The fall damage argument is stupid, I wish people would drop it permanently. There are clearly good points to be made on both sides, and no one is changing anyone's mind. Personally I started playing with CE, am used to fall damage, and see it as a beneficial counterweight against the natural advantage of high ground; turning off fall damage makes several of the CE maps (Prisoner, Damnation, and Hang 'em High in particular) play very differently. In all three cases, fall damage makes it dangerous to drop from the map's most dominant positions, and alters the map flow - you can't drop from sniper catwalk to rockets on Damnation without paying for it. Fall damage also adds two skill mechanics to the game - knowing when you can fall safely, and using crouch to reduce or negate the effect. All of that makes the game richer, to me. But if the maps are designed for it, a game that allows for freer movement can also be a fine choice.
This. The best thing about no fall damage (eg Le Halo 3) was all the jump tricks you could do to fling yourself across the map or up to higher places in matchmaking.
You're already being punished by being in a vulnerable position, why would you also need to have fall damage AND a stun? I'd rather have more freedom to move around than anything.
I didn't notice any stun in the H4 videos. Getting stunned is really annoying and unnecessary. I hope the stun effect from getting jacked is a little less intense too. In Reach your chance for a skillful recovery is pretty much nil unless the person jacking you is retarded.
In my view, fall damage might make for better competitive matches, but no fall damage is generally more fun. In a perfect world, competitive gametypes would have fall damage and noncompetitive gametypes would not, but that would probably just be confusing.
It would be fantastic if they included the option to turn fall damage off for custom games, and possibly even the option to turn it off for specific teams (like the zombies for example).
This, coupled with the inclusion of this in Trait Zones. Imagine forging structures with the idea of it being a soft/safe surface to land on. However, there would probably need to be a way to warn players whether it is on or not at all times.
Alright, thanks. That's reassuring, I already hated the fact that they removed grenades on the maps. I wish we could go back to Halo 3 style, where grenades were not meant to kill, but to take away the shields of your opponents, and were used for around-the-corner battles mostly. I remember the good times where you'd pick up 6 frags in a row, tossing them to the other end of the room and keeping off the enemy.
That's entirely map dependant. Often the drop just serves to block the chaser's sight on you, and by the time they approach the edge which you dropped off, you've had long enough to either escape or get far enough towards cover that they can't put enough shots on you to kill you. Take Sword Base, and think about dropping from top red lift when someone is pushing you from top Shotty stairs. You can drop down, and without the fall damage and/or stun, you're likely gonna get in to bottom red lift or bottom yellow side room before they can even get to the edge of top red, let alone put enough shots to kill you. So yeah, it's map dependant, like Nutduster said. The argument about fall damage AND stun rather than either or has been had before, I agree that the mechanic could well be tweaked (though the pros of having both is that you can tweak each to be a little less overbearing, ie. less damage alongside a stun), but that's a different thing from it being present at all.
Yes, that. Damnation/Penance is another example - when you drop off sniper catwalk, most of the places you can drop to are protected vs. many of the lines of sight of people who might be shooting at you, because that catwalk is basically a wall and some of the drop targets are very protected anyway (e.g. rocket launcher spawn, which is just a long pit - people can only shoot you if they're positioned around the edges of the pit up above, or if they follow you down). It depends on the map and the specific drop. But I would say in at least many cases (if not all), dropping with some idea in mind of where you're dropping to will protect you more than make you vulnerable. It will usually give you at least a second or two where you can't be shot (at least not by the person who caused you to drop), and to get to safety or start a shield recharge. Having an offset to that can benefit the game. It may be even more important in games where everyone has sprint all the time, because with no damage and no stun, dropping and then sprinting into the nearest hole will be something everyone will do with constant success. I've always found it interesting that a lot of the same people that hate jetpack support no fall damage, and the primary argument is "freedom of movement." In some respects, having no fall damage affects map flow like a jetpack does, only downward instead of upward (or horizontally). Jetpack is obviously far worse, but no fall damage can be very problematic as a map design gets more vertical. You can find ways to account for it, of course, but I think heavily vertical maps like Damnation were designed with fall damage in mind; it's one of the only things preventing the top level of the map from utter domination of the bottom, and it made flag-running in 1-flag games a lot more interesting, as well.
