flood & melee.

Games Halo Infinite
1

So just a little flood topic in the case that flood could hypothetically return in Infinite.

So let’s speculate that if it’s the case that flood returns in Infinite then how would you wanted to handle the numbers in melee fight with them?
As in the number of punches required to kill a regular combat form (setting combat form as base example here, obviously there could be variations) and maybe how many hits would kill the player character?

There have been quite significant differences between Halo games in case of this aspect. For example even though occasionally the flood could take even a bit less than 10 punches in Halo Combat Evolved whereas sometimes they only took a hit that destroyed the infection form, kind of large gap so not a trustworthy technique.
Then in Halo 2 the floods resistance was pumped up with the amount of punches in many cases closing in to 20 punches which made the melee option really inefficient.
And in Halo 3, most flood could be dispatched with 1 punch aimed to infection form in the middle. Kind of makes sense as infection forms are rather weak but seems just a bit too easy even. The assassination (the old type, not the knife) however seemed to make less sense than direct hit at the infection form.
Pretty much only variations being the elite combat forms that occasionally had shields.

So, any of those types that would be your preference? Perhaps something different entirely? If so hopefully you leave some sort of description in comment below.

And disarm could be it’s own things, how many punches to arm to sever it?

Then how many punches should the player be able to take from the flood (combat form is still the base example), should it be one hit kill on Legendary or would that be too brutal even on highest difficulty with the hordes? 2-3 hits to get the shields down on normal?

And if there are any special remarks about other forms of flood, like flood pure tank form which in Halo 3 required 5 punches to kill (if I remember correctly?), should infection forms get chain reaction deaths on groups when punched, should carrier forms fall over or explode right away when punched, those sort of things. Definitely put them below aswell.

So, how viable should melee be against flood in Infinite?

2

Generally speaking, melee should be the last offensive measure you use to dispatch a Flood of any form. They excel in close range combat because of the sharp and lethal bone claws sticking out of their arm. Though, I don’t know how effective melee should be as a whole. I mean, from a logical stand point, the Flood is largely a collection of rotting carcasses. A punch from a Spartan should obliterate them, instead it feels like you’re punching a wall that fights back.

In Halo: CE, it honestly felt like a losing battle even considering trying to punch a Flood form on higher difficulties. They OHKO you most of the time and even after you’ve killed say, 10 of them, they’re likely to just get back up at least 2 more times even if an Infection form hasn’t gotten to them. So you’ve gone from fighting 10 to fighting about 30 essentially, just not all at once.

Halo 2 was completely unbalanced due to the rushed state of it. Punching a Flood form wasn’t ideal, but it could be done, though Energy Swords were the best way to go as the Shotgun felt so weak and often didn’t even kill them. It was honestly better to grab a pistol, BR, or Carbine to just shoot the little Infection form wiggling its antennae at you.

Halo 3 absolutely sucked at close range combat with the Flood. The Elite Infection forms never wanted to die from the shotgun or the sword, even the GH sometimes wasn’t effective. Granted you could OHKO them by punching the tiny Infection form and then punch the dead body to make sure it doesn’t get back up (not always effective, the bodies sometimes don’t want to break). Energy Swords, Shotguns, Maulers, and GH’s all had weird hit detection when it came to the Flood. Half the time you wonder if you even hit them.

Arguably, I think the intent wasn’t to make CQC a viable option when it came to the Flood. I think Bungie intentionally designed them to be the one enemy you should stay as far away from as possible. Because when it came to Snipers and Fuel Rod wielding enemies, getting close was the best option, heck, in Halo: CE, getting as close to the Sword Elites was an ideal option just because they can’t turn fast enough if you keep walking around them in circles. (Just have a way to deal with him or the moment you stop or move away, he will come after you)

3

Standard Melee attacks should be one of the least effective ways to deal with the flood. The only melee attacks that should be doing real damage are hammer/sword/hardlight as well as any weapons with a bayonet ala Brute Shot/Spiker/Mauler.

At most I could see a small push back from standard melee just to get Flood off of you.

The entire reason the Flood worked for me in CE is that they required a very different set of tactics to defeat from the Covenant. The Flood were all about crowd control compared to the more precise and methodical way you deal with various Covenant. When you make them vulnerable to melee and headshots like they are in Halo 3 they become trivial to deal with and don’t require you to change up your tactics whatsoever. This makes all the levels involving them more of a chore than anything else(it also doesn’t help you never have any Player v Flood v Covenant encounters in Halo 3 to help liven things up).

4

> 2533274879757912;2:
> Generally speaking, melee should be the last offensive measure you use to dispatch a Flood of any form. They excel in close range combat because of the sharp and lethal bone claws sticking out of their arm. Though, I don’t know how effective melee should be as a whole. I mean, from a logical stand point, the Flood is largely a collection of rotting carcasses. A punch from a Spartan should obliterate them, instead it feels like you’re punching a wall that fights back.
>
> In Halo: CE, it honestly felt like a losing battle even considering trying to punch a Flood form on higher difficulties. They OHKO you most of the time and even after you’ve killed say, 10 of them, they’re likely to just get back up at least 2 more times even if an Infection form hasn’t gotten to them. So you’ve gone from fighting 10 to fighting about 30 essentially, just not all at once.
>
> Halo 2 was completely unbalanced due to the rushed state of it. Punching a Flood form wasn’t ideal, but it could be done, though Energy Swords were the best way to go as the Shotgun felt so weak and often didn’t even kill them. It was honestly better to grab a pistol, BR, or Carbine to just shoot the little Infection form wiggling its antennae at you.
>
> Halo 3 absolutely sucked at close range combat with the Flood. The Elite Infection forms never wanted to die from the shotgun or the sword, even the GH sometimes wasn’t effective. Granted you could OHKO them by punching the tiny Infection form and then punch the dead body to make sure it doesn’t get back up (not always effective, the bodies sometimes don’t want to break). Energy Swords, Shotguns, Maulers, and GH’s all had weird hit detection when it came to the Flood. Half the time you wonder if you even hit them.
>
> Arguably, I think the intent wasn’t to make CQC a viable option when it came to the Flood. I think Bungie intentionally designed them to be the one enemy you should stay as far away from as possible. Because when it came to Snipers and Fuel Rod wielding enemies, getting close was the best option, heck, in Halo: CE, getting as close to the Sword Elites was an ideal option just because they can’t turn fast enough if you keep walking around them in circles. (Just have a way to deal with him or the moment you stop or move away, he will come after you)

So would a glass-cannon make sense then? A SPARTAN can punch the flood but so can the flood cause relatively large amount of damage with it’s claw? As in, the flood already has horde & resurrection aspect to them so definitely the amount of hits should be less than in Halo 2.
Though flood could get bit of an AI improvement in a form of if they aren’t carrying a ranged weapon, they could try to use their “weak arm” to protect the infection form giving some form of edge for the melee type combat forms when closing in on enemy, as in blocking an additional punch or shot while the forms with weapons could be a bit easier to “snipe” while obviously having the traditional edge of ranged weaponry.

And I remember that in Halo Combat Evolved there were just occasional “revivers” that went down from 2 pistol shots instead of, 3? Absolutely needed in flood bumbs in speedruns, but the point being, not every combat form got up. Obviously it was improved later by having every “shell” a possible repossessible carcass as long as infection form(s) was/were present, though the “faking death” part of Halo Combat Evolved “reviver” could maybe be returning aspect of the flood in the future? Easy to spot by intact infection form though but rest of the horde can be distractive.

