That's great as a general view on AA's, one which I agree with. I for one love the extra depth of gameplay added by AA's, even if all I personally use is Sprint I can see the value and depth added by their inclusion on a wider scale. However, this discussion is specifically addressing Armor Lock and its balance within this new ability set, so the attitude of 'go play H3' etc. falls somewhat flat on its face. I don't think it's fair to say that people should abandon the game and just give up on it when it's not the whole of Bungie's new additions that they take issue with, but one specific thing and how it's balanced in the new Reach sandbox. General blanket statements which basically amount to 'get used to it' aren't too helpful in discussions like this tbh. @ Rorak and BattyMan, couldn't agree more with both of your posts, very well put on both counts.
My problem with Armor Lock is that it just stops the game almost. When someone locks it forces you to either... A, wait for them to come and try to fight them... Or B, walk away and allow them to pop out and attack you with your back turned. I'm fine with a lot of the ways AL is used. Stopping vehicles requires you to time it just right (if someones AL'd for 10 seconds and you still hit them...). Using it as an EMP is tricky because you need to be sure their close enough and time it right. There are tons of uses where Lock requires real skill to use. There are plenty of times where it's just a frustrating AA. Negating a stick. Getting your shields taken down, Locking, and coming up with them full. Staying in one place and forcing a flow-killing stalemate. Those are just a few reasons I can't stand Armor Lock. That sounds awesome. I was able to do something similar by myself with Evade and a Shotgun, and I destroyed the other team. I can only imagine what a whole team of rollers would be like. Evade is my favorite AA, I wish it was featured in more gametypes (it makes Stockpile so fun!)
I think you've taken this a bit out of context. I was replying to Jex's post where he took it from Armor Lock to his overall view on Armor Abilities. That's where I started talking about Armor Abilities in general. That's why I said if you have a problem with Armor Abilities, then your best bet is to simply stop using them OR learn how to counter them. After all, the chances of Bungie altering the effects of Armor Abilities is rather slim, seeing as half of the people like them, while half don't. But that's besides the main point of this thread, as you said.
I think that armor lock should have breaks. It can only last for a half second at a time, but has a half second cooldown. That way, it could still be used to stop vehicles, explosives, and melees.
It is balanced and only put in games where its balanced. It was my favorite armor ability in the beta but now its been nerfed SOOOOOOO much because of people complaining about it because its something new they have to adapt to. You can only armor lock 3 times at max (been resourceful) then wait the longest out of any armor ablity for it to charge again then it comes back the slowest out rate of any armor ability and using it. Have to use almost a full charge to use a EMP can only do one EMP per full charge. Putting it on for only a tap uses 1/3 of its charge. Punching someone in Armor lock does nothing. Using a full charge at once is a waste and takes a long time to get back without using it again and still have to survive for a few seconds to heal shields after armor locking anyway. They complained sooo much about that before they new about the drop shield which annoys me because if they did they wouldn't of complained about Armor lock so much and wouldn't of got nerfed as much if at all. So drop shield is my favorite AA now so many uses and not nerfed like crazy. It can be used to survive those things but pretty much useless against a melee because the time it takes to get out of armor lock they can already melee again.
Why should it be usefull over a melee? I mean being usefull against nades/vehicles would make armor lock evenly balanced with all other abilities, sounds like you just wsant armor lock to be all powerful.
agreed! i run into a lot of problems with this in the doubles arena...first guy goes in a puts shots on a guy then Armour locks and his buddy comes in to finsh the rest... nothing more frustrating then going shot-for-shot with a guy then goes into "retard-mode" and his buddy puts the last shot to my forehead, followed by me going (headtwist) REALLY? :/ but if only one person is running with amour lock then i (usually) dont have a problem because it is utter useless one-on-one, b/c i can just sit and wait for him to come out it... oh other side note, this to me is cheap as hell... - if you stick a guy and then he goes into "retard-mode" the sticky nade just falls off of him?????? this happened to me the other day on sword base. i stuck a guy who was hurt then he locked it down (nade some how flies off he body) he comes out lock and im waiting to throw another beautiful sticky at his forehead...."retard-mode" again, the nade goes flyin'....again. SWAT, his team mate slices my back with a sword! ****! lol [br][/br]Edited by merge: oh and one other thing. has anybody else ran into this problem i threw a grenade at a guy who seemed to have mistimed his amour lock...i believe he freaked out at the on coming nade a must have hit AL like three times b/c he was STANDING UP in AL not punching the ground...but was not harmed by the nuke-of-a-nade place under his feet... does anybody know if this is a glitch like BXR or sword cancel ?!?!?
The way I see it, it's almost like a pause button, saying 'Hold on! We can continue this battle in a second, lemme just recharge my shields and get my teamates over here!' I mean, I understand it's uses and how strategically it can be used, but it's still frustrating as hell. Is it balanced? Who's to say, but it's pretty much like everything you've done to the other player was put to waste. It wouldn't be so bad if your shields couldn't recharge while you're in it, and if there was no EMP blast at the end. Then perhaps it wouldn't show to be so obnoxious. Either way, it's rigged as hell in Team Doubles and needs to be provoked.
its just a new aspect of the game everyone will have to get used to. Sure, I get angry when someone uses armor lock to barely escape my clutches, but its not the ability- its the people that are good at using it. I've had several times where armor lock does no good for the enemy, and I still kill the bastard. Also, I don't enjoy using armor lock, even though I'd probably have a higher k/d ratio, its just not fun to me. Sometimes it has its uses though
I don't understand why people think armor lock is noob. Sure he can recharge his shields, but so can you. And you can take advance form armor lock to yourself. You can reload you gun, get team mates, or run away. And you can throw nades to his feet so when he gets up, he is going to get blasted by nade.
