Alright, so it seems that alot of people seem to be arguing over things like sprint, clamber, ads, spartan abilities, etc., but I wanna know what you guys think of armor abilities and equipment. Imo, armor abilities from Reach and 4 are way better than spartan abilities. The equipment mechanic in Halo 3 was also nice and I would like to see that return aswell. However, if they add both of them, I think it could cause a few gameplay problems. Like what button to press, or just add balancing problems in general.
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> Alright, so it seems that alot of people seem to be arguing over things like sprint, clamber, ads, spartan abilities, etc., but I wanna know what you guys think of armor abilities and equipment. Imo, armor abilities from Reach and 4 are way better than spartan abilities. The equipment mechanic in Halo 3 was also nice and I would like to see that return aswell. However, if they add both of them, I think it could cause a few gameplay problems. Like what button to press, or just add balancing problems in general.
AAs are discussed here a lot as well. and a lot of users here (including me) would love to see them back. Not as loadouts though!
Halo works best when the sandbox is modular, while all base mechanics of the gameplay remain rudimentary and are only than build upon. H4 and H5G biggest mistake was to introduce new base mechanics instead of enhancing the supplementary aspects of the game like level interaction, AI behavior, mobility… The general idea of the community from what I can tell is to use AAs in a similar fashion to H3’s equipment, in other words as pick-ups on the maps and maybe even limiting the usage or at least recalibrating the cool-down timer. Needles to say I agree! AA are not bad, it’s how the abilities were used in Reach and especially in H4 (plus making sprint a base mechanic) that created issues with the gameplay in first place.
Personally It would also love if player could modify all stats from a power-up and an AA in Forge. We also could add a class or loadout system limited to Forge modes and in a Firefight variant, so player get more freedom and options to create a bigger variety of game-modes and maps, while at the same time not impacting the classic modes. Also by making everything *“forgeble”… forge-able? For…*ADAPTABLE, If something doesn’t work in a classic mode like 4v4, 2v2 or BTB it would be easier to fix. Just replace the AA or the power-up or change its stats or cooldown! 
But again, nothing new! There are plenty of people discussing Halo’s “modularity” already. Don’t know if this is the first tread in Hi centered around this specific topic though!
i am not a big fan of spartan abilities, and i hope they dont implement them in infinite, i dont care if we have sprint, but i could care less for boost. or maybe they can have spartan abilities as a choice to have like in halo reach where you could pick up what you want.
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> Alright, so it seems that alot of people seem to be arguing over things like sprint, clamber, ads, spartan abilities, etc., but I wanna know what you guys think of armor abilities and equipment. Imo, armor abilities from Reach and 4 are way better than spartan abilities. The equipment mechanic in Halo 3 was also nice and I would like to see that return aswell. However, if they add both of them, I think it could cause a few gameplay problems. Like what button to press, or just add balancing problems in general.
I’m fine with Halo 3’s equipment for the same reason I’m fine with power weapons; you have to earn them.
The problem with games like Halo: Reach and Halo 4 is that Armor Abilities cannot work in a competitive environment. Instead of one player outsmarting the other, they simply have to hit the left bumper and fly away from the fight. Halo 3’s equipment is guilty of this too, but at least you have to earn equipment and can lose it.
I’m generally fine with Spartan Abilities in Halo 5: Guardians as every player has access to every ability at once. It isn’t about whose ability benefits them in specific encounters as much as who uses the abilities best.
I’d rather have a Halo game with weapons, grenades, melee, and that’s it. However, either Halo 3’s approach or Halo 5: Guardians’ is - in my eyes - the best way of including them if they have to be there.
I think map pick-ups in general are obviously where it’s at. They have been in Halo since day one, they are part of the backbone of map control, they can require some degree of planning to use effectively, they can be placed and removed at will by the map designer to control the flow and make each map slightly more unique.
However, when it comes to armor abilities and equipment, I think most of them aren’t really that great. With both of them there’s the issue that even as map pick-ups, they don’t require that same amount of planning to use as power-ups do since they can be picked up and used later. This means that what they don’t have in strategy, they need to make up for with something else.