So, since effective techniques against Covenant species has been largely based on precision weapons then could the flood be more aggressive glass-cannon type that has pretty good cqc damage output but can also be taken out in few hits, given flood already has edge in numbers & overall agility when compared to other troops in the field?
Simple easy stunlock would also be something but not really viable tactic against horde based enemy.
And even if melee is more effective than punching a brick wall, it wouldn’t mean it would be the go-to choice to combat the flood if the flood, as a horde, also has respectable melee damage output. So first priority would be to prevent flood getting close or at least “thinning the herd” before being overwhelmed.
So the question then would be, how many flood combat forms would be required to outmatch a SPARTAN in cqc combat in gameplay? Obviously that is relative to how many flood units would the designer want to put in the field, more flood would mean less-effective individuals but that would also bring the problem of scarce ammo.

5

> 2533274819446242;3:
> Standard Melee attacks should be one of the least effective ways to deal with the flood. The only melee attacks that should be doing real damage are hammer/sword/hardlight as well as any weapons with a bayonet ala Brute Shot/Spiker/Mauler.
>
> At most I could see a small push back from standard melee just to get Flood off of you.
>
> The entire reason the Flood worked for me in CE is that they required a very different set of tactics to defeat from the Covenant. The Flood were all about crowd control compared to the more precise and methodical way you deal with various Covenant. When you make them vulnerable to melee and headshots like they are in Halo 3 they become trivial to deal with and don’t require you to change up your tactics whatsoever. This makes all the levels involving them more of a chore than anything else(it also doesn’t help you never have any Player v Flood v Covenant encounters in Halo 3 to help liven things up).

I get differing tactics in Halo Combat Evolved when the pistol is counted out of the calculation, in any case the pistol could use precise shots to dispatch pretty much any individual but otherwise the combat with the flood needed to be much more mobile and one of the reasons for that were the unreliability of melee as an option.

And the flood in Halo 3, definitely too easy to deal with, but I don’t think the melee output itself were to be blamed of it, at least alone, in usual missions (except “Cortana”) the flood were in a bit too much open & in your face positions, they lacked proper ambush methods & hiding places in common encounters. Otherwise, the carcasses were a bit too easy to dispatch with usually 1-2 punches destroying the shell of the combat form entirely, this could be fixed with increased numbers or faster regen rate.
Obviously in that case, the ammo should be thought of but I never really felt that it would have been a problem in Halo 3, whereas in Halo Combat Evolved I occasionally started to run dry on shotgun ammo in “Library”.

So, I would see that there were many problems beside melee damage in Halo 3 as reasons as to why flood were such a pushover in Halo 3.
But I can also see gameplay value of being only able to stun flood with the standard melee. It could be viable option in my eyes & would be truer to the “S” in FPS than melee kills against flood but on the other hand some more regular forms seem too frail as rotting carcasses with exposed “popcorn heart” to not being able to be punched to death, bigger/different forms would be their own thing alltogether, like the Tank form as an example. That I could see as something I wouldn’t be able to punch to death in reasonable amount of time before being overwhelmed by other flood forms.
On a side note, Tank was definitely another underpowered thing, it took less punches to the face than regular flood combat form in Halo Combat Evolved.

6

> 2533274819446242;3:
> Standard Melee attacks should be one of the least effective ways to deal with the flood. The only melee attacks that should be doing real damage are hammer/sword/hardlight as well as any weapons with a bayonet ala Brute Shot/Spiker/Mauler.
>
> At most I could see a small push back from standard melee just to get Flood off of you.
>
> The entire reason the Flood worked for me in CE is that they required a very different set of tactics to defeat from the Covenant. The Flood were all about crowd control compared to the more precise and methodical way you deal with various Covenant. When you make them vulnerable to melee and headshots like they are in Halo 3 they become trivial to deal with and don’t require you to change up your tactics whatsoever. This makes all the levels involving them more of a chore than anything else(it also doesn’t help you never have any Player v Flood v Covenant encounters in Halo 3 to help liven things up).

I agree. CE Flood required different strategies that proved unefficient for the Covenant. As you said, Halo 3 combat forms became easier and trivial to deal with to the point it’s not an interesting fight anymore.

Flood vs Covenant was also cool and helpful in Halo CE, and I think there were some of those encounters in a Halo 2 encounter mission but with marines (useless, though).

If they return, I’d like them to remain the same, but with the addition of the new forms such as that spider or the weak Hunter that seems challenging and entertaining at times without sacrifying enemies differences. However, it should be pointed out that they were to easy to beat with a Shotgun, I preferred the Halo 2 balance for that matter.

7

> 2533274890014309;5:
> > 2533274819446242;3:
> > Standard Melee attacks should be one of the least effective ways to deal with the flood. The only melee attacks that should be doing real damage are hammer/sword/hardlight as well as any weapons with a bayonet ala Brute Shot/Spiker/Mauler.
> >
> > At most I could see a small push back from standard melee just to get Flood off of you.
> >
> > The entire reason the Flood worked for me in CE is that they required a very different set of tactics to defeat from the Covenant. The Flood were all about crowd control compared to the more precise and methodical way you deal with various Covenant. When you make them vulnerable to melee and headshots like they are in Halo 3 they become trivial to deal with and don’t require you to change up your tactics whatsoever. This makes all the levels involving them more of a chore than anything else(it also doesn’t help you never have any Player v Flood v Covenant encounters in Halo 3 to help liven things up).
>
> I get differing tactics in Halo Combat Evolved when the pistol is counted out of the calculation, in any case the pistol could use precise shots to dispatch pretty much any individual but otherwise the combat with the flood needed to be much more mobile and one of the reasons for that were the unreliability of melee as an option.

Um, there are various options when the Pistol is included in the calculation… Outside of bugged Hunters, the Pistol isn’t any more powerful than anything else, versatile, but not the only option and especially not always the best option. The point is how you approach dealing with the Covenant in CE is fundamentally different from how approach dealing with the Flood. CE spends the first half of the game teaching you how systematically take down groups of Covenant whether its via melee, headshots, or combinations of weaponry and then it turns the entire game on its head. You no longer have the luxury of picking apart an organized group of enemies, you need to deal with waves of enemies as quickly and efficiently as possible for fear of getting overrun and the fact you are unable to simply punch your way out of that situation is important.

> And the flood in Halo 3, definitely too easy to deal with, but I don’t think the melee output itself were to be blamed of it, at least alone, in usual missions (except “Cortana”) the flood were in a bit too much open & in your face positions, they lacked proper ambush methods & hiding places in common encounters. Otherwise, the carcasses were a bit too easy to dispatch with usually 1-2 punches destroying the shell of the combat form entirely, this could be fixed with increased numbers or faster regen rate.
> Obviously in that case, the ammo should be thought of but I never really felt that it would have been a problem in Halo 3, whereas in Halo Combat Evolved I occasionally started to run dry on shotgun ammo in “Library”.

I never said it was the sole cause, but it is an important one. Being able to not only kill but outright destroy combat forms(as well as dispatching 2/3rds of pure forms) in a single standard melee removes part of what makes fighting the Flood interesting(to me at least). The interesting additions like tying combat form revival to infection forms is rendered moot when there are rarely any intact bodies left regardless of the tactics the player uses. Likewise the threat of running out of ammo should be a threat, but honestly running out of Shotgun ammo in CE would be something I had to go out of my way to do. More importantly the only reason it isn’t a problem in Halo 3 despite having far less ammo to go around on average than CE is once again because all the same tactics you use against the Covenant are just as viable now.

