to complete a round without dying, defeat a huge number of enemies, or rack up a bunch of assists, you’ll get a bonus! If you and your team are able to finish a round exceptionally quick, you’ll all get a bonus! The goal for this UI is to make it obvious where all of your score comes from and to help you figure out how to score even more points. Of course, it also may be useful for fueling a little competition between you and your friends to see who can get the highest score. My best is 3750 in a single round, can you beat that? (Ellis, \u201cI already have.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"end-of-round-1-e7b76211f7ae417dbec5633a4ea6a812\"<\/p>\n

You may remember from previous Firefight modes anytime you gained points for defeating an enemy that a score value would show up to the right of the reticle to tell you how much you’ve just received.\u00a0 We were able to add a very similar piece of UI for this release which we’ve called (wait for it…) the “score feed”.\u00a0 It works very similar to past titles, however we thought it might be fun to add a little bit more to the display. So as a result, if you are able to gain more points while the score feed is currently visible we’ll add the points together and consider that a scoring chain. If you are able to chain enough together, the feed will start to change color and grow larger. There are multiple levels of display and only the most awesome of players will see them all.<\/p>\n

HFFL: Okay, now thats is pretty cool! These kinds of scoring chains have been in many types of games over the years. It’s a nice addition to Halo, if at least in Firefight.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"850-22c849b60f774c8eabc8b683bb9ba16c\"<\/p>\n

We’ve also added a lot of other small UI tweaks from your feedback (event feed notifications, navpoint updates, etc)<\/span><\/strong> that we hope will also help with communicating what’s going on. Aside from just UI improvements, we also wanted to add more variety to the overall experience as well. So we’ve added “Protect Object(s),\u201d a new objective type that is present on every map. In order to succeed in this new challenge, you and your team will need to work together to prevent waves of enemies from destroying high value targets. These targets vary in both what type of object you have to protect as well as how many objects there are. For example, you may be tasked with defending a single UNSC generator from an army of Knights, or you may find yourself protecting a collection of Forerunner artifacts from hordes of Hunters.<\/p>\n

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That’s a small look at some of the new things you have coming your way with the Warzone Firefight update. Thanks for reading, I hope you all have fun!<\/p>\n

HFFL: YES! The more variety the better!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

DAVID ELLIS, MULTIPLAYER DESIGNER<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks David (Garza). Last, but not least don\u2019t forget, the beta was just a sampling of Warzone Firefight on a single map. At launch the Warzone Firefight, the mode will feature thousands and thousands of dynamically selected objective combinations across 6 maps. Players will be able to battle together on:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Escape from A.R.C.
\n\u2022 March on Stormbreak
\n\u2022 Raid on Apex 7
\n\u2022 Skirmish at Darkstar
\n\u2022 Urban (The Battle of Noctus – Assault version)<\/span><\/strong>
\n\u2022 (and the\u00a0all-new!)\u00a0<\/strong>Attack on Sanctum<\/p>\n

The physical size and layout of each map provides tons of variability to the experience. For example, Defending the Garage on A.R.C. is completely different than beating back foes on Darkstar\u2019s Fortress. You\u2019ll also find that specific weapons and vehicles work better on some maps than others. One of my personal favorites involves reigning down destruction from the skies on Stormbreak courtesy of my trusty Wasp, the newest addition to the UNSC arsenal.<\/p>\n

Across the entire studio, we\u2019ve put an immense effort into the Warzone Firefight update. Since launching last year, this is without a doubt our largest release. We can\u2019t wait to see how the players react once they get the chance to experience all of the new goodies for themselves.<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> Gah..so release it already! LOL<\/span><\/p>\n

WARZONE FIREFIGHT RP\/XP<\/h2>\n

JEREMY HILL, PROGRESSION DESIGNER<\/h4>\n

Warzone Firefight is a very different beast than the original version of Warzone, and thus it has required us to take a new look at the way we reward players XP and RP.\u00a0Traditional Warzone rewards players based on a number of factors.\u00a0First is participation, setting a baseline reward for being a part of a match and seeing it through to completion.\u00a0Second is based on how well your team ranks, typically this is used to determine whether you get points for your team winning. Third, a big part of the reward comes from how well you performed in the match.<\/p>\n

