1. Stage Designs

The multiplayer stages in Halo 2, while aesthetically pleasing and more dynamic on average, suffer from what many consider to be design flaws. More than a few stages have places that are easily exploitable as campsites, especially if the camping team has acquired all the power weapons (sword, rockets, etc.). This often results in a one-sided game where one team has effectively holed themselves up in a single part of the stage, and the entire match will tend to revolve around that one particular part of the stage. There are typically no more than two ways in or out of these campsites, which makes it very easy for the camping team to monitor all possible ways in which an enemy can come at them. Thus, it is nearly impossible to launch even the most well coordinated attack against the camping team without getting ambushed and suffering huge losses. With the way the weapons and everything are set up, it is very difficult for even pros to remove a heavily armed team from their campsite (unless the camping team is extremely incompetent). The most notable examples include behind the sniper tower on Lockout, the top back hallway on Ivory tower, the sniper towers on Ascension, the central tower in Waterworks (especially in Team Snipers), the top and above the top of the parking garage on Terminal (again, especially on Team Snipers), and various others. In comparison, there were nowhere near as many campsites available in Halo 1, and the few there were did not provide very good sanctuary. It was quite easy to uproot any team from an entrenched campsite, especially with the weapon system in Halo 1 (I will deal with the issue of weapons in Halo 2 later).

2. Playlists & Gametypes

Another thing that can be improved on in multiplayer is the Matchmaking system on Xbox Live. Presumably, we will see most if not all of Halo 2's playlists return for Halo 3. There are a lot of people, including myself of course, who think that Matchmaking doesn't quite give the degree of choice of playlists they would like it to have. Most notably, the playlists for Double Team, 6 vs. 6, Big Team Battle, and Hardcore (Halo 2's de facto No Radar playlist, just with more points/time needed to win objectives games) should be divided up into two separate playlists each: one for Slayer and another for objectives games, just as there are separate playlists for 4 vs. 4 (i.e. Team Slayer and Team Skirmish). I know a lot of people other than myself who are not particularly fond of objectives games, and there are others who don't really care for Slayer games, and many would like to have the option to choose whether we want to play Slayer or objectives games in those playlists. Perhaps in the Matchmaking menu, there should be a main screen that simply has three options, "Slayer," "Objectives," and "Mixed/Others," which will take the player to one of three secondary screens listing the appropriate gametypes. For instance, clicking the "Slayer" option will bring up a list consisting of Rumble Pit, Team Slayer, Team Snipers, etc., while clicking "Objectives" would bring up Team Skirmish, 2 vs. 2 Skirmish, BTB Skirmish, etc., and "Mixed/Others" would bring up mixed slayer/objectives, training, and miscellaneous playlists such as Multi-Team and Action Sack.

There are also some gametypes that many feel should be better represented. For example, SWAT is a favorite gametype of mine and several of my friends, all of us having regularly played a No Shields/No Radar setup since the early days of Halo 1. However, as a gametype in Matchmaking, it only appears in the odd game of Team Training. Playlists for both Team and Free-for-All SWAT games would be a very welcome addition.

Finally, Team Snipers should take place on larger maps more frequently. Sniper weapons are far more suited for such maps, not to mention that the cramped conditions frequent in smaller stages result in a lot of blind, close-range firing and melee brawls. Also, it'd be nice if something like a Magnum was added as a sidearm in this playlist, as it is in the Team Slayer playlist for sniper games.

Update: In a recent playlist update in Matchmaking, BTB has been split up into separate objective and Slayer playlists, and a Team SWAT playlist (objective/Slayer mixed) has been added. Hopefully this will remain permanent and carry over into Halo 3. I still would like to suggest that Double Team and Team SWAT should also be split up into separate objectives and Slayer playlists, and that a Rumble SWAT playlist should be added. Furthermore, I've noticed that body shots don't cause damage in Team SWAT, and that only headshots count. I think that this was a bad idea, and so I'd like to suggest that shots to the body should inflict damage as well, just as they would in a custom no-shields game, or any other gametype for that matter. Furthermore, SWAT games with Magnums as the only weapon should be eliminated due to the highly inaccurate nature of that weapon and the spray-and-pray style of combat that encourages. Finally, more weight should be placed on larger stages in BTB Slayer. Cramming 16 people into a small stage like Midship or Elongation is rather ridiculous.

