How about those Armor Specializations?

Oh boy. Hopefully there's a classic playlist so I can play without these in the game if I don't like them...

 

Of course there will be. Just like Classic Slayer is in matchmaking.

/sarcasm

 

I'm expecting a playlist with a population around 1k that gets taken down in nine months or so. Or it stays forever, dwindling down to 300 or so like the Co-op Campaign playlist.

I forgot it was even there.

And with perks, specializations AND AAs...I can't say I'm very happy without a classic something or other to get back to a nice, smooth and simple experience.

If they want this much character customization, they might as well made the new trilogy an RPG game. Then they could really go crazy.

 

I know that some players will get satisfaction out of these armor mods and perks, but I don't see how. They allow players to customize abilities to their own playstyle, according to Frank O' Connor (perhaps he was talking about different perks only), and at least the vehicle mod seems to fit that description. The thing is though, for every playstyle to be as relatively viable in the same scenarios, the ideal thing would be to try to define (or identify without ambiguity) each playstyle (not necessarily like classes, but described in general terms- a player could hypothetically use more than one "playstyle" in a life) and try to make each increase of utility or power of each playstyle equal.

Of course, this can't happen, and I'm not surprised that they have something as game-changing as the scope mod (which would be perfect if it was a base ability). Anyway, essentially players maximize the benefit of the perk or mod simply by knowing what they do most. A better way to put it would be that the few who can't figure that out are a disadvantage. The decision cannot be considered "tactics" or "strategy", because once you decide which specialization to play towards, you have effectively decided which mod to use the majority of the time, and none of the mods offer dynamic decision-making within gameplay, unlike AAs, which required you at least to decide when to activate them (other than AL/sprint, they took either thought or maneuvering skill). As you complete more specializations, the choice for the next specialization becomes easier, but the choice of mod to spawn with does not get harder, because you already chose the most useful (even if only useful to you) mods.

I've seen "the weapon predicting mod encourages teamwork and strategy", which is nonsense first of all because any player could have communicated the spawn time and location of a weapon to teammates; the new weapon drop system just allows players to remember nothing and look out only for nav arrows, while introducing randomness (along with the personal ordinance drops and its mod). BTW, wouldn't weapons drop closer to some players than others, especially in an asymetrical map? What about placing weapons in spots that could balance them, like rockets in the bottom- will that just be thrown out of the window? I might edit this later.

 

@zepp

I agree with everything you said in the first paragraph. Although I don't think the scope mod would be a good base ability, as it would make suppressing snipers way too hard, which would make the sniper even more powerful than it already is while decreasing the skill gap of the sniper as well.

And while I'm not a fan of AAs in Halo, I see how you think that they hold more strategic merit than these perks, and I agree on that account. I would rather a set of AAs, and then something more like a perk that could be activated for a short period of time with a cooldown afterwards, forcing the player to decide when to use the ability to maximize effectiveness. This would increase the strategic merit and skill behind each ability.

And once again I agree with you in the third paragraph. These drops will be uneven because no one can really try to control the area where the next one will land, as no one will know until seconds before it drops. And the idea of Rockets getting dropped in any one of say...six locations that no one can predict scares me.

 

Does anyone else think that all of these frilly things are going to reduce the skill gap in general? I think I'm starting to see why MLG and Halo aren't doing so well together..

 

Ah, yes... I actually made a thread partly concerning the idea of not being scoped out under fire a while back (before this H4 news), and in it I made sure to say that I think it shouldn't apply to snipers.
http://www.forgehub.com/forum/reach-general-discussion/136961-long-sightlines.html
I sometimes end up repeating things that I typed before, but I usually don't like to make my posts any longer than they usually are.
I also mentioned it in the H4 thread, when it was assumed that the Rogue ability would apply to snipers. Ask yourself why Rogue (but any number of shots) for everyone wouldn't be better, because I don't know why. The chance that they have to correct this is being used to unbalance it. It also (I didn't reread my thread, so I don't know if I said this in there) makes sense that you would get descoped with a sniper and not a utility rifle (the equivalent of an "assault rifle" in real non-halo terms), because a sniper rifle would be harder to handle, and is usually not fired while standing anyway, while a smaller, lighter, not as necessarily precise rifle could be controlled more easily.


This is what I was thinking of when I made my last post. Halo Bulletin on Specializations:

"[Armor mods] enhance a small part of the sandbox (meaning good players will still be good, and not good players will still be not good), allowing people to play the style they want to play and experience the parts of the sandbox they like on a more frequent basis."

This is nonsense. Armor mods don't obviously "enhance" parts of the sandbox in terms of interesting gameplay; rather they mean that players get a gameplay advantage in some way. I say "don't obviously" because it would take some sort of explanation to demonstrate that any set of advantages with the same characteristics (from spawn, no decision necessary to activate them in combat, etc.) actually make gameplay interesting. The closest thing to a general explanation is the rest of the sentence.

Mods are not immune to the arguments about balance that apply to every other sandbox set (perks, AAs, weapons, vehicles), contrary to what the sentence implies. Also, "a small part of the sandbox" is completely inaccurate; the aim of the mod designers was clearly to make them varied, thereby covering as many aspects (though I don't think of them as aspects) of gameplay as there are mods. I think that the bulletin author might have wanted "small" to refer to the armor mod's power or effect on gameplay, considering the next phrase. It would certainly be more easy to make them balanced and less frustrating if their effect on gameplay was small (as long as that is the case for every single one).