Now in Firefight, a lot of this is flipped on its head.\u00a0Participation is usually based on how long you were in the match, but in Firefight we want to reward you for being fast and efficient.\u00a0Team ranking becomes problematic, as everyone is all on the same team, so win or lose your team is always number 1.\u00a0 Personal performance is very important in this mode, and needs to be rewarded appropriately, but more important is rewarding people for working together as a team and cooperating, so this can\u2019t be the majority of all the rewards possible.\u00a0So, with that in mind, we\u2019re adding a pair of new factors just for Warzone Firefight.<\/p>\n

You will be rewarded based on the number of rounds completed.\u00a0The further you can make it into the match, the more XP and RP you will see.\u00a0Make it all the way to the end, and you will reap even greater rewards from a speed bonus.<\/p>\n

The speed bonus is only applied if you have completed all the rounds of a match.\u00a0 So if you can clear all the rounds under their par times, you can really start getting some great XP and RP out of this mode!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

NEW PLACES TO PLAY<\/h2>\n

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Well, gosh darnit. I love those guys, and I hope you\u2019re excited to jump into the new-and-improved Warzone Firefight. Next up, we\u2019ll hear from more devs I love, and after reading about the work they\u2019ve been doing on some new maps, I think you will love them too. Take it away, multiplayer map moguls.<\/p>\n

PROSPECT<\/h2>\n

PATRICK WREN, MULTIPLAYER LEVEL DESIGNER<\/h4>\n

Based on player feedback and the community\u2019s desire for more variety in Warzone Assault environments, with Prospect we took up the challenge of creating a new map from the ground up specifically for Warzone Assault.<\/p>\n

The goal for Prospect was to create a closer-quarters map with a lot of height variation, similar to Skirmish at Darkstar. To help balance the combat interplay between infantry and vehicles, we gave on-foot players multiple traversal options. These asymmetrical paths create interesting advantages for attackers and defenders, as Prospect is an intense map with constant action. Based on playtest feedback, we worked hard to make sure each base was balanced and fun to fight over.<\/p>\n

\"h5-guardians-wz-assault-prospect-establishing-banner-f6b29a2e6536414b8f5cc54a974aca6c\"<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> Wait, hold up…Does anyone else think that banner just above looks slightly similar to Longbow from Halo 4? \u00a0I LIKE it!<\/span><\/p>\n

At the start of the match, attackers start at a higher elevation than defenders in the Armory. In order to capture that base, attackers will need to cross a \u201cno man\u2019s land,\u201d exposing themselves to enemy fire.<\/p>\n

If the attackers are successful in capturing the Armory, their job isn\u2019t over yet. In the battle for the modified Garage, the height advantage is reversed with defenders enjoying the high ground. In the Garage, players will notice numerous additional paths to the first and second floors and additional cover to encourage close quarters combat.<\/p>\n

Like the Garage, we added new structures to the Home Base, creating more opportunities for attacking and defending the Core. There is additional cover at the front of the base to encourage defenders to push out from the interior, while providing them more protection from air attacks. We also added secondary objectives in the form of two gates that prevent attackers from immediately rushing in with heavy vehicles. To open up these vehicle paths, attackers must capture and activate control panels located above the gates.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re excited for players to being battling across Prospect next week with the launch of the Warzone Firefight Update!<\/p>\n

ATTACK ON SANCTUM<\/h2>\n

MATTIAS KYLEN, SENIOR ENVIRONMENT ARTIST<\/h4>\n

One of my main goals for Attack on Sanctum was to marry environment aesthetics and gameplay into a cohesive design, hopefully we achieved something that reinforces players sense for location, direction and \u201cpathing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this map, I wanted clear and wide vehicle paths with plenty of loops going around the map and optional paths and jumps to encourage vehicle stunts. For infantry, we put extra importance on covered bee-line paths so that players can quickly get around while reasonably protected.<\/p>\n