> So, I would see that there were many problems beside melee damage in Halo 3 as reasons as to why flood were such a pushover in Halo 3.
> But I can also see gameplay value of being only able to stun flood with the standard melee. It could be viable option in my eyes & would be truer to the “S” in FPS than melee kills against flood but on the other hand some more regular forms seem too frail as rotting carcasses with exposed “popcorn heart” to not being able to be punched to death, bigger/different forms would be their own thing alltogether, like the Tank form as an example. That I could see as something I wouldn’t be able to punch to death in reasonable amount of time before being overwhelmed by other flood forms.
> On a side note, Tank was definitely another underpowered thing, it took less punches to the face than regular flood combat form in Halo Combat Evolved.

I can’t really agree with whole “rotting carcasses with exposed popcorn heart” given basically everything we know about the Flood, but putting that aside ultimately I would rather see various factions require different approaches than worry about specific lore concerns. Halo is at its best when there are a variety of enemies that don’t allow you to just sit in your comfort zone for the entirety of the experience. Keeping Flood forms from being easily dispatched by standard melee attacks is part of that.

8

> 2533274819446242;7:
> > 2533274890014309;5:
> > > 2533274819446242;3:
> > >
>
> Um, there are various options when the Pistol is included in the calculation… Outside of bugged Hunters, the Pistol isn’t any more powerful than anything else, versatile, but not the only option and especially not always the best option. The point is how you approach dealing with the Covenant in CE is fundamentally different from how approach dealing with the Flood. CE spends the first half of the game teaching you how systematically take down groups of Covenant whether its via melee, headshots, or combinations of weaponry and then it turns the entire game on its head. You no longer have the luxury of picking apart an organized group of enemies, you need to deal with waves of enemies as quickly and efficiently as possible for fear of getting overrun and the fact you are unable to simply punch your way out of that situation is important.

The pistol was just powerful & versatile enough that it would be pretty much part of each loadout, with the covenant, shoot to the head, once for most variations, with the flood, shoot the infection form on the chest, which in reality would be even easier since head moves while chest area is pretty stable in movement center of mass.
But in any case, both went down similarly with similar tactics, shoot the 1 weakpoint when they appear on screen.
Though otherwise the tactics were different, as i mentioned, with the flood the tactics are much more mobile implying the closing in horde aspect.
But as for how it goes for melee, there could be a middle ground between completely inefficient & one hit kill, even if a singular combat form would go down relatively quickly, that locks the player in one-on-one combat which allows other flood to close the distance.
The question then is, how many combat forms would it take to take down the player character in cqc situation? The variable could definitely be about the number of flood in the game, the rest is just balancing ammo situation.
As in, a type of glass-cannon mechanic for flood in cqc, it deals damage but it also takes damage.
With the flood, the usual concept seems to be their numbers instead of individual provess, in the case of going against a SPARTAN at least. For allies are really vulnerable to them aswell.

> > I never said it was the sole cause, but it is an important one. Being able to not only kill but outright destroy combat forms(as well as dispatching 2/3rds of pure forms) in a single standard melee removes part of what makes fighting the Flood interesting(to me at least). The interesting additions like tying combat form revival to infection forms is rendered moot when there are rarely any intact bodies left regardless of the tactics the player uses. Likewise the threat of running out of ammo should be a threat, but honestly running out of Shotgun ammo in CE would be something I had to go out of my way to do. More importantly the only reason it isn’t a problem in Halo 3 despite having far less ammo to go around on average than CE is once again because all the same tactics you use against the Covenant are just as viable now.

Indeed you didn’t which was my misinterpretation of being implementation in “When you make them vulnerable to melee and headshots like they are in Halo 3 they become trivial to deal with” which is part of the original reply since it was the only reason provided for flood becoming trivial.
Though on the flipside, I didn’t claim it would have been unimportant one as partial reason.

And I did also mention the easily destroyable bodies in Halo 3 and mentioned after that about the increased numbers of the flood as a way to lessen the breathing time for the player in which time they commonly use to destroy corpses.

So definitely many factors, including overpowered punches, which I implied with underpowered Tank forms at the end of original reply to your original comment. But yet again, there could be something between 1-hit kill & complete inefficiency.

> > I can’t really agree with whole “rotting carcasses with exposed popcorn heart” given basically everything we know about the Flood, but putting that aside ultimately I would rather see various factions require different approaches than worry about specific lore concerns. Halo is at its best when there are a variety of enemies that don’t allow you to just sit in your comfort zone for the entirety of the experience. Keeping Flood forms from being easily dispatched by standard melee attacks is part of that.

So, the base example (as mentioned in the topic description) is the combat form, I don’t really get how it’s not sometype of impression that could fit the image of a combat form given they are partly distorted corpses of before living beings with exposed infection form controlling the said corpse.
Infection form, AKA, the same type of enemy Chief crushed in his hand in Halo 2 after he took it off the throat of prophet of mercy.
Which led to such expression, clearly a corpse with exposed weakpoint.

And obviously the lore could be stretched a bit in favor of gameplay given modern mechanics cant perfectly recreate lore-friendly gameplay in any case, one of the most notable thing is AI which has traditionally been compensated with HP type adjustments.

But what I would hope from the flood faction is that the while there could be possibility to take down bweaker, basic forms with melee (not 1-hit kill) there would be different variations that could truly take some punches like the Tank form which could be pretty much invulnerable to melee.

And as I mentioned above, glass cannon type could work with the floods horde & ambush tactics, the rest is just mathematics of how many flood slashes player could take, how many combat forms would overpower a player in cqc situation, how many combat forms are in map, how many punches would combat form take, any differing advanced mechanics to it (like unarmed flood using the shooting arm to cover the infection form) and so forth.

A line between completely ineffective & completely overpowered.

Not Halo 2 type, not Halo 3 type, but something better achieved with available mechanics.

With varying available mechanics (resurrection, covering weakpoints…), environmental designs (ambush spots, blind corners…), AI decisions (faking death, general aggression…) & plain simple mathematical designs (ratio between the number of flood, effectiveness of flood, effectiveness of SPARTAN, available ammo…) the flood encounters can be made better while including a melee option, which would include a mathematical risk while rewarding saved ammo for possible later large encounter, it could IMO show the horror of flood as the horde faction while including the individual battle-provess of a SPARTAN.

9

> 2533274890014309;8:
> The pistol was just powerful & versatile enough that it would be pretty much part of each loadout, with the covenant, shoot to the head, once for most variations, with the flood, shoot the infection form on the chest, which in reality would be even easier since head moves while chest area is pretty stable in movement center of mass.

In any other game I would agree with you that the utility headshot weapon is part of just about every loadout, but it simply isn’t the case in CE. Moreover in CE you don’t have Flood “headshots” which is already half the reason you might keep a Pistol in the first place and while it might be fine for individual combat forms it just doesn’t have the same ability for crowd control to make it indispensable. Even when fighting the Covenant it isn’t nearly as efficient as later precision weapon of the same type.

> But in any case, both went down similarly with similar tactics, shoot the 1 weakpoint when they appear on screen.
> Though otherwise the tactics were different, as i mentioned, with the flood the tactics are much more mobile implying the closing in horde aspect.
> But as for how it goes for melee, there could be a middle ground between completely inefficient & one hit kill, even if a singular combat form would go down relatively quickly, that locks the player in one-on-one combat which allows other flood to close the distance.
> The question then is, how many combat forms would it take to take down the player character in cqc situation? The variable could definitely be about the number of flood in the game, the rest is just balancing ammo situation.
> As in, a type of glass-cannon mechanic for flood in cqc, it deals damage but it also takes damage.
> With the flood, the usual concept seems to be their numbers instead of individual provess, in the case of going against a SPARTAN at least. For allies are really vulnerable to them aswell.

