Today I played another Halo Reach mod! This time it's Ruby's Rebalanced Reach (by RubyOfBlue).
I played through on Heroic, writing notes as I went along, sorted by mission in mostly chronological order. Sorry if the comments aren't perfectly readable, I was trying to not spend too much time away from the game.
Winter Contingency:
- Was slightly uncertain for a bit if I had correctly installed the mod (I did).
- Sprint's recharge and being able to start running after having it only partially recharge, even after a full depletion was nice, did a good job of keeping things moving I think, not as much waiting for sprint to be ready.
- Pistol felt less accurate, fair enough, but headshots on grunts definitely felt harder to get, might have been on me, not sure.
- AR didn't really feel different at all, I thought it was somewhat changed but didn't see much evidence of that.
- Grenades are strong, definitely more used to base game's timing, though, plasmas are much slower to detonate than I'm expecting.
- Needler, Needle Rifle, Plasma Rifle hard to really feel the differences, they are tweaked, but still close to base game.
- Plasma Repeater sprays plasma well, but I'm not sure I'd want to use it, spraying tends to work best on unshielded targets but plasma is best for hitting shields.
- Plasma pistol regular shots deal more health damage, viable kill tool.
- DMR has higher ammo limit, which is nice, but like pistol, feels less accurate, not exactly what I'd want from a "Marksman Rifle."
- Stealth Elites in the indoor section of level was a pretty neat idea, though if I were a new player, I may be thinking there's too much being introduced at once, first there's these new Zealots and now there's invisibles? It works, but I see why this wasn't in base game.
- Full body shielded skirmishers in final room, interesting idea, but they're already tough to take down thanks to their agility, and they already had the kind with the shoulder shields in base game. Also, adding them on top of the 5 or so Elites in the room was a bit much, I'd rather they be vulnerable to headshots to make clearing them a bit easier so I could start on the Elites.
- I've never been much of a fan of chain reaction plasma grenades, because I kill a bunch of grunts, more show up, toss a grenade at me, and then there's nowhere to run because the whole room is now a bomb. It can be fun to do that to them a little, but I'd rather be able to pick up the grenades after I'm done and start chucking them instead of making one big explosion. Chaining grenades that are already activated, though, I'm more okay with that I think.
- Jackals are fine, but their shield colors feel a bit too saturated for Reach's overall more grim aesthetic.
- Grunts, like I said, seem harder to headshot for some reason, it seemed like I was doing alright with lining it up, but they just didn't seem to want to pop.
ONI Sword Base:
- Okay so I think the DMR doesn't get red-reticle at close ranges, which really messes with my Halo intuition, because red-reticle in my brain only stops after you go too far out, this loss of bullet magnetism may be part of why my guns feel so less accurate.
- Starts level with armor lock instead of sprint. Like the concept of starting with different armor abilities a lot, but I'm not sure armor lock is the right pick for this level, with all the marines around and the fact that the level normally gives you armor lock after the first encounter, I feel like the drop shield may have been a better pick, but I'm not certain that's the best pick either. Could also have just gone with Sprint again, but it's a designer choice here.
- Wraiths shoot fast, possibly too fast for enemy AIs.
- Troop transport warthog, like other mod, but not as many rocket launchers I can give out to all the marines, so some just have ARs.
- Warthog feels heavier, or otherwise slightly different, it could be in part thanks to my high FOV, but I do think that it's actually different and not just my video settings.
- Only now remembering from the sort of trailer video I watched before that I could have given my rocket launcher to Kat, and that the rest of Noble Team can actually have multiple weapons for them to use. They would probably do better with power weapons than marines, though based on previous experiences with Jun sniping me through the grunt I'm punching, they may not be the greatest at not commiting friendly fire.
- Elites with needlers, not a super new concept but I like it, feel like it should happen more in normal Halo titles, since in-lore I think all needles for needler weapon were mined from a moon over the Elite's home world, though that might not be entirely true and I'm just getting mixed up.
- Pink Elite general. Not exactly the most intimidating color, being honest, it's a very light pink, the darker pink of base-game zealots I think would work better.
