There’s been a lot of talk about the armour since 343 took over. A lot of it has been criticism, and largely subjective. There is one piece of criticism that I often see and I think it’s incorrect, yet also makes sense.
People claim that all of 343’s armour looks the same. This isn’t about whether it looks good or bad, but rather, it’s about how different the designs are. Truth be told, there’s actually a lot of diversity in their designs, especially in Halo 5. So why is this complaint so common? Well, it’s tied to something else that is often discussed, the undersuit.
In Halo 4 and 5, the undersuits carry the armour’s primary colour. In all prior games they were always black, Spartans still have this coloration in campaign (though there are some exceptions), but our multiplayer avatars are all forced to have undersuits with coloured parts. The thinking behind this is pretty clear, our team colours will be more visible, the problem is this; as the coloured portion of the undersuits carry the armour’s primary colour, they tend to blur together, this makes it appear as though all the armour sets follow the same overall design. They appear to extend to the same places and gives everyone a similar appearance. 343 have done themselves a disservice, as their varied designs now all seem quite similar.
The solution is also simple: a third colour option that controls the coloured parts of the undersuit. This means they can keep the colours there in team games if they feel it’s important for balancing, but elsewhere, we could choose for ourselves how they appear. If the opinions posted on the internet are any indication, there’s an awful lot of people who would like to keep their undersuits black, and outside of team games, what’s the harm in doing so? It will allow people to actually see the different designs properly.
No the issue for me is that the armor barely covers any vital organs or even anything at all. Whats the point of armor if its only on your pecs? Look at the scout design…it has a freaking hole in the middle of the chest! They need to have armor that actually looks like it will protect you. It seems like the spandex underneath is 65% of the armor and the rest is uncovered or barely covered.
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> No the issue for me is that the armor barely covers any vital organs or even anything at all. Whats the point of armor if its only on your pecs? Look at the scout design…it has a freaking hole in the middle of the chest! They need to have armor that actually looks like it will protect you. It seems like the spandex underneath is 65% of the armor and the rest is uncovered or barely covered.
Agreed, my main issues are
- Spartans aren’t covered
- Forced white coloured paint
- No black under suit
- Armour doesn’t look bulky
- Some armours have holes or stupid attachments (Look at the goblin armour piece, when wold that be viable?)
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> > 2533274846171508;2:
> > No the issue for me is that the armor barely covers any vital organs or even anything at all. Whats the point of armor if its only on your pecs? Look at the scout design…it has a freaking hole in the middle of the chest! They need to have armor that actually looks like it will protect you. It seems like the spandex underneath is 65% of the armor and the rest is uncovered or barely covered.
>
>
> Agreed, my main issues are
>
> - Spartans aren’t covered
> - Forced white coloured paint
> - No black under suit
> - Armour doesn’t look bulky
> - Some armours have holes or stupid attachments (Look at the goblin armour piece, when wold that be viable?)
And those are all legitimate opinions, but not what I’m discussing here. My issue is with the misconception that they’re all the same, when that simply stems from the under suit issue.
As for your point on their bulk, there are a few bulky options available.
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> No the issue for me is that the armor barely covers any vital organs or even anything at all. Whats the point of armor if its only on your pecs? Look at the scout design…it has a freaking hole in the middle of the chest! They need to have armor that actually looks like it will protect you. It seems like the spandex underneath is 65% of the armor and the rest is uncovered or barely covered.
I think the reason for this is because the shields will protect you from almost anything hitting you, giving you a chance to take cover and recharge. In the lore, anyone without a shield versus any plasma weapon, with armor or without, is basically screwed because the superheated plasma will melt through the armor anyway.
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> > 2533274846171508;2:
> > No the issue for me is that the armor barely covers any vital organs or even anything at all. Whats the point of armor if its only on your pecs? Look at the scout design…it has a freaking hole in the middle of the chest! They need to have armor that actually looks like it will protect you. It seems like the spandex underneath is 65% of the armor and the rest is uncovered or barely covered.
>
>
> Agreed, my main issues are
>
> - Spartans aren’t covered
> - Forced white coloured paint
> - No black under suit
> - Armour doesn’t look bulky
> - Some armours have holes or stupid attachments (Look at the goblin armour piece, when wold that be viable?)
Agreed and you missed one the new armor makes them look more like Power Rangers.
I feel like a lot of their designs don’t quite fit the Halo “aesthetic.” A lot more “Power Rangers” than badass space marines on steroids.
It doesn’t help that their so much armor either… They could easily have trimmed the fat and gave us maybe 20 of the best armor designs, and devoted more resources towards designing more maps.
EDIT: Ahh, the guy above me beat me to it… ^^^
The lack of a black undersuit sucks, but I care far more about the designs themselves, which are generally pretty bad. To be honest even their re-designs of the old designs look bad.
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> I feel like a lot of their designs don’t quite fit the Halo “aesthetic.” A lot more “Power Rangers” than badass space marines on steroids.
>
> It doesn’t help that their so much armor either… They could easily have trimmed the fat and gave us maybe 20 of the best armor designs, and devoted more resources towards designing more maps.
>
> EDIT: Ahh, the guy above me beat me to it… ^^^
I hope that they do this for Halo 6, I don’t like having a massive amount of armor to choose from. You’d think it would make you feel unique to have an armor combination that no one else does, but it makes me feel less unique because I can’t even recognize half the armor sets I see. It’s weird, I know, but in Halo 3 multiplayer you could recognize every armor set and I though that was awesome.
