> If you dont like it play default reach playlists.
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> I will be avoiding default reach once the TU 0% bloom playlists are out
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> I dont want randomness or double beatdown kids in my games.
Why Shield bleed is DETRIMENTAL to Halo: Reach multiplayer, despite consistency (Long read from an a
You have a good post but you fail to see the counter argument. Sprint double melee is just as stale and even more frustrating.
Also what hurts melees more than anything is the auto aim and the insane lunges that occur in Reach. Bleed through is good because it quickens gameplay and doesn’t offer the redundant double smacks that happened in reach so many times.
What would make melee a viable comeback weapon in anyone’s arsenal is to make it much harder to use. (by reducing the auto aim and lunge within melee’s)
The double melee is also a good thing in my opinion because otherwise it is completely based on whose connection is better. If auto aim and lunge were reduced this would not be a problem.
I am not opposed to the alternative that if movement speed is upped by 10%, Evade and Sprint are then used as means to more quickly assassinate a player, jump larger gaps (as a means to escape a Shotgun or Sword too, not just for map mobility), engage/disengage an enemy from cover more quickly and in general, move around more. As opposed to a means of directly assaulting players head-on.
Jump height and 20% more mobility changes are not needed in AA using game-types IMO.
I can only imagine an Invasion match with the shield changes… taking down a team of 6 is possible with 1 AR and 1 Spartan. Hell, the Elites and the PRi or Plasma Pistol. I didn’t check, is it 1 shot then a melee or 2 shots then a melee to kill with the PP? The PRi would be a CQB-melee machine. And back to the AR, a teammate can lightly pepper a player with a burst from pretty damn far, and the very near teammate can just beatdown the enemy. Either the team limit would need to increase to 8vs8 or respawn times should be set to 3 to compensate for that kind of anarchy. Of course, that’s just the way I saw things playing out in my head.
Very good post. The melee/shield-bleed issue is the only real problem I have with the TU. Like you said, it starts to defeat the purpose of having shields in the first place.
And while having a system where the first shot gets the kill most of the time is fine, having a system where the first shot almost ALWAYS gets the kill starts to defeat the purpose of what I see as Halo.
Also, most of the time, a truly “skilled” player (under the current system) would know to NOT OPEN FIRE on an enemy unless they can avoid melee range. Backpedaling should, by now, be a very simple concept.
Just make 75% melees and it’ll be fine. It’s the power of the melee that’s the problem, not bleed-through.
Besides, if you don’t like it… turn it off. Or stick to the (lol)defaultReach playlists.
I’m not defending sprint double melee. In fact, i think a longer delay on being able to melee after sprinting would fix that problem handily.
What I am saying, is, if melee is only going to be a reliable tool for the attacker, than it’s a win-more ability. You already won the fight by shooting first, you have your whole toolkit to finish them off. Their melee attack is useless the moment you got the first shot on them, because its suicidal to melee attack someone when you’re at a disadvantage, WHEN there’s shield bleed and the counterattack melee system.
The golden tripod suggests that Melee be useful for both players. It’s an intregal part of gameplay. When it becomes COMPLETELY UNVIABLE for the defender the second you land that first shot, you have a broken system. It isn’t more important than guns, but it’s completely worthless for defenders if the update goes live.
If someone, by the way, can direct me to the part of the update where they say this is optional, I’ll care much less.
The fact is, whereas they’ve said bloom control, etc, is all optional, I’VE NEVER HEARD A THING ABOUT this being optional. This so far has been billed as a sweeping change that is to be implemented everywhere.
If it’s optional, then by all means, they can do whatever they want. I’m concerned that this, the single most damaging change, isn’t going to be optional.
yes yes yes. I think this is the best possible way to do it. Sprinting double melee people are a complete pain.
When people sprint at me to get a double beatdown, I always pump bullets into them so that by the time they get to me, they have no shield and I melee them or we both die. Or I’ll throw a nade at a corner of a wall near me and back up t get the kill. There are counters to double beatdown-ers.
Bleedthrough is kind of detrimental to Reach.
> Although I don’t agree with all the other changes being implemented in this TU, I can see the reasons why they are being made, and wouldn’t argue for or against them.
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> (For you TL;DR folks, the important points are bolded, though this change will be DEVASTATING to Reach balance and I encourage you read the whole thing to see the big picture.)
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> That is not the case with the shield bleed. Shield bleed at a cursory glance seems to be something good for the game, I mean, why wouldn’t the extra damage go through, right?
