How to improve armor abilities

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Hello everyone,
it seems to appear that there are a number of armor abilities that people hate and then there’s people that simply hate having armor abilities.

If the next Halo game has armor abilities then what kind of things would you like to see whether it’s improving current ones or creating new ones?
I’ll start with many my ideas:

Incorporate jet pack into thruster pack,
how this would work is that say you are looking up and you activate the AA, you would thrust into the air rather than slide around the ground. This would work in any direction where there are no obstacles blocking you.

Next up I’m going to share my ideas for making more team-based AA’s.

Have a node that you spawn (like the auto turret) but make it detect enemies within a radius (like the spot grenades from Gears of war Judgment) this will show your teammates the location of the enemy and it could be useful for game modes like ctf or other base-based game types.

Now, rather having two shield based AA’s (drop shield, hard light shield) incorporate them into one. It will function like using the hard light shield, but will create a dome to escort teammates across open spaces which will be useful against snipers, dmr’s, etc.

A thought I had to counter AA’s is that emp’s would temporarily disable them (much like vehicles) if they come into contact with the player.

There are other ways to improve other AA’s (which I couldn’t be bothered doing) and now I’d like you to share your thoughts on this topic,
Thanks.

2

> Have a node that you spawn (like the auto turret) but make it detect enemies within a radius (like the spot grenades from Gears of war Judgment) this will show your teammates the location of the enemy and it could be useful for game modes like ctf or other base-based game types.

This would be cool.

But I would like to see all of the AA’s recharge speeds decreased so it feels more like a trump card rather than spammed like grenades.

3

> Incorporate jet pack into thruster pack,
> how this would work is that say you are <mark>looking up</mark> and you activate the AA, you would thrust into the air rather than slide around the ground. This would work in any direction where there are no obstacles blocking you.

I don’t think ‘looking up’ is a good idea. The concept’s good but this is a minor flaw. When I go up in a jetpack, I want to look down as i’m raining fire on my enemies.

Perhaps a better solution would be when you jump straight up and/or when you are running, jet pack kicks in. When walking normally thruster kicks in.

4

> > Incorporate jet pack into thruster pack,
> > how this would work is that say you are <mark>looking up</mark> and you activate the AA, you would thrust into the air rather than slide around the ground. This would work in any direction where there are no obstacles blocking you.
>
> I don’t think ‘looking up’ is a good idea. The concept’s good but this is a minor flaw. When I go up in a jetpack, I want to look down as i’m raining fire on my enemies.
>
> Perhaps a better solution would be when you jump straight up and/or when you are running, jet pack kicks in. When walking normally thruster kicks in.

…Or you could just hold for Jets, lightly press for Thrust.

5

You can’t fix or improve Armor Abilities any more than you can fix broken glass. At best, you can glue it together and make it functional, but it will always be broken.

6

In all honesty, I think its time for them to evolve into something else. Equipment became Armor Abilities and I think its time for a new iteration. I do not care for AA in anyway at all and personally feel that the next generation shouldn’t be a tool we start with. I think we need to acquire it like equipment.

Like I said, thats my personal opinion and you are free to disagree with it. I just don’t want to see armor abilities return in their current state.

7

Like was said above of AAs being “trump cards”:

This could be really good as long as they, like you said, increase recharge time a little bit but give them more meaning and a buff. Thruster Pack should have a bigger cool down yet you go farther etc.

An Evolution or Progression System:

As you use the AAs they should get better with positives and negatives. Example, Autosentry could evolve as you use it more often into a full blown turret yet have a massive cool down. Jet pack can evolve into a forward thrust and go faster. Yet have a bigger cool down. And have other things for other AAs.

8

I’m not a fan of a majority of AA’s, but I felt that the backlash from the community at their removal would be way too extreme. What needs to be done is to rework them from the ground up.

Rather than game-breaking mechanics like camo, pro-vision, or jetpack, I feel that they should take on the form of H3 power ups. Having a radar jammer AA would be pretty sweet in my book, seeing how I would use camo in Reach on small maps to cover my team’s radar signatures. Pro-vision could be redone as something else, maybe like echolocation where instead of seeing through walls, the radar will ping outwards and show enemy locations even if they are crouching or stationary.

9

> Like was said above of AAs being “trump cards”:
>
> This could be really good as long as they, like you said, increase recharge time a little bit but give them more meaning and a buff. Thruster Pack should have a bigger cool down yet you go farther etc.
>
> An Evolution or Progression System:
>
> As you use the AAs they should get better with positives and negatives. Example, Autosentry could evolve as you use it more often into a full blown turret yet have a massive cool down. Jet pack can evolve into a forward thrust and go faster. Yet have a bigger cool down. And have other things for other AAs.

Nice ideas EYE3X. I honestly dont mind armour abilities now but an improvement system would be kinda cool…

But also remember that in the new halo game, Halo: Spartan Assault which releases in July 2013. Is going to show classic, new and reiterated weaponry, vehicles and armour abilities.

