Yes, I think the only problem of sword-blocking is that it's too unreliable and comes more down to luck than skill. Making it a 100% reliable isn't the solution, removing it entirely is. The sword has always been overpowered in previous gametypes given that the map it was used on was a close quarters map. The reason why it can be used even more effectively in Reach is because of sprint and/or evade. Unless you have evade yourself it's extremely hard to get away from a player with a sword. This is where we get back to the point that AAs shouldn't be chosen at spawn, but rather be placed on the map. Again, I cannot understand how someone cannot see how inconsistent sword-blocking is.
As stated earlier, I think there are two reasonable arguments against sword block: 1. Too random and unreliable - no telling in a matchmaking game when it will work and when it won't. 2. Sword is literally the only power weapon nerfed in this specific way, where the intended victim - regardless of the weapon or armor ability they have - can perform a simple action to greatly reduce the sword's effectiveness. With every power weapon (including sword) you can reduce damage or not get hurt at all by doing the same basic set of things: get out of the line of fire, get behind cover, hide from the wielder, team shoot the wielder before he gets a chance to use his weapon, etc. Sword is the only one that has an unpredictable "get out of jail free" card in every player's back pocket. Reliability wouldn't make the sword block overpowered except in the hands of someone who is amazingly good at timing it and at reading the mind of his attacker. Even in a local game you have to be facing the sword wielder; you have to guess when he is going to lunge exactly; and you have to get your melee within a very small window of time to perform the block. In other words, even in an environment where reliability/predictability is high, success will be low because it's a skill act that is not easy. I don't believe sword blocks actually happen LESS in matchmaking games, I just believe that the skill in timing it right is discarded in favor of an outcome where you can't tell in any given conflict whether or not the block will work. It works about the same percentage of the time, but people timing it "correctly" are less often rewarded, and people timing it badly are more often surprised to find that they're alive. I also don't think amount of bloom is an argument that connects meaningfully to whether sword block should be in there, and I don't think 343 was thinking that way. I think they removed it because so many people were complaining, pure and simple. You can see that with so many other weapons they did nothing to compensate for the introduction of lower bloom - every other power weapon works exactly as it did before, certain weapons like the plasma pistol and needler are close to pointless in zero bloom games, and the pistol is infamously OP now (so bad that they're having to tweak it). Basically, I believe people complained about sword block and complained about bloom, and so they gave us a TU playlist that changes/removes both without any regard for how balance is affected. In default Reach playlists, it's not that hard to kill a guy with a sword. You don't need sword block to do it, you just need to play smart, don't get into tight spaces, back up when you see him, and use your teammates. Sword block might make the sword 5-10% less effective overall - it's not a huge margin. It's just a very annoying one.
1. To be honest saying "It's unreliable" isn't enough of an argument imo, If it was reliable in the sense you could count on it to beat a sword it would make the sword useless so keeping it unreliable keeps it balanced. It's a last resort meaning your not meant to rely on it and only use it if someone got the drop on you or you have no other choice.(just like throwing grenades when you know you can't kill them with bullets it's a unreliable last resort you shouldn't rely on but still good to have options) 2.So strafing a sniper and jumping a rockets explosion don't count as a simple action to greatly reduce there effectiveness? Sword is a binary weapon either kills or it doesn't so to have any sort of counter it needs a binary counter so obviously it doesn't follow the same rules and counters as a rocket with heavy splash damage would. What... Guess since 343 doesn't have any regard for balance and just what people complain about... They where incredibly lucky that it just so happened that sword block removal balanced out in the end.... But the reason other weapons where not changed is because in the TU the Precision weapons are meant to be half way between power weapons and normal weapons a sort of OP normal weapon but power weapons are still meant to be power weapons since the sword is one of the lower end power weapons it needed a buff and the TU playlist are meant to represent classic playlists from previous halos removing sword block fitted in with that to.
William, when we say it's unreliable we mean that it isn't consistent. It relies too much on luck. You can have a 5 paragraph long post about it, but that doesn't change this. From a competitive point of view something as random as sword-blocking should not exist.
