So finally got around to starting a legendary run last night with two buddies. The first few missions were God Tier co-op: We all organically defined our roles, acquired various weapons and armor abilities and knew how best to use them, as a team, to overcome our enemies. Short of a few encounters (like first facing an area with banshees and ghosts out to kill you among other things), we were a rolling thunder of destruction and (god damned gorgeous) good times.
That was, until we reached the mission that never fails to suck all the oxygen out of the room and leave us disappointed and frustrated: Reclaimer.
Now I've already bitched about this level from previous runs - one solo and one 2 player co-op heroic. Both times the scripting led to needless hilari-bad deaths and just shitty battles in general, but nowhere is that clearer than in Legendary, and a party of three Spartans doesn't really improve things.
So specifically, I'm talking about the part where the lich temporarily fries the Mammoth and you have to fight (far too fucking many) ghosts and wraiths while waiting for the lich to get into position before boarding it and blowing up its glowy spot.
Lets set the scene: 2 Ghosts and a Wraith, followed by another pair of ghosts and a wraith, followed by yet another of the same, and yes, even more.
What are you armed with? Tons of Assault Rifle ammo on the Mammoth, along with a good supply of Battle Rifle mags. In terms of anti-vehicular armaments, you can grab the sniper and maybe 15 extra shots, a rocket launcher with maybe one extra load of rockets, two rocket turrets mounted on the Mammoth itself, a Gauss warthog, and a chaingun Warthog. Sounds decent.
But here's the rub: By the time you make it to this encounter, chances are that the Mammoth's rocket turrets are both blown to shit, since they're deathtraps on legendary. Those rockets and the sniper? Well you did have to acquire the target locator in one set piece, and blow up several generators in another, both of which were guarded by wraiths and ghosts, so those are either gone or have a scant few shots remaining at best. If you were actually using the chaingun warthog, its probably not in the best of shape either, but lets assume its good to go.
This encounter does start you off with a gauss hog by the front of the mammoth, but its very soon destroyed as it stands there, as was the case when we found ourselves in this particular Halo shaped hell.
It went like this. "Hey guys, there's a Gauss hog down there by the Mammoth. See it? *BAWOOOOM*. OK, well, scratch that I guess".
Besides that? An ammo check showed we had one rocket, maybe 4 sniper shots, a gun hog and three BR wielding Spartans, against nigh endless ghosts and wraiths.
I know the last time I brought this mission up here I was told that its very simple if you do either grab the gauss hog or jack a wraith. Well, like I said, our gauss hog was already toasted seconds after we got to this encounter, so we opted to try plan B: Jack the wraith.
Cue the first bloody attempt where my buddy jumps on the front of the wraith and gets torn to shit by the gunner. Funny as hell, but lesson learned. We take out the gunner first and try it again (dying tons of times mind you from all the ghosts cutting our attempts to get close to the tank down, and the psychic tank itself lobbing balls of death everywhere). OK, we get on the front, and we only get a prompt to blow it up with a grenade. Holding X drops us back off the tank - we don't want to destroy it, we want to jack it. Obviously we're doing something wrong.
I try to attack it from the rear, and get the same prompt. We decide it has to be the sides we need - and sure enough my buddy sees the prompt to "board" the wraith, but when he does this, he attaches and is only given the option to plant a grenade.
We tried to jack those wraiths I don't even know how many times, but it was way too damn many. All the while tackling ghosts with Battle Rifles. All the while getting blown apart by tanks with pinpoint accuracy and huge splashes of insta-death. All the while knowing that even if we got lucky, there were a few waves of the same to come.
We even tried to just avoid the ground battle entirely, jetpack to the hill and sabotage the lich, but it doesn't drop low enough until you have a bloody enough fight with the ghosts and wraiths below. There are no weapons up there either. Nothing that could help out here. Now I'm not sure exactly what the trigger was, but after about 40 minutes and taking out a random wraith gunner, it dropped its baggage of covenant and activated its grav lift. We got on board, blew up the weak spot and jumped out, hoping we'd never, ever, ever have to play this encounter again.
Who the hell designed this? Why do we get a gimped target locator here? Why not providing us more anti-vehicular weaponry here? Why not provide some options besides rocket turrets and a gauss hog, both of which can be annihilated by one moment of bad luck, or through a scripted attack, leaving the players with, well, next to nothing.
I love this game, but fuck that level. Seriously. And this isn't even getting into the scripting bugs, the random setup for the Librarian story dump, and the subsequent random teleport into the middle of a tank battle. Worst level in Halo history? I think so.
SMH. SMH. SMH.
Moving on...
Edit: Had the mission named wrong. D'oh. Thanks for the correction.
Complex > Ragnarok > Haven > Abandon > Others
I said it.
TrueSkill catching up to you.Starting to really get my ass handed to me in multiplayer, shit is frustrating.
