glyphstrip FAQ button
Halo.bungie.org
glyphstrip
Frequently Asked Forum Questions
 Search the HBO News Archives

Any All Exact 
Search the Halo Updates DBs

Halo Halo2 
Search Older Posts on This Forum:
Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts


Re: Weapon omissions
Posted By: UrsusArctos <zloty5@netscape.net>Date: 1/20/07 1:48 a.m.

In Response To: Re: Weapon omissions (Rockslider)


: "Nothing higher than a red elite"? Cough-splutter! (spurts mouthful
: of tea all over monitor) Jeepers, how high do you want to go? Them reds is
: nasty!

: Joking aside (though your nonchalant attitude to reds did take me aback),
: it's not "mostly a training level" on the higher difficulties
: though; and that's where probably the majority of players end up I
: imagine. And it's highly replayable like the rest of the game.

As a matter of fact, I do play through it on Heroic, it suits me just fine. It isn't that Red Elites aren't nasty, it's just that there are much nastier Elites- you haven't forgotten the Gold and Black varieties, have you? Be glad they weren't interested in boarding!

: On the lower difficulties (just to digress a moment), ok it feels like more
: of a training level because of the calibration section and advice panels.
: But I think there's a bad design fault with those features. There will be
: people who are familiar with the game yet prefer to play on Normal or Easy
: (and it's great that Bungie provide the lower levels, allowing a wider
: audience to enjoy the game, not just the folk that want things tough). Yet
: when they do so, they'll be subjected to a painfully slow and unskippable
: calibration sequence, and no way of turning off the action-pausing advice
: panels. Every time! There's also at least one advice panel later in the
: game. But those things aren't to do with difficulty level at all; 'low
: difficulty' doesn't imply 'new player'. There should have been a way to
: turn those features off. Ok, digression over.

I agree with you, entirely. At least Bungie let plasma grenades enter Pillar of Autumn in force on Heroic, they made killing Elites a piece of cake. BOOOOM....BLAAAAAAAAARGH!

: I guess you're right to bring up the matter of Bungie not wanting to
: "introduce too powerful a weapon early on". But for one thing,
: I'm not sure a shotgun would actually be any more effective overall than
: say a plasma rifle. For another, I wish the developers wouldn't think like
: that, if they do. In the long run, every weapon they leave out reduces the
: number of play variations we can revel in. I'm not saying put all the
: weapons in every level, but I'd certainly like to see all the basic ones
: (basic = all except sniper rifle and rocket launcher, which I consider
: specialist weapons).

The real problem with the shotgun is its exaggerated performance. It blows away shields and converts alien flesh to swiss cheese up close, but the big shot spread means that it loses destructive power with range all too easily. If the shotgun were made a little less poweful and the shot spread were tightened, it would be just fine.

Of course, the shotgun doesn't turn up until things start gurgling in the swamp, which gives me the impression Bungie put it in to kill flood above everything else. It works fine if you're engaging a Black Elite up real close in the canteen in the Maw(on Easy),and in any other situation you're asking for a lot of blue balls of energy and fizzy blue balls to come your way.

Making the shotgun an anti-flood weapon and not much else in Campaign says a lot about the weapon and the flood themselves. That was one part of the original game that really sucked. At least it's consolation that we had a weapon that could put those gurgling zombies to sleep fast.

: I suppose a developer might apply some weapon limitations to try to give a
: level a certain flavour (not that Halo is like that). But again, in the
: long run that just cuts down the fun you can have. Or at least, it cuts
: down the fun that Halo nuts like us can have; I realize we may be a
: minority!

I think so. If you told Bungie about the rockslide megabattle before they finished the game, I guess that they'd probably fix the bug that allowed all the dropships to land at the rockslide area instead of letting the bug remain. The thing with game developers is that they want their game to be perfect in their eyes, and gaming nuts like us love to exploit these bugs in the game for extra fun. Not that I blame them for being what they are- they made a perfectly enjoyable game, with or without additional fun.

