Everything started with Halo 3’s introduction of equipment.
A tool that allowed the player to enhance him/herself with an advantage via an effective activation/use of it.
It was indeed a nice addition to Halo’s multiplayer gameplay but nothing more than that.
Equipment did not have a significant impact on the overall gameplay. How games or maps played or how they were designed did not change. It did not really matter if you played with or without Equipment.
The reason for that is that Equipment was a downgrade of the actual concept. The concept was downgraded to an extremely limited temporary and situational advantage that had to be obtained on the map what limited it even more.
Reach built upon H3’s Equipment and introduced Armor Abilities.
Selectable tools at spawn that enhance the player with a specific advantage with unlimited uses and in combination with a recharge time.
Reach made AAs a more significant part of the game but they were still not an inherent part.
How games or maps played has suddenly changed but how they were designed has remained the same.
Reach’s implementation of AAs did receive a lot of negative feedback in comparison to H3’s Equipment. But why?
Of course there was a lot of imbalance among the different AAs and individual flaws as well but I think the main reason was that the gametypes and maps were simply not designed for them. Especially AAs that enhance movement (Sprint, Jetpack) attracted a lot of negative attention, became “annoying”, “overpowered” or “gamebreaking” simply because they were not considered when designing a map or gametype.
H3’s Equipment did not attract the same attention like Reach’s AAs (even though the game wasn’t really designed with it as well) because its impact on the game was simply too minor and restricted.
I.e.: You can abuse/break maps with a Gravlift in the same way like you can with Jetpack, the only difference is that with the Equipment you can abuse/ break it only once and perhaps even only once per game while the AA allows you unlimited freedom in that regard.
So, we have seen two different versions of the same flawed implementation of equipment/AAs, in my opinion.
I think the issue is that the concept of equipment/AAs has been treated as an additional element of the game instead as an inherent element.
The game (gametypes/maps) has to be designed for them or rather they have to be considered when you design it.
They have to become important context when you want to make them work well and develop their full potential.
What I want to say with that is that I think that you have to implement AAs into the design progress and not add them later to the result additionally.
I.e.:
You design a map with Jetpack as a main context.
The result will be that the AA Jetpack isn’t a limited temporary and situational advantage anymore but an inherent part of gameplay on that map. It became a necessity to move around and for effective combat.
Of course other AAs won’t work with such a map but it would work extremely well with the correct AA(s) (in this case Jetpack) and it will create an unique and interesting experience.
I intentionally picked an AA that enhances movement as an example because they have a direct impact on map design, hence two different “movement AAs” cannot coexist with each other or with different AAs in general (except you make the movement AA a default ability) as selectable options on the same map.
What I think Reach did right was the preset AA selection at spawn but it offered/allowed the wrong AAs for the wrong maps and gametypes (but of course they weren’t really designed for them anyway).
So, instead of that it should be a correct preset AA selection at spawn for the maps and gametypes that have been designed with them in mind.
Of course AAs would still need individual tweaks (active duration, recharge duration, amount of uses, effects, weak points, trade-offs, visual clues, etc.), what can be achieved later on as well though, but as long as the concept of AAs isn’t implemented properly you can tweak them individually as much as you want but you still won’t get a proper result.
In conclusion, I think Armor Abilities should become an inherent part of the game design, instead of an additional element, to achieve a proper development of their full potential and to take the game experience to another level.
Feel free to state your opinion on my opinion or your opinion on the subject in general.
