Changes in the Difficulty Settings?

Games Other Halo
1

Do you think that they should change the old Halo difficulty settings formula? I do. You may ask, if it ain’t broke why fix it?

Here’s what I mean. Keep the names: Easy, Normal, Heroic, Legendary. But change the way those play.

Easy is useless. Anyone who has ever played any kind of shooter before can VERY EASILY go through the whole game without dying or trying. Therefore the current way that setting plays should be called VERY EASY or WAY TO BORING TO ANY NORMAL NOOB OR ANYONE EVER. Not EASY. Get rid of it.

Normal. Is it really? Or is Heroic the Normal way for everyone to play? For those with any decent amount of FPS experience, Normal is actually really EASY!!! You can mow through enemies with impunity, completely in disregard in the face of the “terrors” of the enemy, hardly ever bothering to take cover, or forcing the need to use mid-long range weapons. If I, a casual, normally skilled player would never play on NORMAL b/c its way too EASY, then it should be the skill level required to play the new easy.

Then what should the new normal be? Basically like Heroic is now, maybe slightly easier.

Heroic. With Normal being more akin to Heroic, the NEW HEROIC could be the best Heroic yet. Here’s why:

TWO FACTORS increase steadily with each difficulty level. 1) The damage done to you by enemy weapons 2) The reactions and abilities of the AI’s fighting style increase.

This usually results in frustration to me. I love dynamic enemies. Enemies that aren’t stupid. Enemies that don’t pause and just look at you, fire a few shots, wait for no reason, then fire some more. WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE ANY GOOD AT IT, I like the enemies to seem to be TRYING their hardest to kill me. On legendary, and heroic to a lesser extent, the enemies seem to try, but they shoot back QUICKER, FASTER, and MORE OFTEN on legendary. When that is combined with the buff that all their weapons get on Legendary, it can go from relatively challenging on heroic, to a long slow grind fest. (Think jackal sniper forest on legendary H3).

So what I am suggesting is that the NEW HEROIC, no longer needing to be the old Heroic thanks to the NEW NORMAL, have enemies that try as hard as legendary (fire as often, move as much) but retain their heroic level of base accuracy with their weapons AND their heroic level of weapon damage.

To me, this would then be the ideal way to play the game,

And then NEW LEGENDARY would be all that plus the weapons buff and its old extremely difficult slow grind self.

Agree, Disagree?

tsassi Posted:
when advancing from Heroic to Legendary, majority of the difficulty addition should come through increase in the amount of enemies. Where you once had one Elite Minor, you could now have two Majors or at least a Major accompanying the Minor. At some points where you may not have had enemies, you could have a group of them now. At the same time, the enemies would be more cunning and intelligent.

Or this.

2

No thanks, it’s fine the way it is. If you want a challenge, just play Heroic or Legendary.

3

It ain’t gonna change, but all I can say is, you can’t earn anything for playing on easy. And I want to feel special and hear “Heroic” when I start the campaign. Yes, Normal is really easy, especially in the past couple games, but oh well.

4

> Do you think that they should change the old Halo difficulty settings formula? I do. You may ask, if it ain’t broke why fix it?
>
> Here’s what I mean. Keep the names: Easy, Normal, Heroic, Legendary. But change the way those play.
>
> Easy is useless. Anyone who has ever played any kind of shooter before can VERY EASILY go through the whole game without dying or trying. Therefore the current way that setting plays should be called VERY EASY or WAY TO BORING TO ANY NORMAL NOOB OR ANYONE EVER. Not EASY. Get rid of it.
>
> Normal. Is it really? Or is Heroic the Normal way for everyone to play? For those with any decent amount of FPS experience, Normal is actually really EASY!!! You can mow through enemies with impunity, completely in disregard in the face of the “terrors” of the enemy, hardly ever bothering to take cover, or forcing the need to use mid-long range weapons. If I, a casual, normally skilled player would never play on NORMAL b/c its way too EASY, then it should be the skill level required to play the new easy.
>
> Then what should the new normal be? Basically like Heroic is now, maybe slightly easier.
>
> Heroic. With Normal being more akin to Heroic, the NEW HEROIC could be the best Heroic yet. Here’s why:
>
> TWO FACTORS increase steadily with each difficulty level. 1) The damage done to you by enemy weapons 2) The reactions and abilities of the AI’s fighting style increase.
>
> This usually results in frustration to me. I love dynamic enemies. Enemies that aren’t stupid. Enemies that don’t pause and just look at you, fire a few shots, wait for no reason, then fire some more. WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE ANY GOOD AT IT, I like the enemies to seem to be TRYING their hardest to kill me. On legendary, and heroic to a lesser extent, the enemies seem to try, but they shoot back QUICKER, FASTER, and MORE OFTEN on legendary. When that is combined with the buff that all their weapons get on Legendary, it can go from relatively challenging on heroic, to a long slow grind fest. (Think jackal sniper forest on legendary H3).
>
> So what I am suggesting is that the NEW HEROIC, no longer needing to be the old Heroic thanks to the NEW NORMAL, have enemies that try as hard as legendary (fire as often, move as much) but retain their heroic level of base accuracy with their weapons AND their heroic level of weapon damage.
>
> To me, this would then be the ideal way to play the game,
>
> And then NEW LEGENDARY would be all that plus the weapons buff and its old extremely difficult slow grind self.
>
> Agree, Disagree?

I wouldn’t change anything. I would add a Mythic difficulty that is three shot death for the player to die and the enemy A.I. are extremely smart.

5

> No thanks, it’s fine the way it is. If you want a challenge, just play Heroic or Legendary.

