One hundred percent agreement from me. Armor Lock in its current state works better as a pick up. I've played numerous games with it as a pick up instead of a loadout and I actually enjoy myself more than it not being on the map at all. Especially in 2v2s. There's only one other instance where I wouldn't mind Armor Lock as a loadout but I'll get to that later. Also, to add a little note; the reason most people don't have a problem with it in BTB is because it's so useless compared to the Drop Shield in BTB. It's best just to replace AL with DS in Big Team altogether. The problem with the Jetpack isn't actually a problem with the Jetpack. It's a problem with the map designers and maps in general. Most people (including Bungie) that build maps don't keep the abilities in mind when they make them and instead force them onto it. Some maps work well with the Jetpack and some don't, but that doesn't mean the Jetpack is to blame. The easiest fix would be to remove it's option as a loadout from maps where excessive use promotes some negative gameplay, like, in my opinion, Reflection and keep it on ones where it has a neutral or positive effect, such as Powerhouse. Once again, I have no qualms with what your saying here. Evade doesn't even work well as a pick up either as the one guy with Evade has a huge advantage over everyone else. The only cases where I've seen it work is in gametypes where it's the only available ability or Invasion. This is my problem with Sprint. Its usefulness overshadows everything else in most cases and makes people sadly neglect other abilities. It's also especially difficult to balance into maps for me so I tend to not build my maps with it in mind. If I had it my way, it'd be removed as an option altogether for 4v4 because it just messes with map flow in the same way Jetpack does, but in a different sort of way. Unfortunately for me, this will never happen. Drop Shield should only be an option for large team games and large, open maps in general. Not because it's unbalanced, but because it slows gameplay down a lot when vehicles don't come into play. Don't get me wrong, I really like the way they balanced it, but it just doesn't fit the small-to-medium sized engagements as well as other abilities do. I kind of feel the same way, but the only buff I really want for it though is that it turns your crosshairs red (without giving you aim assist) and less flicker when moving. The biggest problem with it, however, isn't even a problem in itself. It's a problem with the other abilities. Notably the top three most used: Sprint, Evade, and Jetpack. You tend to fall for Hologram less on maps where any one of these abilities is present as a loadout, as a person with Hologram is usually the one not sprinting, diving, or walking around with a giant thing on his back. Believe it or not, Hologram is actually a useful ability in gametypes without the big three as everyone walks at the same pace. Now, remember earlier when I said that there was only one instance where I approved of Armor Lock as a loadout but I'll get to that part later? This is that part. I've played a couple games in the past where the only available loadouts where Hologram, Camo, and Armor Lock. Long story short, it actually works pretty well. Everyone moves at the same pace so Hologram is useful while Armor Lock has to directly compete with the also competent Active Camo. It's by no means perfect, but it is definitely one of the most balanced combination of abilities I've played that has at least three different ones. Hell, on some maps where it would work better, you could even replace AL with Jetpack and it could work even better. I would really like a playlist with this gametype, to be honest as I feel like it plays more like Halo than Halo Reach already does.
Interesting, I like that take. I feel like Bungie kinda dropped the ball on armor abilities as pick-ups - throughout their playlists AAs are basically loadouts or nothing. If there's one AA that would benefit from not being available to all players, it's that one. I've played all kinds of games where almost everyone used the same AA, and the only one that made the game basically intolerable was armor lock. But in limited doses I think it would be a lot better. But it's extremely useful on maps with ghosts and revenants going for splatters. Especially since less people use AL in big team, so drivers do try to splatter and you can take them by surprise. This, to me, is the single best use of AL and probably the main thing it was intended to do. So I'm a fan of having both AL and drop shield in BTB.
