Armor Abilities as a CONCEPT?

Games Other Halo
1

Hey everyone.

With the “release” of Halo 3 I have been comparing it a lot to Halo 4. I never played Halo 3 online in its prime ( I didn’t have the internet speed ), my first online Halo experience was Reach. And I must say when I play 3, I miss AA’s.

I understand why a lot of people don’t like them, they weren’t in Halo to begin with and weren’t part of what made it the game so many remember so fondly. But in a genre that is becoming more and more homogenized they are something that sets the game apart from the rest of the pack.

But I do not believe that AA’s have been executed very well thus far. And I personally believe Reach had the best system with the most broken abilities (armor lock, drop shield). Halo 4’s AA’s aren’t so bad, but Jetpack breaks map flow and Promethean vision, is well…promethean vision, lol.

But this isn’t about the individual armor abilities, its about the concept. Do you think they are a good addition to the series? As I said I think they are. They set the game apart and I think they have a lot of potential.

2

Halo has always had AAs to a degree. Halo 1 had overshield and camp as shapes to pick up on the battlefield. But that game was also mad in like, 6 months.

Halo 2 had an AA in the campaign with the Arbiter with his camo. It was mostly useless and if you wanted to use it to its full potential it involved a lot of sitting around doing nothing waiting for it to recharge and timing everything (only at certain areas though).

Halo 3 had AAs as usable equipment, but Bungie found that a lot of players would regularly forget they even had it and died without using it. Same thing happened in Campaign.

Reach allowed you to equip them and for the most part aren’t as bad as everybody makes them out to be. Not only that, but you can easily set up the game to have appropriate loadouts in relation to the AA. For example, having Armour Lock lose all grenades, secondary, and primary being Plasma Repeater. It’s not so OP now when people who spawn with it won’t have the same firepower as people who don’t.

Also the idea of having the AAs available on the map as auto pick up or to exchange from your default AA. Problem is, a lot of very vocal people, who were a minority, wouldn’t want to experiment or even think about possibly trying these ideas, even in a playlist they would never touch. They were focused on screaming about change, about how they’re the dictator of the Halo series and that the developer should be following only their ideas, usually attacking everybody else with ad hominems. Kinda hard for a developer to change up the game when some people are being unreasonable about what they would like or want.

AAs in Halo 4 is probably another article entirely.

3

Let’s think about when people complain about AAs in Halo 4: Jet Pack, Active Camo, and (for the life of me I’ll never understand) Promethean Vision. That leaves Autosentry, Thruster Pack, Hologram, Hardlight Shield, Regeneration Field.

People complain about Jet Pack because it allows super quick high ground elevation, ruining map flow, map control, and cover.

People complain about Active Camo because campers and invisible snipers are never fun. Active Camo is way better as a power-up like Overshield because it allows map control to gain it, and then it can be very useful.

I can’t understand the complaint about Promethean Vision at all. It’s a forward-looking Motion Sensor that IMO was designed for the handicapped that can’t pay attention to their Motion Sensor for the life of them. It also helps dig out campers. Overall, I find it completely pointless.

Those three are always complained about. But the other 5? I rarely ever hear complaints about them.

Autosentry is valuable for the extra shots and offensives/defensives.

Thruster Pack throws you out of danger/grenades by like four feet.

Hologram… Who complains about Hologram? Seriously.

Hardlight Shield. Whenever I do hear a complaint about this AA, I just sit and wonder why. It allows very efficient teamwork, and can easily be stopped if you know what you/your teammates are doing. Teamwork all around. Plus, it’s basically the Jackal Shield everyone’s been asking for since Halo CE.

Regeneration Field… I can understand some complaints, but only to some extent. It allows teamwork/team saves. It helps defend the high ground. It takes about a second just to start recharging the shields again, and it slowly charges your shields.

Honestly, IMO, except for Jet Pack and Active Camo, the rest of the AAs in Halo 4 are perfect. I really believe 343i got AAs right in Halo 4 (Jet Pack and Active Camo will never be right as AAs, or at least on spawn AAs). I love AAs, and would love to see them return in Halo 5.

4

Has anyone tried to play without using AAs or perks ? I did in some occasions I played pretty well, it seems to me that some of the AAs aren’t that unbalanced.

5

I do not like AAs as a concept. The problem I have with them is that they are usable on demand and an infinite number of times. This is fine for base player abilities such as jumping or sprinting, but I don’t like that all players will have any one of several extra abilities. Unpredictable player traits leads to an inability to plan and strategize, which is my favorite part of Halo.

Halo 3 Equipment was perfect IMO because they had to be picked up from the map and they could only be used once. It wasn’t an extra ability, but rather a utility.

Though I was skeptic of Equipment when I first played Halo 3, I grew to like them and adapted to the new feature in the playing field. Contrastingly, I find myself unable to “adapt” to AAs–they take too much away from my favorite part of Halo gameplay. I would prefer it if all AAs became Equipment, meaning they had to be picked up on the map and could only be used once.