You didn't address what I said at all. In a local game of Reach the sword block is "reliable" in the sense that if you execute the timing properly while facing the wielder, it works nearly every time. But that still doesn't mean it happens too often, or even frequently, because the timing to perform the block is very difficult and the wielder may not lunge when you think they will. Reliability =/= ease of use, it just means that it's something other than random. You can strafe or jump vs. basically any power weapon to reduce its effectiveness. Strafing is more effective vs. a sniper than rockets or sword, but the basic technique of moving out of line of fire/away from the shot applies to all power weapons - all weapons, period. The only one that is in any way hindered by simply swinging your AR at it is the sword. The sword has always, always been binary and in two previous games it worked just fine... hmmm, let me backtrack. In ONE previous game it worked just fine without a specific counter tailored to it. In Halo 2 it was an overpowered joke (but one that we all enjoyed laughing at). Clearly the idea of the sword block was to provide some counter to it - no question. I just don't think it's a good counter or a well-thought-out one, for reasons already expressed at length here. If they wanted to nerf it, there are better and more obvious ways, and it's telling that these things were all utilized ALREADY in Halo 3 and Reach: reduce lunge range; add a warm-up period when switching to the sword before it can be used, and a longer cooldown between lunges; limit the "ammo." Any of these variables can be, and have been, tinkered with to make it less powerful, if they feel it needs it. Personally I don't think it does. The only map that I really fear a sword on is Countdown, and even there you have two fantastic counter weapons to use against it: the shotgun and the concussion rifle. 1. They weren't lucky, the sword block was only marginally meaningful in games to begin with, as pointed out ad nauseum in this thread. 2. Do you honestly disagree with any of the examples I listed as to why balance was seemingly not taken much into account in the TU? Do you really disagree that the needler and plasma pistol are less useful now, that power weapons generally are less useful (since the precision weapons kill faster at all ranges), or that the pistol is/was overpowered? It drives me insane when I lay out a clear argument and get contradicted without actually engaging with the points I made, like, at all. I'm not typing all this stuff for my health. // My point is not that 343 has zero regard for balance, but more that they fixed what people were complaining about and clearly felt it wasn't going to imbalance the game too badly in a way that they needed to address. Precision weapons are much more useful now in a bloomless game, but most of the other Reach weapons and mechanics remain *exactly the same*. Do the math on that. If you're playing a zero bloom game and not leaning heavily on the DMR, you deserve what you get. Why did they only buff the sword? And why did they only buff it in a specific way that fit in very conveniently with a mechanic people were bitching about for months prior? You can't possibly believe this. If the sword needed buffing, the hammer needed it worse, and didn't get it. The shotgun probably could do with a slight range buff and didn't get it either.
Yes it would be nice if it was based more of skill and less random but it leads to the same result either way as you said a small chance of blocking the sword. Play a game of grifball, Every hit and kill is more random then a sword block people with better connections host advantage always have a huge advantage but if you have a **** connection you can compensate by changing your timing and still get a kill, Convert that skill into sword blocking to melee at the right time compensating for connection variables then you can sword but skillfully. Ok in your extremely narrow parameters your right (But if you limit the parameters enough to suit your needs your always going to be right) Meleeing(pressing RB) doesn't defend against a rocket or sniper, Strafing(not running away Moving analog left and right) Barely helps against a sword or rocket, Jumping(pressing A) barely helps against a sword (possibly sniper but not gonna say it to avoid that discussion) So each power weapon has counters but just the swords counter is binary doesn't mean anything it has to be it's a binary weapon. Just so it's clear it's not a hard counter either it's not even a soft counter its more of a better chance of surviving move, just as the other counters are you don't want to be in a situation where you have to strafe/jump/block but having the ability to defend yourself is a good thing. 1.Well I use sword whenever I get the chance and sword block comes into play a lot so it is meaningful just because it isn't mainstream everything down to the stats in the game is meaningful and important. As I've said the 10% chance of someone blocking you is important stat it effects your gameplay and strategies(in a good way) 2."the needler and plasma pistol are less useful now, that power weapons generally are less useful (since the precision weapons kill faster at all ranges), or that the pistol is/was overpowered?" True, Never disagreed to that. The point of the TU is to make the Precision weapons stronger compared to everything else (like previous halos that had OP BR's and Pistols) So obviously normal weapons like the needler and plasma pistol are less useful. But power weapons are meant to stay powerful(or at least useful) Sniper and rockets can still be used effectively in TU but the Sword is a melee weapon which requires CQC and all the precision weapons have been buffed to be useful and reliable in CQC then that nerfs the sword a lot, Get shot 5 times to the face without bloom and without ROF nerf and then they can sword block you, Sword is useless if there's a good chance to die before getting to them then a small chance they will block you even if you get there. Because of what I just said, Because it's meant bring back all the classic features of previous Halo's(that didn't have bloom or sword block) which is convenient because people where bitching about change. In default playlists Hammer>Sword because it can't be blocked(sword is viable though) then you put them in the TU where precision weapons are buffed the Hammer stays viable but the sword drops off as useless with sword block.
