Is The Jetpack So Bad?

Games Other Halo
1

Is it entirely detrimental? I don’t think so. I just Reach does it entirely wrong.

What are the problems that jetpacks create? Well, here’s my opinion: In Reach, the ‘default’ option someone picks is Sprint. With Jetpack as a load-out, a player has to sacrifice their default choice to pick something entirely different. This simply creates an unpredictable factor - you can never know if someone is going to choose jetpack, and therefore your strategy that you create is based off of a guess. You can either choose to develop a strategy that could potentially ward off jetpack users or you could choose one that doesn’t attempt to do that and instead is based off of fighting “default users” (people who chose sprint). If you choose the former strategy, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage if they don’t choose jetpack; if you choose the latter, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage if they do choose the jetpack. Again, it’s a guessing game.

In short, the jetpack - as it currently is implemented in default Reach - dumbs down strategies that a team can make because it creates a game of guessing.

MLG solves this problem by eliminating the choice to simply spawn with a jetpack and places jetpacks on the map in a similar fashion to power weapons. However, a lot of the time the jetpack really isn’t that beneficial to pick up in MLG. It’s a little ‘spice’ added to the gameplay, but it isn’t really anything new.

What if the jetpack could be improved and made more widely available without hampering the competitive flow of the game? Well, I think this is possible and could improve the game in many ways.

Firstly, the game would need a stamina bar. This stamina bar would be drained and recovered in a similar fashion to the armor ability circle in Reach. The core difference is that it isn’t designated to one specific funtion. Two of the functions that could drain this bar would be jetpacking and sprinting. Here is my proposal that might be a little controversial: The jetpack should be a basic, all-time function mapped to a specific button, similar to sprint. That way, all strategies would be justified in considering jetpacks because all opponents would always have a jetpack, as well as sprint. (Also note that I’m just using the term ‘jetpack’ because I don’t have anything else to call it. You could refer to it as a “thruster” like in the Halo 4 trailer.)

Think about it. As a basic function, it wouldn’t be fair to say it breaks map control - that’d be comparable to saying that jumping (also a basic function) breaks map control by allowing users to take shortcuts.

Also note that I do not prefer the physics associated with the Reach jetpack and I’d hope they’d be less clunky in Halo 4 (assuming it has a “jetpack.”)

This is just a thought. How do you feel about this?

2

That…without the purple.

3

Warning: I’m about to be really blunt with you.

YES JETPACK ANNOYS ME, I HATE IT.
I only ever see it used to run ahead and snatch the power weaps.

Jetpack =/= Halo 4

4

I wouldn’t mind it coming back, but I think that a hit from the plasma pistol, or whatever it’s equivalent in Halo 4 is, should disable it and drop the player from the sky.

5

> I wouldn’t mind it coming back, but I think that a hit from the plasma pistol, or whatever it’s equivalent in Halo 4 is, should disable it and drop the player from the sky.

this:)

6

Jetpack users with normal gravity rise and fall faster than the default look sensitivity. One could dismiss that and/or disparage those who use the default look-sens, but it does mean that Jetpack grants an instant combat advantage over an average player by making the user harder to aim at.

An indisputable combat advantage is that a jetpacker gains a much easier shot on his opponents’ heads, while they have a harder time hitting his. Furthermore, that same jetpacker can grenade-spam as much as he wants, but the players below don’t have the same option (because frags only explode after a bounce, and stickies on a vertically-distant player are very likely to miss and land at the feet of the player that threw them). Further still, one cannot focus on a Jetpacker and on ground-bound enemy players at the same time (not without a 9:16 aspect-ratio TV, that is), so Jetpack makes teamshotting extremely easy.

All of these advantages are granted without requiring any significant expenditure of effort on the Jetpacker’s part.

> Think about it. As a basic function, it wouldn’t be fair to say it breaks map control - that’d be comparable to saying that jumping (also a basic function) breaks map control by allowing users to take shortcuts.

Under normal circumstances, jumping does not offer nearly as many travel shortcuts as Jetpack.

A Jetpacker can take three seconds to reach Reflection’s balcony or Countdown’s top level, while all other players must battle and fight their way along the map’s paths to reach those same areas. A Jetpacker can also, on an open map, fly high enough into the air to invalidate much, if not all, of a map’s cover pieces. A Jetpacker can do these things with very little, if any, expenditure of effort.

In the vast majority of cases, those same things cannot be achieved with ordinary jumping. In the rare cases where jumps can achieve those things, the jumps are generally far more restricted (i.e. along certain routes or scenery pieces) and tend to require more effort to pull off.

Ergo on maps with high ground or open air, Jetpack grants travel and combat advantages not proportionate to the effort involved in the AA’s usage. It is indeed “so bad.”

7

3 shots to the actual Jetpack should cause it to malfunction, randomly sending the user in a random direction from a malfunctioning Jetpack right before it explodes and kills the user.

