Halo 5 Doubles Refresh - My thoughts

As a player that primarily plays doubles and has won multiple online doubles tournaments, this is my review of the new settings:

Respawn Time: This needs to be changed back to the original setting. I fear that these settings haven't actually been tested and were just thrown in to somehow appease the doubles community. Really, this just makes doubles less skill intensive. It makes dying not as punishable. Obviously that is what you are aiming to fix, and I’d say you did a good job. However, I don't think this worked because it just forces slower gameplay with a mix of moshpit games. Let me explain myself. (These depend on the map being played)

• The slower gameplay is due to one person dying, then forcing the teammate to hide and wait for the teammate to spawn. If this player that is hiding gets pushed, then the other teammate will spawn across the map and be able to have an angle on the opponents. I know, this is probably what you wanted, but I just couldn’t disagree more with how uncompetitive that is.

• The other option is it just turns into a moshpit. This is especially seen on a map like The Rig. Most people will want to control white hall and long hall in order to force a spawn like bunker, or the opposite. However, when someone dies especially with a power weapon, it sends the game into a series of fast paced trades that shouldn't be happening in the first place. Instead of one team having weapons and “snowballing” the entire game just snowballs due to the rapid trades. Instead of having a snowball victory, this leads to victories that are just based on dumb luck and RNG due to the nature of spawns, because some will be closer to weapons than others, people will force themselves to overextend, etc.

• This is also bad for powerups. Its very important (or was) to stay alive when the powerups were coming up. Otherwise you would be in a 1v2 situation which would either result in the 1 person burning the powerup or the 2 people killing the last man. Now the situation is one person can die, and still be able to help out. Once again this is something you wanted to fix, but I’m saying this is a very bad thing. Making the game rely more on RNG in the spawn systems rather than the tactical and strategical gameplay that makes up Halo 5. I have anecdotal evidence on Coliseum, where my teammate and I were both at sniper. We killed both players, and I attempted to jump from top mid, onto the top of the bridge, onto the overshield (which in the old case was rockets, and this was easily doable). However as I was mid jump from the bridge to overshield, the players both spawned on the corners of the map and made me an easy target. This has happened every time I’ve played Coliseum. The reason I’m labeling this anecdotal is due to the fact that maybe you are looking for this (in my opinion, unnecessary) change to the meta. Maybe forcing different types of map control? I don’t really know other than to say the original was much better. Now I’ll go into detail on the maps.

Molten - The addition to camo was an okay idea in order to force people down to the bottom of the map for their advantage. The problem is the red team (I think, not exactly sure what team. Whichever team spawns top lava) will always get the powerup in the beginning, every time. What does blue team get in exchange for this? This is bad as you don't want a team having an inherent advantage over the other team in the beginning of the game. This is the same thing as having Red team always spawn with over shield on Eden. It was a big problem that was fixed. How else has this problem been tackled in the past? Construct in Halo 3. Both teams spawn in (almost) neutral space. However the team that spawns closest to the custom would clearly have an advantage. So what changed? It didn't spawn in the beginning of the game and this is clearly what needs to be done to Molten. Also congratulations on taking out the brute plasma rifle. This makes the map almost playable and a lot less frustrating.

Truth - I have nothing but good words to say for truth. I applaud you finally taking out the powerful automatics. Please, please, please, continue this trend. I understand the hammer change as it is slightly nerfed compared to the sword. The only way to combat the sword would be a storm rifle, which would need to be neutral (so in each bases or at the bottom of the map). However since the storm rifles are out, the sword had to go and in comes the hammer. I’m assuming this is what your thought process is, and I think this is a great change. I’m open to change but I just find the pistols on the map odd, but I understand you are experimenting and unfortunately the doubles playlist is the guinea pig.

Empire - Once again, I’ll probably never stop saying it, but its a good thing to see automatic weapons gone. The addition to two powerups is incredible. But what makes me really question you, and I’m sorry but I have to do it, is was this actually play tested by competitive people? I don’t mean casuals, I mean people that actually have a competitive background. It seems absolutely absurd that the sentinel beam can respawn an infinite amount of times and especially because how powerful it is. If you're going to put in a weapon, there has to be something to balance it. I don’t think the correct idea is to have an infinite amount, let alone have a sentinel beam at all on the map. When there was a shotgun, there was a sniper to counter it. Yeah, I understand that if one team gets both weapons it turns into a snowball but there was also subs to hard counter the sniper and punish a shotgun player.

Coliseum - The respawn times really hurt as seen in the anecdote above, however I think the addition of the over shield is a good thing. As it turns something from ammo based into time based advantage that deteriorates over time. I also have a clip of showing the above “moshpit” scenario https://clips.twitch.tv/proximitty/PoisedShrimpCougarHunt where the Sniper was down, the opponent for it, the teammate went for it, and the second opponent spawned and is ready to jump in the moshpit. If Cole were to get the kill, imagine how long this mosh pit could go on.

Tyrant - This map just doesn’t play well. I know you really want to shove it down our throats but please cut it out. This map will probably always be dodged. The primary reason to hold down sniper side was to consistently spawn someone outside and you actually knew where they spawned instead of just a random base / maybe the occasional sniper spawn. The caster makes for a weird dynamic because you almost have to be on a flat surface to use the thing. If you are shooting up a ramp (or down) you can only do so much. Its just a weird weapon to have on the map.

Plaza - The addition of the binary rifle is I guess to make less fun? It only has 4 shots compared to a snipers 8, and its just a weird nerf because you also cant remain scoped in. Yeah this is probably what you wanted, but I guess I’m just not used to it? I can’t really complain about it, all I can say is its just a less fun weapon to use.

Eden - Again with the whole giving another team an advantage. It makes me wonder if this was play tested or if people played with handicaps? Another instance of where camo should not spawn immediately.

Regret - Nope. Nope. Nope. A railgun? Why? Why would you give a weapon that almost gives guaranteed kills, instead of a weapon like the plasma caster which promotes map control. This is different than tyrant because you are able to punish others for not having map control, whereas on Tyrant you can hardly use the thing unless you are camping with it. Honestly, like whats separating you on putting fathom into rotation? All this time I thought it was because of the railgun, and now it just seems like you can throw whatever you want in? This is a really weird change and I strongly discourage use of the railgun. Its almost the same problem as the fuel rod was on truth.