3. Weapon Setup

In Multiplayer, you basically have a few weak, inaccurate, rapidly firing bullet hoses as the most commonly available weapons, and in most gametypes, the player normally starts with such a weapon (either an SMG or Plasma Rifle). Since these weapons can be dual-wielded, this essentially makes them half a weapon by themselves. Opposed to these are the high-powered superweapons -- sniper weapons, rockets, the energy sword, and the shotgun to a lesser extent (it isn't nearly as effective as the others) -- that do not respawn under normal circumstances, and there is usually only one of each per map. The only thing between these extremes are a couple of mid-range weapons with moderate power and rates of fire -- the Battle Rifle and Covenant Carbine -- and though they do respawn, they are not as common as the weapons that can be dual wielded.

Given the extreme disparities in power between the weaker and stronger weapons, much of Multiplayer gameplay involves a mad scramble for the best weapons, or at least another bullet hose to go with the one they have. As I mentioned in my commentary on Multiplayer stage design, once one team has acquired most or all of the power weapons and secured a campsite, there is often very little the opposing team can do. The camping team always has the advantage in this case, since they both have the drop on and completely outgun the offense. Trying to keep them from getting the power weapons to the campsite isn't always an option when things like lucky (or unlucky) spawns can influence who gets what weapons first and then retreat to a suitable campsite. Not only that, but when the need to acquire some superweapon first becomes a primary concern, something is wrong. While the increase in BR start gametypes has offset the problem of starting weapons a bit, it still isn't enough to balance things out.

In Halo 1, there was less of a gap between weak and strong weapons, which meant that seeking out more powerful weapons was not as big of a concern. Furthermore, every weapon would always respawn. Depending on the stage, it would take no longer than 2 minutes for a sniper rifle to respawn and 3 minutes for a rocket launcher, and it would usually take 30 seconds for a shotgun to respawn. These were undoubtedly the strongest weapons within their most effective ranges in Halo 1. Since these weapons would always respawn, it would keep any one team from effectively hoarding all the stronger weapons away from the other team. Having all the power weapons in your team's possession simply doesn't give the same advantage in Halo 1 as it does in Halo 2, because the other team can come right at you with the same level of offense once they are able to get the weapons when the latter respawns.

In Halo 3, not just the weaker, more common weapons should respawn. The strongest ones should respawn as well, preferably on time scales similar to what was in Halo 1. I believe this will help balance gameplay in Multiplayer a great deal.

4. Glitches & Lag

Halo 2 feels like it is rife with glitches, especially in multiplayer. Perhaps the most notable glitch is the ability to exploit the stage geometry to perform "superjumps," which simply amplifies the camper problem. The "BXR" glitch and its variants seem to be another common glitch. "Sword flying" was another prominent glitch, but it has long since been eliminated. Terminal has a glitch where the train will sometimes appear from or dissapear into thin air. Also, I have noticed that every now and then on SWAT games, firing one's battle rifle will for some reason actually kill you and give you a suicide penalty, and not due to bullets ricocheting off of something. Another apparent glitch is that for some reason, collision detection seems rather poor on some stages. For example, a sniper will sometimes have a perfectly clear shot to an enemy while attempting to shoot them, but for some reason, the bullet will not hit its target but rather some nearby obstruction (a rock, wall, or other form of cover) that is not actually in the line of sight between the sniper's reticle and his target. Same for rockets, which sometimes clip an obstruction that is not directly in their flight path.

