I'm talking about when they've been stripped of their shields. I really shouldn't have to use more resources on doing something I've already done.
I skimmed through a couple pages and I think armor lock could be better balanced if it only worked for two seconds instead of 5, and if there was no way to exit AL after it is activated. Making these changes would solve the problem of ALing to cover up one hit, be it from melee or nade. and it would also allow for opponents to punish ALers if they improperly use it. And if these changes were made it would still keep AL useful for covering up gimondo hits, E.I. Rockets, Banshees, Wraiths.
They don't recharge any differently than if they weren't using an armor ability. If they recharge at all in AL, it's because they were able to avoid damage for several seconds before using it. The entire duration of AL is not long enough to allow recharging immediately after taking damage.
I've stripped someone of their shields, they armor lock before I headshot them, NO ONE ATTACKS THEM WHILE THEY'RE IN ARMOR LOCK and their shields are almost full when they come back out. And this happens ALL the time. I really don't see why I should waste grenades or ammo on someone just to make sure their shields don't recharge while they're invincible.
Bullshit. That's an absolute lie and you know it. What you said is only true if you're fighting an elite. Even if a player spends the full 5-seconds in armor lock, their shields will only JUST begin to recharge a second or two after they come out, giving you enough time to land at least a shot on him. Now that I think of it, I've had a hard time even finding a game where a lot of players still use armor lock. The only playlist I can seem to find them in is multi-team. And if it's multi-team you're playing, than armor lock should be the least of your worries.
You probably should have read that 96%, maybe then you'd realise how overdone and undethought your points are. Sorry to be frank, but it's true. Overpowered is arguably a misleading term since it's generally applied to things like Rockets and high damage things, but what it actually means in a basic sense is that the reward gained by something outweighs the skill required to gain that reward. That IS true of AL. Your points about are the single most tired approach to AL balance complaints. For one, 'just waiting' needlessly slows the game down. This is undeniable. It's a crutch to help slower players make up for their deficit, and allow players who have made bad decisions/been outskilled to just pause play and allow the game to readjust around them. Just in the same way that you can use this time to get a new angle, reload etc., their team mates can use this time to move in to a position which makes up for the bad decision which necessitated that AL in the first place. It's like a time out, and any advantage that was worked for in the aggressive play can be counteracted by the AL user's team mates being able to move around and adjust things more to their liking. In FFA where team play is not an issue, the disadvantages are still clear. FFA works in a quick timescale, if the battle that you're midway through gets postponed by 5 seconds, you're gonna get cleaned up by another player a lot of the time. Without AL, you get the kill and then work on not getting cleaned up, possibly even pushing for another one quickly if you're not too hurt from the last encounter. With AL, your kill is denied, you either get cleaned up 'waiting' for it or just give up and risk a) engaging in another encounter shots down and thus at a disadvantage (but without the justification of having gotten a kill to merit being those shots down, or even being outskilled by the opponent of your first encounter having gotten away) or b) getting shot in the back by the guy as he chooses to pop out of AL as you're backing away. Which leads on to the other issue, your oh so smart solution of 'waiting'. Honestly, when people offer that up as a genuine counter to AL balance complaints I am left to question how much Reach they've played, or whether they've ever played against anyone over the age of about 10. Just waiting leaves you vulnerable to being cleaned up, and giving up on the kill leaves you vulnerable to the same, or even just the AL-er popping out and shooting you in the back as you move on, like I said. People say things like 'it's only 5 seconds' showing a complete lack of understanding of how long 5 seconds can be in a game of Halo. That has the potential to be 2 full kills, it's time for you to go from having the upper hand in a battle, which you earned, to being put on respawn with nothing to show for it, all because the enemy was capable of pressing a single button when things got hot. And what about those split second battles, or 2v1's where your kill is denied because the one enemy you were focusing on ALs and the kill which you would have gotten is denied. There is nothing you can do about it in that situation even though you earned your trade, cause he played his trump card, or rather his get out of jail free card. Sorry, but play against