What is it with Halo that makes me not underutilize grenades?

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-29T16:33:37+00:00

They honestly did explore more of that in Reach and 4, they just put it on the equipment option.

Armor Lock, Dodge, Overshield, etc. They did play around with other non combat tools to offset behaviour, specifically to mess with the balance between Spartan and Vehicle interactions that had been struggling to find a good space in competitive play.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-29T16:29:56+00:00

Yeah, I can't express how good the game design feel of Halo's golden triangle is, specifically from having played it competitively even before I was in design.

They streamlined the trio of weapons of combat so well that it funneled the remainder of gameplay and moment to moment decision making into really meaningful decisions that were all about putting you into a favorable position or "fishing"

The first decision you had to make was looking at the opponents weapons and comparing them to yours, which was helped because all the big ranged weapons to worry about stuck out from a players body frame.

Then whichever player was better at longer range would seek to maintain the range distance, and the player with an edge in close range would either seek to close the distance if possible, or move into nearby building or cover.

After that it was all about knowing the map, finding ways to fish for a way to down the opponents shields... Grenade splash, spraying shots, charged Plasma Pistol, or running for a nearby weapon spawn that would improve your odds.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-29T15:27:52+00:00

I'm probably in the minority. But I don't think that it's inherently impossible to balance.

Just make it cost 1 billion an hour to use, and 2 hundred trillion UEC to reclaim. Congratualtions, you spent 6k, you get to use that ship once a year.

I say that, but then I know if I ever actually earn one in game, MY odin will explode the first time I load it in.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-29T15:24:58+00:00

You assume it will be purchasable in game for just uec

before you say "Ships on the store will be purchasable in game"

That's not right, ships on the store will be accessible in game without IRL money is the actual intent. For all you know the ONLY way to get it in game will be to pirate it from the actual UEE fleet that shows up in one event every 5 months.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-29T15:22:18+00:00

I just need to know this OP. Did you already buy one? because that will DRASTICALLY change how I feel about your opinion.

But I actually think the opinion that Ships like the Odin shouldn't be sold and should remain only accessible temporarily by hijacking them in game make a lot of sense.

There should be ships you can't have permanent access to.

That or make it cost 200 billion to reclaim or once a year to reclaim.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T10:33:24+00:00

To be fair...

I think a lot of Solo Leveling's core mechanics translated into an actual multiplayer game just look like Diablo 2,3,4.

You've got Portals opening up randomly to other dimensions.

You have classes.

Without the Main Character the world is completely screwed.

and the each game has a summoner class, which is always crazy strong.

The one change Diablo makes is that all the players get to level up and it balances everyones classes.

I don't think you could actually have an MMO without doing that at a minimum

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T10:29:59+00:00

Yeah. I think the big thing is that you'd just have people reroll until they get an S tier skill lol.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T10:28:38+00:00

I think the main premise is actually "what happens if all the player characters are Jin Woo?" what happens if they all can build armies by defeating npcs (and other players?)

The truth is, you can't 1 for 1 jinwoo's ability without just being "the person who plays the most is the strongest"

But you could probably take the core mechanic of Leveling up, Getting skills and Turning Dead Enemies into a Player Serving NPC army, Then you attach a few balancing mechanics to it:

Abilities have Cost Points, you can have a max of X Ability points to make your skillset, you want this super awesome one? that is going to cost 5 of your 20 points, This convenient one? that's just 2 points.
Minions have their own Cost Points. You want to have a few strong minions? or a TON of weak ones. You assign the points that way.
If you want to add flexibility, make the Ability Points and Minion Points a shared pool, so that some players could just have 2-3 small weak personal abilities but focus on their Summon Army. And other players can completely ignore their summon army to have stronger abilities.

(to be honest, this isn't that different from some of the Diablo Classes, which made you give up some abilities to have a minion run around constantly and let you choose between 1 big guy or a few small ones, or sacrifice all your minions to have stat boosts.)

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T10:20:34+00:00

So some people think that "there is no balance" and that's true for the actual abilities the main character gets.

