There was a 'fatigue' from fighting the Covenant in every Halo game so far.
Where was the '30 seconds of Fun'?
- Find this from everything from Halo to Halo Reach.
- Apply it to the Prometheans in Halo 4!
Foundations:
- Every alien race is unique in Gameplay, Visual Silhouette, and Personality.
- Enemies support experimentation (Halo is an open sandbox game).
- There's a Leader/Minion hierarchy.
- Some are easy to dispatch, others are real conflicts when encountered.
- There are 'minibosses' with a squad/squad leader.
- The Halo Encounter must exist for Prometheans.
- Classically, it's Plan, Take by Surprise, Beat Back, Break Them, Mop-up, and Repeat.
- Enemy characters (Leaders) raise or lower Minion moral and action.
- The Halo approach to difficulty is Smarter-Faster-Stronger.
- Higher difficulty only speeds-up gameplay; it doesn't change it fundamentally.
- PROMETHEANS MUST USE EXISTING CONTENT CREATION TOOLS!
The Gold Triangle: Shoot - Hit - Throw
Promethean Inspirations:
- Voltron
- Forerunners are involved beyond anything else in the galaxy.
- Adaption of form to fit events and environments.
- T1000
- They can take any form, but stay relatively humanoid.
- The Thing
- Cranium Rats
- Units are smarter the more there are.
Early Enemy Goals:
- There should be a combination of 'familiar' and 'alien'.
- They cooperate with each other to defeat threats.
- They adapt their form and the environment.
The Knight is something easily understood and relate-able.
The Crawler (Pawn) started as a biped.
The Watcher (Bishop) was wanted to be something like a Necromancer from Diablo; a game changer.
Other enemies were Rooks, Queens, and Kings, all of which are likely to be included in future releases.
Watcher Prototyping:
- Had the abilities of a shield, resurrection, deflection, spawning, focus fire, physics impulse, a 'junk attack', etc.
- From focus fire on, players just didn't get what the abilities did.
Knight Prototyping:
- They used squad tactics in a combination of alien and human strategy.
- Use cover like a human, but use a bound move like a Metroid ball.
- Enter and exit battle through the environment.
- Dismemberment is shown when damaged, answering 'am I damaging this thing or not?'
- Have a deadly melee attack!
Problem: Pipeline.
- Pipeling rewriting for Maya was a pain.
Solutions:
- Bring in more engineering staff.
- Reduce the scope, cutting the Rook, Queen, and King enemy types.
Problem: Who are they, the Prometheans?
- They were not fleshed-out with gameplay features seeming to be random.
Solution:
- Center everything around the Knight.
- Finally say 'this is it' and drop some features.
Problem: Pawn
- The team didn't like the biped design because it felt like the Covenant.
- Walk on walls as a quadruped!
Post Mortem Wrongs:
- Early team communication
- Long absence of high-level vision
- Watcher encourages one-dimensional solutions
- Prometheans are devoid of emotion
- Forerunners are like bullet-sponges
Post Mortem Rights:
- Early gameplay contraints and a foundation
- Enemies players enjoy
- Creating different enemies from either the Covenant or Flood
- Team orientation
// Next: Kanban-How To Make Your Production Scream.
