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  • Subject: IWHBYD skull CHECKPOINT GLITCH??
Subject: IWHBYD skull CHECKPOINT GLITCH??
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I have a question! I am on Legendary, with sputnik, thunderstorm, catch, unknown (armory skull) and GBP active and something very odd has happened with my latest attempt to get the IWHBYD skull. Last night I got the skull to spawn, proceeded into the Elite battle and killed the first elite, the second one spawned high up in the wires so it was a bit before I found him and snuffed the life from him, and in the time that passed (almost 3 minutes) a checkpoint happened. Now since that has happened the great thing is that when I get my face pounded and die I respawn without having to go grab the skull again and the battle starts over, but now rather than facing seven elites I have had to kill as many as twelve and they just keep coming! Has anyone else run into this? This is the only skull I have never been able to get, AND IT IS P**SING ME OFF! Any thoughts????

  • 12.11.2007 8:49 AM PDT
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I got a checkpoint during the battle too. As for the elites there should be SEVEN waves of them. That's a hell of a lot more than just seven.

Basically I fortified a position with boxes and gathered plasma pistols by leaving the area to automatically spawn with one. Once you pair that with a BR you're pretty much set. As for the skulls I only needed two. Envy helped to keep me invisible and sputnik made it easier to move boxes and make BXB very useful because the first smack on an Elite would turn them around for an assassination.

  • 12.11.2007 9:53 AM PDT
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I have been gathering all of the available weapons and then blocking myself off in the little alley, that is the only way to survive them. The only weapons I havent been getting are the magnum and smg's because one of first elites always spawns right on top of them and I prefer to kill him after I have taken the one on the roof down because I can do it with all my blocks in place and not get snuffed out by the next wave. Of course the sniper rifle spawns outside of the area, so it cannot be gotten before I teleport back into the arena. Seven waves you say?? Well punch me in the nads, thats gonna take some serious work! The skull better be worth it! I had not thought about continuously respawning with a new plasma, DOH! Great idea, thanks!

  • 12.11.2007 10:22 AM PDT

You can also go get some Marines and Warthogs to help. Once you get a CP (after the skull appears but not during the fight) you can go as far as you want collecting Marines and Hogs, then drag 'em all back to the courtyard. I've taken the Scarab gun in there but I always destroy myself.

The Elites come at you like this; 1-1st, 2-2nd, 3-3rd, 4-4th, 5-5th, 6-6th and 7-7th wave. 1+2+3+4+5+6+7= 28 Elites

[Edited on 12.11.2007 12:26 PM PST]

  • 12.11.2007 12:23 PM PDT
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Alright. Here's my rule of thumb.

Get the permanent active camo at the first doorway. Grab the blind skull through the wall in the crashed pelican room. Take the rooftops to the skull spawn. Make sure you don't have the other skulls on, they seem to make it harder to spawn. Get the marines started down sniper alley - you seem to get checkpoints from it after you get to the skull minigame. Fight off the waves without dying, and you'll probably pick up a checkpoint here and there. Get to the last wave, make sure the last Elite has a sword. Get a checkpoint. Save and quit. Now boot it up again. Get the skull.

The point of that last checkpoint with the last Elite. If you have the envy skull on later, and go to get it, you'll be visible to the enemies on the rooftops or in the alley, BUT NOT THE ELITE THAT'S THERE. I don't know if that works on the whole wave of Elites, I'm afraid to try it. I fear the ownage risk. Now, if another AI outside the minigame sees you, the guy with the sword will run after you, but never say Demon, never lunge, nothing that shows he knows where you are. He can see where you are kind of... he won't swing the sword until he's halfway up your foot though. It's handy. I'm thinking it has to do with the hex reading active_camo_glitch_on when it loads, so the local AI aren't aware, but the only reason it continues to work is that it's a minigame - the Elites in the alley don't come in, they stay out and watch while invisible and shoot occasionally. It's an odd experience.

Permanent active camo isn't a glitch despite what the hex apparently says. There's no active_camo_glitch_off tag, hence modders didn't find it on their hex searches. So does that mean there's more secrets? Possibly...

