I think the brutes don't really add much value to the campaign. If they had Halo 2 like behavior I would be satisfied.

I think it should be a set encounter instead of alternating encounters so that you guys could make the encounters feel more like you are in a certain territory being patrolled by a certain race or a group of races instead of just a general feeling of it doesn't matter what tactics or weapons I use because it's just going to be one or the other.

Also, a request on the T&R level. Can you guys make it brighter in certain areas. For example, specifically the area under the gravlift. I think that place should be a lot more lit up because that area is mostly going to force the player to be more on the assault and less on sneaking around and not getting caught anyway. And it would only make sense for the covenant to set up more lighting near from where they are trying to keep things from getting near their ship's entrance. I don't see why they would keep most of everywhere they are seemingly setting up defense, in the dark, unless they have night vision gear.
Pretty much what i'm saying is, keep the dark areas where it would make sense for it to be and where it would be good gameplay areas for the player to be more stealthy. Like, farther away from the lift, the darker and less lighting, closer from the lift, brighter and more lighting. The default gameplay would fit with that anyway because when you play at the beginning of the level, it was more of the player sneaking around and assassinate them or something, but as you got closer to the gravlift the gameplay switched to be more assault.

Maybe to add some more visual appeal, make the lights at the lift like P3 said noticeable from a distance, this would kinda foreshadow the lift when you progress the level. Instead of just adding groups of enemy, take some notes from stealth design in other games and add those encounters. Maybe add some more paths for people who can parkour to new sniping positions and such. Add some more exploration and false caves with ammo to make it feel less linear. The inside of the ship could be modified for battles of height variation.

I'm definitely for the alternate encounters. But perhaps you shouldn't just rotate between brutes and elites? Why not try to make all or at least some of the encounters besides the brute/elite ones more dynamic? Like maybe for example have either a large squad of spread out grunts or a concentrated group of jackals rotate between each other in an encounter? Or a trade off between a couple camo elites or a sword elite? Or a few zealot elites and a sword elite or a pair of hunters? I like the possibilities that the rotating encounter mechanic can bring, and if you expand on it, it could definitely add to the replay value of the levels. If you had 4 or 5 rotatable encounters in a section of a level, the combinations of ai waiting for the player would be enough to make the player feel uneasy about turning a corner into a fight even on, say, his sixth playthrough of a level. And that's a good thing. People shouldn't be able to strategize before they even see what's waiting for them in the next encounter.



Edited by Delicon20 on Mar 4, 2014 at 10:17 PM

IMO, since the T&R has a minor prophet aboard, and since elites are more intelligent, and higher up in the "food chain", i'd say have elites use the grav lift and NOT the brutes. you can have side-passages plus a back-area for brutes. the brutes would patrol the few side-routes (adding new playstyles and junk as people suggested) and have an area in the back where a pack of brutes will rush in from after the player eliminates most of the enemies around the lift. after that you can have elites and such use the lift, and have a dropship drop more brutes near the lift and into the back area. the main reason for this would be because brutes and elites fight like halomaps users, and wouldn't want to be close enough to even deploy from the same bay room (also to use up tag space).

Yeah, that's what i was thinking too. Drop off the brutes in phantoms or carrier thingies and elites come from the lift. I think it would look pretty cool seeing a pack of brutes patrolling in the same direction one behind the other instead of just in the general area and all spread out. Sort of like some Halo 2 encounters where you can see a small pack of brutes patrolling. At least 3 of them sort of in a triangle position.

Well this topic was pretty swiftly decided. In regards to the BSP, it is unlikely to undergo edits as it would mean the huge task of re-uving the whole thing for lightmaps, not that it's a bad idea. The level is however, brighter.

In regards to the brutes, they have been totally redone to be a blend of reach and h2 for the Followers and Captains, and there is a new take on the H3 power armor for our Brute Bosses, which is also applied to the Chieftains (although Chieftain power armor is immune to many types of ballistic weaponry), we should have a detailed vidoc on these guys soon as the updated models are properly integrated. But here's a sneak peak of the new fur shaders that Alexis worked up.



Also I can officially confirm the new difficulty level (Noble) will be included in SPV3, and easy is being removed.
Edited by Masters1337 on Mar 4, 2014 at 11:32 PM

Here's the new loadout system menu (bitmaps made by yours truly):


Edited by Choclate Thunda on Mar 5, 2014 at 03:34 AM

Although I like the layout of the icons, I'm not a fan of the grid pattern you've got above each box. With the bitmap limitations of Halo, small intricate details just get turned into pixelated blobs and that's what I'm seeing happen here where the grid
pattern (which would like nice in a more modern engine) just just looks blurry and somewhat useless as a background.
I'd recommend canning it altogether and going with the nice flat blue you've got underneath.

Hmmmm. I wonder what grenade type is in the final loadout...

