I know I’m not alone in saying that I think the Spartan team AI is one of the weaker parts of Halo 5’s campaign gameplay. From a lore perspective, I get why Master Chief considers Blue Team to be a family (I’m about halfway through The Fall of Reach), and I really do like the dynamic between the characters. I even like some of their interactions in Halo 5–especially when they talk about both their history together and Chief’s time with Cortana.
That being said, I personally wasn’t a huge fan of having three other Spartans by your side throughout the entire game from a gameplay perspective. Issues with the AI aside, I thought Blue Team (and Osiris for that matter) hurt the overall feel of the game compared to others in the series. The team is glued to you for the entire campaign, and in my opinion, it negates the purpose of other characters. The UNSC marines in Halo CE-4 weren’t walking tanks that could sponge damage with no consequences. As a player, you had to fight better if you wanted to keep them alive. In Halo 5, I couldn’t bother caring about the soldiers on Meridian because I always had Spartans to do their job for me.
If Infinite is going to keep Blue Team and/or Fireteam Osiris in the game, I think it should utilize what worked well with the team mechanics in other Halo games. In 3, ODST, and Reach, your companions weren’t always by your side. You had to do several missions (or portions of a mission) alone–meeting up with them afterwards felt rewarding. The first time I played Halo 3 was splitscreen, so I got the intro cutscene to the level Cortana where Chief and Arbiter go to High Charity together. When I did my first solo run, I realized that I was alone and it totally changed the atmosphere of the level. Walking into the final chamber and seeing Arbiter slice his way through hordes of Flood was the most relieved I’ve ever felt playing a video game (mostly due to Cortana’s buildup with the line about picking up a friendly contact). The same goes for the Rookie meeting up with Dare halfway through Data Hive in ODST. Even missions with teammates working together felt more balanced. There were some missions with only one other companion, some with two, and occasionally one where all of the team worked together (ex: Noble Team at the start of Reach). There was variety, and I believe that’s what made it work so well.
This is all just my opinion, and I’m sure 343 is already working on improving this stuff for Infinite. Seeing UNSC marines in the trailer got me excited because I really trying to keep those companions alive. For me, the ideal game would be either like Halo 3 or Combat Evolved, where you’ve either got one of your “equals” or an exclusively expendable group.
What do you guys want to see from Infinite? I think it’s got a lot of potential for new AI mechanics and I’m really looking forward to it.
The marines and such basic armed allies could be fine with their limited health pools, basic AI and dialogue player could listen to. Though these troops could be better than maybe armed civilians, security troops, police troops, and such while mentioned examples also having differences to them.
ODSTs and such special troops could be like improved basic troops, improvements including mentioned aspects of basic troops and such.
Elite allies could have varities depending on rank and specialization much like the human allies. Differences being shield mechanics, inclusion of melee troops and such.
Though as for the “super troops” like perhaps SPARTAN and high ranking elite allies, they should have really good AI but still limited health pool. These troops should be relatively rare encounter while being effective like in lore and not run to hailing bullets and die in the first firefight, the death could happen as long as its not that stupid in most cases.
Then there could be also “hero classes” which could be immortal given technology limitations because constantly seeing named and notable characters die and respawn just looks ridiculous, level design could also limit or exclude deadly drops to minimize the risk of death and respawn of such characters.
The AI could depend on the type of character in question.
And there should be ability to have missions without allies or with multiple allies.
Now i think that is a rough sum up of the ally system i would prefer.
I hope they don’t go with the always there AI companions like Halo 5’s Blue Team and Osiris. I rather have those characters as Coop players only like in Halo 3 with Arbiter, Usze, and Ntho. I wouldn’t mind seeing Marines and ODST AI like past halo games but they have to have good driving AI. Please no KAT driving AI.
I would love to see AI placement and pathing options in forge. So we can create firefight, spawn protecting AI, more things to worry about in infection, and a way to spice up a few gametypes. Say if Invasion comes back, then you can place marines to help defend objectives while the Covenant can have AI and drop ships protecting their spawn points. Surviving marine defenders could fall back to the new points or try to buy more time for players to fall back to new defensive points. Might even add new gameplay options where say red team releases flood near blue teams base. So blue team has to defend against two forces while the red team has to move fast or the flood they released might start attacking them once they grab the flag. AI could add new interesting map hazards that could cause three way fights. Or just random strikes on the map to keep players on their toes. Say a gravemind tentacle rises up and slaps down area of the map but players still have time to get out of the way. Blind wolves that are neutral until someone shoots at them and they attack anyone near them. Just some new things that and ideas to expand the sandbox.
I didn’t like having companions in Halo 5 because of how the bad AI ruined immersion. There have been so many times where they were too stupid to walk over and revive me. At the same time, seeing them “die” only to come back later like nothing happened makes it feel less like a Halo adventure and more like an old-school arcade game. Though in fairness, considering how often the AI will get themselves killed it’s better to have this system than to make the game revert to the last checkpoint every time someone on the team dies.
Always having teammates also affects the atmosphere of the game. A lot of the most memorable Halo missions had long sections of the player going off on their own. Exploring the ring at the start of “Halo” in CE, finding the Silent Cartographer, hunting down the Sacred Icon as the Arbiter, assaulting High Charity as Chief, and so on. There’s a certain excitement when you’re up against battalions of enemies, and all you have is your weapons and your wits to survive. Of course, you weren’t always alone. Having Marines (or Elites) back you up every now and then is awesome. But having backup all the time dissolves the tension that lone wolf gameplay brings.
You make a good point about how strong teammates make a good reward for the player in Reach. One of the core elements of Halo is the feeling of being a super-soldier, one who can get tough missions done by his own skill, not by ordering others around. But in the most tense battles, having backup come in clutch adds a lot to the action and excitement. They may not always be competent, but at lest they can always provide a distraction to the enemies.