Melee feels INCREDIBLY weak in all aspects, elites feel quite tanky compared to all other enemies, and AI companions will often shred enemies quicker than the player can enjoy the ability to do so themselves.
Other than that, this mod feels quite satisfying and I very much enjoy it.
Is there a way to manually reload the AR's underbarrel other than dumping the rest of the mag?

I recently finished the first half of the campaign (on normal difficulty if it matters), I need to agree with Runner on the melee (I assume that's because you balanced covenant combat around ranged most of the time?).

I won't say the balance is bad, but at least for a lower level like normal difficulty, the way the enemy health is balanced (noticed it most in solo fights or CQC like Truth and Rec) the combat feels significantly less like a challenge and more like a slog (yes including the fact that the health and shield effectiveness per weapon was modified).

If you want some examples, stealth elites have way too big of a health bar for how many are placed throughout every level (please either remove half of them or reduce their health by at least 30% or so), meanwhile it seems like hunters get shredded in half the time like their resistances weren't changed at all. I can't tell if the weapons were balanced around the resistances of enemies, the resistance was balanced around the weapons, or they were both balanced around AI counts and that throws me off on power weapon usage in intense scenarios like when I hope a handheld chaingun can just shred through a hallway but then gets met by certain enemies that feel like fleshy bullet sponges but it shreds through a wraith in less than half a magazine. If I were to make changes to the elites for example, I'd reduce the stealth health by 50% and just give all that resistance to the minors, and then ramp it up for the more rare ranks like spec ops or zealots as those should feel like real mini boss battles.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concept and I should've started with the fact your mod is a really fun experience and embodies a lot of the combat scenarios I wish CE had, but it is pretty rough around the edges and needs more tuning.

That's my biggest complaint so far in a nutshell, the balance just makes certain combat scenarios feel like a slog to go through (most noticeable when fighting by yourself). I feel like if you wanted to go for the large UNSC vs Cov battles with this balance then there might need to be a few extra areas in the first half that supports them. On Halo for example everything seemed ok until the tunnels where it's 1 troop hog vs all those shadows and groups of enemies. I feel like there should've been a battle going on in there, like some of the forces from the exit to the tunnel should've come in and been trying to fight the Covenant from across the bridge as if they were trying to link up with the marines you saved on the other side, it makes me sad to see that really cool battle at the exit with hogs, kestrals, and scorpion but they just stay there the whole time like they didn't have a purpose (why not have them all pushing up with you and after saving a squad or two you see them all set up around the downed escape pod in the center with barricades and supplies like you did with the silent cartographer?).

I noticed many areas in the first half where just more events or scenery should have happened like above and even more content that would've fleshed out the battles more (like ODSTs on Pillar of Autumn, Truth and Rec, and Control Room with the capability to use grenades and use more weapons, or more triggers where allies and ones in vehicles should follow) but that's neither here nor there. I feel like the balance just needs to be worked on more and after that we can suggest more events to fill in holes in levels or extra content to spice things up. It's just best to test a foundational change like that first before suggesting anything else.

Again, the concept is great. It is LEAGUES ahead of what the Massive Mod was in terms of presentations and that should make you feel proud and happy, you really evolved to showcase the battle of Alpha Halo in new and creative ways that make me look in awe!

Edit: Meant to say that yes, when I get time I'll be trying out the second half, you haven't lost me, the concept of bigger battles or more lore accurate scales of things is just too good to stop now!

Originally posted by Terragis:

I recently finished the first half of the campaign (on normal difficulty if it matters), I need to agree with Runner on the melee (I assume that's because you balanced covenant combat around ranged most of the time?).

I won't say the balance is bad, but at least for a lower level like normal difficulty, the way the enemy health is balanced (noticed it most in solo fights or CQC like Truth and Rec) the combat feels significantly less like a challenge and more like a slog (yes including the fact that the health and shield effectiveness per weapon was modified).

If you want some examples, stealth elites have way too big of a health bar for how many are placed throughout every level (please either remove half of them or reduce their health by at least 30% or so), meanwhile it seems like hunters get shredded in half the time like their resistances weren't changed at all. I can't tell if the weapons were balanced around the resistances of enemies, the resistance was balanced around the weapons, or they were both balanced around AI counts and that throws me off on power weapon usage in intense scenarios like when I hope a handheld chaingun can just shred through a hallway but then gets met by certain enemies that feel like fleshy bullet sponges but it shreds through a wraith in less than half a magazine. If I were to make changes to the elites for example, I'd reduce the stealth health by 50% and just give all that resistance to the minors, and then ramp it up for the more rare ranks like spec ops or zealots as those should feel like real mini boss battles.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concept and I should've started with the fact your mod is a really fun experience and embodies a lot of the combat scenarios I wish CE had, but it is pretty rough around the edges and needs more tuning.