Tell me the good maps, Blaze.This is why you're a stupid face, Drew.
At least for stickies, it will get better when (if?) they fix the grenade sprint glitch.ugh, being able to loadout with Plasma grenades and plasma pistols now makes Warthogs yet again worthless. I miss my Halo 3 warthog
bring back sandtrap. Give my warthog some damn space to drive.
Around 200 IIRC.Any idea how many victories you need to reach Slayer Victory - Master?
Always wanted Gungnir in Reach but never reached it so I'm hoping this one will be easier to unlock (even though it looks heaps worse than the original).
I thought it was extremely boring and the lag was unbearable
Sweet, cheersAround 200 IIRC.
The Plasma Pistol is a loadout weapon, anyone complaining about any vehicle being overpowered just sucks. Take the damn initiative and take it out yourself.
Haven. Also, Haven.Tell me the good maps, Blaze.
Tell me.
Haven is on my list, bro!Haven. Also, Haven.
Starting to really get my ass handed to me in multiplayer, shit is frustrating.
Zealot and Powerhouse were strong slayer maps compared to Haven, and Zealot was still great for 2-flag and Assault.Haven alone shits on every Reach map from a great height.
I initially thought H4 had better launch maps than both games, but come to think of it, with how global ordnance works, and how poorly implemented vehicles and power weapons are in Ragnarok and Exile, I'm not so sure anymore. Halo 3 had a few decent ones, but lots of crap too. Reach was the same - their own share of good ones, but also some duds. Complex and Abandon are really the only true bad ones I've come across but I do enjoy Adrift, Haven, and Longbow.3 had good maps, but 4's maps are loads better than the launch maps that reach had.
Map quality in Halo has been pretty average for awhile now. There have been some good ones here and there, but for the most part a forgetful bunch. Gametypes for these said maps are also vital, so that's probably another big factor for their entertainment purposes.Why cant developers make good maps anymore?
Not a fan of the constant lifts and ramps. Really is a CQC type of map, thus you commonly see AR users, grenades, and melee more frequent ("Golden Triangle"). I mean, the gametypes that work for it aren't really high, either. It's not good for Flag (I doubt even 1-flag would save it), not Oddball, not King - nothing redeeming about it to me.What's wrong with Abandon? It's probably the next best map after Haven.
Man, i don't know what it is, but I always go back to 'hologram' for my ability. It's just so versatile and I love using it as an offense and defensive measure.
Also, the spawns are awesome. I love approaching a button, getting blasted from behind, and having to retread half the map just to find out what killed me.Spartan ops on solo Legendary is fucking hard. It's literally just a cycle of deaths as you kill one or two enemies at a time. Not really fun...
Also, the spawns are awesome. I love approaching a button, getting blasted from behind, and having to retread half the map just to find out what killed me.
Also, the spawns are awesome. I love approaching a button, getting blasted from behind, and having to retread half the map just to find out what killed me.
Or respawing in the middle of a 4-5 Elites group. That's fun.
Also, respawning inbetween 2 crawlers with binary rifles 3 times in a row.
Most principles? The Prometheans are like a collective violation of everything good and enjoyable. They're like the worst aspects of Halo 2 brutes and general flood combined with flying, teleporting, and extreme agility not suited for analog aiming. Really disappointing.Spartan Ops Episode 2 really cemented my dislike of Prometheans. Chapters 1 and 5 seem specially designed to foreground the very worst qualities of all the new enemy types. Watchers are flying peckers that do everything they can to annoy you, and as soon as you try to pop them they toot off to cower behind the nearest scrap of cover so that when you turn to something else they can ruin your day all over again. I really hate them. A class of enemy that you absolutely must dispatch before all others contradicts Halo's design philosophy, making an utter mess of combat flow as a result. Watchers collapse Halo's sandbox gameplay into a linear exercise in tedium. Jesus, they are so bloody awful.
Knights are almost as aggravating as Watchers. They too retreat when they take fire. They either take potshots from a distance or charge you erratically, and there's not much you can do about it. I have a hard time telling how they're armed, which can result in frustrating encounters on higher difficulties.
Crawlers are pretty awful too. They're tough to headshot and they swarm you from all sides like Zerglings, yet they can also cling to walls and snipe you from across the map. I think they need a more narrowly defined role and a cleaner design.
Bad show, 343. Don't replace the Covenant in future games until you've figured out how to make enemies that promote creative play. I don't understand why it wasn't obvious during playtesting that Prometheans violate most of the principles of good enemy design. This is the main area where you still have a great deal to learn from Bungie's example. Please, please, please don't mess this up in Halo 5.