A lot of the glitches seem to come from lag on Xbox Live. For example, on Coagulation (and, it seems, on a couple of other stages such as Relic, but to a lesser degree), a sniper rifle perfectly targeted onto someone, even when they're standing still and only 100 meters or so away, will often not register a hit. By comparison, you could consistently snipe someone clean across the stage with a perfectly targeted shot in the original Blood Gulch. As another example, the Ghost will also sometimes fail to "splatter" someone on foot even with a head-on full-speed ram. Multiple close-range blasts from the shotgun (an already random weapon as it is) frequently fail to do anything more than mild to moderate damage. Also, melee attacks from the rear will every now and then not register as an assassination, but rather as a normal hit. The converse of this is true: getting assassinated by someone in front of you is not uncommon. These problems tend to not happen in split screen and LAN games, or at least as not near as often or as badly anyway.

While I know you don't control Xbox Live, it does seem that something is needed to reduce the lag that I would assume would feature more prominently into a more advanced game like Halo 3. I may be mistaken, but it seems that such things as more detailed graphics will translate into more information that the network must handle at any given time. While significant amounts of lag will continue to be a problem with online gaming until much faster and more efficient methods of Internet connection become commonplace (of course, eliminating it entirely is impossible due to the laws of physics; speed of light and all that), online multiplayer should be made to feel as close as possible to a LAN game in terms of how smooth it runs. So if it as all possible, I think it would be a good idea to have some sort of lag compensation built into the game, unless it would do little to alleviate lag or whatever changes to gameplay such a thing would bring about would create conditions worse than those created by typical amounts of lag.

As another suggestion, I believe it would be a good idea to centralize the hosting system. Not only would this eliminate the sometimes-ridiculous host advantage, but also from what I understand (according to people I know who are more knowledgeable about the subject than I), it would greatly reduce or eliminate the rampant cheating that continues to plague the Halo 2 Live community to this day. In addition to modders, perhaps the biggest source of cheating comes from people manipulating the network to their advantage. I know that you, I, and the rest of the legit players out there would be happy to see standbyers, "bridgers," and their ilk go extinct along with modders. If it is at all possible, perhaps you could use your clout as developer of the most popular Xbox Live game (500 million matches played!) to get Microsoft to help you implement a wholly or partially centralized hosting system, if not for Halo 2, then at least for Halo 3 by time it is released. With their tremendous monetary and technological resources, I'm pretty sure they could afford to provide dedicated servers for Halo games (and perhaps also for other popular games produced by Microsoft subsidiaries besides Bungie), and I think it would be worth it in the long run, especially once the inevitable shift from Halo 2 to Halo 3 as the most popular Xbox Live game occurs in the near future.

5. Other Misc. Multiplayer

There are a couple of things I have to suggest about how the player is able to communicate with his teammates and other people on Xbox Live. One thing I think would be a great addition would be the option to mute by default the voices of all players other than those on your friends list, in your party, or on your team. There have been many occasions where I'd simply rather not have to listen to some random, annoying 11-year-old punk, smart-mouthed teenager, or some other social misfit, but would still like to converse with my teammates. It can be quite a hassle to have to keep muting each individual person every other game, so a default muting option would be most welcome. That way they're already muted from the moment you enter the pre-game lobby. Outside of that, I think there should be something done to the proximity voice system. Not only is there a lot of potential for abuse for it -- it seem to be mainly used for trash talking -- but also any background noise in your house, such as a ceiling fan blowing into your mike, can potentially give away your position.

Another thing that needs to be addressed about multiplayer is the problem of "de-levelers." An option should be added to where if one of you teammates gets a certain number of suicides within a certain amount of time, depending on gametype, you and your other teammates should have the option to boot him from the match just as if he had gotten a certain number of betrayals.

Finally, the respawn system, while somewhat better than Halo 1's, still needs improvement. Getting spawn killed in a Slayer match is still way too common. The respawn system in Halo 3 should incorporate a much wider variety of spawn points that the first two games. Furthermore, it should be "smarter," being able to determine the optimum location to respawn a player, that way he/she won't be as likely to end up reappearing on top of a grenade, in the sights of an enemy, or otherwise in harm's way.