(Yay, argument thread!) The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that active camo as an AA was a mistake on Bungie's part. I don't think it's overpowered or game-ruining or anything of the sort, I just think it has a few problems that outweigh any benefits. First, let's look at the primary benefits: - The radar jamming feature is basically an infiltration/anti-camping device. It should allow you to more easily break the hold a team (or single player with a power weapon) has on an area. If you know a team is holding the top hall on Reflection, jamming radar at any of the three access points - the two side entrances or the elevator - will make it easier to break that hold, because it prevents them from just watching their motion tracker to predict your movements and sows seeds of chaos. You can accomplish something similar by crouch-walking, but the very nature of that action slows the game down whereas radar jamming (by itself) does not. - You can use it defensively when your team is getting hammered - e.g. to sneak up on a wraith that is spawn-killing around your base on Hemorrhage. Now the problems: - The camo feature slows the game down badly. To be useful, you actually are forced to not move, or crouch-walk. - It encourages camping and staying in your own territory instead of movement and pushing the action forward. This inverts the traditional impulse of the active camo power-up in Halo 3 and earlier, which (like radar jamming) was most useful for infiltration: as long as you weren't firing your gun, you could move at full speed, relatively unseen, into enemy territory. With having to stay still to stay invisible AND with the radar jam area effect notifying enemies when you turn camo on, you are encouraged to stay away from them and not move - hence why camo AA is favored by snipers in BTB but not used as much or as effectively in smaller games. - It confuses the function of the camo power-up. This was most readily apparent in the shipped version of Reach, where I think Bungie was concerned about that problem and just made the power-up work the same way as the armor ability. This effectively rendered the power-up pointless - who goes out of their way to pick up a single-use armor ability when you can just spawn with one that can be used over and over? And again, the AA encourages you to stay in your own territory; the power-ups are usually placed neutrally (though in Reach's default maps, not at all) and you are supposed to go get them as a means of pushing further into enemy territory - infiltration again. Thankfully Bungie saw the light on that and patched camo via gametype updates. But still there's an element of confusion to it - any game with a camo power-up in it and camo AA in the loadouts, an opposing player who sees someone invisible doesn't know what they're up against exactly. And I do still believe the camo AA de-incentivizes going after the power-up in the first place, even though the power-up is now rightfully superior. -- Proposed hypothetical solution? Instead of a camo AA, a radar jamming AA. The radar jamming would need to be more powerful; I'd suggest either a) just jamming enemies, or b) same core effect as now, except the motion tracker goes to gray static instead of a bunch of random dots with your actual dot still in the mix; and perhaps slightly enlarge the area of effect so it would be less easy to locate the user. Obviously this AA would be useless in MLG and pro-style games, but it would be great in all motion tracker games and highly useful for infiltration, which I believe is really the best possible intended use of camo.
What use does a radar jammer have if I'm a mile away from my enemies sniping them on Hemorrhage? On a more serious note; You could make a thread like this about pretty much every AA and then another about the entire concept of AAs.
Something that bugs me with it is that it jams ally's motion trackers as well. So you never know if its an enemy around or a teammate. On the positive side, it keeps you on your toes.
I prefer game types with no radar... Radar is a crutch for those that lack situation awareness. Its a tool for the lazy individual. Keep your head on the swivel and pay attention to your surroundings. We don't need no stinkin radar. Radar would be pretty cool if it worked only when your in a vehicle. As your ability to look around quickly is nerfed, it greatly aids your ability to locate near by enemies.
Yeah, but we've already had THAT conversation ad nauseum. I thought this one was relatively fresh. Actually I can come up with pretty strong defenses for sprint and hologram which I think are absolutely fine. Evade and jet pack are problematic but not in the same way as active camo or armor lock; they don't bog down the game in the same way, and they actually work well on certain maps and in certain gametypes (but they can be game-breaking outside of those contexts). As for the whole concept of AAs, I defer to Pegasi, whose opinions on the subject I basically share... but I don't want to derail the thread to have that discussion again.
Hologram is fine but Sprint makes it too easy for people to run away. Something which happens all the time. The impact Sprint (and other AAs) has had on the base movement speed in Reach is also something I dislike. As you might have noticed we're already having that discussion again.
Yeah, so stop it! Let's talk about the potential awesomeness of radar jamming and an unadulterated camo power-up... assuming you like armor abilities to begin with, blah blah blah. ...You know what, maybe this thread ain't for you.
Way to over look my post. Lame circle jerkers. And you totally stole my name. I soooo copyrighted "circle of jerks". Okay, so I actually said something that made Nutter coin the name... But I sooo requested a copyright on it first.
I'm not a fan of radar jammer, especially not if everyone an use it. We had it in Halo 3 and the idea behind it is nice and all but in practice people hardly used it tactfully. They were more annoying than anything else and most people threw them off the edge to get rid of it as quickly as possible on Narrows. Can you imagine everyone having a radar jammer? I've an entire team use jetpack for an entire match, personally I'd rather not participate in a match where my radar is filled with dozens of red dots the entire time.
You get nothing! I saw your post, I just fear the thread derailment. I think radar-free games have their place - and that place is MLG and the occasional "pro" gametype in matchmaking. But I'm not in favor of removing motion trackers entirely. Like it or not, it's been an essential part of Halo since CE for the majority of players - perhaps even more so in the post-XBox Live Halo iterations. Personally I played LAN games of CE for about two years with radar always turned off, but once I started doing matchmaking I got used to it. I do really dislike one specific thing it does to the game - the "camping and waiting for red dots to appear" aspect, which also leads to crouch-walking and game-slowing - but I don't think it's entirely negative. I do feel more free to move in motion tracker games, for one thing. Having your "head on a swivel" often encourages you to go to places where you only need to look a couple different ways, and just stay there. Anyway, like I said - thread derailment. More interested in talking the demerits of camo than the demerits of motion trackers. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I hear you, but I honestly don't think most people would use it. Tactical players would love it, but most players aren't tactical (read: most players are idiots). And even a lot of the tactical types would stick to the tried-and-true sprint.
But they can already do that with camo, AND it makes them invisible. I say radar jammer is an improvement.
However, in well design maps where there are a minumum of three avenues of approach to any given position and solid balance of dance floor, LoS blockage and power positions, camping with no radar is seriously mitigated and the game plays at a much faster pace than one with radar. Communication and situational awareness can easily trump radar reliant players. Of course any game can be significantly slowed down to a completely unenjoyable pace by hiders and campers.
Replacing something annoying with something slightly less annoying doesn't seem like such a great thing.
I like Reach... In fact, I'd say NBNS(no-AA) DMR starts is one of the most enjoyable game settings I've played in Halo. About on par with H2 gameplay wise IMO.
I'm actually quite happy with title update Reach, so long as armor lock is left out of the non-BTB games. The DMR rocks with bloom decreased (or as you suggest, removed). Reach is hardly a bad game. But still I say, off with camo's head!