To give players a stronger sense of location, I chose two very distinct visual themes for each side of the map. On one side, we have an open dry desert with swirling shapes that are shaped to match the gameplay flow. For visual inspiration, we used alien-like desert locations like the Paria Canyon in Utah. For the other side, we created a bowl-like area surrounded by cliffs and waterfalls, creating a \u201cmicroclimate\u201d that is lush and full of greenery.<\/p>\n

The Temple is the key landmark \u2013 it is carved out of solid rock and is visible from anywhere in the map. It features twin, ancient Sangheli statues flanking the temple on either side, which ties the contrasting themes together.<\/p>\n

\"temple-interior-fa7133837dde4a50b5f807c461a6b7f8\"<\/p>\n

PATRICK WREN, MULTIPLAYER LEVEL DESIGNER<\/h4>\n

Attack on Sanctum was a lot of fun to work on because in some ways, it was like working on two different maps. In addition to the grandiose exterior combat spaces Mattias mentioned, Sanctum features a huge center complex perfect for combat in a space we call the Temple. I worked with Ben Nicholas, one of our environment artists, on the interior of the Temple. We worked on making the capture area on the ground floor feel like a small Arena map with a plethora of symmetrical bridges, ramps and cover, bisected by a vehicular pass through. The second floor, only accessible via grav lifts and crafty pilots, houses the Legendary and Mythic bosses that come in throughout the match. We wanted to create a space that promotes personal combat with these bosses, away from ground vehicles and cowardly snipers (Bravo note: OOOOH! BURN!!<\/em>), creating a unique feel to these fights.<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> That whole paragraph above needs a reread. SO much info packed into it. Don’t just skim over it.<\/span><\/p>\n

A major theme I wanted to convey early on in designing this map was a theme of battles between Promethean and Covenant forces. It\u2019s always awesome coming into a space and seeing a big fight happening in front of you. I wanted to start the map out with a bang – with two bosses duking it out as you land. Players are encouraged to be aggressive in eliminating all threats, and teams who are slow on the trigger can miss out on one of the bosses if they fall to their opposing AI force. The initial defenders at all the field bases (Garages and Temple) have Covenant and Prometheans fighting, creating hectic four way battles.<\/span><\/strong> Attack on Sanctum features the largest ground and air combat spaces of any location across all of Warzone and players will no doubt spend hours and hours exploring and taking in all of its beauty.<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> Gawd, this map just sounds AWESOME!<\/span><\/p>\n

MOLTEN<\/h2>\n

Next week, a new Arena map is dropping as well. It goes by the name of Molten, and it lends itself quite well to Team Slayer and Strongholds gameplay. The map not only has unique gameplay flow, but quite a unique look and feel as well. For more, I hand things over to the very capable hands of Christopher Hands.<\/p>\n

\"h5-guardians-concept-art-molten-02-clean-aaa1fe9d8ac9483d8db267eb4f484f44\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0The vision piece for Molten, concept art by Justin Oaksford<\/em><\/p>\n

CHRISTOPHER HANDS, SENIOR ENVIRONMENT ARTIST<\/h4>\n

Molten was an interesting challenge for us, it\u2019s the first map to incorporate Lava that the players interact with, and is a major feature of the map. The tech required to create the lava hadn\u2019t been built yet, so a lot of teams had to work together to solve this puzzle; Chris Woods\u2019 team and FX were a huge part of the process. My initial pitch for the map was: \u201cI want to make the most metal map in Halo,\u201d so we placed the smelting plant within an active volcano with lava throughout, I\u2019d say we succeeded!<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> A smelting plant INSDIE an active volcano? IN-SANE! Love it!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"molten08-c63d872c67a54128b4b622337be8c914\"<\/p>\n

We had a lot of fun building Molten, it was the first map where the more we scarred and burned the environment, the better it looked. Since the map is asymmetrical, we spent a lot of time trying to build unique callouts such as Oven and Cooling (we called it coolant room internally). Cooling was a great example of how far we wanted to push the theme, we knew we wanted to have a room that stood out from the rest but still fit.<\/p>\n

