> 2533274825830455;1011:
> You see, to me if you misjudge an angle or a distance, you’ve failed, and that’s it. You don’t deserve to save yourself, because you should’ve known where you can jump, you should’ve gotten your timing and direction right. That’s the skill of jumping. I value the challenge of movement, and therefore see the ability of Clamber to save a failed jump as a definite negative. Apart from the animation, that’s the main feature of it I’m looking to get rid of. But if that’s exactly the feature you value, then there’s no middle ground for us. We just enjoy the game for fundamentally different reasons.
This sort of mentality disturbs me.
“You have failed.”
“You don’t deserve any chance whatsoever to still achieve your objective.”
“You should have known.”
“You should have done it correctly to begin with.”
“Clamber is a get-out-of-jail-free card for people that refuse to learn to correctly jump (as I did).”
Sounds like one of those stressed-out high school basketball coaches that gives a player the once-over because he missed a catch or flubbed a basket. That player has no right to feel good about himself any more because he failed. A good player gets it right *every time.*I mean, the guy that took a shot and missed does not deserve the chance to jump back up and try to tip the ball in. No sir. He’s done. Should probably just leave.
We have finally arrived at the definition of “Classic Movement Mechanics”: basic movement speed and jump height. These were things that either did not change much from CE through 3 or changes were masked by map design. These things determined how long it took to get from point A to B on any given map. You knew how long it was going to take you, and you knew it was going to take your opponents the same amount of time. Some would say this made the game “fair”, and some would say it made the game exceedingly predictable. Crouch jumping, flag tossing and grenade jumping were exploits some players learned and many others copied. They added a bit of unpredictability, as well as a bit of separation between knowledgeable and less-knowledgeable players. All that really happened with Reach was that the additional movement abilities were hard-coded into the game via Armor Abilities (specifically Sprint and Jet Pack). Sprint cut some time off getting to point B, and Jet Pack let you avoid some obstacles along the way. Troublesome stuff for players that, consciously or unconsciously, developed a feel for the rhythm of those H2 and 3 multiplayer maps.
Another issue is this business of Sprint forcing maps to be made larger because… let me see if I can get this right… the developers determine how long it should take to get from point A to point B and if Sprint is in the game then A and B need to be further apart so that it still takes the requisite amount of time. I take this to mean that if the developer puts a rocket launcher on the map and decides it should take a player 10 seconds to reach that rocket launcher from spawn, then the rocket launcher has to be further away if the player can sprint. If that is how maps are designed then there isn’t much point to this discussion. I mean, to me it would be simpler to just make the map and let players discover whether or not something other than walk, run or jump will make any difference. I would suspect that the differences are the same for both sides. I don’t think movement mechanics should influence map design, and I don’t think map design should preclude any decent acceptable movement mechanic. I know a lot of people will explain to me why one affects the other. Go ahead, I can’t stop you. Just so you know, I have heard it all before. It doesn’t help that many map designers have this mentality. I would venture this is why all developer-made maps “suck” (at least until it’s re-made in the next release), and why many player-made maps are found “interesting”, if not “pleasurable”. Both Bungie and 343i have been all over making good campaign maps which, for the most part, are absolutely designed to feature a weapon and/or movement mechanic. They had to put a chasm in the map to “force” you to use a Jet Pack in Reach, otherwise you may not have bothered. They were not concerned about Sprint on that map. Multiplayer maps have to assume everything is available. In essence, no advanced movement mechanic should give anyone a clear advantage on a multiplayer map. Many pre-Reach players tend to blame Halo’s woes on Abilities and the maps that were created to account for them. An often-heard complaint is about what Abilities do to maps. We shouldn’t have certain abilities because of the maps that will have to be made to compensate for them. A lot of those arguments sound like the arguments against vehicles. Indeed, Abilities don’t seem to be an issue on BTB maps.
This thread is supposed to be about the “return” of “classic” movement mechanics, but it seems to be more about which Abilities need to go so that pre-Reach players will return. I think it’s safe to say that it’s not really the presence or absence of any particular Ability (Armor or Spartan) that has influenced Halo’s current online popularity. A lot of our perceptions about the validity of any particular movement mechanic has more to do with the implementation rather than the mechanic itself. A lot of people found Armor Lock, for example, to be more palatable once they took away complete invulnerability (“more palatable” means they disliked it less, not they suddenly loved it). Abilities are meant to merely allow a player the ability to play in a way that is more comfortable for them, or to be more handy in a tactical situation. Instead they are seen as “threats” to “classic movement” that must be eliminated, except for the ones you like. This thread could continue for another 50 pages but it will all be “sprint should stay and ground pound should go, no ground pound should stay but get rid of spartan charge, no keep spartan charge but get rid of clamber, etc.” Keeping any or none will not influence Halo’s current popularity. It does not hinge on movement mechanics, “classic” or otherwise. The old players are never coming back, and it does not matter if they do. As Tsassi so eloquently pointed out, all the previous Halo titles had serious flaws. None was perfect. There’s a lot about those old movement mechanics that we were not satisfied with. We complained when a particular game was current, and when the new game came out it was those mechanics that sucked and why wasn’t the new game more like the old one that we used to hate? 343i has bent itself into a pretzel in an attempt to bend over backwards trying to get older players to like Abilities.
Forget it, 343i. The old players “got good” playing the old games. They won’t play the new games. They are no longer your target market. There are probably more than enough new players to start a whole new player base that is more open to possibilities and less intent on reliving past glories. Halo has to either move on or stop entirely. Its history has always been moving on and taking risks. Failing is good. That’s how you learn.
How quickly you learn is on you.
