First time (classic) Halo player, didn't enjoy Halo 2.

[Shot of Depresso]

Me and a friend are going through all of the canon Halo games (CE-Reach/ODST). We really enjoyed Halo 1, despite some minor frustrations that come from quirks of being such an old game, but neither of us liked Halo 2 much at all. We're playing all of the games on Heroic difficulty instead of Legendary, since I've only ever played 4 and Infinite (and didn't much care for them)

Here are some contributing factors:

Compared to Halo 1, there was SO MUCH standing and waiting around for triggers to happen. We once waited 2 minutes with no enemy spawns before the game finally let us progress, I think this was on Metropolis, waiting for the bugs and hunters to spawn.

Compared to the other Halo games, hallways were more cramped, more fights were just straight slugging matches, slugging matches where we have way less health, and the enemies do way more damage than we do with the same weapons.

That's another thing, most of the guns in Halo 2 are complete peashooters. In Halo 1 and 3, I feel like I can pick up anything and do pretty well with it, but in Halo 2, most of the guns hit like nerf blasters. Just about everything that could be dual wielded felt completely wimpy to shoot, brutes would take 4 overheats from plasma guns, elites took 2-3. The plasma pistol was completely neutered, lost its homing, did almost no damage, sometimes didn't even bust shields with the overcharge shot. The magnum went from being one of our favorite guns to something we avoided at all costs, even when dual wielding it was just useless. The only dual wielding guns we ever got consistent use out of were SMGs (if nothing else was available) and Needlers. Battle rifles, cov carbines, bruteshots, shotguns, beam rifles, snipers were about all we used, because everything else was just pitifully weak. Thankfully, this is WAY better in Halo 3.

Dual wielding in general seemed like it actually took away from the experience more than it added. Guns were so undertuned BECAUSE they could be dual wielded that we never wanted to pick up any of the guns that allowed it. The fact that you drop your akimbo any time that you melee, throw a grenade, use equipment, etc made it super unsatisfying and a little frustrating to do so.

The game was super punishing with it spawning 6+ jackal snipers in a single encounter OFTEN. Walk around the corner, both of us are immediately dead and all we can do is jiggle peak the next time trying to spot the snipers before they beam us down.

The energy sword, though a cool addition to be able to actually use, was absolute garbage compared to 3 onwards , often taking 2-3 swings to kill a basic Elite, where they could just backhand you once and more often than not outright kill you. To me it seemed like it actually did less damage with the sword when playing as Chief, which makes sense on paper since the Arbiter has more experience with it, but in a gameplay sense did not feel good.

There are a lot of smaller things, like plas nades not seeming to stick reliably, often phasing straight through enemies and players alike (not being stuck when we watched the nade pass through our viewmodel) everything just felt super rough around the edges. Some of the setpieces were cool, but it was also mostly corridor/railroad levels. The art direction was improved from CE, which was nice. Aside from a few notably confusing level layouts in CE, felt like CE had better playspace design than Halo 2 did, which was a lot more rigid and offered less cover in general.

We like a challenge, but toward the end of Halo 2 we were begging for it to be over so we could move onto the next game. The only thing we really liked from 2 was the music and the story progression.

[Neo Kaiser]

Now you've joined the war between Halo players and Halo 2 players lol

[ReDsKuLL]

Complaints about difficulty have the obvious answer of reducing it. Everyone acknowledges that Halo 2 is harder than the rest. Heroic on Halo 2 is like legendary on the others. It also comes with a different spawn set up for enemies and more brutal AI behavior. You'll have more jackal snipers and higher ranked elites. It's far more aggressive with this than CE in my opinion.

