Fodder be Brute has now been renamed to Warial Storm (Halo 3: ODST version) and Warial Journey (Halo 3 version). These better reflect the kind of mod that FbB has become over time; less of a silly Vanilla+ mode and more of an alternate Halo universe experience.
FbB started with a simple change of turning the Grunts and Jackals into Brutes as a test just a couple days after Halo 3: ODST was released on MCC PC, which ended up being fun enough to warrant its own mod. Since then I've been adding more and more improvements and additions depending on what felt the most necessary and doable at any given time, and this has resulted in the formation of a pretty strongly refined gameplay vision.
The development direction of the mod will remain the same as it was with FbB v3-alpha. Renaming the mod is just something that's been long overdue for a good while now.
While playing your mod, I don't think I've seen a single Brute throw a Regenerator. That's not a complaint, but what is is how frequently and repetitively [Jet Pack Brutes] throw Trip Mines, especially during Coastal Highway. If there is one piece of HALO 3 equipment that I hate, it's that one. If the Regenerator is truly not in your mod, any chance you can get rid of that accursed Trip Mine?
Alright so in the current v2, Brute equipment usage is basically vanilla (with the exception of reduced Flare usage with Brute Stalkers). Jumppack Minor equipment usage is directly inherited from basic Brutes (Power Drains and Flares), while the Jumppack Majors and Ultras (which are new in H3:ODST) only use Trip Mines. Jumppack Brutes are pretty rare in the vanilla Campaign, so that's why now in v2 there's a bigger chance of running into Trip Mines. Regenerators are completely intact in the files but aren't used in the vanilla game. My best guess is because ODST stamina is just a reskinned energy shield, so maybe Bungie felt it would be weird to get stamina back from the Regenerator; it works just fine though.
The v3-alpha shows the direction I plan on taking with equipment usage, basically giving all Brute types way more equipment variation and bringing the Regenerator (and Deployable Cover) back to the game. I personally think the Trip Mines generally bring some nice comedy and dynamic feel to the game, but they'll effectively be more rare because of the upcoming increased equipment variation.
Now that you mention it, I did not see the Deployable Cover in your Version 2 Mod. As far as the trip mine goes, I'd figure on frequency considering what ranks would typically throw what, but it was teeth-grinding to see the exact same Brute throw the exact same equipment in (almost) the same location on the field after every time I revert to a previous checkpoint.
I personally don't remember coming across any noticable amount of Trip Mines during the Warthog Run in v2, but it comes down to RNG so I guess the dice wasn't on your side on that one. I hear you though; that section is also something I might eventually try to fine-tune a little to make it more consistently fun and interesting.
Yeah FL4CK's advice is the way to do it lol, sorry about that part. Didn't intend that one to play out quite like that and now I've got mixed feelings about how it should play once I get around to updating Data Hive. Probably either gonna give the player more firepower or more tools to deal with that part more consistently.
I love your mod, Glowaru. It provides a nice challenge of fighting Brutes and Hunters, and gives me more incentive to use grenades and MUCH MORE opportunities to pick up grenades. I've used more fire grenades in your mod than I did in the base game, so you make an excellent point of their lack of usage.
(After replaying Data Hive) But that yanme'e hive is the worst enemy encounter since that Infinite-crawler section in HALO 4's Midnight level. I really hope you change it for Version 3.
(After getting past that area) That. Was. Hell. And I wish there was a way for Buck to NOT throw grenades at sleeping drones, then again, that's Bungie's fault.
(After playing Coastal Highway) OK. This level with your mod was very cathartic (with the only annoyance of Brutes knocking me out of the driver's seat). I do not think I've rammed so many Brutes in one level in a Warthog. And giving heavy weapons to Buck and Dare certainly made the last area very survivable. I just wish, and this was Bungie's fault, that Buck would fire that (BLEEP)ing turret when he speaks scripted dialogue, except for that meltdown about Reach; that made sense.
(After playing Data Hive during a replay) I think I have a set strategy for the Drone hive, for not dying too frequently. FL4CK's strategy worked out better tonight after I ended up zig-zagging from one side of that lower level to another. I learned the hard way to never climb the center ladders. The side ones are the best option of getting out of the lower level. It's a shame, I did enjoy that section in the vanilla game. But that area just became more doable; just have to get used to the plasma pistol's new charged burst and its physics.