Again, CE doesn’t have that “1 weakpoint” when it comes to the Flood and that is something I’ve come to appreciate. Just about every Covenant enemy in the series has a way they can be dropped instantly whether from a headshot or melee/backwack, the Flood don’t have those same loopholes. The price you pay for the Floods simple behavior and generally low health is that your only option is to fill with lead until they fall down.

I think feel like having a varied sandbox that allows for both dedicated melee weapons to be effective as well as more conventional weapons with bayonets ala Spiker, along with a push back rather than doing any serious damage, fills that middle ground nicely. Covenant don’t all drop from a single frontal melee either, so even bringing up to a few melee stikes to kill doesn’t really change the problem.

> [So, the base example (as mentioned in the topic description) is the combat form, I don’t really get how it’s not sometype of impression that could fit the image of a combat form given they are partly distorted corpses of before living beings with exposed infection form controlling the said corpse.
> Infection form, AKA, the same type of enemy Chief crushed in his hand in Halo 2 after he took it off the throat of prophet of mercy.
> Which led to such expression, clearly a corpse with exposed weakpoint.

I try not to get bogged down in lore discussion when talking about game mechcanics, but the fact they use dead tissue doesn’t make them “rotting carcasses” when the entirety of is very much living flood tissue utilizing a mostly already existing shape. At most in later games you can destroy its “brain” for lack of a better term, but again that doesn’t mean that punching it the gut is going to do anything when there are not any other bones to break or internal organs to damage. Not to mention that their calcium obsession probably makes them a tittle more durable as well. Long story short, are already good lore reasons why melee attacks might not be so effective. “The Flood, it has evolved.”

> And obviously the lore could be stretched a bit in favor of gameplay given modern mechanics cant perfectly recreate lore-friendly gameplay in any case, one of the most notable thing is AI which has traditionally been compensated with HP type adjustments.
>
> But what I would hope from the flood faction is that the while there could be possibility to take down bweaker, basic forms with melee (not 1-hit kill) there would be different variations that could truly take some punches like the Tank form which could be pretty much invulnerable to melee.

There isn’t any need to “stretch” the lore when is can easily change on a whim. I’m not really so bothered by the lore as I am by the gameplay changes undermining what I think is core to the faction as a whole. Making only some types more or less vulnerable to standard melee(or headshots for that matter) turns them from a unique force in their own right to one that is just one more enemy type among all the rest.

> And as I mentioned above, glass cannon type could work with the floods horde & ambush tactics, the rest is just mathematics of how many flood slashes player could take, how many combat forms would overpower a player in cqc situation, how many combat forms are in map, how many punches would combat form take, any differing advanced mechanics to it (like unarmed flood using the shooting arm to cover the infection form) and so forth.
>
> A line between completely ineffective & completely overpowered.
>
> Not Halo 2 type, not Halo 3 type, but something better achieved with available mechanics.
>
> With varying available mechanics (resurrection, covering weakpoints…), environmental designs (ambush spots, blind corners…), AI decisions (faking death, general aggression…) & plain simple mathematical designs (ratio between the number of flood, effectiveness of flood, effectiveness of SPARTAN, available ammo…) the flood encounters can be made better while including a melee option, which would include a mathematical risk while rewarding saved ammo for possible later large encounter, it could IMO show the horror of flood as the horde faction while including the individual battle-provess of a SPARTAN.

See again, I feel like trying to give the Flood this special depth with “weakpoints” kind of misses the point that they already have a gameplay “weakness” in that they are straightforward and dumb. You trade in the reward for outplaying the Covenant for pure instinct and reaction time. And even then, I don’t think that the Flood are really something that could or even should have the depth to stand on their own. Despite enjoying fighting the Flood in CE for the change of pace, I think there is a good reason why you only fight them solo once in the Library, by their nature they just work better when placed in the middle of the fight with another more complex faction.

10

> 2533274819446242;9:
> > 2533274890014309;8:
> >
>
> In any other game I would agree with you that the utility headshot weapon is part of just about every loadout, but it simply isn’t the case in CE. Moreover in CE you don’t have Flood “headshots” which is already half the reason you might keep a Pistol in the first place and while it might be fine for individual combat forms it just doesn’t have the same ability for crowd control to make it indispensable. Even when fighting the Covenant it isn’t nearly as efficient as later precision weapon of the same type.
>
>
> >
>
> Again, CE doesn’t have that “1 weakpoint” when it comes to the Flood and that is something I’ve come to appreciate. Just about every Covenant enemy in the series has a way they can be dropped instantly whether from a headshot or melee/backwack, the Flood don’t have those same loopholes. The price you pay for the Floods simple behavior and generally low health is that your only option is to fill with lead until they fall down.
>
> I think feel like having a varied sandbox that allows for both dedicated melee weapons to be effective as well as more conventional weapons with bayonets ala Spiker, along with a push back rather than doing any serious damage, fills that middle ground nicely. Covenant don’t all drop from a single frontal melee either, so even bringing up to a few melee stikes to kill doesn’t really change the problem.
>
>
> >
>
> I try not to get bogged down in lore discussion when talking about game mechcanics, but the fact they use dead tissue doesn’t make them “rotting carcasses” when the entirety of is very much living flood tissue utilizing a mostly already existing shape. At most in later games you can destroy its “brain” for lack of a better term, but again that doesn’t mean that punching it the gut is going to do anything when there are not any other bones to break or internal organs to damage. Not to mention that their calcium obsession probably makes them a tittle more durable as well. Long story short, are already good lore reasons why melee attacks might not be so effective. “The Flood, it has evolved.”
>
>
> >
>
> There isn’t any need to “stretch” the lore when is can easily change on a whim. I’m not really so bothered by the lore as I am by the gameplay changes undermining what I think is core to the faction as a whole. Making only some types more or less vulnerable to standard melee(or headshots for that matter) turns them from a unique force in their own right to one that is just one more enemy type among all the rest.
>
>
> >
>
> See again, I feel like trying to give the Flood this special depth with “weakpoints” kind of misses the point that they already have a gameplay “weakness” in that they are straightforward and dumb. You trade in the reward for outplaying the Covenant for pure instinct and reaction time. And even then, I don’t think that the Flood are really something that could or even should have the depth to stand on their own. Despite enjoying fighting the Flood in CE for the change of pace, I think there is a good reason why you only fight them solo once in the Library, by their nature they just work better when placed in the middle of the fight with another more complex faction.

Pistol might not be as effective against flood as shotgun is but basically those are the 2 weapons most people seem to keep when fighting the flood in Halo Combat Evolved, and when fighting the covenant, it’s usually pistol + plasma weapon, likely the plasma pistol given it’s incredible target seeking abilities with charged shot.
And shooting something multiple times with the pistol is something that elites & flood share, the difference in other weakness is backsmack for elites & 1 shotgun blast to the face for flood.
Not saying it’s the same tactic with the flood & the covenant, I mentioned horde & ambush tactics of the flood before, but with the pistol it just gets really a bit too similar when comparing ranged flood & elites.

And I don’t still get the referred problem when melee would be more of a backup tactic against 1-2 stragglers or occasional flood that got too far from others to conserve ammo.

And so the rotting part was the problem, it was meant more as a figurative description of it’s external look rather than literal description of the function of the flood. Though I don’t see the “popcorn heart” being included in it anymore which you seemed to replace with “brain”, and the former was expression of a weakpoint located around the area of the heart with “popcorn” being a reference to frail infection form occasionally referred as “popcorn”. And the “brain” could be occasionally fine too except when gravemind is present, but like you said, let’s not get bogged down to lore discussion. About terminology for the least.