When complaining about not being able to just melee things to death, that's the reason. You're not playing on a difficulty where a brawl is particularly viable. Same thing goes with weapon damage. You're trying to use swords and weaker weaponry on enemies with stronger shields than you expect. They do fine on lower difficulties. Another massive thing you missed are enemy weaknesses. Of course brutes take more plasma shots to kill. That's not their weakness, and actually their strength. They have thick, hairy hide. Pick up a carbine and you'll slaughter them with headshots. Pick up a plasma pistol and let loose a charged shot to remove the shields from tougher non-brute enemies. Your weird issues with grenades are probably related to latency. That's also why any overcharge shots didn't emp shields (or you just missed). Halo 2 doesn't have a magnum, just a wimpy service pistol. I don't think it's overstating it to call that the worst gun in the game or to suggest that people outright forget it exists. You also complain about dropping dual wielded weapons frequently. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that happening in Halo 3, just the same.

Finally, the waiting times are probably because the game is coded to promote your attention on what's happening. Looking at something important will make cues happen faster. The Athens and Malta like to blow earlier if you stare at them. The hunters in Outskirts show up faster if you watch the door. This is all done so you don't miss things as often. That courtyard is specifically designed to provide ample downtime between large fights. You're expected to refill on ammo and grenades and get repositioned.

In short, you should have played it on normal instead of Heroic. In fact, you should *revisit* it later on normal and then think about how enjoyable that was in comparison.

[Shot of Depresso]

Origineel geplaatst door ReDsKuLL:

Complaints about difficulty have the obvious answer of reducing it. Everyone acknowledges that Halo 2 is harder than the rest. Heroic on Halo 2 is like legendary on the others. It also comes with a different spawn set up for enemies and more brutal AI behavior. You'll have more jackal snipers and higher ranked elites. It's far more aggressive with this than CE in my opinion.

When complaining about not being able to just melee things to death, that's the reason. You're not playing on a difficulty where a brawl is particularly viable. Same thing goes with weapon damage. You're trying to use swords and weaker weaponry on enemies with stronger shields than you expect. They do fine on lower difficulties. Another massive thing you missed are enemy weaknesses. Of course brutes take more plasma shots to kill. That's not their weakness, and actually their strength. They have thick, hairy hide. Pick up a carbine and you'll slaughter them with headshots. Pick up a plasma pistol and let loose a charged shot to remove the shields from tougher non-brute enemies. Your weird issues with grenades are probably related to latency. That's also why any overcharge shots didn't emp shields (or you just missed). Halo 2 doesn't have a magnum, just a wimpy service pistol. I don't think it's overstating it to call that the worst gun in the game or to suggest that people outright forget it exists. You also complain about dropping dual wielded weapons frequently. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that happening in Halo 3, just the same.

Finally, the waiting times are probably because the game is coded to promote your attention on what's happening. Looking at something important will make cues happen faster. The Athens and Malta like to blow earlier if you stare at them. The hunters in Outskirts show up faster if you watch the door. This is all done so you don't miss things as often. That courtyard is specifically designed to provide ample downtime between large fights. You're expected to refill on ammo and grenades and get repositioned.

In short, you should have played it on normal instead of Heroic. In fact, you should *revisit* it later on normal and then think about how enjoyable that was in comparison.

I have absolutely zero intentions of revisiting the game. If you'd read what I said you'd find that we WERE maining covenant carbines and the like, because they were some of the only guns that were valid options. Plas rifles weren't really any better against elites, either.

Dual wield guns are dropped in Halo 3 but the key difference is that in Halo 3 they actually kill things reliably.

[Lil Femboy Toes]

Halo 2 heroic is on par with legendary in CE ik you already said you wouldn't revisit the game on normal but I HIGHLY recommend you do so since most of your problems would be solved by just lowering the difficulty a bit. On normal you have much more room to experiment with other weapons (especially the sword) and some encounters are shorter including the courtyard battle. There's also some things you got wrong like the plasma pistol losing its homing, in Halo 2 it actually has the strongest homing in the series to the point where its actually broken. There's a video on yt of a guy overcharging the pistol and its bolt moves at a 90 degree angle to hit another player. About the brutes while they are spongy they are weaker to certain weapons like the brute shot, shotgun, smgs, needler and br/carbine. Most people say Halo 2 has the best story in the series so if all your issues are with the gameplay then definitely lower the difficulty so you can enjoy the story more.

