First off: megapwn has put what I'm trying to say very well. Your suggested nerfs are specifically well put, and the bursting one in particular because it negates one of the most annoying aspects of AL but one that hasn't been mentioned in here much: it KILLS CQC. It makes meleeing someone who's learned the burst trick definite death. You go in for the melee, they burst, you're one shot even if you had full shields and had already taken them one shot, then they come out and melee before you can melee again, thus going from potentially a whole shield down on you to killing you and living. How on earth can anyone consider that not broken? I'd argue that it doesn't forfeit that chance, though. It just gives them time to cool their head down before combat restarts and the chance returns. I can still oustrafe an opponent after coming back out of AL, and actually the frosting glitch where the first shot on exit doesn't quite register even though they have started moving helps this out. I don't think that AL'ing forfeits any chance to come back from being shots down on exit, quite the opposite. You say you're clearly speaking in general terms here, not just this thread? Look at the post you made: That doesn't sound very general to me, sounds like you're pointing out what I could have said/should have said in that specific post. And in even in general terms, how do you know what I complain about outside of this thread? Ask my friend who plays Arena with me and he'll tell you how much I talked about Evade making battles redundant before it was removed, same with JP on Cage and Reflection. In terms of what 'people' always whine about, how in any way am I responsible for that? Please address the points I'm making, rather than lumping me together with what 'people who whine about AL' are saying. I actually even addressed why people always focus on it, same as megapwn did. No, it doesn't. Sorry, but you just haven't understood what I posted. When someone says that AL is balanced, they're definitively stating that there's no situation in which an imbalance can be displayed. If I can provide one example of where it does, then that nullifies their point, that's why superlatives are dangerous. I agree that anecdotes are a poor sole basis for an argument, but I'm not using them as such, merely to illustrate counters to when people put forward one or two situations and then proceed to act as if that's the only kind of situation that occurs as a result of AL. I'm putting forward anecdotes to expand the point of what can happen with AL, not say that my experiences are the only possible ones. Also, when I criticise the use of anecdotes to prove a definitive 'it is balanced' point, you come in saying "what do you expect", and then when I use them they're suddenly useless? Somewhat of a double standard. Also, Halo is not one of the slowest FPS's around. Don't mistake slow kill times for a slow game, in fact the way Halo works actually shows the fallacy of this assumption. Low kill times means that people are less prone to pushing, to speeding up the flow of the game, because they risk being killed if they venture more than a second away from cover. Watch pro Halo, then watch pro CoD. One involves people constantly pushing around the map, trying to gain control, working from second to second. The other involves people sitting around in ADS, watching an angle or two whilst backed in to a defensible position. Guess which is which. I don't mean this as a slight, and even though it risks coming off as such I think it bears saying: If you consider Halo one of the slowest paced FPS's around then I genuinely have to question the depth of understanding you have of the mechanic. The beauty of Halo is that first shot doesn't win an encounter every time because the of the variety of kill times. In a game like CoD, a good player and a bad player will have kill times not too dissimilar simply due to the nature of damage dealt per bullet, health of players, and movement speed which facilitates (or rather doesn't) throwing a shot off. If someone gets first shot on me in Halo, but I am better than them, I can turn around and still win the encounter, that's what sets Halo apart as a series, the potential for the better player to win on a second by second basis, as opposed to positioning being the holy grail of success. Oh, ok. A fair example, my apologies for the misunderstanding. On that point, I still disagree, since at least that advantage was worked for. I agree that this was a clunky mechanic, but at least it rewarded the player who had done more damage in the situation, or at least the one who had come in with less damage already put on them if both players came in hurt. Not ideal, but still not a great comparison imo. Sure the way it played out wasn't very good, but I don't think there's anything wrong with considering the idea that coming in to an encounter with more shields should be an advantage, and rewarding that advantage accordingly, because it is in at least some sense an earned advantage. No, they mustn't. The entire purpose of AL is that they don't have to rely on their own offensive capability to not die. Sure they may end up not making a kill, but that's how it works. When you make a kill, you make a kill, when it's clear that you're not going to make the kill, you use AL in an attempt to negate the entire encounter in terms of your own k/d, even potentially helping your team overall. Say you engage in 25 encounters over the course of a game when you are using AL. It's better to go 5-0 than 7-18, negating every instance in which you would have lost but only losing out on 2 kills you could have gotten but weren't sure enough not to AL. Evade is a better example since it's pretty hard to hit someone mid Evade, but it's still possible, hell I've sniped people mid Evade on rare occasions. Sprint even more so, it speeds up movement a bit but at least it's the same terms as normal just accelerated, it's not a whole new aspect (ie. invulnerability) thrown in to the mix. As for getting angry, that's not really the issue here. My issue isn't directly that it makes me angry, my issue is that it hurts the balance of the game, which I'll admit in turn makes me angry some of the time. Others it doesn't, sometimes it just makes me stop enjoying the game and I'll turn it off and do something else, hell sometimes I've laughed so hard at the effects of AL. My issue is with the objective effects of AL, and tbh my attitude in here stems more from the conduct and attitude of those who purport to be debating when they're really not, rather than the subject that we're debating about. I personally don't see anything wrong with putting forward arguments as to why I believe something to be unbalanced, it's a simple example of debate about a subject.
