Halo: Reach Discussion

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Originally Posted by Donut

wat

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:downs:

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Originally Posted by Warsaw

How about the shotgun? And the sniper rifle? I've sat on top of a Hemorrhage base for ten minutes waiting for the damn thing to spawn, and no dice. Hell, even the Needle Rifle took ages to show up again.

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Rocket launcher, both snipers, and the shotgun did not respawn the whole match when I tested them on Pinnacle. It's BS.

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Originally Posted by Donut

i see your point about the reticle bloom on the DMR pooky, but i have yet to have anybody get a lucky spray and pray kill on me up close with it. halo 2 and 3 got MLG'ed to shit and back because of the br and lack of projectile error (and i suspect halo 1 would have too if it supported online from the get go). it became a "whoever shoots first wins" game where two people just jump back and forth landing all their shots. i like the new reticle bloom system since you do actually have to pace your shots to avoid them spraying everywhere. now its not just whoever shoots first wins, but also whoever keeps their bloom inside the reticle's circle. i think its a nice addition.

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I agree with this. The point being, the Pros actually have to be Pro with the skill of such a weapon to win instead of being the first one to shoot winning. Besides, the BR was probably the most Uber starter weapon to be on XBL in any game series ever. I think it took skill to find someone and shoot first and maintain that fire, but took no skill to actually use it. Now using the AR without melee to get a kill takes skill.

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Originally Posted by DarkHalo003

It's also because you're not as fast as the Chief in Halo 2, so you can't keep up as fast. It would also explain why you're so susceptible to melee attacks as well. What difficulty are you playing on too? Normal has a lot of Minors. You also shouldn't just treat them like you do in Halo 2. They're a lot smarter and definitely more challenging than that.
90% of the time I play any Halo game, it's on Heroic. There are hardly any blue Elites, IIRC. Elites in Reach aren't fun to fight on Heroic. Yeah, I shouldn't treat them the same as H1/H2 Elites, but H1/H2 Elites were much more fun to fight because they were still dangerous, but they were approachable.

If your shields are low enough, then it makes sense.
Doesn't mean it's fun.

Also, the shotgun and sword help a ton if you have them. You need to fight Elites like they're actually Elites and not this Halo 1/Halo 3 crap we're all accustomed to here. And you don't know how to use other weapons it looks like. I use the AR to kick the crap out of most of everything when I feel like it. Unless you play on only Legendary, there shouldn't be an excuse for using almost any weapon to win. Try different combinations. Some are more fun than the DMR and Plasma Pistol. Also, the Halo 1 Elites were cupcakes and the Halo 2 Elites felt a little absent minded when fighting them (all but the Zealots, Active Camos, and Ultras). These Elites feel more realistic in terms of a leadership enemy.
I know how to play Halo Campaigns, so don't say I just don't know how to use the weapons. Shotguns are okay up until the Elites stop caring about keeping their distance, charge at you, and beat you to death. Most CQC weapons just aren't very effective and way too risky to use. If I don't have any other weapon handy, I can make use of them, but they just aren't reliable enough. I could tear through most of the Halo 1 campaign on Heroic with just the plasma pistol. I could reliably kill Elites with any weapon, as long as I used a strategy that suited my choice of weapon. Now Elites just shrug off rockets, plasma grenades, and needles. Halo 1 and Halo 2 Elites were too easy, you say? Well making them harder doesn't make them more fun to fight. I liked how Elites were more-or-less my equal in Halo 1, and I could go toe-to-toe with them.

Depends on the difficulty for melees (can survive two hits by both on normal and one on Heroic), but the FRG is obnoxious on Legendary, especially when they spam it like crazy. I do think they should have made it a two hit kill on Normal and maybe Heroic though.
Sometimes I can survive a melee, but usually if I'm in melee distance, then I don't have full shields/health, so they will usually kill in one hit. It's too much of a deterrent for CQC.

I love the Hunters now. You have to use the most powerful of attacks to defeat them and you can't just spam them to death with Heavy Weapons. Try the Needler and Needle Rifle while your allies buy you time. In a way, they're a lot like fighting Halo 2 Hunters on Legendary.
I've found allies to be completely useless as distractions. And slowing chipping away at their health (because getting too close to them is suicide) is not compelling gameplay. Halo 2 Hunters sucked, too.

Actually, you just don't know how to use it. It's my most used Loadout in multiplayer and one of my favorites in campaign. I used it a lot in the Night level on Legendary to sink away and get close to one of the Elites enough to take it down.
Fuck how you're supposed to use it. If I'm invisible and standing still, they shouldn't walk up to me and start shooting. The ability should be more versatile than it is. Jun did his darnedest to make my active camo useless by walking towards me whenever I tried to sneak up to an enemy.

