14 DAY TRIAL // Battle of Shadow and Light, the coming expansion for Halo 5: Guardians, will deliver the Big Team Battle mode for the first-person shooter and will also introduce associated maps, but the development team at 343 Industries also plans to use it to make some changes to the very popular Warzone experience.
On the official site, Lawrence Metten and Evan Sforza, two of the developers working on the mod, explain that the studio has received a lot of feedback from players and has also gathered data from matches.
The two main problems they have identified with Warzone are the fact that players are leveling too slowly and that most defenders tend to be in a very good position as a match progresses.
They state that "Optimally, we’d prefer the victories of Warzone Assault games to be shared 50% attackers to 50% defenders, but right now, defenders are winning much more often. After donning our lab coats, heating our Erlenmeyers, and draining our retorts, we’ve distilled a few changes to address this."
Base capture time in the Halo 5: Guardians mode is now reduced from 20 to 16 seconds and the number of grenades available, when a match starts, is cut to just 1.
Leveling speed has also been increased for REQ, meaning that players can bring more diverse weapons and vehicles to the initial engagements, which should give the attacking team more ways to break down a solid defensive line.
Now gamers who take out an enemy in Warzone will share a little of their experience with all other members of their team, meaning that even the players who fail to perform very well can get access to some cool weapons and items.
Halo 5: Guardians will get a lot of new content for free in 2016
343 Industries says that all the changes it makes, especially when based on player feedback, are play-tested carefully and should enhance the overall Warzone experience.
The mode features a mix of Player versus Player and Player versus Environment mechanics and also has some elements lifted from the MOBA genre.
343 Industries has been criticized for the way the REQ system works in Warzone, and the faster leveling will probably mean that those gamers who are ready to pay for their cards will be able to deploy even more of them.
The studio has said that it does not plan to make any major tweaks to how the micropayments in Halo 5: Guardians work and the kind of extra content it offers access to.
A slice of the revenue derived by the company is used to enhance the prize pool of the World Championships, which are set to debut in December and will hold their finals in March of next year.
343 Industries and Microsoft are already working on a December update for Halo 5: Guardians, which will introduce the Forge and will allow players to create and share maps.
The two companies have said that all the new combat spaces created by the teams will be offered for free to make sure that the community of fans remains united in the long term.