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah don't worry, that Hive section is not gonna return in that form in any future versions. Its existence in the first place was just the natural consequence of the mod being more focused on global changes at the time and less on making sure each encounter works well, which at the time allowed me to get v2 out much faster and without having to spend too much energy on it. This approach worked fine for the most part, that Hive section was just an unfortunate exception. It's gonna get back to feeling much more like the rest of the game in future versions.
When I get a chance, and disk space, I will try out your mod. From what I've read, you may have made ODST on par in difficulty to REACH, but that's just premature speculation.
When will Version 3 be expected completion? I only ask because it's something to keep track of on our PC.
Are you planning to do something similar to HALO 3, but with the addendum of adding more Elites to counter? (Just an idea, sorry)
Your mod really caught my attention with the high number of Brutes, the dimmed Flare, the abundance of grenades to pick up, and the increased number of grenades to carry. I only dread (not in a bad way) how bad the Hunters and Drones will be.
Its not as bad as it sounds.. :D just abandon old ways... and you live, or you will have very bad time. this mod is new kind of beast and its not even done with its morning slumber
Hey, thanks for the interest. Those are some good questions there so let's go through them.
So v1 was made in like 2 days soon after ODST PC was released. My Assembly modding skills were way more limited at the time and so were my plans for this mod. The stuff added into v2 increased the workload of making it by about 23 times, and v3 will also be somewhat of a big jump in the mod's complexity cause I keep learning more about Assembly and keep running into new feature ideas I wanna add. (Some of those I've already pushed to v4 which may or may not happen.)
Right now I'm using Tayari Plaza to test out new stuff and piece together a final vision for v3, but making the actual v3 levels is probably gonna have to wait until there's no more big MCC updates coming that invalidate old map files and thus break mods. Hopefully the Halo 4 PC release update will be the last one of those, we'll see. Eventually I'll probably start making and releasing playtest versions of individual work-in-progress v3 levels (since I'm gonna be testing out the new stuff in co-op, so might as well). The actual full v3.0 definitely won't be out this year, I can say that for certain. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.
I've definitely been thinking of making a Halo 3 version of FbB; but to be frank, Halo 3's Campaign doesn't interest me nearly as much as ODST's does. FbB is inspired by and created on top of the idea of being little more than a normal soldier up against hordes of formidable foes, and being the Master Chief kinda goes against that; so that's why I'm less interested in the idea of a Halo 3 FbB. Could still happen though, especially if someone manages to make a complete Halo 3 Campaign mod where you play as an ODST with H3:ODST style gameplay. If that mod then feels great to play and the mod author gives permission, I'd be interested in making a Halo 3 FbB on top of that. And if I were to make a Halo 3 FbB, yes in all likelihood I'd add more allies to at least some of the encounters. This is one of the new things I'm focusing on in v3 as well to make the encounters more lively and fun.
Thus far Hunters have been pretty non-threatening all the way up to v2, but in the current playtest version of v3 they've gotten an upgrade to function more like boss fights. They pretty much feel like you're fighting lore-tier Hunters, which is a lot of fun in co-op if you like a challenge, but I'm still gonna make sure Hunters work well in solo too. Shield Drones make for surprisingly good Drone encounters everywhere except for a certain section in Data Hive, which I'm probably eventually gonna rework by giving the player a lot more firepower there. In the meantime, that's a place where one should keep their Plasma Pistol gravity bolt overcharge handy.
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These better reflect the kind of mod that FbB has become over time; less of a silly Vanilla+ mode and more of an alternate Halo universe experience.
FbB started with a simple change of turning the Grunts and Jackals into Brutes as a test just a couple days after Halo 3: ODST was released on MCC PC, which ended up being fun enough to warrant its own mod. Since then I've been adding more and more improvements and additions depending on what felt the most necessary and doable at any given time, and this has resulted in the formation of a pretty strongly refined gameplay vision.
The development direction of the mod will remain the same as it was with FbB v3-alpha.
Renaming the mod is just something that's been long overdue for a good while now.
Jumppack Minor equipment usage is directly inherited from basic Brutes (Power Drains and Flares), while the Jumppack Majors and Ultras (which are new in H3:ODST) only use Trip Mines. Jumppack Brutes are pretty rare in the vanilla Campaign, so that's why now in v2 there's a bigger chance of running into Trip Mines.
Regenerators are completely intact in the files but aren't used in the vanilla game. My best guess is because ODST stamina is just a reskinned energy shield, so maybe Bungie felt it would be weird to get stamina back from the Regenerator; it works just fine though.
