Halo MCC/Infinite/general Griefing thread - Six months, two maps, no refunds

[King Dead]

Honestly I don't know what the fuck they were thinking with the LASO playlist in general, you play it and you can tell it was not playtested in the slightest

To be fair, that's not really something to pin on 343. Bungie added skulls solely for players to mess around with difficulty modifiers and give themselves a bigger challenge if they sought it out. In H2 they were complete Easter eggs that you'd have to go out of your way to pick up manually before you started playing a level for real, so the concept of actually attempting the game with all of them at once wasn't really something that crossed anyone's minds due to the tedious nature of activating them all. It was only when H3 made it easy to turn them on and off at will (plus adding achievements that informed more players of their existence) that players seriously started to consider what such a playthrough would actually entail, and even then it took players a while.

But I have strong doubts that any of the games were ever tested for LASO, or at least tested beyond each individual skull working as intended. I'm sure someone likely realized players would attempt to turn them all on and see what happened, but given the rushed development cycles of basically every Halo game, they weren't going to spend hours making sure every encounter was fair. It's a bullshit difficulty for a reason. If you choose to engage with it, you should already know what you're getting into: enemies are much tougher, you're much weaker, and then they throw a bunch more handicaps on top just to really rub it in.

That's why it's honestly pretty crazy that, despite not being playtested, LASO is still beatable. Sure, you have to use a lot of tricks to get through and learn how to break the game in a hundred different ways, but it's still possible to make it through. In the years since these games first came out, and especially in the last decade, so many techniques have been discovered to make LASO easier than ever. Some levels will drive you crazy, but none are impossible.

But they really should drop Iron entirely given how it's really nothing more than an annoyance most of the time, but if you forget to save-and-quit even once, it turns infuriating.

 

[Mac Monster]

The speedrunning achievements in MCC are also a pain in the ass that you have to slog through. Just like LASO, you basically have to break these games since even the most optimized normal playthrough won't get you the proper times.

 

[Endu]

For all the grief I'll give Infinite, the LASO run for it was by far the most fun compared to the MCC games. Unlimited ammo/no ability cooldown combined with the tank gun after the first couple of missions made it pretty trivial. The physics modifier also made it so the tank gun would blast enemies into orbit, which never got old.

As for Halo 2, I don't know how people would do that without buddying up in co-op. The last few missions after Gravemind feels like a victory lap, but everything up to that point... whew.

 

[Blackstar]

 

[King Dead]

For all the grief I'll give Infinite, the LASO run for it was by far the most fun compared to the MCC games. Unlimited ammo/no ability cooldown combined with the tank gun after the first couple of missions made it pretty trivial. The physics modifier also made it so the tank gun would blast enemies into orbit, which never got old.

As for Halo 2, I don't know how people would do that without buddying up in co-op. The last few missions after Gravemind feels like a victory lap, but everything up to that point... whew.

It's doable solo, but some of the levels are indeed pretty ridiculous. It helps that people have continued to find new tricks to get through it, so it's definitely easier than it was a decade ago when the achievements made more people consider doing LASO runs.

Another reason I've been putting off LASO in MCC is because I've been waiting to see if Halo Completionist will post updated guides like he'd said he wanted to do. The last time he updated them was a few years ago when the games launched on PC, and there have been a variety of new tricks discovered since then that would be nice to have all in one place. Apparently he's had real life stuff get in the way, though, so it may be a while yet.

But yeah, if the games had truly been all skulls, CE and 2 might have been somewhat easier (infinite ammo for CE and active camo for Chief for 2), but they removed those skulls from the playlists to keep things challenging. Dunno why they decided to add a bunch of beneficial skulls for Infinite and enable them in the playlist if they still wanted LASO to be a challenge, but hey, at least it's fun.