anyone better than your little sister, or in any game more frantic than a 1v1, and the idea of 'waiting' being a suitable approach to countering AL when it's abused properly becomes clear for the laughing stock of an excuse that it is. A full charge of AL gives players enough shields to take a further 2 DMR shots to remove their shields (so 3 in total if you count the final one as a headshot, more if not). So whilst his post may have been an exaggeration, it's still conveying the basic point that if you go in to AL on the back foot, ie. shots down, it only further compounds the advantage of being able to pause the action by giving you the upper hand when you come out. Shots down on an opponent? Don't worry, crutch of the century is here to save the day and give you another chance at that kill, that mean ol' non-AL'er will be sorry he messed with you. I hate to come off as overly harsh (well quite honestly, at this stage in the discussion I really don't, but in the spirit of debate etiquette I shall pretend as if I do, or have I just ruined that too?) but when people put such basic and fundamentally flawed counter-arguments forward as 'just wait and pop him when he comes out' my only response can be 'well no ****, why didn't I think of that? I was just running up and angrily meleeing him despite his clear invulnerability...' I know some people actually do that, and tbh fair enough in saying they get what they deserve, and if that approach was the only one to lose out from having AL used against it then I'd be fine. But it isn't. Smart, split second play loses out to the slower, lesser skilled player. I'm sure in the world of Halo where people gently meander around the maps, vaguely aware of some of the things going on in a roughly 10 foot radius of themselves, and have trains of thought roughly along the lines of: "Hey, is that a guy on my screen? Yeah it is! Is he a bad one? Yeah I'm pretty sure he's a bad one, I'll just press the shooting button. I think this is the shooting button... Yeah, and do that firing my gun dealio till either he dies or I die. Oh no, he's really hurting me but I don't seem to be hitting him too much, boy I'm sure glad I picked that Armor Lock thingy. I'll just press the button and, ah nice and safe. But crap, he's still waiting there, I was hoping he'd just come and try and hit me so I could let go of the button and hit him instead! All sneaky like, but he's just waiting. And the timer's going down, what do I do? What do I do?! Help help help help help... oh, he killed me..." along with everyone else in a position to potentially help him in that 5 second window thinking along the same lines, then yeah it works just fine. It isn't that much of a hinderance to the game because the game moves slowly and awareness isn't that high anyway. But when the game moves at a faster pace, one of the true joys of Halo tbh, the pace at which it can move, and awareness/split second aiming is enough to abuse the hell out of a quick burst of invincibility to throw your opponent's timing off in a duel, let alone a 5 second window to let the whole setup of both teams move towards a notable change around you, then it becomes a real issue. Sigh, I thought we were done with this, I really did. As is often the case, I agree with megapwn that most of the time it doesn't end up actually winning the game overall for the AL user simply because, frankly, over reliance on AL denotes a bad player anyway. But doesn't that tell you something, that the entire nature of it serves as a crutch to offset skill deficits in given situations? The only actual upside, only justifiable purpose other than to help bad players be less bad, is as an anti-vehicle measure. On that point I don't complain, but in every other sense it just makes the game less fun, less balanced and slower even if the players using it are generally so bad that they have no hope of winning anyway. And, again as megapwn said, on the rare occasion that you get people who are actually good at the game and strategic enough, combined with that special kind of determination to exploit rather than utilise said skill, it turns from a nuisance to a game changer. Battles become redundant, superior quick thinking and positioning on your part gets turned around whilst your sitting around 'waiting' as you put it in your sagely wisdom. And woe betide those who don't wait, those who decide to move on from the kill that is all but denied anyway, because a bullet to the back of the head awaits you as you move on from that ground punching slowpoke as he sees his chance to get that kill he didn't earn. As for your post, iTz CHEEZ3, I'm not even going to quote it because seeing those words on my screen once is painful enough, actually bringing them in existence one more of my own volition is something I cannot even begin to justify. Suffice it to say that your own labelling of AL as trolling should be demonstration enough of what's wrong with it as a balanced implementation. "Hur hur, I enjoy something because it actively ruins the experience for others, that's the same as it being balanced, right?"