That's my biggest complaint so far in a nutshell, the balance just makes certain combat scenarios feel like a slog to go through (most noticeable when fighting by yourself). I feel like if you wanted to go for the large UNSC vs Cov battles with this balance then there might need to be a few extra areas in the first half that supports them. On Halo for example everything seemed ok until the tunnels where it's 1 troop hog vs all those shadows and groups of enemies. I feel like there should've been a battle going on in there, like some of the forces from the exit to the tunnel should've come in and been trying to fight the Covenant from across the bridge as if they were trying to link up with the marines you saved on the other side, it makes me sad to see that really cool battle at the exit with hogs, kestrals, and scorpion but they just stay there the whole time like they didn't have a purpose (why not have them all pushing up with you and after saving a squad or two you see them all set up around the downed escape pod in the center with barricades and supplies like you did with the silent cartographer?).

I noticed many areas in the first half where just more events or scenery should have happened like above and even more content that would've fleshed out the battles more (like ODSTs on Pillar of Autumn, Truth and Rec, and Control Room with the capability to use grenades and use more weapons, or more triggers where allies and ones in vehicles should follow) but that's neither here nor there. I feel like the balance just needs to be worked on more and after that we can suggest more events to fill in holes in levels or extra content to spice things up. It's just best to test a foundational change like that first before suggesting anything else.

Again, the concept is great. It is LEAGUES ahead of what the Massive Mod was in terms of presentations and that should make you feel proud and happy, you really evolved to showcase the battle of Alpha Halo in new and creative ways that make me look in awe!

Edit: Meant to say that yes, when I get time I'll be trying out the second half, you haven't lost me, the concept of bigger battles or more lore accurate scales of things is just too good to stop now!

They explain my mindset with the balance and enemy spongeyness perfectly (slog is great to explain it as, even on heroic was still too slow paced for this scale).

Thank you for better and more in depth wording my TL;DR ADHD brain lol.

Honestly I think this mod is great. Contrary to the opinion of some I actually think it's great that the friendly AI on Legendary are actually competent and can hold their own. Makes me feel more like I am a big supporting factor of the battle and not the only being that is able to stop The Covenant. Overall it is quite balanced I think all the damage values were well calculated and no changes need to be made. If changes are to be made it would be nice if there will be legacy versions on Nexus.

Mission: Halo
Difficuly: Normal

You need to nerf Shadows. My Spartan shot 2 missiles directly at one of those and it wasn't destroyed until 3 more were shot. Also, they have an absurd firerate which, accompanied by all the tanky infantry, killed the 4 marines in the back of the warthog in about 10 seconds.

As the others have said, your marines shred the enemies faster than the player can; I assume it's because of their numbers, and while I love the fact that they are actually being useful in CE, it would really help if you nerfed both allies and enemies, even slightly, so that the player can feel more like the turning factor in the battle. Also, buffing some power weapons is a must: the chaingun should be used to shred every infantry you find in your way, except Hunters and some vehicles, yet a lot of the elites tank half a magazine and the fact that most of them can be found in groups makes the experience harder than my Legendary playthrough.
Overall, 8.5/10, very fun.

Edit:
Played through some of the other missions. Truth and Reconciliation seemed more balanced, although it presented a bug where the Halo Reach drums continuously play for the rest of the mission once you board the ship. Also, Linda and the other Spartan stay in the first room and don't follow you in the rescue of Captain Keyes.
Silent Cartographer and Assault to the Control Room were fine, but the Scorpion is the most useless vehicle in the mod: it doesn't matter where you want to shoot, 8/10 times you are going to miss and that counts for the machine gun mounted on it as well.
343 Guilty Spark starts with a handful of marines but they won't follow you, so I don't get why putting them in the first place, though it looks cool. The Flood reveal is nice, but I'd say to lower the music that starts after the flashback, it's too loud and you can't hear the combat forms jumping towards you until they hit you. I'm not a huge fan of the new Sentinel design that came from Infinite, so I suggest to use the vanilla one.
Either way, I enjoyed the mod a lot more after the tunnel section on Halo, so 9.4/10. Gonna review again after I complete the last missions.