Armor abilities have at least the advantage that if the ability is powerful enough, the player with the particular ability becomes an asset, which changes the team dynamic. This means that armor abilities can be put to a role similar to a rocket launcher, where there is one on the map, and whoever has it has a significant advantage. Some armor abilities are better for this than others. For instance, I think Jetpack and Evade make for some great power abilities, being really powerful in the right hands, but still not actually making the player any less vulnerable to attacks. On the other hand, Armor Lock, Drop Shield, and Hardlight Shield still suffer from the same issues they had as loadout abilties: they just delay the outcome of the encounter at the press of a button. There is no meaningful strategy to their use, they’re too reactionary. Then there’s also the Hologram, which is just kind of a joke, and the Active Camo, which really functions better as a power-up.
When it comes to equipment, they’re worse off than armor abilities by virtue of being single use, since they can inherently have less impact on the game. The equipment we had in Halo 3 doesn’t fare very well. We have the Bubble Shield which suffers from the same issues as its successor Drop Shield, and all the other instant momentary invulnerability at the press of a button abilities. The Regenerator and Deployable cover are in a similar category. Power Drain and Flare have no reason not to be grenades. Radar Jammer has no place in the game, since I don’t believe the game should have radar to begin with. Trip Mine is practically only meaningful in BTB, and Gravity Lift just doesn’t accomplish much at all.
That is all of course purely from the point of view of depth. By nature of beingpick-ups, they are completely map and gametype specific, and thus can be non-existent in more competitive playlists while being in more casual playlists. Since they’re not core mechanics, their implementation is more flexible overall, and players will be less passionate about whether a single ability appears in a given playlist or on a given map or not. And one thing I can’t deny is that they can be very fun to use or run into. Since most players don’t have them, the match isn’t saturated with them as is the case with Spartan Abilities, which means that running into a player with, say, Evade would be refreshing rather than just another encounter. Equipment rarely accomplishes anything significant. I doubt most Trip Mines deployed in Halo 3 ever ran into a vehicle during their short life, which made it ever more exciting when you actually got a kill with one. Very rarely, you might just happen to have a Grav Lift as a Warthog was driving towards you, which would make for an interesting way to take out a vehicle. The pointlessness of most equipment in competitive play translates to somewhat of an advantage in casual play, since the rarity of ever having anything useful come out of them made the instances where they were useful feel so much more special.
If I had to decide about what items and abilities appear in Halo Infinite, I would probably take a mix of few carefully chosen armor abilities and equipment from previous games, along with the standard power-ups and some new items. The equipment would probably largely be geared towards BTB, and might also appear in more casual playlists, while the armor abilities would be placed on maps with the design of the specific map in mind to augment the style of play of that map. However, this really concerns a very specific selection of abilities and equipment. The majority of them I don’t think deserve another round.
Spartan abilities are alright depending on what the abilities are. Halo reach abilities were alright imo but halo 4 abilities were garbage. Spv3 also had abilities of sorts but they were more basic things like visor upgrade and sprint which would be fine by me.
Equipment is fun and amazing, bring back equipment
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For Infinite I’d remove spartan abilities but keep sprint as an option for custom games and forge.
Spartan Abilities IMO is what’s keeping 343 from making Elites playable, I’d be glad to see them gone with Infinite.
I didn’t like Reach/4 style abilities because you could choose which ones to use. I prefer H5’s system because at least everyone has the same thing, everyone on a level playing field. Though if I could choose between abilities or no abilities, I’d choose the latter.
Regarding equipment. I’m fine with them in social.
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> Spartan Abilities IMO is what’s keeping 343 from making Elites playable, I’d be glad to see them gone with Infinite.
I don’t think 343i are restricted from including Elites as much as they don’t want to. I’ve never seen anything suggesting that Halo 4 was ever intended to have playable Elites which suggests that the decision to exclude them was done very early on. What you have to remember is that Halo 4 - and Halo 5: Guardians - are made for the casual market. For example…
. Sprinting
. Killcams
. Customizable loadouts
. ADS
. Killstreaks
. Perks
. Gameplay-altering progression
. Accelerated progression through the purchase of other products
. The use of dubstep in the Halo 4 UNSC weapons trailer
. Etc.