That's fine, we'll just have to disagree then, but you know as well as I do that you're going to win an engagement against someone who goes into armor lock a majority of the time sans outside interference. I just don't buy that "a cool head" is a tangible trade off for giving up aim while helping the enemy improve theirs. You're absolutely right, I'm lumping you together with what most people say because it's not actually anything unique. While it's true that you're going into greater, indeed, gratuitous detail on the subject, you're not bringing up anything that doesn't ultimately stem from simple personal preference. While I'll try to be more specific in the future for your benefit, please understand that there's really no reason for me to treat you any differently, especially since you've wrongfully assumed that my original goal upon entering this thread was to refute you point for point. It wasn't. I've only intended to highlight some common discrepancies in the tired anti-AL argument. I don't believe I've claimed it was balanced, so it seems your aggression is directed at the wrong target in this case. If anything, I would only suggest that it is no worse than any of the other abilities, and certainly nothing worth crying foul over. I suppose it's just how you choose to interpret the rather vague term "slow" to begin with. You might always be working, but that's because it takes so long to get things done thanks to the said low kill times and slow movement. If it helps, replace CoD with something like Quake instead, which is a more commonly used example when people call Halo slow anyway. I agree here, and I believe armor abilities only add to this variety. The best way to look at it might be to say that they increase the ends of the spectrum; where AL might slow things down in some cases, movement abilities like Evade and Jetpack actually speed things up more than usual. As someone who enjoys variety, this AA diversity is one of the things that has kept me with Reach. Is it worth "rewarding" the player for seeing someone first when you're essentially telling the other player "tough ****"? As I said, there was literally nothing you could do if you were on the receiving end of these engagement unless the other player royally screwed up. I'm all for rewarding the player, but keep it fair. Reward them for being able to follow through, rather than just for being the one to start the fight. We're not really talking about not dying though, because you can't win by not dying. AL does nothing to help you kill someone unless they're stupid enough to plow into you, whereas most of the other abilities actually make you more proficient at killing. We can speculate about k/d all day, but I would say it depends on the person's personal abilities, not their armor abilities. If anything, fighting AL users would normally improve my k/d, so I guess I ought to be praising its inclusion. Heck, if it were a regular occurrence to see people die 20 fewer times than they normally would just because of AL, I would gladly petition to have it removed. Like I said before, it's really just a lot of personal preference, and it seems pointless to make such a strong argument against something when we could make similar points against other aspects of the game. In reality, none of these are prohibiting my success or enjoyment of the game and it just seems that if AL were truly as game-breaking as some people make it out to be, we would all feel its effects on some level. On the contrary, I tend to benefit from those that use it more often than not, so I just have trouble sympathizing with people who just can't seem to get past it.