I like it. My only nitpick is that perhaps you could replace "silenced" with "suppressed," considering the weapon doesn't actually become inaudible.

was I came the idea that could add to these beautiful creatures

[nominates echo for halomaps user of the year]
also masters that fur shader looks like an attempt at a parallax shader, am i wrong or are u guys using parallax. (it'd be pretty dang awesome since u already have bumpmaps that u could adjust for the parallax heightmap)

it isn't an actual shader, but instead a common technique for rendering fur in game engines, as seen in Shadow of the Colossus and Smash Bros WiiU.
it is simply the layering of geometry with varying levels of opacity to get a hair effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taIuZAGOFTo

Could you use that effect on other textures to fake parallax or does it only look good as a fur effect?

Those were originally supposed to be in Halo 1, i thought?

You could fake parallax with it yeah. It's obviously not going to look as good, but it definitely works at times. It was used in RYSE for a Moss effect, and even in Lumoria's skybox's for distant trees.

Basically. It's basically fur achieved via shells. Here's a paper on it for those that are curious.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/hoppe/fur.pdf

well it is far enough into the future where anything could happen

The weapons are actually inaudible to the AI. We also switched the Silenced SMG to the quieter Halo 2 Silenced SMG sound, rather than the more suppressed sound from ODST.

Yes, but they did not finish and stayed in the game... You can see but disappears in a few seconds (it is impossible to see them)

If it makes a sound when firing, it hasn't been silenced. The only reason I point it out is that "silencer" is either a misleading misnomer or the brand name for the first type of suppressor to be invented. It's a small, nitpicky thing, and it doesn't make a huge difference what you decide to call it, it's just that "silencer" isn't entirely correct outside of political legislature and the brand name of Maxim's invention.
---
*gestures to UHWArby's image of Engineers in CE*

If CMT plans on adding Engineers, something like those would be nice. The CE-style ones were my favorite. Not a big fan of the armored, wormy-looking ones in the later games.
Edited by Echo77 on Mar 6, 2014 at 02:22 PM

Halo 2's staplegun was gross. The sound from TnR was at least passable, minus that irritating ding sound in it.

I am not talking about the H2 SMG sound, I am talking about the H2 Silenced SMG sound, which is in the H2EK.

Also there is pretty much 0 chance of us doing engineers, we can't control how much over shield it would give friendly units via damage effect, and our scripts are constantly in a state of overloading the game in several maps, making it impossible to supplement the tagset with related scripts these days.
Edited by Masters1337 on Mar 6, 2014 at 04:36 PM

Well in Combat Evolved, they weren't intended to provide overshields. They were just ambient life, from my understanding. I'm not certain that they actually did anything but float around and be mysterious and wonderment-invoking and making you feel bad if you killed them. It'd be kinda like having those quadwing birds, I guess; they wouldn't exactly fulfill a purpose, but they'd be nonhostile signs of life on a ringworld that's supposed to have an entire ecosystem going on.
Edited by Echo77 on Mar 6, 2014 at 04:54 PM

thank you echo, for those who don't know, if the weapon ignites gunpowder, or projects a fast moving object IT MAKES NOISE! [argumentative 5yo voice] butt teh foochur... [me] NOOOOO!!!!!!!!

those things were mysterious, and scary... i always thought they were gonna go crazy and attack me back then if i got near them

I've heard the Halo 2 Silenced SMG sounds, I've played H2V's testmap with them as well, they sound just as bad

Well there are things that are overlooked for sake of gameplay, and there are misnomers. The rocket launcher not having a damaging backblast effect is probably a gameplay thing, because otherwise you'd hurt yourself if you tried to fire in cramped quarters, and you'd risk injuring or killing Marines that were standing too close behind you. The silencer/suppressor discussion is less like pointing out that the rocket launcher should have backblast, and more like pointing out that the rocket launcher shouldn't be called a grenade launcher or bazooka.
Edited by Echo77 on Mar 7, 2014 at 12:54 PM

Well for the sake of argument. It is silenced because a suppressor just helps with the muzzle flash. The point of our silencer is to be quieter so technically it is a silenced since it was made and used for stealth and not a lot of noise. Plus like bungie said in h3 odst they could of gone with actual silenced version of the sounds, but it sounded to weak and just dull. Don't get me wrong you are right about the whole suppressor/silencer ordeal but in this case it is silenced.
Edited by Choclate Thunda on Mar 7, 2014 at 05:22 PM

A flash suppressor reduces muzzle flash. A suppressor dampens sound. "Silencer" is a common misnomer for a sound suppressor. Weapons fitted with what is often referred to as a silencer aren't actually silent (they're often portrayed this way in movies, though), the sound is just reduced.

I feel like it looks like I'm just crapping realism all over the place, but "suppressor" is just the correct term for what you're using on the stealth-oriented SMG.
Edited by Echo77 on Mar 7, 2014 at 05:45 PM

You guys can STFU. Gameplay trumps realism or science, if it's that big a deal you can go make your own mod and silenced/suppressed weapons. At the end of the day, no AI can hear the weapons, and henceforth we are classifying these weapons as SILENCED. It's not changing, no matter how much you try to argue for it. Deal with it.

It would suck if video games were 100% real.

Realism, science, and gameplay have nothing to do with what I was trying to say, I only mentioned it to clear up a common misconception about the device's actual name. I didn't expect it to get this out of hand, though.

Edited by Echo77 on Mar 7, 2014 at 06:14 PM