Ruby's REBALANCED Halo Reach Campaign! 

Its a immersion breaker when you're the only one getting any kills especially when you're not the only super soldier so the improvements to friendlies is appreciated. I wanna get the impression that your allies have some chance without you.

So this is essentially Halo: Reach as I remember it, not how it was... Intriguing.

Man when an elite can just eat a spartan lazer shot and walk away like a champ, I thought something was off.

It's literally the opposite of cursed halo, blessed halo

This video shows just how underpowered almost every weapon in Reach’s sandbox is - I’ll never forget the Bungie ViDoc where “Sage” (i think that’s what his name was - he has a big beard) talked about his obsession with nerfing anything he could get his hands on - it got to the point other devs had to hide their work from him, fearful he would nerf it. I personally hold that guy responsible for diminishing Halo Reach’s sandbox to what it is.

Something tells me you like Halo CE

You had me at "The assault rifle sucked and now it actually kills stuff" that change alone would have made me happily install your mod :D

What's surprising is that the Spartans will actually say something when you trade weapons with them. Does this mean that Bungie were originally gonna allow you to trade weapons with them, or what? 🤔

“Elites have been buffed” Oh dear god no

I thought that sabre battle was a lot harder than it was on the 360, and for Reach being the 2nd most important planet in the UNSC the troopers, odsts, and noble team defended it like they were first day recruits

Translation: _I made Reach more like the early beta before Sage nerfed everything short of the nuke nades._

"Noooo Halo Reach is perfect" *25 minutes later* "Ah..."

You had me at "Assault Rifle Lawn Mower." Consider this mod downloaded. Mad respect to you for making this. Thanks man.

Literally everything he said in this video about the vanilla game was absolutely positively 100% true, especially the concussion rifle. I can’t even count how many times I was vaporized by an officer with a dino blaster.

I love how all of these re balance mods are basically 'more like CE'. Which I, as an avid player of Halo CE PC, am all for :3

Did you fix the ODST's AI in Exodus so they don't keep all falling to their deaths?

imagine not calling this mod Ruby's Reach around

Fun drinking game: Take a shot every time Ruby mentions Halo CE

I love how MCC on PC will allow us to bring the Halo CE’s amazing campaign balance to all weapons and enemies in all four classic games, and probably halo 4.

“Reach” its full potential. Yes.

Alright so my first impressions of this mod while playing are "holy shit the ar is fucking awesome!" "My allies are kicking ass!" I gotta say this mod is pretty damn fun. I'll put a full review and any issues I find of this mod. Good job on the mod ruby!

So I've downloaded and playing through right now, really liking it so far. On Oni: Sword Base, as a consequence of letting you swap weapons with Noble team, you can give Kat the Target Locator. Its beautiful, please don't change it lol Edit: Just finished tthe playthrough on Heroic and its great, but there are some tweaks I'd like to see- - Reduce the EMP radius/damage for supercombines and Stickies. If you're too close when using them and don't have enough Shield & Health, its basically an insta-kill. - Wraith's motar splash radius needs to be reduced, I think it was fine in the base game and all it needed was a speed increase. As someone else said, you rarely use the Wraith during normal gameplay and as enemies they're pretty stationary so decreasing the radius would balance it out. - Maybe tone down the aggressiveness on friendly AI, as I had a few instances where I was killed by friendly fire, whether it be overzealous troopers with rocket launchers trying to kill the same enemy I'm going for, or Jorge taughting a dead enemy and accidently killing me with his machine gun fire. - The Brutes and their weapons need some tweaking. I found that in sections with large packs of Brutes (Hospital secion, POA landing pad section) because of their modified behavior in rushing you down, combined with their increased resistance to melee damage and that they're pretty tanky, spongy enemies to begin with make them more frustrating than fun when you don't have a close range weapon like the Shotgun or AR. The Hospital section of New Alexandria was especially frustrating, being pinned down by Spikers taking my health, Plasma Repeater stripping shields and Nedle Rifle fire while having to try and pick them off with just the DMR (Again, bullet sponges) was a bit of a slog. -Civilian vehicles, mainly the Forklift, ned a slight speed reduction. I found it was much harder to control and it felt a little *too* fast for a Forklift honestly. Overall the best way I can describe this mod is smooth. Its challenging but immensely fun and definitely achieves its goal. I was using weapons I barely even touch in normal gameplay, mainly the Focus Rifle and Plasma Repeater. Giving Noble different weapons also helps to keep the encounters fresh. Despite the suggestions I've made this is a much preferable way to play the campaign!