I don't really feel any benefit from having 5 seconds to line up a shot, in fact I don't really need it. That's not trying to sound cocky, it doesn't take a great amount of skill to be able to line up the next shot in the time taken for RoF limit to expire/bloom to contract. The 'outside interference' is obviously what does it, that's the entire point of pretty much every point I've made. Even if not and I still win the encounter, it needlessly slows the game down as megapwn so aptly put. Also, and this is a clincher: Going in to AL does not give up any aiming time or ability whatsoever. In fact, it gives the AL user the time to line up their shot just the same as the person attacking them. You know that panaround feature? Your reticle will be facing where ever you leave the pan when you exit. This not only makes the backwards elbow melee possible, but allows the AL user to line up their shot ready for when they exit. So this 'disadvantage' you speak of from using AL does not exist. In fact, I'd rather be invincible whilst I take that time to line up my shot than even have the chance of being attacked by an outside influence. True you don't have the reticle itself, but you have so long to line up the shot that you can play around centring the screen to your heart's content. I'm gonna admit that I didn't know this until I used AL just now, cause I never use it at all, but I genuinely laughed when I realised it cause it makes using it even easier, I can line up the shot no problem, and even on a moving opponent it at least puts you much closer. The frosting effect combined with shield recharge, as I said before, also goes a long way to counteracting the fact that they have the chance to line up on a stationary opponent. Not only can you often move for a second before damage can actually be dealt to you on exit, but you'll have shields to survive that first shot even if not. Way to twist my point. I said you were lumping me together in terms of addressing the problems with other AA's. I personally do address said problems, so don't lump me together with them in that respect, and thus your point about 'only bitching about AL' is completely untrue. OK, so I'd say the other abilities are at least closer to being balanced, and balanced as a whole in some cases, whereas AL stands out like a sore thumb. Also notice how I was specifically talking about other posters in this section you quoted, so it seems that you're misinterpreting the direction of my 'aggression' in the first place. Now I agree that Quake is a lot faster than Halo, but tbh PC shooters have the edge up. Twitch reactions can go massively up, accuracy also. But it's generally accepted among all competitive circles that Halo is the fastest mainstream competitive console shooter. Also, an interesting point is that actually Halo CE had quite a low kill time with the pistol, just over a second if I remember correctly, with the 3sk obviously. People are often mislead by never having gotten a 3sk themselves, but again this comes back to what I said about the root of Halo's competitiveness: the potential difference in kill times. A good player in Halo will kill incredibly quickly, a bad one will take an age. Even with the noticeably longer minimum kill times in Reach, this is still the case. I personally don't enjoy the variety that AL has added, I don't think adding pure slowing down nature to the game enhances it either in terms of balance or fun (though obviously the latter is subjective, and fair enough). Evade/Sprint etc. have the potential to speed it up and, as you say, slow it down to a certain extent if used in certain ways, though I still maintain that Sprint itself speeds up the game more overall than it slows it down, and tbh I'd rather have Evade as a pickup than a loadout anyway, same as AL. They do, however, both add to the spectrum at both ends, increasing variety in their implementation alone, whereas AL only slows it down, thus inherently weighting it further towards one end of the spectrum, and end which I see no need to bolster tbh. First off, awareness is a skill, thus it should gain at least some reward. With the specific example of the melee system in H3, there was at least some chance to come back. You can never say that because a player saw another one first they were guaranteed to have higher shields going in to the melee battle, there's always room for one player to outshoot the other. In the wider context of Halo, this is much more the case, and is in fact the entire root of my point on this issue. Have you honestly never come back from being shots down in Halo, simply by merit of being better than your opponent with aim/strafe/prediction etc.? I sure as hell am talking about not dying. In a team game, not dying serves the purpose of not giving the enemy team a point, and if you don't die after having gone in to AL then often enough it'll be because your team mate has cleaned your attacker up, thus also netting a point for your team. Now obviously that clean up may have happened anyway, but even if so that turns it from a point for both teams to a point for one. In FFA it results in me not getting the kill, and frankly I don't care of the person still dies in the end cause I didn't get the point for it and that's all that counts in FFA. Are people who use AL like that in FFA more stupid? Yes definitely because even if you get 'saved' by another person walking along, they replace the first person in waiting for you to come out of AL, but again how it affects