The Reintroduction of universal Bleedthough

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

This is a rather obscure and I believe easily missed detail of the Halo series that has been largely removed since Halo: Reach. I believe that this causes slight imbalance problems and that it should be restored, but this detail seems currently overlooked in the Halo Improvement discussions I often see on these forums.

What is Bleedthrough? It is the carry over of damage from a player’s shield to the player’s health, like when you get sniped or grenaded, as well as when you are melee attacked while low-shields. For example: with bleedthrough if you cause 2% damage to a player with 1% shields, 1% of that damage will damage that player’s health. Without Bleedthrough, you can cause an infinite amount of damage to that player’s 1% shield, and although he will lose his shield, he will take 0% health damage because no Bleedthrough means that excess shield damage does not carry over to health.

The lack of Bleedthrough messes with any damage advantage you may have on an enemy in an encouter. We saw how this screwed up the melee system in Reach, and while that has been resolved in H4, there is one final Bleedthrough barrier: standard hitscan/projectile non-snipe/explosive/melee/shotgun attacks.

The biggest example is of the BR vs DMR/CC headshots in a 1% shield scenerio. In H1,2 and 3, all of these weapons would score that headshot in 1 shot. However, in Reach and H4, a shot is required to pop the shield THEN shoot again for the headshot. This means that the BR wins all of these scenerios, since its 3-shot burst causes 3 individual amounts of damage, but the DMR/CC/SCOPED LR have to fire twice to achieve the same affect. This lack of Bleedthrough puts the single shot rifles at a disadvantage, and is something that I would like to see reversed, like in the original trilogy and MLG Reach.

I advocate for the Reintroduction of Universal Bleedthrough across all weapons for maximum sandbox balance. Then other things can be tweaked along with this.

Thanks for reading!
-SMARTAN 427

2

You’ve already summed up all I could say. I 100% agree.

3

Sounds like a good idea. Will 343i actually implement it? I doubt it.

Well see how much this forum protests to them about this until they finally add it in.

4

I disapprove of this message. I liked Halo Reach’s system much better in the first place.

There was none of that crap that goes on in Halo 3 and 4 where you melee a guy and he kills you just because he had higher health. Yet you both melee AT THE SAME TIME.

5

> I disapprove of this message. I liked Halo Reach’s system much better in the first place.
>
> There was none of that crap that goes on in Halo 3 and 4 where you melee a guy and he kills you just because he had higher health. Yet you both melee AT THE SAME TIME.

That makes sense if he has higher health though. He had less of yours to get through, while he had simply more Hitpoints than your Damagepoints could dish out.

In Halo 1/2/3/4 there is none of this B.S. where I can’t do the full amount of damage I did to a player because of the stupid popping mechanic, which allows you to take infinite amounts of damage before getting hurt.

Bleedthrough is simply more consistent.

6

I could rant on and on about this for a while, but for now I’ll just say that I totally agree that bleedthrough should return in full.

Honestly anyone who disagrees is just looking at the surface and not addressing the root of the problems commonly associated with bleedthrough. In fixing the root of the issue would also fix other problems such so called’grenade spam’.

Hint: The root of the issue is the health system.

7

> I disapprove of this message. I liked Halo Reach’s system much better in the first place.
>
> There was none of that crap that goes on in Halo 3 and 4 where you melee a guy and he kills you just because he had higher health. Yet you both melee AT THE SAME TIME.

Eliminating bleedthrough doesn’t fix that.

8

What would also be really nice, along with the reestablishment of bleed-through, would be an indicator on the HUD that shows how high or low our health instead of making us blind to whether or not we’ll lose the next encounter.

A regenerating health bar is long overdue.

9

I want to make sure I fully understand here since I started with Reach, and the whole bleed through thing is a little lost on me I think.

What you are advocating is on that very last shot, no matter what weapon you are using, if you hit them with a headshot, you will simultaneously drop their shields and kill them. In essence the damage “bleeds through” their shields to the Spartans health at the same time.

If I have that right my question to you is this. I am not really one to advocate if Spartans can do A in campaign or lore, then they should also be able to do A in multiplayer, however, isn’t the purpose of a shield supposed to kept you from taking damage?

Wouldn’t this also speed up the game more as well? I don’t know about you but kill times are fast enough already. I don’t want them faster. I could be really wrong in my understanding here. A lot of veteran players seem to want it back, and a lot of times I will defer to their experiences over the lack of mine, but I felt the need to say something on this one.

