Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox One) - Coronavirus Relief Fund DLC (p81)

Welcome to another weekly read, friends. As I sit at my typewriter and combine these eloquent words, each team at the studio is busy wrapping up their contributions to Memories of Reach. The release will include updates across the game, including the addition of a new game mode in the form of Infection (a bit more on that today), new controller options, UI updates (including post-game medals and more), new armor, skins, weapons, a new Arena battleground, matchmaking preference options, Forge updates, and much more, including some updates to REQ weapon balance, which we’ll also talk about in today’s blog. To correctly set expectations, Memories of Reach won’t be here just yet next week, but we’ll continue to keep you updated on specific timing as we get closer to release and all final work is completed, tested, and ready to go out the door.

To start, let’s talk a bit more about Infection!

INFECTION

The widely requested mayhem that is Infection is also receiving final tweaks and polish. We’re playtesting the game type across a variety of dev and community maps, and precision tuning is nearly complete. Let’s unveil a few specifics on the game mode:

Total player count: 12
Number of rounds: 4
Round time limit: 3 minutes each
New Custom Game option: “Last Squad Standing”
Spartans have all Spartan abilities (naturally!)
Infected have Thrust, Smart Scope, Stabilize
New medals

MEMORIES OF REACH REQ PREVIEW
This week, we’re pulling back the curtain on some of the goodness you’ll find in Memories of Reach. Stay tuned next week for the full reveal, including a few specific armors (and more!) you may be looking forward to. Memories of Reach will include a bunch of new stuff, and will also bring the Spartan's Armory REQs into the REQ pool.



I'll just leave this here:

In total, over a dozen weapon variants have been updated to have a more appropriate effectiveness. We’ll start by detailing the Plasma Caster and Hydra updates specifically, and then get into the full list

PLASMA CASTER UPDATE

The intended use case of the Plasma Caster has been “indirect fire”. Shoot around cover, predict enemy movement, etc. And it does fill that role to a degree.

However, the indirect fire from the sticky grenade was pretty much only effective if you get a direct stick. The use case of putting the sticky in a strategic position and letting the cluster grenades rain down on enemies was not working as intended.

The following balance changes will be in effect after Memories of Reach:

Cluster grenades are more effective
Charge shot has less arc
Regular grenade will explode slightly faster after bouncing

HYDRA LAUNCHER UPDATE

Hydra is filling its role well, with the exception of engaging multiple targets at close range. The splash damage radius was very, very small. Also, the recoil when jumping was not helping players accurately place rockets where they intended.

The following balance changes will be in effect after Memories of Reach:

Recoil has been reduced
Rocket splash damage radius increased
Typhon variant: Can now lock onto 3 enemies at once for extra coolness!

WEAPON BALANCE UPDATE SUMMARY – MEMORIES OF REACH

Plasma Caster: Default

Reduced non-charged timer from 0.5 to 0.3 (less overshooting of enemies)
Sticky grenade has less arc (to be able to place it on the map more reliably)
Sticky grenade detonation is now more damaging vs. vehicles, but less damaging vs bipeds (will still kill bipeds in one shot when stuck)
Increased sticky grenade submunition damage values from 43 to 75 (indirect fire from a sticky shot can now actually kill!)
Sticky submunition grenade inner AOE increased from 0.65 to 1.0

Plasma Caster: White Scar

Needles have improved aim toward nearby targets

Plasma Caster: Scourge of Fire

Sticky shot now has 7 submunitions instead of 5

Hydra Launcher: Default

Reduced recoil in hip
Increased inner AOE radius from 0.4 to 0.8
Increased impact damage to make it more effective against vehicles (still two rockets to kill Spartan)

Hydra Launcher: Typhon

Enabled multi lock on for up to 3 targets
Increased impact damage (still two rockets to kill Spartan)

Scattershot: Loathsome Thing

Increased number of hardlight projectiles to be same as normal scattershot (5 -> 8)

Rocket Launcher: High Five

Increased AOE radius on cluster rockets

Binary Rifle: Twin Jewels of Maethrillian

Reduced recoil
Placed twin projectiles a bit closer together for easier biped targeting

Covenant Carbine: Rain of Oblivion

Reduced recoil
Increased zoom magnification a bit (closer to default Carbine)
Incineration Cannon: River of Light

Added slight homing to charge shot to hit multiple bipeds easier

Incineration Cannon: Heartseeker

Added proximity detonation to charge shot (like the normal Inc. Cannon has) to make it more effective against airborne targets or targets behind cover

Fuel Rod Cannon: Pool of Radiance

Fixed a damage bug (was not causing AOE damage on initial explosion)
Made projectile thicker