the person using it is irrelevant. For the player who it was used against, they go from having a kill to being denied a kill. Yes, it is about personal preference. I prefer a faster game over a slower one. I prefer players not to be able to pause the action when they screw up. I prefer a game where CQB is a viable option against all players unless they have actively picked up something which gives them a CQB advantage (ie. a Sword etc.), or even one where picking up a CQB power weapon isn't actively negated by something that can be chosen off spawn. I prefer a game where any skill deficit in the given instance (I'm not talking about "I'm better than you, scrub, you shouldn't have won that 1v1!" I'm talking about skill displayed in the single encounter in question, skill in the varied terms which I outlined above) will result in the player who displayed less skill losing. Consistently. I still don't see how people can call benefitting from it. Even if having that extra time helps you line up your shot, wouldn't you say that in the vast majority of cases you'd still win even without that time? If not then why would the AL'er have dropped in to it in the first place, since you clearly displayed a higher skill on them by forcing them to fall back on it in the first place? And as I said I only ever experience negative results or neutral ones (ie. I end up killing the guy) which still result in lost gametime and a slower pace. The single most damaging thing is probably the bursting tbh. I've been playing pretty heavily tonight in FFA, and have encountered many an AL'er along the way. Now I agree that often enough just waiting on someone who holds it will still net you the kill, and I'm going to disregard the fact that even if someone doesn't clean me up it still gives them the chance to move closer, for the rest of the game to progress around me, as I wait for the kill I started, or that I abandon it and have to lose time recovering from the encounter or start a new one shots down. However, I have had someone AL as I melee them at least 5 times tonight. I'm not talking about 5 times overall, I mean at least 5 people used that tactic, generally multiple times in one game. One guy used it 4 times on me alone, as it was AR starts on Countdown so CQB is pretty much an inevitability. I took him no shields from full shields before he even started to aim at me, and I go in for the quick whack and he AL's then melees and I end up dead. Another time I encountered him when he was already one shot, thought I had the jump on him but he does it again, wham I'm dead once again. Have you really never had this happen to you? And if not never, then at least somewhat often? Hell it's happened when I had a Sword in the space of tonight. I pick up a weapon specifically designed to give you a CQB advantage and end up dead against someone with default spawn weapons, just because he chose a certain loadout when he spawned. This discussion isn't about whether you hate it, or whether it bites you in the ass, it's about trying to objectively assess whether it is overall a beneficial or detrimental addition to the sandbox in terms of balance. Yes, you can say that other AAs are detrimental too, and that is a totally fair point, but I still maintain that AL is not only worse overall, but stands out in that it has no positives, only negatives.
And your sure that only takes a few minutes? Anyways, I agree on every point Peggy here has made, no point in re-stating them.
Yet another idea that I think has merit. I'd also like to potentially see it not work unless you have shields, a combination of the two would actually work quite well. If the charge bar was just your shields then you'd actually be trading something off for the advantage you're gaining. I guess the obvious downside of this approach is that AL becomes less and less viable the further you are from full shields, which means it's less and less possible as it becomes more and more useful. Only being able to us AL effectively at full shields arguably makes it pretty redundant. EDIT: Actually, the suggestive nature of your post makes a good point as well, Tz. In the aims of moving forward, how would you feel about possible changes to AL, Chrono? Something along the lines of what megapwn posted: I'd personally be much happier with it if something like this was implemented. Tbh I think the most urgent point is requiring at least some activation time. This would all but negate the damage it does to CQB, since you would no longer be able to activate it in the time taken to lunge with a melee/sword/hammer etc. Having an activation time would also require someone to have awareness of opponents to avoid damage, before the instant of the damage being dealt. It would add an element of skill and prediction to the use of AL. In the vein of maintaining its purpose, I'd also even say that a buff could be in order to offset these nerfs. I personally like how AL works as an anti-vehicle measure, and having an activation time would also require more skill and situational smarts (knowing when to AL-explode a vehicle, or tbh just having limits on when it's possible to give drivers a fighting chance). So, in turn, I'd argue that it shouldn't only blow up vehicles on collision if it was done at just the right time, but that any collision with someone in AL should destroy the vehicle, or at least damage it at lower speed etc. Tbh if you drive/boost at someone already in AL then you deserve to have your vehicle destroyed anyway.
