[please read the thread before voting]
Let me start out by saying I don’t hate active camo. I don’t think it’s broken and I’m not buthurt, mad, or frustrated when someone using it kills me (at least not any more than being killed in any other way). I am disappointed that it isn’t what it once was.
I understand the need to tweak the effectiveness in the armor ability (since it is available upon spawn and recharges, instead of being a pickup), but it is so strange and watered down that I no longer find it useful at all.
In Halo Reach (after the update, where the ability expired much quicker) it was close enough to perfect. The user sacrifices audio and radar use to become invisible as long as they weren’t traveling too fast. Moving at full speed would render you nearly fully visible, so you had to be careful when you used it.
And then there was the radar jamming effect.
When you used active camo, the area around you lit up with red dots that hid yours on the enemy’s radar. This was a very clever design decision, since it gave the active camo user a sense of security while their own radar was jammed and alerting the other team that there was an enemy nearby.
This was super useful for team games with radar enabled. Have an active camo guy on your team and have them activate it, and suddenly the enemy has no idea where the other team is – all they see is a blob of red coming at them.
Besides the drop shield (which sadly never really saw much action in matchmaking) this was the only armor ability that was team-oriented (even though it might not have been intended that way).
Enter Halo 4. Most of the armor ability remains the same. You still go invisible, you still need to walk slowly to keep the camouflage, and it still dampens the audio you are able to hear. But there is one huge difference this time.
Instead of red-dots jamming yours and the enemy’s radar, it creates moving blue constructs on the radar. This promotes camping in ways the Reach version never did.
Not only does the camo go away when you move too quickly, but you also appear on the enemy radar, undisguised. And compounded to this, as I said, are the swirling blue shapes that mark your approximate position on enemy radar.
There’s no reason to use this armor ability now, except for sniping at a distance where you are out of radar range. You are harshly penalized if you try to use it near any enemy, whether you decide to crouch walk or not. The blue shapes appear regardless of if you’re moving or not.
The other advantage that is actually pretty cool (the immunity to Promethian vision while behind walls) is attainable via the Stealth upgrade, which is active all the time passively and also give you quiet footsteps and speeds up assassinations.
So what can be done to mend it?
Option 1: Remove sprinting while active camo is on and add the red dots back to the users and enemy’s radar. This makes it difficult for the user to run around the map hidden under the radar jammer, while still showing there is an active camo user around to enemies.
Option 2: Add the red dots, as in option 1, and then decrease the camo user’s damage output to 50% or so with a 1-second cooldown when the camo is disabled. This would help to balance out those users camping with power weapons while still giving them the element of surprise.
Option 3: A combination of the two above options; sprint disabled with a 85% or so damage output instead of 50%.
Option 4: Or simply increase the amount and distance of the blue shapes on the radar. This would alert others to a camo user’s presence while keeping them from pinpointing where the user is.
What are your thoughts on this?