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> Well, here’s the main issue, and why it’s absolutely damaging to have it brought back. Halo is based on, as Bungie has so eloquently put it, the “Golden Tripod” of halo combat: Grenades, Melee, and Guns. The interplay between the three is ESSENTIAL to what makes Halo Halo. Shield bleed, however, absolutely cripples melee as a viable option for combat with the way Reach handles melee combat.
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> In Halo 1, without Xboxlive to compensate for, there was no melee lunge, it was pure reflexes (occasionally a little lag from the LAN cable, but not really a big deal). Therefore, if someone got the drop on you, you could turn a fight around with clever use of melee and grenades. That’s a huge part of what makes Halo what it is. In any other shooter, you’re shot dead before you can respond. Being able to do meaningful things in response to being shot creates the gameplay of halo.
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> So Bungie releases Halo 2. Anyone who played this game as much as I can, can attest to the terrible effect of latency on gameplay, affecting the shotgun (More affectionately known then as the Slotgun due to its randomness). But the real problem was it’s effect on melee combat. In most cases, reflexes mattered, but not as much as being host. Host advantage conferred winning melee combat rights to whoever had it. Bungie realized how terrible this was, and though they couldn’t fix it for Halo 2, it was a lesson learned to be applied to…
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> Halo 3. In Halo 3, Bungie made a major blunder in the way they handled Melee combat. To compensate for the Host Advantage problem in Halo 2, they created the counterattack window, a timeframe in which you can counterattack the enemy for the same damage. This Was, and still is for those of you who play Halo 3, probably the worst part of the game. Initially, if you had even 1 more bullet than they did, it was a guaranteed win. The counterattack window removed all ability to use melee as a comeback method. This results in the incidents where, seemingly at random, two people would run at each other, AR’s Blazing, only to find one more of your opponents bullets hit, so you find yourself respawning, while he finds himself shieldless, but with a free kill.
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> Bungie “fixed” this by making the damage difference higher, so the result would be less random and more predictable. This means, if you had more shots in on the opponent, you’ll live, they’ll die. The problem with this fix is it completely annihilated any use of melee as a comeback tool. The opponent doesn’t even need to have reflexes or be competent, their melee will hit, and will cancel yours, and you will die. This leads to stale gameplay, as when your shot, your only option is to run away, since you cannot count on melee combat as a trump card.
> Some people have the belief that “I shot first, I should win, obviously” Well, then in what sense should there even be shields? As I stated earlier, Halo gameplay, what makes halo unique, is that in Halo combat, you have time to react to being attacked. What keeps halo balanced is having meaningful actions to take when confronted. If you’re unable to comeback if you’re shot first, you may as well just die when the first shot hits. Remove shields and play Swat.
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> Bungie knew they had to fix this problem for reach. They couldn’t go back to the terrible host advantage of 2, but they couldn’t keep the stale “Melee always favors the winner” system either. The compromise, the way they found to keep melee relevant, and most importantly, to fix the golden tripod of halo combat broken in 3, was to make shields absorb the extra damage.
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> It isn’t consistent with the other halo games, because Bungie finally found the way to make Melee combat NOT become a host advantage fest, and to not be stale. It required innovative thinking, and the result was the shield absorbing the extra damage. It’s THE SINGLE REASON why it exists in classic reach; it puts melee back in a place MORE CONSISTANT with its use and behavior in Halo 1 and Halo 2. Halo 3 was the outlier, and it was because of the melee tie system. The shield no bleed was a compromise to keep the melee tie system, and to have ‘classic’ halo combat.
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> And lets be honest, how often does the extra 3 damage from your DMR shot matter? The fact is the shield bleed function PRIMARILY functions in relation to Melee combat. Switching it in this way will be incredibly damaging to Reach gameplay.
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> The short version is, Lack of shield bleed is the only thing keeping the “Tie” melee system created to solve host advantage in halo 3 from having all sorts of other negative impacts. It was a very elegant solution which put melee back in a position where it was a viable answer for the person behind. Adding in bleed will simply remove one more tool from the person who needs them most.
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> I IMPLORE YOU, 343 INDUSTRIES, IF YOU CARE ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY OF HALO: REACH, UNDERSTAND HOW DAMAGING THIS CHANGE REALLY IS.
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> I understand at this point due to the politics of XBL and updates and whatnot it’s probably far, far too late to stop this change, but I’m hoping that you’ll see fit to revert it.
You just blew my mind! You are so right.