The next phrase, "(meaning good players will still be good, and not good players will still be not good)" isn't very reassuring, first of all because it would be impossible to completely destroy the skill gap unless they somehow got rid of aiming. Only then could players not be described in the same way that they are now as "good" or not. I'm not saying that it is the only type of skill besides mods/perks/AAs, and players could certainly still be described as "good" at these things if aiming was eliminated. Saying "good players will..." is like saying that "the game still feels like halo".

Of course, the armor mods will affect the outcome of battles (however indirectly), and as Pegasi said, there would be no point in having them if they wouldn't. It's easy to say that they will simply affect the outcomes of few battles, but whether they affect battles in an unfun way still needs to be considered as a seperate matter. Losing to one may be slightly unfun in an inevitable, not problematic way, but that could be balanced if it took thought or skill to use it (so far, that inherently doesn't seem to be the case with mods, as I explained in the previous post). Saying "good players..." because mods only affect a few battles (a corollary of "they have a small effect/power") is like saying that the forced randomness of bloom only changes the outcome of a few duels compared to what would happen if there wasn't any bloom, and that thus the best player would still win most of the time- it's still a problem because the fun of the game comes from each encounter, especially in objective games, where a point (usually a significant, even though the smallest, margin of victory) depends on many successive encounters.

"allowing people to play the style they want to play and experience the parts of the sandbox they like on a more frequent basis."
Players could always play the style that they wanted to play, and that's why I think that the fundamental nature of mods and perks is ill-conceived, and that mods are unnecessary. It's what I wanted to say in my last post, but I needed this quote that I vaguely remembered to focus my thoughts. The same reasoning was used to describe perks (firepower, resupply), which are basically the same thing put into different slots of each loadout choice (although the bulletin also said, "the player they're fighting may have made a choice for a different mod in that slot, which may come into play with an additional grenade or something else.", so maybe the same slot).

Mods encourage players to experience parts of the sandbox that they like on a more frequent basis (even though they already use them on a frequent basis), not "allow". The only mods that do the latter at all are the personal ordinance drop reset mod, and to a lesser extent the weapon drop predicting mod. Getting an advantage in a vehicle does not allow you to use it more often.

If vehicles weren't fun or useful enough, why not give those improvements to vehicles for all players to enjoy without sacraficing something else? If you like a sandbox element or tactic, you will use it more often and get better at it, which will make you a "specialist" at it. You don't need mods, which can be considered as limiting (because one player can't be as good at more than one tactic by practicing it or thinking about it, compared to enemies which have a mod that gives them an advantage without any thought or skill. This means that individual skill is limited, even when teamwork was already extremely important, even if only used by individually good players anyway. Teams always had to use a variety of sandbox elements/tactics, and individuals had be the most efficient with their weapons/vehicles/tactics/roles to win against a coordinated team, but this just makes it easier for them, and effectively forces them to do that. Players are incentivized to maximize the use and benefit of their own mods but avoid other tactics as well as enemies using those other tactics, leading to a restricted, static type of individual playstyle) or unbalancing, but mods can't be considered neither.

Weapons, vehicles, and AAs can be seen as limiting or unbalancing in similar ways, the difference is that these are the sandbox elements with associated tactics which make the game richer; mods are falsely supposed to be them, or supposed to allow them to be used. Spawning with a greater variety of balanced weapons, like say a plasma rifle or spiker instead of an AR, and even carefully balanced AAs are therefore much better ways to make the game involve more sandbox elements/tactics. They actually did this, but then they had to add both mods and other perks anyway.

Now that I have dismantled that Bulletin quote explaining the purpose of specializations, here's a true story:

I like the DMR (the BR in H3 more, though). I use it the most of any weapon, because it is fun, and it is a very powerful weapon, especially when one gets good with it, primarily because one uses it alot, which I already said that I do. I like to play big team, and I like to DMR enemies from afar, because the DMR is effective at that range, not many enemies are good with the DMR at that range, and because I am good with it at that range. And why wouldn't I be? I already said that I use it a lot at that range. When I shoot first (which I often do, because...), it is hard for the enemy to return accurate fire because they can't zoom in. I, however, have done it so much that I get used to the times when they do hit me, and I can often, but not always, zoom in quickly and kill them anyway. Oh, and occasionally I liked to use a concussion rifle or plasma pistol, sometimes to fight vehicles, which was fun.
In Halo 4, the function of the DMR in Reach will be split into the BR (for medium and long ranges) and DMR (for long and longer ranges). One loses to the other at the other's optimal range. Also, there is an armor mod (you knew where I was going with this) that lets you stay zoomed in while taking a few hits. That seems like the right one for me- I was good at long-range DMR battles before, but now I'll be even better at it-almost unbeatable. No smart player would ever try to long range DMR me unless they had that mod too, even if they were previously a bit better at DMRing me, but I'll kill those who liked doing something different more easily. Also, I'll have to choose the firepower perk to spawn with two primaries if that doesn't occupy the same slot, because otherwise I would lose mid-range BR fights by using a DMR against enemies who weren't even as good at aiming, they were just almost as good. I guess that means that I also won't be able to use a concussion rifle or a plasma pistol as often. I can't be on an even playing field as enemies using the BR at mid range and try to play differently by engaging vehicles, which will have their mods, so I won't go where vehicles could be. If I can't have firepower and Stability I won't pick any mid-range BR battles either. I'll stick with Rogue (Stability mod), possibly firepower, BR, DMR, and will experience less of the sandbox elements/tactics.

That story involved the BR/DMR problem as well, but do you see how it illustrates what I was saying about mods and perks?