To be honest, I'm anti Jetpack because of how it affects combat rather than map movement. Having to increase the field of awareness in to a full hemisphere rather than just an appreciation of geometry around you is what frustrates the hell out of me. EDIT: To clarify, I see it as a downside of the JP for sure, it's just one which doesn't frustrate me too much personally. I go in to MM solo and play things like Super Slayer, Team Objective and BTB. Having to deal with poor or abusable map flow is something I have to deal with in other senses, though there are definitely some times when it really pisses me off in terms of the JP, but overall I find the affect it has on combat to be what defines it as an AA for me.
I actually agree with you on that, Peg, but I feel like the most common complaint against jetpack is how it alters (and in some maps, erases) map flow. Having to look up and all over the place is a close second, though.
If players could drop and sprint into the nearest hole, then they could sprint to the nearest hole if there was only one level involved. Imagine that Pegasi's example of the red lift landing floor led not to a drop to the bottom floor, but instead to a larger room almost identical to the bottom floor (where the new destination corresponding to the red lift entry hallway is moved a bit). The sprinter would be able to get away just as easily. The drop in the original example would only give the dropper more time to be shot by anyone else on the map, whether fall damage is applied or not. Sprinting would be to blame for these problems, not a lack of fall damage. Another thing that saves the fleer is the wall on the top floor, as well as the floor itself, but any such corner would prevent a chase in a lot of situations. A corner is universally at least as frustrating as a ledge for a player to drop down from, especially because a corner allows the fleer to turn around and fight back or throw nades, while a player who dropped would never even be able to aim at his pursuer as easily. The pursuer could peek his head out (looking below) or drop down. Dropping down would be analogous to turning the corner completely. Thus, the ability for players to escape by falling is less problematic than corners are, unless there is a corner before the fall. I wouldn't mind fall damage or no fall damage, but I agree with Nutduster that the latter gives the top extreme control if the map is tall and small (in the other two dimensions). If there was fall damage the top would still have a large advantage in terms of cross-level movement because you cannot jump as high as you can safely fall without a jetpack, and whether fall damage is "intuitive" or not depends on which halo game you played last. That also explains why jetpack opponents are fall damage opponents; neither were in H3. It is possible in many (I dare say most, but not all) cases for a forger to place intermediate platforms to make long jumps safe. As long as maps aren't unnecessarily tall, like Construct, Boneyard, Paradiso, Headlong (none of the staircases in the map need to be as tall) and Spire (well, I suppose that one is for Campaign/aesthetic effect), fall damage shouldn't be too much of a nuisance. Also, Nutduster, how do you say that a "debate" is stupid, wish that it would stop, and then post on the subject twice? If the good points made in the "debate" don't change anyone's mind, they only do as much harm as your points do. You could always skip over paragraphs that concern fall damage.
I feel the jetpack ruins a lot of things. Obviously, everyone has already brought up good points, but it also has the capability to negate fall damage. Just a couple puffs on the way down from any height and you're golden. It just has too many uses, and not enough counters.
I saw a few leaked screenshots which were posted to Reddit. Nothing really that new, but we finally get to see the Railgun and the Splaser from first person view. From the ammo counter for the Splaser, it looks like it only has four shots like in Reach (it's at 50%).
I don't think we need to discuss every possible, hypothetical scenario and map design. The point is simply that fall damage is one way to offset the inherent dominance of high ground; it doesn't need to be involved in every scenario. But it does naturally come into effect when players are very high up, which is probably when it's most needed. re: corners - that's what nades are for. Very true, though I don't think we were really talking about forge here - just the basic game mechanic. Because I can't help myself. Anyway, the debate IS kind of stupid. I come down vaguely in favor of fall damage, but I acknowledge the other side has a good case that's hard to argue against: freedom of movement is usually a good thing. I say the debate is stupid because I don't think there's any clear evidence that one side or the other is right, or that fall damage/no damage is superior. Fall damage worked just fine in CE and Reach, and the lack of it worked just fine in H2 and H3. Both have their up- and downsides, and neither actually affects the game that much in practice (except maybe on The Spire).