I'd like to see most of the halo wars 2 units in the FPS.
Not jackrabits, not shrouds, and I think vultures should kinda be what that condor is.
I think the Grisly is cool as fuck, but it's a bit much for the UNSC.
it's a massive shame that jump pack brutes don't attack air units.
I mean not that they should get ranged weapons to shoot air units
That they should jump up and try to smash hornets with their hammers.
I mean if you're gonna rule of cool, it might as well be that, right?
I also think a setpiece where you go Serious Sam against a legion of suicide grunts would be just impeccably memorable.
Flame gal.
Her normal outfit is fine,good even, the mech is too much. Way too [I]40k[/I].
[QUOTE=The Jack;51970747]
I hated even halo 4's cortana.
The emphasis on a personal story was at the expense of everything else. The main villain was a cartoonishly evil mage, the second big bad was a poorly characterized religious terrorist, misc cast were all a bunch of one dimensional tropes, and it's all in general heaps of shit.
[/QUOTE]
Did you... spend any time at all paying attention to the plot of Halo 3?
Because that's what it is. Truth and the Gravemind lost any sense of intelligence and cunning they had in Halo 2 and the extended universe, while Bungie desperately tries to make you feel anything about Cortana by spamming nonsensical and annoying cries of pain that were only explained years later with the Forerunner Trilogy and Halo: Evolutions.
Truth isn't too bad, I mean the Brutes were at least trying to take captives even if they ended up killing them all but no one thought to bring even a single human with them to the Ark? They just sat there waiting for humans to come through the portal and get captured by ground forces. The Gravemind shows up at Earth and takes High Charity through the portal to the Ark (except that High Charity is twice the size of the portal) and does nothing with Earth. Could have just parked High Charity outside, bombarded the planet with Flood and then sent 3 billion Flood forms and a hundred captured UNSC and Covenant ships but he chooses not to, and later on when he has Chief and Arbiter in his grasp after Truth is dead he... pulls away his Flood tentacles leaving two useless Flood forms to do the work that the chaos of High Charity couldn't? And when Chief returns to High Charity, the Gravemind still doesn't do anything. Chief is surrounded by the largest source of biomass in the galaxy for over a hundred millennia and the Gravemind sees fit to leave him to do his thing.
Secondary cast didn't fair any better. Keyes was a joke and Arbiter didn't even have a reason to be in the story. When Johnson is captured she decides it's a good idea to go by herself to rescue him by crashing a Pelican through a window, dual-wield a shotgun and a pistol against the Brute bodyguards of the leader of the Covenant with a Flood invasion bearing down on them. The daughter of two of the most brilliant people in the entire history of the UNSC does not think to use the fucking minigun at the bottom of the Pelican and needlessly risks her life and the life of everyone in the entire galaxy to have a Romeo and Juliet moment with Johnson. She doesn't bring a marine squad, not even a single Hornet. Her death was completely avoidable.
Don't get me wrong, I still like Halo 3's campaign in spite of its massive flaws but it still bothers me that Bungie felt this was the best they could do.
[QUOTE=The Jack;51970747]
-The ending went even beyond forerunner-super science and was just magic. Like hardlight is a technology based on real world theory, and bungie didn't go mad with it. But here you are in space, everything's destroyed, and there's no emiters,power source, or anything to create and sustain the box you're in and the physical avatar.
[/QUOTE]
The remnants of Mantle's Approach were holding the bubble together. Not even a HAVOK nuke is enough to destroy a Forerunner ship like that (though a NOVA bomb would) but yeah, representation was poor in Halo 4.
[QUOTE=The Jack;51970747]
I guess it never really helped that I never had any special feelings for cortana, she was just helpful in 1 and 2 and in the way for 3.
I think exploring Cortana going rampant is a good shot. I respect the Idea and trying something new. I don't agree at all with their methods or goals.[/QUOTE]
I don't think we'll see much of Cortana herself in Halo 6. She matters little to the overall narrative and it's a sore spot I'd personally rather see them sweep under the rug and avoid as much as possible. Just get Halo 6 and the Created out of the way so some actually good stories can be told in the games without Forerunner religion getting in the way.
I never noticed most of those flaws. (The flood infestation caused much of africa to be burned, and the gravemind couldn't sit around and wait for reinforcements.)
I guess I didn't notice because I was way younger when I first did the campaign, but I think it's moreso that, for the most part, Halo 3's campaign story is pretty reasonable, and if you exclude cortana, it's only a few missions that have such errors in. It helps that 3 is a continuation of 2, which had the best story, and doesn't do much to problematize that.