Needler: Talon of the Lost

Reduced supercombine count to be same as normal Needler
Needles have longer lifetime to more easily supercombines against difficult to hit targets (8s instead of 4s)

Spartan Laser: Selene’s Lance

Reduced recoil
Made beam thicker

Forging Ahead – The Halo Forge Experience Comes to Windows 10 PC

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re bring this same spirit of creation and collaboration to the PC later this year with Forge – Halo 5: Guardians Edition for Windows 10. Best of all? It will be absolutely free. In addition to the evolutions already present in the mode on Xbox One, Forge – Halo 5: Guardians Edition for Windows 10 will include some exciting new features designed specifically with PC users in mind, including:

Keyboard & Mouse Support – For the first time ever, Forgers will have the option of using a keyboard & mouse allowing for more precision control than ever before.

Increased Resolution – Support for multiple resolutions including 4k.

Test and Play with Friends – Enlist the help of Friends to help build, test, and play your Forge creations on Windows 10.

Build on Windows 10 and Publish to Xbox One – Experiences built on Windows 10 can be published to and played on Xbox One, opening the doors for countless new experiences to be enjoyed by players all over the world.

HOG WILD AND BEYOND

We’ve recently made some changes to the Halo 5 content release plan, which mainly focus on giving a few of the bigger items that were slated for the Hog Wild update a bit more time for finishing touches and polish. As a result, much of the contents of the Hog Wild release have moved to the Warzone Firefight release, which is currently scheduled to drop at the end of June. Warzone Firefight will include the PvE mode with a variety of maps to play on, new game updates and features, Warzone and Arena maps, a plethora of Forge updates (including a new canvas and more), new REQs, and plenty more. We’ll be talking about the Warzone Firefight release – which will be Halo 5’s largest release to date - much more in the coming weeks.

To hold you over, we’ll still be releasing the Hog Wild REQs as the Hog Wild REQ Drop at the end of this month. Let’s get into unveiling a few of those:

BOOSTS AND BRONZES

Many of you likely caught the news last week, but we’ve made an update to Boosts to ensure that they’re only cashed in (spent or used) if you satisfy the conditions of the boost. For example, if you play a Mission Victory and lose, rather than lose the potential bonus and the card, the card will now be returned to your collection. You should still, however, go for the W, and be proud when you get it. This update is particularly helpful in the event of a disconnect or other weirdness, and we hope it makes your RP and XP gains all the sweeter.

Recently, some of you Bronze grinders may have noticed that RP cards were no longer popping up in Bronze packs. This is a result of recent changes to the REQ system that increased the value of Gold and Silver packs. As a refresher, here are the details:

The first two slots in the packs will still guarantee permanent items, but will no longer grant emblems. This means that your chance of getting other permanent REQs such as Power Weapon Certifications, Weapon Skins, Armors, Helmets, and others has substantially improved as long you haven’t already unlocked them. While the third slot in these REQ packs previously only granted one-time-use REQs, it now offers a large chance at dropping Emblems as well. Finally, in general, players should see that these REQ packs will award rarer single use REQs more often.

Previously, in Bronze packs, you could get an RP card if there were no common unlocks available. Now, because of the changes to how emblems are handled, Bronze packs now have to offer a chance at a common (non-emblem) unlock as well as a chance for a common emblem. To avoid confusion, the RP card has been removed as it is possible to get an RP card when there are still REQs to be unlocked. To verify if you still have common unlocks available, you can check here on Waypoint by signing into your profile and selecting “Requisitions” on your Halo 5 Service Record.

WARZONE BOSS REFRESH

The Warzone Firefight release has a few items we haven’t talked about just yet. One of these is a Warzone Boss Refresh, which the Character and Warzone teams have been working on for quite some time. This week, we’re giving you a sneak peek into what’s on the way. Here’s Patrick Wren and Chris Proctor.

PATRICK WREN, MULTIPLAYER DESIGNER
We had a few major goals when it came to refreshing our bosses for Warzone. One is to create more dynamic matches. One way of doing that was adding dynamic bosses, and by using some foundational systems created for Warzone Firefight, we’ve been able to introduce these to Warzone for the first time. One example: on Apex 7, at the 2-minute mark, you could either have a Zealot Assassin Boss in the Caves, or a Ranger Commander and his squad dropped off at the beaches. Each Warzone match should be a bit different instead of the same encounters game after game.

Another goal for updating Warzone was to give Legendary bosses better identities and a bigger payoff. We worked with Chris Proctor and now our Legendary Bosses have unique names, visual identity, and a unique REQ weapon. Players who defeat these bosses will have a chance of collecting and using these unique weapons sans REQ card.

