Legendary Bullet Sponges

Games Other Halo
1

Personally I’d like to see the new trilogy reduce the legendary campaign effects of bullet sponge enemies.

Sure I can understand the AI is hard to code, simple answer is reduce the resources in advanced AI and overwhelm us with more enemies.

For the new legendary standard of campaign I’d like to see the sort of feeling you get from being an experience player playing on Normal or Heroic.

For example current legendary on Halo 3/Reach is -

  1. Always swap to the covie weapons as human weapons do zero damage. Legendary is easy enough with just a Plasma Pistol.
  2. Get hit and lose your shields in what seems like 1 shot.
  3. Take cover behind a single obstacle, as always.
  4. Stay behind that same cover crouching and pop-in out of the same cover from opposing sides just to noob combo the bigger threats until safe to move again.
  5. This feels like a crawl and just doesn’t seem to add up to bad-arsery that I enjoy playing. Legendary feels more like a grind.

To extend my personal view for Halo 4 legendary -

  1. Reduce complex AI, let’s face it Halo’s never really had super complex AI anyhow.
  2. Invest those resources more in multiple squads of enemies.
  3. Ramp up the difficulty by forcing player to always be moving from cover to cover and taking down enemies in quick succession, much like just running and gunning through normal campaign difficulties.
  4. Don’t just turn enemies into bullet sponges
  5. Don’t nerf our shields.
  6. Don’t reduce ammo so you feel like Halo is an easter egg hunt.
  7. Keep human weapons effective and force the player to move cover to cover and take many enemies out with single or double headshots when transitioning from cover to cover etc.

I think you get the gist of what I am saying here. I want legendary to keep the feeling of running & gunning, being a bad–Yoink- unstoppable spartan and not feel like I am grinding it out behind a single piece of cover using the most basic of enemy weapons and a repititous tactic throughout the entire legendary campaign.

Oh and make sure there is a legendary ending too just for completing legendary.

2

There’s a similar thread here:

http://halo.xbox.com/forums/general/f/14/t/6861.aspx

But I agree with what you’re saying.

> simple answer is reduce the resources in advanced AI and overwhelm us with more enemies.

Look at the Flood. In small numbers, they are harmless yet beatable. But in large numbers, such as this, they are incredibly powerful and overwhelming. The Halo 3 trailer showed Master Chief diving into a group of Brutes. It is possible to get a lot of Brutes in one area (see here).

> For example current legendary on Halo 3/Reach is

Don’t forget how they fly all over the area (when in the blast radius of an explosion) unrealistically whereas in Halo CE, even the Zealots staggered forward in pain, their shield being dropped.

> 2. Get hit and lose your shields in what seems like 1 shot.

I hate to disagree, but that’s only because you have shields. Play with Black Eye skull and it won’t seem like that.

> 3. Take cover behind a single obstacle, as always.
> 4. Stay behind that same cover crouching and pop-in out of the same cover from opposing sides just to noob combo the bigger threats until safe to move again.

True.

Only the best of the best speedrunners can run through the level without taking cover. There’s a huge skill gap created by Legendary. I feel that although it is unrealistic and especially in Halo: Reach, unfair, it determines who is elite.

> I think you get the gist of what I am saying here. I want legendary to keep the feeling of running & gunning, being a bad-Yoink! unstoppable spartan and not feel like I am grinding it out behind a single piece of cover using the most basic of enemy weapons and a repititous tactic throughout the entire legendary campaign.

slow clap

Legendary in CE was in it’s purest possible form. The transition jump may have been big, but today’s Legendary difficulty is entirely foreign from the other difficulties. That’s the difference.

3

@ SlidingGhost

All valid reply points and in the most basic statement -

I just want normal/herioc with increased enemies, applied pressure and less cheap tactics to ramp up the difficulty.

I enjoy the challenge of legendary but not SLASO stuff. I’m not big on skulls really but they do provide the ability for players to customise their campaign/firefight play.