 

[Quintex96]

Another reason I've been putting off LASO in MCC is because I've been waiting to see if Halo Completionist will post updated guides like he'd said he wanted to do. The last time he updated them was a few years ago when the games launched on PC, and there have been a variety of new tricks discovered since then that would be nice to have all in one place. Apparently he's had real life stuff get in the way, though, so it may be a while yet.

I miss Halo Completionist, he was great. He even personally helped me and a few other in his audience get the Reach DLC achievements. Kinda feel bad for being one of the ones to egg him on to talk about Trump that one time he got drunk livestreaming.

On a related note, whatever happened to Nak3d Eli? Dude straight up Vanished.

 

[King Dead]

I miss Halo Completionist, he was great. He even personally helped me and a few other in his audience get the Reach DLC achievements. Kinda feel bad for being one of the ones to egg him on to talk about Trump that one time he got drunk livestreaming.

On a related note, whatever happened to Nak3d Eli? Dude straight up Vanished.

I had to look it up to refresh my memory, but the short version is Microsoft changed his gamertag because "naked" was apparently deemed offensive, and when he asked if he could change it to some other variation, they told him that none would be acceptable. When that debacle was coupled with real life obligations, he made the decision to quit.

Honestly I don't know why he didn't just go along with the name change since it wouldn't really affect the name of his YouTube channel, but I guess he preferred having things consistent. I'm sure it also sucked having the same gamertag for years with no issue, and then all of a sudden be told it's not allowed anymore. I'd probably get upset too.

 

[Caddo Cobgang]

I do hope the campaign in the next game is a hard reboot, I don't really think theres going to be a lot of optimism in the community if they continue the Banished shit, I would say keep the Master Chief, thats extremely fucking important, and have it take place on Installation 04 again, basically retell the story of Halo CE with minor tweaks to make it feel like a true new timeline, you could even have campaign DLC that does a similar thing for Halo 2 and Halo 3

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favor done

 

[Gravemind]

I hope there is no next game.

Put Halo out to pasture already.

 

[Action Orange]

As for Halo 2, I don't know how people would do that without buddying up in co-op. The last few missions after Gravemind feels like a victory lap, but everything up to that point... whew.

It doesn't help that the first level in halo 2 is the 2nd hardest level in the game on legendary. I managed to beat it on LASO but it took me hours. Noped out of the challenge after that because it destroyed my morale. One day I will return and do it.

I miss Halo Completionist, he was great. He even personally helped me and a few other in his audience get the Reach DLC achievements. Kinda feel bad for being one of the ones to egg him on to talk about Trump that one time he got drunk livestreaming.

On a related note, whatever happened to Nak3d Eli? Dude straight up Vanished.

Qrd on the trump thing? Wasn't aware of anything like that cuz I'm allergic to livestreams other than mati. But yeah, dudes channel was a life saver when I was getting all of the par time achievements.

 

[Miller]

new timeline

Oh God, enough with the multiverse shit.

 

[indomitable snowman]

Oh God, enough with the multiverse shit.

Yeah, Infinite already had some time travel shenanigans hinted at. We don't need a multiverse or alternate timelines in Halo.

 

[Gravemind]

Oh God, enough with the multiverse shit.

Yeah, Infinite already had some time travel shenanigans hinted at. We don't need a multiverse or alternate timelines in Halo.

I'm just saying. Alternate timeline bullshit is both the most overdone thing to reboot a franchise and the most overdone narrative trope by this point.

Infinite was the last chance to try and start back from square one by moving things so far forward that Halo 4 and 5 become irrelevant, and they still couldn't get it right. They can't even unfuck Infinite's multiplayer, which is supposed to be completely divorced from the main game, unlike Halo 5 at the very least.

Just let it stay dead.

 

[Endu]

I'm just saying. Alternate timeline bullshit is both the most overdone thing to reboot a franchise and the most overdone narrative trope by this point.

Just once, I wish an alternate timeline was written that didn't shit all over the original canon. I can't help but think that, if the rumors of a Halo CE remake are true, they're going to bring in some time travel bullshit from Infinite to justify changing the narrative.