Very small nitpick, but the UNSC service branches poster on the Autumn's bridge uses the vastly superior classic UNSC logo for all the eagles except the main one, which is tragically the halo 4 over detailed version. Just got through PoA though and it was a blast on heroic!
Additional note, the scorpion reticle, at least on Halo, seems to be very broken. The scorpion will point its barrel and fire at least 6 feet above or below the center of the reticle

Update to my last post. Finished the second half (still Normal difficulty), and I gotta say you nailed that one. Flood balance seemed really great on normal and paired a lot better with the marines' stronger accuracy, damage, and health more than the Covenant, only problem I noticed was that a lot of times they wouldn't even see an enemy until they get close, much less infection forms. I'd highly recommend just looking at Ruby's marine AI for any possible upgrades they could have to feel a bit smarter. In addition, I noticed that while you used Ruby's combat forms which made them much more fun to fight and headshot than vanilla ones, you used the vanilla carrier forms instead? Just wanted to know if that was intentional or not since Ruby's versions of them had the ability to explode fast and release nothing if you used needlers, flamethrowers, and plasma grenades which may help the sandbox in the latter half of the game if some of those weapons got niche abilities like that.

You did a pitch perfect job on the horror. The only thing I wish is that you didn't have some of the external music tracks turned up to maximum volume when they were implemented. I love DOOM as much as the next guy but that Maw hallway music man, had to turn it down a lot lol.

This mod has a wonderful concept but there's just a lot of minor issues that are bugging me which compound together over time.

• Melee is too weak. Especially in Ruby's Rebalanced where some weapons have more melee damage like Needler and Rocket Launcher, its absence I notice even more.
  
• Too many Assault Rifle Flood in the last level. It's impossible to dodge an entire crowd of hitscan enemies that drain your shields and are guaranteed to get at least 3 bars of your health.
  
• I have a pretty good computer and it still froze my game at several points for a few seconds because of how many enemies it spawns in
  
• Some music tracks are a bit questionable, but that's just my personal preference. No hate to you
  
• How do you get ammo for the underbarrel grenade and shotgun rounds for the AR variants?
  
• I just think it's really weird how Spec-Ops are storming the PoA in the first level and throughout the rest of the campaign mixed in with the other units, but then they don't appear in the Keyes level when Cortana says that they sent in a strike force, instead just having some Ultras and Majors
  
• What is wrong with the tank targeting? It never shoots where my crosshair is pointed
  
• There's a few respawn points near the end of the campaign that can trigger while they're in view, spawning Marines or Flood right in front of you

Anyways, enough about complaints. This is still a good mod which I might replay again a few times to try out some other things. Anyways I have a few suggestions, which aren't as necessary to implement but I think would be nice:

• I would've loved to see ODST mixed in with the other units. The older model marines look cool, but I think that ODST is too iconic to just leave out. You could probably figure some way to integrate them both with a unique role. Having ODSTs jump out of Pelicans high up in the air to get right up in the enemy would be a cool recurring setpiece
  
• Maybe more Longsword scenes would be nice, such as showing one being shot out of the sky
  
• I feel like Zealots are used quite a lot. Maybe you could replace most of the Zealots with Ultras and with the ones you don't replace, turn the Zealots into much stronger sort of mini-boss encounters. I always kind of associate the Zealots with shipmasters and really high-ranking stuff like the Arbiter, so it's a bit weird to find like 5 in every level
  
• The Silent Cartographer is really fun in this mod. I've always wanted the Marines to hold position at the entrance instead of the beach for whatever odd reason. Though them clearing out most of the facility and keeping it safe on your way out does make the ending a bit anticlimactic. Maybe put the "2 enemy dropships coming in fast" line back to where it usually sounds, and when Cortana tells the Marines to hold position inside the structure, instead of going like "negative" they say something along the lines of "roger that, retreating now," then on the way out you have to fight a bunch of Covenant engaging with the Marines. This could be a good spot to put Spec-Ops instead of just having them integrated with every squad in every level, making them more deliberately placed
  
• A trend I've noticed in this mod is the UNSC putting down deployable cover really quickly on the front lines, like within moments of them touching down just before you get there at the same time as them. I feel like deployable cover should take at least a little bit of time to set up and used more to fortify their positions than to be used on the front lines.
  