And I don’t think punching a combat form in the gut would do much but I think that a punch of a SPARTAN could do some damage against that exposed infection form in the middle part much like infection forms can be disposed off with melee outside of combat forms. Though that also doesn’t mean that they would be one shot killed either, as I mentioned before of the combat forms using arm to protect the infection form as one example of adding durability.

And im not sure of as to why would being able to kill flood with punches (note, more than 1) would remove from their uniqueness even in gameplay perspective given their unique tactics. It would just enhance the importance of ammo & strenght of possible stronger variations of the flood.

And flood, straightforward and dumb? Maybe at the beginning of infection but flood is supposed to gain intelligence when it spreads resulting in actual tactics fitting of their strengths like the mentioned ambushes, the straightforward & dumb ones likely are a form of distraction at that point.
Now making floods weakness being dumb seems like undermining factor to me rather than being able to melee (still meaning more than 1 hit on combat forms) occasional straggler or loner.

Though I agree on flood working best when multiple factions are present, I dont get as to why would that be an obstacle for making the flood interesting to fight in itself with melee ability as part of things enchancing the horde aspect of the flood where enough of them can easily overpower even strongest individual fighter if they let them close enough without making each individual flood stronger in 1v1 cqc fight than strongest infantry combatant from human factions.

11

I like the idea of melee not being very effective against Flood, basically an enemy you NEED to shoot. Maybe melee could be used as more of a brief stun to get them off you rather than something that would do a lot of damage. On normal I would say maybe 10 to kill them with melee and 5 to kill you (3 for shields and 2 for health).

12

> 2533275031939856;11:
> I like the idea of melee not being very effective against Flood, basically an enemy you NEED to shoot. Maybe melee could be used as more of a brief stun to get them off you rather than something that would do a lot of damage. On normal I would say maybe 10 to kill them with melee and 5 to kill you (3 for shields and 2 for health).

So basically, a possibility along the lines of Halo Combat Evolved? Interestingly though, by those numbers an individual combat form would outclass an armored SPARTAN in melee battle instead of killing the player (without ammo for example) requiring something like 2-3 flood combat forms as part of the horde tactics.

Though there is the side of not being able to melee them that would lead to having to skip some enemies if there is a minor horror aspect of relatively scarce ammunition in a lack of means to fend off even single one of them in the battle situation or even likely punch one out of the way in a tight hallway.

I keep the “stun” possibility as one of the best possibilities for recurring flood but I also see possibility for more needs to restart a level because of some unwelcome checkpoint.

So far, no one hopes for Halo 3 type of flood (luckily) though some hopes for Halo Combat Evolved type or even more resistant than Halo 2 (apparently) which seems interesting to me.

Though if flood has old type mechanics, even I hope it’s more alongside of Halo Combat Evolved & not Halo 3, Halo 2 would be sort of not as bad as Halo 3 but not as good as Halo Combat Evolved type when it comes to melee options compared to other mechanics.

Though infection form in chest area (or mouth) just seems rather exposed as known enemy of being easily punchable, the “health” would be upped by flood covering the spot with the “weak” arm when shot at or when punched at.

And even though I dont write it after each comment, it’s good to have variation in comments that bring out some points that would make a gameplay aspect better, in multiple different ways.

13

> 2533274890014309;12:
> > 2533275031939856;11:
> > I like the idea of melee not being very effective against Flood, basically an enemy you NEED to shoot. Maybe melee could be used as more of a brief stun to get them off you rather than something that would do a lot of damage. On normal I would say maybe 10 to kill them with melee and 5 to kill you (3 for shields and 2 for health).
>
> So basically, a possibility along the lines of Halo Combat Evolved? Interestingly though, by those numbers an individual combat form would outclass an armored SPARTAN in melee battle instead of killing the player (without ammo for example) requiring something like 2-3 flood combat forms as part of the horde tactics.
>
> Though there is the side of not being able to melee them that would lead to having to skip some enemies if there is a minor horror aspect of relatively scarce ammunition in a lack of means to fend off even single one of them in the battle situation or even likely punch one out of the way in a tight hallway.
>
> I keep the “stun” possibility as one of the best possibilities for recurring flood but I also see possibility for more needs to restart a level because of some unwelcome checkpoint.
>
> So far, no one hopes for Halo 3 type of flood (luckily) though some hopes for Halo Combat Evolved type or even more resistant than Halo 2 (apparently) which seems interesting to me.
>
> Though if flood has old type mechanics, even I hope it’s more alongside of Halo Combat Evolved & not Halo 3, Halo 2 would be sort of not as bad as Halo 3 but not as good as Halo Combat Evolved type when it comes to melee options compared to other mechanics.
>
> Though infection form in chest area (or mouth) just seems rather exposed as known enemy of being easily punchable, the “health” would be upped by flood covering the spot with the “weak” arm when shot at or when punched at.
>
> And even though I dont write it after each comment, it’s good to have variation in comments that bring out some points that would make a gameplay aspect better, in multiple different ways.

If they went with my system of essentially needing a gun to kill them there’d definitely have to be a ton of ammo around, would suck to run out and have to restart.

14

> 2533275031939856;13:
> > 2533274890014309;12:
> > > 2533275031939856;11:
> > > I like the idea of melee not being very effective against Flood, basically an enemy you NEED to shoot. Maybe melee could be used as more of a brief stun to get them off you rather than something that would do a lot of damage. On normal I would say maybe 10 to kill them with melee and 5 to kill you (3 for shields and 2 for health).
> >
> > So basically, a possibility along the lines of Halo Combat Evolved? Interestingly though, by those numbers an individual combat form would outclass an armored SPARTAN in melee battle instead of killing the player (without ammo for example) requiring something like 2-3 flood combat forms as part of the horde tactics.
> >
> > Though there is the side of not being able to melee them that would lead to having to skip some enemies if there is a minor horror aspect of relatively scarce ammunition in a lack of means to fend off even single one of them in the battle situation or even likely punch one out of the way in a tight hallway.
> >
> > I keep the “stun” possibility as one of the best possibilities for recurring flood but I also see possibility for more needs to restart a level because of some unwelcome checkpoint.
> >
> > So far, no one hopes for Halo 3 type of flood (luckily) though some hopes for Halo Combat Evolved type or even more resistant than Halo 2 (apparently) which seems interesting to me.
> >
> > Though if flood has old type mechanics, even I hope it’s more alongside of Halo Combat Evolved & not Halo 3, Halo 2 would be sort of not as bad as Halo 3 but not as good as Halo Combat Evolved type when it comes to melee options compared to other mechanics.
> >
> > Though infection form in chest area (or mouth) just seems rather exposed as known enemy of being easily punchable, the “health” would be upped by flood covering the spot with the “weak” arm when shot at or when punched at.
> >
> > And even though I dont write it after each comment, it’s good to have variation in comments that bring out some points that would make a gameplay aspect better, in multiple different ways.
>
> If they went with my system of essentially needing a gun to kill them there’d definitely have to be a ton of ammo around, would suck to run out and have to restart.

Definitely, but I would prefer the focus on strenght in numbers combat forms against player & a bit of horror aspect of scarce ammo.

Which would mean glasscannon mechanics, few hits (like 3) to kill a flood while individual flood combat form could kill player in few hits (more than player) but in groups flood could easily take on player on close combat, especially with their usual ranged support which would mean requirement of at least thinning the herd for the very least with your ranged options. Melee could work on stragglers & loners while also possibly giving a chance to continue in anykind of environment without ammo in a way that you have a chance to kill the next flood with melee to acquire its gun or if some flood is stuck in environment, blocking the way you can dispose of it, in situations when there is a bad checkpoint & other flood are chasing you.
Rare occasions but avoidable.

