So… Flood firefight update is one of my favourite updates. I LOVE it! I wanted to give some feedback on this amazing update. Keep in mind these are small nitpicks, as the update is so well made that I can’t really find any major problems.
More realistic asks that are very possible:
Stealth elites and being restored and added to wave settings
Flood themed challenges and some gold challenges for playing matchmade firefight (more gold challenges in general since XP is useless after LVL 100)
Fog on some maps looks a bit thin, and I feel like it could be slightly thickened (which would also encourage more usage of VISR).
Allied spec-ops grunts with the allied elites
H3 dockyard workers spawning like Marines/NMPD, as they have an infected model. Female ones too if the model is fixable.
Flood/Marines having a chance of spawning with normal H3 SMG and magnum for some more variety
–The flood say “Ahhhh… The Armoured Casket” every 5 minutes. It gets annoying so reducing it would be nice.
More playermodels for ODST using existing human bipeds (Marines/Chips Dubbo, NMPD, Miranda keyes, UNSC crewman, etc.)
H3 skins usable in ODST (and putting those unused Automag/Silenced SMG skins to use)
More creative skins for equipment without them (Wraith, beam rifle and brute plasma rifle skins based off H5 variants, splaser, banished themed spiker skins)
Here’s some more crazier stuff, less likely but would be fun:
Hornet, scorpion and choppers piloted by flood
Brute trackers/brute snipers, and flood snipers
Camouflaged flood elites from CE
Night versions of a few more maps (Lost Platoon and Last exit would be dope)
I’d actually go as far to say the flood fog should be thickened quite a bit. And maybe increase the number of Flood and how aggressively they go after the player. I’d also increase Pure Form’s health and damage.
A little addendum to this:
More elite types could be possibly added using the old H3 armour, like Ascetic elites and Ultras. Ascetics would be really cool as their armour wasn’t seen outside of multiplayer, and there’s a lot of potential. The same can be said with Ultra elites. Give the Ultras dual plasma pistols/rifles or beam rifles. And make the Ascetics swiftly charge the player with CQC weapons like swords or maybe even shotguns!
Halo 3 and ODST didn’t have any more NPC Elites aside from the unused Stealth ones in the final release of Halo 3 or ODST iirc. that said, it would be great to see Stealth Elites wearing the Legacy Commando Harness if they could get its textures on parity with the Campaign textures.
From my experience with the Halo 3 mod tools, it shouldn’t be that hard to add Ascetic, Stealth or Ultra elites to ODST. In terms of models they could import them from Halo 3 with the extra permutations removed.
Restoring Stealth Elites is much different than making new Elites from scratch; we already know the role Stealth Elites fill in Firefight thanks to Reach, we already know that they’re supposed to function like their Halo 2 counterparts thanks to the other Elites from Halo 3, and most importantly they already have a finished model with completed shaders in the files since legacy.
the Legacy Multiplayer Armor uses much different shaders from the campaign Elites, which immediately causes a consistency issue that would require a lot more work than it’s worth to fix. On top of that, the only sets you would really be getting the most out of trying to port over would be Flight to recreate Rangers or Commando to enhance the look of Stealth Elite, since Ascetic only fits if it’s being used for allies in Floodfight (given the Lore behind the Ascetic Harness highlights Ascetics don’t align with the standard Covenant Elite ranks), and Ultras wear the same Harness as Standard Elites (Rtas being the example)
in short; they should finish restoring the content already there before they even consider trying to add things that never were finished by the final build.
TBF I am probably underestimating how hard it is. At the very least it’d be nice if Stealth elites returned. I’m just spitballing some ideas and would rather see stuff like proper firefight/flood challenges and more customization.
Also don’t forget, this is the MCC team and they go above and beyond. No one expected they’d do stuff like fog and flood driving hogs.
aye, that is true that they’ve managed to make diamonds from coal.
as a side note; I do honestly think they could at the very least be considering trying to add Ultras at a later date as well, Especially since they Flighted Elites with half-jaw as a stand in for Ultras back before Season 8. However, I wouldn’t expect for them to be much different than the other Ultra ranks used by other Covenant species in Halo 3; meaning they would in essence be little more than a step up from the Major rank (Brutes and Brute Captains ‘Minor-Major-Ultra’ setup being the prime example)
I think Ultra’s could be a little more unique, mainly by dual wielding weapons like the Reach ones with dual plasma rifles.
But I’d be completely fine with stealth elites, I just want more firefight customization. It’s a shame we didn’t get a playable marine with a Chips Dubbo voice, please 343, let me be the flood hunter! Sgt Stacker, Female marine and even Miranda Keyes (with a female ODST/marine body) can work…
I’d definitely be open to more customisation options, either included as an extension to Season 3 “Recon”, a ninth mini-season or simply chucked into the exchange.
Furthermore, it’d be nice to see some cross-compatibility between the weapon/vehicle skins in Halo 3 with ODST, with the latter having its own configurable options separate from 3 or allowing the same options to sync across both games (or both, if possible).
As for additional playermodels, I’d also like to throw in my suggestions for Marcus Stacker and the cast of Fireteam Raven, the latter utilising the ODST armour sets introduced in Season 6 “Raven”, with potentially the faces of the characters used in the Fireteam Raven arcade game assuming helmetless models are on the table for inclusion.
I had completely forgot about this particular video higlighting that Halo 3 did feature more Elite ranks during development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjNR32qC9Iw
I agree that in the future they should try to restore the other major ranks from the video as well;
Ultras are the easiest as they’re implementation is only a step up from Major in Halo 3, and the MCC devs were already expirementing with using the model for the shipmaster (who uses Ultra textures himself)
Zealots would be significantly harder as I don’t believe they have textures anymore in the final builds, meaning they would have to be made for both Elites and Flood. Their implementation though would likely match a Reach General with Swords and Plasma Turrets as their weapons.
Honor Guards and Councilors would likely be easier than zealots to recreate (Colors are just Major and Ultra), but they would likely be pointless as additions UNLESS they were to either remove the shoulders like the Helmets and just used their entries to make more visually interesting Heretic waves, or do the extra leg work to bring the helmets of both to 3 from H2A, and possibly add the honor guard attachments back as well (Or just use the Ascetic harness), and make them some special boss rank like the brute cheiftans (or allies like the Spec-Ops in floodfight)
That said, I still stand by the point that Stealth Elites should be what they work on first (possibly cleaning up and adding the Commando Harness for them too) before deciding to try and restore any of the others that were removed by Halo 3’s final release.
I’d be fine with only Ultras and Stealth, I’d rather see stealth flood and more flood vehicle variety over Zealots… Buuuuut on the other hand Councillors and Honor Guards have been shafted since H2 so it’d be neat.
Ultras, SpecOps, and Zealots would make for interesting variety. And seeing as how they’re just a few color and shield strength changes, they shouldn’t be too much to ask for. Would it actually hurt gameplay? Honestly, I don’t think so.
I could see Raven being added, but in my personal opinion I’d like to see male/female marines and NMPD. Easy as the models are already ingame and compatible so no major changes are needed.
Marines are a no brainer and also adds a new female playermodel for more representation. You could also put Johnson and Miranda Keyes’ heads on marine bodys. It also allows playable Chips Dubbo PLEASE 343-!
Also Johnson with an Orion helmet from H2A since he’s a Spartan 1!