The v3-alpha shows the direction I plan on taking with equipment usage, basically giving all Brute types way more equipment variation and bringing the Regenerator (and Deployable Cover) back to the game. I personally think the Trip Mines generally bring some nice comedy and dynamic feel to the game, but they'll effectively be more rare because of the upcoming increased equipment variation.
(After replaying Data Hive) But that yanme'e hive is the worst enemy encounter since that Infinite-crawler section in HALO 4's Midnight level. I really hope you change it for Version 3.
(After getting past that area) That. Was. Hell. And I wish there was a way for Buck to NOT throw grenades at sleeping drones, then again, that's Bungie's fault.
(After playing Coastal Highway) OK. This level with your mod was very cathartic (with the only annoyance of Brutes knocking me out of the driver's seat). I do not think I've rammed so many Brutes in one level in a Warthog. And giving heavy weapons to Buck and Dare certainly made the last area very survivable. I just wish, and this was Bungie's fault, that Buck would fire that (BLEEP)ing turret when he speaks scripted dialogue, except for that meltdown about Reach; that made sense.
(After playing Data Hive during a replay) I think I have a set strategy for the Drone hive, for not dying too frequently. FL4CK's strategy worked out better tonight after I ended up zig-zagging from one side of that lower level to another. I learned the hard way to never climb the center ladders. The side ones are the best option of getting out of the lower level. It's a shame, I did enjoy that section in the vanilla game. But that area just became more doable; just have to get used to the plasma pistol's new charged burst and its physics.
It's gonna get back to feeling much more like the rest of the game in future versions.
When will Version 3 be expected completion? I only ask because it's something to keep track of on our PC.
Are you planning to do something similar to HALO 3, but with the addendum of adding more Elites to counter? (Just an idea, sorry)
Your mod really caught my attention with the high number of Brutes, the dimmed Flare, the abundance of grenades to pick up, and the increased number of grenades to carry. I only dread (not in a bad way) how bad the Hunters and Drones will be.
just abandon old ways... and you live, or you will have very bad time. this mod is new kind of beast and its not even done with its morning slumber
So v1 was made in like 2 days soon after ODST PC was released. My Assembly modding skills were way more limited at the time and so were my plans for this mod. The stuff added into v2 increased the workload of making it by about 23 times, and v3 will also be somewhat of a big jump in the mod's complexity cause I keep learning more about Assembly and keep running into new feature ideas I wanna add. (Some of those I've already pushed to v4 which may or may not happen.)
Right now I'm using Tayari Plaza to test out new stuff and piece together a final vision for v3, but making the actual v3 levels is probably gonna have to wait until there's no more big MCC updates coming that invalidate old map files and thus break mods. Hopefully the Halo 4 PC release update will be the last one of those, we'll see. Eventually I'll probably start making and releasing playtest versions of individual work-in-progress v3 levels (since I'm gonna be testing out the new stuff in co-op, so might as well).
The actual full v3.0 definitely won't be out this year, I can say that for certain. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.
I've definitely been thinking of making a Halo 3 version of FbB; but to be frank, Halo 3's Campaign doesn't interest me nearly as much as ODST's does. FbB is inspired by and created on top of the idea of being little more than a normal soldier up against hordes of formidable foes, and being the Master Chief kinda goes against that; so that's why I'm less interested in the idea of a Halo 3 FbB. Could still happen though, especially if someone manages to make a complete Halo 3 Campaign mod where you play as an ODST with H3:ODST style gameplay. If that mod then feels great to play and the mod author gives permission, I'd be interested in making a Halo 3 FbB on top of that.
And if I were to make a Halo 3 FbB, yes in all likelihood I'd add more allies to at least some of the encounters.
This is one of the new things I'm focusing on in v3 as well to make the encounters more lively and fun.
Thus far Hunters have been pretty non-threatening all the way up to v2, but in the current playtest version of v3 they've gotten an upgrade to function more like boss fights. They pretty much feel like you're fighting lore-tier Hunters, which is a lot of fun in co-op if you like a challenge, but I'm still gonna make sure Hunters work well in solo too. Shield Drones make for surprisingly good Drone encounters everywhere except for a certain section in Data Hive, which I'm probably eventually gonna rework by giving the player a lot more firepower there. In the meantime, that's a place where one should keep their Plasma Pistol gravity bolt overcharge handy.
or anything that hypes you up