8

> Jetpack users with normal gravity rise and fall faster than the default look sensitivity. One could dismiss that and/or disparage those who use the default look-sens, but it does mean that Jetpack grants an instant combat advantage over an average player by making the user harder to aim at.
>
> An indisputable combat advantage is that a jetpacker gains a much easier shot on his opponents’ heads, while they have a harder time hitting his. Furthermore, that same jetpacker can grenade-spam as much as he wants, but the players below don’t have the same option (because frags only explode after a bounce, and stickies on a vertically-distant player are very likely to miss and land at the feet of the player that threw them). Further still, one cannot focus on a Jetpacker and on ground-bound enemy players at the same time (not without a 9:16 aspect-ratio TV, that is), so Jetpack makes teamshotting extremely easy.
>
> All of these advantages are granted without requiring any significant expenditure of effort on the Jetpacker’s part.
>
>
>
> > Think about it. As a basic function, it wouldn’t be fair to say it breaks map control - that’d be comparable to saying that jumping (also a basic function) breaks map control by allowing users to take shortcuts.
>
> Under normal circumstances, jumping does not offer nearly as many travel shortcuts as Jetpack.
>
> A Jetpacker can take three seconds to reach Reflection’s balcony or Countdown’s top level, while all other players must battle and fight their way along the map’s paths to reach those same areas. A Jetpacker can also, on an open map, fly high enough into the air to invalidate much, if not all, of a map’s cover pieces. A Jetpacker can do these things with very little, if any, expenditure of effort.
>
> In the vast majority of cases, those same things cannot be achieved with ordinary jumping. In the rare cases where jumps can achieve those things, the jumps are generally far more restricted (i.e. along certain routes or scenery pieces) and tend to require more effort to pull off.
>
> Ergo on maps with high ground or open air, Jetpack grants travel and combat advantages not proportionate to the effort involved in the AA’s usage. It is indeed “so bad.”

this too:D

9

I don’t really agree with that (in normal gravity)

If, say, 343 decided to make a REAL zero gravity mechanic instead of just LOW gravity, then the thruster would be the default mechanic to travel in vacuum instead of sprint (if it makes it to the sequel).
If that was a mechanic the “thruster” would probably be like zero g in dead space 2. It would also be very much a risk-reward, if you run out of stamina you will float randomly with no control (and be an easy target) until it recharges. However I must say real “no gravity” mechanics in an fps would be all out hard to pull off.

10

Or just no AA’s at all… Thats my preferred Halo game.

11

Jetpack is just damaging to game-play period.

12

> Jetpack is just damaging to game-play period.

Oh no a guy is flying in the air with a loud jetpack? What do we do?

Headshot the jetpacking

Real damaging.

13

Halo 4 needs to bring back the classic halo formula, this means no jetpack because every player must be equal!

14

> Halo 4 needs to bring back the classic halo formula, this means no jetpack because every player must be equal!

^Obviously he read the OP.

15

> Jetpack users with normal gravity rise and fall faster than the default look sensitivity. One could dismiss that and/or disparage those who use the default look-sens, but it does mean that Jetpack grants an instant combat advantage over an average player by making the user harder to aim at.
>
> An indisputable combat advantage is that a jetpacker gains a much easier shot on his opponents’ heads, while they have a harder time hitting his. Furthermore, that same jetpacker can grenade-spam as much as he wants, but the players below don’t have the same option (because frags only explode after a bounce, and stickies on a vertically-distant player are very likely to miss and land at the feet of the player that threw them). Further still, one cannot focus on a Jetpacker and on ground-bound enemy players at the same time (not without a 9:16 aspect-ratio TV, that is), so Jetpack makes teamshotting extremely easy.

But you will always have a jetpack to meet the other jetpacker’s height.

> Under normal circumstances, jumping does not offer nearly as many travel shortcuts as Jetpack.

Does that matter? Say the game’s load-outs consisted of the ability to melee, the ability to jump, and the ability to go invis. The jumping ability would be “a problem” because people could get many advantages that those without jumping wouldn’t get. Yet, if you give jumping to everyone, there’s no problem whatsoever because everyone gets the advantages and everyone can use them to get on equal ground, just like the jetpack would if implemented similarly.

> Ergo on maps with high ground or open air, Jetpack grants travel and combat advantages not proportionate to the effort involved in the AA’s usage. It is indeed “so bad.”

I don’t see how that’s relevant; I’m not talking about Jetpack as an AA, so it doesn’t matter how proportionately effective it is to AA’s.

16

> Oh no a guy is flying in the air with a loud jetpack? What do we do?
>
> Headshot the jetpacking
>
> Real damaging.

You make it sound like a nuisance to an individual rather than a hindrance on the entire system.
It has been said countless times and really everyone should be able to recite it better than their national anthem. The same can be applied to AL “Oh no a stationary glowing invincible guy!” but really I would just like to avoid argument.

As we both know the two arguments on the table here could represent a large portion of people in this forum and for arguments sake lets just say that both ways of thinking have their own merits.

17

i liked the jet pack, but it didnt fit well with the map design in Reach. If implemented right, it could be awesome.

18

> I wouldn’t mind it coming back, but I think that a hit from the plasma pistol, or whatever it’s equivalent in Halo 4 is, should disable it and drop the player from the sky.

As well as that, I think it should malfunction and not be able to work for the rest of the life.

19

> Halo 4 needs to bring back the classic halo formula, this means no jetpack because every player must be equal!

No AA’s will make me very happy.

20

> > Halo 4 needs to bring back the classic halo formula, this means no jetpack because every player must be equal!
>
> No AA’s will make me very happy.