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Subject: Covenant in the books VS. in the Games

In all my reading I can't help but feel that the various writers of the Haloverse instantly portray the Covenant in an overpowered way. If it truly was the books show things happening they would have completely, totally, and effortlessly curb-stomped the UNSC every battle and the UNSC would not have had a single victory. I exaggerate of course, but it feels like the books go make the Covenant waaaay too powerful.

Conversely the games of course portray them in an inaccurate fashion for game play purposes. We can't have the Marines dying from a couple plasma shots, or our protagonists kicking the bucket every couple second 'cause the game is so hard.

I personally kinda take a middle road approach, a sort of blend between what is portrayed in gameplay, and what is portrayed in the books.

What do you all think of it?

  • 01.20.2011 6:58 PM PDT

In the books a fleet is like....hundreds of ships.

In the games the big fleet at the ultimate battle on earth for the fate of the universe is......

30 ships.


Severely lacking in epic.

  • 01.20.2011 7:20 PM PDT

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Books don't need to worry about balanced gameplay, they have a lot more artistic freedom.

  • 01.20.2011 7:24 PM PDT


Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Books don't need to worry about balanced gameplay, they have a lot more artistic freedom.


Well seeing as ship to ship combat almost never had any effect on gameplay....that means nothing.

  • 01.20.2011 7:28 PM PDT

Supreme Dictator, Industrial Polluter, Megalomaniac, Corrupt Politician, Underhanded Reprobate, Rainforest Ravager, Puppy Kicker, Oil Spill Coordinator, Holiday Hater, and an Insurance Salesman.

Posted by: Wazooty

Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Books don't need to worry about balanced gameplay, they have a lot more artistic freedom.


Well seeing as ship to ship combat almost never had any effect on gameplay....that means nothing.

From a gameplay perspective, the story is centered around Master Chief/Arbiter and Noble 6 (for Reach).

Sure it would be nice to see epic space combat with dozens or hundreds of ships, but where do you put them in? You can't just leave your main characters for an extended period of time for something that doesn't directly concern them, and it's not really worth it to cut away for brief moments of the space battle.

Books can afford a slower pace and can follow more storylines.

  • 01.20.2011 7:34 PM PDT

Regardless, I still think that the Covenant are portrayed as too powerful, there is no way the UNSC could have won, they would have been curb-stomped before the war even started the way the books show it.

  • 01.20.2011 7:35 PM PDT


Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Posted by: Wazooty

Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Books don't need to worry about balanced gameplay, they have a lot more artistic freedom.


Well seeing as ship to ship combat almost never had any effect on gameplay....that means nothing.

From a gameplay perspective, the story is centered around Master Chief/Arbiter and Noble 6 (for Reach).

Sure it would be nice to see epic space combat with dozens or hundreds of ships, but where do you put them in? You can't just leave your main characters for an extended period of time for something that doesn't directly concern them, and it's not really worth it to cut away for brief moments of the space battle.

Books can afford a slower pace and can follow more storylines.

Space combat is during cutscenes/in the background. THey could use the exact same cutscenes as in the current game, just quadruple the number of ships.

  • 01.20.2011 7:38 PM PDT

What the hell is a signature?

They were a lot stronger in the books. But yet, master chief kills elites with only a few shots from his Assult rifle. Strange

  • 01.20.2011 7:38 PM PDT


Posted by: OrderedComa
Regardless, I still think that the Covenant are portrayed as too powerful, there is no way the UNSC could have won, they would have been curb-stomped before the war even started the way the books show it.


Well that's the idea, the UNSC got completely dominated in space. It wasn't until the discovery of Halo that the tides started to turn. It was a game changer on the level of the conical bullet, as dr. halsey says.

  • 01.20.2011 7:40 PM PDT

Supreme Dictator, Industrial Polluter, Megalomaniac, Corrupt Politician, Underhanded Reprobate, Rainforest Ravager, Puppy Kicker, Oil Spill Coordinator, Holiday Hater, and an Insurance Salesman.

Posted by: OrderedComa
Regardless, I still think that the Covenant are portrayed as too powerful, there is no way the UNSC could have won, they would have been curb-stomped before the war even started the way the books show it.

Well take the games as the official strength I suppose. You can't have them as powerful as they are in the books since then you would only face like 10 Elites in the whole game based on how hard they would they be to kill, and the Grunts/Jackals wouldn't be pushovers either. Hunter's would be regulated to Boss battles.

At the same time you couldn't have them as "weak" as they are in the games in the books, because that completely kills the narrative if the enemies don't pose enough of a threat.

  • 01.20.2011 7:40 PM PDT

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Posted by: Wazooty

Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Posted by: Wazooty

Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Books don't need to worry about balanced gameplay, they have a lot more artistic freedom.