The Warzone Boss Refresh is exciting and we can’t wait for people to play it. There is so much more to talk about with new minion types, reinforcements, roaming bosses, complex encounters and more, which I’m told I can’t talk about just yet.

CHRIS PROCTOR, SENIOR SYSTEMS DESIGNER
On the Character team, we’ve been building new enemies for the Warzone Boss Refresh, with the goal of hitting all of the following points:

A new tier of bosses that are challenging enough to justify the “Mythic” title, with some twists on their gameplay. For example, the Mythic Hunter moves quicker and fires more dangerous, homing cannon rounds.

Boss variants to allow for randomization of bosses (we know players are eager for something other than the Warden).

A hierarchy of characters with a clear color progression, used across bosses and minions, so that players can identify tougher enemies at a glance, and provide more gameplay variety through character durability tuning and weapon selection. We always use custom character tuning for bosses, with regular, Legendary, and Mythic variants. For minions, we generally use campaign tuning for the bottom tier, and then two tiers of Warzone-specific tuning above that.

Covenant progression: Campaign colors, Red, White

Forerunner progression: Campaign colors, Orange, Red

Boss difficulty progression within a match and round to round in Firefight – no more identical-looking but variable-toughness enemies.

Have enemies fire interesting weapons at you, and then drop those weapons when they die so that you can try out some of the REQ weapons – for example the Mythic Knight Battlewagon will use and drop Didact’s Signet, the Scattershot weapon variant.

Allow players to fight against powerful new foes.

We'll be bringing you more on the Warzone Boss Refresh as we get closer to release.

twitter.com/Halo/status/737717782893068288

CAMPAIGN SCORE ATTACK



There’s something beautiful about racking up points for eliminating foes, and this certainly applies to both the multiplayer battlefield as well as the caverns and crawlspaces of Campaign. A few folks here have been hard at work on a new Campaign mode, and to get the details, I sat down with Gabe Deyerle after playing a few round myself.

GABE DEYERLE, CAMPAIGN ENGINEER
Following off of the work the Sandbox Team did with the Campaign balance update, and with the big focus on PvE in this month's update, the Campaign Team had an opportunity to resurrect a particular passion project of ours: Scoring.

We're big fans of scoring in past Halo games, and we wanted to bring it back to Halo 5: Guardians, but with a few new twists. We call it: Score Attack.

First of all, thanks to the work going on in parallel with Warzone Firefight, we were able to expose a large suite of the medals you can earn in Multiplayer to campaign for the purposes of earning points. With over 50 medals to earn in Score Attack, you'll earn the most points for defeating your foes as stylishly as possible.

Second, we love playing with our friends, and we know you do, too - but who doesn't like a little friendly competition? You and your friends will all earn score independently, but you'll probably want to work together if you want to beat the game on higher difficulties with lots of skulls on to maximize your points (and, ya know, survive). We've found this creates a fun tension between helping your friends and taking advantage of their fumbles. But you'll know who the true heroes were after the game in the PGCR where you can see how you stacked up against each other, as well as a full medal breakdown.

This is probably a good time to mention that after a lot of playtesting, we decided to make LASO (Legendary All Skulls On) a *little* bit easier by enabling revive if you go down while the Iron skull is on. It's still pretty brutal (as we think LASO should be) but now there's hope of having a second chance if you go down in a safe location where your allies can get to you.

And last, but most certainly not least, we've been a huge fan of speed runs for years, and we wanted to do everything we could to streamline the game to those dedicated players who find crazy ways of breaking our game wide open, all in the spirit of shaving off those few precious seconds. So in addition to the on screen timer, in Score Attack, we disable cinematics entirely. This meant we could optimize our loading times to get you into the game considerably faster than in the normal campaign. And we heard you, it's a terrible feeling to *just* miss your personal best or a world record because you failed a trick, so we added "Restart Mission" into the pause menu to ease that pain, if only a little bit.

Oh! And before we go, there's one more little thing, and it might be a bit hard to find, so we're glad we got a chance to tell you all. We added <REDACTED: ONI CLASSIFIED INFORMATION> which we're all pretty happy about. Let us know what you think of it!

From all of us on the Campaign Team, we hope you have fun <3

Photek wrote:I'd encourage anyone who gets ass kicked a lot in Arena to try the new FOCUSED search option, I played 8 matches last night to get my June Ranking and it was brilliant, all the games were tight and I actually was first a couple of times. It was a revelation to be honest, because I was doing well I also learned maps better.