22:00 *STORY* *THROUGH* *GAME* *MECHANICS!* Most excellent my guy!

The Sabre part on legendary was incredibly not fun. The only way I was able to beat it was by hiding behind the satellite/space station thing, letting shields recharge, fly out to kill or damage 1 enemy ship, and then retreat back to cover because they'd drain your health and shields in literally 2 seconds flat.

Interesting, Ill have to try this out. Some stuff I dont agree with for changes but some other stuff looks more interesting then how base-Reach handled it

I just got into the Halo 2 flight. And it's incredible how Legendary simply ramps up the "difficulty" in the laziest ways possible, while giving absolutely no consideration to the fun factor of the changes from heroic. Because instantly reacting, perfect accuracy, 1-shot snipers was such a great idea 15 years ago THEY HAVE TO KEEP THAT PART IN!

I tried this, and it's mostly really great, but my god every time an enemy has a needler they are VERY annoying. I think the increased range that enemies shoot you is too much, and maybe only elites and jackals get that treatment. That's my only critique.

petition to make this official halo reach campaign rebalance.

In conclusion: everything is buffed, all guns tear shit up now lol

I totally forgot how weak all the weapons were in Reach compared to CE. For every change you made I just thought "dang why didn't they do that to begin with!". This mod looks amazing, definitely going to try it out! Also, Didn't even realize drones had ranks in Reach, great touch recoloring them.

"So that the game can REACH it's full potential" I see what you did there

Bro this is salvation...as someone who started playing Halo for the first time ever with MCC Reach on Heroic, all of these changes make so much sense and will make the experience extremely better now.

man i hope you update this for mcc i wanna play it so bad.

It’s so weird seeing the assault rifle ACTUALLY killing stuff. Great mod!

"I really wish Halo Reach was just Combat Evolved 2.0" the mod

343 Need to hire this man to balance things instead of the typical game dev company attitude of "we have balanced everything by decreasing your damage output and increasing the enemies"

Undoing sage meril's "tweeks". Listened to all of the podcasts during Reach's development... Everything you fixed is what he implemented.

This is awesome.

"I stabilized the Warthog" HERESY!

Combining this mod with Halo Reach: Evolved would be the best experience ever!

Its actually insane how good this mod is. I love everything about reach, and this just makes everything better. The needler grunts are snipers now and i genuinely find it hilarious and awesome. 11/10 good job ruby =)

I played on Legendary till Exodus with Tough Luck skull on and did beat PoA SLASO (Minus blind and iron because of testing) without using any shortcuts or skips. Here are a few things I encountered. - Carter doesn't board the Falcon on Winter Contingency if he has anything but a DMR and he not following messes up the dialogue . - Managed to destroy a Phantom on Nightfall with Jun having rockets and militia with snipers, script broke there and no more dropships came but nobody moved either , you can proceed on the map but you will lose the militia men. - The mongoose on PoA barely makes the jump because of the increased gravity Gonna play around a bit more. I like it a lot so far. Funnily enough this rebalance makes doing LASO runs doable without skips. Still hard, still need to employ some of the tactics for back-smacks, giving AI guns and all but no despawning or running away is necessary anymore.

Is it possible for this mod to be brought over to the steam workshop? It's *the* only mod I want to play with and it drives me nuts It's not easily accessible

You know this is a good in between for Vengeful 'Vadams Reach Evolved and the vanilla version of the game. Love this stuff.

My only complaint: Has anybody noticed how damn far the grunts and jackals could hit you with a needler from? Way too far in my opinion, like sniper level far.