And save the profile for that skull only. It's a nice convenience later on. And yeah, I've had two skulls in the spawn room... sometimes Blind counts as the IWHBYD skull and other times I had to pick up the new skull, the IWHBYD skull.

  • 12.11.2007 10:09 PM PDT

Posted by: Rhudebaker
Alright. Here's my rule of thumb.

Get the permanent active camo at the first doorway. Grab the blind skull through the wall in the crashed pelican room. Take the rooftops to the skull spawn. Make sure you don't have the other skulls on, they seem to make it harder to spawn. Get the marines started down sniper alley - you seem to get checkpoints from it after you get to the skull minigame. Fight off the waves without dying, and you'll probably pick up a checkpoint here and there. Get to the last wave, make sure the last Elite has a sword. Get a checkpoint. Save and quit. Now boot it up again. Get the skull.

The point of that last checkpoint with the last Elite. If you have the envy skull on later, and go to get it, you'll be visible to the enemies on the rooftops or in the alley, BUT NOT THE ELITE THAT'S THERE. I don't know if that works on the whole wave of Elites, I'm afraid to try it. I fear the ownage risk. Now, if another AI outside the minigame sees you, the guy with the sword will run after you, but never say Demon, never lunge, nothing that shows he knows where you are. He can see where you are kind of... he won't swing the sword until he's halfway up your foot though. It's handy. I'm thinking it has to do with the hex reading active_camo_glitch_on when it loads, so the local AI aren't aware, but the only reason it continues to work is that it's a minigame - the Elites in the alley don't come in, they stay out and watch while invisible and shoot occasionally. It's an odd experience.

Permanent active camo isn't a glitch despite what the hex apparently says. There's no active_camo_glitch_off tag, hence modders didn't find it on their hex searches. So does that mean there's more secrets? Possibly...

And save the profile for that skull only. It's a nice convenience later on. And yeah, I've had two skulls in the spawn room... sometimes Blind counts as the IWHBYD skull and other times I had to pick up the new skull, the IWHBYD skull.
That was the most interesting post I've seen in a long time. I've probably made that skull appear 40 or 50 times but I've never noticed AI outside of the fight arena. Heh, that one stunned me (shows how much I know).

I did not understand the last two sentences, though, so can you rephrase so a stupid man can understand?. I'll have to think about all of what you typed some more.


  • 12.12.2007 3:17 PM PDT
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Update @12/13/07 11am CST from Milwaukee, WI..........welp, after 2 days of working from this checkpoint on and off (about 8 hours total) I have yet to get the damn skull........I have found a few things that are making it easier to live longer, to the fourth wave, but no further. My biggest problem seems to be that I did not expect to find the skull and I found the skull without having Envy. Sure Sputnik helps, Thunderstorm does not matter because they are all silver spawners anyway, Catch does me no good beacuse they arent dropping any grenades, and GBP helps with Noob combo kills. Overall, this better be worth it! I am wondering how long it took some of you to get the skull once you got to this point. I am by no means a skill less player and I have been playing campaign on Legendary since the damn game came out. This has become my Holy Grail (I know, I need a life!) as it is the only skull I have not obtained, but jeez Bungie, does the darn thing have to be such a stone B to get?? I am sure there will be people who claim they got it on the first try, but I know that is not possible, you really have to have died several times to get an idea of what you need to do in order to survive, unless you had a boatload of tips or coaching before you ever tried to get it. Going in prepared, just like a Marine! Feedback without any flame is appreciated.....as would be more ammo!

  • 12.13.2007 9:22 AM PDT

I just realized you said Armory skull. They can see you with that skull. Take that off and your chances will improve.

The Armory skull is one of the reasons beating this game with all skulls activated is near impossible.

Also, did you go get Envy again? If you get Envy and go to a Perma-cammo save, it will remove it. That's another reason playing with all skulls activated sucks. If you go get all skulls, the second time through Envy will cancel the perma-cammo, and then there's Armory if you cheat and keep perma-cammo. They got you coming and going on that one.

[Edited on 12.13.2007 3:08 PM PST]

  • 12.13.2007 2:54 PM PDT
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r u using the envy skull?