I feel that, as mentioned before, simply losing the ability to control how long you armor lock would be an good way to make it less effective. Maybe a situation where pressing/tapping the armor ability button keeps you in armor lock for 2, or 2.5 seconds, and holding it past half of it's energy bar keeps it active until it depletes. Every situation I could think of where an Armor Locker would survive a confrontation gets away by choosing to unlock and start teamshooting the enemy that first engaged them/meleeing and then tapping it to "double punch" in CQC/etc. Just my thoughts. And I personally dont think armor lock should be in the game in the first place, but it's in, and there's nothing i can do about it, so i dont feel a need to go into detail about why.
Don't patronize me by explaining how AL works, I'm well aware. I shouldn't need to explain to you that you have no reticule while in AL, meaning lining up a headhsot, much less a body shot is far more difficult for you than it is for them. You seem to be referring to extreme close quarters, but if someone is that close to you in AL to begin with, they deserve what's coming. On the subject of CQC, I'm not a fan of falling victim to desperation stickies at point blank range when the victim has been completely overpowered, and I imagine you aren't either. Somewhat of a digression, but I know people mentioned earlier their disdain for sticky removal, but it's not so bad to take them away considering how few sticks are even earned to begin with. Also, I have to call you on something you've mentioned at least twice now, which is when you were melee'd by someone in AL and died after removing their shield. The EMP effect doesn't even occur until about 3 seconds into AL, essentially near the end of its duration. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but it sounds like you don't even know how to handle someone in AL, much less the actual mechanics of it. From what you're telling me, you bring these situations on yourself, and no, that honestly never happens to me. I can even be walking backwards towards someone in AL while firing at someone else, and I'll still know how far I ought to be based on the sound alone. As I said before, because they have no additional offensive capabilities, they are virtually harmless to me. I don't see how it can be that difficult to deal with, especially difficult enough that the ability is somehow unbalanced. About not dying, I'm with you on that, really. My strength in most FPS is being well-rounded and being elusive. It's not uncommon for me to consistently have the fewest deaths in the room by a fair margin, and it often saves games. That said, AL doesn't help the numbers game much in FFA or Multi, as you pointed out. In the remaining team slayer games, I find that proper teamwork is what gives AL its strength. Whether someone AL's to allow their team to step in, or whether they dodge behind the safety of their advancing teammates, the results are usually the same; you're going to have problems if their teammates are around. Whether it happens sooner because of someone running away or later because of AL, it seems like a trivial complaint. Basically, I think it's fair to say that the occasional slowness induced by AL is the only real negative the two of you have stressed that can't also be attributed to another game feature, but the pace of a game simply isn't a balance issue. In fact, it's entirely preference. As for how I think it could be changed, I've always though something like a small amount of chip damage from gunfire might work. This way, someone who has been knocked down to red or orange health can still be killed with some more fire, but all of the other qualities are retained. However, I worry that this would only make an already complex skill even more complicated. We elite players might be able to articulate its intricacies in the recesses of our internet lairs, but the average player already takes a fair amount of time to wrap their head around the current details, let alone something as potentially confusing as chip damage. Even I had AL's mechanics all wrong when I first encountered it in the beta, so I have no doubt adding another layer would make it even harder to understand, and thus, play the game with it.
