H1 flood and 3 way battles

Games Halo Infinite
1

I remember having a bias against the flood citing their levels as boring. However I must confess, most of my reference points were from halo 3 and to an extent 2. I also gotta say this will be a long, hopefully thought provoking, post.

However after replaying H1 on Heroic (my personal favourite campaign from beginning to end) and spending time playing on Keyes, The Maw - I realised/remembered a few things:

I still don’t particular like the Library, but Cortana in H3 is SO much worse to me

The flood in Halo 1 really do overwhelm you, seems they attack in greater numbers. This makes the shotgun a God send against them.

The carrier forms seem to have bigger explosions, once again this may have been the effect of the skull I had equipped

You have to adapt your playstyle when dealing with them compared to covenant and sentinels. Flood would rush you, push you out of positions etc

I can’t confirm this, but combat forms seems much faster and more ferocious (this could’ve been as I had the angry skull on). The flood are also more durable in Halo 1 generally. Our melee is overpowered in h3.

A key part of the flood in the 2 levels I mentioned above are there are sections where the flood will CONTINUE to respawn unless you bypass certain points in the level. This is KEY and means that you can’t just pick them off from a distance and adds to the sense of urgency. Severely lacking in h3.

Because of the above there were times, especially in the level Keyes, where I’d use the covenant vs flood skirmishes as distractions to help me progress. The 2 times in particular were when the carrier forms infinite respawn from a lake, before you reach the taken over Truth and Reconciliation ship. Second time was after you find Keyes when he’s become one of them and you’re ambushed by flood, but covenant are waiting outside of the room.

Flood would sometimes come back from the dead!

No annoying forms that would keep you pinned in cover, like that form in h3 the one that can transform. When fighting the flood, you should be forced to stay agile, to further differentiate from covenant. Literally should be like fighting a zombie horde.

As 343 seems to be using H1 primarily as a source of inspiration, I hope this extends to the flood IF they are included in Infinite. And they build off these foundations and make the flood stand out and ensures the players respects their presence on the battlefield.

TL:DR
The flood ultimately were more of a threat in H1 and were more enjoyable and stood out more due to reasons such as constant respawning encouraging movement, being quicker and generally overwhelming us. Wouldn’t be wise to adopt the same tactics you would against covenant, giving them more purpose (lacking in h3 IMO). If they return in Infinite I hope 343 builds of their H1 iteration and their purpose in that game.

2

I personally enjoyed fighting the H3 Flood. That said, I’m all for (and want) a Flood that forces you to play differently than any other faction in the game, being on the run and/or careful not to ‘poke the hive’. You should be frantic to not allow the infection to spread further, lest you die by overwhelming numbers. And when the high numbers are unavoidable, you best be ready to have an escape route.

I think there should still be brittle flood forms but also tough ones like in H1, depending on the host that was infected. If Brutes were in the game I could easily see them being the tanky kind that doesn’t die so easily and sometimes gets back up like you said.

3

> 2533274810100046;2:
> I personally enjoyed fighting the H3 Flood. That said, I’m all for (and want) a Flood that forces you to play differently than any other faction in the game, being on the run and/or careful not to ‘poke the hive’. You should be frantic to not allow the infection to spread further, lest you die by overwhelming numbers. And when the high numbers are unavoidable, you best be ready to have an escape route.
>
> I think there should still be brittle flood forms but also tough ones like in H1, depending on the host that was infected. If Brutes were in the game I could easily see them being the tanky kind that doesn’t die so easily and sometimes gets back up like you said.

Yeah brittle combat forms, definitely could work, but to compensate for weakness they should be in greater numbers (like the thrall from the Hive in Destiny) and should definitely be accompanied by more durable combat forms.

Your suggestion is a sensible one and I feel they went for that in h3, but elite combat forms, or brutes if in the game, should definitely be as durable as they were in H1 I feel. Human combat forms should be brittle, as they’d come in greater numbers and are likely to wield hit scan weapons: shotgun, assault rifle, magnum etc…

4

I think that they should combine the Flood’s best qualities from each game in order to make the Flood more enjoyable. An Halo CE, 2, and 3 the Flood have some really good and some really bad qualities. The just have to find a way to design the flood in a way that is enjoyable to fight against.