  • 12.13.2007 4:53 PM PDT

Posted by: Metafora
r u using the envy skull?
No, I like to build forts and use Marines so I don't use perma-cammo. If I want to win easily I get the two invincible Marines but it's fun to let the mortal Marines fight with you, as long as they don't shoot you, heh heh.

You can get Sarge too, if you want to slaughter the Elites.

[Edited on 12.13.2007 5:56 PM PST]

  • 12.13.2007 5:53 PM PDT
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What I meant was...

I carried the unactivated blind skull and saw the IWHBYD skull there in the room. I had to drop the unactivated blind skull, pick up the IWHBYD skull and then I could do the minigame.

I've also had no skull spawn, and no 1 over the seven in the spawn room, but the unactivated blind skull in my hands triggered the minigame too.

I've also had both skulls there, and holding the unactivated blind skull was enough to count as the IWHBYD skull in my hands. I didn't have sputnik on, so I couldn't see if the IWHBYD skull was still there.

And dude, you can do your fort things. But I don't try to just get the skull. I'm messing around with all of them on before I do anything, so I don't want to spend that much time each night I use the box... just to get one skull. Profiles for each is the way to go.

The armory skull, when you have active camo permanently, does not allow them to see you. It does make them smarter, so they'll melee where they got punched from. And pull out swords. And all sorts of good stuff. It enhances the AI - marines won't kill themselves with rockets like they always do, grunts chase you and bite your ankles, Jackal snipers kill you by sniping the dust off your suit before you can even tell that you took a step around the corner, the ghost of lockout crouches over your dead body, etc etc. Hahaha well two of those were true.

[Edited on 12.13.2007 10:25 PM PST]

  • 12.13.2007 10:21 PM PDT

With Armory skull on, the AI know where you are. I call that being seen, since they know where you are. They can shoot at you as you move out from a corner, not just melee where they got punched from. They are definately aware of your position.

  • 12.14.2007 12:39 AM PDT
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If you are wrapped up in permanent camo, yeah they'll shoot at you while that skull is on. But remember that those are the Elites that can kill you with 5 bullets from the Battle rifle. If you jump after shooting them or meleeing them your chances of dying by their hands drop significantly. If they actually saw you in that minigame, you'd get shot and be dead by the time you landed. They're enhanced AI's at that point. Of course they can get a whiff of your green armor. That's not actually being seen though. They are aware of where they were attacked from.

If you're not wrapped in camo... well yeah then they can do just about anything short of walling you.

  • 12.14.2007 9:40 AM PDT

I guess my idea of seeing something is different than yours. If I see someone on radar it's not the same as seeing them in person but you are still seeing that person. Anyway, your comments showed a lot of knowledge about the subject. I'll have to test out that seeing of regular AI in the fight scene business. I didn't think that was possible.

  • 12.14.2007 3:27 PM PDT
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Update from Milwaukee 0930 hours CST............Welp, finally!!!! Last night after I came home from work, on the seventh attempt that night I might add, I finally was rewarded with the IWHBYD skull! WHAT A STONE COLD SON OF A B!!!!! I had an evil time getting it without envy, but get it I did, and of course proceeded to check out the effects. I don't think I have ever spent so much time swapping weapons and punching marines and elites in my life, but it was worth it..............The one that made me laugh the hardest was swapping with a marine, a plasma pistol for a rocket launcher I had given him after the warthog gets dropped off on Delta Halo........and he looked at me and said "This is BullSh!!.......I damn near fell off my chair!!!!!!! I am looking forward to many more as I replay campaign for the umpteenth time.......Good Hunting Folks!

P.S. Thank you to anyone who had input for me.......I ending up doing it the old fashioned way because I was not going to restart the whole process and wonder how long it would be before the skull spawned again, so I just played with the original hand I was dealt and kept improving on how I did my hide.

  • 12.15.2007 7:33 AM PDT

Grats on that! I have never beat those Elites without help of some kind. Nice job.

  • 12.15.2007 8:37 AM PDT
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Hahahaha that's a line I need to hear now. It's a great skull.

  • 12.15.2007 8:47 AM PDT
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Hahahaha that's a line I need to hear now

  • 12.15.2007 11:19 AM PDT