Armour lock is a notch above the rest. Paused fights for multiple seconds, low cooldown, abused at all levels. Amazed that reached past any kind of testing stage. One of the worst mechanics in any FPS.
Button glitches count as mechanics. BXR in particular didn't do a lot of great things for gameplay so eh, double shotting though..that's godsend
I've never really understood the distinction between why some of the button glitches are good and others are not. What is it that makes the double shot a better mechanic than the BXR or Double Melee? Is it because it's more difficult to do? Is it because it impacts mid-long range combat rather than close quarters combat? I've always just viewed all of them as tools that give a coordinated person (which I am not, lol) an advantage. None of them gives someone an automatic kill. They still require good decision making, technical execution, and some aiming skill. I've probably died nearly as frequently as I've killed people when attempting to use them, because I've failed in one of those areas. To me, they don't negate any of the skills required to be good at Halo, they just add another level of depth that can stretch the skill gap slightly further.
I think most people are upset by these things because they're the farthest thing from realistic and it should be in no way possible. While I'm not defending them, you are playing a video game.
So from a game design perspective, let's look at what makes a button combo an asset to have in the first place. 1: It adds "depth" to the game, the extra level of knowledge that separates new players from pros. 2: It adds a skill or risk/reward factor. Otherwise the "depth" is useful stupid **** that does very little for gameplay. Depth can be achieved by quite literally adding random stuff, anything. Jet packs in Reach, armor lock, bloom, clamber, spartan charge. All these things add "depth"to the game because they introduce new factors that didn't need to be factored in before. Depth on its own means very little and in the context of an arena shooter, it can dilute gameplay like all the mechanics I just mentioned. Unless these new things add to the sandbox in a meaningful or skillful way I don't think they have a place in the game. Look at BXR. It's a button combo that can be executed on any frame without consequence and rewards a player with an easier kill. In fact because bxr can only be performed with a full clip, more often than not the player that didn't shoot a single bullet in a fight is the one that wins. Doesn't that sound kinda dumb to you lol there's a very famous clip in H2 MLG 07 on middy with final boss playing carbon, and Walshy gets a triple, and the 4th player of the opposite team ghostyame is shooting him from across the base. Walshy literally just reloads and walks straight at ghost the entire team while he's being shot and just BXR's him, and because there's no bleedthrough in h2 ghosts melee puts walsh at the same health as him, it's bullshit lmao. BXR literally rewards the person who doesn't shoot at all with an extremely easy button combo. Double shotting is actually extremely difficult to pull off consistently, forces you to do some crazy clawing, and most importantly it actually accelerates the kill times which h2 needed. It's an artificial solution to having a dumbed down utility weapon. Not to mention if you choke the input OR the YY, you're stuck in a frame cool down. It's risk vs reward, it's skillful, it's depth, it helps the pacing, and it's badass. BXR is none of these.
Eh. Sounds like the same argument a certain cursed fruit offered up when I discussed it with him. I'll just say that I agree with your general point, but disagree that BXR doesn't meet the criteria you listed. In the situations you've offered as examples, the BXR attempt could easily be counteracted by simply not letting a person get close enough to pull it off. I realize that's sometime easier said than done. I just think it's an exaggerated example. I've seen numerous times in similar situations where the person charging in an attempt to do a BXR dies because the other person keeps their distance and hits all of their shots. I've always seen it as adding depth to the decision making process. The risk/reward is that you CAN'T shoot if you want to do it. There's no doubt that the double shot is more difficult to pull off, and has a better risk to reward ratio. BXR may not be as good for the overall gameplay balance as the double shot is, but I still see it as a net positive. While I agree that BXR is less than optimal (simply meaning that it would benefit from a more balanced risk to reward ratio), when I try to look at it and question whether the game is better with or without the BXR, I always seem to end up on 'with'.
Honestly the Halo 2 kid in me is going to agree with you on the merit of keeping it in the game because I love pulling it off. But I just think it's over rewarding.
I will chime in from a competitive standpoint, I was there in CE and Halo 2. In 2005 MLG Vegas, LA, and Columbus, the BXR was becoming a common mechanic and the teams who could expertly use the button mechanic were rewarded greatly. We saw the rise of players like Strongside, Ghandi, and Ghost because of this "glitch". We should consider; 1. Is a mechanic in the game and fair for all players to use? 2. Does it add to the skill gap for competitive play? If so, I don't think there is any issue with these mechanics. Another example of good button mechanic would be the CE backpack reload, it adds to the skill gap without breaking the game and all players have the ability to do it once learned.
-Fall Damage (I seriously can't stand this and the lack of options to remove it in Reach pissed me off) -Health packs -Degenerator -Sprint exhaustion in H4 unless an ability is activated (Seriously what the hell is this ****) -Grenade Markers in H4 -No fine editing in H4 forge
Your prerequisites line up just fine with my own, I just don't agree that the BXR is skillful, at least not more skill demanding than just straight up shooting someone. It just lets the player who put in less damage win the fight. Im not against a button combo that increases CQC kill time, BLB in CE does that perfectly. It's more frame intensive than BXR, it requires you to keep a grenade on you, and you have the risk of blowing yourself up. If Halo 2 had bleed through and no melee lunge it would probably work.