- Shotgun is not strong. Has a longer red-reticle range, but I tried pumping six shells into the pink elite mentioned above, and I still had to reload another shot before he went down. Yes, that elite type has strong shields, so it's not completely fair, but I was pretty close up and it didn't seem to be doing much, even on the other enemies I tried it on earlier. The extra range isn't bad, but it just feels so lacking in power.
- Plasma launcher not great, faster charge time, but needed multiple shots stuck to a jetpack elite (which have weaker shields, generally), and the tracking seemed a bit weaker, but it's hard to tell. Probably a bit better than base game's, but still not a great choice to pick up, I don't think.
- Not mentioned on Winter Contingency, even though it was present, the spirit dropship's gun is really flashy and hard to see around while you're being shot, and may be a rouch too strong? I like the idea, but it's very distracting in a way I don't love. It's hard to explain.
- Sniper is also weaker, cannot 1-shot headshot kill even the second tier of elites, pretty lame in my opinion. Sniper is a power weapon with not a lot of ammo, it should feel really strong against most foes.
- Skirmishers seem to have even bigger jumps than before.
- Grunts may be able to throw "rainbow stickies" over buildings and such, which theoretically makes sense but in terms of gameplay I think is not a great idea thanks to how you can't see them and don't have line of sight and may not know they exist but they can still potentially kill you.
- Revenant may be unchanged? Feels about the same as normal. Will need more time with the vehicle later, but first impression is that it's normal, which is fun, but a little weak as far as the main gun goes.
- Physics may be different, stuck an elite and launched him probably 40 feet in the air or more, no skulls on.
- Shotgun does have much higher max ammo, but still feels rather impotent.
- Needler is very good against hunters. I like it, but it does also kind of make fighting hunters less of a challenge because the needles can go into their front as well, as long as it's not on their arm shield, so the miniboss aspect of having to circle around and hit them in the back is somewhat lost when you have needles.
- Plasma Rifle grunt is here and they're just as alright as you may expect.
- Jackals seem to appear in larger packs than before, I'm seeing them in a lot of 4-jackal squads, upon entering the area that is the Sword Base multiplayer map, there were 6-8 jackals right around the corner. It really emphasizes how grenades are the best option against jackals, the old hand-head 2-tap is a clean-up tool for if you placed your grenade in the wrong spot.
- Supercombines apparently EMP things now. Interesting, but is it really needed?
- Killed myself with supercombine splash damage, oof.
- Jackals in last "room" are replaced by more stealth elites. Don't like this change so much, I know a couple drop off later, but come on.
- Why are there like, 8 stealth/spec ops elites here, my job is to blow up the banshees, I already killed the elite general with the fuel rod gun, why are there so many infantry units here?
- Also, none of my allies are pushing forward for some reason, so I have to do all this by myself despite having backup in the previous room. Cool.
- You can hold 2 more rockets than usual. Sure, why not.
Nightfall:
- Starting mission with Active Camo, makes a ton of sense and I like it.
- Camo armor ability doesn't include the radar jammer, thank goodness, that was never useful in campaign and only served to annoy you and make your life harder.
- Sniper shoots fast, I want more ammo.
- Pistol may as well not have a zoom because you can't hit anything from far away with it.
- I think my beat down didn't work, which means my only option would be to go through the long assassinations on elites, not sure that's the greatest move when, again, historically, back slaps always killed elites. Either beat downs from behind don't work on elites or I just got unlucky.
- Took so long/died so many times that I hit the point where I started to get zero score for any of my kills.
Tip of the Spear:
- Opening cutscene had tanks with different main turrets on top, very noticable. Tanks probably work differently, but can't be sure until The Package unless the mod creator put in another place with a tank.
- Mission starts you with a Drop Shield. I can appreciate this choice, I see how it can be useful in the first area pretty quickly. An argument for armor lock instead exists, but this is fine.
- At least 25 shots with the grenade launcher, I'll take it.
- It looks like there were several marines behind the first encounter of enemies, which, made the first encounter really easy? Because we had the enemies completely flanked? If that's the case, then, I disagree with the choice, I got maybe 5 kills on a group of fodder enemies and when I moved up, everything I was supposed to deal with was already dead.
