Fix Spartan Ops Solo! Make it worthwhile!

Games Other Halo
1

I just spent about 8 hours playing Spartan Ops, trying to finish the episodes on Legendary. I managed it and I have some things to say…

General:
-fix the -Yoinking!- spawn system. I don’t know how many times I got hit by a Wraith mortar because I spawned so close to the Wraiths or by the Banshees because I spawned so far away from the Mantises

-decrease the shield recharge waiting time. It’s absurdly long. With weapons that can kill so quickly and explosions that do a great deal of splash damage, it’s extremely unpleasant to be shot down because I couldn’t find adequate cover. If not for Spartan Ops, then do it for campaign (Chief is supposed to be better than Spartan IVs yet he plays exactly like them with very minor differences).

-dropped weapons need to stop disappearing so quickly. This is bad in MP and this is worse in Spartan Ops. Not every level has convenient weapon crates…

Urgent:
-if 343 really want to make the Elite General rank prominent, then they should give them unique abilities (like each of the Knight variants) instead of making them mindless -Yoink-. Also, grenade throwing is merely a substitute for the H:R Elite’s excess berserking, which was Bungie’s poor way of balancing their overpowered Elites. 343’s way is not any better. The Elites need a nerf in damage, not a flaw.

-stop making Elites rush all of a sudden. These rushing freaks often account for half of my deaths. I understand that this is implemented to stop camping, but for -Yoink-'s sake, give them an indicator that they’re going to charge, such as a new animation (i.e. point at player’s location). I have to memorize all the encounters just so I don’t get swarmed. It’s Halo 2 all over again!

-nerf the Needler. I don’t use it very often (nor do I want to) but the enemies are extremely overpowered with it.

Spartan Ops has a lot of potential, it has that Halo feel, it has those moments that were noticeably missing in the campaign, and I think it’s worth the time (not the effort), but if it’s going to be scaled for 4 player Co-op in the Solo game mode, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to play it much longer. It’s becoming unbearable!

Spartan Ops is simply not fun to play in it’s current state. And I am not going to lower the difficulty because the other difficulties are far from engaging.

2

They also need to increase the power of certain AAs and their durations in Spartan Ops. The guns always disappearing is annoying and yes our shields need some buffing since the Ai cannot miss, do not reload, or over heat their weapons. Lag slows our responses while the Ai can just run circles around you when not the host.

If anything Ordnance Drops would be helpful as well in Spartan Ops especially when solo.

3

I agree with you on that. I understand the Spartan Ops is designed for cooperative play (although, I can imagine it being frustrating in coop also), but that isn’t a good excuse to make it bad for single player, and it most certainly isn’t an excuse to make the difficulty rely on AI that are bullet sponges instead of actual intelligence.

Spartan Ops is easy up until the game suddenly decides to dump their whole AI count at you. The Legendary isn’t really challenging, it just likes to overwhelm you with bullet sponges that shoot incrdibly fast and accurately. Then again, aside from the amount of enemies, isn’t that how Halo has done the Legendary difficulty since Halo 2. :wink:

P.S. The AI counts in Spartan Ops make me wonder did 343i manage to hit Bungie’s sixty simultaneous AI units they boasted about for Reach, but that was totally absent in the campaign. Spartan Ops really seems to have much more AI than you normally see in any of the Halo campaigns (Halo 4 included). But maybe that’s just because they all get dumped on you at once.

4

> They also need to increase the power of certain AAs and their durations in Spartan Ops. The guns always disappearing is annoying and yes our shields need some buffing since the Ai cannot miss, do not reload, or over heat their weapons. Lag slows our responses while the Ai can just run circles around you when not the host.
>
> If anything Ordnance Drops would be helpful as well in Spartan Ops especially when solo.

I completely agree.

I’m finding the ordnance in Spartan Ops to be often unneeded (except when they are snipers) but there were a lot of times where I needed ordnance and it didn’t come. Honestly, the Hunters on Shootout in Valhalla are easily dispatched with the Mantis. What really makes that part hard is the swarming Elites from the drop pods. I’d loved being able to intercept them with rockets instead of having to run for my life.

5

> I agree with you on that. I understand the Spartan Ops is designed for cooperative play (although, I can imagine it being frustrating in coop also), but that isn’t a good excuse to make it bad for single player, and it most certainly isn’t an excuse to make the difficulty rely on AI that are bullet sponges instead of actual intelligence.
>
> Spartan Ops is easy up until the game suddenly decides to dump their whole AI count at you. The Legendary isn’t really challenging, it just likes to overwhelm you with bullet sponges that shoot incrdibly fast and accurately. Then again, aside from the amount of enemies, isn’t that how Halo has done the Legendary difficulty since Halo 2. :wink:
>
> P.S. The AI counts in Spartan Ops make me wonder did 343i manage to hit Bungie’s sixty simultaneous AI units they boasted about for Reach, but that was totally absent in the campaign. Spartan Ops really seems to have much more AI than you normally see in any of the Halo campaigns (Halo 4 included). But maybe that’s just because they all get dumped on you at once.

