Just a thought, what would you say for to be possible for an enemy to ally with the player if a more dangerous faction enters the battle. For example, you are fighting the Covenant, when the flood appear. You turn attention to the flood and leave the covenant alone. After a short time, they will help you fight the flood until the the parasite is gone.
It would be good as a public event style engagement.
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> It would be good as a public event style engagement.
Was thinking more as a campaign mechanic
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> It would be good as a public event style engagement.
That’s an interesting take. Very Destiny-esque. I personally would be okay with an open world like hub where players could interact, quest, have public events, raid, etc. It’s probably a little too ambitious to want that and its own standalone campaign.
To the OPs point though, this would be relatively easy to accomplish. There were glimpses of it in previous games. What if after the engagement, the two groups just mutually left each other alone? We could really get down a rabbit hole here. There could be a karma like system where choices and decisions such as these could potentially impact future outcomes in the game.
I love Halo and I’m apprehensive on changing too much, but the campaign is pretty linear and one dimensional, so I’d be open to new features such as these. It’d help with replay value. For myself personally, I typically play the campaign 2 or maybe 2 times. Once on normal to experience the story, one more on legendary for the achievement, and then various levels to close out the rest of the achievements.
It’d have to be implemented in a way that it doesn’t trivialize every multi-faction conflict. Obviously if there were less than 10 combat forms, the Covies would have very little reason to ignore you. I reckon that this mechanic should be based on how many active Flood combat forms are participating in a battle. Flood tend to be freeroaming (i.e. follow the player beyond their spawn zones). You could exploit this by leaving some alive from a previous fight to chase you into a new battle with Covies, adding to the existing Flood numbers. So if there were less than 10 combat forms but you led 10-20 more into the fight, the Covies would be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. At that point, they could have a 50/50% chance (by default, possibly changing with difficulty) of calling a temporary truce (some sort of hud transmission/notification appears on your screen) and turn to you for your aid. Unless of course, they were all high ranking, in which case they should try to prioritize you over the Flood.
If they bring back dead Flood springing back up from HCE and/or infection form reanimation from H3, should it have an effect on this mechanic?
This also calls into the question: should the Flood buddies glitch from HCE return or should the popcorn abandon the body like in H3?
On a side note, H4 brought upon an alliance between Covies and Prometheans too early in the game and missed out on a chance for some interesting encounters. I hope this time around, we get to see Knights vs Hunters with some Flood hopping around.
Well throughout the franchise your allies have changed from time to time. Even the flood was your ally which I will admit seeing a swarm of yellow dots on the motion tracker instead of the usual red was a little unsettling. Now of course with any conflict it usually is divided only into two sides with all 3rd party faction either staying out it only voicing sympathy, or secretly supporting one side while they worry about their own conflicts.
However the 3 way and 4 way battles have always been a staple of Halo. Especially in the later missions in a campaign. In Halo: Combat Evolved the allies were a natural progression of here are the Marines they are on your side, these are the Covenant they are not. A New enemy the Flood is here, Sentinels will help you fight them, Two Betrayals and now they are your enemy and all your allies are dead (you are alone). The good news is that all your enemies are fighting each other which serves as enough of a distraction for you to get through and makes up for the lack of allies.
Having factions that ally with you then break alliances has always been a part of the story. Though I don’t think it should be one or two NPCs, but more on which faction or subfaction is allied then in true Halo fashion alliances should remain short lived.
I’ve actually had this image in my head: you are fighting a massive losing battle against a swarm of Prometheans. Marines and SOS Sangheili alike are dropping like flies as you try to turn the tide in this massive pitched battle. Then, at a pivotal moment in the battle as a Promethean Knight is about to slice you with their blade, a tiny infection form skitters across the ground, drawing the Promethean’s attention. Then suddenly, all the Prometheans turn their attention to this new threat, practically ignoring you at least long enough for you and your forces to regroup. As a swarm of Flood enters the fray, you and your allies bug out fast to reorganize and reassess the situation.
I’m not sure where this would fit into the narrative of Infinite, but it was just a thought I’ve had for a while. This would also bring back the classic three-front fights we had in older Halo games. Prometheans v Flood v You and your allies.