> > Now a lot of people hate AAs because some are overpowered e.g armor lock.
>
> People currently hate AAs because players can spawn with them, thus creating more random gameplay and some give drastically unfair advantages to players directly off spawn (Camo/Jetpack.)
Meh I’ve never bought into that argument. You said it yourself you SPAWN with AA’s. Where’s the inconsistency? There’s a definite probability associated with loadout choice, say 1/6? modified only by map/gametype selection and personal preference.
With on map spawns you’re entirely at the mercy of chaos theory. You spawn, so what are the odds your spawn takes you within a range where you can hopefully make it to item A? Ok you’re in range, so what are the odds you’ll actually take that pathway and not choose some other strategy? You might assume, “hey I want that so the odds are 1:1 in this case,” but remember we’re trying to guess what a player will have at their disposal, so you have to consider the chance of possible strategies that can happen here if you are to reason out what your opponent may have. Ok so the person in question spawned in range and chose the right pathway to make it to item A. What are the odds they’ll make it, that they won’t get sniped at range and that they’ll win any closer combat. There’s no way to guess that, it’s SO dependent on the state of the match and the state of the player that it’s almost worth just giving up here. But no we have to continue on past the indescribable to get to this item. What are the odds it’s there? That’s going to be dependent on 1. if it’s the start of the match and if not 2. When did someone pick that weapon up last, which is going to be dependent on ALL SORTS of the same match specific variables.
Taken together this is simply the screaming chaos of random gameplay extended to standard weapons. AA’s in loadouts simplify, they add consistency to a part of the game that would otherwise be thrown out to the streets of indescribable madness. It is a poor argument indeed to suggest otherwise (especially when there are far better reasons to dislike AA’s that we can site, their token nature for example, the fact that no single one can be properly integrated into core gameplay because not having them also has to be accounted for. Inconsistency in development is where we should be approaching this from, not hollow cries of random gameplay.)
Sorry to make an issue of this but throwing the wrong trope out there is liable to send 343 on a blind track (if they actually listen and respond to this feedback) which is just as liable to create a worse system than a better one as the direction set has little or no bearing on reality (ie. it’s a fluffy argument).
> But I don’t see a way to implement AAs into the UNSC vehicles at all without it getting corny.
Flak pods, different deployment modes, secondary weapons, there’s a lot you could do and still remain well within the UNSC’s tech and aesthetics. The issue I think is incorporating these without creating 1. Doom Fortresses or, conversely, overcomplicated coffins as you could either go too far in adding accessories or gum up the works, so to speak, on an underpowered class of heavy armor. It depends on the hows, but conceptually at least I don’t see much of a problem (Unreal Tournament 3 created vehicle abilities of the same sort as being considered here and they worked out just fine even with the “standard human” variety.)