Yes, it’s not as game changing as I had hoped. The AI are slightly different from the campaign ones in that they are more aggressive.

I often dread to kill enemies, not because they’re tough but because killing them might spawn more of them. It’s a lot more grinding than in the campaign.

I’m not really sure.

6

I agree with you except you for got to add

-Fix it so that enemies are still inside the map.

I have had to restart missions because some Elite has either spawned or jet-packed out of the map.

7

If you are complaining about the diffculty then you just need to get better instead of telling 343 to make it easier. I thought the campaign solo legendary was WAY too easy. Spartan Ops actually brings in some challenges every once in a while and I do not want some person ruining it by telling 343 it is too hard.

There:
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst148315_Think-the-game-is-hard--tips-to-make-it-easy.aspx

On a side note I do agree with the weapons despawn just like everyone else. That is just annoying…

8

> If you are complaining about the diffculty then you just need to get better instead of telling 343 to make it easier. I thought the campaign solo legendary was WAY too easy. Spartan Ops actually brings in some challenges every once in a while and I do not want some person ruining it by telling 343 it is too hard.
>
>
> There:
> https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst148315_Think-the-game-is-hard--tips-to-make-it-easy.aspx
>
>
> On a side note I do agree with the weapons despawn just like everyone else. That is just annoying…

There a difference between being hard and being impossible if it weren’t for unlimited lives.

9

I want solo matches to have more ex. I dont play with others really execpt my friends because random teamates love to screw around. I gave it a shot the other day and played on the match making side of it and was blown away with how much more ex you earn, yet im with teamates and i get alot less kills. Of course my tank was taken out 5 times and the Mantis was a disaster. Id much rather play solo but it needs alot more xp

10

The spawns are what really killed me especially on the first part of the 3rd episode. I couldn’t even get to the scorpions because I was literally getting spawn killed for 10 minutes!

11

> If you are complaining about the diffculty then you just need to get better instead of telling 343 to make it easier. I thought the campaign solo legendary was WAY too easy. Spartan Ops actually brings in some challenges every once in a while and I do not want some person ruining it by telling 343 it is too hard.
>
>
> There:
> https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst148315_Think-the-game-is-hard--tips-to-make-it-easy.aspx
>
>
> On a side note I do agree with the weapons despawn just like everyone else. That is just annoying…

Without unlimited lives Spartan Ops on Legendary would be vastly impossible for the majority of players playing it solo. There needs to be some buffs to the AAs, Melee, and Shielding to make it somewhat enjoyable on a gaming level, especially if packs of Elite Generals that individually can take almost two clips from a DMR to drop it’s shield can spam infinite Fuel Rod shots while rushing you while you’re in active camo for no damn good reason.

12

Uh, no

You sucking isn’t a reason to make it easier. You should just play on a lower difficulty setting.

I myself find spartan ops, even playing alone on legendary to be far too easy. They seriously need to put in restarting checkpoints.

13

> > If you are complaining about the diffculty then you just need to get better instead of telling 343 to make it easier. I thought the campaign solo legendary was WAY too easy. Spartan Ops actually brings in some challenges every once in a while and I do not want some person ruining it by telling 343 it is too hard.
> >
> >
> > There:
> > https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst148315_Think-the-game-is-hard--tips-to-make-it-easy.aspx
> >
> >
> > On a side note I do agree with the weapons despawn just like everyone else. That is just annoying…
>
> Without unlimited lives Spartan Ops on Legendary would be vastly impossible for the majority of players playing it solo. There needs to be some buffs to the AAs, Melee, and Shielding to make it somewhat enjoyable on a gaming level, especially if packs of Elite Generals that individually can take almost two clips from a DMR to drop it’s shield can spam infinite Fuel Rod shots while rushing you while you’re in active camo for no damn good reason.

Uh, use something other than a straight up DMR lol.

Plasma pistol, needler, fuel rod even the plasma rifle thing can strip shields quickly.

14

lol Spartan Ops is not impossible. I actually think there should be limited lives so people can stop spawn spamming. I personally try to beat the missions using the least amount of lives. I think 10 lives would be a fair amount to beat a mission.

If you are having problems either take the advice of another player and do a lower difficultly or learn to play on solo legendary.

15

I have no problems surviving, I can get flawless missions on solo legendary easily…

16

> Uh, no
>
> <mark>You sucking</mark> isn’t a reason to make it easier. You should just play on a lower difficulty setting.
>
> I myself find spartan ops, even playing alone on legendary to be far too easy. They seriously need to put in restarting checkpoints.

Correction: me not leaning on utility yet noobish weapons

I refuse to use the plasma pistol or needler because they make combat a joke. I stick with precision weapons, stickies, power weapons, and the occasional support weapons. There’s also assassinations and tricking the AI.