To interject on one particular point in your discussion with Nutduster: No Also no. Maybe you look around and see blonde, brunette, red head, good ping, bad ping, but I just see numbers. Perhaps I haven't been outside the Matrix for long enough, or maybe you're just talking complete nonsense, it's a tough call. You can attempt to account for latency, yes, but saying that it's not an issue as a result is beyond stupid. To then say that the result is the same either way, when comparing randomness and skill mechanics, is going even further.
Funny you should mention that. I used Grifball as an example in this thread already, comparing it directly to sword block, and that particular problem is exactly why I hate Grifball. I never play it any more, and for a long time I only played it to get the close quarters or multikill challenges. This amount of randomness isn't acceptable to me even if the outcome is roughly the same, because I want to feel like my skill affects the result and that if I improve my abilities, I will get the block or win that hammer duel more often. I don't believe this to be true, and that's why I hate both of these mechanics of Reach. (There are ways to still do well at Grifball actually, but they involve never going head-to-head if you can help it, unless the other person just swung and missed.) The bottom line is that Halo is a game where someone tries to shoot or hit you and you try to not be in the way of that action. Yes, some techniques work better against certain weapons than others, but common to all weapons is the notion that when the attack comes, you need to not be in front of it - or you need to put some piece of cover between you and your attacker. The sword does not require a counter unique to it. However, even if they were going to put it in, they shouldn't have made it as powerful as it is. It would be better if it was impossible for a person to block twice. The first strike should do a lot of damage (like take you to half health/no shields) and the second should kill whether you "successfully" block or not. I'd still complain about the randomness, but the block mechanic would be more tolerable that way. To me it's the other way around. They're satisfying the bitching and the simplest way to do that gives us something more like previous Halo games. It also doesn't break Reach by any means - for all my talk of balance, I think TU games play fine; they just play very differently than vanilla Reach, and the weapons are balanced very differently against each other now (some are so imbalanced as to be useless). We can agree to disagree on this because neither of us has one shred of objective proof for our position. To me it's just Occam's Razor in effect. I do in fact work for a software company, so I have a little experience in this. If we changed our program in several radical ways and people complained about two of them, we would deliver a patch that restores those particular features to how they were, while making sure it didn't clash too badly with current functionality. We wouldn't do a complete re-design of our program, it would just be Band-aids on the most obvious wounds. It's a lot easier for 343 to take away bloom and say "Now the DMR's a semi-power weapon!" than to take away bloom and then also mess with the rate of fire or damage per round to adjust the weapon's kill time. There are ways they could have satisfied the bitching and kept Reach fairly close to its out-of-the-box state, but they chose to do something that conveniently requires a whole lot less work for them. Hmmmm...
OK i'll admit latency is a issue that makes it hard to judge the right time to block which reasonably can be conveyed as random. If it was a choice between sword block with latency issues or sword block without latency issues, No one would choose to have latency issues. So whats the plausible solution for the default playlists in Halo:Reach? Without removing sword block and since No one wants to be able to block the sword just as easily as another sword, I don't see any plausible solution that 343i will actually implement. If you want sword block removed then sure you can want that and other people can want it to stay and you could probably argue forever on both points but it comes down to what 343i want and if they wanted to remove sword block I'm sure they would have with the TU. Which is what I was referring to when I said "this isn't a issue" I was meaning this is a miniscule problem because sword blocks are pretty rare and that even if it was more based on skill(even though there is no plausible way to do this) it would still lead to the same % of sword swings been blocked anyway so it will have a miniscule effect on gameplay and removing it would change the sword drastically.
Cool, then we're basically on the same page at least with that part of it (which I think is the biggest issue). For me, mechanics in the game that don't account for latency at all are too frustrating to live with. I don't think the sword is overpowered without sword block, but even if it was I'd rather not have sword block because it is random enough to be annoying. But I understand if you feel differently. Clearly. I'm just saying that much of Halo since the first Live-oriented iteration of the game, Halo 2, has been tooled specifically to reduce the effects of latency and make the game less obviously random to its players. The Halo 2 patch that increased the chance of two melee combatants killing each other simultaneously (but reduced the chance of feeling like you got robbed because you swung before the other guy on your screen, yet you died and he didn't) is just such an example. You can see how sword block is very much in the same ballpark, as well as with the grifball problem (which they ALSO ought to patch, but I guess people either live with that one or steer clear of grifball like I do). Ask Overdoziz how rare they are. We played team doubles together yesterday for a couple of hours and experienced probably about 10-12 total sword blocks, enough that it started to be kind of a joke. Other days though I'll go on running riots with the sword as a key component and never get blocked. It's too random in every respect for my tastes - you just never know what to expect.
