Campaign/Spartan Ops Saved Films Missing?

Games Other Halo
#1

Before I start, I want to make it clear that I’m still very excited to pick up my LE copy of the game at midnight Monday night, and I know that I’m going to thoroughly enjoy the game, but it’s going to be extremely bittersweet for me without saved films in campaign…

A little background:

Some of you already know me as one of the Mythic Conquerors. I beat Halo 3 and Halo Reach both on Mythic, and have beaten all but two missions in ODST on Mythic as well. I’ve also beaten CEA on Mythic, but that’s kind of a joke with the infinite ammo/grenades from Bandana. I’m also a Mythic community leader. I host the Mythic Nation site, where many of us come together to track progress, trade tactics, and discuss strategies. I’ve also helped Tyrant in a few endeavors for the Mythic community, and was a regular appearance on Reach’s quad-mythic team until it fizzled out.

All of this serves to point out that I’m very campaign-oriented, and I take the campaign very seriously.

Now, I learned the classic skull set was returning, and I was elated. I would get to undertake the greatest challenge Halo has to offer in the latest and greatest addition to the Halo games! Now imagine how those hopes were dashed when I learned there was no saved film support for Campaign and Spartan Ops…

For the Mythic community, saved films are essential. We use them to prove the validity of our mythic runs, to share tactics and strategies for different encounters, and of course we save them as trophies that let us relive our greatest accomplishments. Without the films, we lose a lot of our ability to collaborate as a community. Without the films, we no longer have the means to verify runs and give credit where credit is due to those who complete the Mythic challenge. Without saved campaign films, we can’t really function as a community.

With CEA, Mythic was a joke because runs couldn’t be verified, and even if they could, the beneficial skulls made a mockery of the difficulty, while added detrimental skulls made it impossible without the aid of the beeneficial ones (Good luck with Truth and Reconciliation without using covenant weapons!). So while the community had fun with discussing different approaches to things, ultimately CEA was a minor distraction for us and provided nothing solid. Now, with Halo 4, the challenge is presented, but the means by which we can tackle that challenge and record and verify our results has been stripped out.

Beyond the Mythic community’s reliance on campaign saved films, removing the films hurts the average player. How many times have you been playing a mission and something absolutely awesome/hilarious/weird happened that you could never reproduce, but wanted to share with your friends? How can we review our tactics in Spartan Ops missions to come up with better plans to better our time/score?

Now, there is still hope. As bsangel alluded to in the bulletin, they may be able to add this feature in a future Title Update. I only ask that campaign/spartan ops saved films be made a priority for the first one. There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain from this additional feature. So let’s show them how much the community as a whole wants this in Halo 4!

Share some of your favorite campaign stories here that you either have saved on film, or wish you had saved on film, and maybe we can get this beloved feature back ASAP. Also feel free to discuss anything involving campaign/spartan ops saved films here. Theories, points I missed, or maybe for some strange reason you’re opposed to campaign films, go ahead and tell me why it’s better without them! I welcome discussion, but please, keep it clean!

TL;DR We want campaign/Spartan Ops theater in the first Title Update. Share campaign stories or discuss campaign theater to support.

#2

Like everyone else, I have a metric crap ton of great memories from the campaign. Even two weeks ago, playing through Halo 3 with a buddy, I had some great moments.

Running around on foot with a sniper rifle down Tsavo Highway with my buddy in a Wraith, we somehow missed a hiding Brute. As I heard him jumping out to board the tank, I whipped around and no scoped the sucker off in one fluid motion.

Nothing makes you feel badass quite like Halo. The lack of saved films in Campaign is very disappointing. I have faith 343 will take care of us, placing this essential feature back in!

#3

its probably because of how halo 4 is pushing the xbox to its limits =/

#4

They said that it won’t be in at launch, but that they might be able to add it in later with a title update, emphasizing that they’re treating and applying those updates differently than past titles. So there is still hope.

I certainly hope so, because one of my favorite things to do is take multiple screenshots from the campaign to use as my desktop backgrounds.