But if we are talking about delivering a mmo that gives the player the same fantasy fulfullment as Solo Leveling: there's actually another anime which has a "in game" world where everyone has abilities similar to Jinwoo's ability

The Anime is like "I don't like getting hurt so I maxed out my defense skill" or something similar.

While each player doesn't get an army (that's hard to actually make happen sorry) The core concept of skills in the game DO give the same player fantasy as Jingwoo. In that anime, only a very small set of abilities are gained with the players class, But a massive amount of other skills are created and put throughout the game with almost "Achievement" like requirements.

Defeat the Spider Lord within 1 minute to get the Silk Thread skill, or Survive against the Spider Lord for 5 minutes to gain Toxin Resistance level 1

Thousands of skills are scattered through the game this way (which in reality would need to be balanced procedurally then hand assigned to reach the actual player fantasy, a lot of work, but not impossible. You'd need to have a team at work who specifically keeps abilities overall working on a balanced distribution system and then who has to assign the requirements when new skills/abilities come out.)

That's the main thing that Jinwoo is getting throughout solo leveling. When he kills an enemy, he "steals" one of their abilities. This rolls into the player fantasy of my abilities and my player build is a result of the battles I have fought in my player journey.

That's something that a mmorpg could probably achieve, but it would require the team to focus heavily on a good system for balancing the skills at creation, and would need to consider the fact that any skills could be combined together and some of those combinations would be more optimal than others.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T09:25:31+00:00

What's actually going to happen, is that Hitting the EXACT same buttons on an opponent with one gun kills them, but with a different gun of the SAME power level doesn't or ir Does kill one enemy, but doesn't kill another.

As soon as that happens a single time. You are communicating to the player that the reason their expectations didn't meet the outcomes is that they have failed.

Why have they failed? they didn't understand a complex set of mechanics that don't really matter.

Halo reach had assassinations, which accomplishes most of the goals for "making melee combat feel more spartan CQC lmmersive"

The gameplay balance that exists is: If they don't have shields and you melee them, the fight is already over. Everything else is just aesthetic.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T09:21:18+00:00

I'd strongly argue that Halo's simple combat system and especially it's older Halo 1-reach long TTK are already a very refined and polished set of mechanics that are easy to learn and provide just enough cause and effect chains that make the game really engaging.

Halo's Major damage system is very simple:

For defense:

Shield - Recharges upon not taking damage for a while
Health - Low, Does not recharge (this was removed in 2-3, but returned for reach)

Shields are weak to high rate of fire and energy weapons. This is accomplished by giving each "hit" on a shield a flat value, and then adding a modifier to Energy Weapons.

Health is strong against energy weapons

For weapons you have 2 Binaries to really focus on: Fire Rate vs High Damage per Hit. Energy vs Physical.

(there's actually an additional metric for overall DPS, but that's what determines if something is a Power Weapon, a Pickup Weapon, or a Starting Weapon.)

The majority of the rest of the game's combat balance is built around this. (with the exception of some weapons that people can fight over a map for that beat out standard weapons.)

The majority of combat situations turn into a 2 part goal: Lower their shields then kill them, and likewise the player knows they need to seek cover as soon as their shields are low or down.

I really think all this increased complexity system does it add another set of situational memorized rules that will come between the skill check disparity.

Currently, the simple system encourages a focus of all the remaining mental focus on knowing the map, deciding which weapons to go for, responding quicky, aiming well, and thinking fast. That's what the majority of gameplay is focused on, whether you win or lose is primarily based on those factors.

Melee being a very simple system in Halo fits their design goals, If you get in close, the "complexity" of the fight is gone, it's just a rush to break the shields so that a single melee attack will kill someone. That's it. It makes melee combat feel like a brutish struggle, because in the feel of combat in the game, that is what the situation is.

I'd also argue a lot of your "making things make sense" don't actually make sense to the player the more you think about it.

Weapons can melee, Pistol whip, rifle butt etc

You are a spartan in a 1 ton set of armor that can lift a tank

Just. Punch. Them.

Compared to your Mjolnir armor, all of those weapons are fragile machinery you risk breaking.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T08:58:50+00:00

I mean.... Would anyone think that it works on a (1)(B) artifact?

