Every time a new map pack comes out, we have this problem. Either the achievements are completely out of your control, or everybody is boosting and gameplay suffers. When I read the list, I thought “Oh good, play games on all the maps, that’s reasonable. And look, these achievements seem to be cumulative, rather than all in one game, maybe they’ve learned… oh, wait, what? No…” 343 should really consider the effect they have before throwing them out there, as I will explain.
First, that healing team mates with a regen shield one. I was in a game where 3 of my team mates were waiting in the back, shooting each other then running in to each others’ regen fields. Clever, but half my team was busy, so we suffered a horrible defeat.
Then there’s dissolving enemies with forerunner weapons. You may have noticed that none of the maps have forerunner weapons on them, so you can only get this through personal ordnance. (Pulse grenades are useless so don’t count). First, this requires some luck. In all the games yesterday, I wasn’t offered any forerunner weapons, which put me at a major disadvantage. Luckily, my fortune seemed to change today, but there is still the issue that luck is a major factor in getting this achievement. However, the greatest problem is that the only game mode you can call personal ordnance in is infinity slayer. That means this is usually chosen over all other game types, so I rarely get to play objective, which is such a shame.
Now on to the worst of the bunch, assassinating a player using a hardlight shield. Now, if nobody on the enemy team is using a shield, then this achievement is impossible. Not difficult, not something you can work towards, IMPOSSIBLE. There is nothing you can do, there is nothing your team can do, it is entirely dependent on an enemy player choosing to use a particular ability, which is rarely seen anyway. In fact the first time I saw a hardlight shield was today. I noticed they were also staying still, and let me assassinate them for the achievement. I sent them a “thank you” message, and have been using a shield in my recent games, trying to pay the favour forward. PLEASE, EVERYONE should learn from this. Try to use a hard light shield more, and maybe even let someone get the achievement. You never know, it could be you on the other end one day.
And then there’s the other problems. When trying to get the splatter achievement, I would steal all my teams vehicles, including wraith and banshee, and only use them for splatters. The whole team suffered, and I don’t care, it’s the only thing I can do to get 343 to acknowledge their mistake.
Oh, and of course we can only get these achievements while this playlist is active, because I sure as hell won’t be seeing them in other playlist due to the abysmal DLC integration. It’s OK, it’s not like this has been an issue for 3 games.
Urgh… rant over. Please, 343, when you design achievements, think how a game full of people focusing on nothing but obtaining them would look.