#5

Yes, Metsasoturi! I remember having quite a few screenshots from the campaign as my background back in the day.

#6

I also support this (sorry, I didn’t realise you already made this when I made my thread). :slight_smile:

#7

I fully support Theater for Spops and Campaign to be implemented as soon as possible. I work with a few machinima(not from Machinima; small folk) directors and since there are no elite multiplayer models a lot of them had the idea of trying to create something believable through ops when involving xeno characters. Without Spops or campaign theater this becomes very hard and none of us want to revert to recording scenes with our HUDs in the way.

Also I would very much like scoring implemented back in if possible for Halo 4(if not please please please for 5). It added a great re-playability to the game and some fan sites host custom challenges involving score. Spops would greatly benefit from it.

#8

An excellent point, Novak. Game scoring was also an excellent feature that would have a welcome return. I remember that for full game stats in previous games, campaign scoring was a necessity for verifying Mythic films. Keep the support coming, folks! Let’s let 343i know how they can improve the already-amazing Halo 4 experience!

#9

Excellent post, my Mythic brother. Allow me to throw in my two cents.

There are mixed feelings all around, and it’s times like this that I truly miss the Bungie love. I have to give the folks at 343 a lot of credit. If Halo had to go through “this exchange of hats” (as Truth would put it), it couldn’t have fallen into better hands. They’ve done great things with the franchise thus far, and my hopes are very high for Halo 4.

Having said that, while they’ve definitely shown our community some love in the past, I feel as though they are beginning to spread themselves a bit thin. I’m seeing a LOT of folks and communities come to light that I’d never heard of before (even though they existed pre-Waypoint). In a lot of ways this is a good thing. There are many talented players and communities out there who’s time in the lime light is long overdue, and it makes me very happy to see all of their talent and hard work paying off. At the same time, however, the Mythic community has been around for years, even being written about in Official Xbox Magazine twice! We seemed to be making a lot of progress to the point where Bungie even implemented the LASO challenges in Reach. Mythic seemed to really be moving in the right direction–a game mode meant to greatly increase the life of a game that I (and many of us) waited 2-3 years to fall into our hands. As someone who was never really interested that much in multiplayer, campaign was always the staple of the series, and I wanted everyone to be able to enjoy it as much as I did.

Now with Halo 4, we seem to be taking a step back. I could live with a lack of campaign theater mode if we’d finally progressed to the point where Mythic moved beyond a fan-made difficulty and became actually implemented into the game itself either with an official Mythic mode (perhaps even unlockable after Legendary was completed), or by way of the achievement system. We have yet to reach that status yet, so we’re left to resort to traditional tactics. Again, this would be fine, except now our tools for doing that have been removed.

What does this mean? Sure, there will still be a Mythic guide. After all, it’s what makes the game fun for not only me but for many of us. But the traditional “list” of completers will cease to exist. Since no one can really prove their accomplishment other than by word of mouth–and let’s face it, the Internet isn’t exactly a place of honesty–it cannot be verified. For many, this was one of the many reasons to strive for the goal. Not only was it a challenge, but they could become immortalized without any fancy achievments or in-game rewards. We have been stripped of this (at least for now), and I do hope that going forward, Mythic continues to move in a positive direction. Not just for the Mythic community, but for ALL campaign fans.

#10

yes! i hope they put it in the near future TU cuz i would love to revisit the actions i took in Spartan Ops and campaign in Theatre mode :slight_smile:

#11

Thanks for the post, Tyrant. I figured you’d still be doing a guide since you have a capture card, but like you said, we can’t verify runs for a conqueror’s list without saved films and game stats.

#12

I support OP and thank you for such a well thought and insightful post.

#13

> Thanks for the post, Tyrant. I figured you’d still be doing a guide since you have a capture card, but like you said, we can’t verify runs for a conqueror’s list without saved films and game stats.

The nature of the guide has yet to be determined. Still waiting to hear back from Louis Wu, though there will also likely be full-length runs included this time around if his site can handle the load.

