Op, I agree and I’m willing to give AI driving a chance. But not in it’s current (Reach) state. After seeing things like this and this (and let’s not forget about Wraith drivers splattering their own in Firefight and on The Package), I am truly appalled. The first example is bad scripting. The second example is vehicle imbalance and physics; in H3, marines would often drive into you with the hog but splatter was rare. In Reach, the physics are so similar to CE and the hog is more faster. A really bad combo when there’s no safeguard (i.e. AI with swords don’t harm nearby allies).
> > I would rather they take out their ability to drive. It’s a nice concept in theory but the AI sucks and there is no point in trying to improve it. Just have them get in the Warthog and have them stay put until you say otherwise ala Halo: CE.
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> Oh, something’s difficult. We should just give up and forgo any potential gains we could have had so we can mull-about in the “better” days of yore, when the men were men, butter had to be churned by hand, and Unreal Tournament 2004 hadn’t yet proven the concept that Bungie was still struggling with in Reach.
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> Let’s try it anyway. The worst that can happen through action is that we don’t improve on Halo 3 but the best that can happen without is that we regress to something that’s below the standards of last-gen gaming. I can’t see how you feel that’s a step forward.
I may be a CE purist but I know when something should progress. I completely agree.
Removing something isn’t contributing. It’s abandonment. It’s laziness. At least 343 are actually trying with the TU, and though it may not turn out so well, this is Reach we’re talking about. Reach cannot be entirely fixed because of how it is; it has the wrong emphases on everything.
That does not mean Halo 3 had the right emphases either. Imo, CE is the only Halo that did a lot of things right. Of course, this does not mean I want an exact copy of it.
I want H4 to have it’s priorities straight. Reach was all about false difficulty. H2 and H3 were also on this path, more so H3.
Realism is an important part of gameplay but in hindsight, bad priority allowed unrealistic things to run rampant. The diving animations. The panicking Grunt movements, so erratic! AI being killed off or deleted or disappearing… in plain sight. How often is it that you see Noble Team popping out of the walls on LNoS? In H3 and Reach, it is impossible to play through the game without immersion being broken. I didn’t mind AI getting up from the dead or invincible AI but I hated how teleportation was so easily exploitable (I can use Arbiter to kill 90% of enemies in an area) and at the same time, annoying (wrecks setups).
All this disregarded for what? No more hastening the reload process? No more throwing more than 1 grenade at a time? No more backpack reloading? Slow gameplay. I despise it so much. If anything, I prefer button combos. I prefer exploits. If I wanted realism, I could just not use these.
I would like H4 to focus on on fun and immersion and above all, realism (regarding gameplay elements, not the player. In Reach, I felt way too slow and underpowered while enemies had all sort of cheap unrealistic advantages. I hated it when I meleed. I hated it when I threw a grenade. Noble Six was the worst character I ever played as!!).
Too much emphasis on false difficulty and supposed plot (I’m tired of teams and partners. I want to fight with a supporting cast, not mindless important characters) has ruined Halo.
TLDR: Enough difficulty, enough important friendly AI.
I want to be a god among gods, leader among men (allies).
Read these articles and you’ll see what Halo has become:
http://www.bungie.net/inside/publications.aspx#pub15066 (the sad thing is that this was written with Halo 3 in mind and H3 features all sorts of bad things like AI running against walls or AI deploying their shields and walking out of them) - my favorite part has to be about how AI make the right kind of mistakes. In Reach, various Elite ranks berserk even when their shields are intact. In Reach, AI express less surprise. In Reach and H3, it is virtually impossible to get an assassination on AI unless they have their back turned or are distracted. CE Elites were easily manipulated and I felt satisfied killing them in this manner. Reverse melees just make cqc so slow. And although the H3 Chieftain was easy to dispatch by assassination, that was usually when he was doing his standard melee attack. Now if he did not have it, it would be extremely difficult to get him in the back since they will track you. In Reach, what did Bungie do to circumvent this? Can’t assassinate Brutes if they’ve seen you, oh right.
http://badcyborg.net/Halo3/Halo3GameOn.html