- There's a *lot* of marines on this level, wow, first AA gun and I think I've seen about a dozen of them.
- The marine on the back of my turret can actually target the outside of the AA gun to try and destroy it, they can't do that in base game, neat.
- Too many marines, this encounter at the first AA gun is basically a joke when there's 4 full warthogs circling it, everything is dying so fast, yeah, cool, we get to see marines being strong and useful, but then we the player don't get to feel like a champion of the battlefield quite as much. It's an unfortunate trade-off.
- More of the shielded skirmishers that I don't much care for.
- Emile is here, for some reason. Like we didn't already have enough reinforcements.
- Enemies and allies both seem to be able to engage from greater distances, which can be nice, except now areas that were once safe aren't anymore because there's a bunch of enemies who can see you through a gap in the fence and start blasting you with fairly accurate plasma shots, and it's really messing with my existing knowledge.
- The spot where the zealot normally is has an extra 3 or 4 elites, mostly spec ops by the looks of things. While the lone zealot was kind of hilariously easy to take down, at least for an experienced player, it was always an optional enemy, you didn't have to kill it right there. Now you can't slide through at all or you'll get shredded, making the area harder, and I would argue not in a very interesting way. There's just more enemies. It feel like this mod's encounter design philosophy is just throwing more and more enemies at you, which I don't think is really the best way of doing things.
- One thing I loved about Halo Reach Evolved that this mod doesn't do is that in that other mod, Elites cannot armor lock. It is a pain to deal with, and it seems like enemies are doing it more here than they normally would in base game.
- Zealot had a focus rifle, picked it up, feels a lot weaker in my hands than it felt when he was holding it. Gave it to Kat instead, maybe I wasn't using it well.
- Tried to give Emile a sword. Sadly, it did not work.
- Regular, actual max ammo for the grenade launcher is still only 15. Sad.
- Gave Emile the plasma launcher the game points out after the zealot encounter and go down into the building. I like giving my Spartan allies good (or at least, better-than-basic) weapons.
- Using the revenant again, movement speed seems a bit higher, but mortar is still not very strong.
- Actually, revenant mortar may have some kind of bonus damage against vehicles, I used it to destroy a wraith in something closer to 5 shots, as opposed to like, 12. Meanwhile, the hunters have taken probably at least 20 at this point, and they're still going.
- I think the grenade launcher turret on the falcon had its firing rate dramatically reduced, which is super lame, I love spamming explosives for this brief period of time when I can.
- Hunters in the turret section, cool idea, very dangerous if they can hit, though. Wraiths have a much harder time hitting a flying target and can actually die faster than hunters, thanks to the wraith's larger size and weakness to certain weapons.
- Start of the spire section is mostly the same as base game, still starting with sprint (although, given Jorge telling us to lock our armor, we should maybe, just maybe, have armor lock, we're switching to jetpack either way so what does it matter?), AR and DMR
- Enemy ranges are probably too long, the entire field in front of me is filled with green and purple and blue, so moving up into close range isn't much of an option if I can't find a lot of cover.
- I think one of the issues with making the DMR have a minimum effective distance is that I can't zoom in to aim specifically at heads from far away, so I end up getting more body shots than the headshots I want.
- I think the fuel rod turret on the spire was trying to get me when I was back at the downed falcons.
- Focus Rifle has bonus vehicle damage. I cannot understand why? Yes, the regular sniper in base game had a similarly inexplicable vehicle killer trait, but nothing about the focus rifle except its back-button description text suggests that you should shoot it at a vehicle.
- Stole a banshee, the extended ranges of all the enemies made flying safely while also attacking enemies exceedingly dangerous. Needler shots were especially bad thanks to how much they wanted to track me. There was a grunt taking pot shots at me with his plasma pistol from the bottom of the spire when I was up by the top. It's crazy.
- The extra enemies make some sense here, it is a high-value thing, this spire, but again, makes stealing a banshee to go up a lot more dangerous, because more enemies means that the sky is full of dangerous projectiles.