Now I understand what you’re saying about the disadvantage that single shot weapons have over the three burst BR. Could that be fixed if the developers somehow made it so it is only the first bullet of that three shot burst that counts for that all needed headshot? I really kind of like the tension that comes with knowing you’ve got his/her shields down. I one more headshot!

If it is brought back I would like that health meter like we had in Reach. I know it wasn’t popular but I didn’t mind needing those health packs either. Like you said it’s a little thing and I am pretty sure we can all adjust.

10

> I want to make sure I fully understand here since I started with Reach, and the whole bleed through thing is a little lost on me I think.
>
> What you are advocating is on that very last shot, no matter what weapon you are using, if you hit them with a headshot, you will simultaneously drop their shields and kill them. In essence the damage “bleeds through” their shields to the Spartans health at the same time.

I’m not quite sure you have it right. Bleedthrough applies to all types of damage. Headshot weapons, automatic weapons, grenades, melee. In previous games(Halo 3 for example) each player had 70 hitpoints of shields and 45 health hitpoints. If you have 10 shield hitpoints left and get hit in the head with a weapon that does 15 damage per shot the last 5 points of damage will carry over to health. However any headshot damage with a headshot capable weapon with kill regardless of overall health.

However it still applied to body shot damage from any weapon from the AR to Carbine. A body shot would leave you with 0 shield and 40 health. With no-bleedthrough any ‘left-over’ damage is lost and players are not properly rewarded for the damage they are doing.

> If I have that right my question to you is this. I am not really one to advocate if Spartans can do A in campaign or lore, then they should also be able to do A in multiplayer, however, isn’t the purpose of a shield supposed to kept you from taking damage?

Not only is there precedent in the lore for bleedthrough but there were cases where lucky bullets ignored shields entirely(however as a gameplay mechanic I would not want that). As far as gameplay goes the shield did protect from all the damage it could, but couldn’t deal with the last bit of energy.

> Wouldn’t this also speed up the game more as well? I don’t know about you but kill times are fast enough already. I don’t want them faster. I could be really wrong in my understanding here. A lot of veteran players seem to want it back, and a lot of times I will defer to their experiences over the lack of mine, but I felt the need to say something on this one.

It doesn’t necessarily speed up killtimes on its own. You can simply make it so a weapon such as the DMR will drop shields in exactly 4 shots so unless they have taken damage beforehand the bleedthrough only comes into play if they move out before their shields are fully charged or hit by teamshot, etc. Scenarios where you are already vulnerable. The DMR remains a 5 shot when facing players with full shields.

> If it is brought back I would like that health meter like we had in Reach. I know it wasn’t popular but I didn’t mind needing those health packs either. Like you said it’s a little thing and I am pretty sure we can all adjust.

On this note there is no reason a health meter has to require health packs. Health meters should return regardless.

11

> I disapprove of this message. I liked Halo Reach’s system much better in the first place.
>
> There was none of that crap that goes on in Halo 3 and 4 where you melee a guy and he kills you just because he had higher health. Yet you both melee AT THE SAME TIME.

That problem has little to do with bleedthrough, it has something to do with how the melee trading system works. I do not remember the exact details of it.

What melee bleedthrough does is allow that 3-shot melee kill to work and cleanly kill the guy who tries to double melee. Both players melee at the same time, but the first guy wins because he did enough damage to kill the other guy with only one melee, but the other guy has caused no prior damage to the first guy and therefore has to melee twice. So the first guy, only having to melee the second guy once because he weakened him first, wins.

In Reach the lack of melee bleedthrough completely took away this logic and forced both players to melee twice, resulting in a kill trade and punishing the guy who had delt enough damage to kill with only one melee. The lack of melee bleedthrough screws the first guy over for no logical reason.