I 100% agree with this. I think that AL is a perfectly fair advantage if it's worked for. Just the same as an Overshield in H:CE/2/3, it's powerful but that power has to be worked for, you have to time it/control it/win battles to get it and therefore you can't rely on having it to win any battle, just know how to use it when you do get it and work around it when you don't. I agree that Bungie really dropped the ball on AA pickups, in fact I couldn't agree more. It's provided as an option in Forge yet not utilised at all, I think in Arena particularly it'd be a great way to increase map movement an options for emphasising map control in lieu of OS and Camo (since flooding maps with power weapons to account for lost powerups over H3 is a bad idea in itself). Thing like Evade and AL are, imo, the best examples of AAs working well as pickups, since they're definitely an advantage worth working for, and JP on certain maps as well (like The Cage, it'd be an incredibly useful pickup on that map). It really saddens me that Bungie haven't utilised this option at all, even though I can see why they want to keep the majority of the game focused on loadouts rather than pickups when it comes to AA.
Part of the problem may be the overall flexibility of armor abilities. They can be either loadouts or pickups so the natural inclination is to make them loadouts. I know in my own forging, I placed a couple of AA pickups early on but quickly abandoned the notion because I knew that I would have no control over what gametypes people played on my maps, and therefore the pickups might be contrary to the game they want to play, or redundant to the loadouts already offered. That flexibility seems like it would make the game better and more versatile, but in a sense it also ties our hands behind our backs. Honestly I think armor lock would benefit from being an ability that you can ONLY pick up, but having it as a loadout option means that it is usually in the game that way, or not at all.
Very true. But in terms of Bungie's end they could have Arena versions of maps (like Arena Zealot was before they realised it was just straight up better than the original) with pickups. Also, there's the option to make placed AA's gametype specific to prevent ones which interfere with objective games being present in them, and (if there'd been some forward planning on the matter) Bungie could have set abilities on map to "none" in the standard loadout gametypes meaning placed ones would only be present with specially designed gametypes. Basically, it's all totally possible, but I agree that at this stage it's a bit late.
They could experiment with the AA pickups in Action Sack or make an entirely new playlist for it within the appropriate section. Easy enough. If people responded positively, then who knows...maybe Reach will see an influx in population since players finally won't have to deal with the bullshit, while still getting to use AAs. AL in BTB is essential, which is why it should definitely stay there. It's much harder to abuse and most of the time its only use is defense against vehicles, which DS does not provide if someone is going in for the splatter. The vehicles weapons will wreck the shield soon anyways. Replacing AL with DS in competitive 4v4 would not slow down gameplay any more than AL- in fact it would slow it down significantly less. Here is my reasoning: You're about to get a kill. The guy ALs. Because he's glowing and you don't want to get near him and be EMP'd, you back away. He pops out and what do you know- he's got a sword/shotty/sticky and you're as good as dead if you didn't back way the **** up. And even if you did, here comes his teammate around the corner to assassinate you because you were too focused on getting what's yours. Now say that you're about to get a kill and they DS. Two things could happen. One, you follow them in, kill them, and enjoy some free protection. Two, you see they're holding a sword/shotty/hammer and bail. Both of these options are not afforded to you in the case of AL, except the option of bailing perhaps, but how often does anyone do that? I'd say close to never. DS won't be saving them from being stuck either.
I agree that AL in BTB isn't nearly as much of a problem, and also that even DS would be preferable to AL in regular 4v4. Being able to still kill, even though your efforts are impeded, is a big difference. Sure it could bring its own issues around nade prepping opponents who rush the shield, but at least that adds to the meta game in a small way, and one which requires some proficiency with the right stick. Also (and I could be wrong on this since I don't play games with DL enough to be fully familiar with how it reacts in all situations), I think the activation time implied by having to hold the button (not true with AL) extends to a point at which quick bursts to prevent a headshot when no shields wouldn't work, or at least not as well. Good point on being stuck too, the more you say it, the more it sounds appealing. Never thought I'd be convinced to the idea of including DS in more gametypes, but at the very least I see where you're coming from.
I know, huh? I just thought about it starting in the previous couple posts and I've already convinced myself of how awesome it would be on almost any map. It could really become a useful tactic to have a partner follow you with DS and employ some bait n' switch tactics while restoring health after you've been hit. Actually, that might get really annoying and everyone would just ***** about that. I also just realized how completely ****ed it would be to have DS on Sword Base. Having that in the yellow lift room could quite possibly be even worse than AL. Just deploy one of those and those nades tossed up won't do diddly. It could really encourage group camping as well. Countdown could be abused by this as well. How I wish Bungie would just specifically limit AA options on a per-map basis...I feel they were on the right track with equipment in Halo 3. The abilities in this are much better than the equipment was, but keeping the pick-up idea would have been perfect. Makes me a sad panda.
