AA, Equipment, or Both?

Games Other Halo
1

EDIT: So I added a few more equipment and AA’s to my own personal list, but remember this topic is more about whether this sort of system would work, not my own personal preferences, you can come up with your owns lists if you want to (or of course, flat out disagree with me)

ORIGINAL:

So there is a discussion going on about which is better for Halo, Armour Abilities or Equipment.

For those of you who are new and never played Halo 3, Equipment was the system where tools are placed on the map and were only used once until they re-spawned, like weapons except they could only be used once.
Armour Abilities is the current system we have now, introduced in Halo Reach, it involves a special ability which can be used multiple times and needs time to “recharge”.

I am arguing that you can have both.

Now before you assume I am drunk, let me explain.

Armour Abilities are little tools that you can repeatedly use, this means that they are generally weak (or in my opinion, should be).
This means they can be more defensive abilities and would not be able to be picked up from dead players, in the Armour Abilities category, I would have:
- Thruster Pack
- Hardlight Shild
- Regen
- Bubble Shield
- Auto Sentry (while it is more offensive, it is weak enough to fit into this category)
- Hologram

Equipment, on the other hand, I would change abit.
While some pieces of equipment would be like in Halo 3 with only the one time use, others would have a meter like Armour Abilities, however, once this runs out, it would be useless.
Like all pieces of equipment, they will be able to be picked up from dead players if it has not been used or the “meter” has not run out.
In the Equipment category I would have:
- Sprint (meter)
- Jetpack (meter)
- Gravity Lift
- EMP
- Active Camouflage (meter, but that is up for debate)
- Trip Mine
- Deployable Cover

I have proposed this system because it may provide the gameplay variety 343 wants while maintaining the balanced game the community wants.

Of course, it is far from perfect, many will probably disagree with what I have put in what category, but that’s not what I want to discuss.
What I do want to discuss is whether this sort of system will work.

Positives:
- Equipment is map specific and has to be controlled
- Provides lots of varied gameplay
- If balancing issues do arise, a simple nerf could include moving something from one category into another

Negatives:
- May get chaotic
- Could be very confusing to new players

Over to you! Do you think Halo 4 would have been better off with this system, or do you think I am mad?
Don’t forget to say why!
Thanks for reading.

:smiley:

2

I agree with every single thing except…I like sprint being the way it is right now. (awesome argument btw i was talking to a friend about something like this the other day)

3

> I agree with every single thing except…I like sprint being the way it is right now. (awesome argument btw i was talking to a friend about something like this the other day)

I put Sprint into the Equipment section as I wouldn’t want a repeat of Reach where 90% of players chose sprint.

That got boring very quickly, sprint being equipment allows for more variety and smaller maps, which I much prefer.

4

True…i would be open to it :smiley:

5

Love the idea, except I think sprint should stay as default or else like in reach it will be overused, even if it is equipment. I think keep all the current items we have now as AAs, apart from Regen Field, Active Camo, (Picking Camo up would mean campers could not just spawn in and activate, it could be far more passive this way, buff the Regen field a tiny bit, and in equipment section:
Active Camo, Regen field, bubble shield, EMP thingy, Grav lift, and the others from Halo 3.

6

Nop. I like AA’s as is. In reach they were horribly broken and sprint was chosen 90% of the time. With halo 4 AA’s feel more personnel depending on the role you want to choose. It never turns into a rock paper scissors like reach did.

Though i would be cool with some equipment returning. For instance bringing trip mines and emp back on maps that feature vehicles. Or on tight maps we could bring back the jammer or flash equipment.

But those are really it. All the other ones have evolved into AA’s and feel much better this way. IMO.

7

I like Equipment better. That does not mean that limited-usage AAs are out of the question. The problem with Halo 3’s equipment and Reach’s Armor Abilities was that none of the abilities really added anything to the depth of gameplay, and just gave you something to hide behind for a few seconds.

8

Both in Campaign. I want to see the Deployable Cover, completely intact.

9

As much as I have used all of the AA’s in the past two games (Halo 4 & Halo Reach) I think I’d prefer to just have Equipment.

Seems more balanced and Halo 3 was really fun.

10

It could be easy to implement both by adding a button to change between Lb (default) being used for AA and the equipment (which has to be a pickup)

11

Add back Deployable cover, and just get rid of Jet pack. We have the grav lift so we don’t need it. Camo should be like Halo 3, where you can move around as much as you want, but it is equipment

12

> Nop. I like AA’s as is. In reach they were horribly broken and sprint was chosen 90% of the time. With halo 4 AA’s feel more personnel depending on the role you want to choose. It never turns into a rock paper scissors like reach did.
>
> Though i would be cool with some equipment returning. For instance bringing trip mines and emp back on maps that feature vehicles. Or on tight maps we could bring back the jammer or flash equipment.
>
> But those are really it. All the other ones have evolved into AA’s and feel much better this way. IMO.

Deployable cover could be added back even as an AA since it could work differently from the HLS since it can be deployed for say 15 seconds (as easy as it was to destroy in H3) and takes another 15 to recharge (this can change) and cant be picked up making it even more beneficial to the team. Bubble shield should be brought back heck I liked drop shield but I favoured its removal due to the spamming on 1 flag on Spire. IMO AL could be brought back but make it so that it does its original purpose of last second saving where it lasts 1.5 seconds at the most and takes as long as it used to to recharge and can only be done with shields to stop it stalling play

13

> Add back Deployable cover, and just get rid of Jet pack. We have the grav lift so we don’t need it. Camo should be like Halo 3, where you can move around as much as you want, but it is equipment

Jetpack should be removed since it ruins maps, however IMO the faults with AC are due to it being nerfed to the point where you’re forced to camp to get anything out of it. It should work exactly like the arbiters AC in halo 2

14

I really like the concept behind armor abilities. Equipment was OK, but having something at your disposal is a little more attractive to me. The reason I said “the concept behind” is because, like many, I don’t believe they’ve been implemented properly. Or, rather, abilities that should never have been created have been implemented.