I don’t find legendary particularly challenging, just weighted against the player via cheap tricks not skilled based so to speak. That’s the part I don’t enjoy.

4

well, if Halo 4 has the flood, all weapons that shoot bullets will have little to zero use on the flood, but the shotgun.
And you got to realize that some times you will run across an enemy that acts just like Legendary Bullet Sponges in real life, cause they’re high on some powerful stuff that makes them feel no pain, and any thing smaller than a .45 will just piss them off. So should Legendary bullet sponges go away? No, not really, if the SMG makes it way back into the game, then I say any thing with a small caliber round should just piss off enemies, and take longer to kill them. And higher caliber rounds should do more damage and knock them back alittle. And I think the plasma rifle should have some of the old stuning effects like in Halo CE, cause it’s alot easier to slow/stun a really pissed of elite than just unloading a whole clip into him.

5

> @ SlidingGhost
>
> All valid reply points and in the most basic statement -
>
> I just want normal/herioc with increased enemies, applied pressure and less cheap tactics to ramp up the difficulty.

Yep.

> I enjoy the challenge of legendary but not SLASO stuff. I’m not big on skulls really but they do provide the ability for players to customise their campaign/firefight play.
>
> I don’t find legendary particularly challenging, just weighted against the player via cheap tricks not skilled based so to speak. That’s the part I don’t enjoy.

The skulls can sometimes make things more easier.

Yep.

> And you got to realize that some times you will run across an enemy that acts just like Legendary Bullet Sponges in real life, cause they’re high on some powerful stuff that makes them feel no pain, and any thing smaller than a .45 will just piss them off. So should Legendary bullet sponges go away? No, not really, if the SMG makes it way back into the game, then I say any thing with a small caliber round should just piss off enemies, and take longer to kill them. And higher caliber rounds should do more damage and knock them back alittle. And I think the plasma rifle should have some of the old stuning effects like in Halo CE, cause it’s alot easier to slow/stun a really pissed of elite than just unloading a whole clip into him.

I liked Brute Chieftains and War Chieftains since they had a weakness (easy to assassinate), could be stunned (although not in the same way as Halo CE… go up to one, melee repeatedly), and fun to fight. The Spiker, in particular, stunned them real well.

It’s ok for an enemy with no recharging shield to be a damage sponge, as long as they are rare and not lower ranking Covies (i.e. Reach Jackals, 2’s Ultra Grunts), but shielded damage sponges that seek cover (i.e. Ultra Elites) and lower ranking damage sponges (Reach’s Grunts, Reach’s Jackals) just don’t work. Those kind of damage sponges should only exist when Mythic is turned on.

Imo, Ultra Elites should have slightly stronger shields, but not 3x overshield. They should gain the overshield when Mythic is on. Instead, they should have superior aiming and AI. Reach’s Ultra Elites, even on Heroic and Legendary, can’t hit me with all of their plasma rifle shots.

Is it the fault of the weapon or the way they fire it? If you answered the latter, then you’re right. It’s too repetitive. Throwing in alternate firing patterns (i.e. like the plasma rifle zealots in CE who fire it more rather than in bursts) might make them more engaging.

6

> Sure I can understand the AI is hard to code, simple answer is reduce the resources in advanced AI and overwhelm us with more enemies.

I completely agree.

One thing I’d like to say is that I hate FF in Halo, but I enjoy Survival mode in Marathon. Why? Because in Reach the only way to make it hard is to give the enemies ‘cheap’ weapons or turn them into “bullet sponges”. It’s not fun and having easy to kill AIs in small, spaced out groups isn’t much fun either. Marathon actually overwhelms you with enemeis. You’re swamped in 'em! The challenge isn’t killing the bullet sponges, it’s actuall surviving the crazy amount of AIs attacking you, and that’s fun. I don’t mind ‘dumb’ AIs, I just want a -Yoink–load of 'em!