6

Basically, the main concept of Armor Abilities and Equipment is very similar. Both can give you or your team an advantage for a certain moment. The difference is that with AAs you are able to spawn with such an advantage while with Equipment you have to pick it up from the map.

Personally, I prefer the concept of AAs at spawn over Equipment on map because Equipment has lacked relatively often in its usefulness in my opinion because all depended too much or too often on the “right moment”.

Nonetheless, I do definitely not prefer the actual and current implementation of Armor Abilities. I think you should not be able to spam AAs, what I think was a main reason why they have become so unattractive for many people. There has to be some tactical thought behind the use of Armor Abilities, in my opinion.

Aside some individual major and minor tweaks, (i.e. AC should encourage movement and CQC instead of camping and long range battles/sniping) each Armor Ability should have a specific and limited amount of uses per life to require some tactical thinking again before using an AA and to prevent thoughtless and constant AA-spam.
Depending on the kind of AA that amount can differ.
Besides, perhaps you should be able to pick up/switch AAs from/with fallen team mates or enemies, so you would not be at a “disadvantage” in case you ran out of uses and you have the possibility to adapt to the battlefield.
That’s basically how I would like to see Armor Abilties implemented.

In addition, it would be completely ok for me in case AAs would be turned into on-map equipment with multiple uses but the concept of AAs at spawn has just become more appealing to me.

7

Get rid of the ones like PV and AC and make the rest map pick ups that you have to fight over. Even starts is what this game needs otherwise just turn it into a twitch shooter like the rest and be done with it.

8

I like the defensive armor abilities as they take time to master, you have to learn when it’s appropriate to use them correctly. Hard-light shield and Thruster pack namely. Anything that boosts your offensive performance should be a pick-up(Camo, jetpack, PV(wall hax), ect.

9

Regarding the games in canon order, SPARTAN II’s didn’t need them. They were apparently being developed for SPARTAN III’s on Reach.

As a concept in general, since the sole purpose of armor is to protect the individual, armor abilities should extend that concept. For example, the AA’s in Reach were designed to keep the SPARTAN alive. Camo made you invisible, Lock made you impervious, Hologram caused a distraction, Sprint made you faster, etc. Any could be used offensively, but that wasn’t their primary goal.

I have a problem with, for example, an ability that points out who killed you, since you have to die before you can use it.

Jet Pack should not be an AA. It should be equipment. In fact, unless specialization actually means something in H5 I think it should all be equipment you can pick up like Master Chief had to in the H4 campaign.

10

hey, your the guy who makes those halo 4 weapon guides arent you? they’re prettygood man, i liked your tip :stuck_out_tongue:

but on topic, I dont think armor abilities are that bad, but I think certain abilities ( like Camo and Jetpack) need to be buffed a little and treated as ordinance like over-shield and speed boost…

That way, halo 4 has a much more competitive bump to it…

11

Honestly, I think that Armor Abilities are fine (even in Halo: Reach). This is because even though some AAs can be viewed as overpowered or too game-changing, you can always go grab an AA yourself to level the playing field and make gameplay equal/fair. It’s like if everyone had Rocket Launchers (Rock ‘n’ Rail!); the weapon itself is extremely powerful, but when everyone has one it’s not unfair. And even with the variation between AAs, you’ll end up having an advantage over someone else, but they’ll also have an advantage over you in a different way.

So overall, individual AAs can be overpowering, but because all players have them the game is still balanced in regards to Armor Abilities.

By the way, I’m a huge fan of you on YouTube! I check my subscriptions daily to see what new videos you put out since I last checked. I have to thank you for your Halo 4 Weapon Guides, because those are what got me hooked on your channel. They are easily the highest quality guides for Halo 4 I’ve seen, no contest! But since you’re done with that, I’m still really enjoying the Daily Live Commentaries! Anyone that hasn’t seen his videos, I really recommend checking out his channel if you’re interested in watching relaxed, entertaining, and interesting videos. Keep up the great work man! :smiley:

12

> Honestly, I think that Armor Abilities are fine (even in Halo: Reach). This is because even though some AAs can be viewed as overpowered or too game-changing, you can always go grab an AA yourself to level the playing field and make gameplay equal/fair. It’s like if everyone had Rocket Launchers (Rock ‘n’ Rail!); the weapon itself is extremely powerful, but when everyone has one it’s not unfair. And even with the variation between AAs, you’ll end up having an advantage over someone else, but they’ll also have an advantage over you in a different way.
>
> So overall, individual AAs can be overpowering, but because all players have them the game is still balanced in regards to Armor Abilities.

By that logic, 343i could introduce into loadouts a nuke launcher that kills everyone on the map when fired, and since “anyone can have it,” it wouldn’t be OP.

It doesn’t make sense for some AAs to be more powerful or useful than others. Otherwise, no one would choose the lesser AAs; as you said, in order to compete, everyone would have to use one of the few OP AAs. And that’s exactly what we see in matchmaking: the majority of the players use JP, AC, or PV, because those are the ones that either have advantages that more outweigh their disadvantages or are useful in more situations. That’s the definition of imbalanced.