\"molten-cooling-53023f88b44b47abae1409807ba90354\"<\/p>\n

Coolant room, concept art by Justin Oaksford<\/em><\/p>\n

\"molten-cooling-screen-39b05e114d3a47fa903fe226fd29ebe3\"<\/p>\n

Coolant room, final<\/em><\/p>\n

Before Adrian (Bedoya) began working on the design blockout for Molten, we had discussed an idea about adding lava to the map and how that would affect gameplay. It was an interesting problem, how can players be able to interact with lava and have it be a major part of the map without it being a frustrating experience? Adrian wanted to push the amount of lava, adding it to almost every section of the map but in unique ways, the large lava column in Oven is a good example of Adrian\u2019s creativity in designing the map. Every facet of Molten was built with the mentality of: \u201cLets push this theme as far as we can!\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall I\u2019m very proud of Molten, it\u2019s a small unique map that was a lot of fun to work on. I look forward to playing it when it\u2019s out in the wild!<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> I do too! Visually, this map looks stunning from just the few pics we get here of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

TIDAL<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re saving a few surprises within Tidal \u2013 the upcoming Forge canvas – for next week\u2019s live stream. Be sure to tune in on Tuesday at 2PM P.T. at Twitch.tv\/Halo.<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> Boo-hiss! We wants to know MOAR right meow! LOL<\/span><\/p>\n

THE GREAT GRUNT GOBLIN<\/h2>\n

\"h5-guardians-wz-firefight-sanctum-grunt-mech-banner-48c999ef3bbc4b6691c051f8dda13d9b\"<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new boss in town. We announced the Grunt Goblin, an all-new Grunt Mech boss, earlier this week, and today, we\u2019re taking a look at how this guy came to be, straight from the designers and devs who brought him to life. Go Go Grunt Goblin!<\/p>\n

CHRIS PROCTOR, SENIOR SYSTEMS DESIGNER<\/h4>\n

For Halo 5 at launch, all of our Warzone bosses were Campaign enemies with some different tuning, normally in terms of health and damage output. We needed some more variety, and wanted to build an enemy from the ground up to be a Warzone boss, with a few goals: tough but still satisfying to fight, able to threaten multiple players simultaneously, and dangerous to vehicles without being unfair to players on foot. We identified some promising directions, and then shelved the plans for a while.<\/p>\n

A few months after Halo 5 shipped, Kyle Hefley showed me a concept from the start of 2013 (made in some downtime in between Halo 4 and Halo 5), (Wait, there was downtime??)<\/span> <\/strong>of a gigantic, grunt-shaped mech. We showed it to the whole character team in an art review meeting, and everyone immediately fell in love, we tossed around some gameplay, then set it aside for a few weeks, figuring that it might be a good character to build for a future Halo game.<\/p>\n

\"surpriseconcept-00939b9c6af04478971fd347625ff552\"<\/p>\n

An early sketch of the Grunt Mech, done by Gabriel Garza, over a quick block out sculpt from Kyle Hefley<\/em><\/p>\n

Then came the Hackathon. The whole studio split into small teams, each spending a few days working on a prototype of a feature for the future of Halo. Around 10 of us decided this would be a great opportunity to prove the viability of what was then simply called the Grunt Mech (actually called Mecha in data, for the anime fans). We built a rough prototype mesh, hacked it up to work on the Grunt skeleton so that we could re-use existing animations (saving animation resources for new features, and to see if Grunt animations could actually work scaled up \u2013 spoiler, they did not), recorded some hilarious temporary voiceover and audio, prototyped a new anti-vehicle Needler weapon and another, much more dangerous [REDACTED] weapon for the upgraded variant. A prototype of a feature we\u2019d spec\u2019d out for a future project, the Multi-Target Tracked Attack, conveniently came online just in time for the Hackathon, and we used that as the Mech\u2019s secondary attack. Response from the whole team at 343 was incredibly positive, clearly the idea had legs, and the path to ship was so clear that we decided to adjust our schedule to squeeze it into Halo 5 post-launch content.<\/p>\n

Taking the goals we\u2019d established for a new Warzone boss, we mapped these onto the mech and started playtesting in Warzone Firefight while we got to work, building out all of the required content for a character in record time. As issues came up during testing, we made some changes:<\/p>\n