Frankly, you're being ridiculous. As a reasonably skilled player myself, I can't think of a time where I have ever had a problem with AL opponents, whether they were good or not. The only exceptions have been instances of good teamwork on their part, but this is infrequent. More often than not, I kill someone who uses AL, and in a worst case scenario, I abandoned the attempt and find prey elsewhere. In fact, I have more trouble with people who run or dodge their way out of a situation where I have the advantage, and as frustrating and cowardly as it may be to me, I'm not going to complain about the armor abilities that allowed them to do it.
Armor Lock isn't overpowered, it's just irritating. It would be fine as a pickup, but entire teams being able to use it right off of every spawn just makes the game frustrating and not fun to me. The more the weeks go by, and the more I play the game and compare it to my customs, the more I wish EVERYONE just had sprint and regular old Camo/OV powerups were on maps. It just feels better. It even makes default Reach maps play better.
totally agree with both your statements. Armor Lock can be obnoxious, but once you know the laws of how it works its easy to work around it. I also agree that some of old ways feel better (sprint only, invis and oversheild etc on the map). I'd like a gametype/playlist in MM where everyone has access to sprint at their spawn but the others are placed on the map waiting to be picked up, like in campaign. That would leave jetpack, evade, armor lock, active camo, and drop shield that someone MIGHT have in combat ONCE in a while, like a power weapon. That'd also increase the value of those other AAs in the game, IMO. If you just picked up armor lock for the first time in a big team match, you might use it more carefully to get the most out of it.
Ok, I'm gonna go back to one point since it pretty much got lost in the last post due to me going typically overblown and ragey on this subject. For that I should apologise, but in terms of reasoning I've just seen this 100 times already in the last however many pages and I thought it was done. People make some points about why they think AL is balanced, or why it at least isn't a problem, I or someone else makes some counterpoints either arguing their examples or conceding them whilst putting forward other ones which they haven't accounted for. Then others come in and make a post which could basically be a copypasta from any page in this thread, ie. "I don't see why people whine so much, I just wait it out, it's only 5 seconds, or give up on the kill and move on, no biggie." And ya know what? Fair enough. I have no basis to call you wrong or a liar, if taking those two approaches never works out as a bad move for you then more power to ya, but I do resent when people either reject the counter-situations I put forward or just straight up ignore them in discussion and continue to say this same basic thing over, and over, and over, and over again. I've explained countless times why waiting can bite you in the ass, I've explained countless times why walking away can bite you in the ass, so why does no one really respond to those points and instead just fall back on basically saying "well it's never been a problem for me, so despite you offering other eventualities, I refuse to believe it's ever been a problem for you." Is this arguably because I tend to make my posts somewhat impenetrable? Without question, but I still feel that many are failing to engage in actual debate here and just coming in to post a couple of thoughts without the merit of context in what's already been said. Fine for an OP, not at this stage in the discussion. However, in this vein I'm going to simply address one point here and leave the others, those more oriented around specific instances, out for now. If you wish to address this specific point then please do so, I don't mind people disagreeing with me, I simply get frustrated with people purporting to be interested in debate but actually failing to engage in the process of it. Out of context statements do discussion no good, especially when they've basically been said word for word 20 times already and addressed. If you feel that this address doesn't constitute a counter, say why, instead of just restating the original point over and over. I also hereby pledge to start clipping every time AL bites me or someone I know in the ass, just so I can post a clutch of clips and ask people 'what would you have done?' in the aims of giving some further context and weight to discussion on both sides. Now, to the point that got overlooked, the question of whether AL is overpowered. To revisit my basic definition of being overpowered: the reward gained is outweighed by the demand on the player required to gain that reward. Now, to dissect this further, I'd like to assess how it accounts for the various aspects of gameplay. When I ask 'is it overpowered?' I'm not simply saying 'does it work out badly for you or anyone else?' but instead asking for a more theoretical consideration of how the mechanic functions in basic terms. The role it serves, its characteristics in effect and demand on the player, and how this has the potential to affect gameplay in various instances. People most often apply 'overpowered' as a term to things with offensive potential, things like Snipers, Rockets, Frags and the like, simply because they are things with tangible 'power', ie. the potential to deal damage. But AL's 'power' is a passive one, a defensive potential which allows players to potentially escape the offensive power of their opponent's approach. In this sense, it serves as a skill leveller since its role is to allow for a difference in