That hint from Guilty Spark after revealing the purpose of the rings, "But you already knew that - I mean, how couldn't you?" Nah the Forerunners aren't ancestral humans anymore, wipe that line out.

 

[Quintex96]

Qrd on the trump thing? Wasn't aware of anything like that cuz I'm allergic to livestreams other than mati. But yeah, dudes channel was a life saver when I was getting all of the par time achievements.

Basically he was doing a livestream in celebration of something, I don't remember what. During said stream he was drinking, eventually he has a little too much, someone in the chat mentions something about Trump, He says "Don't get me started on Trump". The entire chat (me included) proceeds to spam the the chat to get him to talk about Trump. He eventually Obliges and gives the most milquetoat take on Trump imaginable. He then has the look of horror on his face and ends the stream and nukes it from his channel.

 

[Action Orange]

Basically he was doing a livestream in celebration of something, I don't remember what. During said stream he was drinking, eventually he has a little too much, someone in the chat mentions something about Trump, He says "Don't get me started on Trump". The entire chat (me included) proceeds to spam the the chat to get him to talk about Trump. He eventually Obliges and gives the most milquetoat take on Trump imaginable. He then has the look of horror on his face and ends the stream and nukes it from his channel.

His dedication to not get political on his videogame channel is something the world needs more of tbh

 

[Harammurabe]

Some guy on /vr/ leaked a ton of development material from Halo 1-Reach, including the 2000 Macworld build and a couple of Halo 3 level blockouts for cut missions. This is mostly content that the Digsite team was working to restore, but there's stuff in here that they didn't have access to, including some design documents. Most notably, an outline of CE's story and weapons.
https://gofile.io/d/YetK3i
The password for the archive is wDimb4smOvspYPLRiI65cGB1HxPGlZ9jOYYRqcxCLCdhbaAi60VMqDT6wSfbV7P0XXbpvRz1hJ8UDf89RHJp7WXk1btYxk9Drjj8
It's about 81 GB decompressed.

Spoiler: Macworld Screenshots

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Digsite officially disbanded by not-343 as a result of the leak. Word is getting around and I'm seeing some videos talking about the incident trending. Only a few people will probably toy around and peruse the data but news that will resonate is that Digsite is done because of a data leak of 14-25 year old games the company didn't make, plus the bonus that the team was receiving a monetary compensation of $0.00 for full time work.

 

[ShahOfIran1979]

The original Halo 2 storyboard implied a possible romance between Arby and Rtas.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

It helps that everyone and their mother knows how to work with Unreal. Frostbite, on the other hand, was not only meant to run on third person RPGs like EA forced Bioware to, but at this point there is barely anyone at DICE who knows how to even work with it, which means that if Battlefield does come back it will likely be on Unreal. Absolute state of this industry.

"EA:Make NFL with Frostbite"
"Ok, no problem"

"EA:Make FIFA with Frostbite"
"Ok, no problem"

"EA:Make NHL with Frostbite"
"Ok, no problem"

"EA:Make Need for Speed with Frostbite"
"Ok, no problem"

"EA: Bioware, make"
"Waaaaaah! It's too hard, hostile work environment, toxic masculinity, more gay romance options, I'm non-binary!"
"EA: we haven't even told you what to do yet..."
"Waaaaaah! We need five more years, all the programmers got cancelled!"

 

[Mac Monster]

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The original Halo 2 storyboard implied a possible romance between Arby and Rtas.

Just want to point out that this is a load of horse shit, invented entirely by Haruspis, a gigantic faggot who had his own shitty blog where he constantly sucked 343's dick. He even had an article where he bitched about Halo 3's story and how 'sexist' Cortana's portrayal was. Here's the actual storyboard, which, according to him, contains the 'evidence' of Arbiter and Rtas being homos.