My basic problem is that Heroic isn’t challenging enough at times, and legendary slows my style of play too much, more defensive and methodical less aggressive

In legendary, you can’t use the whole sandbox really, some weapons can’t take down elites worth a crap for example and you have to use exploits like noob combo etc. to really get though some types of situations

6

I disagree on one part, increasing difficulty through increased damage output for the enemies isn’t the right way to go. Sure, it works to some degree. But when your shields go down before you even kill two Grunts, your shields are going down way too fast. Similarly, if you are engaging a Ghost in a Ghost, you should not be doomed as is the case in Reach due to the superior power of the enemy Ghost. Also, the enemies should not be super accurate because it’s simply not fun jumping behind a corner and before you even get to react, getting shot by a Fuel Rod Gun or a sniper.

So, where do I think the difficulty should come from? Well, yes, to a certain extent the enemies can make higher damage on Legendary than Heroic, but not as much that I don’t have time to move around. And the amount of damage done should be compensated through shield recharge rate. Vehicles should be equal, if I’m better with a Ghost than the enemy, I should beat the enemy. If the enemy Wraith can destroy my Wraith in one shot, I should be able to do that too. What comes to enemy accuracy and projectile speed, the projectile speed should be dodgeable and the accuracy shouldn’t be an aimbot level of accuracy.

The main point here however is that when advancing from Heroic to Legendary, majority of the difficulty addition should come through increase in the amount of enemies. Where you once had one Elite Minor, you could now have two Majors or at least a Major accompanying the Minor. At some points where you may not have had enemies, you could have a group of them now. At the same time, the enemies would be more cunning and intelligent.

Halo CE did that all great. It really had a Legendary that really had challenge, but still gave you the ability to actually run for short preiods of time without all the enemy forces around having to be cleared. You didn’t get stuck as much to a single location for extended preiods of time due to enemies that take your shields down super fast and have super strong shields.

7

> I disagree on one part, increasing difficulty through increased damage output for the enemies isn’t the right way to go. Sure, it works to some degree. But when your shields go down before you even kill two Grunts, your shields are going down way too fast. Similarly, if you are engaging a Ghost in a Ghost, you should not be doomed as is the case in Reach due to the superior power of the enemy Ghost. Also, the enemies should not be super accurate because it’s simply not fun jumping behind a corner and before you even get to react, getting shot by a Fuel Rod Gun or a sniper.
>
> So, where do I think the difficulty should come from? Well, yes, to a certain extent the enemies can make higher damage on Legendary than Heroic, but not as much that I don’t have time to move around. And the amount of damage done should be compensated through shield recharge rate. Vehicles should be equal, if I’m better with a Ghost than the enemy, I should beat the enemy. If the enemy Wraith can destroy my Wraith in one shot, I should be able to do that too. What comes to enemy accuracy and projectile speed, the projectile speed should be dodgeable and the accuracy shouldn’t be an aimbot level of accuracy.
>
> The main point here however is that when advancing from Heroic to Legendary, majority of the difficulty addition should come through increase in the amount of enemies. Where you once had one Elite Minor, you could now have two Majors or at least a Major accompanying the Minor. At some points where you may not have had enemies, you could have a group of them now. At the same time, the enemies would be more cunning and intelligent.
>
> Halo CE did that all great. It really had a Legendary that really had challenge, but still gave you the ability to actually run for short preiods of time without all the enemy forces around having to be cleared. You didn’t get stuck as much to a single location for extended preiods of time due to enemies that take your shields down super fast and have super strong shields.

i agree with every thing you said. that’s the kind of things that make legendary frustrating. If legendary had more enemies with the same level of aiming and damage output as heroic, that would also be great. CE was the best legendary

8

> No thanks, it’s fine the way it is. If you want a challenge, just play Heroic or Legendary.

The problem is, it doesn’t really work that way. Legendary is barely a challenge. Most of the “challenge” is actually just a lengthened encounter where the enemy shield strength is doubled while yours is halved. Heroic is not even remotely challenging, it’s a walk in the park.

And if anyone is going to pull out the Mythic difficulty card, Mythic is difficult in a different way. Mythic has that same problem as Legendary currently has, it’s just a slower version of the previous diffculty. Due to skulls such as Tilt, Black Eye and Mythic, enemies are super though while your shields don’t even recharge, which means that your only option is to take encounter really slowly.

We need a real difficulty that is not just “difficult” through slowness, but through increased enemy intelligence, different enemies and larger amounts of enemies. Something that gives the player a real challenge without slowing down the player’s pace through less health and stronger enemies.

9

> > No thanks, it’s fine the way it is. If you want a challenge, just play Heroic or Legendary.
>
> My basic problem is that Heroic isn’t challenging enough at times, and legendary slows my style of play too much, more defensive and methodical less aggressive
>
> In legendary, you can’t use the whole sandbox really, some weapons can’t take down elites worth a crap for example and you have to use exploits like noob combo etc. to really get though some types of situations

Oh I see what you mean. Which Halo’s do you think these problems were in?

10

> > No thanks, it’s fine the way it is. If you want a challenge, just play Heroic or Legendary.
>
> The problem is, it doesn’t really work that way. Legendary is barely a challenge. Most of the “challenge” is actually just a lengthened encounter where the enemy shield strength is doubled while yours is halved. Heroic is not even remotely challenging, it’s a walk in the park.
>
> And if anyone is going to pull out the Mythic difficulty card, Mythic is difficult in a different way. Mythic has that same problem as Legendary currently has, it’s just a slower version of the previous diffculty. Due to skulls such as Tilt, Black Eye and Mythic, enemies are super though while your shields don’t even recharge, which means that your only option is to take encounter really slowly.
>
> We need a real difficulty that is not just “difficult” through slowness, but through increased enemy intelligence, different enemies and larger amounts of enemies. Something that gives the player a real challenge without slowing down the player’s pace through less health and stronger enemies.

Yeah I think I know what you’re talking about now.