skill between the user and the opponent and potentially allow that player to live when the situation up to that point, and without the influence of AL, would have seen them die. Now to examine the word 'skill' further, it isn't just the typical try hard definition of pure aiming proficiency, but a combination of aim, strafe, opponent prediction, pre and mid battle positioning and strategic attitude to approaching the battle in the first place. When considered altogether as 'skill', and one player's 'skill' was outmatched by that of another, AL serves to either give that player 5 seconds to try and gain some help, either by communication or chance (plus recharging their shields), or that split second of invulnerability to throw their opponents timing off and gain the upper hand. The 5 second instance normally applies to a high skill difference, and the burst to a lower once since a burst will generally turn the tide just that important little bit when the opponent's skill was a tad batter, and they just would have won out in a split second, tight encounter. However, it can also apply to negating what should be deciding factors such as nades and Rockets, which often equate to a reasonable skill differential, falling somewhere between the two. Now, this is what I mean by 'overpowered.' In that it serves to give an undeserved reward to a player simply because they chose the loadout. Now in terms of another aspect of something being overpowered, I again come back to my example of Rockets, Sniper and Frags. The former two are often accused of being overpowered, and in Reach tbh I think they somewhat are, Rockets could do with a little damage nerf and Sniper should be harder to hit headshots with. However, a key aspect of these is that they are pickups, this cannot be overstated. A good ol' OS should be the definition of overpowered since all it does is stand as a leg up for the player who picks it up, but having to pick it up is the real key here. It must be worked for, fought over to be gained, against an opponent also going for it you must battle to control it, and against one who isn't then you're simply putting more effort in by controlling it in the first place, displaying more skill in controlling something key. If AL was a pickup I would have 0 problem with it, literally 0. It's the fact that it can be selected at spawn which falls as the real route of the problem. Thus, it serves not as benefit which either must be obtained through skilled use of the mechanic, or skill shown in other areas to control it, but simply given away 'free.' This is why it is, as a loadout, overpowered, and so often referred to as a 'crutch.' This is its purpose in the game, why it was designed, to give players who were outplayed a chance at not suffering for it. Now, whether this always works or not is a different issue, one which I will address if and when that point in the argument is reached.
Before I got heavily into Reach matchmaking (which took a while - I was forge-obsessed for a couple of months after the game came out), I really thought this was going to be the approach Bungie took. And my first few forged maps had armor ability pick-ups on them. I think this hybrid approach (which is basically half-loadouts, half-equipment a la Halo 3) might have been better, or at least led to fewer annoying games. To take a more general overview, I am far from a Reach hater. I really do like the game and lately I've been playing it almost every day, long after launch; and most of the time I play in regular playlists, full of armor abilities, and have no problems with it. It's been interesting learning all the wrinkles and how to avoid some of the pitfalls they can create. That said, though, I sometimes get why other old-timers complain about Reach. Halo CE had a beautiful simplicity: two weapon slots, two types of grenades, a very limited weapon arsenal, and every player on equal footing from spawn. The game was varied and interesting because of all the different strategies and play styles you could derive from that limited pallette. With each subsequent Halo, beautiful simplicity has slowly morphed into staggering complexity. They added dual wielding (though now it's gone again), equipment (also gone), armor abilities, more and more weapons, more vehicles. In Halo CE it used to be that there was basically just one way to exploit the game: get a power weapon and/or camp in a power position (usually the two were most effective when combined). Rockets made you awesome anywhere for the span of 4 shots. Shotgun made you awesome in areas the size of a closet. The sniper made you awesome if you could keep far away from your opponents and if you were good with it too (most weren't). That was about it. In Reach, the loss of beautiful simplicity has led to a multitude of exploits and semi-exploits. Armor lock to bail you out of spots where you should have died, and to make you unkillable in extreme close quarter combat. Jet pack to give you instant good map position. Camo for the campers and would-be ninjas. Grenade launcher if you like to hide and EMP unsuspecting passers-by (giving you a quick and easy kill). etc. etc. And of course there are a multitude of combinations that are even worse - sword + evade, rockets + jetpack, sniper + camo. The game isn't entirely unbalanced because most of these techniques can be countered, and smart players will pit their favorite exploit against the other guy's. But what happens a lot less in Reach than in CE is a classic battle of two guys with similarly-powered guns and a couple grenades, strafing and shooting it out. It's not a tragic loss, but it makes me glad that the classic playlist exists so I can return to it when I feel nostalgic.