12

> > I want to make sure I fully understand here since I started with Reach, and the whole bleed through thing is a little lost on me I think.
> >
> > What you are advocating is on that very last shot, no matter what weapon you are using, if you hit them with a headshot, you will simultaneously drop their shields and kill them. In essence the damage “bleeds through” their shields to the Spartans health at the same time.
>
> I’m not quite sure you have it right. Bleedthrough applies to all types of damage. Headshot weapons, automatic weapons, grenades, melee. In previous games(Halo 3 for example) each player had 70 hitpoints of shields and 45 health hitpoints. If you have 10 shield hitpoints left and get hit in the head with a weapon that does 15 damage per shot the last 5 points of damage will carry over to health. However any headshot damage with a headshot capable weapon with kill regardless of overall health.
>
> However it still applied to body shot damage from any weapon from the AR to Carbine. A body shot would leave you with 0 shield and 40 health. With no-bleedthrough any ‘left-over’ damage is lost and players are not properly rewarded for the damage they are doing.
>
>
>
> > If I have that right my question to you is this. I am not really one to advocate if Spartans can do A in campaign or lore, then they should also be able to do A in multiplayer, however, isn’t the purpose of a shield supposed to kept you from taking damage?
>
> Not only is there precedent in the lore for bleedthrough but there were cases where lucky bullets ignored shields entirely(however as a gameplay mechanic I would not want that). As far as gameplay goes the shield did protect from all the damage it could, but couldn’t deal with the last bit of energy.
>
>
>
> > Wouldn’t this also speed up the game more as well? I don’t know about you but kill times are fast enough already. I don’t want them faster. I could be really wrong in my understanding here. A lot of veteran players seem to want it back, and a lot of times I will defer to their experiences over the lack of mine, but I felt the need to say something on this one.
>
> It doesn’t necessarily speed up killtimes on its own. You can simply make it so a weapon such as the DMR will drop shields in exactly 4 shots so unless they have taken damage beforehand the bleedthrough only comes into play if they move out before their shields are fully charged or hit by teamshot, etc. Scenarios where you are already vulnerable. The DMR remains a 5 shot when facing players with full shields.
>
>
>
> > If it is brought back I would like that health meter like we had in Reach. I know it wasn’t popular but I didn’t mind needing those health packs either. Like you said it’s a little thing and I am pretty sure we can all adjust.
>
> On this note there is no reason a health meter has to require health packs. Health meters should return regardless.

Basically that is what I was going to tell him LOL.

But yeah the DMR would still be a 5sk on fully shielded spartans.

A DMR shot does about 25% shield damage. So 4 shots only pops the shield right? Well, lets say a player gets naded and loses 90% of his shield. With bleedthrough, that DMR shot(25% damage) removes that player’s remaining 10% shields but the DMR shot still has 15% damage left that must go somewhere and thus damages that player’s health. If the shot hits that player in the head, then that 1 DMR shot kills the player.

This is exactly how Reach’s MLG playlist has the DMR, and it improves the gameplay so much while leaving the DMR at a default 5sk. In default Reach and H4, with no bleedthrough, that extra 15% damage that the DMR delt is wasted and a second shot is required to make the kill, overcomplicating the process.

As far as cannon goes, the energy shields of a spartan can only absorb so much damage, any extra damage is inflicted on the spartan directly if the shields can’t stop it all. And this is one cannon thing that actually makes gameplay better and it has been that way since Halo: CE.

And I also agree that a health bar should return and be fully regeneratable. Why would the UNSC not allow the spartans to monitor their biological status and vital signs on their HUD? Information is power.

13

Thank you to both WerepyreND and SMARTAN 427. I appreciate the time you both put into helping me understand the concept. I think I have it now, and understand that I had both the idea of bleed through and the aspects of the lore a little off.

When explained that the remaining damage percentage should have somewhere to go, and not be wasted I fully agree. It kind of makes me wonder why it was done away with in the first place.

Yet another example of how Halo needs to take a few steps back before continuing forward.

14

> Thank you to both WerepyreND and SMARTAN 427. I appreciate the time you both put into helping me understand the concept. I think I have it now, and understand that I had both the idea of bleed through and the aspects of the lore a little off.
>
> When explained that the remaining damage percentage should have somewhere to go, and not be wasted I fully agree. It kind of makes me wonder why it was done away with in the first place.
>
> Yet another example of how Halo needs to take a few steps back before continuing forward.

No problem man thats why we are part of the Halo Community.

15

I’m always getting good grenades on enemy players and lowering their shields to 10% or so. With the BR’s mock bleedthrough thanks to its 3-shot burst mechanic, I can finish these players with 1 shot. Without bleedthrough, I have to fire 2 shots from the DMR/CC/Magnum/etc to achieve the same affect and therefore is one of the prime reasons I do not use those single shot weapons very often. If bleedthrough were enabled, I’d be much more inclined to use the single shot weapons more often -I may even end up prefering them.

16

Good post smartan I do agree with you. If a single shot weapon like a carbine or DMR pops a shield with some damage to spare, you absolutely should get a headshot.

This was introduced in the halo reach TU and it disappoints me it was not expanded on and continued with halo 4.