On some levels, I just can’t stand the gameplay so I just throw myself at the enemy while I put my interests elsewhere. Not immersed at all!

17

> If you are complaining about the diffculty then you just need to get better instead of telling 343 to make it easier. I thought the campaign solo legendary was WAY too easy. Spartan Ops actually brings in some challenges every once in a while and I do not want some person ruining it by telling 343 it is too hard.
>
>
> There:
> https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst148315_Think-the-game-is-hard--tips-to-make-it-easy.aspx
>
>
> On a side note I do agree with the weapons despawn just like everyone else. That is just annoying…

I’m not demanding they make it easier. I’m demanding they make it less cheaper.

The best way to do this is to improve the AI intelligence and give them new capabilities.

AI are still sticking to using one gun. They ought to be carrying 2 weapons and switching between them at appropriate times (not like the Zealots who only take out a sword when they lose their shield). They need to be player-like (but right now, 343 have just taken the worst things, such as sword lunge, and given it to the AI).

There’s nothing impressive about the AI in Halo 4, other than their cqc improvements. They still fare badly in ranged combat. If they didn’t have the game protecting and supporting them, I could have easily gotten things done.

18

Yeah, spawning in Spartan Ops can be risky.

On a legendary run through, I was doing pretty good at keeping my deaths to a minimum. Then on one fateful death I ended up respawning repeatedly amid a clusster of Elites. They weren’t even the original elites that killed me. I think at one point there may have been 8 of them camping my spawn point.

Fun.

I think the only thing that kept it from being completely pathetic is that one of the Elites had a fuelrod, and I’m pretty sure he killed more of his friends than I did.

19

Well, Perhaps this is a bit late to post, but I agree with the OP as well, Spartan Ops definitely has some issues. Let me explain a few with the help of some examples (wall of text incoming):

There have been missions like EP:5 CH:1 that are just ridiculous to play on Solo Legendary, I’ve had one instance were I spawned right between about five or six knights, mixed with a couple of crawlers and watchers all at the same time, over and over and over again. At the end of the mission I had about 150 kills and 70 deaths, just because everything was spawn-killing me. You can’t blame that on sucking as a player, because nobody can get to cover 300 feet away while surrounded by enemies with shotguns, snipers, instant kill melees and shields. the only reason I managed to finish that mission was because I could kill one knight per spawn with the noob combo.

A related problem is the enemy spawning, while playing EP:4 CH:5 I managed to kill every covenant enemy without dying once, When I was almost at some button I needed to activate, a ton of crawlers and some knights just spawned around me, I was about 10 feet into the building, and they just spawned everywhere, this has happened in other missions as well.

Dropships can be a big problem as well, in EP:6 CH:2 for example, I have died a numerous amount of times just because previously safe cover is suddenly useless because a dropship decides to fly in and hover directly over it. The dropship gunners are way to accurate and deadly, killing you off in less than a second at close range, or in about two seconds at long range. Just because you were out in the open trying to get to another piece of cover. I could have tried sniping the gunners, but the dropship was just too far away, or the ammo was too scarce (or both). The gun at the front of the dropship has killed me as well, though differently than the gunners did, instead of killing me outright, it has repeatedly pushed me away from cover, or even pushed me out of cover, making me an easy target for the many elites or knights staring me down.

While were on it, in EP:6 CH:2 I had some minor issues as well, after entering the first building to get to second level, as well as clearing the bottom floor, I had problems with a couple of elites on the second level, it took me about three minutes to clear them all, because I had to step back after every attempted kill to avoid the numerous amount of grenades thrown at me, this wouldn’t have been a big problem, if the path to said elites would have been wide enough for me to step sideways, but as it is only 6 feet wide, you just don’t have the space.

another problem on the same chapter was the spawn (again) after clearing the first and second floor inside the building, I had to carefully kill enemies on the third floor, because every death would spawn me at a 30 second hike away from the battlefield where I was, man was I lucky that my load-out had unlimited sprint for that (please note the sarcasm there).

remaining problems are huge as well do they don’t need a description really… lack of ammo, lack of reloads by enemies, lack of appropriate weapons, disappearing weapons, not enough interesting objectives, death having no impact, crazy charging elites, jackals not flinching, crawler and knight hit-boxes to small (compared to other enemies), …

Some of that can probably blamed on my lack of skill, but I have finished every halo solo on legendary (except Wars) purely because I had the skill to do it, shouldn’t I be able to finish Spartan Ops on legendary, without relying on infinite re-spawns.

Spartan Ops could be such a great feature, if only it would be more like campaign itself, right now (3 months after the release of Halo 4) it still feels like a broken mess way too often.

Please everyone and 343I especially, don’t discard this as a simple rant, but take it as it is, constructive criticism with a bit of emotional disappointment in it.

20

I don’t have many problems with spartan ops really.

Except when you’re supposed to eliminate all the enemies and a knight teleports behind a closed door that doesn’t open.