> Wait, bleedthrough ruins melee combat? What the hell is wrong with you?
you never played ar starts in halo 3 did you
> > Wait, bleedthrough ruins melee combat? What the hell is wrong with you?
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> you never played ar starts in halo 3 did you
I’d much rather see the AR messed up than everything messed up.
> OP snipped for length
From my experience, this statement is completely untrue. The only tactic which is weaker now regarding melees is the herp-a-derp (sprint into double melee). The melee is in a much better place as a supporting tactic to guns. Regardless of what people spout about the “golden tripod”, it has always been guns first, with grenades and melees to support. Previously, the best strategy was to either go all guns until their shields are down, or forgo them entirely and try the double melee. Now, it is not nearly as clear cut, and this opens up a lot of new opportunities. I really like how melees feel now in Reach after the TU since they flow much better with the weapon sandbox. Honestly, if 343 wanted melees to be a better comeback tool (despite them already being a good one), they should make them harder to land, but simultaneously reduce the animation duration.
> > > Wait, bleedthrough ruins melee combat? What the hell is wrong with you?
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> > you never played ar starts in halo 3 did you
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> I’d much rather see the AR messed up than everything messed up.
In halo 3 cqc sucked. Period.
Br wasnt that bad but every other weapon close range was broken because of bleed through, with the plasma rifle and the AR being at the top of that list. Dont you remember how bad it was? And how everyone loved reach shield mechanics when the game came out?
I agree with the OP.
Guns are already the vast majority of kills, I don’t think they really need a higher place on the tripod. If you want guns to absolutely dominate, go play CoD (or any other FPS ever made for that matter).
Sprint-melee is a little frustrating but unless you’re terrible, they come out of it with no shields. More than half the time I win anyway because I either get their shields down first, or I punch first, or I dodge their first or second melees. Or I have a shotgun. Or a sticky… I really don’t find it that annoying since it is generally not that successful.
Shield bleedthrough is also annoying because it is harder to gauge exactly whether you’re one shot or not (especially with the Magnum), which was always frustrating in previous games, hence the cry “BUT I HAD SHIELDS!”
> I’ve been saying that bleed is horrible since the first time I played Halo3 over XBL.
Agree when it comes to bleed through head shots.
Good read and I’m not sure if I agree or disagree with you but a good read none the less. What I will say though is this: I think one of biggiest problems with Reach’s melee system is that is to heavily relied on. There are players out there that will always run around trying to bash people instead of shooting. Whether it’s lack of aiming ability or just straight up abusing an overpowered melee is not the issue.
My point is simply this; No bleed through is fine but it opened up a whole other set of problems with the melee especially with the addition of the sprint. What would have been a more elegant and much more simple soloution would have been reducing the strength of the melee overall. It’s one of the things that the classic playlist got right. 75% melee. It put the focus back on aiming and shooting not running and bashing each other over the head.
After playing with the new changes it seems like a reduction in melee strength is almost inevitable, other wise players can and will abuse the system and we’ll see a whole new litany of rage threads about “cheap kills” I hated AR rushers in H3 and I hate sprint+melee’ers in Reach.
The other thing we should keep in mind is that this is just the first set of suggested changes. Zero bloom is awesome but I’ve noticed that just by doing that it shifted the power of many of the weapons it targeted. The DMR is just right but now the pistol is on par the halo CE pistol, which is ridiculous when you think about it how the frick is a pistol stronger than a rifle? The NR? Why burst shots now when a player can just go full auto? My point is that these aren’t the final changes. There will certainly be more adjusting and tweaking.
> I didn’t read the whole post because it is all solved with this: ITS NOT BEING IMPLEMENTED INTO ALL PLAYLISTS! JUST THE ANNIVERSARY PLAYLISTS!
Yes… I agree with Moa. There’s a lot more I could say, but it’s just not worth it.
> > I didn’t read the whole post because it is all solved with this: ITS NOT BEING IMPLEMENTED INTO ALL PLAYLISTS! JUST THE ANNIVERSARY PLAYLISTS!
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> Yes… I agree with Moa.
It’s actually a moronic thing to say. We are all here because we want SOME change. We are just debating what changes should be made. It’s not as simple as Moa put it unless the OP was just stating his preference of default Reach over post TU reach.
I disagree, you raise a valid point, but the benefits of no longer having herp derps as a trump against a 3 shot melee are huge.
I’ve found myself more frustrated with reach now then i ever have before, normal melee damage+bleedthrough is absolutely horrible. the only gametypes that I’ve had fun in were using 75% melee damage.