Only thing that can't be changed is dual wield and linear level design

[Shot of Depresso]

Origineel geplaatst door Lil Femboy Toes:

Halo 2 heroic is on par with legendary in CE ik you already said you wouldn't revisit the game on normal but I HIGHLY recommend you do so since most of your problems would be solved by just lowering the difficulty a bit. On normal you have much more room to experiment with other weapons (especially the sword) and some encounters are shorter including the courtyard battle. You also never mentioned what you thought of the story, most people say Halo 2 has the best story in the series so if all your issues are with the gameplay then definitely lower the difficulty so you can enjoy the story more.

Only thing that can't be changed is dual wield and linear level design

No offense but I don't want to take advice from someone named "lil femboy toes"

[I AM THE LAW!]

I'm soloing halo 2 on heroic and it's hard, I dread legendary but ima do it cause I want to suffer for the bragging rights haha. but yeah most guns just suck. unless you're using snipers (human sniper and beam rifle) or shotgun/carbine you're gonna have a rough time. I only duel wielded plasma rifles cause it's fun to go DAKAKAKAKAKAKA. my biggest complaint is the melee, and the brutes charge, it's so unfair, so often. and also some of the spawns are like "SURPRISE UR DEAD! SUCKS TO NOT KNOW WE SPAWN HERE"
Like...so I was supposed to die? there was no chance in some situations that I was going to survive 4-5 elites + grunts popping out of a door right in front of me! feels like the devs designed it so you had to slog through every room and learn every spawn pattern to be able to beat it, sometimes I only won because I memorized what the enemy would do and played around it. in some of the arbiter flood missions I just said screw it and ran past them to the next zone, because it's just not worth it to fight flood that have shotguns and such with 0 reward. I do like halo 2 tho, mostly because of the anniversary cut scenes being my all time favorite cinematics. Also I gotta say I"m plesently surprised to not see anyone going "LOL SKILL ISSSSUUUEEE", guess the games just that hard lol.

[Shot of Depresso]

Origineel geplaatst door Craftfaster:

I'm soloing halo 2 on heroic and it's hard, I dread legendary but ima do it cause I want to suffer for the bragging rights haha. but yeah most guns just suck. unless you're using snipers (human sniper and beam rifle) or shotgun/carbine you're gonna have a rough time. I only duel wielded plasma rifles cause it's fun to go DAKAKAKAKAKAKA. my biggest complaint is the melee, and the brutes charge, it's so unfair, so often. and also some of the spawns are like "SURPRISE UR DEAD! SUCKS TO NOT KNOW WE SPAWN HERE"
Like...so I was supposed to die? there was no chance in some situations that I was going to survive 4-5 elites + grunts popping out of a door right in front of me! feels like the devs designed it so you had to slog through every room and learn every spawn pattern to be able to beat it, sometimes I only won because I memorized what the enemy would do and played around it. in some of the arbiter flood missions I just said screw it and ran past them to the next zone, because it's just not worth it to fight flood that have shotguns and such with 0 reward. I do like halo 2 tho, mostly because of the anniversary cut scenes being my all time favorite cinematics. Also I gotta say I"m plesently surprised to not see anyone going "LOL SKILL ISSSSUUUEEE", guess the games just that hard lol.

I think the biggest contributing factor to the game's lack of balance and less than stellar level design is the fact that Halo 2 almost killed the devs. Its development cycle was utter hell, and the devs have been super open about that. Story goes they only had time to balance the lower difficulties.