But requiring gun to kill them would also result in run’n’gun situations, if one enjoys them more than suspense situations with scarce ammo. Even them such skipping enemies situations can be manipulated by having parts with infinitely respawning enemies, such as in the library in Halo Combat Evolved with occasional “pipes”?

It’s just way I prefer it, having a last resort option, means to save ammo for large encounters by punching stragglers/loners, occasional possibility of failsafe with bad checkpoints and so on while still having more easily designed scarce ammo & possibility of getting overpowered without fast mobile tactics with quick trigger finger.
Just something I think works for the flood.

15

> 2533274890014309;14:
> > 2533275031939856;13:
> > > 2533274890014309;12:
> > > > 2533275031939856;11:
> > > > I like the idea of melee not being very effective against Flood, basically an enemy you NEED to shoot. Maybe melee could be used as more of a brief stun to get them off you rather than something that would do a lot of damage. On normal I would say maybe 10 to kill them with melee and 5 to kill you (3 for shields and 2 for health).
> > >
> > > So basically, a possibility along the lines of Halo Combat Evolved? Interestingly though, by those numbers an individual combat form would outclass an armored SPARTAN in melee battle instead of killing the player (without ammo for example) requiring something like 2-3 flood combat forms as part of the horde tactics.
> > >
> > > Though there is the side of not being able to melee them that would lead to having to skip some enemies if there is a minor horror aspect of relatively scarce ammunition in a lack of means to fend off even single one of them in the battle situation or even likely punch one out of the way in a tight hallway.
> > >
> > > I keep the “stun” possibility as one of the best possibilities for recurring flood but I also see possibility for more needs to restart a level because of some unwelcome checkpoint.
> > >
> > > So far, no one hopes for Halo 3 type of flood (luckily) though some hopes for Halo Combat Evolved type or even more resistant than Halo 2 (apparently) which seems interesting to me.
> > >
> > > Though if flood has old type mechanics, even I hope it’s more alongside of Halo Combat Evolved & not Halo 3, Halo 2 would be sort of not as bad as Halo 3 but not as good as Halo Combat Evolved type when it comes to melee options compared to other mechanics.
> > >
> > > Though infection form in chest area (or mouth) just seems rather exposed as known enemy of being easily punchable, the “health” would be upped by flood covering the spot with the “weak” arm when shot at or when punched at.
> > >
> > > And even though I dont write it after each comment, it’s good to have variation in comments that bring out some points that would make a gameplay aspect better, in multiple different ways.
> >
> > If they went with my system of essentially needing a gun to kill them there’d definitely have to be a ton of ammo around, would suck to run out and have to restart.
>
> Definitely, but I would prefer the focus on strenght in numbers combat forms against player & a bit of horror aspect of scarce ammo.
>
> Which would mean glasscannon mechanics, few hits (like 3) to kill a flood while individual flood combat form could kill player in few hits (more than player) but in groups flood could easily take on player on close combat, especially with their usual ranged support which would mean requirement of at least thinning the herd for the very least with your ranged options. Melee could work on stragglers & loners while also possibly giving a chance to continue in anykind of environment without ammo in a way that you have a chance to kill the next flood with melee to acquire its gun or if some flood is stuck in environment, blocking the way you can dispose of it, in situations when there is a bad checkpoint & other flood are chasing you.
> Rare occasions but avoidable.
>
> But requiring gun to kill them would also result in run’n’gun situations, if one enjoys them more than suspense situations with scarce ammo. Even them such skipping enemies situations can be manipulated by having parts with infinitely respawning enemies, such as in the library in Halo Combat Evolved with occasional “pipes”?
>
> It’s just way I prefer it, having a last resort option, means to save ammo for large encounters by punching stragglers/loners, occasional possibility of failsafe with bad checkpoints and so on while still having more easily designed scarce ammo & possibility of getting overpowered without fast mobile tactics with quick trigger finger.
> Just something I think works for the flood.

I would be completely fine with that way as well

16

> 2533274890014309;10:
> Pistol might not be as effective against flood as shotgun is but basically those are the 2 weapons most people seem to keep when fighting the flood in Halo Combat Evolved, and when fighting the covenant, it’s usually pistol + plasma weapon, likely the plasma pistol given it’s incredible target seeking abilities with charged shot.
> And shooting something multiple times with the pistol is something that elites & flood share, the difference in other weakness is backsmack for elites & 1 shotgun blast to the face for flood.
> Not saying it’s the same tactic with the flood & the covenant, I mentioned horde & ambush tactics of the flood before, but with the pistol it just gets really a bit too similar when comparing ranged flood & elites.

Who is “most people?” Simply having to option to continue using an inherently versatile weapon does not make it the go to choice at, the bottom line is although the Pistol is just about always good with single targets, fighting the Flood isn’t about single targets, which makes far from essential as a Flood fighting tool. Likewise it is still inferior to the Plasma weapons for things like shield stripping and the previously mentioned crowd control. My issue is that you were framing the Pistol as a balance outlier when it is simply another useful tool among other useful tools. It is a bit of a pet peeve of mine when folks try to dismiss the balance of CE, especially when it comes to the Pistol.

> And I don’t still get the referred problem when melee would be more of a backup tactic against 1-2 stragglers or occasional flood that got too far from others to conserve ammo.

Because its like saying projectile weapons should be more effective against shields because sometimes you want to conserve your plasma ammo. It completely misses the point of the design in the first place.

> And so the rotting part was the problem, it was meant more as a figurative description of it’s external look rather than literal description of the function of the flood. Though I don’t see the “popcorn heart” being included in it anymore which you seemed to replace with “brain”, and the former was expression of a weakpoint located around the area of the heart with “popcorn” being a reference to frail infection form occasionally referred as “popcorn”. And the “brain” could be occasionally fine too except when gravemind is present, but like you said, let’s not get bogged down to lore discussion. About terminology for the least.
>
> And I don’t think punching a combat form in the gut would do much but I think that a punch of a SPARTAN could do some damage against that exposed infection form in the middle part much like infection forms can be disposed off with melee outside of combat forms. Though that also doesn’t mean that they would be one shot killed either, as I mentioned before of the combat forms using arm to protect the infection form as one example of adding durability.

My issue with that description is that is relies on the “infection form weakpoint” introduced in later games which is one of the big issues I have with later Flood encounters. Moreover that wasn’t really part of the lore in CE and could easily be changed. I find it hard to argue that “melee should do meaningful damage because because the infection form is a weakpoint” when that doesn’t have to be the case. I fundamentally disagree with the notion they need a specific weakpoint like the Covenant do. Flood don’t have bones to break, organs to crush, blunt force just isn’t going to be as effective.

> And im not sure of as to why would being able to kill flood with punches (note, more than 1) would remove from their uniqueness even in gameplay perspective given their unique tactics. It would just enhance the importance of ammo & strenght of possible stronger variations of the flood.

Because it makes them less of a threat and the majority of their tactics involve running straight at you. Being able to punch your way out even if it is multiple hits removes a lot of the tension of being surrounded. I’m less interested in the tactics of the Flood themselves than how players actually deal with them. I don’t think it makes the game more interesting to go from getting headshots and punching aliens in the face to still just getting headshots(or hitting “weakpoints”) and punching aliens in the “face.”

Frankly I’m not sure why swords, hammers, and bayonets wouldn’t be enough to give players melee options without messing with the Flood as a whole. Bullets are not as effective against shields, plasma is not as effective against flesh, and melee is not as effective against the Flood, I don’t understand why this is a problem.