#14

The OP makes a great point about the average user wanting to save something impressive or funny from Campaign or Spartan Ops. While Firefight isn’t exactly Spartan Ops, I can think of two funny FF incidents.

  1. In ODST, a Hunter deflected a Rocket back at my friend by doing his arm slam at just the right time. I know my friend at least made a screenshot.

  2. Also in ODST, a Phantom glitched on Rally Point and would not go away. My friends kept firing on it and eventually it did blow up. We never knew Phantoms were destructible. Unfortunately, I think they lost the film before deciding they should save it. I would have enjoyed watching it.

Also, I just want to state my support for Theater in Campaign and Spartan Ops. I personally dislike MP and don’t have much interest in watching it. But I’ve really enjoyed films by friends or highly skilled Campaign players. I’m glad some of you have render cards.

#15

No screenshot’s from campaign… at all… ever… not even a hint of a glimpse of a picture… :frowning: honestly I feel like that remark as well as no flyable UNSC vehicle’s in Multiplayer really kicked me in the gut…

This Bulletin just wasn’t my type…//

//However Forward unto Dawn concluded amazingly and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result… …but we still want flying vehicles for Forge as well as Theatre for Campaign.

#16

> Thanks for the post, Tyrant. I figured you’d still be doing a guide since you have a capture card, but like you said, we can’t verify runs for a conqueror’s list without saved films and game stats.

also with the removal of campign scoreing, i assume the stats after campaign is gone as well, so we wont even be able to take pictures of that either :confused:

#17

Yes I completely agree!

> Beyond the Mythic community’s reliance on campaign saved films, removing the films hurts the average player. How many times have you been playing a mission and something absolutely awesome/hilarious/weird happened that you could never reproduce, but wanted to share with your friends? How can we review our tactics in Spartan Ops missions to come up with better plans to better our time/score?

You got that right.

Here’s an example of how the lack of theater affects tricking and battle engineering (the latter hasn’t been seen as much daylight since Halo CE & Halo 2 (I’m one of the few who did it in Halo 3) but it’s still a big part of Halo IMO.

Btw, get ready for a mother lode of examples…

12 -Yoinking!- god-damn works of art encountered/engineered by me. The setup was not easy, the combat was not easy, the filming was not easy. It’s why I’ve come to despise 2/3 of the Halo games and advocate new options in the settings (i.e. individual save, individual quit, revert to second last checkpoint, total HUD control). I find Halo PC to be the best iteration of a Halo game due to it’s settings.

#18

> Share some of your favorite campaign stories here that you either have saved on film, or wish you had saved on film, and maybe we can get this beloved feature back ASAP. Also feel free to discuss anything involving campaign/spartan ops saved films here. Theories, points I missed, or maybe for some strange reason you’re opposed to campaign films, go ahead and tell me why it’s better without them! I welcome discussion, but please, keep it clean!

I’d be obliged!!

  1. Flying Tank Form
    1 in a million chance of a Tank Form getting launched with the proper amount of power, successfully landing 2 slide jumps, landing onto a Brute’s head then spewing Flood infection forms on him and -Yoink!- off the Chieftain. This was no glitch, it was a miracle, something so well inexplicable it could have been a cutscene. The second time I managed to get him launched, he just flew all the way to the third bridge.

It was difficult to keep up with even in Theater since it happened so fast.

  1. Super jumping Brute Chieftain
    The one glitch I never got to record and upload (either because I didn’t have access to Theater at the time, I didn’t get the opportunity to save the film, or I lost the film. I can’t recall).

I’ve only encountered it twice.

First time was on Heroic, I was on the second bridge near the end of it, the Chieftain threw a spike grenade at me then he just did this huge leap to the other side, only to get splattered when colliding with the wall then he got swarmed by Infection Forms.

Second time was on Legendary or Easy, the Chieftain was pursuing Arby on the second bridge in the same location as above. He had used his Invincibiliaty enabling him to berserk jump. I was ahead on the third bridge (jumped on the roof to avoid spawning the Flood), got a checkpoint, Arby went through the doors, I got to the end of the bridge, he teleported, the Chieftain did this huge leap across from the doorway when he was within range (before Arby disappeared) and landed in the midst of four Arbiters I had brought and he got assassinated.

