Opinion: there needs to be a true-LASO playlist

[ShadoSnake]

the whole point of LASO is the ASO part, not MSO. Halo CE had a whole debacle of switching the Bandanna and Iron skulls for each other, and H2A doesn't even include Bandanna or GW/Envy to mitigate the absolute insane difficulty boost they gave to the already roided Jackal snipers. There should be a variant which includes ALL skulls, otherwise it literally isn't LASO it's just a cherrypicked no-fun-allowed MLG version. Kinda like post-beta and double post TU Reach in that regard lol.
hell, skulls like bandanna don't even dent the overall difficulty as much a skull like grunt funeral (grunts explode, killing most of the enemies); and the Scarab skull does do some heavy lifting but Halo 2 has some wild buffs to the enemies.

I don't even need Scarab, just everything else should be on for every game whether positive or negative so it can be LASO* (*99.99% skulls on) instead of MSO* (*Most Skulls On, AKA 343 gatekeeps an already hard achievement set behind masochistic skull lineups that they cherrypicked to make H2A impossible to play without relying on boundary breaking and skipping).

[Pyrocitor]

You're free to turn on whatever skills you like
mate, just go into the missions menu and set it up however you want.

The Laso challenge was always all the gold skulls - not any of the ones that make it easier.

[kripcision]

if u got bandana on, then playing with all skulls wouldnt be that big of a challenge. all u would have to do is sit back, throw nades, and use power weapons.

[ShadoSnake]

Originally posted by Pyrocitor:

You're free to turn on whatever skills you like
mate, just go into the missions menu and set it up however you want.

The Laso challenge was always all the gold skulls - not any of the ones that make it easier.

that's straight up not true, LASO was (and should still be, if we're really sticking to the spirit of Halo) legendary- all (ALL) skulls on, and during the origin there weren't ones like Scarab, which is honestly the only one that makes anything ""easier"" (but really backfires with boom anyways and makes things like Cairo much harder). Things like Envy have a 0.00 modifier despite not even being a cheat, and disable achievements just like bandanna (which one could debate all day whether it makes anything truly easier, but then why would 343 add grunt funeral to CE? grunt funeral is an extremely cheaty skull which has a much higher impact than bandanna ever would to a LASO run, and bandanna was in the original MCC LASO playlist over Iron). Trying to do a true LASO is impossible thanks to 343 gatekeeping achievements from people who use even a single 0.00 modifier, despite any of the benefits of most of the cheat skulls being far outweighed by the challenge skulls, (bandanna countered by enemy buffs and HUD blindness and shield loss, envy just is a utility, scarab is useless up to around 10m with boom).

the mythic challenge was all gold skulls and arguably no deaths depending on who you talk to, but LASO meant exactly what it said, all skulls.

so why did 343 allow some cheats in the playlists, but then gatekeeps laso achievements to the playlist but also all completion achievements if 0.00's are on, yet one can get/ could get LASO playlist achievements and par time/score even though the playlist(s) had/has 2/1 cheat skull on?

as though making singleplayer nigh useless for progression wasn't bad enough (even with the upcoming challenges)

[ShadoSnake]

Originally posted by anubis:

if u got bandana on, then playing with all skulls wouldnt be that big of a challenge. all u would have to do is sit back, throw nades, and use power weapons.

bandanna was an original part of the CE playlist before iron was even added, power weapons are rare and have niche uses, nades can backfire with boom and cowbell, etc, and CE was still challenging even with bandanna because it isn't as though enemies just sit in your crosshairs or wait for you to yeet them, plus, their health, aggro, and rank are all buffed by other skulls in LASO which mitigates the effect of bandanna in the first place

[Donia]

Well I thought it was called "LASO" for a reason - all skulls on. So it's silly if not all of them are on.
Then they could've just kept the old (fan used?) "Mythic" difficulty to denote Legendary + some skulls.

[ShadoSnake]

Originally posted by スy/donia:

Well I thought it was called "LASO" for a reason - all skulls on. So it's silly if not all of them are on.
Then they could've just kept the old (fan used?) "Mythic" difficulty to denote Legendary + some skulls.

exactly, dead on.