Well first of all, you only have to hold armor lock for a little less than ONE second to get some kind of EMP burst when you break. If someone sword-lunged or melee-lunged at you as, or shortly after, you went into armor lock, that means they have not a lot of time to get out of range. I believe the EMP gets bigger the longer you hold, but it's not inconsequential at the one second mark. Test it with a second controller and see for yourself. I believe there is ALSO a minor EMP when you first go into it (at least there was in the beta - I haven't broken down the mechanics of it recently) such that if someone is right on top of you when you engage, their shields can be popped or at least reduced. Beyond the EMP magic, a capable armor locker can time three bursts in one charge cycle to reject any intermittent CQC damage - three sword lunges, three melees, three shotgun blasts, three hammer strikes - basically any of the standard close combat methods except for continuous AR fire. AND he can pop out of his lock, melee you, and go back into another burst before you can respond with another sword lunge or melee of your own. This isn't about whether you are playing "stupidly" against somebody with AL, it's about the fact that you are doing what most people do in CQC (striking repeatedly, as quickly as possible, from close range) and they have a counter that deflects up to three of your attacks; lets them strike back BETWEEN their counters, unless you back off in time; and perhaps even pops your shields by itself, or at least dings them. I would hazard a guess that if you've never died this way, you either don't engage in a lot of CQC with swords/shotguns/melees, or have somehow managed to avoid playing against anybody who is any good with AL. Of course you're going to say "Just back off!" - but that's not always a possibility. A lot of scenarios like this play out in a couple of seconds. You might be in a small room or narrow hallway to start with. If you back off much you might move into the other player's team's line of fire. There are plenty of situations where backing off is not advisable, or you simply don't have time or space to do it. This may not ring true for you as an "elusive" player who probably spends a lot of effort to stay out of harm's way and keep opponents at a distance, but for guys like me - scarred veterans of many chaotic battles in the tiny nooks of Sword Base and Countdown - it's a looming spectre that requires me to be ever-vigilant, on those occasions that I'm lucky enough to have that sword in my hands. I will pose one defense that you didn't bring up though, which is that it is possible to win these situations through a different kind of application of skill. I had a great one the other day - a guy burst-deflected my sword lunge, so I was immediately expecting to have to lunge at least two more times. With that in mind, when he came out of his first lock, I faked a lunge - basically I just ran toward him but didn't swing. He locked again and when he came back out, I was able to slice him up real nice. Adjustments like this are possible and can turn things back in your favor somewhat. But still, you have to avoid the EMP, stay just out of melee range at the right times... there are a lot of variables to consider. Which, to back up Pegasi's main point above, seems kind of wrong when I'm the guy who worked to retrieve a power weapon, and he's just a numbskull with a default loadout tapping a button. The only skill or effort he needs to put into this fight is timing. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Relevant YouTubery: YouTube - Halo Reach Armour Lock vs Sword FTW YouTube - Sword vs Armor Lock Note that in the first video, the sword guy appears to have taken no damage except a single DMR shot. The other guy armor locks for less than a second, pops out and melees for the kill. In the second video, the sword guy has taken no damage at all - again, an armor lock of less than a second is enough to ding his shields. The following melee by the armor locker ends up acting as a sword lunge block (so neither guy dies) but then it appears that initiating a second AL burst actually kills the sword guy.
Infection propably isn't the best gametype to use armor lock as it gives the zombies a chance to surround you and kill you as soon as you pop back up.
I don't know what to tell you, since you can still melee and shoot faster than they can go in and out of armor lock, the only exception being when you hit them during AL. In fact, this video demonstrates another issue that you were wrong about, which is that you can go into AL during a lunge. This simply isn't true; people who block those melee's are doing so before the enemy is in range, or at the very least, before the enemy actually chooses to initiate the lunge. What I like to do when using the sword is hold back on my lunge slightly, because if the person has AL, they will use it just before you're in range instead of trying to shoot at you the entire time. Then, because I didn't hit them during AL, I can simply stand at the edge of my sword range and hit them whenever they choose to come out, no damage done. I actually like it this way since you have to show a bit of restraint with such an effective power weapon instead of being rewarded for the recklessness that a one-hit weapon often encourages. Speaking of which, I have to ask, why are we ok with speeding things up by allowing melee users to close the gap in under a second or two with Evade and Sprint, but we aren't ok with anything that might counter this game speed or the even more dangerous weapons?