Call of Duty, Battlefield, whatever fans want to play as humans so 343i give only humans.
Conceptually, I have never had a problem with armor abilities. The main issue I had with them in both Reach and Halo 4 is entirely to do with loadouts.
Loadouts were always the problem but instead of doing the obvious and designing them around being map pickups, they just gave every player a bunch of identical, minor abilities which is its own can of worms.
I certainly have problems with specific armor abilities, sprint and defensive abiilities(armor lock, drop shield, hardlight, regen) being the biggest offenders, but most there are a lot of issues here an there with most of them. A lot of said issues are due to the fact they were designed around being map pickups. Jetpack is probably the best example of an AA done right as it has its uses as a map pickup(See Reach V7 MLG) and doesn’t interrupt your ability to shoot.
I would be happy to see armor abilities return if they were designed from the ground up to be map pickups(or more powerful campaign only options ala camo). The “fourth leg of fun” has never been inherently bad idea, it has just been bad implementation.
I miss Bubble Shield and Grav Lift, but the rest aren’t really that needed.
Why don’t we get the Spartan & Armor Abilities…
and combine them into equipment, Halo 3 style!
I’ve always liked Armor Abilities, If they were going to bring them back and tweek them. I’d like to see them do something like Thruster Pack did and link other abilities with them. For Example, Thruster Pack can also be linked to Stabilizers, Ground Pound and Infinite Sprint for sure. Its debatable if Shoulder Charge, Slide and limited Sprint could be linked directly.
Lets say for instance a regeneration field, in the past it just regened a players shields, What if linking a new ability to it could regen vehicles? or replenish Armor ability power? Now its a better support ability.
Or Jetpack. That could have Stabilizers and maybe Ground Pound? But not the multi directional function of Thrusters.
I could give more thoughts but I’m short on time ATM. I might add in later. What are your thoughts?
I liked the even starts aspect of the spartan abilities, I liked the unique play of the armor abilities, I didn’t really use the halo 3 equipment much. It’s all good, but needs to be thought about carefully in multiplayer context. For campaign you can add it all and more.
To continue my earlier post. I’d like to see Thrusters swapped with Evade from Reach. This would eliminate Stabilizers, Ground Pound, and maybe Spartan Charge and Unlimited Sprint. But we’d still have a multi-direction Evade movement, while Thrusters could be a swapped out AA for other ones. Evade would just need to be mapped to a Double tap crouch or something, and if Equipment is added it could be mapped to a double tap reload.
Invis though I’d like to see that brought in as equipment so you can carry it somewhere to use it more effectively, without making it over powered. Or they could do both and have the AA invis less effective or have the equipment invis partially invis proximity teamates?
Overall there is a lot of possibilities. It would be nice to see everything in the game and have it it customs and forge. I’d rather see that than the fake grunts and weird stuff in forge.
Not everything, AA’s or Equipment needs to be in every playlist and map, thats up to 343I’s matchmaking team to have maps and weapon placements to be more competitive for ranked and casual for social. So not every AA or Equipment would need to be finely tuned for competitive play. And who knows maybe Jetpack BR Slayer could become the next popular competitve playlist, we won’t know unless they put it in the game to try them out. If they don’t work out then they just don’t put them on the maps, that easy.
Ok, so I have played every Halo game(except Halo wars 2 but that’s just because of delay) and finished each ones campaign. I’ve also played the multiplayer for each game. I personally love clamber, slide, thrust, and sprint. While I am passive to sparten charge and ground pound. I don’t want to see them go. Firstly, have sprint and slide and clamber are realistic and make sense to something a Spartan would do. Furthermore, in Halo 3 if you, a Spartan, we’re getting shot, you would jump slowly, or continue walking slowy. Now with sprint and slide imagine a Spartan getting shot ducking behind cover to retaliate. It’s like a graceful dance between two or more opposing forces. In general, I don’t want to see slide and sprint and clamber gone in Halo infinite. I like those types of things. Hell, my two favorite Halo games to date are Halo Reach and Halo 5 for there multiplayer. If you don’t get so upset about the little things and see the cup half full side of things you would enjoy those things because there just fun. 