Also.
[I]I am Truth! the voice of the Covenant!
And so, you must be silenced.
[/I]
...Is just so [I]good[/I].
I just realized that the Covenant waited 3 levels to capture someone to activate the ark, they should have just taken one during Crow's Nest.
I mean, the Prophet of Truth knew it needed a human to activate. Even if they thought the Ark was on earth, they would have had a human at the ready.
I was thinking 343 really like to stress how evil ONI are and how shady shit is. So, having an assignment due in on monday and procrastinating like a madman, I took that Idea and ran with it.
now the covenant are infighting and the unifying threat of genocidal aliens is abated, the insurrectionists go apeshit in trying to take advantage of UNSC weakness. (honestly, I reckon some of them could've still been at it, thinking the covenant were a hoax to get the humans unified)
Now to make it interesting:
Spartans II's are all, like, 1% intellects and III's aren't far behind. Now, whilst they may have been indoctrinated, their extreme intellegence will have some gravitate towards Insurrectionist ideas like communism, liberty, facism, anarchy, and the various things that the central power [I]isn't[/I]. Whilst the spartans, if they were used against innies as expected, would feel trapped in their roll, the greater freedom from being seen as heroes to humanity means less dependence on the UNSC because they're not shadowy murderers, and better ability to sway others as icons. Maybe chief himself flirts with one of these ideologies, or even tries to go against the UNSC and more importantly, ONI.
Maybe, the UN possibly being fascist, all they want is that unifying enemy, like a new covenant, to rally everyone against to secure their power. Maybe after a few years of cryo where humanity has both recovered and then bulked up, chief wakes up to a humanity preparing to launch their own campaign (which sounds like they want a genocide, but really they just want a really protracted war)
Cortana's fate:
You've got an AI in your helmet. A crazy AI, but she's yours. She's only connected to your suit, so she doesn't get that god complex quite so hard, but you've got the option to plug her in temporarily to enemy systems at a risk to... well, everyone, given the rampency.
You've got the closest friend with dementia, inside your head, can't think of anything more harrowing.
The covenant: fractured like they are currently in 343's halo, ONI pulling CIA bullshit on them.
The forerunners: Stay mysterious, but now there's a whole load of groups wanting to use their stuff for their own purposes.
100x more potential than the reclaimer trillogy, right?
Maybe, for a switch, you play as humble indies with their guns and bullets and lack of a giant industrial complex, against the (probably fascist) UNSC who've integrated covenant and forerunner technology and are now, scarily, rather similar to the genocidal mad-aliens who they beat in a war.
[QUOTE=PopSkimo;51972249]When you say her "character outfit" do you mean her actual outfit?
[t]https://static2.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/3199774-kinsano.jpg[/t]
Or the model of her mech?
[t]http://i.imgur.com/kse5QLR.png[/t]
Or maybe the concept art?
[t]http://i.imgur.com/TNrf4W3.png[/t]
While I don't think the concept art does much justice (makes it look really short and fat while being stretched out) the other two are fine. Her actual human outfit looks cool and the in-game model of her mech looks like your standard mech with flamethrowers. Don't really see what looks dumb as fuck. Unless you mean that it's not the [I]Bungie Aesthetic™[/I] or something and you just dislike it off of that[/QUOTE]
I think if it wasn't an open cockpit and the flamethrowers weren't just enlarged Halo 1 flamethrowers I'd like it a lot more
Why not a flamethrower scorpion? Way more sensible.
Maybe call it a 'spider' cause it has a big fuel tank that looks a bit like the spinneret/abdomen of a spider.
[QUOTE=The Jack;51973536]Why not a flamethrower scorpion? Way more sensible.
Maybe call it a 'spider' cause it has a big fuel tank that looks a bit like the spinneret/abdomen of a spider.[/QUOTE]
Because learning how to drive a tank takes a lot more training for a former Hellbringer than learning how to use a Exoskeleton that just mimic's your movements. Even though in the games any marine can jump into a Hornet or Scorpion and know how to control it perfectly, it's one of those realism sacrifices made for gameplay. It'd take months to master control over those, months the Spirit doesn't have.