What? I don't follow. When did I say you could go into AL during a lunge? I'm a little disappointed that you ignored all the EMP stuff (which is pretty critical to armor lock's effectiveness in CQC), and also that you make it sound like I've been wrong about all kinds of things which you have taken no pains to enumerate. I think I'm pretty level-headed here and also fairly aware of how armor lock works. If you think I'm just saying a bunch of incorrect stuff, please point it out, and back it up. Because faster = better and more fun? Anyway this thread is primarily about armor lock. I have my issues with some of the other armor abilities as well, but it's not really germane to this topic. And in this case what is on hand to "counter" the increase in game speed is something that actively stops combat for a number of seconds. Even if the ability was more balanced and less of these little perks that are built into it, that is still a really long time to allow one player to simply pause the action. Still one of the least fun games of Halo I've ever played was a 6 vs 6 on Tempest when for some reason the other team was almost all using armor lock. It wasn't a matter of them using it well or beating us with it - they were quite bad and my side won pretty easily. The problem was that they kept running into the middle, getting shot once or twice, and then armor locking for the maximum time. Then some of MY teammates started doing it. Halfway through the game it turned into this bizarre waiting game, and trying to place grenades where they'd kill the other team's armor lockers but not my own. Ugh, what a boring experience that was.
The only way you can get hit by AL's EMP is if your literally standing right on top of the guy using it. Unless he's using AL for the whole duration which would increase this range slightly. All you have to do is give them their space (which isn't that far) and wait it out. That's honestly all it comes down to and is in no way hard to counter.
You're right, it may have been Peg that brought it up. I'm not really keeping track of who brought up which point. As for the EMP, it's a visible buildup, but as you'll notice in both videos, the sword user was already very low on shield, and he was actually right up against the AL user as he popped out. Ignoring the fact that they made the mistake of hitting the person in AL to begin with, it's still an extremely low probability that all of those factors will fall into place just to work against you. On top of that, even if someone with AL does manage to beat you once in a while, it's nowhere near often enough to claim it's overpowered or unbalanced. I should really stop you right there at the beginning, because that first statement alone is enough to undermine a majority of the argument. It's your opinion, and I have no reason whatsoever to buy into that. If the speed of the game was all that mattered, we'd all be playing Unreal Tournament. People's pacing preferences are irrelevant here. Anyway, the other abilities are very much a part of this topic, because they change the dynamic of the game just as much as AL. There are no gametypes where AL is the only AA available, so why single it out when all of the others have an equal role? Any of the AA's will seem out of place if we isolate them in such a fashion, so I have no reason to pretend it's the only AA around. As for your peculiar game, that's too bad, but it sounds like it would have been easy pickings. It doesn't compare to the sluggish games I have in TS and Swat on Sword Base, however. When the games are close, it always turns into a standoff because no one wants to give up any more kills. It's not unusual for the time to run out before anyone even gets above 40 or 45. Still, I don't think it's anyone's fault, some games are just slower than others.
I realize this is NORMALLY true, but if you went in for a melee, sword lunge, hammer strike, or point-blank shotgun blast and met a burst armor locker with good timing, you WILL be right on top of him, and you will NOT be able to retreat fast enough to avoid the EMP. Also if you did melee him while in lock, your movement is temporarily slowed (or at least it used to be - I haven't tested this lately), making it that much harder to retreat. This is leaving aside the possibility that your back is against a wall or you're in a small space like the lift room on Sword Base that makes it harder or impossible to retreat. USUALLY you can adapt and keep your distance, but if you are attacking a guy you don't know has armor lock, you can't. You're in for the whole enchilada from the first melee attempt, especially if he knows enough to burst properly (meaning very quickly, and following it up with an immediate melee). And in response to the inevitable questions that are coming: Q: Why melee then? Just use DMR and stay away from people, herpy derpty doo. A: Because melee is in the game, because it's powerful, because some of us like CQC, and because when you end up face-to-face with an enemy (whether you intended to be or not), melee is easier to use and more powerful than conventional weapons, including the DMR, AR, and pistol. So unless you make a point to studiously avoid EVER being close to an enemy, these situations will arise - and if you're not using melee in them you're putting yourself at a disadvantage for no reason. Q: Why do you love the sword so much anyway? A: Because it's ****ing awesome. My friend once aptly pointed out that it looks a lot like a crutch. But seriously, it's a power weapon, as is the shotgun; we pick it up specifically to gain an advantage in CQC. Instead, the guy who picked armor lock as his loadout turns the seeming advantage of the power weapon into a 50-50 proposition.