So there may still be hope…

Also I know that this isn’t related to the thread but Spartan Ops in my opinion should have a custom loud out system, specific to just spartan ops. In other words, when watching the CGI cutscenes in Spartan Ops, Majestic Squad is armed to the teeth and has specific roles… and even Noble team in Reach had specific roles for each spartan. I am just saying that what if we could start out with a Sniper Rifle or Rocket Launcher and think about it an army wouldnt just send there best soldiers in with me mediocre weaponry but actually give them the best.

Breakdown of my idea.
4 matchmaking loudouts
Any starter weapons from halo 4 plus new… or whatever
1 spartan ops loudout
All available UNSC weapons, reason it is UNSC is because it is spartan ops… elite ops covenant weapons, promethean ops, forerunner weapons.
Plus once a weapon is picked it can on be used by ONE member of the squad thus almost forcing teamwork… honestly wouldnt mind seeing Jorges turret or something similar as a starter weapon :smiley:

Or it could be done by selecting a certain class list of classes could include marksmen, special weapons, close-quarters, heavy weapons.

Marksmen
-Sniper
-Designated Marksmen Rifle
-Battle Rifle
-Hand Gun

Special Weapons
-Sticky Detonator
-Rail Gun
-Hand Gun

Close-Quarters
-Shotgun
-Assault Rifle
-Hand Gun

Heavy Weapons
-Spartan Laser
-Rocket Laucher
-Hand Gun

So once picked class, the player chooses one primary weapon and has one handgun.
Armour abilities may vary etc.

10

In my opinion, I believe we should either see the return of Equipment or have something new take the place of AAs. While reusable abilities seemed cool in the beginning, it diminished their value for me.

I would much prefer a one-time-use, map-pickup ability like Equipment as it increases the feature’s value and becomes a much more strategic use that you can’t constantly spam and exploit like the recharging AAs.

11

The thing you said about an EMP to disable AAs, I think there was going to be one and someone modded it in with the Harvest Hacker Slayer gametype. Just thought I’d say this.

12

Anything that gives you an advantage over other players because you’ve played more games than them (unlockable weapons or “evolving AAs”) or are doing better than them in the match (killstreaks/Personal Ordnance) are by definition imbalanced. That’s like giving height-adding shoes to NBA players, but only the ones who are already very tall. Why would you add anything to Halo that wasn’t equally accessible to anyone? That was the formula that made Halo: CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, and even Halo: Reach such successes.

I am all for change and new features. But they can’t be features that either (1) force players into classes (perks, AAs, customizable loadouts) or (2) give advantages to players who are already doing well (killstreaks/Personal Ordnance, unlockable weapons). Halo can (and should) never be Call of Duty or Team Fortress, and Halo 4 failed in comparison to previous Halos because it tried to be.

13

> In all honesty, I think its time for them to evolve into something else. Equipment became Armor Abilities and I think its time for a new iteration. I do not care for AA in anyway at all and personally feel that the next generation shouldn’t be a tool we start with. I think we need to acquire it like equipment.
>
> Like I said, thats my personal opinion and you are free to disagree with it. I just don’t want to see armor abilities return in their current state.

Yes! Exactly the way I see it.

I think they are restricting themselves creatively when they decide to make Armor Abilities as starting abilities.
They could be so much more creative and interesting with them if they were map pickups with limited use.

14

> Incorporate jet pack into thruster pack,
> how this would work is that say you are looking up and you activate the AA, you would thrust into the air rather than slide around the ground. This would work in any direction where there are no obstacles blocking you.

Yes but what if you’re looking up a hill while fighting a player whose on top of it? You’ll try to dodge left but end up jetting yourself up like a clay pigeon with a suicide complex. No, abilities that have very different effects need to be separated into different buttons to avoid the oh-so-easy accidental switch-up.

As for integration, what I’d like to see is AA’s that are a lot more strategic. Deployables mainly with fixed usage counters to make them far less disposable than, say, a Holo is now. Anything that you might want to effect movement would then be integrated into the standard control layout or removed if you don’t want to give every player in Halo a jetpack in a bad imitation of Section 8.

It would essentially be equipment 2.0 BUT they key difference would be that you select your equipment type in the loadout and you resupply from a universal equipment “ammo” type that would be pretty easily available on map or in ordnance. Some equipment types would deploy as in Halo 3 but a few others would still be fixed to the player like an AA so that you might have…

  1. Deployable Turret
  2. Deployable Mine
  3. Deployable Radar Jammer
  4. Deployable Sensor
  5. Fixed Hardlight Shield
  6. Fixed Holo Projector
  7. Fixed Self Destruct Unit
  8. Fixed Camo Unit
    ect.

Then you might introduce a few others (jetpack, prom vision) as Halo 1-3 style powerups that increase your jump height or set you in visor mode for a limited time.