Throughout the Halo series the marines serve no purpose than to just be meat shields or just get in your way. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve had a Marine throw a grenade at me or step in front of me as I’m about to snipe an enemy. On higher difficulties they’re all dead within minutes because none of them can fend for themselves. I get that it’s the player that should be doing most of the work. After all they are the Master Chief, and should significantly better at killing the enemy than the Marines. Otherwise why would they need you in the first place? However, I can’t help but think that the Marines could serve a better purpose to the player other than just being an annoyance. So here’s a couple of ideas that I’ve thought about to help make the Marines a little more useful for Halo Infinite.
- A very VERY basic squad command system: I know I know, Halo is not suppose to be a tactical shooter. I’m not asking for the game to become Ghost Recon or anything like that. Just give us the ability to tell the Marines to stay put or follow whenever the player wants. Maybe even give the player the ability to tell them where to go? I don’t know that might be stretching it a bit.
- Support Marines: While the majority of Marines should still remain basic riflemen that you can occasionally swap weapons with, why not have a few Marines that can actually help the player. For instance, The Corpsman! If the health system from Reach and CE returns why not give one of the Marines the ability to heal you a certain number of times or maybe even just once? How about an Ammo Bearer? He’s a Marine with a backpack that can resupply you a certain amount of times. This next one is kind of pushing it, but how about a Combat Engineer? He can repair your vehicles up to a certain point! Since the game is most likely an open world of some kind, vehicles are probably going to play a large role. Is your Warthog banged up really bad and you’re not sure whether it will survive the next fight? Just have the Engineer repair it! That is, if he’s still alive or if there’s even one around. These Support Marines should be more scarce on harder difficulties making the Marines more of a relief for the player rather than a burden.
These are good ideas. I agree that the marines are mainly useless since Halo 2. Have you see Halo CE? The marine’s firepower is unparalleled on the warthog. I’d like to see more of their aggressive supports, but it’ll make the game easy. I believe the devs adjusted the marines based on the difficulty, so it won’t be too easy for you. There are hasn’t been much work on the marines, and they’ve always stayed in the background. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been any innovations for the marines, and it’s way past due. Update the marines, and make them useful without making the game too easy for the player. I would like to see more of marine’s usefulness by being a supporting NPC. Otherwise, they’re useless in Halo. I like your ideas. It doesn’t make it less Halo, but expands it. I hope 343i already caught on.
In the same vein as Marines, Spartan IV AI was useless in Halo 4. Would love to see them actually do something aside from be a stronger Marine, especially considering they are at least on par with Elites.
Those marine classes you described are really cool ideas.
Anyone who thinks marines are useless in H2 and onward, obviously did not ever put enough time into upgrading your marines weapons.
If you only ever have marines use the default weapon they have when you find them, then yes they’re useless. If you do things like upgrade AR’s to PRs and BR’s, and upgrade BR’s to power weapons, you’ll find marines aren’t “useless.”
That being said, expanding on them with some features you’ve described (OP) would still be cool.
Cool idea. Halo 5’s single-player campaign had a feature like this, btw. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for. I also liked the idea for different specialists.
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> Anyone who thinks marines are useless in H2 and onward, obviously did not ever put enough time into upgrading your marines weapons.
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> If you only ever have marines use the default weapon they have when you find them, then yes they’re useless. If you do things like upgrade AR’s to PRs and BR’s, and upgrade BR’s to power weapons, you’ll find marines aren’t “useless.”
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> That being said, expanding on them with stone features you’ve (OP) would still be cool.
Was going to post almost the exact thing after seeing this topic!
Love the ideas OP, but as WhoLikesChicken (love the GT btw) said, give the marines some decent weapons and they can be life savers. Snipers in the hands of marines give them the ability to pretty much one shot most enemies (with the exception of elites brutes and hunters…)
Vehicle level? Give your passenger a rocket launcher. In a warthog they’ll be hitting harder than the gunner. I was playing The Ark on H3 on legendary couple of days ago, and when you get to the prowler section, give both your passengers fuel rod cannons, and you’ll basically be an incredibly agile AA wraith. Makes that big battle before you get the tank super easy.
They aren’t useless to me. I always enjoy the company of the NPCs that the levels provide. They add a little more personality and overall life into the campaign in my opinion. I usually try to keep them alive by giving them cooler weapons (as long as it doesn’t incovience me) and try to catch at the enemies quickly so they’re less likely to be shot at. But at the same time, I always keep in mind that there’s only so much I can do for them (especially when playing on Legendary).
Yeah I totally agree make them a little more useful it just makes humans so pathetic even grunts on normal could kill marines but in reality they could probably be able to kill elites with proper gear like plasma pistols and stuff
If it’s open world they might give you option ala Fallout to call in a Pelican with marines and vehicles. Which might be an upgradable thing. So by end you can call in Helljumpers and stuff.
Well…you can’t just say that a lone Marine has always been completely helple-Okay you have a point.
I agree that they are generally not very helpful. There are a few instances though that they can be essential and make your life a lot easier, especially on Legendary runs.
- In general, if you’re driving a warthog/equivalent vehicle and equipping the passenger with rockets or some other highly effective explosive weapon - Rally Point Bravo on level “Infinity” (Halo 4) - about ~2 minutes in on this second part of the level, you come in contact with 4 marines before engaging in a defensive firefight from the top of a hill (while waiting for Cortana to open the door). Keeping as many of these marines alive at the start of this firefight makes this part of the level so much easier. I can’t think of a moment in any Halo games where marines are more helpful than this particular encounter