I think that the flame mech was simply done for rule of cool rather than any logical reason. The Cyclops counters vehicles and the Scorpion counters infantry, so it would make sense if Kinsano's unit was a Scorpion with flamethrowers instead of a Cyclops. The opportunity to have a Cyclops with giant flamethrowers running around was just too good to miss.
so i never saw this but apparently halo reach had custom-game like options for campaign though it was never used (and empty) so lord zedd pasted in the same custom game options and thye fucking work
[hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS-CHNxa258[/hd]
this'd be something cool to unlock once you've finished the campaign, i reckon
[QUOTE=overwatch pvt;51977086]Because learning how to drive a tank takes a lot more training for a former Hellbringer than learning how to use a Exoskeleton that just mimic's your movements. Even though in the games any marine can jump into a Hornet or Scorpion and know how to control it perfectly, it's one of those realism sacrifices made for gameplay. It'd take months to master control over those, months the Spirit doesn't have.[/QUOTE]
The tank isn't like tanks are now, it needs only one driver and it's a car with a turret on top. We control it with an Xbox controller, I'm not entirely sure if they use something that's harder to use.
Now an exoskeleton? Complicated as fuck. They never just mimick your movements, they've always got a complex and bizare control scheme, plus you've got to get used to the drastically different proportions, the fact you can't feel with the armour, and so on and so forth. Plus, it's an entirely different vehicle with no similarity to any other vehicle. I mean, it's the distant future, they might have recreational video games that teach people how to drive and pilot some weird stuff, but a tank for one is going to be easier, cheaper,more effective and more protective than a mech for one.
Especially a mech with niche weapons like flamethrowers.
I just don't like the flame mech because it looks like something out of 40k rather than Halo
I've been saying that about the regular cyclops
And maybe the overuse in flamethrower troops in general.
I mean, I can see futuristic flamethrowers with range and spread taking out whole covenant squads and heat being an effective getaround for shields and armour.
and hellbringers... They look cool (although that armour will need to be powered or semi powered)
But like, humans just don't like fire weapons, and probably haven't improved on them much.
The 50. chaingun on a warthog aught to be an all-round more effective weapon.
and those big chainguns and rocket pods are equally transportable.
No sane person wants to be the type with the highest mortality rate.
You're a risk to your allies.
Standard projectile weapons have altered damage for gameplay reasons, but a DMR bullet will likely be more powerful than a shotgun shell, An assault rifle might be half as powerful as the DMR, but this is per bullet and the full auto obviously makes up for it. And the chaingun on the warthog would do as much damage as the sniper rifle per bullet.
The Futuristic flamethrower, whilst effective, isn't such a massive improvement over the projectile weapons that it's worth all the extra risks most of the time.
In warhammer, Rule of cool is more relevant than what'd be effective in the dark satire of a world perpetually at war. In halo, The UNSC are the good guys who shouldn't be burning their enemies to death, and they're rational (Well, maybe not certain marines, but the command is) and probably don't have armies of flamer warthogs.
Halo wars is a game, so building tons of hellbringers, rather than building a bunch of marines and putting a flamethrower unit in the midst, is fair game and fair play, but a themed army of fire, with fire hogs and hellbringers and fire mechs is a bit silly/warhammer. It isn't quite Noise marines, but it's close.
Does she get the option to field regular hogs?
In the PAX panel doesn't it get briefly mentioned that Kinsano fought against the UNSC for a time or something? She doesn't seem to be the most conventional "leader" to begin with. I'm pretty sure they also said that they're going with more non-canon options for leader because they can have more fun options.
She's definitely an interesting addition and I'm curious to see if the speculation for a hunter and grunt leader are true.
Yeah, Kinsano was a former insurrectionist and she is "canon lite". A Hunter faction is coming next month, but beyond that we don't know what else is coming beyond Operation: SPEARBREAKER.
[QUOTE=PopSkimo;51978978]In the PAX panel doesn't it get briefly mentioned that Kinsano fought against the UNSC for a time or something? She doesn't seem to be the most conventional "leader" to begin with. I'm pretty sure they also said that they're going with more non-canon options for leader because they can have more fun options.
She's definitely an interesting addition and I'm curious to see if the speculation for a hunter and grunt leader are true.[/QUOTE]
Eh, I'd rather they stick to what could be canon, but given how seriously one can take 343's halo so far, it's not bad. I hope they can run with it. Truly run with it.
The hunter faction has a lot of different and interesting hunters, sure, but I'd like to see a power where you just attack people with loose worms. It'd be just so nice if you could command folks to throw worms at people. The world just needs more worms.
Grunt faction. Since brutes and elites are too proud:Everything that would have been a brute or elite is just more grunts. Sometimes better grunts and better armed grunts, but especially with standard grunt units, just more grunts.
The grunt melee units are equipped with spears that instantly kill spartans.