Add a specific video game tactic as (yet another) criterion for homosexuality (apparently). Outside your poor choice of words, I do agree with you though.
So you admit that the only alternative to standing around waiting for armor lock to expire is allowing the armor locker to survive and escape. Interesting. I'm curious to hear your elaboration as to how that's not awful.
I personally do wait for them, i was just saying it about the people who are complaining about having to slow down gameplay to wait. If you really care so much about waiting just go find somebody else to kill it really is that simple.
Also, you turn around and they come out of AL and shoot you in the back. You can't keep your focus on them because you're then basically useless and highly liable to being killed by other opponents, and you can't take your attention off them to shoot at said other opponents because then you're liable to be shot by them as they handily come out of AL. That point about just ignoring them has been done to death, Magashi. He's invulnerable, thus recharging his shields is alot easier than it is for you, who is likely getting shot by other players whilst he's sitting pretty with his fist on the ground. On the nade tactic, I think that's pretty obvious and is the go-to tactic for finishing an AL'd guy, but it too has its massive problems. Nades have a short fuse meaning that you still have to wait almost the entire duration of the AL before you can throw it, otherwise the player simply sees the nade placed at their feet and doesn't come out of AL until it's exploded. And if you do wait, this places you back in the position of sitting around doing nothing until you can throw that nade, time in which he can potentially come back out of AL and re-start the fight at his convenience, even on top of all the downsides of waiting that have been discussed already. And I'm sorry, but being able to reload is not advantage enough to balance off against being invulnerable, the point is that AL puts any 1v1 situation (or the 1v1 element of any 2/3v1 etc. situation) entirely on the terms of the person using it. In response to your initial question of why AL is considered noob, it's more that the ability itself is not balanced and thus is a go-to resort to make up for a lack of skill on many players' parts. I'm not saying that it can't be used skilfully, I've committed suicide with Rockets a couple of times, for example, because someone perfectly timed their AL when I fired at them. I still think there are far more in depth skills than timing alone in Halo, but I'm willing to call fair cop on that one and say that said AL guy totally outplayed me. But in terms of the ability itself, put simply: it's a massive reward for, for the most part, a ridiculously small amount of skill required. It enables players to not have to suffer when they make a bad decision or a bad play, and generally has the effect of turning a well earned trade, or even a skilful out-DMR or similar, in to a death for the player who displayed more skill in the given situation, whilst the AL guy walks away even though he screwed up in every sense but remembering his precious pause button and being able to press it in time. It negates so many elements of quick thinking and short term strategy because you no longer have to suffer for poor decisions or a lack of skill in a situation. This is why I, and so many others, label it (in its current form) as unbalanced, game-slowing, and essentially a crutch. A potential solution, though much more rash than most balancing suggestions so far, is to put AL entirely on terms of being that quick, split second save like in my rocket example above. Completely strip it of the 6 second duration, and make it last for 1 second maximum, with a decent recharge time (enough so that a player will not be able to use it twice in the average duration of a short range DMR battle or similar) to prevent on/off spamming. This means you'll actually have to be good with it for it to be useful, it can save you from that rocket, nade, even vehicle, but only if you time it right. And if you simply want it to prolong your life by 6 seconds, 6 seconds which more often than not results in you living because your enemy is already dead/has left by the time you come out of AL, then too bad.
I don't know why haters are hating but I personally love armor lock and it's the only armor ability I use mainly because it pisses people off and I get a good kick out of it and usually saves my ass every time when it comes to close quarter battles.
You admit to enjoying it because it pisses people off then question why people hate on it? Without trying to be rude, this is exactly why people hate on it. I don't deny that it makes the game fun, not personally for me, but for others, and fun is subjective and thus not really worth arguing. The discussion here is about balance, and your point about it saving your ass time and again kinda makes the point for me. Though I have to inject a bit of realism in to the discussion here, in the sense that however balanced or unbalanced the ability is, I'd wager that many more people enjoy it than dislike it, thus from a purely logical point of view it wouldn't be very smart for Bungie to either remove or drastically alter how powerful it is for fear of alienating the effective majority in this situation.
I think it is balanced. It comes for great use. If you are weak and people are shooting at you, you go into armor lock, EMP them, then beat them down before they run away and laugh in their face. Or you can go into the mode right as a vehicle comes at you and they go boom then you laugh in their face.
So what you're saying is, it's incredibly useful in getting one over on someone who, for all intents and purposes, out played you, thus it's balanced? Again, I don't mean to be rude here, but the discussion at hand is not 'do I enjoy the inclusion of Armor Lock.' Fair enough if you do, I personally don't, but that's not what we're trying to get at. Fun=/=balanced.
Basically, but I added the laugh in their face because you kinda embarrassed them, but I thought it was inappropriate at first to put it in my text, but it was to make my post a little bit funnier after I thought about it.