- I got hit by a sword and didn't die. While I'm glad I didn't reset to checkpoint, this is heroic difficulty, I'd think getting sliced by a sword from behind would have killed me.
Long Night of Solace:
- Before I even start, I don't think I'm looking forward to the Saber flight section.
- You start this level with Drop Shield. Kind of makes sense. I'll accept it.
- At this point, I'm wondering if the mod creator will dare to let a human character start out with a Covenant weapon. I feel like Kat would be the type to carry a plasma pistol or plasma rifle, and Emile would probably love to use a Gravity Hammer, Energy Sword, or even a Spiker if he got the chance.
- Space section hasn't been that bad, actually. More seraphs than usual, which I don't love, but it could be worse, I guess.
- Alright, so my sword can slice through a jetpack elite in one swing, I'm okay with that.
- The concussion rifle may deal a bit of extra damage.
- It's way harder to keep a drop shield up when fighting twice as many enemies as normal. The shield's health does not appear to have been adjusted to compensate.
Exodus:
- You start this mission with Hologram... Not at all what I was expecting, I would have thought Armor Lock, especially with that being the classic way Spartans manage to somehow survive jumping from space without any other stuff. Hologram does make some gameplay sense, though, trick the kamikaze grunts in the tunnels into blowing up early, and the fact armor lock is right there anyway, sure.
- 3 skirmishers became 7. Why am I not surprised at this point? At least they weren't the shielded kind.
- Throwing a hologram only costs half of your armor ability gauge.
- Brutes can do the big jumps. I can appreciate that.
- You need two supercombines to kill a brute, which is annoying if they can also just fling themselves out of the way, or, I assume, armor lock.
- The spiker is, good. I think this is kind of a first. It does a lot of damage to enemies without shields, just like you'd expect. It's hard to judge if it does bonus melee damage, but, it might.
- The hammer seems a bit underwhelming. Range is small, damage is okay. Brutes seem to use it better, though. All my marines at the "wait for elevator" section got killed pretty quick.
- My hologram ability disappeared at around when I was supposed to pick up the jetpack. Not sure how that happened.
- Brutes kill human allies real quick.
- Brutes can jump into death pits. What fun.
- Brutes appear to be un-assassinate-able. Not very fun.
- The falcon's machine gun turret seems to also have the vehicle-killer trait. Sure, I guess. It's pretty strong.
- I stole a wraith, marines seemed to want to get in, but couldn't, and I was scared to run them over.
- I don't think the spirit's gun can be destroyed, which is super not cool.
- I thought I saw a marine fire a spartan laser, but I couldn't confirm this.
New Alexandria:
- Start with a jetpack, fair play.
- First objective was the hospital jammer. Eight grunts at the entrance, spotted before I could try to take one down. Oof.
- The engineer in the hospital is much further down, making it harder to kill right away, which is a valid choice to make, I like being able to peek through a window and just take it down right away, but it's fine.
- The DMR really struggles in this sort of mostly vertical environment.
- Banshees have shredded my falcon to the point where it's flaming by my second main objective.
- My second objective was Sinoviet, and in the interest of seeing more of the encounters, I didn't sneak in through the back.
- I think that idle animation start a lot sooner than normal.
- I thought there were enemies other than hunters in the club. It was hard to take the hunters down with my very limited munitions. The rockets that were there didn't seem to do all that much. It was more effective to go in with a needler from the landing area and bring that inside.
The Package:
- You start with Active Camo again. I guess it makes some sense, you're starting the mission sort of sneaking towards Sword Base, you might even be able to sneak your way right up to the tank, but it still seems like an odd choice for me. I still want to start with Evade, dang it, and at this point I don't think I'm going to get it.
- Tank seems awfully speedy.
- The weird top bit of the tank from the Tip of the Spear opening cutscene seems to be gone. If it were here, I'd expect it to have the secondary machine gun like CE and Halo 2 had.
- On the Sword Base approach, there's now about 4 more Elites and a hunter pair hanging out right there. Because more enemies equals more fun.
