Let me first start by saying I think the design of Infinite’s more dynamic gameplay has been by those that understand Halo’s potential in a way frankly even Bungie didn’t fully following Halo1. It’s looking really good so far
My potential issue is from the recent 343 Q&A video when the random encounters is discussed. It mentions these encounters would be decided by the player’s situation ie on foot, Scorpian etc in a way that ties them to the sorts of fun things to do while in that mode of movement. And that in itself seems acceptable enough until you realise that no one set up for your particular situation is necessarily going to be fun if that’s the nature of how encounters tend to create. It’s not much fun perhaps trying to take on certain encounters like say on foot against Wraiths where chances of survival are less but that’s not to say these moments are less fun at times and entirely worthwhile to try is what I’m getting at. They’ll be times when we’ll want to stumble on unfavourable encounters because that’s half the fun of Halo’s dynamic combat
I’m guessing they’ll be more to it of course but if all random encounters turn out to be is merely pairing up to your situation each time based on deemed presets then that’s actually going to be boring and predicable before too long. Just me putting this out there so it can be discussed. I want the best for Infinite
i dont think its going to be that extreme. For example ur in a banshee so a base spawns lots of the same. what will probably happen is there might be 1 banshee or 2 and the banished use aa turrets more. Or on foot ur just get less banshee backup coming out of nowhere. I think it will just be more subtle and you will probably never really notice.
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> i dont think its going to be that extreme. For example ur in a banshee so a base spawns lots of the same. what will probably happen is there might be 1 banshee or 2 and the banished use aa turrets more. Or on foot ur just get less banshee backup coming out of nowhere. I think it will just be more subtle and you will probably never really notice.
It depends on how they implement it.
I agree that there should be some fixed encounters where your choice of vehicle or weapons will give you an advantage/disadvantage, so you can learn, feel smart and powerful.
Choosing your weapons according to the challenge ahead was an important part of the first halo.
Said so, if there are some extra enemies that tailor to your experience that will be great. It is very fun to blow up vehicles with a scorpion tank, and it would suck if you only encountered ground troops.
BTW: I hope that the Mantis is back. Also the Mammoth.
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> It depends on how they implement it.
> I agree that there should be some fixed encounters where your choice of vehicle or weapons will give you an advantage/disadvantage, so you can learn, feel smart and powerful.
> Choosing your weapons according to the challenge ahead was an important part of the first halo.
>
> Said so, if there are some extra enemies that tailor to your experience that will be great. It is very fun to blow up vehicles with a scorpion tank, and it would suck if you only encountered ground troops.
>
> BTW: I hope that the Mantis is back. Also the Mammoth.
yes indeed. I’d imagine these things will be very carefully applied come it’s release and allow for all manner of resulting encounters that hopefully don’t feel artificial or tailored
I’m curious to see how “random” the encounters are. Is it a random choice of, say, ten different scorpion encounters? or does the game account for the fact that you’re driving a scorpion and procedurally spawn more heavy enemy types in response? Will it account for how full a warthog is? Or the weapons you’ve given your marines?
There’s a lot of depth there, I just hope its not too repetitive
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> I’m curious to see how “random” the encounters are. Is it a random choice of, say, ten different scorpion encounters? or does the game account for the fact that you’re driving a scorpion and procedurally spawn more heavy enemy types in response? Will it account for how full a warthog is? Or the weapons you’ve given your marines?
>
> There’s a lot of depth there, I just hope its not too repetitive
yes there is a lot of room where they could take this approach. Probably quite fascinating to work on actually. If it all starts to feel obvious what’s occurring in this respect in a similar way ho how rubber banding can also be then that would be a shame
I’m assuming that there are AI patrols around the sandbox, and you could just randomly find them, depending on time and location.
Y’know, we don’t have a water vehicle in halo yet, right? That would be cool when we need to traverse water and there isn’t a banshee around, and it would add some more water based random encounters, like 2 banshees chasing you down while in a water vehicle
Roaming AI, yeah there is that of course which would certainly work for me. Perhaps it’ll be a combination of things really bringing the idea of how dynamic encounters can be in a game such as this. ODST had roaming AI of course and so I wonder if they looked at that as a basis also with plans to further the idea. I like some of what you’re thinking actually. Maybe they’ll really run with this
Given they said at night phantom patrols will be a thing it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that extends to random encounters with land based enemy patrols.
Considering we can utilize the weapons he have on hand, the environment/ geometry of a given area, or simply flee. I don’t think running into an unfavorable situation is too big of an issue.
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> Given they said at night phantom patrols will be a thing it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that extends to random encounters with land based enemy patrols.
>
> Considering we can utilize the weapons he have on hand, the environment/ geometry of a given area, or simply flee. I don’t think running into an unfavorable situation is too big of an issue.
