- Sliding Ghost
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Posted by: Quantam
Posted by: Cheeto666
Brutes could have been a much greater foe. Bungie got the part with them being terrifyingly strong right, but they needed to be more intelligent. In the games, their strategies and actions just came off as stupid. And for some reason, Bungie decided to apply that to the Elites in Halo Reach (making them charge with blind rage when they get hurt).
Bungie always talked about wanting to give them a pack mentality, which would have truly made them a horrifying enemy.
Think, when you pop one brute's shields, he charges you. But what if all of the rest of the pack charged you too? They're supposed to be blood brothers or some crap, so if one is about to bite the bullet, it would make sense that they would get enraged too.
So, then, imagine getting bull-rushed by five angry brutes all at once.
That's what is wrong with the brutes. Bungie wanted to give them character, but never played it out. Instead, they remained bullet sponges like they were in Halo 2, which is an undynamic and uninteresting enemy to fight.
No one hates the brutes, they hate fighting them, because it's just grinding through, not a challenge.
But I liked the Elite charging mentality!
They were aggressive, ruthless, bent on killing me, and on harder difficulties once one starts charging at you, you're dead.
What the Brutes should have been, what Bungie did wrong was give them pathetic weapons like the Spiker.
It is like dinosaur fighting us with a toothpick. Reach Elite aggression is vastly inferior to CE Elite aggression. You could lead CE Elites on a long journey and they could follow you underwater. Reach Elites can only chase for a short time before they lose interest. It's only because they have uber speed that they're threatening.
And it's not the charging that made the Reach Elites inefficient but their constant berserking. CE Zealot attributes were given to standard Elites. The constant berserking is a flaw given to only those who have powerful melees. What a coincidence... Bungie made them too powerful so they gave them a big flaw to make it easier to kill them. The problem is, it's too easy to kill them. Assassinating or going around CE Zealots was no easy matter. But assassinating or going around a Reach Elite is easy if you maintain contact with them (by bumping into their back).
Actually, what they did wrong was focusing the skulls on difficulty alone. They didn't have any great AI modifiers. Catch and Tough Luck were stupid. They're already diving freaks (speeded up animation) and frequent grenade throwing only makes it easier to assassinate/stick them. Seriously, if Angry or Assassins skull was thrown in there, H3 would be much more difficult. They already do high damage.
Bungie couldn't put in AI modifiers without making them killers. So they just gave them a lot of health. They conceived a horrible correlation between health and showing off the AI. They've been doing this since H2, but only with marines, Jackals, Brutes, and Ultras. Now (as of Reach) nearly every enemy is a damage sponge. I'm glad Bungie's not working with Halo anymore.
Reach AI have so many similarities with H2 AI:
flinches with every shot, 1 hit kill melee to hide their ineptness (seriously, H2 Hunters were a piece of cake. Dual wield brute plasma rifles firing at their back. Or stick one with a plasma grenade while they're together and shoot them in their exposed back with the beam rifle), damage sponge, permanently invincible allies, -blam!- up Zealot rank, unstable vehicle physics, high damage, weaker player. Funny how Bungie said H2 was their worst game but made Reach so similar, only a thousand times worse.
Posted by: Arbiter 739
Posted by: Sliding GhostSir, you need a thread to dedicate to how correct most of that is.
I don't even know where to begin, but you've hit the nail on the head. Looking back it's now so obvious why I've never really enjoyed the campaign of Halo 3. The enemies had too little tactical variety. Wish I could but I'd just end up going off topic.
Exactly. They're still damage sponges. They're just weaker.
[Edited on 06.17.2012 10:20 AM PDT]