>Buffed the forklift You had my curiosity, now you have my attention.

more allies? MORE ENEMIES? I'd like to say "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY REACH"

Funny, it's the huge leading on the pink needles themselves that make it easy to strafe past. It turns when you do so when it's close enough, you stop and strafe off making AI needles a joke. Seeing this pinky de-buff set's the weapon's rating accurate to it's reputation. I've been on Firefight/Score Attack long enough to recognize every pattern, it's just the elites that choose between 2 or 3 things I don't know until they do it, and 2/3 of those picks are straight up attempting melee from a distance, ALL AT ONCE!

Oh yes, yes, YES! Not being able to trade weapons with Noble Team was so annoying in the original game. It completely destroyed their appeal to me. They were useless in gameplay and hence I didn't care about them in the cutscenes.

Hey! Tried out the mod and I really enjoy it so far. Just one thing I noticed is on the mission 'Nightfall,' the stealthy level of the game, I think the AI trigger immediately. I played through on legendary, and combat was triggered as soon as the mission began. Either Jun shot the first Phantom, or the Phantom shot first. While intense, not sure that was the goal. Love the changes to the shotgun, AR, and all the vehicles. Made the whole experience feel like I was playing Reach for the first time. Keep at it.

Everybody gangsta till a Spartan charges into battle with nothing but a forklift

This is the advantages of the pc, mods literally can completly change how a game feels. Really nice work at enhancing reach 10/10

Please put this in the steam workshop this would be an amazing addition

my favourite things in games is when they make your AI buddies be actually competent in combat. halo is especially good with this when you give marines power weapons like rocket launchers (riding around on mongooses with rocket marines is my favourite level from halo 3). glad you included more of these aspects in this mod.

"Sabre segment borderline unplayable on legendary", being melted in less than a second isn't borderline unplayable it's actually unplayable. I hope the nerf you gave works because this segment killed my desire to replay all the games on legendary lol.

Two Doom games later and now I’m starting to realize how playing as a super human should feel like. This mod seems like basically that, like how being a Spartan in the halo universe should feel like. It looks likes so much fun. It’s a wonder how a few changes here and there can really ramp up the experience for any game. I only wish this mod was available on Xbox in someway. ):

You're telling me that this entire time, those golden Elites in CE were zealots and *NOT* generals?... You must be lying, it's the only explanation!!!

I am glad you are still working on modding these games. It would be cool to have a full on MCC campaign rebalance modpack once every MCC game is released on PC. I very much enjoyed your Halo 1 and 2 mods and would love to play them in the Anniversary MCC versions.

We know he likes CE a lot, but he also clearly loves marshmallows

23:00 Glad you brought this up. This mission is introduced as this enormous battle, but when you play it, you're like the only guy there along with Kat.

Hi, I love this mod, makes the campaign a lot more fun. I've got two questions for you: 1) Any plans to bring these changes over to firefight? 2) I wanted to change the clip size for the assault rifle to 60 because I always felt it was too low for real crowd control. How would I go about doing that myself? If you can answer either of these I'd be appreciative.

Had an odd glitch, the jetpacking green elites on new Alexandria had part of their face sticking through their helmets when they are dead.

“Weakest sandbox of all the games” *laughs in halo 4*

This is so awesome! One thing I really wanted from a Halo game was a tough level of difficulty with little room for error, yet the boots-on-the ground feel of your allied npcs actually getting kills and surviving enemy encounters for longer. You just couldn't have both when it came to vanilla legendary; the marines would get picked off near instantaneously

I would like to point out the fact that Ruby deserves way more than they're currently getting

just by in the opening by talking about the weapon sandbox and over reliance on headshots, I've never seen such a relatable statement about this game, instant like

the fact you had to literally double the ars damage to make it viable is kinda nuts lol

Main changes I want for Reach: cross-game consistency with ammo count with the magnum, assault rifle, and shotgun, as well as with designs, namely the magnum, shotgun, and fuel rod, (I don't think custom models is possible as of now tho) and increased damage for the magnum and DMR so they're more like the later games. The DMR was terrible at killing elites whereas the battle rifle could tear them down fairly easily. Basically, making the sandbox more consistent. Vengeful Vadam did this pretty well with his mod, and I'd like to see something similar done here. Other than that, your mods all look really good, and I'm definitely going to check them out soon. Keep up the good work, guy!