This is a wonderful post. I have to say that I agree with all of the above. The simplicity is what I loved, or rather the complexity of outcome that could be borne of such balanced simple starting points. However, the added complexity of further games has come not just out of necessity to innovate and stay at the top of the market, but out of what I feel is a fundamentally good ethic: to make the game more interesting and expand the experience. This is a great idea, and turns the game from something you either like the mechanic or of don't in something that many different types and levels of enjoyment can be drawn from. My basic problem with the implementation of this ethic is, however, how Bungie have ordered their priorities in the progression from CE to Reach. It seems as if, most notably in Reach, the idea of expanding the game comes above maintaining the refined balance, that diversity is in its own right more important than maintaining true balance in that diversity. This is why I feel that so many of the exploits come about (the way you explore the principle of 'exploits' in an objective way, less bitter than my own , being the bit I like most about your post), because mechanics are thrown in which serve as a leg up to a deficiency in one or more areas of the base mechanic, and then in turn are nerfed in an attempt to stop them being the go to for all players. It often seems are if Bungie are just a little too reluctant to stop and accept that some players aren't going to enjoy their game simply because they aren't that great at it. I'm not trying to talk in terms of the tryhard approach that you either have to be a DMR/Sniper god or just put down the game and never try again, but the fact remains that in general people enjoy winning more than losing. That said, some of the most enjoyable games I've ever played are ones that I've lost, but lost closely. But losing by high margins and losing consistently is rarely going to provoke a positive sense of reinforcement, thus enjoyment, from the player in question. It seems as though Bungie aren't as willing to accept this as most developers of multiplayer games are (obviously this only applies to multiplayer games, a single player game can be as unbalanced as it wants since the computer doesn't care about losing, the only danger here is it being unsatisfying) and are constantly trying to adapt the core mechanic, or add to it in Reach, in a way that helps those who lose more often than win enjoy the game just a little more. In a sense this seems a like a noble approach, but I think there's solid reasoning in why most devs avoid it, that in pure mechanic terms it's considered unbalanced. With regard to your bolded statement, this is a well formed point too which does address 'unbalanced' discussions. But I do feel that two exploits working against one another may work out with them cancelling out thus not technically being 'unbalanced,' but on the other hand this cancelling out only serves to 'cloud' the role and enjoyment derived from the base mechanic doubly so. I honestly wish I enjoyed the Classic playlist more. I think it's alot of fun, but I still think that tsb's approach is one I'd prefer since it plays to the strengths of Reach's basic mechanic more than simply trying to make Reach play like CE. I'd rather just play CE itself tbh, and whilst CE MM just isn't a possibility, playing games trying to be other games just leaves me wishing that I was playing the original game itself, limiting my enjoyment a lot. I think tsb's gametype approach would be better off named 'Core' than 'Classic' since it embraces the strength's of Reach's core mechanic and strips down to them rather than simply trying to emluate an older game, but whatever it's called I wish there was a playlist for that too.
