Notice: Now before you say “not another one of THESE threads”, I created this post in another thread, and I thought that this warranted a thread of it’s own, especially considering it’s length. Below is a list of arguements that I commonly see against the reinclusion of Sangheili in multiplayer. They are all very poorly developed and short sighted, with solutions that are so obvious, that it makes me wonder how much attention people put into this subject when countering it.
So I have typed up abridged versions of these arguements and have put in my counter-arguements against them. I hope with this, that I may spark a few lightbulbs in your heads, and for you to help meet a compromise on this increasingly dire issue. Let us begin:
- Halo’s multiplayer is cannon now, and Sangheili wouldn’t be training or operating with Spartans:
Actually, the Anvil Initiative says otherwise, and Hunters in the Dark’s plot revolves around a joint-Sangheili/Human operation. So the canon excuse is out the window.
- No it isn’t, multiplayer is taking place on Infinity, not Anvil Station, and Sangheili would never be allowed on the UNSC’s flagship!
Even if all of above is true, I find that where the exact location of the Holo-room is to be irrelevant. This can be resolved with an incredibly simple retcon.
- Well Sangheili are a foot taller than Spartans, so their height would disrupt balance.
There’s quite a few compromises to this. First off, the Sangheili were actually the same height as Spartans in CE and 2, it wasn’t till Bungie hunched them over in 3 and put them on stilts in Reach that they became so tall. And even then, Sangheili have a much wider height range than humans do, with 7’ 4" Sangheili being as common as a 5’ 8" human male, which is more common than you would think.
- But I like Sangheili being taller than Spartans, it makes them unique and not a reskin. It also makes gametypes like invasion really enjoyable.
I understand that, and my proposal to this is to make it so that we can customize each species’ traits indepently, including height/hitbox. In competitive game modes, they will be reskins of Spartans and in Invasion, they will have unique traits. Not only would this allow for equal starts in competitive, fun game modes like invasion, and restore a dying community, this will empower the creative side of the community, allowing us to create a much wide variety of game modes, make quality machinimas, and much more.
- Well, theres still the problem with the poor hitboxes, that was really annoying, plus their anatomy is to weird for the hitboxes to ever be the same.
Then the obvious answer is to just give them the same hitboxes as the Spartans. And the last part can be addressed by using the Reach models, I tested it, and they actually had the exact same hitbox, just bigger.
- Ok, but it would cost 343 to much resources to make them playable, Sangheili usually dont get as much armor as Spartans do, and the Sangheili community is to small to warrant anything.
I actually find it to be a waste of resources for 343 to not put them in; they make all these armors and models for them in the campaign yet they dont put those same models in multiplayer. And besides, it would also be worth it if they actually gave the Sangheili just as much customization options as Spartans, as that was one of the main things that was turning off players from playing as them, so if they empower the sanghieli community, then aformentioned community will grow bigger, thus it would be resources well spent.
- If there was a Sangheili community in the first place, then where were they the whole time I was playing Halo 2/3?
The Sangheili community tends to reserve themselves to custom games and campaign, as the lot of us usually tend to be lore nuts.
- But Sangheili players tend to be children that are bad at the game.
That is a sweeping generalization, in fact, some of the better players I have met were Sangheili fans.
- Well, the Sangheili community has been really rude to 343 lately and are acting entitled!
Can you blame them? They haven’t really seen any communication from 343, even when they were polite. Mosts of their posts and questions are just straight ignored or shot down, and 343 won’t give them a reason as to why they removed the Sangheili. And this has been going on for 3 years now. Besides, if you want to talk on terms of behaviour, then you should be dissatisfied with virtually every Halo sub-community, as each one has had it’s fair share of bashers, but those communities were never really punished for the actions of a few now, were they?
- “Spartan” abilities not “Elite” abilities.
Nomenclature should not dictate the canonical capabilities of a species. As far as I’m concerned, Sangheili are fully capable of sprinting, climbing, sliding, aiming, and charging. And last I heard, the Sangheili are several millenia ahead of humanity in technology, so equiping their armor with thrusters isn’t so far fetched. Besides, GI mentioned that the Halo 5 Sangheili were indeed using thrusters liberally, so this is not and shouldn’t be an issue.