The scenario mentioned doesn't make sense. You're saying that you have a sword/shotgun/hammer and you're charging a player with armor lock. If he's not currently in it when you're charging, but instead, drops into it the second your near him and then comes right back out, that WILL NOT EMP you. Not to any sizable extent at least. And if you lunge/melee someone while their in armor lock then guess, they turned the tables around and it is fair. Just like a lot of the other AA's, they can all serve as CQC deterrents. Honestly, I'd like to see some film clips where AL was this big of a problem. In fairness I'm sure I could round up some clips showcasing how easy it is to turn AL against them.
Actually, there is an emp effect when you strike the ground in armor lock. You have to release armor lock as soon as you punch the ground, but the effect is still there. I've done it a few times and I've seen Shad0w do it many, many times.
In NEITHER video was the sword user low on shields. Watch the second one again, in particular. Carefully. At :01 the sword user runs in - his shields are NOT lit up. The armor locker fires a DMR shot and misses wide right. As far as can be told thus far, the sword guy has taken NO damage and has perfect shields. At :02, our "hero" goes into armor lock as the sword guy swings. This visibly dings his shields, either from the armor lock initiating or from the lunge meeting up with an invulnerable solid object (not sure which, but I plan to test this later). Immediately after that, the armor locker comes back out - this is the quick burst method I keep referring to - and note that the sword guy is now right on top of him (has had no time to retreat) and gets EMP'ed even though the armor locker was in and out in less than one second. Now it's a simple matter of any damage being done taking him out. The armor locker fails on his first melee because of another sword swing - they end up offsetting - but then gets the job done on the second attempt. And also notice whatever the hell happens at about :06, which is when the sword guy dies. Is that a melee, an AL burst, or both? I don't know if I would be more disturbed at the idea that he meleed and burst his armor lock both in a fraction of a second, or that he DIDN'T melee and the armor lock burst is actually what killed the sword guy (which yes, is possible - there's another YouTube video that shows an armor lock EMP killing two separate unshielded opponents). 1. How is it a "mistake" to use sword lunge or melee against an opponent at close range before you know he has armor lock? If you're arguing that we should always lean toward distance fighting IN CASE our opponent MIGHT have armor lock, that to me is a pretty serious argument against the thing. (However, one of my proposed nerfings - making it take longer to initiate - would help severely with that.) 2. It's not a low probability at all. It happens all the time if you engage in a lot of CQC and go against somebody who is good with armor lock, on a map that has more confined areas. I run into situations like this pretty regularly on Reflection, Sword Base, and Countdown, among others. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. I feel like it's basically a coin flip. Well I was being a bit flip with that response, obviously. But I feel like we can all agree that we like a game where there's pretty regular action, and we wouldn't like a game where things are slow as dirt and the final score is usually 3 kills to 1. Halo since CE has had a particular speed and gameflow associated with it, and I feel like that's one of the main things that keeps people playing; armor lock, in its current form, serves primarily as an interruption to that gameflow that lasts up to 5 seconds per use. In digging a little bit into this today, I found where somebody documented that the charge time on armor lock is about 15 seconds and the maximum use time is about 5 seconds. That means you can spend 15 seconds per game minute locked, if you like. That's one quarter of the game. If you chose, you could be locked for 2.5 minutes of a ten minute game. Two and a half minutes you get to not move and not die. There's no argument on earth (except for the one that demonstrates how these numbers are radically incorrect) that will convince me that this is a positive thing for Halo's gameplay. And that's not even getting into all the other little things that really frustrate me about it (sticky rejection, pan-around, frosting, and hyper-burst mode being those things). [br][/br]Edited by merge: I just posted a video (the second one on the previous page) illustrating exactly this thing that you say doesn't happen. Please watch it.
Ahh, I haven't posted here yet, and I don't really want to get invloved too much. That said, armor lock is absolutely a game-breaking ability. there are so many ways in which it was overpowerred. Even if there were ways to counter it, it would still be quite annoying. Oh well, some people refuse to realize this, and thath is a big part of the reason why I rarely play matchmaking.
Psycho, while I agree with you, jumping into a debate of this caliber with little more to offer than what you just said is going to get torn to pieces and hurt your stance. Until you can sufficiently counter something someone says then it's better to be outside looking in. Like me ^.^