The idea of doing just that is quite appealing to me at least on occasions. I do hope they pull this aspect off in the best way because the more this is discussed, the more I’m seeing great things from it. Halo CE introduced a more advanced form of dynamic combat and I’d like to see that extended quite a bit more. It’s probably unreasonable to expect anything too advanced unfortunately but I’d settle for one or two subtle or even key changes to how these these take place in a world that’s crying out for something fresh and meaningful
Keep in mind that Infinite’s semi-open world and ‘random’ encounters are only their to flesh out the campaign. I don’t think they are designed to be an on-going play style. Once you have done the campaign they will be happy for you to move over to MP for your Halo fill (until the next part of the Campaign is ready for release).
I like the adaptive nature though. It’s a nice touch: local Banished commander hears there’s a Scorpion running amok he’ll obviously send troops out with half a chance of countering it in patrols. I presume it may also give you opportunities for misdirection: park a vehicle up somewhere safe, advance on foot with a sniper and take care of a patrol/checkpoint designed to stop you.
Kind of like the opening of The Package in Reach: the defences were set up for a large ground/aerial strike not a small incursion
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> Keep in mind that Infinite’s semi-open world and ‘random’ encounters are only their to flesh out the campaign. I don’t think they are designed to be an on-going play style. Once you have done the campaign they will be happy for you to move over to MP for your Halo fill (until the next part of the Campaign is ready for release).
hmm yes possibly. I sensed that this would be a more ongoing thing at least from reading between the lines. I think the aspect of roaming ai from ODST was likely looked at so I’d be willing to bet it’s there in some form
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> I like the adaptive nature though. It’s a nice touch: local Banished commander hears there’s a Scorpion running amok he’ll obviously send troops out with half a chance of countering it in patrols. I presume it may also give you opportunities for misdirection: park a vehicle up somewhere safe, advance on foot with a sniper and take care of a patrol/checkpoint designed to stop you.
>
> Kind of like the opening of The Package in Reach: the defences were set up for a large ground/aerial strike not a small incursion
It’s funny reading you say that because I was quite similar in thinking when reading the previews of the first Crackdown game. My understanding from Edge back then was that it seemed to suggest very reactive ai encounters that created from the type of thing you say in your comment. It all sounded remarkably thrilling but although I ended up liking the first Crackdown very much, truthfully we never saw anything like what seemed hinted at. It’s doable even if simplified or a smokes and mirrors way but I fear the sort of thing in your post would require a lot of work and faster cpu than that of the old xbox one Jaguar
I’d love to see that sort of real advance though for sure. When starting to think along those lines you can forever expand on the concept but considering we haven’t seen any truly great advancements in so many years, I doubt we’ll see 343 pushing recourses into this probably quite expensive direction unfortunately. Maybe down the line when games running on xbox series are freed from having to also run on older hardware.
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> > 2533274874872263;14:
> > I like the adaptive nature though. It’s a nice touch: local Banished commander hears there’s a Scorpion running amok he’ll obviously send troops out with half a chance of countering it in patrols. I presume it may also give you opportunities for misdirection: park a vehicle up somewhere safe, advance on foot with a sniper and take care of a patrol/checkpoint designed to stop you.
> >
> > Kind of like the opening of The Package in Reach: the defences were set up for a large ground/aerial strike not a small incursion
>
> It’s funny reading you say that because I was quite similar in thinking when reading the previews of the first Crackdown game. My understanding from Edge back then was that it seemed to suggest very reactive ai encounters that created from the type of thing you say in your comment. It all sounded remarkably thrilling but although I ended up liking the first Crackdown very much, truthfully we never saw anything like what seemed hinted at. It’s doable even if simplified or a smokes and mirrors way but I fear the sort of thing in your post would require a lot of work and faster cpu than that of the old xbox one Jaguar
>
> I’d love to see that sort of real advance though for sure. When starting to think along those lines you can forever expand on the concept but considering we haven’t seen any truly great advancements in so many years, I doubt we’ll see 343 pushing recourses into this probably quite expensive direction unfortunately. Maybe down the line when games running on xbox series are freed from having to also run on older hardware.
I’m not sure it’s a hardware issue so much - it’s still all achievable with scripting
What I would expect is certain sectors of the map will have their enemy types defined variably with the variable being what you enter it with - the only difference to an usual campaign level is it’s loading one from many possible predefined/possibly even partly.random lists rather than a set one.
Computationally, it’s also absolutely possible to scale such things based on the available hardware - thus making the Jaguar more able to cope while allowing Series X/High-end PCs to use their power. It’s all about performance portability
yes scripting would be a way and really I can’t see them using something anyway that adds too much to the ai load already. I’m guessing Halo games already dedicate a fair whack of cpu on ai in play so I’m guessing they certainly don’t want any more wasted. I’m guessing they wont go the route of tracked ai though even with series because it’s power they can still use for other things. I’d be very surprised but delighted if they did attempt it but developers are always clambering for more. I’m certainly no expert on this though.
Will they attempt any of this is the question and I guess that comes down to if they feel they can or if the game will benefit it or not