No, I’m not trolling. Invasion is pretty much the only reason I still continue to play Halo. It’s my favorite playlist, and I do not believe the Reach TU would improve Invasion. I intend to discuss each aspect of the Title Update and the massive changes it would have to the gameplay of Invasion. As a preface, I would like to point out my overall experience with Invasion. I’ve played over 3,154 games and have won over 2,900 of them. I’ve written various guides for players and forgers when it comes to Invasion.
These are the various points I intend to expound upon:
- Invasion is the only Reach-based gametype
- Bleedthrough ruins the skill of close-quarters combat
- Bloom Reduction is Unnecessary due to Spartans vs. Elites physics.
- Armor Lock is not overpowered in Invasion and serves its role properly.
- Active Camo is also not overpowered in Invasion and serves its role properly.
- Removal of Sword Block is also an unacceptable change.
1. Invasion is the only Reach-based Gametype
Of all of the new things added to Halo in Reach, Invasion is by far the largest in scale. Halo received a new gametype designed around one-sided objective gameplay featuring Spartans vs. Elites. Invasion is unique to reach, and all of the Reach physics work properly in Invasion. It is my opinion that the TU changes to Reach reflect a desire to make Reach behave as much like previous version of Halo as possible. While I am not completely against those changes in other playlists, I am strongly against their addition to Invasion because they will cause major harm to the basic gameplay of the playlist.
Invasion, unlike most Halo playlists, is about outsmarting your opponents at every turn. Invasion is a playlist about intelligent decision-making, and not pure FPS skill. I mean no disrespect to the other playlists, as I played well over 3000 games of Halo 3 BTB, but many of those playlists are about out-shooting your opponent in confrontations, whereas Invasion is about outmaneuvering your opponents and using all of the weapons you have available to you where applicable. I find that many of the Vanilla Reach playlists are DMR- and power weapon-dominated. In a game of BTB, it is not unsurprising to see someone who picked up 15 kills earn 10 or more with DMR. However, in Invasion, a player can pick up 15 kills with the DMR as his ToD with only 4 kills or less, because in Invasion you play as two different species and use a variety of weapons to achieve your objective.
Moreover, Invasion is the only playlists that features different loadouts that use different weapon sets with different armor abilities. Each loadout has a specific style of gameplay to it, and certain loadouts counter each other to keep them balanced.
I will explain more in my later points, but I am strongly against what I suspect is an attempt to force Invasion to feel like Halo 3, because Invasion did not exist in Halo 3. This is a Reach gametype that I believe should maintain the original Reach physics.
2. Bleedthrough ruins the skill of close-quarters combat
I never thought I would say that, but I stand by the title of this point. I earned over 37,000 BR kills in my time in Halo 3, so I am quite familiar with the nature of BR battles. In Invasion, I have over 16,265 combined kills between the Needle Rifle, DMR, and Pistol. However, I also have over 6,808 AR kills, 5,065 Needler kills, and 4,087 Melee kills.
In the first tier of Invasion, all players spawn with automatic weapons. Players may pick up a few precision weapons, but Tier 1 Invasion features a lot of close quarters combat. In CQC, players must rely on either shooting down their target first, or timing their melees properly. In many situations in an almost-melee situation. I will continue to AR down my opponent as he attempts to melee me and misses to win the fight. Additionally, I will allow him to melee me early as I keep firing my AR, and then melee him as his shields drop. If the TU goes into Invasion, almost every CQC fight in Tier 1 Invasion will end in a tie.
The TU allows players to kill each other when they get their opponent down to about half shields or less. As such, any amount of bullets or plasma players fire into each other will damn-near bring them close enough to death-by-melee. With the TU, timing your melee against an opponent at close quarters will no longer matter, and many Elite weapons will become overpowered.
Currently, it takes three plasma bolts from a plasma pistol to break a Spartan’s shields. With the new settings, it will only take two to bring them to death-by-melee range. It takes 8-14 AR bullets to break an Elite’s shields. With the new settings, it will only take 4-7 bullets to bring an Elite into death-by-melee range. As you can see, this can be extremely problematic in a gametype that features lots of close-quarters confrontations.
3. Bloom Reduction is Unnecessary due to Spartans vs. Elites physics.
Invasion does not require a reduction in bloom due to the Spartans vs. Elites physics. Elite headboxes are larger than Spartans’, and as such, Elites are more vulnerable to DMR headshots. Conversely, Spartan headboxes are smaller, but Needle Rifles have less bloom to them. This creates a balanced fight between Spartans and Elites in Invasion. An Elite picking up a DMR understands that a DMR has greater bloom than a Needle Rifle, and a Spartan using a Needle Rifle understands that Elites have more shields than they do and will require more shots than expected to kill.
By reducing the bloom in Invasion, it increases the effectiveness of DMRs and Needle Rifles over range. As anyone who has played Invasion can tell you, it is extremely difficult to escape DMR and Needler Rifle team fire on Boneyard and Spire Tier 1. One of the saving effects of bloom for Elites is that they are less likely to get headshotted as they move around from cover to cover. In addition, reducing bloom greater reduces vehicle effectiveness, because now players can teamshoot vehicles more quickly at longer ranges.
I understand reducing the bloom to 85% in the normal playlists where Spartans fight each other constantly and DMRs basically dominate the playlist, but Invasion does not play like that at all.