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> 2535446727334979;4:
> I think that they should combine the Flood’s best qualities from each game in order to make the Flood more enjoyable. An Halo CE, 2, and 3 the Flood have some really good and some really bad qualities. The just have to find a way to design the flood in a way that is enjoyable to fight against.

Yeah ultimately that’s all we want. To make the flood fun to fight against and to force us to adopt our approach to combat when fighting them so they positively differentiate from covenant, sentinels etc… (in my mind the 2 go hand in hand, hence why I prefer H1 flood more than the others).

It would be interesting to see what you mean by the bad and good qualities of each version of the flood. As admittedly I struggle to find anything wrong with the flood and how they were implemented in H1 (minus the Library).

Saying that, 1 thing that I loved from h2 and h3 flood, was how infection forms could reanimate corpses littered around the battle field. This would’ve worked excellently in combination with the H1 flood. And make the urgency in eliminating them high, issue is the combat forms usually reanimated in h3 were so brittle it didn’t matter much.

Also believe it or not I like the idea of rocket launcher wielding flood (only used sparingly). I just think they need to make them clearer to see, eg. They mount them on their shoulder so they’re easier to spot amongst combat forms. Goes with the whole mobile nature of fighting the flood, stay in 1 place 2 long, within reason, and ur a goner.

6

I like the variety and mechanics the Flood were given in Halo 3, but I prefer to fight them in CE far more. CE Flood was a legitimate threat. Fast and ferocious (as you described), forcing me to keep a keen eye and a quick finger. Doing so many actions in so little time with little room to breath felt intense. However, they were very predictable, and with proper planning and timing, you could throw a nade to get some breathing to reload your gun and recharge your shields before the next wave. To me, that balanced them enough, especially in the Library.
If anything, 343 should bring more forms, either from Halo Wars 2 or from cut content to spice the encounters instead of waiting for a Flood form to just get in range.

  • In CE’s environment, the Flood Stealth Form (cut from Halo 3) could use the chaos and distraction caused by it’s fellow peers and attack you from unexpected places (as long as it doesn’t outright disrupt the experience); - With a Flood Abomination (Juggernaut), the other forms could attack more in synchronization with one another, as result of the 6 Infection forms within controlling the forms around; - The Flood Tank could serve as a shield for other forms to get close to you. They’d hide behind the tank, avoiding fire at all costs, and the tank doing everything to keep it’s companion free of damage. When close enough, the protegee would attack in sync with the tank. If the tank is killed mid-path, the Flood form behind it would just rush the player.And so on, these are just ideas I thought of on the spot, not much thought into them, but gives an idea of the ferocity of CE’s Flood taking advantage of the variety of forms in an attempt of overwhelming the player. If they return in Infinite, I hope they do something like this.
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> > 2533274810100046;2:
> >
>
> Yeah brittle combat forms, definitely could work, but to compensate for weakness they should be in greater numbers (like the thrall from the Hive in Destiny) and should definitely be accompanied by more durable combat forms.
>
> Your suggestion is a sensible one and I feel they went for that in h3, but elite combat forms, or brutes if in the game, should definitely be as durable as they were in H1 I feel. Human combat forms should be brittle, as they’d come in greater numbers and are likely to wield hit scan weapons: shotgun, assault rifle, magnum etc…

Glad we can agree. Ideally, if all the aliens were in the game, I’d imagine Elites would be somewhere between Human and Brute forms in terms of tankiness on a base level but bolstered usually to the Brute’s level of HP by their additional (but now weaker) shields. Much like you could sometimes find them having in H3.

I’d be curious to see if anything else comes out of this thread as I’d like to come up with a detailed way of how the Flood could work as a more realized ‘faction’ but I haven’t done so yet as I’ve been working on the other factions and aliens. I need to look more into SPV3 and what they did to the Flood in that game as they seem to have some good ideas too. If I ever collect and finalize the ideas I’ll make sure to make a thread about it.

