Major case of the heebie-jeebies breaking out today. Something in the air?

(5:54) Level 2 ('Halo') on Normal. Sometimes you can get a Grunt panicking for ages; potentially without limit I think. I'm not sure how common that is, but this movie shows one place you can easily get it, namely at the start of level 2 just across the bridge. I'm using Normal here but it works on all difficulties. Perhaps I'll revisit the general topic later if I gain better knowledge of places you can easily get prolonged panicking. Incidentally, I also have an old article about one such place near the end of level 5.

Released April 5th 2019, gameplay recorded April 2nd-3rd 2019.

00:02 (First example) Getting prolonged panic across the bridge is easy. In this example I first cross the bridge and get rid of the Banshees, then wait for at least one Grunt to cross (they'll cross if they see no threat). Three head over and I pick off the rear two, but I could just as well have killed them close up later or let them retreat. I close in on my victim and get him panicking with a shot. There seem to be two small areas they do most of the panicking in, and this cliffside area is one. After a while I start crowding him. That can cause a Grunt to break out of his little panic area, but that didn't happen this time. After about two minutes of panicking I just shoot him dead. I think panicking can go on without limit though. I let one guy keep going for almost twenty minutes!

02:02 (Another on the same play) Continuing with the play, I crouch behind a rock so the covies no longer see a threat, and wait for another Grunt to arrive. It's another orange guy and I quickly get him panicking. He goes to the other main panic area, but eventually leaves it when I crowd him. He heads to the end of the cliff and recovers there. Seems like they always recover if they get to that area.

03:14 (Two at once) In this play an Elite led the advance over the bridge. Killing him gets two Grunts panicking, but the red quickly recovers and I shoot him to get him started again. I also shoot the orange guy but I didn't need to; he was already panicking (I shot out of habit). They panic together in the cliffside area but the red guy recovers after about 35 seconds, which I suspect was due to having a buddy nearby. I shoot him dead. When I try to tag the orange guy, I miss and he leaves the area, but I get him later. Is it possible to have two Grunts panicking together for significantly longer than seen here? I expect so, but I haven't pursued that yet.

04:36 (Later area) As seen here it's also possible to get prolonged panicking in this later area. Here I get about four and half minutes worth from the final Grunt before he recovers. But can you get it as easily as in the earlier area? I don't know, but based on my limited experience so far, I think perhaps not.

05:28 (Finale) This closing bit of footage (and amusing tag) lets me continue the question I started captioning at the end of the previous clip. Can you get prolonged panicking in lots of places, or only relatively few? I don't know. When I wrote my old article concerning a particular place in level 5, I was under the impression that prolonged panicking was something you needed a special situation for. But now that I've seen how easy it is to get it across the bridge here, and that you can also get it in the next covie location, I'm wondering if the potential is considerably more common that I originally thought. Needs investigation.

Closing remarks It was in October 2016 when I noticed some prolonged grunty panicking across the bridge. I was working on something else but saved some footage, which has been cluttering up my hard drive ever since, pending possible movie treatment. Haven't used that footage here though; I started afresh. The main reason I've used Normal is because that's what I was using in the old footage. Later I checked the other difficulties too though, and didn't notice any difference in the ease of getting prolonged panicking.

Incidentally, I also tried getting prolonged panicking in the lifeboat area, but it never worked. But sometimes if a Grunt panicked, he'd run across the bridge, and in that case he could be expected to continue.

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