On back of box: "The largest Covenant fleet ever witnessed looms in the darkened skies over Reach."
But instead of fighting this massive invasion force we fight these small Covenant squads on the typical campaign style levels.
Point A: Go to point B. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
Point B: Go to point C. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
Point C: Go to point D. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
Point D: Go to point E. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
Next level: Repeat Point A-Point E.
Did the invasion force take coffee breaks, or go on strike?
Ive been thinking the same thing since halo 3. How is Truth only protected by a few banshees and two scarabs? This is the general of the whole covenant! Idk it was kind of stupid. I wanted a realistic battle field in trenches with marines vs a bunch of brutes. Kind of like the trailers were showing.
Maybe next gen we can have something like that but right now it aint happening
> Ive been thinking the same thing since halo 3. How is Truth only protected by a few banshees and two scarabs? This is the general of the whole covenant! Idk it was kind of stupid. I wanted a realistic battle field in trenches with marines vs a bunch of brutes. Kind of like the trailers were showing.
>
> Maybe next gen we can have something like that but right now it aint happening
That’s what I hate about Halo. Those live action trailers shows how much of a major conflict the Human-Covenant war is. What it really should look like.
But the games are nothing like that. The games show the war being a minor conflict.
To me the only purpose of those trailers is to get you pumped up for the game. When it does come out. It turns into a big disappoint.
Honestly I think you are being a bit too stingy to the developers here. The 360 cannot handle “an invasion force” amount of AI. The fact that Bungie managed to squeeze about 30+ vehicles into the beginning cutscene of Tip of the Spear was pushing it. So the problem of ingame AI cannot be fixed, except for maybe the “xbox 720” overhaul that we may be getting in a few years. But for the trailers, they are meant to spread hype of the game for fans. So obviously a game developer would make trailers be as epic as possible, which may or may not be directly representative of the game.
> Honestly I think you are being a bit too stingy to the developers here. The 360 cannot handle “an invasion force” amount of AI. The fact that Bungie managed to squeeze about 30+ vehicles into the beginning cutscene of Tip of the Spear was pushing it. So the problem of ingame AI cannot be fixed, except for maybe the “xbox 720” overhaul that we may be getting in a few years. But for the trailers, they are meant to spread hype of the game for fans. So obviously a game developer would make trailers be as epic as possible, which may or may not be directly representative of the game.
What can the 360 handle then? For a next gen console it has a lot of limitations.
> > Honestly I think you are being a bit too stingy to the developers here. The 360 cannot handle “an invasion force” amount of AI. The fact that Bungie managed to squeeze about 30+ vehicles into the beginning cutscene of Tip of the Spear was pushing it. So the problem of ingame AI cannot be fixed, except for maybe the “xbox 720” overhaul that we may be getting in a few years. But for the trailers, they are meant to spread hype of the game for fans. So obviously a game developer would make trailers be as epic as possible, which may or may not be directly representative of the game.
>
> What can the 360 handle then? For a next gen console it has a lot of limitations.
It only has “a lot of limitations” because people have unreasonable expectations. It takes a lot of power to do the things the 360 does, and it’s remarkable technology. But the 360 isn’t a super computer, it has it’s limits, and until there’s a console that can have the giant invasion battles you guys are speaking of, you can’t really call it limited.
> > > Honestly I think you are being a bit too stingy to the developers here. The 360 cannot handle “an invasion force” amount of AI. The fact that Bungie managed to squeeze about 30+ vehicles into the beginning cutscene of Tip of the Spear was pushing it. So the problem of ingame AI cannot be fixed, except for maybe the “xbox 720” overhaul that we may be getting in a few years. But for the trailers, they are meant to spread hype of the game for fans. So obviously a game developer would make trailers be as epic as possible, which may or may not be directly representative of the game.
> >
> > What can the 360 handle then? For a next gen console it has a lot of limitations.
>
> It only has “a lot of limitations” because people have unreasonable expectations. It takes a lot of power to do the things the 360 does, and it’s remarkable technology. But the 360 isn’t a super computer, it has it’s limits, and until there’s a console that can have the giant invasion battles you guys are speaking of, you can’t really call it limited.
>.> You do realize I have 3 gigabytes of RAM in my laptop and that’s considered low for what I do… and all I do is play Halo CE online, photoshop, and browse the web while listening to iTunes music. I can do any of them just fine by themselves but the moment I want to photoshop while waiting for a friend to come on facebook so I can talk to them it gets laggy. The 360 only has 512 MB of RAM. It has to share that between the graphics card and everything else.
> The fact that Bungie managed to squeeze about 30+ vehicles into the beginning cutscene of Tip of the Spear was pushing it. So the problem of ingame AI cannot be fixed,
A collection of cutscene vehicles all driving in a straight line is not indicative of the game’s ability or lack thereof to handle large amounts of AI.
There’s also the fact that they could’ve tried the Halo 3 approach: sending enemies at the player in multiple waves. There were many moments in Halo 3 where clearing out one group of enemies would trigger a backup group to attack. In most of the Reach campaign, however, clearing an area cleared it. No backup came to challenge you. In the rare moments where backup forces did arrive in Reach, they usually came by Phantom or Spirit – whereas in Halo 3, they could come from parts of the environment (i.e. a locked door at the start of The Ark), giving the illusion that a huge force was already in the area to begin with.