8

> 2533274810100046;7:
> > 2533274801176657;3:
> > > 2533274810100046;2:
> > >
> >
> > Yeah brittle combat forms, definitely could work, but to compensate for weakness they should be in greater numbers (like the thrall from the Hive in Destiny) and should definitely be accompanied by more durable combat forms.
> >
> > Your suggestion is a sensible one and I feel they went for that in h3, but elite combat forms, or brutes if in the game, should definitely be as durable as they were in H1 I feel. Human combat forms should be brittle, as they’d come in greater numbers and are likely to wield hit scan weapons: shotgun, assault rifle, magnum etc…
>
> Glad we can agree. Ideally, if all the aliens were in the game, I’d imagine Elites would be somewhere between Human and Brute forms in terms of tankiness on a base level but bolstered usually to the Brute’s level of HP by their additional (but now weaker) shields. Much like you could sometimes find them having in H3.
>
> I’d be curious to see if anything else comes out of this thread as I’d like to come up with a detailed way of how the Flood could work as a more realized ‘faction’ but I haven’t done so yet as I’ve been working on the other factions and aliens. I need to look more into SPV3 and what they did to the Flood in that game as they seem to have some good ideas too. If I ever collect and finalize the ideas I’ll make sure to make a thread about it.

From what I remember, SPV3 did quite a great job giving roles to the Flood.
The Human combat form was the most frail and usually hanged in the back with precision weapons (DMRs, BRs, even Sniper Rifles);
The Brute combat form was the tankiest and loved to rush you with closer quarters (Shotguns, Brute Shots, Assault Rifles, SMGs, etc.);
The Elite combat form… not really sure what role it had, but I think I can say they were balanced, carrying whichever weapon they wanted.
Of course, then there’s the Jackal forms which served as more agile Combat form. Very frail and usually placed around the corner given their reduced speed, although they could still take a good leap.
The Carrier form we’re accustomed to is mostly unchanged, although it releases many more Pod Infectors than vanilla, maybe even a bit more than Halo 3.
Coming up with fitting ideas for other forms outside of SPV3 and we have a faction in which every unit has a defined role, always or mostly different from any other.

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> 2533274801176657;5:
> > 2535446727334979;4:
> > I think that they should combine the Flood’s best qualities from each game in order to make the Flood more enjoyable. An Halo CE, 2, and 3 the Flood have some really good and some really bad qualities. The just have to find a way to design the flood in a way that is enjoyable to fight against.
>
> Yeah ultimately that’s all we want. To make the flood fun to fight against and to force us to adopt our approach to combat when fighting them so they positively differentiate from covenant, sentinels etc… (in my mind the 2 go hand in hand, hence why I prefer H1 flood more than the others).
>
> It would be interesting to see what you mean by the bad and good qualities of each version of the flood. As admittedly I struggle to find anything wrong with the flood and how they were implemented in H1 (minus the Library).
>
> Saying that, 1 thing that I loved from h2 and h3 flood, was how infection forms could reanimate corpses littered around the battle field. This would’ve worked excellently in combination with the H1 flood. And make the urgency in eliminating them high, issue is the combat forms usually reanimated in h3 were so brittle it didn’t matter much.
>
> Also believe it or not I like the idea of rocket launcher wielding flood (only used sparingly). I just think they need to make them clearer to see, eg. They mount them on their shoulder so they’re easier to spot amongst combat forms. Goes with the whole mobile nature of fighting the flood, stay in 1 place 2 long, within reason, and ur a goner.

I’ll start by listing my least favorite Flood quality from each game, and then I’ll list my favorite qualities.
Least Favorite Qualities:
•CE: The way the Flood were, they kinda felt like fighting regular unshielded enemies but harder.
•2: the Flood felt extremely beefy in this game, and they didn’t play too different from regular covenant.
•3: the Flood was far too brittle, they would fall to pieces at the touch of a pinky finger.
Favorite Qualities:
•CE: I thought it was very cool how the Flood would engage the player by jumping from ceiling vents and leaping from every nook and cranny, it kept you on guard.
•2: the combat form’s ability to be reanimated added a new element to the game that made the Flood even more dangerous to deal with.
•3: I really liked the Flood pure forms. They really spiced up the Flood gameplay, and made the flood feel even more like an independent faction, rather than being completely reliant on soldiers from other factions.

All-in-all, I think a balance should be struck between how big and beefy the flood were in the first two, and how fragile yet varied they were in Halo 3. I believe that combining the tactics and strategy of the CE Flood with the new features of the 2 flood and the varied ranks of the 3 flood should be a recipe for success.