7

As I always say, make the campaign like Halo CE. It had a fast paced campaign experience even on Legendary. This was sum of many reasons. First of all, the weapons were fast, I could chuck a grenade into a room, immediately run in and at the same time as the grenade blows up on the other side of the room, I kill all the enemies on the other side with the pistol.

Plasma weapon projectiles weren’t super fast, this is actually something very important. In Halo CE, I could spend more time in the middle of a group of enemies as I could actually dodge their shots and they weren’t super accurate. Something I always hated in later games, is that when I come behind a corner, all the eneimes immediately have their aim perfectly at me. This is especially annoying with Fuel Rod Gun enemies.

Your weapons were actually powerful in CE. When I ran out of pistol ammo, I usually took a Plasma Pistol which killed a Grunt in about five shots on Legendary. Assault Rifle also felt somewhat powerful. Plasma Rifle had the same effect as Plasma Pistol except slower.

The AI also weren’t as incredible. It took sometime for them to realize you were there after you came from behind a corner. You could use this for your advantage as you could literally kill all the enemies in the room before they start shooting (assuming you are fast enough). Sticking the Elite and shooting the grunts before the grenade explodes. Later games didn’t offer this, the enemies knew about you before you came behind the corner.

That’s probably most of the stuff that made Halo CE campaign experience on higher difficulties so great. You actually had the option to clear areas fast than getting stuck on them for a while. In later games you always had to stay on the area for a while if you wanted to kill all the enemies.

8

My God, this thread is epic win! So many rational posters. :smiley:

> > Sure I can understand the AI is hard to code, simple answer is reduce the resources in advanced AI and overwhelm us with more enemies.
>
> I completely agree.
>
> One thing I’d like to say is that I hate FF in Halo, but I enjoy Survival mode in Marathon. Why? Because in Reach the only way to make it hard is to give the enemies ‘cheap’ weapons or turn them into “bullet sponges”. It’s not fun and having easy to kill AIs in small, spaced out groups isn’t much fun either. Marathon actually overwhelms you with enemeis. You’re swamped in 'em! The challenge isn’t killing the bullet sponges, it’s actuall surviving the crazy amount of AIs attacking you, and that’s fun. I don’t mind ‘dumb’ AIs, I just want a Yoink!-load of 'em!

I currently don’t have any footage (other than that bad quality video), but there’s some big battles on CE and 3. If you haven’t already visited this site http://badcyborg.net/, you really should.

Huge battles on various CE levels, but there are 2 battles in Halo 3: one of them is listed on there, having the highest number of gathered Covies in Halo 3, while the other pales in comparison but has more approaches and presents a challenge.

9

> That’s probably most of the stuff that made Halo CE campaign experience on higher difficulties so great. You actually had the option to clear areas fast than getting stuck on them for a while. In later games you always had to stay on the area for a while if you wanted to kill all the enemies.

That is the essence of what I am proposing.

Keep things flowing and dynamic. Bullet sponges serve to slow down and blockade gameplay or progression through a mission.

I prefer true Halo style with rapid gameplay such as run and gun while dodging and being deadly accurate picking enemies off.

10

> My God, this thread is epic win! So many rational posters. :smiley:

So far the forums at 343i have been so much better than over at Bungie. I’m sure over time the trolls and what not’s will arrive :wink:

I’m hoping the mods here do a better job of joining/locking posts to make these forums actually worthwhile for the game development.

11

> > My God, this thread is epic win! So many rational posters. :smiley:
>
> So far the forums at 343i have been so much better than over at Bungie. I’m sure over time the trolls and what not’s will arrive :wink:
>
> I’m hoping the mods here do a better job of joining/locking posts to make these forums actually worthwhile for the game development.

Yes, 343’s forums are/was a good place to have a rational talk about issues, but since Bungie let go of Halo, and now has gone dark, most likely all of the “Super Halo Fanboys” are going to pay these forums a visit, some of those people shouldn’t be alowed to even use forums.