So your admitting you would rather compromise gameplay with a unbalanced OP sword because of your personal hate of latency issues. Interesting. Me personally it would probably benefit me to not want sword block because most of the time I'm the one using a sword and whenever I have to kill a sword player I avoid using sword block anyway. But I prefer balance over what benefits me. 10-12 sword blocks within 2 hours is a lot more common then usual other wise you wouldn't of used it as an example and when you think about it, That is still a pretty small amount of time consumed by sword block compared to almost every other aspect of gameplay you witness within 2 hours, Which is why I called it rare. It's too random for your tastes? Your paragraph was written from the perspective of a sword wielder so if sword block had no latency issues at all it wouldn't of effected your gameplay at all some days you would get "running riots with the sword as a key component and never get blocked." and other days you would play a "couple of hours and experienced probably about 10-12 total sword blocks" So from the perspective of a sword user you still would just "never know what to expect." So I have the feeling you just personally dislike sword block and want it removed regardless of how it would effect gameplay. (Judging from your previous statements, 343i base there work on personal complaints and don't regard gameplay so it's reasonable that if you complain it could become a reality?)
You're wearing me out. Yes, I have personal feelings of annoyance at sword block all the time, but I've made what I think is a strong and considered case against sword block from a gameplay perspective already. I also don't think it's fair to dismiss the subjective "this annoys me" argument either, because that is how most people approach the game, and fan outcry is exactly how something like this gets patched. Anyway I've said my bit on this and you either understand my position by now, or you don't.
The sword is made of hot plasma, which melts armour and is super effective against shields, yet, you can block it with your arm? TBH, they should have never added it in cos its just too far from the truth, if you tried to do that IRL, you'd probs have your arm cut off shields or not. Thank god they removed it.
You're pulling words out of his posts and giving them unintended meaning. Latency issues compromise gameplay by themselves; I'm sure if the sword WAS OP, then Nutduster would recommend other balancing techniques, like more cooldown time, shorter lunge, etc. Anything that wouldn't rely upon the connection of every player involved. So then we're all on the same page. Nutduster wishes for the same things, he just realizes that sword-block in any way, shape, or form could never add a reliable balance aspect to the game. You're making this very personal now, aren't you? A single sword block can be the defining moment of a game, just as a single shot, a single grenade, or a single armor locking asshole. Now multiply that times 10. That is not rare. If there was no sword block, he'd know exactly what to expect, and if he died with the sword, it would be his own fault, and not the fault of a broken game mechanic. That statement was so ignorant that I find literally no reason to argue with you ever again. You pull your opinions and ideas out of your ass, everyone else presents researched cases. You make fallacious statements like this, everyone else tries to reason with you. There's no point in arguing with someone like you.
You can't multiply an objectively rare occurrence by some arbitrary number just to claim that it's common. Dislike it if you want, but let's not get carried away. This implies he would have no clue what to expect if sword block was in place, which would make him a failure with no short-term memory. You know to expect a minimal chance of being blocked in a head-on engagement, so you would play accordingly. The occurrence of a sword block may be infrequent, but its very presence helps people mentally move away from the bum-rush strategy of the past.
That was mainly for rhetorical purposes, but there is some truth behind it; it may be infrequent, but it's certainly common enough to cause a difference in many games. So gambling is a better solution? Because that's what you're essentially doing with sword block in place. Not to mention, anyone who aimlessly bum-rushes while using the sword, especially against crowds of people, will probably die anyways. Myself and others have been in countless experiences, where we're wielding the sword and have orchestrated some sort of plot to kill a group of enemies, and it all relies upon the whether or not we get sword-blocked. Halo shouldn't be poker in any way, shape, or form. If anything, the sword-block has promoted the use of corner-camping in order to surprise enemies, thus avoiding the sword-block. Which, in turn, slows down the game and promotes camping in general. There's not a damn good thing that I can think of involving sword block.