With all that said, I was impressed with the Spartan Ops levels themselves. The reused environments were well utilized, which surprised me, and I thought the chapter in the Cauldron was particularly good. I especially liked the scale and variety of the encounters in this week's chapters. Here's hoping the next episodes mix things up even more.
lol you are having trouble aiming at moving targets so you are disappointed? smhMost principles? The Prometheans are like a collective violation of everything good and enjoyable. They're like the worst aspects of Halo 2 brutes and general flood combined with flying, teleporting, and extreme agility not suited for analog aiming. Really disappointing.
Also, respawning inbetween 2 crawlers with binary rifles 3 times in a row.
Yes, because that's the only thing I wrote in my post, and extreme agility means "moving targets."lol you are having trouble aiming at moving targets so you are disappointed? smh
It's not just that they move though. They zip zap all over the place without rhyme or reason. It's dumb and annoying. Elites are agile, but they're not Spider-Man. Brute can do superjumps on demand, but they have a clear trajectory.lol you are having trouble aiming at moving targets so you are disappointed? smh
Speaking of loadouts. Can I have more than 1 second to pick mine?
IMHO crawlers are the hardest thing to deal with in the whole game.Crawlers actually seemed like the hardest thing to deal with in Spartan Ops. That mission where it's just an onslaught of Crawlers and Watchers was frustrating.
i'm still staring at letters forming the words "coming soon".Anyone play the new episode yet? Gonna play in an hour or so and its fun to be excited about new content every week! I just hope we get some new locations.
IMHO crawlers are the hardest thing to deal with in the whole game.
knights are few and not very aggressive. 5 of them in one room: kill one, hide behind anything only a couple of meters from the next knight - AFTER he's seen you kill one of his buddies - and not a single fuck will be given.
even on legendary enemy numbers are the only thing really to worry about - the game offers so many powerweapons and semi-auto ammo that for chief's foes quantity >>> quality.
Watchers could be the most annoying, but thankfully don't come in greater numbers - except for that Spartan Ops Chapter... solo legendary was ridiculous.
Dang, your right. Me too...i'm still staring at letters forming the words "coming soon".
The Knights just aren't that much fun to fight. They're bullet sponges that don't really do anything interesting other than take a long time to take down. It doesn't make them fierce or challenging, it just takes a long time to kill them.
I'm not sure how you could make fighting them engaging. Maybe if you reduced the number of them by a lot, increased their health my a multiple of what it is now and then have them teleport in and out of battle to become this enemy that's this dangerous presence that appears every so often to thwart the player, sort of like the Big Sisters in Bioshock 2. Currently, they have no real identity. When I fight them I think "I wish I was fighting the covenant" be cause the battles are more spontaneous and interesting.
lol - If you're playing BTB (or even REGULAR slayer) on Ragnarok, and you're in a position to count every single bullet I fire from my sniper... you're doing it wrong.I am talking from a balance point of view more than anything.
Imagine we are playing on ragnarok against eachother, I know you have sniper, so I wait until you use 8 bullets and then take you on long range, only to get Sniped in the head.
What if I don't have awareness, but my teammate says 'crouching guy right outside your door, left side.' You'll still die, but it won't be because of my loadout.Or later I try and sneak up on you, but by that time you have picked awareness and see me coming.
I suppose this could happen. I haven't seen it yet, but it could happen.Or later when I throw a nade at you which you think you are clear of but thanks to my explosives kills you.
Yeah... I guess this section shows (once again - I guess I knew this before) that you and I like different Halos. Yours sounds really boring to me.The problem is the system isn't well telegraphed, I have no way of knowing what perk you are using, even after you kill me using it, it's all very masked by the general flow of the game but certainly comes into effect.
So yeah I don't want everyone to have different toys, it leads to situational advantages which come from choices in a menu rather than from manoeuvres in game. Give everyone the most balanced toys and let them play eachother on a even battlefield.
I understand the usefulness of an asset, I just wish that whole system didn't exist.
so do we know when the first title update/what it will contain is being dropped? I'm starting to feel like this Halo will not hold a candle to reach/3/2 in terms of online replay and it's probably hinging on including a Classic playlist (and having it stay populated).
I agree with most everything you say except the flag carrier using a pistol. I think it's great and adds a little bit to the game. Where before the flag carrier was pretty screwed if the team didn't help, now he at least has a chance. The short clip and rapid fire of the pistol makes the damage buff almost unnoticable. The flag carrier usually burns through they clip pretty fast and end up dying anyways.
Aside from me agree with you, I most certainly don't agree with you on the replay value. In under two weeks I already have more play time than I ever did in Reach. Even with it's flaws this is the most fun I've had with Halo MP in a long while.
The more I play the less concerned I am about the "random" weapon drops. They really don't seem random anymore, and will probably be more predictable as time goes on. Look at Ragnorok. Lazer always starts on top hill and snipers in the base. Snipers keep spawning in the base, but lazer switches between about three locations but all close to the middle. The maps seem to go through a cycle of weapon location, I can only see this becoming more predictable as time goes on.
Is the Mantis respawn time on Meltdown BTB just stupidly short or something?