Using waves wouldn’t increase the number of AI being processed at one time because all of the AI from the preceding wave would already be dead. The developers handicapped themselves by using huge single waves rather than multiple huge waves, which the AI engine could’ve supported just fine.
> > 360 wouldn’t be able to handle it.
>
> The original xbox seemed to handle the covenant fleet above Detla Halo just fine…
>
> But then again that was way back when Bungie was trying.
Visual effects like that are incredibly easy, it’s all done with a bunch of animated 2d images. It take very little processing power.
Big battles like the ones seen in Reach take several AI and dozens of 3d models, which takes up tons and tons of processing power. People should do some research on game engines and design before they make topics like this.
But if you want me to go deeper, Bungie thought that future wars are waged like today. 2500 is very distant so I beg to differ. There will be gradual changes in warfare.
Big armies were traded for divide and conquer which is becoming largely unnecessary due to better weapons.
Possible future warfare:
-better weapons means less need for more people
-alternating between now and then (big armies) by year. This could make the combat in Reach plausible
-mixed; both types of combat occur in a war
-nuclear, psychological, weather, pathological, etc. warfare. Again, less need for more people
As for large number of AIs, CE could handle it as long as they didn’t shoot.
H3 could handle it at certain parts of the game. The infinite marine island glitch eventually overloaded the level as did the infinite Hornets but at other parts, the game could have 20 Brutes, up to 20 marines, and 8 Elites all at once. Then there’s the Anti-air gun megabattle, which is somewhat laggy but still manageable.
Reach could not because of the vehicles. Take away the Spirit dropships and Seraphs (or just remove the detail), and LNoS could have been a major AI battle. They had to resort to removing weapons and dead bodies when the player isn’t looking because the game couldn’t handle it.
It should be noted that during the marine island glitch, the entire mission start area is still loaded.
> On back of box:
> "The largest Covenant fleet ever witnessed looms in the darkened skies over Reach."
>
> But instead of fighting this massive invasion force we fight these small Covenant squads on the typical campaign style levels.
>
> Point A: Go to point B. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
> Point B: Go to point C. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
> Point C: Go to point D. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
> Point D: Go to point E. You fight a small enemy squad on the way.
> Next level: Repeat Point A-Point E.
>
> Did the invasion force take coffee breaks, or go on strike?
This is exactly what Halo Wars is for.
I hope 343 can respect that.
Gentleman, I present my finest work yet. Something I had been saving for Halo 3 day but never gotten around to releasing. All those relevant videos I uploaded previously were teasers, failures, and tests. This is the real deal and it’s been a real pleasure doing it.
Hence, my suspicions are confirmed. It is the scripting that makes these large scale battles impossible. During my gameplay (I had the Xbox 360 on for 4-7+ hours mind you), I never experienced lag of any sort and this is about 40+ AI in one area.
> Ive been thinking the same thing since halo 3. How is Truth only protected by a few banshees and two scarabs? This is the general of the whole covenant! Idk it was kind of stupid. I wanted a realistic battle field in trenches with marines vs a bunch of brutes. Kind of like the trailers were showing.
>
> Maybe next gen we can have something like that but right now it aint happening
That bowl is large enough to support a large number of AI and we only get 2 Scarabs, some ground vehicles, and banshees. It was a mini scaled epic battle.
There’s also draw distance. Adjusting that might have made it possible for large AI battles.
> Gentleman, I present my finest work yet. Something I had been saving for Halo 3 day but never gotten around to releasing. All those relevant videos I uploaded previously were teasers, failures, and tests. This is the real deal and it’s been a real pleasure doing it.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYEeKSVk9g
>
> Hence, my suspicions are confirmed. It is the scripting that makes these large scale battles impossible. During my gameplay (I had the Xbox 360 on for 4-7+ hours mind you), I never experienced lag of any sort and this is about 40+ AI in one area.
>
>
>
> > Ive been thinking the same thing since halo 3. How is Truth only protected by a few banshees and two scarabs? This is the general of the whole covenant! Idk it was kind of stupid. I wanted a realistic battle field in trenches with marines vs a bunch of brutes. Kind of like the trailers were showing.
> >
> > Maybe next gen we can have something like that but right now it aint happening
>
> That bowl is large enough to support a large number of AI and we only get 2 Scarabs, some ground vehicles, and banshees. It was a mini scaled epic battle.
>
> There’s also draw distance. Adjusting that might have made it possible for large AI battles.
Gotta admit though, those were epic. The whole levels of “The Ark” and “The Covenant” were fun as hell.
> >.> You do realize I have 3 gigabytes of RAM in my laptop and that’s considered low for what I do… and all I do is play Halo CE online, photoshop, and browse the web while listening to iTunes music. I can do any of them just fine by themselves but the moment I want to photoshop while waiting for a friend to come on facebook so I can talk to them it gets laggy. The 360 only has 512 MB of RAM. It has to share that between the graphics card and everything else.
For comparison how laughable the Xbox 360 RAM is, iPhone has exactly the same amount. The hardware of Xbox 360 is otherwise pretty amazing, but it is restricted by the very small RAM.
If we want to actually have large amounts of AI in many situations, we need a new Xbox. I personally still secretly hope that Halo 4 would be a launch title for the new Xbox, but that might be a bit too wishful thinking. But that’s pretty much the only way for Halo 4 to be visually amazing.