Halo Battles: The Epic 100-Hour Failure

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Idea Behind Halo Battles
3. The Challenges of Making Halo Battles
4. The Power Ranking System
5. Melee Only Matches
6. The Most Successful Battles
7. The Future of Halo Battles
8. Conclusion

The Rise and Fall of Halo Battles

Welcome to the Halo Infinite AI Battle Simulation, where everybody dies and they come next. In this first and only episode of Halo Battles, we witness the pitting of teams of Halo AI against each other. It sounds simple, but the reality was far from it.

The Idea Behind Halo Battles

The idea behind Halo Battles was to Create a fun new series where Joe and I would pick teams of Halo AI and pit them against each other. The past several weeks have consisted of me spending a few hours every day toiling away on the project. I've been communicating with the wonderful IRTV and Halo Mods folks to better learn how to use their tools, spawning in AI, running control tests, recovering from crashes and bugs, building assets in After Effects, planning matches with Joe, and much more.

The Challenges of Making Halo Battles

The main issue with the project Stems from it being about forcing a game to do things it simply isn't meant to do. For every instance where I got everything working properly, which included hacking in things like noclip and clean HUD, there was a crash or more likely two crashes. And every time the game crashed, there was a full reset required of clearing out my filming zone, rehooking all the mods I'd made, and trying it all again.

The Power Ranking System

We had to create a power ranking to establish how characters would match up against each other. For example, one Grunt versus one elite wouldn't be fair, so I had to figure out how many grunts would be needed to evenly fight one elite. It's six, by the way, and then I had to figure out those power ratings for all potential combinations.

Melee Only Matches

We eventually decided melee only was the most fun because when the AI use guns, they spread out and it becomes hard to film. Plus, melee only looks hilarious. But even that caused more new problems.

The Most Successful Battles

In the end, over 100 hours of my time were spent over the last four weeks working on the project. Between all the avenues of pre-production, filming, and post-production, my hope is that in time, the project will become more viable, perhaps with the addition of Forge or the further advancing of the mod tools.

The Future of Halo Battles

Perhaps it simply wasn't meant to be. The goal of Silly Season was to experiment, and not every experiment is going to be successful. But failure is always an option, and so now all I have left is to Show You our most successful battles.

Conclusion

Thanks for watching everyone. I hope you enjoyed that, even if it was a bit of a mess. If you did, consider checking us out over at patreon.com/defendthehouse. Your support is always appreciated. Stay tuned for more zombie stuff coming soon, and I have a different project that has been in the works for a little while now, so hopefully that sees the light of day at some point. Until then, though, I am off for a long overdue vacation. Goodbye.

Highlights

• Halo Battles was envisioned as a fun new series where Joe and I would pick teams of Halo AI and pit them against each other.
• The main issue with the project stems from it being about forcing a game to do things it simply isn't meant to do.
• We had to create a power ranking to establish how characters would match up against each other.
• In the end, over 100 hours of my time were spent over the last four weeks working on the project.
• The goal of Silly Season was to experiment, and not every experiment is going to be successful.

FAQ

Q: What was the idea behind Halo Battles? A: The idea behind Halo Battles was to create a fun new series where Joe and I would pick teams of Halo AI and pit them against each other.

Q: What were the challenges of making Halo Battles? A: The main issue with the project stems from it being about forcing a game to do things it simply isn't meant to do. For every instance where everything was working properly, there was a crash or more likely two crashes.

Q: What is the power ranking system? A: We had to create a power ranking to establish how characters would match up against each other. For example, one grunt versus one elite wouldn't be fair, so I had to figure out how many grunts would be needed to evenly fight one elite.

Q: What were the most successful battles? A: We eventually decided melee only was the most fun because when the AI use guns, they spread out and it becomes hard to film. Plus, melee only looks hilarious.