Reach with a centered reticle makes me deeply uncomfortable

"Stripping down mobs of grunts."

Ngl this does seem a bit more like "Reach but easier" than rebalanced but I'm sure I gotta try it to see

the gold zealots look so cool. dont know why bungie went with the colours they did...

Did you do anything to the Fuel Rod Cannon and Rocket Launcher? Also, what makes you think the gold elites from CE were Zealots?

Great job. Actually planning a session with some buddies and this mod. Looks very promising!

Huge missed opportunity with calling it "Ruby's Reach-balanced"

Your changes to friendly AI are always my favorite. It's so cool seeing their role expanded.

I’ve been loving all these halo rebalance and evolved mods coming out, can’t wait to eventually see halo 3 and halo 4 rebalanced and modded.

I've always wished Halo Reach was as enjoyable to speed run while listening to podcasts or whatever as Halo CE. Looks like you've made it a reality! Can't wait to give it a try.

I hope hokie trys this out :).

Sounds like you just made everything easier. I loved Reach on Legendary. Much respect, though!

As a new player of reach, I played through the campaign on Heroic and had such a sloggy, frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying time. I constantly felt as if my weapons weren't worth the bullets they had. Seeing an elite two shot you with a concussion rifle with splash damage alone, only to turn around and require several direct hits to take him down in return was hugely frustrating. Hunters ate all the ammo in the universe, & that FFFfffucking space section can burn in the hell it decided to put me through. Also imagine getting emotionally invested in the story only for the final Lone Wolf segment to end with phantoms dropping your shields in the first 2 seconds & jumping down into the loving arms of a SINGLE grunt who peppers you to death, making your last stand feel more like you stubbed your toe & gave up. However, all my nagging criticisms I've had for how this game feels to play (except the multiplayer, that remains superbly enjoyable) have been addressed in this rebalance. Battles are bigger, faster paced & aggressive playstyles are rewarded & not punished, Golden Zealots are my A E S T H E T I C, suit powers have way more utility instead of being rather gimmicky. Having Noble team actually feel like a team has gone a long way to making me even more invested in these wet cardboard characters who barely strung together an interesting personality between them, ultimately making their sacrifices mean more, as your actually losing team members & not intermittent input from voice actors. I've already played through about half of the game with this rebalance & I'm absolutely loving the changes, while each fight is individually much easier than before on equal difficulties, they are WAY more fun to engage with, it's made me do a complete 180 on how I feel about Reach as a singleplayer game & has brought what I love about halo back into a campaign that initially disappointed me, Glad I stumbled upon this channel (also just in terms of explaining, humor & pacing this was a really good video) & you have certainly earned a subscriber.

These gun buffs are great, I always prefer the UNSC weapons although I agree they felt weak in Reach, especially the AR's damage and the shotgun's range. When I play firefight I adjust the weapon damage slightly in the settings so that my AR rounds do more than just tickle the charging elite zealot as I hopelessly mag dump him.