I agree with this, and I think that's also been the goal behind their expansion into mini- and side-games like Grifball, as well as adding in Firefight. It's admirable in the sense that it makes the game more inclusive, and it also just gives everybody variety in case they want a break from pure DMR-fests. I spent most of yesterday afternoon playing Firefight Arcade co-op with a friend, and it was a blast. No pressure, just goofing off (and driving the rocket hog around Unearthed). But I think you're right that they have ultimately prioritized diversity over true balance, and eventually it got to a point that because there are so many possible ways to play, everything having some kind of counter (even if it's just one) replaced what I would think of as actual balance. I can always think of a way to kill some guy that's been destroying my team with whatever weapon, vehicle, armor ability, or piece of real estate (usually some combination of two of those). But often it means I have to die, respawn with a new armor ability, go get a specific weapon, etc. It turns into this whole involved strategic headache sometimes. I feel like this happened far less in older Halo games, particularly the original. If a guy was tearing my team up with rockets, the solution was usually rush his ass and be more accurate with my pistol and grenades. It didn't require an act of Congress to get all the pieces lined up to take him out. (There were exceptions of course, the main one being the scorpions on Blood Gulch. Yes, I just gave a shudder of pure horror after saying that.)
Yeah, very true, the principle is sound, just the implementation and priorities seem skewed often enough. FF is a good example because it's in line with what Frankie said recently about innovation adding to the experience in a distinct way rather than impacting upon and ultimately detracting from the core experience that was there before. FF adds without affecting what was already there. I know what you mean, it focuses it too much towards being a game of rock, paper, scissors. I like an element of choosing the right thing for the job, but that principle can be taken too far and just choosing the right thing often outweighs the focus on actually being able to use that thing you've just chosen better than your opponent. Preparing for the battle should be an aspect of winning out, but not one which outweighs your skill demonstrated in the battle itself. Btw, just had a game of Elite Slayer on Powerhouse. which displayed a great exploitation of Armor Lock. One guy had Hammer and AL and just camped the **** out of Office. At close range he was untouchable, and if you stuck him he'd just AL it off. Do enough damage to him to have a shot at killing before he got in Hammer range and he'd just AL, the pace of the game was such that he'd be consistently saved by a chance encounter (he didn't even have a mic so there's no way he could have been communicating) before the 5 seconds were up. As soon as he ran out of hammer he just backed down/AL'd from the remaining two or three NR battles since he got to the point of being shots down in every one, his strafe was atrocious and his aim left him 2-3 shots down on me twice when we both engaged one another at full shields at the same time. In short, his grip of the basic mechanic was significantly worse than mine, yet he still ended up as the highest scoring player on his team with a perfection. I was in a To4, and admittedly not the most coordinated one, but we were communicating and it just isn't possible to focus the 3 or 4 players necessary to flush him out with a volume of nades enough to go past his ALing duration when the rest of his team are on your ass. Could we have done it with more coordination and if his team mates were worse? I'd say it's very likely, but considering he's not even communicating with his team and is basically being covered by chance/map traffic and awareness alone I think that's quite a big ask to counteract him owning as he did. So tell me, did he deserve that? He'd basically figured out a god strat, not one that only gives such a reward if his skill is noticeably higher than that of all his opponents, but one which just takes such a high amount of being outnumbered and brute force to counteract that it didn't happen within that game. Am I complaining that we lost? No, I was the only positive player on my team and all our opponents bar one went positive, but his performance in particular just far outweighed the core skill he displayed in our non-AL/Hammer based encounters.
Look, I actually did read some of your other posts, and passive-aggressiveness aside, you've said largely the same thing then as you did in the more recent ones. You provide some instances of AL besting you, but you don't seem to have any of other AA's doing the same thing, or even all the times where AL earned you an easy kill. Why not point out how many AL'ers essentially forfeit a confrontation by losing their aim on a target while allowing the enemy to line up the next shot? What about the map-breaking tendencies of Jetpack? In regard to your positive>negative argument, what about the almost complete lack of negatives for abilities like Evade? How about the way I could replace Armor Lock in many of your firefight situations with Drop Shield and have virtually the same outcome? You just seem to use very specific personal anecdotes as support for your argument, so it shouldn't be that surprising when I or other posters do the same in response. As far as your crutch statement goes, are you actually implying that the person who has the advantage should always win? That's how the first few months of Halo 3 were thanks to the broken melee system, and that didn't work out too well. Anyway, I'm not saying we should complain about all of these things, but it seems pointless to single out AL when there are plenty of frustrating scenario's present in the game that don't even involve the ability.