And their most elite unit is a team of three grunts, that are for some reason way more powerful than any other unit. They're equiped with fuel rods and needlers or dual wield plasma pistols. When they score a victory over multiple opponents, they retrieve confetti from their personal storage and celebrate with it. They collect the heads of their enemies.
You have an deployable called the food nipple, Which makes all grunts 100% more fanatical and three times as deadly after they've fed. They also praise their glorious leader.
You can use a power to have your grunts go to sleep, which gives them full health.
They have an upgrade that gives them way too many plasma grenades, sometimes they throw two or more at once (they have big hands). Sometimes, when they idle, they juggle.
I don't know why there's no jackals. Maybe they had an argument over which jackals to use? (The bungie ones, duh) There's also no drones, but they're pretty rare. Jackals are a staple.
I guess atriox could just... hate jackals enough to not include them in the banished (most do hate jackals) or maybe the jackals left atriox after a bit because they're just like that.
I think it'd just be nice to go crazy with this shit.
If the grunt leader is a thing, I kinda hope to see a mech similar to what they pilot in warzone firefight. I love that those small buggers are allowed to pilot something so strong while making ridiculous call outs "stop that human shooty car!"
religious fanatic jackals could still follow religious leaders but I don't see why the average kig-yar would go with atriox when they could just and become a pirate instead
[QUOTE=Zezibesh;51978401]I just don't like the flame mech because it looks like something out of 40k rather than Halo[/QUOTE]
I don't like it because it's just retarded in every aspect.
[QUOTE=Zezibesh;51979598]religious fanatic jackals could still follow religious leaders but I don't see why the average kig-yar would go with atriox when they could just and become a pirate instead[/QUOTE]
Kig-Yar are and were always mercenaries, first and foremost. They did not follow the Covenant out of religious beliefs but out of profit: they could continue rampaging around the galaxy in search of loot with a huge navy backing them up. Atriox likely chose not to include the Kig-Yar for that reason: they're not honorable or loyal, they act only out of self-interest. On top of that, the Elites are from Let 'Volir (who Atriox struck a bargain with) and Grunts just get enslaved. The Banished may not have encountered any large enough amount of Jackals to use in their army.
[QUOTE=Soul_;51979875]I don't like it because it's just retarded in every aspect.[/QUOTE]
Depends on the situation. The Cyclops used in Halo Wars and Halo Wars 2 are modified off the original versions which were used for disaster relief efforts, riot control and construction. The Hellbringers are, especially as a mini-faction, designed to destroy as much as possible in close-quarters and still survive. While the Scorpion fits the "counter infantry" design motif better a Cyclops easily fits the bill for something that's going to be wading through rubble, tearing apart buildings and making the enemy shit themselves. Aside from the open-cockpit (which is dumb, no excuses) the design is pretty much exactly what should be expected for a cartoony RTS. The proportions have to be ridiculous to easily convey what it is and how it's different to a regular Cyclops from afar.
The cyclops would be terrible for disaster relief efforts, riot control and construction.
There's too much mass put on small points. You'd break a ton of shit trying to rescue people, and that'd be quite counterproductive in construction.
The cyclops could easily kill people in a riot by accident.
Something with treads and arms would just do so much better at these things.
[QUOTE=The Jack;51980291]The cyclops would be terrible for disaster relief efforts, riot control and construction.
There's too much mass put on small points. You'd break a ton of shit trying to rescue people, and that'd be quite counterproductive in construction.
The cyclops could easily kill people in a riot by accident.
Something with treads and arms would just do so much better at these things.[/QUOTE]
I do not write the canon, I just know a lot of it.
[QUOTE] Its large feet help mitigate the suit’s ground pressure, but the Cyclops is a surprisingly lightweight design considering its size - a testament to the advanced structural materials developed by Algolis engineers and scientists.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]
Minor Variants:
There are no official categorizations for minor Cyclops variants, but most follow common themes in terms of their loadout and scope of modification. In addition to alterations to enhance their suitability in specific climates, the following are examples of Cyclops used in 2558:
Peacekeeper: Popular with police SWAT teams in Earth’s megacities, these Mark III [A1] units are usually equipped with a large riot shield and a low-pressure autocannon that can fire a variety of riot-control munitions. Most were destroyed after being pressed into active combat duty.
Protector: Deployed in high-threat civil rescue missions, Protector units (usually older B-II units) are used by firefighters and medical response teams for deployment in situations where larger vehicles cannot fit, and unprotected workers would risk death. A typical configuration mounts a large tank of fire-retardant foam and a high-pressure projector, and a high-torque gripping arm for ripping apart mangled vehicles to get at trapped occupants or breaking the reinforced walls seen in many arcologies.