Wow, I've actually been brainstorming a set of Reach rebalance changes myself (albiet moreso for MP) and you are doing a lot of the same ideas I was going to. If I ever start to work on it as a mod; maybe we can collaborate and combine our projects as a unified thing. That aside, here's, some first glance input/feedback for you to maybe consider: - You do much of what I would to the AR, but I think straight up doubling it's damage might be a bit much (or not, given enemy health/shield changes, I'll try the mod out and report back!), and while lowering it's spread is good, I don't think doing that alone is enough. I'd consider, instead, having much less spread for the first few shots, but then much more spread after the 4th or 5th shot in rapid successon, along with a higher maximum spread cone, less bullet magnetism, alongside, say, 1.5x more damage, but a 25% lower fire rate, and then, finally, a 1.5x headshot multiplier, both shields/health. This turns the AR into more of a "precision" automatic, designed around shorter bursts and encouraging accurate fire, and would still retain a roughly 2x damage, but only if you land headshots. - I feel like the Plasma repeater doesn't have a distinct role here, it sounds a bit too versatile and powerful. I like making it more of a rapid fire spray gun, but I feel you should go further with that: keep the increased fire rate you gave it, even the increased damage, if not even more extra damage; but don't give it increased accuracy/the vehicle, and make it overheat even faster: This way up close it can absolutely melt people, but it will quickly start to overheat, making it important that you don't overextend yourself and can track targetrs up close or else your DPS will start to drop and you'll get punished for it. This makes it a sort of extra beefy SMG, in contrast to the Plasma rifle and Spiker, which will act as traditional some-what more versatile autos, and the AR (with the above suggestion), being more designed around precision. - With the color changes to Minor and Major elites, i'm not a fan of how it seems like you removed the iridesecent effect on Major elite armor, the fact that covenant materials in reach have it is one of my favorite visual design elements. I'm not sure if this is something you really know how to modify, but if you and I collaborate we can do it: I'd basically make the base diffuse texture a darker red, but keep/brighten the specular iridescecent orange. (Also, in general, it might be fun to add this iridescence to more stufff/make it more apparent) - This is more of a personal preference thing, but i'm not a fan of swapping the General and Zealot colors: Generals, despiote not being called Zealots, still preform the gameplay function that zealots did in past games. If you ask me a better solution would be to name changes: Have Generals be called Zealots, while calling the Zealots something else: Naming them "Silent Shadow" would fit in with existing lore! Everything else seemed more or less good as is.

13:04 love the way he put that XD

1:48 YES THANK YOU FINALLY SOMEONE SAYS IT!!!!

Holy shit, Ruby. This is absolutely amazing work.

This brings me to tears! Like literally vanilla Halo reach is so lame haha, it's amazing to see that plazma bolts actually shoot fast and from afar! That's 1 thing I hated about the covenant weapons like a Nerf gun bullet can travel faster than it! I'm sharing your content! 343i NEEDS TO SEE YOUR WORK AND TAKE HEED!

I was mildly amused until you got to the part about ally buffs at which point I became very interested. Then when you added the CE marine helmets to Keyes's men I became interested enough to download. Amazing.

Reach was my favorite HALO. I feel like the Halo series had the best campaigns, but multiplayer was always dogshit. You would get spawnkilled immediately and everything was so unbalanced you had to play for months to get your dmr aim good enough.

Just now watching this 8 months later... the fact that you did this without pay and just for the love of the game is amazing

Ruby how did you make this mod so fair and balanced on legendary?

This is really great! Probably the best Reach Sandbox changing mod out there

Seriously, most of the weapons were nearly useless against elites and higher-level brutes. I could fire a plasma rifle until it overheated and not even kill an elite with every shot hitting. What the hell?!

OMG Ruby you da best! I was searching high an low for a mod to fix up Reach's AI for noble team.

Reach pretty much bored me for the most part, but I also found it very imbalanced and ball bustingly difficult as a result.

Wow, you really surprised me with this mod. Just got it in my recommended, and I was expecting to dislike it, being the purist that I am. You've made me genuinely excited to play through the campaign again! Even though I played the campaign tens of times and even played the PC release on heroic in one sitting

This is way too easy even with legendary+increased health+increased rank. It's already too easy as it is.

This really makes me want to get MCC on steam now (Using Game pass Ultimate) I did enjoy the campaign, but it had so many issues, this mod clearly fixes the MANY issues I had with the campaign an will make it more replayable than ever

Outdated(Broken) QQ the best mod! That mad e reach so fukin fun to play. Tragic af. downgradeing is unsupported by the devs... Have to download ugly software and hack your system just to get it to work. Unplayable.

That assault rifle change looks exactly like how the gun feels in Halo 2A