Well seeing as ship to ship combat almost never had any effect on gameplay....that means nothing.

From a gameplay perspective, the story is centered around Master Chief/Arbiter and Noble 6 (for Reach).

Sure it would be nice to see epic space combat with dozens or hundreds of ships, but where do you put them in? You can't just leave your main characters for an extended period of time for something that doesn't directly concern them, and it's not really worth it to cut away for brief moments of the space battle.

Books can afford a slower pace and can follow more storylines.

Space combat is during cutscenes/in the background. THey could use the exact same cutscenes as in the current game, just quadruple the number of ships.

Sure that sounds easy, but think of it this way: How many ships can you really fit into a given scene? If you put in the hundreds of ships you're expecting, they would each be nearly microscopic and a lot of the impact is lost. By focusing a smaller number of ships we can get much more detail of what's going on.

  • 01.20.2011 7:43 PM PDT

"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum

The Covenant could have, but they are unimaginative, over-confident and imitative. That is the reason why they struggled against the UNSC instead of laying them low outright.

Perhaps it means the UNSC was not as weak as you once thought if they obviously resisted somewhat. There are other factors in this as well, such as the AI committee. They had a large overall impact on the war.

  • 01.20.2011 7:45 PM PDT


Posted by: JamesLongstreet

Posted by: Wazooty

Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Posted by: Wazooty

Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Books don't need to worry about balanced gameplay, they have a lot more artistic freedom.


Well seeing as ship to ship combat almost never had any effect on gameplay....that means nothing.

From a gameplay perspective, the story is centered around Master Chief/Arbiter and Noble 6 (for Reach).

Sure it would be nice to see epic space combat with dozens or hundreds of ships, but where do you put them in? You can't just leave your main characters for an extended period of time for something that doesn't directly concern them, and it's not really worth it to cut away for brief moments of the space battle.

Books can afford a slower pace and can follow more storylines.

Space combat is during cutscenes/in the background. THey could use the exact same cutscenes as in the current game, just quadruple the number of ships.

Sure that sounds easy, but think of it this way: How many ships can you really fit into a given scene? If you put in the hundreds of ships you're expecting, they would each be nearly microscopic and a lot of the impact is lost. By focusing a smaller number of ships we can get much more detail of what's going on.


Youd get the same detail, youd just get a hell of alot better idea of the scale of this thing. The entire earth is being invaded but we get this pitiful number of ships. Keep the same ships and add microscopic dots. Whatever they need to do.

  • 01.20.2011 7:45 PM PDT

Supreme Dictator, Industrial Polluter, Megalomaniac, Corrupt Politician, Underhanded Reprobate, Rainforest Ravager, Puppy Kicker, Oil Spill Coordinator, Holiday Hater, and an Insurance Salesman.

Posted by: Wazooty
Youd get the same detail, youd just get a hell of alot better idea of the scale of this thing. The entire earth is being invaded but we get this pitiful number of ships. Keep the same ships and add microscopic dots. Whatever they need to do.

Now what would be the point of a bunch of small dots? You'd barely notice they were there anyway. I think this just something we'll have to agree to disagree on.

  • 01.20.2011 7:48 PM PDT


Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Posted by: OrderedComa
Regardless, I still think that the Covenant are portrayed as too powerful, there is no way the UNSC could have won, they would have been curb-stomped before the war even started the way the books show it.

Well take the games as the official strength I suppose. You can't have them as powerful as they are in the books since then you would only face like 10 Elites in the whole game based on how hard they would they be to kill, and the Grunts/Jackals wouldn't be pushovers either. Hunter's would be regulated to Boss battles.

At the same time you couldn't have them as "weak" as they are in the games in the books, because that completely kills the narrative if the enemies don't pose enough of a threat.


We seem to have an understanding of each other, as we both have pointed out we can't take the exact word of the game or the exact word of the book. I guess it really depends on individual opinion on how to "splice" the material, me personally I lean more toward "game is law" in regards to the matter, and since we don't really have any depiction of the space battles in game, I'm not really sure what to think, other than that the Covenant are way too powerfully depicted.

  • 01.20.2011 7:50 PM PDT


Posted by: JamesLongstreet
Posted by: Wazooty
Youd get the same detail, youd just get a hell of alot better idea of the scale of this thing. The entire earth is being invaded but we get this pitiful number of ships. Keep the same ships and add microscopic dots. Whatever they need to do.

Now what would be the point of a bunch of small dots? You'd barely notice they were there anyway. I think this just something we'll have to agree to disagree on.


THe point is that the number of ships is right and more fitting to the end of the world.

  • 01.20.2011 7:51 PM PDT

We just need to instigate more elitism and Mythic shenanigans.

