Alot of the “Spartan Abilities” Forums Threads and Status’ on both Twitter and Facebook are “Is Spartan Abilities just another name for Armor Abilities…” Or “Spartan Abilities the new Armor Abilities?” etc.
I think part of the reason of disambiguaty between what “Spartan Abilities” are, is partly due to what seems like a placeholder name for the game mechanic. Instead of calling them “Spartan Abilities” call them Augmentations… because that is what makes the Spartans have their certain abilities… and this way it will better separate it from its AA and Equipment counterparts…
Equipment - A pickup item that allows a certain advantage, through no convention combat.
Armor Abilites - A gadget that allows a certain advantage, using the Mjolnir Power Systems.
Augmentations - A Spartan’s capabilities in combat situations, which is not used by normal humans.
The Augmentations could be referring to the base player traits which allow:
Frankie confirmed that “Spartan abilities” simply refers to base player traits and features such as dual wielding and boarding. I doubt “Spartan abilities” is their actual moniker like Armour abilities. They likely just meant “new abilities that your Spartans can do”, but “Spartan Abilities” sounds more impressive and snappier in a trailer than “new features” or the long-winded explanation I provided.
Either way, I really hope sliding, rolling, vaulting, blind fire etc don’t make it into the game. People complain enough about sprint as it is…
> Frankie confirmed that “Spartan abilities” simply refers to base player traits and features such as dual wielding and boarding. I doubt “Spartan abilities” is their actual moniker like Armour abilities. They likely just meant “new abilities that your Spartans can do”, but “Spartan Abilities” sounds more impressive and snappier in a trailer than “new features” or the long-winded explanation I provided.
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> Either way, I really hope sliding, rolling, vaulting, blind fire etc don’t make it into the game. People complain enough about sprint as it is…
When I first saw the trailer I thought “Man, ‘Spartan Abilities’ sounds a lot better rolling off of the tongue than ‘Armor Abilities.’ Yeah, I can dig it.” Then I found out they are completely different. We’ll see how it is.
Augmentations is probably more descriptive, but i don’t know if it’s really any better. In my mind, to augment means to enhance something you can already do. The things you list aren’t all things a spartan can already do. Actually, I don’t even know what some of them are, period!
Semantics, I guess. I still need more information about what we’re talking about before I debate the name. I do wonder how they’ll distinguish themselves from something like Sprint in H4, which was a base trait severely disliked by some.
I can’t really think of a name that wouldn’t have its own downsides. “Abilities” actually describes these mechanics very well and from a descriptive point of view is the best. The problem are the connotations to Armor Abilities.
“Augmentations” avoids those connotations, but as pulvis ira pointed out, it’s more synonymous to “enhancements”. Unless you know the Halo universe well and can make the connection to Spartan’s augmentations, “augmentations” gives the wrong message.
In the trailer the “ability” shorthand is probably the best. But in the future, I would rather see each of these new mechanics referred to by their own name and any terms that try to group them be avoided. These “Spartan abilities” are not a new feature, they are a bunch of separate mechanics like jump and melee. They should not be talked about as if they were a single entity or somehow related.
I really don’t think that “Spartan Abilities” is a proper noun–that is, it’s not a name for something. Notice how “abilities” was not capitalized in the trailer? I think they are just abilities that only Spartans have, such as dual-wielding, boarding, or perhaps even the use of thruster/booster packs.
> I can’t really think of a name that wouldn’t have its own downsides. “Abilities” actually describes these mechanics very well and from a descriptive point of view is the best. The problem are the connotations to Armor Abilities.
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> “Augmentations” avoids those connotations, but as pulvis ira pointed out, it’s more synonymous to “enhancements”. Unless you know the Halo universe well and can make the connection to Spartan’s augmentations, “augmentations” gives the wrong message.
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> In the trailer the “ability” shorthand is probably the best. But in the future, I would rather see each of these new mechanics referred to by their own name and any terms that try to group them be avoided. These “Spartan abilities” are not a new feature, they are a bunch of separate mechanics like jump and melee. They should not be talked about as if they were a single entity or somehow related.
Frankie himself even said the wording was misleading. I see the complication though, they wanted to announce there were new “abilities” in the game without revealing what they are exactly.
> > I can’t really think of a name that wouldn’t have its own downsides. “Abilities” actually describes these mechanics very well and from a descriptive point of view is the best. The problem are the connotations to Armor Abilities.
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> > “Augmentations” avoids those connotations, but as pulvis ira pointed out, it’s more synonymous to “enhancements”. Unless you know the Halo universe well and can make the connection to Spartan’s augmentations, “augmentations” gives the wrong message.
> >
> > In the trailer the “ability” shorthand is probably the best. But in the future, I would rather see each of these new mechanics referred to by their own name and any terms that try to group them be avoided. These “Spartan abilities” are not a new feature, they are a bunch of separate mechanics like jump and melee. They should not be talked about as if they were a single entity or somehow related.
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> Frankie himself even said the wording was misleading. I see the complication though, they wanted to announce there were new “abilities” in the game without revealing what they are exactly.
Obviously. But I hope “Spartan abilities”, or even worse “Spartan Abilities” doesn’t catch on. It’s something they need need to avoid in the future and concentrate on the individual mechanics. Wouldn’t actually hurt if they just referred to them as “new mechanics”, whenever it’s absolutely not possible to refer to them individually. Although I’m not sure whether the word “mechanic” in the context of games is well understood outside the bubble I live in. But semantically, “mechanic” is definitely the right term to use.
New mechanic could apply to things outside of base traits though?
Honestly, the instant I heard “spartan abilities”, I was sure they meant new abilities you can perform.
I don’t believe “spartan abilities” is meant to be a coined term like armor abilities though, it’s just a simple term to explain what they were talking about. It’s just them saying “your spartan has new abilities”. It doesn’t need its own name.
> “Augmentations” avoids those connotations, but as pulvis ira pointed out, it’s more synonymous to “enhancements”.