Also at the Escapist today, a Microsoft "perception engineer" confirms something about Halo I've long been terribly annoyed by: the tendency of enemies that are far away and do not see you to luckily dodge just as you are about to shoot.

Not all enemies do this, but more times than I can count I remember zooming in with a sniper scope on an enemy only to see that enemy turn and take cover just at that moment. Change weapons and he pops up again after a moment. Pull out the sniper, and he disappears. These enemies aren't alerted to your presence. They can do this even with their backs to you.

Turns out, this kind of behavior was apparently put into Halo specifically to stop players form doing what I typically do when I play Halo, which is to stay at a safe distance as much as possible:

The game had been designed with the assumption that players would be combating enemies in close quarters, but the shrewd users immediately discovered the targeting system allowed them to remain at a distance and pick off the enemies from long range.

Not only did this circumnavigate the deliberately designed "fun" aspects the developers had worked so hard to create, it also left the players bored and frustrated as they never actually saw the combat and felt their weapons were highly inaccurate from being used at such a long distance.

This time around, it was effectively the developers who were undergoing evaluation as they observed an unquestioned usability group. Their task became finding ways to encourage users to play as intended without forcing decisions upon them. This was achieved by adjusting enemy intelligence to dodge shots taken from long range and by advancing on the player to a position within the intended "fun zone." The targeting system was also adjusted to have a range limitation, thereby influencing users to discover the enjoyment of close-quarters combat.

Of course, as most players know, the actual effective range of most weapons is greater than the targeting system would indicate. Tracking projectiles like plasma pistol overcharge bolts can be used in a a straight line at ranges beyond which they will track, and many times distant targets will not dodge them; needler rounds will track targets that come within range after the needles are fired, even if the targeting reticle was not on the target when the weapon was fired.

I'm not a stickler for realism by any means, but I've felt that to expect even a cybernetic cyber soldier to survive the Covenant onslaught while running out into the open like Rambo without a jock strap is silly. If the Chief's got a near-infinite kill ratio, it's going to be because a lot of his opponents never have a chance to take a shot.