Does it ever say that you saw the entire fleet in the game?

I don't remember it saying that.

It is left implicit for a reason. Most players will glaze over it completely, and reasonable people who pay that much attention will think 'hey, not many ships here, maybe the rest of the fleet is somewhere else.'

As for the difficulty of enemies, although I have not read the books, I think that if you think of heroic or legendary difficulty being closer to what is actually 'real,' it may be more consistent.

In the games, humanity is generally on the run, and the only people that manages to put up a decent fight are Spartans. From the very beginning, humanities existence depends on maintaining secrecy. According to the games, humanity is getting destroyed by the covenant.

  • 01.20.2011 7:59 PM PDT

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Don't you mean, the games make the covenant too weak?

  • 01.20.2011 8:01 PM PDT
  • gamertag: An0nz
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CoD is a good game, even if the Halo series are better in some aspects. Anyone who insults either is just bad in that game. Grow up.

Did you really need to start another thread on this? Then again, I suppose it wouldn't be a surprise for you that I would be siding on the opposite end.

No, I do not think the Covenant is portrayed as "Overpowered" in the novels. In fact, it's much more likely that everything portrayed in the games are watered down and "underpowered". Some examples have already been given about the tiny size of the fleets in games, but there are others, even for the Spartan protagonists. However, I won't go into those since it's not directly on topic.

The Covenant was supposed to be powerful. It has always been said that the only thing stopping humanity from being devastatingly destroyed was secrecy. Secrecy via the Cole Protocol, to be precise. Honestly, I fail to see how you can even describe something as "overpowered" in terms of fictional novels, but the Covenant definitely deserves to be so in comparison to the UNSC.

Seriously, the Covenant had way better technologies (a whole tier higher than UNSC on the Forerunner tier system), and I can't stress that enough. As well, they have been an interstellar force for longer than the humans. They are also composed of several species instead of just one (meaning they had WAY more population and resources), many types of which have naturally superior physiques than the Humans. The only advantage that the UNSC had was that up to that point, they developed everything on their own; Humanity was imaginative, not just imitative. That was how the Spartans came about, and how they developed AIs. That being their only advantage, however, it doesn't give enough weight to turn the tide of the war.

So no, the Covenant are not overpowered in the novels.

  • 01.20.2011 8:09 PM PDT

Vengeance only leads to an ongoing cycle of hatred.

The games are poorly portrayed because of gameplay. Which, is kind of a shame, but they should at least portray them as powerful as they do in the books in the cutscenes - at least. Anyhow, I like how they portray them in the books because that's how they really are. You're supposed to feel like all hope is lost against this powerful enemy and then you feel hope when you read about the amazing strategy, luck, and skill they perform to win certain battles.

  • 01.20.2011 8:22 PM PDT

Don't worry, you're still your mom's favorite Bnet member.

Posted by: anton1792
The Covenant could have, but they are unimaginative, over-confident and imitative. That is the reason why they struggled against the UNSC instead of laying them low outright.

Perhaps it means the UNSC was not as weak as you once thought if they obviously resisted somewhat. There are other factors in this as well, such as the AI committee. They had a large overall impact on the war.
I love your coup.

  • 01.20.2011 8:27 PM PDT


Posted by: Cowgoesmoo
Don't you mean, the games make the covenant too weak?


Is this addressed to me? I thought I had said the games do make them weak? If you weren't talking to me, then forget I said anything :P

  • 01.20.2011 8:44 PM PDT
  • gamertag: An0nz
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CoD is a good game, even if the Halo series are better in some aspects. Anyone who insults either is just bad in that game. Grow up.


Posted by: SEAL Sniper 9
The games are poorly portrayed because of gameplay. Which, is kind of a shame, but they should at least portray them as powerful as they do in the books in the cutscenes - at least. Anyhow, I like how they portray them in the books because that's how they really are. You're supposed to feel like all hope is lost against this powerful enemy and then you feel hope when you read about the amazing strategy, luck, and skill they perform to win certain battles.

Exactly how I felt.

  • 01.20.2011 9:11 PM PDT

OP, I think you're forgetting that, just as the Covies become stronger in the books, so does the UNSC. In the games, it can take a quarter of a magazine from a Assault Rifle to drop a Grunt. In the books, 3 rounds is more than sufficient. Don't forget that the standard soldiers become a lot more competent, unlike their AI counterparts, who shoot at walls, or throws grenades at their allies.

  • 01.20.2011 9:24 PM PDT

1. read 1st Strike
2. read The Impossible Life And Possible Death of Preston J. Cole
3. come to complete understanding of how and why humanity stood a chance.

  • 01.20.2011 9:37 PM PDT

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