They made the Covenant speak no English to set a different atmosphere for the game. I wish they would have changed that for the IWHBYD skull though. And if you play Heroic and Legendary, the Drones and Engineers are occasional to almost frequent (Drones on Heroic and Engineers on Legendary). Scarabs added crucial atmosphere and if you look off into the distance you can see them decimating stuff.
An atmosphere of boring. That and the dullness of the other Noble members took away a lot of the personality of the game. Drones, frequent? I remember seeing them in three encounters. A group of three or so by the AA tower in Tip of the Spear (so bizarre, why even bother putting them in that encounter?), the Reflection area, and a cool fight in Pillar of Autumn. Engineers are pretty much a non-issue now that they're effortless to kill and don't even explode. They're just... there. As for the Scarabs, I prefer the cool stuff to happen where I am, not off in the distance. I disliked the Falcon flyovers for that reason, too. I want to be down there in the thick of it. Even in Winter Contingency, I would have liked to drive along that windy road. That looked fun!

Basically, Heroic is the difficulty for Halo games. Normal and below are cakewalks, and Legendary can be nigh-impossible for all I care, but on Heroic, I expect formidable enemies that I can't rush into blindly and have to take somewhat seriously, but enough forgiveness that I can make a few mistakes and take a few hits, with more than enough room for shenanigans.

Heroic in Reach is just too punishing to hit the 'sweet spot' that Halo 1, 2, 3, and ODST hit perfectly.

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tl;dr shenanigans

90% of the time I play any Halo game, it's on Heroic. There are hardly any blue Elites, IIRC. Elites in Reach aren't fun to fight on Heroic. Yeah, I shouldn't treat them the same as H1/H2 Elites, but H1/H2 Elites were much more fun to fight because they were still dangerous, but they were approachable.
It's freaking Heroic. What do you expect? Them to greet you with open arms and allow you to charge them while they're easily two feet bigger than you are while trying to perform mass genocide on the entire planet (or preparing to)?

Doesn't mean it's fun.
If you've been able to play Heroic meleeing at enemies with low shields, then something is wrong with the difficulty of Heroic for those games. I found Reach's Heroic to be a lot of fun. But that's obviously just me I guess.
I know how to play Halo Campaigns, so don't say I just don't know how to use the weapons. Shotguns are okay up until the Elites stop caring about keeping their distance, charge at you, and beat you to death. Most CQC weapons just aren't very effective and way too risky to use. If I don't have any other weapon handy, I can make use of them, but they just aren't reliable enough. I could tear through most of the Halo 1 campaign on Heroic with just the plasma pistol. I could reliably kill Elites with any weapon, as long as I used a strategy that suited my choice of weapon. Now Elites just shrug off rockets, plasma grenades, and needles. Halo 1 and Halo 2 Elites were too easy, you say? Well making them harder doesn't make them more fun to fight.
Reach is an entirely different story. There are so many more options than just the 1337 combo. The AI in Reach are by many means A LOT SMARTER than past Halo games and simply putting you should never charge at an Elite expecting the best when they have always been the ones to charge you first. Halo 2 had one hit kills at the same range too, so the only real missing feature there is the AI's bluntness and missing uber weapons. The only Elites that shrug off high ballistics are the Ultras (which makes sense on Heroic I guess, they could survive three Fuel Rod blasts in Halo 2) and the Zealots (which makes a ton of sense on Heroic), which you should expect from the getgo unless you played Halo 1 beforehand. When using the shotgun at Elites, it's more of a rush, backpedal a bit, then one more shot to finish the job. I used this tactic whenever possible in Legendary without getting caked and it worked very well. You've generally just have to adapt to the new hostile and generally smarter AI, as well as learn to use even the most common weapons to get by in Halo Reach, which isn't the same as the past games at all.

Sometimes I can survive a melee, but usually if I'm in melee distance, then I don't have full shields/health, so they will usually kill in one hit. It's too much of a deterrent for CQC.
Well who's fault is it then? Maybe you shouldn't always charge Elites like you're doing then. I always wait till they're distracted and I have a decent level of shield before I rush them with AR, PR, or Shotgun fire. If distracted means grenades or just firing a few pistol rounds at them from one spot and changing, then that's how I'll drop their guard.

I've found allies to be completely useless as distractions. And slowing chipping away at their health (because getting too close to them is suicide) is not compelling gameplay. Halo 2 Hunters sucked, too.
Noble team is terrible at being distracting, especially with Hunters. That's why you have to use every chance possible to utilize a strategy to better win the situation. And these hunters are easier to kill than Halo 2's as far as weapon diversity goes (dies easier from Needler and Needle Rifle), but their mechanics and intelligence keeps that from being an easy task to complete. I like the Hunters because they are exactly what Bungie has always said for them to be, at last; walking tanks that are intelligent, powerful, disregard other soldiers on the field, and can't be killed immediately.

