Hi everyone, I’m Chris Proctor, designer at 343 Industries. For Halo 5, I was the designer on Covenant AI, Squad AI, most Forerunner weapon redesigns and final difficulty tuning, and I’m now the designer for all AI and difficulty tuning.
Having had a few months to digest player feedback, reviews, let’s play videos and internal feedback, I’ve been working on an update to Halo 5’s campaign balance, aiming to address parts of the game that players yelled at us about, or that bugged me and the rest of the team enough to address even without external feedback.
Given that we’re constantly updating the game adding new content for Multiplayer, and we’ve got Warzone Firefight and other cool stuff on the way, I took the opportunity to touch global difficulty tuning and address areas where Halo 5’s difficulty was spiky, too easy or inconsistent.
I was pleasantly surprised to get the okay to make these sweeping changes, given how rarely videogame campaign difficulty tends to be updated after launch.
ISSUES
Players and reviews commonly cite the Warden as an unfair difficulty spike on higher difficulty, particularly the triple-Warden fight towards the end of the game. Looking at this in depth, it’s partly because of the Warden himself: his attacks are difficult to avoid, he’s hard to get behind to shoot in the back, his front armor is durable. It’s also because supporting enemies don’t allow any breathing room – having multiple turrets firing continuous, highly damaging beams at you while you’re trying to dodge Warden attacks is pretty rough.
Two-player co-op play is slightly more difficult than intended, but single player is a little too easy.
Covenant encounters are generally easier than Forerunner. Elites melt a little too fast under squad fire, and Grunts and Jackals are too little threat. However, Storm Rifles are very accurate and fire long bursts, making for an uneven experience if enemies happen to target a stationary player.
Players would lose track of enemies in Forerunner encounters and die to an enemy that got behind them. Soldiers are able to bamf frequently to break line of sight, and Crawlers are fairly durable for a fast-moving, close range and lethal enemy that requires aiming down.
Certain vehicle sections were much harder than others. Squad AI would often die in a Warthog gunner’s turret, making Warthog sections frustrating in single player, even more so when several enemies with homing weapons could fire on the Warthog at once.
In two or three player co-op, Squad AI could get stuck running back and forth between players wildly mashing the “Call for Help” button.
Generally, this balance update smooths out the common spikes, increases the difficulty of mid-tier encounters, and makes certain enemies less frustrating or more satisfying to fight.
Thanks to the Test and Campaign teams for running through the campaign before and after the update to make sure nothing broke and give balance feedback. I’ve listed couple of specific changes below.
SPECIFIC CHANGES
Please note that enemy-specific changes will also apply to Warzone AI – the Warzone team has been playtesting these adjustments, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on all feedback, (especially as it pertains to Warzone Firefight difficulty).
Reduced two-player difficulty slightly
Increased single player difficulty slightly
Made Warden attacks a little easier to dodge, particularly on lower difficulties
Face Beam tracks moving targets less accurately
Gravity Bomb has less homing
Melee attack has slightly less range
Made the Warden slightly easier to kill from the front
Reduced AI Focus Turret damage output
Reduced AI Storm Rifle, Suppressor and Light Rifle effectiveness
AI Storm Rifle: fires in shorter bursts, projectiles spread out more and move more slowly. Jackals are now less effective than Elites with the Storm Rifle
AI Suppressor: fires in longer bursts, projectiles have less homing. Crawlers are now less effective than Soldiers with the Suppressor
AI now fire shorter bursts with the Light Rifle
Increased AI Plasma Pistol, Needler and Beam Rifle effectiveness
AI Plasma Pistol: slightly higher accuracy and damage
AI Needler: AI now fire longer bursts (i.e. can now supercombine players on Heroic and above), slightly higher damage
AI Beam Rifle: slightly more damage (mostly this will make it a two-shot kill instead of a three-shot kill in Heroic single player, allowing Jackal Snipers to actually kill a player from time to time)
Added a “tackle” animation to Sword Elites – shoutout to Pat Gillette for making the sweet sword tackle animation
Instead of stopping to swing at a moving target they can swing on the move
Increased Elite, Elite Officer and Soldier Officer durability
Reduced Soldier bamf frequency
Killing a Crawler now deals area-of-effect damage to all nearby enemies, softening them up or killing them outright
Reduced frequency of Squad AI getting killed while in a gunner’s turret in a player’s vehicle
Made being killed by an attached Plasma Grenade non-revivable, similar to lethal damage from a Binary Rifle
Increased AI special ability chance with higher player count in co-op games, e.g. Plasma Pistol overcharge, grenade throw
Increased AI promotion chance with player count in co-op games
i.e. in cooperative games you will encounter more high-ranked enemies where promotion paths exist (most noticeable with Grunts, Elites, Jackals and Crawlers)
The first player to press the “Call for Help” now has priority, other players will have to wait their turn for a revive – shoutout to Mr. Robert Kingsley for the code fix for this