> And flood, straightforward and dumb? Maybe at the beginning of infection but flood is supposed to gain intelligence when it spreads resulting in actual tactics fitting of their strengths like the mentioned ambushes, the straightforward & dumb ones likely are a form of distraction at that point.
> Now making floods weakness being dumb seems like undermining factor to me rather than being able to melee (still meaning more than 1 hit on combat forms) occasional straggler or loner.

In gameplay terms, yes, they absolutely are. The more clever tactics of the Flood in the lore only really present in the macro scale and even then, they still inherently rely on swarm tactics. And again on the gameplay side while we do see hints at greater intelligence they still live up to their name. The point of the Flood isn’t to be an equal branch of gameplay, its to shake you out of your comfort zone.

> Though I agree on flood working best when multiple factions are present, I dont get as to why would that be an obstacle for making the flood interesting to fight in itself with melee ability as part of things enchancing the horde aspect of the flood where enough of them can easily overpower even strongest individual fighter if they let them close enough without making each individual flood stronger in 1v1 cqc fight than strongest infantry combatant from human factions.

It is because I already found the Flood interesting to fight in itself. I just recognize that as much as I love the run and gun nature of the CE Flood, I just don’t think you can give them the staying power that more complicated enemies like the Covenant without removing much of their identity. When I can just headshot basic forms just like any other enemy or beat down combat forms in a few hits just like any other enemy, they cease being “The Flood” and become “any other enemy” only dumber than the rest.

17

> 2533274819446242;16:
> > 2533274890014309;10:
> >
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >
>
> In gameplay terms, yes, they absolutely are. The more clever tactics of the Flood in the lore only really present in the macro scale and even then, they still inherently rely on swarm tactics. And again on the gameplay side while we do see hints at greater intelligence they still live up to their name. The point of the Flood isn’t to be an equal branch of gameplay, its to shake you out of your comfort zone.
>
>
> >
>
> It is because I already found the Flood interesting to fight in itself. I just recognize that as much as I love the run and gun nature of the CE Flood, I just don’t think you can give them the staying power that more complicated enemies like the Covenant without removing much of their identity. When I can just headshot basic forms just like any other enemy or beat down combat forms in a few hits just like any other enemy, they cease being “The Flood” and become “any other enemy” only dumber than the rest.

Pretty much anyone I know who plays Halo Combat Evolved + pretty much any speddrunner that matters uses such combination (shotgun+pistol with pistol usually as the second best option as backup) in flood only level (ie, Library) in their rather mobile tactics.
And when I occasionally use more conventional routes in library it’s really easy to take down most groups of flood on legendary (around 5 usually though obviously the shotgun is number 1 there).
The pistol might not be that overpowered that it would be the best in every situation but the reason why it’s part of pretty much (not all) loadout is because it’s either second best thing or pairs well with something when it’s not the best.
And plasma weapons are best against shields, hence it’s the other part of the noob combo but it’s projectile speed really makes it questionable choice when fighting agile flood forms on groups.

And I don’t think that comparing conserving plasma ammo by making projectile ammo more effective against shields better is really anything like comparing even the ability to melee with depletable ranged options.
On the other comparison both are depletable resources with their own strenghts with shared edge of range.
The other comparison is about taking a conscious risk of losing HP or dying to conserve valuable ranged resources for later encounter by using the more ineffective (but still kind of viable) option with it’s risks going close proximity of glass-cannon type melee focused enemy where player should really make sure there is no ambush waiting.

But the infection form is also visible in Halo Combat Evolved, it’s visual, not a written thing. Though obviously gameplay can stretch lore bit in other aspects of the gane aswell, wouldn’t be the first thing given AI isn’t perfect.
So we can focus on gameplay points then.

And I don’t get how would it make flood less of a threat by their strong aspects, even if you can win 1v1 or even 1v2 cqc fight it doesn’t remove the horde aspect of the flood, im not proposing anything Halo 3 like but something nearly Halo Combat Evolved type with the amount of required hits scaled down a bit. That means melee wouldn’t still be dominant strategy in any shape or form.
And the horde aspect obviously is that if player instantly chooses to melee flood forms without thinning the herd to loner or far between straglers the rest of the flood could close the distance while player is focused on meleeing one form creating situation where they get surrounded while simultaneously likely being shot at.
So gunplay would be required in most cases but there would be that risky option or even a last chance if ammo was wasted like infinite ammo weak pistols in older videogames (obviously other than Halo), it’s not optimal choice but it would be there.
And big part of tension of getting surrounded is how much damage the flood does to the player, if it’s relatively high damage then player definitely cant just sit there & take it, even with stragglers some form of strafing around would be required.
And hence I proposed combat forms covering the infection form with their hand which would increase the resistance of the flood against shots & punches. Without removing the classic look with exposed infection form & the visual lore it represents.

And swords + hammers are just something with more power in close quarters with depletable resources, much like shotgun but with bit of differences.
And melee being more ineffective than shooting against the flood is not the problem but rather the thing that it wouldn’t work even as a last resort or risk with rewards method.

And flood definitely can use swarm tactics while occasionally using more intelligent moves, though obviously the AI & present tactics could be upgraded a bit while still preserving the usual swarm tactic. So they could be made even more interesting than before as singular faction even, then new forms could be also added that can be more resistant, like upping the HP of pure forms that dont have visible weakpoints or even something different, even sky doesn’t seem to be the limit when it comes to possible flood variety.
More intelligence & more variation could allow the basic combat forms being able to be meleed (still reminding, not Halo 3 style but more hits) as a backup strategy given combat forms are the basic rather minimally altered shells (in scale of flood forms) that seem to be more or less comparable to usual cannon fodder in flood tactics with quantity over individual quality. Which shows from their rapid “recruitment”.

And I too enjoy fighting flood in the original trilogy but I just see that there would be room for improvement.

I mentioned examples of how I would make the flood more akin to Halo Combat Evolved flood than the later iterations but instead of simple HP adjustments I proposed the hand as cover part, which would make the flood less headshot-able than Halo 2 or Halo 3 variants while also making it less meleeable than Halo 3 variant while making it more of a possibility & last resort than any form of dominant strategy.

What I would also change from what flood were in Halo 2 or Halo 3 is that the corpses were too easy to destroy with melee, lessening the resurrection threat, for that the requirement would be to use high-power weapon, tissue destroying weaponry or flame based weaponry.

And faking death aspect would be good to see returning from Halo Combat Evolved alongside of utilizing new infection forms occupying the fallen shells.

So with those alterations (+few mathematical and so) I dont think flood would lose their identity but rather become closer to what they were in their roots than before with some HP adjustments being replaced with AI decisions.
The tactics could be upgraded too with improved AI & modern technology, with right design choices definitely without forgetting the floods swarm tactic in battle, there just needs to be enough of them relative to ammo & their individual combat provess to properly portray that.

And even in Halo Combat Evolved you could melee the occasional flood, I would just prefer it to be more consistent.

And sadly had to remove part of the earlier reply because of 7.5k character limit on posts.

18

> 2533274890014309;17:
> snipped for space

Good to know you, your buddies, and speedrunners(who are famously representative of typical play…) are the final authority on the CE meta. As long as you don’t see it it must not exist right? An inherently versatile weapon being used frequently does not make it a balance outlier which is what you implied in the first place. And no, plasma weapons are not all that great against the Flood, that is kind of the point. Another very useful tool that is suddenly far less useful in Flood scenario, imagine that. It is not like there are any projectile resistant Sentinels and high ranking Elites in the later half of the game right? Oh wait… Its almost like every tool at your disposal doesn’t need to be useful at all times.