Fuck how you're supposed to use it. If I'm invisible and standing still, they shouldn't walk up to me and start shooting. The ability should be more versatile than it is. Jun did his darnedest to make my active camo useless by walking towards me whenever I tried to sneak up to an enemy.
Camo is a double-edged sword in one way: you depend on it to change the situation, but if you're caught there isn't much you can do. What I do with Camo is use it to escape, get closer, and scout enemy positions. From a distance, it's great. Up close, you have to be very freaking careful because the AI aren't stupid like past games about it. It's best for assassinations, scounting enemies from a distance, and using it to sink away to allow you a chance to breath or formulate a strategy. When actually using it, you have to use it selectively instead of spastically to where the AI aren't as aware of it. These AI catch on to the same old tricks, especially on Heroic and Legendary. If you need a video, I could upload to my Fileshare of when I played an Elite Ultra on Legendary using Active Camo. Also, use Camo when doing things away from your allies; it doesn't do you much good when you get caught in the crossfire. Sometimes the AI may intend your ally, but accidentall hit you because their aim was bad or you just happened to be within the fire zone.

An atmosphere of boring. That and the dullness of the other Noble members took away a lot of the personality of the game. Drones, frequent? I remember seeing them in three encounters. A group of three or so by the AA tower in Tip of the Spear (so bizarre, why even bother putting them in that encounter?), the Reflection area, and a cool fight in Pillar of Autumn. Engineers are pretty much a non-issue now that they're effortless to kill and don't even explode. They're just... there. As for the Scarabs, I prefer the cool stuff to happen where I am, not off in the distance. I disliked the Falcon flyovers for that reason, too. I want to be down there in the thick of it. Even in Winter Contingency, I would have liked to drive along that windy road. That looked fun!
Engineers are a bigger problem on Legendary. The Drones are also mentioned in Reach's info as Irregular Soldiers, so that explains their rarity if you want to know that (albeit the reason is only good if you like the canon over the gameplay). I like the Falcon sequences though (not on Legendary however) mainly because I liked the ground action and being air lifted into combat.

Basically, Heroic is the difficulty for Halo games. Normal and below are cakewalks, and Legendary can be nigh-impossible for all I care, but on Heroic, I expect formidable enemies that I can't rush into blindly and have to take somewhat seriously, but enough forgiveness that I can make a few mistakes and take a few hits, with more than enough room for shenanigans.
Try Normal for a playthrough, then try Heroic. I think it'll be a lot different after that transition, mainly because you're used to the weapons in a different way than you've been accustomed to these past ten years with Halo games.

Heroic in Reach is just too punishing to hit the 'sweet spot' that Halo 1, 2, 3, and ODST hit perfectly.
I differ because I think Heroic for Halo 2 and 3 was a cakewalk, especially after playing the games for 3 years at least. Halo 1's Heroic was tough for me for some reason and ODST was its own set of challenging considering the conditions. But Halo Reach was probably the most epic of the three in terms of AI aggressiveness and providing a challenge that remained possible, but challenging to accomplish.

Elites should never be able to survive a sniper shot to the face. Any class, any difficulty. It just shouldn't happen. The Halo 1 Elites were the high water mark. On Legendary, just about every weapon worked on them, yet they were still bad-asses to be feared. Elites in Reach... it's like they hacked the game in their favor or something.

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Originally Posted by ejburke

Elites should never be able to survive a sniper shot to the face. Any class, any difficulty. It just shouldn't happen. The Halo 1 Elites were the high water mark. On Legendary, just about every weapon worked on them, yet they were still bad-asses to be feared. Elites in Reach... it's like they hacked the game in their favor or something.

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The Elites in Halo 1 were jokes until they started berserking. I think the Sniper made them too easy, which is why people thought they were so fun. The Elites in Reach can survive one sniper round to the face, but the second one will finish it unless it's a Zealot, which takes three shots (two anywhere and one on the face). I think it makes a LOT of sense in making sure the player can't just clear away a bunch of enemies like they're just targets; this is the problem I had with Halo's 1, 2, and 3.

protip: master chief tactics don't work. at all.

The H1 Elites were great because you couldn't stand toe-to-toe with them, but you could take them out in a heartbeat under the right circumstances. I probably wouldn't be a Halo fan if not for that. If they had made Elites simple bullshit bullet sponges like every shooter before it, I would have had no interest.

Making things harder by cranking up the HP of enemies is what I expect from lesser game studios. It's one shot, one kill, not three shots, one kill. If I have one precious plasma grenade in reserve, I should be able to count on it killing an Elite if I'm able to stick him. It was a fun resource-management meta game and it just hasn't been the same since the first game.

The bloom on the DMR really doesn't bother me at all. Sure, it is annoying if you fire it too fast, but they did tone it down from the absurd amount in the beta to something way more reasonable.

What pisses me off most is the bloom on the pistol. That in addition to the ridiculously stupid small clip size makes the weapon a last resort. I know it's a side arm, but there's no reason it should be that gimped. Congrats Bungie on making a weapon more useless than the plasma pistol. (Speaking of the plasma pistol, that is the one weapon which has had the biggest improvement, and is actually a GOOD weapon to use.)

jay

cap

stop being stupid.

learn2pistol.

also, learn2earn-cR while you're at it. you took the hella long way (and I'm not even talking about "farming") and it's going to bite you in the ass later.