If I had access to Theater, this’d probably have been my greatest WTF moment in Halo.

  1. Half Flood
    When I first encountered it, I thought it had to do with my Co-op partner (second controller controlled by me). Then I checked in Theater and discovered that there was an invisible loading point that deleted the Flood from the level. Eventually, I got Elites and ODSTs half infected and got like 28 marines (about 12 of them had fuel rod guns) to fight against the HF Elite (who I made semi-invincible by getting a live Elite half infected, which affects his shield recharge rate making it instantaneous). Which leads to another interesting glitch…

  2. Fuel rod marines in a Pelican
    So I pushed a bunch of marines to the edge of the cliff (where the 2 Hornets descend) after which I got the HF Elite to pursue me and knocked him off the cliff so I could get the marines to bombard him with fuel rods. But when I looked up, they were gone! I lured the Elite closer and fuel rods starting raining down from the Pelican. I grenade jumped up to the Pelican, got in, and there they all were!!! I checked in Theater and interestingly, the Pelican, after moving randomly for a while, actually moved in close so the marines could get in (it did not descend. Rather they just shot up into the air before climbing in)!

  3. Hornet army
    [16 Hornets]
    [25 Hornets on Heroic]
    25 Hornets blowing up a Phantom and completely dominating the third tower defenses (Shades, Brutes, AA Wraiths, Banshees). It’s absolutely mind-blowing.

I developed the glitch after I found out about marine island and refined the setup so it could be done in SP and it could be an army of marine piloted Hornets rather than a bunch of useless marines. I found out that the Hornets arrive when you get in/out of your own Hornet and look in a certain direction or go to a certain location. I dunno, it’s still something I have yet to determine. Recently, I discovered it was better to head on ahead and clear some of the third tower defenses then go back and spawn the Hornets 1 at a time. Previously, I had to deal with Jenga towers of Hornets, that caused massive amount of lag and I had to -Yoinking!- climb up of them to get the pilots out.

The first time I made a Hornet army, I had exactly 28 at my disposal with about 3 empty Hornets, but I didn’t get to save the result or the film (it was too long to go through anyway).

  1. The Covenant’s UAC (ultimate AI collection)
    Probably one of my most enduring tasks (it left me a deep scar that destroyed my enthusiasm for Halo 3). I got 19 out of 20 Brutes, 3 out of 4 Grunts, and 14 marines + 8 sword Elites (including Arby) with stockpiled fuel rod guns, a bunch of vehicles. Required a hell lot of patience, tolerance for the dumb AI, moving AI around, walking back and forth, etc. I had to do extensive, meticulous observing in gameplay and Theater to pinpoint AI spawns, particularly the Mongoose, Hog, and Scorpion which can be spawned several times with another marine.

  2. Great Journey’s UAC
    [18 sword Councilors vs. Tartarus]
    Do I even need to go into this? It can be awfully painful not having Theater, as I end up missing some of the battles due to having to manage the AI and such.

  3. The Arbiter’s Heretic Horde
    I don’t have a video of it but if you skip the Heretics on The Arbiter, they’ll follow you and you can collect most of them for a pretty big battle (including one in a small enclosed location, To The Hunt). I brought about 20-30 of them, in addition to all possible friendly AI (including the ones dropped off at the end of the level) and the Heretic leader (who I stopped from leaving by lunging at him at the right time). I was unable to record the setup because it’s very long, tedious, and the whole thing was a excruciating. With Theater, it’d have been so much more easier to convey the steps.

  4. Approx. 33 Grunts vs. Master Chief.
    It’d have looked even more spectacular in third person. :confused:

  5. Launching in an AA Wraith
    I was not the first to try this, but I did use a different spot which had many uses, such as deloading the Scarab (while allowing me to continue the mission), launching into the skybox, launching to the boat, and allowing me to board the Scarab at the earliest point possible (even faster than the slide jump. Turns out the Scarab’s shield is invulnerable until it reaches a certain point). Oh and splattering vehicles, like the Mongoose and Hornet. But in first person, it happens so fast that it’s really unsuitable for presentation.