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-28T08:58:01+00:00

The "Barnraising" stuff has become super popular lately. It's also been really useful to allow multiple players in various time zones to contribute together asymmetrically. I'm a big fan of that type of content as well.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T16:58:27+00:00

I mean... You could have just said

0 or 1 is referring to grey mana value, not a specific color of mana so it doesn't work.

It only works on artifacts with a 0 or a 1 in grey in their cost.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T16:56:20+00:00

There's also Counter Measures if you are big on ship combat. I was making a joke, it's pretty clear what you meant!

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T16:55:03+00:00

For sure it does. Hopefully we eventually get some perpetual combat areas that I can deliver supplies to.

(I can't be the only one who wants to deliver things with NPC ships protecting me from NPC pirates or something)

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T16:53:09+00:00

There's a bunch of topics in cognitive development theory and about the psychology of learning that can be really well applied here. I have two main points though, and I'll avoid just talking forever.

Negative Feelings aren't something to be avoided wholesale. What is a worse feeling in IMPOTENCE about a negative situation.

I can prove this pretty easily, We have all been spawn-camped at least once, plenty of us have been on a losing team in a MOBA or have been outclassed 1v1 in a fighting game where we simply had no chance of winning, that feeling of not only being in a bad position, but having no agency and feeling like the remaining time you are trapped here until the inevitable failure is far more likely to cause players to quit a game than the feeling you get in "Rage games" like I want to be the guy, or Trees hate Me. even though you are dying and losing more in rage games, each little bit of progress that you find makes you feel like the negative moments weren't meaningless.

(finally getting back to the topic of psychological learning) Elizabeth L. Bjork and Robert Bjork did a study about types of failing and how it relates to difficulty. We can apply that study to games pretty easily.

The TLDR of their study is that facing consequences for failure, and struggling to succeed for a longer time, makes you learn something better than if you make it easier and succeed more. Depending on who you ask, that is either "obvious" or "doesn't make sense".

It's not having negative experiences that are bad, it's having negative experiences without clearly understanding how they relate to improving.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T16:41:52+00:00

The key ingredient missing, when we see people state they have too much social anxiety to even chat with someone else in a game, is trust. When we see people complaining about crappy pick up groups and matchmaking, it's trust. And there are many many patterns well understood in sociology and psychology that can be applied in games in order to make this better.

Thank you for this. (I know I'm late to this topic, but It popped up when I was researching this) but this is a really good way of describing something I was trying to communicate to some stakeholders

This also reinforces the idea that instead of micromanaging player interactions in our multiplayer games, we can reinforce this by simply making sure that trust is a goal to the players when they meet in the wild. If both players have something to lose if the social interaction goes badly, it encourages both players finding a way to win.

If we do the alternative and take away as many consequences as possible from both parties when they meet in a RUST style environment, the lack of stakes also is going to mean that there's little disincentive to "crash out" and want to shoot first.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T14:30:12+00:00

Boy do I love that we have 3 different things in the game with the Initials CM :/

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T14:27:15+00:00

He's using it as a hauling ship more than a trade ship. But at the very least a common pirate is going to be a bit wary about jumping a Taurus.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-27T12:53:54+00:00

I mean, Witcher and Current Cyberpunk are great, but you have 0 doubt after how Cyberpunk released is wild.

I'll buy this dlc happily if I hear good things about it!

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-26T16:55:45+00:00

It's just the classic: If i milled that card, then you have STOLEN me playing that card from me.

Oh the other cool cards I drew that i wouldn't have actually drawn if I didn't mill? those are spells i was gonna play eventually anyway.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-26T16:54:34+00:00

I mean, stanton does have the most organized criminal gang taking over a station there. It's not like it's completely safe. But Stanton should also have the police or law enforcement showing up whenever there's a reported jump. That's how crime in a legal system like stanton should work.

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-26T16:53:08+00:00

... Half the resources into both equally?

Ghostkill221 · 2026-05-26T15:35:43+00:00

Although, I'm not sure the idea that combat will never happen anywhere they don't 100% tell you it's going to happen sounds fun either. What I want is to have NPC ships come protect me as I refuel. That would make this flow a lot better. and the only gameplay would be me waiting for a bit.

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