Of course, it’s easy to understand what ones I’m talking about. Remember Armor Lock? I mean, who in their right mind would put an offensive AND defensive ball of invincibility into a game like Halo? Horrible.

Halo 4 also has its fair share of offenders. In this case, I’m talking about Camo and Promethean Vision. Horrible things that make gameplay cheap and unfair. These are really the only two I have major problems with in Halo 4. I like increasing my movement capabilities, so I usually roll with Jet Pack or Thruster Pack. No, I don’t use Jet Pack in battle (it’s pretty useless against a competent player), but I use it to get to certain destinations quicker. It’s very useful and it actually promotes movement.

Things like Active Camo and Promethean Vision promote camping and cheap play. They should have never been implemented in the first place. They’re abused regularly. Before the update (not sure if it still works), there was a glitch with Active Camo that if you stopped moving and crouched, then entered Camo, the “radar scrambler” wouldn’t appear. Thus there was absolutely no way to tell if an invisible enemy was nearby unless you caught a glimpse of a blurry figure. Obviously this was unintentional, but it added yet another element of randomness into the game.

TL;DR: I’m all for Armor Abilities, but they should be limited, moderated, and most of all FAIR AND BALANCED.

15

BOTH!

Split the playlists!

16

If I had to chose I would say Equipment. Doing both would take a huge amount of balancing and I’m not sure 343 or any dev could pull that off. I would say get rid of both and try something new.

Here are my ideas: https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst209962_Replacing-AAs-in-future-Halos--PART-2.aspx

For those that dont want to read basically give everyone access to 5 or 6 abilities at all times with button combinations. Pressing LB in combination with any action button(except nades and trigger) enhances that action. For example, LB+Reload=Dexterity Reload or LB+Forward+Crouch=slide(more for rushing,think Warframe or Ghost Recon Future Soldier). All abilities drain from the same meter so the ability meter would have to be carefully managed. Nothing like Camo or PV, those could become power ups or equipment.

I like your idea though. Well thought out, but like you said it could become too chaotic.

17

> For those that dont want to read basically give everyone access to 5 or 6 abilities at all times with button combinations. Pressing LB in combination with any action button(except nades and trigger) enhances that action. For example, LB+Reload=Dexterity Reload or LB+Forward+Crouch=slide(more for rushing,think Warframe or Ghost Recon Future Soldier). All abilities drain from the same meter so the ability meter would have to be carefully managed.

I think that may be even more confusing than my idea, but it could work, not sure if the Halo Community would be willing to take it up though.

> Split the playlists!

Is this the solution to everything now? Have a separate playlist for every single setting there is?

18

I don’t like how AA’s give players a “second chance” to use them. If you have a mag of sniper rounds left and miss all 4 shots, does the ammo just magically recharge and give you more? No. That’s why I prefer equipment over AA’s. If people have the oppertunity to skillfully use equipment and mess up, they should be punished for it, not given a second chance.

Here’s some ideas on how equipment can completely substitute for AA’s:

Grav lift replaces jet pack, regen equipment replaces regen AA, auto turret equipment (which was in halo 3 campaign) replaces auto turret AA, bubble shield/deployable cover equipment replaces drop/hardlight shield AA (neither of the AA’s did a good job protecting the user anyways), active camo returns to its powerup state instead of being an AA, and power drain, radar jammer,and flare should also make a comeback. Promethean vision and hologram could also be made into a limited powerup that allows players to use it for a certain amount of time.

Sprint can remain a default ability (as long as it can be toggled off for customs and certain playlists), and can be switched out with the thruster pack, which would become a second option as a default ability (seeing that your armor is always equipped with T packs anyways)

19

> > Nop. I like AA’s as is. In reach they were horribly broken and sprint was chosen 90% of the time. With halo 4 AA’s feel more personnel depending on the role you want to choose. It never turns into a rock paper scissors like reach did.
> >
> > Though i would be cool with some equipment returning. For instance bringing trip mines and emp back on maps that feature vehicles. Or on tight maps we could bring back the jammer or flash equipment.
> >
> > But those are really it. All the other ones have evolved into AA’s and feel much better this way. IMO.
>
> Deployable cover could be added back even as an AA since it could work differently from the HLS since it can be deployed for say 15 seconds (as easy as it was to destroy in H3) and takes another 15 to recharge (this can change) and cant be picked up making it even more beneficial to the team. Bubble shield should be brought back heck I liked drop shield but I favoured its removal due to the spamming on 1 flag on Spire. IMO AL could be brought back but make it so that it does its original purpose of last second saving where it lasts 1.5 seconds at the most and takes as long as it used to to recharge and can only be done with shields to stop it stalling play

Oh wow, I can just imagine the insane launch sequences that could be done with it.

Assuming it is completely intact from H3.

20

Silent gamer makes a good point, but many of the halo 4 armor abilities could remain in game as equipment. Scatter them around the map, give them limited power for use (so it plays like H3), and remove sprint as a default ability.