#19

  1. Box launching on Floodgate
    I went over the Phantom, onto the Phantom (fell off before I could completely exit the map), and out of the map (really, really high) by doing a simple gravity hammer swing with Cowbell turned on. It’s really grand in third person but also happens too fast in first person.

  2. getting a Zealot in CE to the end of Two Betrayals on Legendary SP
    This took me days but I did get to see some great combat between Goldie and the massive armies of Flood. He got easily overwhelmed by rocket launcher and shotgun Flood but was pretty damn valiant. I was unable to get most of the combat since I was fighting for my life! Theater would have made it easier for me to get the setup without all the boring ‘going back for ammo’ footage (did I forget to mention I was trying to do Leave It Where It Lay achievement and it was done without infinite ammo?). Theater would also have given me some of the best combat footage without putting me at risk (I was hiding while Goldie was kicking -Yoink-).

Other stuff:

-infinitely jumping kamikaze Grunt
-berserking Arbiter
-getting splattered by a marine
-stopping Arbiter on The Ark from leaving by destroying the Phantom and intercepting his Banshee with a charged shot
-destroying a 2D Banshee/Hornet with the Gauss Hog (it could have been convenient timing as the 2D figures have been known to have death animations but it was still surprising)
-jumping Carrier Form
-immobilizing The Ark Scarab
-making The Ark Scarab “offer” me a ride
-Drones in the third tower not attacking and clinging to the walls
-easy way to hijack the first AA Wraith on The Covenant on Legendary (it locks into place for easy boarding)
-counter-sniping spots on Sierra 117
-sword flying off a wall-climbing Flood on High Charity and flying vertically
-marine kills himself by taking cover (after fleeing from an elevator filled with sword Elites) against the Covenant bomb in Cairo Station
-sword Spec Ops Elites vs. Flood Pure Forms on Floodgate, Legendary. I didn’t have Theater at the time so I had to launch myself out of the map so I could get footage without getting shot by Ranged Forms
-stealthily killing 7 Brutes in the third tower within 5 seconds of each other

#20

Great OP Sangheilioz. As a member of the Mythic community the loss of campaign and spec ops theatre films and campaign stats hits hard and I fully support the request to prioritize their inclusion in the first title update of Halo 4. I have a capture card and can generate films from live game play, but that is not sufficient for proving a successful Mythic run and is really a pain in the butt as I found on the CEA “Mythic” runs I capped (start capture, oh crap, stop, delete, start capture, oh crap, etc.). Not only that but it is true that there are many moments in campaign (and soon to be spec ops) that are unique, funny, and memorable, and will be lost forever unless the individual happens to be doing a live cap.

I distinctly remember several things on my successful Mythic runs on Reach:

At the end of WC, I could never get the last Elite with a pepper/headshot. Game after game I failed. Finally in one run I got so angry, that I grabbed the sword from the assasinated Elite, ran to the relay room, did a dance with that Elite and finally nailed him with the sword.

At the end of TOTS, I could not get that damn Elite to chase me off the ledge, so I bugged him and bugged him with Needler rifle shots until he retreated to the lift room in the middle; I jetpacked up top and jumped down and assasinated him.

In the POA mission I kept getting defeated by the Brute Heroes at Holdout. Finally in my succesful run, the FRG Brute Hero was squashed by falling debris from the second Phantom I shot down with the MAC Cannon. After that it was pretty simple to jump down and assasinate the hammer Brute.

These were all part of the saved films that I submitted as proof of success in the runs. In fact I went in and grabbed clips out of the WC and POA films to show friends. Without theatre these definitely would have been lost unless I happened to be doing a live capture.

Theatre has been available for all game modes in H3, ODST, and Reach, and should definitely be include in H4!!