It's not two different pipelines. It's simply adding additional tools. Halo 5 adds some additional tools that some people may not avail themselves of. For example, someone who creates most asymmetrical maps may never find themselves using the grouping & welding tools.

My problem with Forge is that it doesn't give you sufficient control over the kinds of terrain you want to make. In Reach when I was making my Plateau map that spanned the "Alaska" and "Montana" areas adjacent to the canyon I had some difficulties balancing things out because I had to deal with the fact that the two areas were not level with each other; part of one was considerably higher than the the part of the other directly across the gap. The terrain pieces in H2A weren't flexible enough, either, and were not shape quite like how I needed them; they also eat into your overall Forge budget. Ever since I borrowed Far Cry 3 from a friend back in 2014 and messed around with its map editor, I kept thinking to myself "Oh, if only some of the tools from this were in Forge." Forge being purely "digital Lego" has never quite worked for me.

: As to H1 Legendary, I think its difficulty is a bit distorted just because
: while the Chief is weaker in some respects (jump height, melee) he's also
: the most powerful in any game from a sandbox standpoint. The Covenant have
: *no* ranged capabilities that can match the Chief wielding a pistol or
: sniper rifle. They have no weapon as instantly punishing in close range as
: a shotgun, save the occasional Sword Elite. Normal infantry don't carry
: any weapon as dangerous as the rocket launcher. The AR stumble, PR stun,
: and melee stagger all favor the player; with individual Elites it's as
: simple as charging them down with a hail of plasma and bludgeoning them to
: death. Really the only way I think the enemy have an advantage on you is
: that their melee strikes will connect from crazy distances even if you try
: to dodge.

: Compare that with H2 on, ignoring the enemy changes via difficulty. You no
: longer have the Monster M6D. The enemies have carbines and beam rifles to
: engage you at range, and up close they have maulers or Brute plasma
: rifles. Enemies wield heavy ordnance like FRG and swords far more
: frequently. Stagger and stun is reduced. Then there's stuff like the Halo
: Reach Elites dropkicking you if you are stupid enough to try and use your
: melee, or fuel rod turrets homing around corners. In later games you have
: less grenades to throw and fewer chances to chain explosions. The only
: real advantage you gain is hitscan precision weapons and ease of
: headshots, although that all funnels into the "if you aren't noob
: comboing your way through this game you're going to be sad and
: disappointed." To the point I'll rarely pick up some power weapons
: because it deprives me of that combo.

: When I think about H1 being difficult, it's almost always in the same
: context: "lots of enemies being thrown at me, limited maneuvering
: options, flanking." The Library, Two Betrayals, Keyes, and the Maw
: all have monster closets, enemies spawning in previously cleared areas,
: spawned enemies designed to circle around behind you and kill you, enemies
: shooting at you across a bridge where you can't easily engage them and
: take care of what's in front of you. That's really the only difficulty
: modifier H1's campaign has to use against you outside of the changes by
: difficulty level, and it's one that mostly only works by virtue of not
: knowing about them beforehand; otherwise over time a competent player can
: just play the enemy and encounters like a fiddle, Rockslider-style.

: In short: H1's campaign is IMO trivial in many ways compared to the
: difficulty introduced *outside* of the damage-boosted and HP-buffed
: enemies of later games.

As I said in the article, my primary issue with every post-CE game is the damage output. There was also the sniper Jackals in Halo 2, but they got gradually nerfed (in Halo 3 their accuracy was reduced and they were made more visible; in Reach they had focus rifles instead of beam rifles; in Halo 4 & 5 they got their beam rifles back but took two shots to kill you on Legendary). There is absolutely no need to make the enemies so grotesquely overpowered, for reasons I explained in the article. Was Halo 1 perfect? No. For example, the AI occasionally does stupid things that makes them self-disposing, and the M6D does make some things easier (though you could say the same about any mid-range headshot-capable weapon; in Campaign the M6D wasn't especially deadly against Elites as compared to the BR or DMR in later games). But overall it's still the most fun to play on Legendary. I die just as frequently as in most later games (except Halo 2, largely because of sniper Jackals), yet I never get frustrated, and I like how I'm not forced to play in a particular way in order to succeed.

So, what would you do to better tune the difficulty? And don't say anything like "Bungie was right: crank the damage up."