• While on the topic, how did the Marines get to their position on the bridge at the end of the control room level? Did they crawl through the vents or something? Maybe show them being airlifted in by a Pelican or something (would be a good opportunity for ODST to drop in from a fly-by to clear out the enemies on the opposite bridge before reinforcements get lifted in manually). And I wish the last encounter of the level was more bombastic than just "hey we captured the control room, here's a retaliatory force Chief help us fight them off" and make it feel like a full-on assault to steal it from the Covenant. Have the elite Marines storming the front lines on the ground to take out the anti-air turrets before another Pelican flies overhead to drop off an ODST battalion, and make the final hallway more heavily guarded.
  
• And once you return in Two Betrayals, I don't really like how the entire setup of UNSC defenses is just completely wiped out by the time you return. Instead it kind of feels like they all just got up and left to go wait in the last half of the level. I feel like it would be more fun to hold off a Covenant counterattack before they send some Pelicans out to deal with the generators (unsuccessfully, of course, and you'd have to clean up after them or help them out), and hold off the Flood re-introduction until later on in the level instead of right at the beginning to help reduce the repetition of constant Flood encounters after having gone through 2 entire levels of nothing but Flood.
  
• I like the idea of recreating the Surface Tension chapter from Black Mesa in Two Betrayals, as I've had the exact same idea before, but I admit I just started laughing when I heard the radio broadcasts. It kind of sounds out of place since they don't sound like any of CE's characters. Maybe change it up and rearrange their base voice files to string together a distress call, telling a story of how a Pelican carrying crewmen and a few troops was shot down, and another Pelican being sent in to assist, but the LZ being too hot to get them out of there so they just drop in ODST reinforcements to hold the line until the onslaught of Flood calms down. Throughout the rest of the level you could maybe hear their pleas for the Chief to come save them until eventually you link up with them near the end and allow an evac to come rescue them. Maybe you could find Covenant squads facing the exact same problem and just being abandoned by their rescue. That would fit into the Surface Tension theme while staying consistent with the base game's narrative style
  
• It would be cool if Keyes was adopted into a retelling of The Flood novel in which they take control of the ship to escape the ring. That would mean having a lot more Marines storming the ship with you in a desperate attempt with nearly all remaining forces being involved. First half of the level is a 3-way battle between UNSC, Flood, and Covenant, then the Covenant sends in spec-ops who cleanse most of the Flood (except for the Bridge which they are in the process of taking control of). After killing the proto gravemind, it becomes a battle between UNSC and Covenant, and returning to the shuttle bay the Marines take control of it similar to how you currently have done it, deploying a ton of reinforcements who run off into hallways to despawn

I ramble too much, sorry.

I didn't mean to go on a rant tirade like that actually. This mod is mostly fun, but sometimes it's easy to pick out all the little things that add up over time. 343GS is actually very atmospheric, and I love all the large scale battles. The Silent Cartographer might be my favorite level because of the setbuilding with how they slowly build up defenses over the course of the level

Originally posted by tpd1864blake:

I didn't mean to go on a rant tirade like that actually. This mod is mostly fun, but sometimes it's easy to pick out all the little things that add up over time. 343GS is actually very atmospheric, and I love all the large scale battles. The Silent Cartographer might be my favorite level because of the setbuilding with how they slowly build up defenses over the course of the level

I know its not a rant triade. I like honest comments. But i just dont know how to answer you correctly and fully in the big comment lol.

This is hands down the best Halo CE mod ever, would you be able or have plans to add destructible body parts like Halo: Brutality Evolved has? That would take this mod to a whole new level.

I just finished the assault on the control room and so far everything has been truly incredible. I have been playing halo mods for 20 years and this is hands down the greatest. My only suggestion is that I wish there was some way to get all the marines out of the transport hog. I can't seem to get the two in the back that sit the closest to the driver seat.

Originally posted by Destroyer1101:

This is hands down the best Halo CE mod ever, would you be able or have plans to add destructible body parts like Halo: Brutality Evolved has? That would take this mod to a whole new level.

thx for supporting this mod. you're welcome. if i get the tags i could.

Originally posted by Bones:

I just finished the assault on the control room and so far everything has been truly incredible. I have been playing halo mods for 20 years and this is hands down the greatest. My only suggestion is that I wish there was some way to get all the marines out of the transport hog. I can't seem to get the two in the back that sit the closest to the driver seat.

Im glad you like my mod. Yeah i know. ill have to see to fix the script when i have time. but for now just flip the vehicle. have fun and enjoy

make it so our multiplayer CE Spartans are used instead of master chief