In general most of 343’s redesigns don’t look good, including armor. Everything looks generic, contrasts all the pre-halo 4 games, and looks too similar to lots of other generic Scifi games. Previous armor designs looked like practical, power armor that we could imagine even real life military one day having. It felt grounded to reality, realistic. Master Chief especially looks worse. His armor was iconic from the original trilogy. The new armor he got in halo 2 looked similar enough to the H1 armor, and wasn’t jarring. His new armor from 4/5 is just off, along with the myriad of other even dumber and more absurd armor designs in multiplayer. Fact is Bungie had and still has a great talent for art design. Every IP they have made looks distinctive and unique. I hate destiny, but can admit its art style is excellent. 343 has and is attempting to leave their own mark with their own art style. That would be ok if their designs were on par with bungie or better. The problem is their designs are not better they are worse, and that cheapens the overall “look” of halo.
I agree that most of the armor designs are bad. They have grown on me a little though, even Seeker.
Wonderfully worded and thought out original post. I very much agree.
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> In general most of 343’s redesigns don’t look good, including armor. Everything looks generic, contrasts all the pre-halo 4 games, and looks too similar to lots of other generic Scifi games. Master Chief especially looks worse. His armor was iconic from the original trilogy. The new armor he got in halo 2 looked similar enough to the H1 armor, and wasn’t jarring. His new armor from 4/5 is just off, along with the myriad of other even dumber and more absurd armor designs in multiplayer. Fact is Bungie had and still has a great talent for art design. Every IP they have made looks distinctive and unique. I hate destiny, but can admit its art style is excellent. 343 has and is attempting to leave their own mark with their own art style. That would be ok if their designs were on par with bungie or better. The problem is their designs are not better they are worse, and that cheapens the overall “look” of halo.
I will say that I liked the armor from the characters in the campaign. Those are practical and good-looking. I personally like Chief’s new look, but we all have opinions. Also, I wish that 343 would test the quality of their armor designs by seeing whether or not they would put a campaign character in that armor. Would they put someone in Seeker or Tracer armor? No? Then don’t add it into the game.
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> > 2533274817747391;11:
> > In general most of 343’s redesigns don’t look good, including armor. Everything looks generic, contrasts all the pre-halo 4 games, and looks too similar to lots of other generic Scifi games. Master Chief especially looks worse. His armor was iconic from the original trilogy. The new armor he got in halo 2 looked similar enough to the H1 armor, and wasn’t jarring. His new armor from 4/5 is just off, along with the myriad of other even dumber and more absurd armor designs in multiplayer. Fact is Bungie had and still has a great talent for art design. Every IP they have made looks distinctive and unique. I hate destiny, but can admit its art style is excellent. 343 has and is attempting to leave their own mark with their own art style. That would be ok if their designs were on par with bungie or better. The problem is their designs are not better they are worse, and that cheapens the overall “look” of halo.
>
>
> I will say that I liked the armor from the characters in the campaign. Those are practical and good-looking. I personally like Chief’s new look, but we all have opinions. Also, I wish that 343 would test the quality of their armor designs by seeing whether or not they would put a campaign character in that armor. Would they put someone in Seeker or Tracer armor? No? Then don’t add it into the game.
That last point is very good. If its too ugly or dumb for a character its too ugly or dumb for multiplayer. I can’t forgive the Chief redesign. Its like making a star wars movie with redesigned darth vader outfit. Only way I can tolerate change to MC’s armor is if its done like it was for Halo 2. The overhaul 343 did with nearly every design, from armor to geometry, to weapons and enemies, makes this quite impossible from my perspective. Even map design has taken a nose dive along with the art design. I can’t name a memorable map from H4/what I have seen in H5 that is on par with the best of the previous games.
I dislike the armors as well. Why do the redesigns looks so different when compared to what they are trying to mimic? I wish the original Mark VI looked like the H2/H3 version, rather than the weird redesign introduced in H4 multiplayer.
However, my largest gripes are the fact that the armor does not look practical. As mentioned, some don’t even cover vital organs effectively. Most armors have exposed rib cages, abdomens, and backs. The damn shoulder pieces barely cover the shoulders at all; just look at the Noble armor shoulders in H5 and compare to the Halo Reach ones.
This is a great idea. I had never thought about that before!
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> I dislike the armors as well. Why do the redesigns looks so different when compared to what they are trying to mimic? I wish the original Mark VI looked like the H2/H3 version, rather than the weird redesign introduced in H4 multiplayer.
>
> However, my largest gripes are the fact that the armor does not look practical. As mentioned, some don’t even cover vital organs effectively. Most armors have exposed rib cages, abdomens, and backs. The damn shoulder pieces barely cover the shoulders at all; just look at the Noble armor shoulders in H5 and compare to the Halo Reach ones.
I think the shoulders are what mainly bothers me. They’re all smaller and lower and just look useless.
> 2533274873580796;7:
> It doesn’t help that their so much armor either… They could easily have trimmed the fat and gave us maybe 20 of the best armor designs, and devoted more resources towards designing more maps.
>
> EDIT: Ahh, the guy above me beat me to it… ^^^
Different teams. The guys working on the armour have very little to do with the guys working on the maps. Environment artists and character artists are different roles, as are the modellers for those areas. The only people who are involved in both are artistic directors and the like.
well the reason the armour doesnt cover most of the body in h4/5 its to make the spartan more flexable since the gen1 armour are really bulky which restricted the spartans movement gen2 (h4/5) are less bulky than gen1 which make the spartans easy to move