I've said before that obviously it doesn't break the game every single time it's used, just enough to display that it's a broken implementation. Obviously it can be used badly, but if so then the player would have lost that battle anyway. If someone is in a position to win an encounter then why would they AL? If they make such a stupid mistake like that then I don't feel cocky in saying that I would have beaten them anyway. I genuinely cannot think of one instance were someone was winning an encounter with me and gave that up by AL'ing, that AL used by an opponent ended up giving me an advantage or kill that I wouldn't have gotten without them doing it. So it's either a negative or neutral influence, but never a positive. *checks thread title* Yup, just as I thought, says 'Armor Lock balance issues,' so that's probably why I'm talking about AL. I honestly do have problems with JP breaking flow on maps like The Cage and Reflection. I have problems with Evade giving a free ticket out of encounters, especially on maps like Countdown where breaking LoS within the distance of 1-2 Evade's is possible in more than half of the map. Drop Shield is in so few gametypes, and the person can still be hurt in the drop shield if you push in. I think it's less obtrusive to game flow, though it still does slow down the game a decent amount. But when there's a thread addressing AAs in general, I'll address them, this is not that thread. Yes, but their argument is that it's never a problem, and they use specific anecdotes to try and account for that. If I were saying that it's literally always a problem then yes, specific anecdotes would be unsuitable, but all I'm saying is that it's sometimes a problem, and I provide examples of those times. Saying 'never' or 'always' doesn't work with examples, because no examples can cover all possible eventualities. But the proverbial 'they' in this thread are effectively saying that it's never a problem in its balance, and I'm saying that it sometimes is, thus examples are more applicable for my points than theirs. Umm, no? I'm saying that the person who displayed more skill (in the terms I described) in the given instance should win, rather than those who picked the fallback on their respawn winning. I don't see the parity between your H3 melee system point and this, that was a technical issue with latency and having a connection advantage, this is just being able to pick a skill-defecit canceller on spawn, an advantage not gained by working for it or gained by using something with skill in the battle itself. Like I said before, this is an AL thread, so I don't think it's beyond the realm of imagination that the focus of discussion will be AL. Even then, the reason this thread comes up time and again on places like here and B.net is because AL is the worst example. At least Evade can be used aggressively, to speed up as opposed to slow down the game. At least Drop Shield is barely present in most of MM and tbh isn't as useful as AL for saving you from damage, it's not nearly as versatile. The only possible aggressive use of AL is vehicle counter, which again I think is a fine aspect of it, it's just every other aspect I take issue with.
It's a gigantic pain in the ass. It's hard not to be irritated by ppl using it in CQB situations too. Admittedly, it does require some skill to time the bursts of AL needed in CQB but it's just horrible to get jewed out by an AL user that way.
ChronoTempest - you bring up some fair points. I think what really bothers some of us about armor lock is the way it offers so many separate advantages, including several that it really doesn't need to (e.g. pan around/insta-turn coming out of it; sticky rejection). Yes, there's not much of a downside to evade (barring the actually somewhat frequent flying off the map!), but it does basically two things: you can cover ground faster to get to a place/weapon/vehicle or to rush an opponent, and you can dodge out of harm's way. Similarly jet pack lets you get to high places, or get to places quickly that require longer and more circuitous routes on foot (as on Sword Base). These armor abilities don't give you a veritable smorgasbord of advantages including destroying vehicles, EMPing vehicles and spartans, surviving huge damage from literally any weapon, surviving stickies that are already on you (and would kill even a bubble shield-user, for instance), shield regen in mid-combat, the ability to re-orient yourself when you completely screwed the pooch going into a fight (like if someone was shooting you in the back or side), AND the ability to press a pause button such that you may be saved from the brink of death by your teammates or random chance. (Whew.) The sole meaningful downside of armor lock - no mobility - doesn't begin to offset that laundry list of advantages. Granted you can't use them all at once and it's not like you have a smart bomb you can set off to kill everyone around you, but still. Beyond that, I don't see any meaningful argument against one of its biggest problems, which is that it slows the game down to no good purpose. This tends to be worst in the hands of bad players, who wait until they're one shot and then lock for as long as possible. Even if you end up killing them (and you usually will), that is just irritating. In the hands of good players it can lead to a different kind of slowdown, almost a "death by a thousand cuts" if you will, where they use it as another tool to create lengthy stand-offs where neither side can kill the other. To put an exclamation point on this epic gripe, I'll propose an actual solution. Here's how armor lock could and should work that would benefit the game greatly, and restore balance. 