Breaker: These Cyclops frames mount specialized tools for shipbreaking and construction, which may include high-power plasma-cutters, hydraulic rams, or assorted cutting blades. Wreckers employed by the UNSC and contractors are vacuum sealed and kept busy slicing up shattered ship hulks and stations that remain in orbit around Earth or excavating half-melted buildings on the vitrified surfaces of former colonies.
Hazops: Cyclops with biolab-grade environmental sealing and a heavy flamethrower are sometimes assigned as support vehicles to Spartan assessment and containment teams at Forerunner sites which may house Flood samples. Unfortunately, it is often necessary to destroy these suits at the end of successful containment missions, as properly cleaning every nook and crevice for traces of Flood spores is prohibitively challenging. A worst-case scenario - so far explored only in simulations - is one in which the operator is infected by the Flood and FSC-based biomass further augments the existing exoskeleton armature.
[/QUOTE]
[url]https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/universe/vehicles/cyclops[/url]
The Cyclops is relatively lightweight, thus the pressure on joints matters much less than a real-world mech (not to mention their extreme strength) and they're able to run faster than some Spartans. They're not clunky or difficult to maneuver, but with the exception of Halo Wars 2's variant they weren't used in combat unless necessary.
Hypothesizing for fun
If we were to assume that UNSC leaders were hyper realistic and would make their next moves based on what military leaders and politicians would do, rather than what writers would have them do, what would they do after they survived the human-covenant war from 2553 and onwards?
What research is prioritized (both from public and private sector)
Where's the next war
How will the covenant be dealt with
how will post war domestic policy change
How does insurrection change.
I think efforts would be more focused on rebuilding anything what was lost, start to chip away the glass on destroyed planets and work on terraforming if need be, the private sectors would follow suit just like Liang Dortmund does with Meridian in 5.
I don't really think war would be too much a priority for humanity, just let the remnants of the covenant duke it out over the blooding years and don't get involved, especially how thinly drawn humanity has become. I think there'd be heavier punishments for insurrectionists given the possible sparsity of tech and resources humanity has on hand. The UNSC would really have to consolidate their power and take inventory before attempting anything post war.
Recolonizing as quickly as possible while building enough of a deterrence force to stop ex-Covenant factions from threatening human space should probably be priority.
I'd also like to see the UNSC become less centralized and offer autonomy for colonies that want it under a federation or a similar kind of structure. Ending up in another endlessly escalating civil war is not the right call especially now that colonies like Venezia are attempting to get some serious hardware. I'd imagine civilians in the core worlds would also be quite war-weary at this point. I know I sure as hell wouldn't want to live under a shady de facto military government whether they saved humanity or not.
also finished Mortal Dictata and Broken Circle. The former was an alright end to the Kilo-5 trilogy, as in the previous novels I mostly enjoyed the Kilo-5 characters and their interactions more than the actual story. All the peaceful interactions with Kig-yar, Sangheili and Huragok were enjoyable and Phillips was my favorite character as before. Considering how many times their mission shifted in the trilogy (supply arms to sangheili -> venezia acquiring a battlecruiser -> sentzke) I had difficulty remembering what they had even done in the previous novels.
Broken Circle was more interesting although the timeskip in the last third and some of the beginning stuff took a while to get used to. As I didn't know anything about the contents when starting it I initially thought the Covenant story was going to be a story running parallel to typical UNSC stuff but it ended up being completely from the Covenant perspective. Once the stuff with Ussa 'Xellus started rolling I was more into the story. Enjoyed having some San'Shyuum perspective and the characters not being total foaming at the mouth zealots as Covenant perspectives often end up being. Not sure if the Ussans will actually end up being relevant at any point considering how few of them must have left for Sanghelios. I kinda wish there'd been more interaction between the "lost clan" and the Swords of Sanghelios or other Sangheili factions.
Kinsano is out. Lore is brief, and she's overpowered. Played a match of Blitz firefight with her and she steamrolls everything except air units, so Anders will be a great counter to Kinsano. This was before I even opened my card packs too.
ah yes, the classic "i did well with the new thing immediately so it's OP"
is halo wars 2 good? i liked 1 back in the day
[QUOTE=JaggedyJazz;51989046]is halo wars 2 good? i liked 1 back in the day[/QUOTE]
If you liked 1 you'll like 2. For the most part it plays exactly the same but it's better looking and with new stuff.
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The Halo Thread V13: Great, this guy's OP again?