[acSiegemaster]

Origineel geplaatst door Card-Holding LeMat SImp:

Origineel geplaatst door Craftfaster:

I'm soloing halo 2 on heroic and it's hard, I dread legendary but ima do it cause I want to suffer for the bragging rights haha. but yeah most guns just suck. unless you're using snipers (human sniper and beam rifle) or shotgun/carbine you're gonna have a rough time. I only duel wielded plasma rifles cause it's fun to go DAKAKAKAKAKAKA. my biggest complaint is the melee, and the brutes charge, it's so unfair, so often. and also some of the spawns are like "SURPRISE UR DEAD! SUCKS TO NOT KNOW WE SPAWN HERE"
Like...so I was supposed to die? there was no chance in some situations that I was going to survive 4-5 elites + grunts popping out of a door right in front of me! feels like the devs designed it so you had to slog through every room and learn every spawn pattern to be able to beat it, sometimes I only won because I memorized what the enemy would do and played around it. in some of the arbiter flood missions I just said screw it and ran past them to the next zone, because it's just not worth it to fight flood that have shotguns and such with 0 reward. I do like halo 2 tho, mostly because of the anniversary cut scenes being my all time favorite cinematics. Also I gotta say I"m plesently surprised to not see anyone going "LOL SKILL ISSSSUUUEEE", guess the games just that hard lol.

I think the biggest contributing factor to the game's lack of balance and less than stellar level design is the fact that Halo 2 almost killed the devs. Its development cycle was utter hell, and the devs have been super open about that. Story goes they only had time to balance the lower difficulties.

the lack of time for balance and polish was 100% a symptom of internal mismanagement by bungie and also wasting a year to make a fake E3 trailer

[Neo Kaiser]

Also due to one of MCCs patches the campaigns are actually tougher. The enemy AIs tick rate was increased and so they're actually shooting and reacting a lot faster than intended.

Best just to wait for Ruby's Rebalanced mod.

[Kensei]

I prefer Halo 2 to Halo 1, I liked that it tried to tell a more ambitious and mature story, liked the opening levels, the vehicular combat set pieces, and those of the arbiter especially.

Yet I agree pretty much with everything OP said.

You could feel the crunch that went into development in the last levels. Brutes were just bullet sponges. And slashing elites several times to get a kill with the plasma sword while the Nickelback music was playing was mind boggling.

[I AM THE LAW!]

Origineel geplaatst door Neo Kaiser:

Also due to one of MCCs patches the campaigns are actually tougher. The enemy AIs tick rate was increased and so they're actually shooting and reacting a lot faster than intended.

Best just to wait for Ruby's Rebalanced mod.

I sorta like AI that reacts faster. the only issue is AI that seemingly sees through solid objects or beyond their apparent vision. like a brute snapping on me when I am 45+ degrees above him. or a elite seeing me through foliage before I can see him. It's a old game tho so I really can't complain a lot lol.

[Lil Femboy Toes]

Origineel geplaatst door Card-Holding LeMat SImp:

Origineel geplaatst door Lil Femboy Toes:

Halo 2 heroic is on par with legendary in CE ik you already said you wouldn't revisit the game on normal but I HIGHLY recommend you do so since most of your problems would be solved by just lowering the difficulty a bit. On normal you have much more room to experiment with other weapons (especially the sword) and some encounters are shorter including the courtyard battle. You also never mentioned what you thought of the story, most people say Halo 2 has the best story in the series so if all your issues are with the gameplay then definitely lower the difficulty so you can enjoy the story more.

Only thing that can't be changed is dual wield and linear level design

No offense but I don't want to take advice from someone named "lil femboy toes"

lmao none taken

[Rastrelly]

Plays a game known to be suffocatingly hard for all the wrong reasons and tons of bulletsponges.
Picks the hard difficulty.
Complains.

[Shot of Depresso]

Origineel geplaatst door Rastrelly:

Plays a game known to be suffocatingly hard for all the wrong reasons and tons of bulletsponges.
Picks the hard difficulty.
Complains.

Sees post about someone not liking the game

Sees that someone didn’t like the game

Cries anyway

[DRplays]

Origineel geplaatst door Neo:

The enemy AIs tick rate was increased and so they're actually shooting and reacting a lot faster than intended.

Origineel geplaatst door Craftfaster:

I sorta like AI that reacts faster. the only issue is AI that seemingly sees through solid objects or beyond their apparent vision. like a brute snapping on me when I am 45+ degrees above him. or a elite seeing me through foliage before I can see him.

So that explains the beam sniper jakals shooting us as soon as our arms started peeking around the corner lol