I feel like comparing the flood melee to projectile VS shields is completely fair. You are taking a tactic specifically meant less effective vs a certain target and making it more powerful so you use an effective tactic less. Next you will tell me we should be able to assassinate Hunters so we can save rocket ammo. You don’t need to have access to all tactics at all times. More importantly the only time “depletable” resources should realistically be coming into play is with harder to find heavy weaponry like rockets. Worst case scenario is you can just pick up another weapon even if it isn’t quite ideal. If you are running out of ammo constantly its either due to subpar play or bad design.

Re: Infection forms. You keep treating the infection form being central to how a combat form works but the only Halo game where that is explicit in the visual design is Halo 3, you just keep treating it like that is how it was always meant to be. It doesn’t help your case that we also have instances of people being infected without being jumped by infection forms but I digress because here we are talking about lore when it is completely irrelevant to the gameplay discussion. Its fiction, there are any number of reasons why we could justify how things have changed.

I don’t know how many other ways I can explain to you the simple fact that making the Flood more vulnerable to a tactic they were initially almost immune to might make dealing with them a bit trivial even if it wasn’t the OHK Halo 3 melee. And I guess we are just going to keep ignoring the possibility of bayonets ala Spiker so we can pretend melee wouldn’t be an option… Combating the Flood is just fundamentally less interesting when the same methods you use against the Covenant are just as viable against the Flood. Giving them the same types of vulnerabilities while trying to make them smarter misses the point of the Flood so hard I honestly can’t understand why this isn’t obvious. Asymmetry is a good thing.

I actively don’t want the Flood to return if they are just as vulnerable to melee and headshots as everything else.

19

I feel that halo CE had the best iteration of the flood. So I’d be happy with that being the foundation to build off.

When we fight them we need to feel as if we’re being over run (hence the name) and as many have said we should be encouraged to use differing strategies than we would against the covenant. In Halo 3 because I didn’t need to switch up my style they were very meh to me in that game.

With infection forms and weak human combat forms, sheer numbers to overwhelm and intimidate. With stronger combat forms (well the flood in general, but diff reasons for diff forms) you should avoid cqc. And of course the new tank form from 3 will crush you in 1 hit. And doing a melee to the carrier form should buy you a second before it goes boom!

20

> 2533274819446242;18:
> > 2533274890014309;17:
> > snipped for space
>
> Good to know you, your buddies, and speedrunners(who are famously representative of typical play…) are the final authority on the CE meta. As long as you don’t see it it must not exist right? An inherently versatile weapon being used frequently does not make it a balance outlier which is what you implied in the first place. And no, plasma weapons are not all that great against the Flood, that is kind of the point. Another very useful tool that is suddenly far less useful in Flood scenario, imagine that. It is not like there are any projectile resistant Sentinels and high ranking Elites in the later half of the game right? Oh wait… Its almost like every tool at your disposal doesn’t need to be useful at all times.
>
> I feel like comparing the flood melee to projectile VS shields is completely fair. You are taking a tactic specifically meant less effective vs a certain target and making it more powerful so you use an effective tactic less. Next you will tell me we should be able to assassinate Hunters so we can save rocket ammo. You don’t need to have access to all tactics at all times. More importantly the only time “depletable” resources should realistically be coming into play is with harder to find heavy weaponry like rockets. Worst case scenario is you can just pick up another weapon even if it isn’t quite ideal. If you are running out of ammo constantly its either due to subpar play or bad design.
>
> Re: Infection forms. You keep treating the infection form being central to how a combat form works but the only Halo game where that is explicit in the visual design is Halo 3, you just keep treating it like that is how it was always meant to be. It doesn’t help your case that we also have instances of people being infected without being jumped by infection forms but I digress because here we are talking about lore when it is completely irrelevant to the gameplay discussion. Its fiction, there are any number of reasons why we could justify how things have changed.
>
> I don’t know how many other ways I can explain to you the simple fact that making the Flood more vulnerable to a tactic they were initially almost immune to might make dealing with them a bit trivial even if it wasn’t the OHK Halo 3 melee. And I guess we are just going to keep ignoring the possibility of bayonets ala Spiker so we can pretend melee wouldn’t be an option… Combating the Flood is just fundamentally less interesting when the same methods you use against the Covenant are just as viable against the Flood. Giving them the same types of vulnerabilities while trying to make them smarter misses the point of the Flood so hard I honestly can’t understand why this isn’t obvious. Asymmetry is a good thing.
>
> I actively don’t want the Flood to return if they are just as vulnerable to melee and headshots as everything else.

Not really authority, but just most people if not all, that I have seen use the shotgun+pistol combination in library which is the only pure flood level in Halo Combat Evolved, though maybe you would like to share better option for combination that you happen to use there.

And obviously, I would have added “most people I know or have seen use that combination” but there is this bothersome character limit to posts.

And I dont see it as implication of “balance outlier” when I firstly named it as fitting innearly every situation.
And even with high-ranking elites, the pistol is the other half of really useful technique known as noob combo, sentinels are pretty much the only thing I wouldnt find pistol useful against. Hence why I stated “part of pretty much (not every) every loadout”.
And if you find pistol less useful in that sense, we can agree to disagree here.

And “using an effective tactic less”, I think you are misunderstanding what im seeking here, I seek that it could be used but it would be sensible to only use when there are 1 to 2 flood combat forms present given their damage output would be no-joke either. And how rare are those situations with the flood when occasionally, flood can even constantly spawn in groups forcing constant movement, the map/spawn designs would matter more in making of mobile gameplay than being able to melee fight the occasional flood.

And assassinating hunters would be a bit more powerful than killing singular flood by melee in several hits, flood uses horde tactics and the time to melee the flood form would let the other forms to surround you if you are not observant. Another ridiculous comparison between insta-kill not using resources to kill in several hits that would leave the player vulnerable if they didn’t deal with rest of the flood earlier.

And you definitely don’t need to have access to all tactics as all times but the difference in our views of the melee is while you see it as something that should be restricted of some clearly vulnerable forms of flood & individually inferior combatants to armored supersoldiers I view it as varying form of weaker, situational & risky tactic with obvious limitations to it, I wouldn’t expect to being able to kill some more formidable flood forms with melee given they have been transformed further & likely outclassing any human in melee combat, I just dont expect what is basically new born cannon fodder that can appear in swarms to be that enemy.

And scarce ammo can be other than “bad design” it can be a design choice to represent the depletion of resources that comes with fighting the flood, the guns that flood drop should be somewhat used to represent the fight their earlier owners put up & perhaps the shots flood form took against other trespassers.
Though it’s a design choice we can agree to disagree with, I just think it would add to the feeling of horror while forcing player to weight would they dare risk a close encounter with flood to obtain more ammo in fear of ambush but also thinking of possible later encounters.

So I would prefer not to forget the flood itselfs combat abilities, strafing would be requirement and the flood is quicker.

And what do you mean “explicit to Halo 3” in regards of Infection form in combat forms? In Halo 2 you could instantly shoot the infection form & infection form repossession was introduced in Halo 2 and even in Halo Combat Evolved it can be visually seen in the chest.
And even when there are occasions of infection without infection form, the combat forms all visually have the infection form in their chest, meaning infection form possessing the combat form is the usual case.

And sure we can acknowledge the bayonets but I dont get how a thrusting blade would make much more sense if combat forms doesn’t have anykind of weakpoint when compared to blunt force of a strike from SPARTAN with likely additional force from length of a gun. Though I would see slashes to be something to disarm the combat form, but even then, you would acknowledge having viable melee in addition to being able to shoot if such were to be implemented in the gun itself.
Now in that situation that there were bayonet or axe blade from brute spiker, what sort of damage would you like them to do?

So for now, we could agree to disagree on whether something you could use on basically loner flood would make them trivial, now would you enlighten the weapon accessory bit?