- Commander GX
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- Exalted Legendary Member
Posted by: Tom T
Posted by: Commander GX
Posted by: Tom T
For a time I couldn't put my finger on the reason I enjoy the Campaign of CE more than its sequels. However here I believe I have finally found the answer. Simply put, strong [or 'unfair'] enemies are not only a pain in the ass to fight, they are boring.I completely agree. I would rather be pitted up against 100 weak enemies [grunts] rather then 10 extraordinarily hard one. Ever wonder why Gruntpocalypse is so popular, the simple fact is more/weaker enemies make you feel like more of a bad-ass.
I feel like most games have a decent balance. Hordes of weak enemies, then a boss. The boos is to show some struggle in the game, and to see if you've actually picked up anything since the beginning. Developers can't have a newbie with no prior experience beating their game. It defeats the purpose of re-use.Grunts and jackals are appropriately weak and Hunters are appropriately strong, but neither extremity is particularly fun in my opinion (I very much doubt anyone would play Gruntpocalypse for long if it weren't for the payout).
Middle ground, a sweet spot so often lacking in FPS games, is key and complements both ends of the spectrum. In Halo this comes in the form of the Elites, who define the campaign experience because their technical capabilities are identical to the player (rather than being tediously below or frustratingly above).I see where you're coming from. Grunt's are too weak, you can't feel like a bad-ass going up a simple squad.
Now elites. You say they're our equal, but as many other games show, in order to accomplish that "bad-ass" feeling, you have to make your equals seem inferior. (I understand that there's the possible argument that there's a person playing behind the spartan, and the elite is just an AI, but that shouldn't have anything to do with this sense of frustration.)
I say give the elites the same controls/moving capabilities, but lower their health by half. As a long time gamer, I know first hand that it feels like a greater success when you plow threw 40 of your "equals" in a minute, rather then going up against a squad of 5. Basically, bigger groups, less health.
Another possible productive way of doing this would be to start the game against a squad of elites, but these elites actually are your equals in almost every way. As the game goes on, the elites start having less and less health, but they start to show up more in the numbers. Making you feel like you're accomplishing something/grown skill. (Haven't used the gametype creation much on Reach, not sure if possible).
Now for the boss round idea I stated earlier, I was was talking about 1 boss, a single enemy. The current boss round idea is pretty flawed. A boss is supposed to encourage teamwork, but in the current boss rounds it's just a mad free for all to not die, everyone goes off their separate ways to go do their own thing. I feel 1 boss would be best.
[Edited on 10.02.2011 8:23 AM PDT]