You played 1 round... (Destiny)

by stabbim , Des Moines, IA, USA, Sunday, September 18, 2016, 07:38 (2786 days ago) @ Ragashingo

As someone who only recently picked up Halo 5, its version of Firefight is still fresh in my mind. I doubt I'll convince you of anything, but I feel compelled to respond on a few points, because a lot of it is things you probably never had a chance to realize after only 1 game.

- It really did feel like on each new wave the Covenant forces would get dropped off and would mostly stand around. I'd kill a few and die and then most of the time I had to go back to those spots that the Covenant were occupying instead of having them press in on me.

This is true, at times. What you might not be aware of is that the exact structure of each wave varies. Some waves have objectives where you have to defend a certain spot. The enemies do, in fact, rush those areas, and if you'd given it enough time for that to happen, I bet you would have gotten smoked a few times. There are also objectives where you have to seek out and kill X amount of a certain enemy type, or even specific units - in which case it actually makes sense for you to go to them. It's also worth noting that moving around the map in Halo 5 is a lot less slow and tedious than in previous Halo titles.

- A few waves in I started get access to vehicles (I used the new flying UNSC vehicle with the machine gun and rockets and later a Mantis) and everything got super boring. I completed maybe three rounds in the air (at least one round with a bunch of Hunters and a round defending a base against mostly Covenant ground troops) and while I took damage over time I was basically king of the entire battlefield outclassing or outmaneuvering. Everything was (literally and figuratively) beneath me! Which meant there was no challenge.

If you'd played enough to get a feel for the Req economy, I think you'd realize how hilarious it is that you're complaining about the Wasp being overpowered. I was able to use it once and have never received one again. It's an extremely rare item that takes a lot of energy (the sort-of currency that you build up over the course of a match) to use. It's supposed to be that powerful, because using it isn't an option very often. Even if you have one, it won't become available until late in the game when many enemies have become strong enough to practically one-shot your helpless human form. And you have to hold off using other stuff in order to have enough energy to activate it.

- Later with my Mantis I completed a couple of normal waves, a wave with a handful of scattered Knight bosses, and the final round against the Warden Eternal (which we didn't quite beat) but other than being temporarily EMPed by the Warden's big attack, I again had no real challenge. I think I maybe lost my shields once and don't believe my Mantis was visibly damaged even at the end of the match.

All I have on that one is *shrug.* The Mantis is strong, but it's not invincible. You either played extremely well, or got lucky on positioning. It might also have been that your teammates were all in powerful vehicles by that point, as can happen when you get late in the game and people haven't used up their energy on other junk. Get 2 or 3 people in heavy vehicles and you can sometimes steamroll. IF everyone plays well.

- On foot things played ok, I got flanked nicely by an Elite once and had to retreat a few times, but again this always seemed to only happen once I pushed up. I didn't once get pushed back in that way old Firefight way where you're getting overwhelmed and running low on health and ammo and are trying to get the right stick and attack with the right weapon to disrupt the enemy forces just enough to pick off a key unit and continue to survive.

It was probably a mistake to expect it to feel exactly like ODST. It's a different thing, and I promise it can be fun if you let it.

That all being said, I think it would be good to have selectable higher difficulties. The stuff I've been playing has proved plenty challenging, but my teammates have been total rubbish in some matches. The game would probably have seemed a bit easier to you if you were with a squad of B.Org people.