: But even if it did make it easy, that would be a choice the player can
: make. Do I fancy an easy shotgun romp today, or do I fancy using other
: weapons for a tougher challenge? I guess there are probably folk out there
: who are only ever interested in using the most powerful weapons available
: and getting through in the shortest amount of time (I know that's not you
: of course), but I'd hate to think that developers let their designs be
: influenced by such a shallow attitude.

Hmm. Makes me think of the parts in Halo 2's campaign where Elites can magically sense and dodge sniper rifles so that you'll have to engage them up close instead. Bungie is forcing the player to play in a manner that he might not be happy with. It's Bungie's game, but who's playing it and paying for it? Us. We want to enjoy it, don't we? And who's there to tell us what we enjoy and what we don't, as long as we don't spoil someone else's experience? Of course, one can argue that there's nothing wrong with modding as long as we don't go on Multiplayer, but not everyone is capable of modding and not everyone would be happy doing something that can be frowned on.

There's a line between the way gaming nuts like us want to enjoy Bungie's game and the way Bungie wants us to enjoy their game, and Bungie is pushing that line hard.

I have nothing more to say.


Message Index




Replies:

Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Jman 1/15/07 6:21 p.m.
     Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Twitch 1/15/07 7:19 p.m.
           DOH! *NM*Jman 1/15/07 8:30 p.m.
     Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Rockslider 1/15/07 7:57 p.m.
           Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Jman 1/15/07 8:46 p.m.
           Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?3Suns 1/15/07 9:00 p.m.
           Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Peptuck 1/16/07 2:02 p.m.
                 Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Rockslider 1/16/07 5:31 p.m.
                       Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?scarab 1/16/07 6:20 p.m.
     Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?TelTura 1/15/07 8:33 p.m.
           Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Jman 1/15/07 9:28 p.m.
                 Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Narcogen 1/15/07 10:17 p.m.
                       Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?scarab 1/16/07 1:19 a.m.
                             Stealth in the third roomRockslider 1/16/07 5:17 p.m.
                                   Re: Stealth in the third roomscarab 1/16/07 5:26 p.m.
                       Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?GhaleonEB 1/16/07 2:44 a.m.
                 Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?3Suns 1/16/07 1:28 a.m.
                 Tough stealth challenge in the seventh roomRockslider 1/16/07 5:11 p.m.
           Delta Halo/Regret Level for me...Wooskies 1/16/07 12:38 p.m.
     Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?scarab 1/16/07 1:00 a.m.
     Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Owm 1/16/07 2:11 a.m.
           Weapon omissionsRockslider 1/17/07 12:46 p.m.
                 Re: Weapon omissionsUrsusArctos 1/17/07 10:03 p.m.
                       Re: Weapon omissionsRockslider 1/19/07 12:32 p.m.
                             Re: Weapon omissionsUrsusArctos 1/20/07 1:48 a.m.
     Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?Peptuck 1/16/07 2:09 p.m.
           Re: Attack on the Control Room- Best level ever?scarab 1/16/07 3:48 p.m.
           End of TB strategiesNarcogen 1/16/07 11:16 p.m.
           I find TB annoying at the startRockslider 1/17/07 12:42 p.m.
                 Re: I find TB annoying at the startscarab 1/17/07 1:35 p.m.
                       Re: I find TB annoying at the startBlack Guard 1/17/07 6:52 p.m.
                 Re: I find TB annoying at the startNarcogen 1/18/07 4:59 a.m.
                       Re: I find TB annoying at the startangrymob 1/18/07 2:08 p.m.
                             Re: I find TB annoying at the startNarcogen 1/18/07 11:52 p.m.
                                   I like Halo's exuberance.scarab 1/19/07 7:54 a.m.
                                         Re: I like Halo's exuberance.Owm 1/19/07 4:55 p.m.
                                         Trickery and predictabilityRockslider 1/19/07 5:14 p.m.
                                   Re: I find TB annoying at the startBlack Guard 1/19/07 7:22 p.m.
                       Re: I find TB annoying at the startRockslider 1/18/07 4:00 p.m.



contact us

The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33.