Ever since Halo 2 the AI have been boring to fight. I don’t know how to describe it, but CE just had it right, the AI was intelligent, it was challenging and not because they get 1sk snipers, uber shields and uber damage. The AI in CE was smart, I remember playing Pillar of Autumn yesterday, there was a hallway and a side one, two elites flanked me and nearly killed me, last time I played Halo 2 (think it was on Cairo Station) I was in a similar scenario, but instead of being flanked I was rushed and the Elites didn’t come close to killing me.
Honestly we need good AI, which is responsive to what you do (eg shoot a needle at it, it panics) and don’t just super buff up the AI and make them bullet sponges on higher difficulties, Halo 2, 3, ODST and 4 Legendary were all fairly easy, I had better experiences Reach’s AI but it still didn’t have that spark which CE had
I don’t understand how AI from a game from 2001 is smarter than ones from 2004 and onwards 
I actually felt Reach had the most intelligent AI, but yes CE did for sure too.
I agree wholeheartedly! We need smart AI, AI that can adapt to different scenarios. Only buffing up their shields and damage dealing makes them annoying to fight, not fun!
> I don’t understand how AI from a game from 2001 is smarter than ones from 2004 and onwards
They’re not. They are actually simpler than the newer AI.
The AI in Halo 1 (and even Halo 2) were actually quite simple in comparison to the newer AI, and anyone who has worked with the AI in Halo Custom Edition will know this. The AI could only do the following things: attack, defend, retreat, dodge, seek the enemy, take cover and a few other more specialised things such as berserk (the one where they charge you).
And it’s not just Halo that had fun AI, I was playing the original Quake not that long ago and I was having a blast with the AI in that game (even if I was playing on easy). A similar thing can be applied to Ratchet & Clank, it’s the main reason I keep going back to that game (that and the crazy weapons).
In more recent games I think they have tried to make the AI more intelligent. I remember a video leading up to the release of Halo: Reach where they were talking about the AI and the improvements that they had made. In the end, the AI actually ended up feeling really stupid, not fun to fight and just plain cheap. I’m not sure if they had to scale things back because of the hardware, the hardware scaled back the intelligent AI or if they realised the AI was too good and had to scale it back to give the player a chance.
Either way, I would prefer it if they (game developers in general, not just 343) would make the AI simple and fun, like the good old days.