[The Rizzler]

Originally posted by Pyrocitor:

You're free to turn on whatever skills you like
mate, just go into the missions menu and set it up however you want.

The Laso challenge was always all the gold skulls - not any of the ones that make it easier.

Originally posted by Snek:

the whole point of LASO is the ASO part, not MSO. Halo CE had a whole debacle of switching the Bandanna and Iron skulls for each other, and H2A doesn't even include Bandanna or GW/Envy to mitigate the absolute insane difficulty boost they gave to the already roided Jackal snipers. There should be a variant which includes ALL skulls, otherwise it literally isn't LASO it's just a cherrypicked no-fun-allowed MLG version. Kinda like post-beta and double post TU Reach in that regard lol.
hell, skulls like bandanna don't even dent the overall difficulty as much a skull like grunt funeral (grunts explode, killing most of the enemies); and the Scarab skull does do some heavy lifting but Halo 2 has some wild buffs to the enemies.

I don't even need Scarab, just everything else should be on for every game whether positive or negative so it can be LASO* (*99.99% skulls on) instead of MSO* (*Most Skulls On, AKA 343 gatekeeps an already hard achievement set behind masochistic skull lineups that they cherrypicked to make H2A impossible to play without relying on boundary breaking and skipping).

MCC lasso
is pretty much what you used to call Mythic

[ShadoSnake]

yup yup

[Psychedelic Adventurer]

I see both sides on this one, and there is really no right answer.

The issue is that, when LASO was coined originally in early 08 by Tyrant, there was no real 'positive' skulls that could be switched on in Halo 3. Sure you had stuff like GBDP that was a slight advantage, in that you knew you had killed a Grunt. But generally skulls were a flat handicap. With the anniversary editions of older games, you suddenly have skulls introduced into the series that actually have positive effects.

So, we have a conflict of ethos' here. (S)LASO was originally conceptualised to be the most difficult Halo 'Mode' created; no holds barred, no respite. LASO, as in 'All skulls on' was just a neat name to go along with it. However, it was also renamed as 'Mythic' difficulty to get around this.

The MCC's LASO playlist carries with it the original intention of the Mythic challenge. To be the hardest game mode.

Is it faithful to the LASO name: No, it's not. Is it faithful to the original vision of the challenge itself? I would say so.

[ShadoSnake]

Originally posted by Psychedelic Adventurer:

I see both sides on this one, and there is really no right answer.

The issue is that, when LASO was coined originally in early 08 by Tyrant, there was no real 'positive' skulls that could be switched on in Halo 3. Sure you had stuff like GBDP that was a slight advantage, in that you knew you had killed a Grunt. But generally skulls were a flat handicap. With the anniversary editions of older games, you suddenly have skulls introduced into the series that actually have positive effects.

So, we have a conflict of ethos' here. (S)LASO was originally conceptualised to be the most difficult Halo 'Mode' created; no holds barred, no respite. LASO, as in 'All skulls on' was just a neat name to go along with it. However, it was also renamed as 'Mythic' difficulty to get around this.

The MCC's LASO playlist carries with it the original intention of the Mythic challenge. To be the hardest game mode.

Is it faithful to the LASO name: No, it's not. Is it faithful to the original vision of the challenge itself? I would say so.

this is true, though some H3 skulls have positives to them as well. Tilt makes all plasma weapons viable beyond just pistol overcharges (plasma rifles can knock out shields/armor pretty well in bursts), Mythic (idk if in 3, but in other games, buffs Marines), catch makes Marines throw grenades as well as tough luck allowing them to better dodge.

Even in the later games and MCC, more challenge skulls are added into the mix atop the few cheat-ish ones (Bandanna was originally a gold skull). And aside from the scarab gun of h2a, LASO true to name wouldn't become second most difficult, all of the difficulty skulls more than make up for something like bandanna or active camouflage instead of flashlight. h2a especially has some crazy skulls like the one that doubles hunter damage and triples their health or the exploding brute berzerkers or the 'enter ground vehicles by hijack only'. And with all skulls on, the scarab gun becomes a liability anyway, Cairo station becomes even more nightmarish, not that I'd even advocate putting that skull in because of how ludicrous it is lol.