I just went back into Competitive (Social) recently and realized again how bad armor lock really is. It's no wonder I switched to Team Classic and MLG to avoid it. Off-Topic - That map Enclosed needs to be removed. It's broken and way overrated.
I played a map called Synapse a couple days ago. It had some problems with frame rate and spawns, but was better than a lot of community maps thus far. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Just checked out the maps that made it in. I hated Kingdom and Affinity when they were in the community playlist. Just found out Affinity was made by that smug-ass godly perfection guy, too. Treasury was fun, but the bottom floor was under-utilized and easy to camp if it did get used. I get the feeling that the Community Cartographers are intent on keeping the prized goal of getting one's map into matchmaking confined within their own elite group of forging buddies.
I only liked Synapse because I couldn't get a single round in without getting a Killing Frenzy/Assist Spree. The map Affinity is just alright. GodlyPerfection is a bit of a douche, so it's probably more of a personal thing, but I just don't find anything unique with the map. The only memorable moment I had was beating a Bungie employee, and nothing of the gameplay itself. The entire match is just a rush to top mid and then a camp-frenzy for the rest of the round. It's no fun at all. Treasury is one of my most hated maps ever. Not only is it from JoeSki, a guy who only made one good map in his entire forge career (Pivotal), but there's something more to this map. Like you said, the bottom is rarely used, and like the other community maps, it's nothing more than a camp-fest/nade-fest the entire match. As well as that, Armor Lock is 10x as abusable on this map than any other map. Lastly, that map Kingdom is just a rushed map and a bad attempt at creating an arena map. It has the most unoriginal design of all time, one which thousands of maps have done better, and it has the dumbest weapon set ever. The sword didn't work well at all from where it was placed. If you manage to get out, you might get 2-3 sword kills the entire match. If you ask me, maps like Empire (Onslaught inspiration by I Evil Twin I) and Element should have gotten into matchmaking. I'm not sure why Bungie seems to be so against MLG. There are very few non-MLG maps that can match the quality MLG provides. It seems to me like Bungie doesn't even know what makes a good map.
I think a major thing they look for is split-screen lag. If your map can't support at least 2 players, you're pretty ****ed. I think they even want you to come close to lagless with 3-4 players on a screen. The only thing I liked about affinity was the massive feel of it...it's like that level in Mario 64 when you're really small and the level is huge.
Most MLG maps lack aesthetics that serve any purpose other than call-outs, so the frame-rate is fine. Bungie denied Genome because of "object density", despite that the object density caused no FR issues on the map. I'm hoping the Community-CTF playlist has some high quality maps. If The Venetian isn't in there, then that's enough for me to not want to play it. OT - Does anyone else want to see the return of the feature where you could recommend something to a specific gamertag? Personally, I'd like to send the file below to Walshy. Bungie.net : Halo Reach : File Details
Sigh. Lately, Bungie have been adding new gametypes that seem great in writing, but they do something to ruin them. Or they ruin existing gametypes. For instance, having AL in Rocket Flag and Splockets in AS is ****ing ridiculous. And changing Multi Team in the first place was a bad decision, but then changing a bad gametype (Headhunter, 25 skulls to win, skullimanjaro ends the game insta) to complete and utter crap (75 skulls to win, skullimanjaro medal removed). It just seems everything they're doing lately contains at least 1 fatal mistake to make gameplay unenjoyable.
I hate to seem like I'm beating a dead horse here, but it seems as if Bungie at least slightly acknowledge my gripe with kill trade windows. I know this is a specific point with Infection rather than the game at large, but I think this is an extreme case which highlights the more underlying problem across the whole game.
Pretty much every map has framedrops (even non-forged ones like Condemned). They really should've focused on fixing framerate issues if they wanted include Forge maps into Matchmaking.