1. Same basic functionality as it has now, but no sticky rejection for grenades already stuck on you prior to locking, and no pan-around/auto-turn feature coming out of it. 2. The lock takes an extra quarter or half-second to initiate and an extra second or so to come out of. This prevents bursting in and out of lock reflexively as a last-second bail-out mechanism against swords/vehicles/whatever, and due to the longer release time, it makes it easier for opponents to predict when you could possibly be unlocking. It would also mean you'd only get two locks per charge cycle instead of up to three. The reason for the longer lock initiation is simple - I don't see any reason people who aren't even visibly locked yet should have vehicles and bullets bouncing off of them, and I don't see why they should get an advantage over bubble shield users (the shield takes longer to establish than AL does, and yet it's less beneficial). 3. A full lock should last about one second less than it does, to prevent so much slowdown of the game. If they did all that they can keep the rest the same IMO, including shield recharge while locked (it would matter less, since the armor lock doesn't last as long) and even the EMP.
You could say that about any ability though, so the point is moot. I'm obviously not going to Evade away if I'm winning an engagement either. I just mean that you can still win disadvantaged engagements by making your opponent miss a couple of times while making your shots count. Going into AL forfeits that chance at a comeback in most instances, that's all. Give me a break, I'm clearly speaking in general terms here, not just this thread. People always single out AL while ignoring or tolerating similar problems with other AA's. Also, unless you're within spitting distance of that Drop Shield, you're not going to finish him off before getting cleaned up by his teammates. Heck, he'll even heal up while he watches, and he can keep his aim in case he actually needs it. On another note, Halo is already one of the slowest FPS's around, so slowness has always been an unusual complaint to me in this series. Anecdotes are usually frowned upon because all they really illustrate is a personal issue rather than a general one. They can help set up a scenario for visualization, but they aren't much for making points because I can provide a counter anecdote for every one you put forward. This makes them pretty useless, and that goes both ways. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, albeit with different words. In a game about survivability like Halo, I'm fine with having more possibilities for the outcome of an engagement rather than having it boil down to who fired first like CoD or more realistic games. This mentality might go against a purely competitive mindset, but there are other gametypes available which cater to those as well. No, I'm referring to how whoever had the most shield/health in a double melee would kill the other player. This meant that most medium/short range confrontations played out with someone peppering an enemy with AR fire and closing the gap for the melee kill. If you didn't fire first, you could do almost nothing to prevent this unless you had a power weapon. This system was definitely by design, and it was patched a few months in, apparently. However, I had already moved on, as I'm sure many other players did. Yes, it has more defensive ability to make up for its absence of offensive ability, and I don't see anything wrong with that. Essentially, a person must rely only on their own offensive skill if they use AL. There is no deception assistance as with Camo and Holo, no positioning help from Jetpack, and no maneuverability assistance from Sprint or Evade. It just seems to me that most people understandably dislike being deprived of their kill, and AL is not nearly as subtle about it as Evade or Sprint, so it's an easier target for people. I just believe it's a different means to a similar end, and at the very least, not worth getting so angry.
Armor lock is not overpowered in any way it just slows gameplay down. Sprint, Evade, Jet Pack all speed gameplay up where as armor lock slows it down. Fast paced gameplay is a major factor in enjoyment, IMO. A typical armor lock encounter where you shoot someone till their shields are low/ deteriorated then he hits the infamous right bumber and you wait there until either your dumb enough to chuck a grenade and kill yourself or his Teammate(s) come(s) and kills you. I do not play with armor lock when playing with my bros But the real problem is matchmaking. Bungie does not realize that maybe people want to play without armor lock but still have the other AA's Would like to know others thoughts on this :/