Halo 5: 343 seeking to improve multiplayer and balancing next time

News by Dave Cook Contributor

Published on Nov. 28, 2013

Halo 5 hasn't been formally announced yet, but 343 Industries' design director Brad Welch has engaged fans in a Twitter discussion about where he felt things went wrong, and how the next game will look to address concerns.

It started with this tweet, which was spotted by OXM:

Halo MP is a challenging beast. Part of my love for it is the Quake arena tradition. We didn't service this so well in Halo 4.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

It was then followed by some discussion concerning balancing, progression models and design:

@xBrutaIity Very fair point. I actually designed that system and feel bad that it tapped out. Major surgery pulled me out of H4 a bit early.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

@xBrutaIity There was a few moving parts there that caused that, but we've fed all the stuff we didn't think went well into future plans.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

@GrizzNKev @Tashi0106 @Mudkip_Effect So visible skill is what you want, right? Tell me what your favorite skill ranking system in any game!

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

@GrizzNKev @joshua_menke Gotcha, Kev. Same basic feedback we hear a lot from H4.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

@GrizzNKev @joshua_menke Right, Franklin and I talked about this a lot on Halo 4 (cut for time) and we talk about it a lot for future stuff.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

He also apologised for the balancing in Halo 4's DLC maps:

@SaUcEySOARS Not great, yeah. We have to plan DLC early, so ultimately I didn’t balance internal, external & DLC maps well enough.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

@SaUcEySOARS I don’t want to pass it off. Plenty of decisions are on me. Big games are tough. We’ll improve next time.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

He was then asked if the pressures of ship dates caught 343 off guard:

@Zeouterlimits Sure. That’s almost every game ever. We had to build a team, learn 10+ years of tribal engine knowledge and make a new game.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

Finally, a teaser:

@xBrutaIity Going to make whatever future 60fps, dedi server Halo we may make as awesome as possible to as many fans as possible.

— Brad Welch (@bradford_welch) November 28, 2013

What do you make of the above? Do you feel that 343 will learn from Halo 4 and make the fifth game based on the community's feedback? Let us know what you think below.

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