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Are you ready for some exciting news Halo 2 players? Well, the long-awaited Autoupdate, the little download that could cure most of your Xbox Live related trauma, is almost ready. So close we can taste it. And it tastes of chicken.
The Autoupdate will be available on Monday April 18th, to fix cheats, bugs, glitches and gasp – tweak some important weapon balance issues. Next time you log in after it's available (it'll be spread out to mitigate server loads) you'll get a message alerting you to its presence. Don't worry if you don't see it first thing Monday morning, it'll show up in your neighborhood eventually.
The scale of the autoupdate gave us a unique opportunity – a chance to implement balance changes on certain weapons to smooth out the Xbox Live and System Link experience, and in a couple of cases, we feel, subtly improving the overall feel of the game.
Melee damage has been increased across the board as a counter measure of sorts to close-up dual wielding. Jumping strikes are now much more powerful, often resulting in instant kills, while the general potency has been increased for normal melee attacks and the Brute Shot has been given a specific melee attack boost, in recognition of the fact that it has a huge scythe attached to it. This actually makes the Brute Shot a go-to weapon in a lot of new situations.
Examples of the increase in power include one-hit kills from many jumping strikes, two-hit kills from the Brute Shot melee attack, and far more power on torso and head strikes from all other weapons.
Grenade attacks will be one of the most significant changes for the 1.1 version of Halo 2. In many ways, the new grenade balance is a reflection of the way we really wanted them to be. Grenades were not only weakened in the previous iteration, they didn't address the balance difference between a grenade-throwing player and a dual-wielding attacker.
A common complaint amongst critics (and Bungie employees!) was that grenades felt very weak and often simply ensured that a player would be hurt rather than killed. Some unfortunate side effects of this, apart from a difference in 'feel' between Halo CE and Halo 2 were unpredictable damage and difficulty making accurate, long distance throws have any significant impact. The grenades, both plasma and human, have been improved in a number of ways and are significantly more powerful.
The two most significant changes to the overall balance are the ones we made to the melee attacks and grenades. One of the reasons Halo is special is that it has 'damage spikes'. In any given situation, you can choose to melee or throw a grenade instead of shooting, and if you do it right you get a big jump on your opponent (when you don’t just kill them outright.) We wanted to emphasize these 'damage spikes' relative to the bullet-hoses, so we made them do more damage. For example, now if someone charges too close with dual SMGs you can melee them and actually kill them faster than they can kill you. You have viable options again. Bungie.
More news as we get it.
John Grothier
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