- Sword swing recovery speed seems faster.
- Engineers have a light shield of their own. Odd.
- The Wolf Spider turrets you activate in the ice cave section of the level have shields. I found this out when I slapped one.
- Spartan Laser has an extra shot
- Grenade launcher's hold-for-EMP shot seems to be on a short timer, and can only be held for a second or two. If true, I think it's a bad move.
- Final wave, too many strong, shielded enemies at a time, I'm starting to get mad. These dumb shielded skirmishers are too hard to dispose of quickly.
Pillar of Autumn:
- Start with sprint, which means I can do The Thing. The thing that was once an achievement, often achieved at the cliff at the very beginning of the level.
- I missed when I jumped from the cliff, and yet, I was mostly fine (minus the getting shot a lot). Fall damage may not be as much of a thing in this mod. Or I'm wrong and I just hit the right angle.
- There's an elite ultra who is watching the cliff face diligently, making assassinations from great heights either way harder or just impossible.
- Mongoose is basically normal.
- I gave Emile a rocket launcher, then the "Carter Out" scene happened, and Emile didn't have his rockets anymore.
- Okay, so we do have the shoulder-shield skirmishers, but you decided to go with full-body shielded skirmishers this entire time? I don't like that.
- There's an encounter where the grunts were replaced by more drones. Hmmm.
- Hunters came with the brutes while I was waiting for Keyes. They were to the left of the platform.
- The final engineer was a real tool to hunt down.
Lone Wolf:
- Start with sprint, sure. No evade. But there's a jetpack on the map that I don't think was there before, I can hide on top of the buildings around here.
Overall Thoughts:
Comparing this to Halo Reach Evolved, I think this mod is just a lot less aspirational in what it tries to accomplish, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a lot of the other changes to the game's systems left it as a less desireable product to me.
There were a lot of nerfs to the precision weapons, I felt, but the mod creator also made it so that enemies will engage you from further away, so getting in close is a lot harder. The enemies don't need to be all that precise, they can get away with just filling your general location with bullets. You have to play smart and play well, they don't.
The only weapon I can remember really loving from this mod was the spiker. I guess also the warthog, but I can't even be certain if that was changed. The rest were very close to the original game, or just didn't feel good to me. Halo Reach Evolved (HRE) had new, unique takes on weapons, made completely new weapons and vehicles. Ruby's Rebalanced Reach (RRR) was much more content to change up a couple of numbers, seemingly without considering how that affected everything else in the sandbox.
HRE wasn't flawless, but it felt like a much more "professional" mod, whereas RRR feels much more like a first try, and to be fair, HRE started a much longer time ago, but you can see the encounters and enemy types in HRE being much more refined than "what if lots of high-ranking/specialist enemies" that I felt plagued RRR.
I've come to realize that HRE and RRR fall on a spectrum with one other Halo mod I've played, but haven't previously written about: SPv3, a Halo 1 mod from a couple years ago at this point, I think. SPv3 completely redid almost all of Halo CE, adding new sections to the levels, new enemies, new guns, and all sorts of funky stuff, with a strong amount of jank that's due in large part to the nature of Halo Custom Edition, I think.
On one end of this spectrum I've thought up is SPv3, the total overhaul; somewhere in the middle is HRE; and on the other end is RRR, which is mostly numbers adjustments. This isn't to say that one kind of mod is better than the other, but the mods closer to the SPv3 side have a lot more leniency thanks to the novelty factor. Both SPv3 (at least in the version I played all that time ago) and RRR have noticeable moments where the enemy encounters were just not that enjoyable, and seemingly tried to pump up the challenge by dumping harder enemy types on you in greater numbers, but SPv3 gets away with it more because everything already feels so different.
RRR has a lot of decent ideas, the changing of armor abilities from mission to mission and allowing you to switch out Noble Team's weapons did make the game more interesting, I would say, but the fundamental flaw of making engagements start from further away while also making precision weapons less effective really killed a lot of the enjoyment for me, personally. It's not a bad mod, but I cannot see myself playing through it again in its current state. I got much more frustrated than I was expecting.