Revised Melee, and Assassination Mechanic for Tactical Affect

[ChristopherRyan]

I have brought up this point in my other thread, Ideal Halo 5 Design, http://www.343industries.org/forum/topic/34384-ideal-halo-5-design/ 

 

I want to make a thread to discuss this point by itself though, as my other thread is extremely all inclusive, and might not be the best place one single element. Please excuse my redundancy for the sake of good, flowing discussion. 

 

I want to know the community's opinion about this revision.

 

The main point of the revision is to add a tactical reason to assassinate the player (animation). I view it as a tactical mistake to assassinate a player in Halo Reach and Halo 4, as it takes time, and leaves you stationary. Also you can be yoinked, which is no fun. A nice aesthetic, and satisfying, but a mistake nonetheless.

 

Here is how I would handle assassinations. 

 

First, a player will not be able to trigger assassinations by simply holding onto melee for a moment when behind a player. Rather, each player will have a knife (players can unlock different knives, and skins for said knives), which he or she must switch to by pressing DOWN on the d pad. Assassinating will be performed in the same way as in the past, but now, players must switch to their knife first, adding challenge to the feat.

 

Players don't receive a higher base movement speed by pulling out their knives (what do you guys think of this?). Players cannot throw their knives. All knives have the same performance.

 

Second, a successful assassination will cause the victim to endure a double respawn timer for that respawn. In this way, there is a reason, a reward, for going through the extra effort and risk of sacrificing your ability to do damage at range, to switching to your knife to perform the assassination, as you and your team will enjoy a short period of time where you have a numerical advantage over the enemy.

 

Third, because of this function, melee must be nerfed to give the assassination function room. Instead of melee killing in two hits to the front, or one hit to the back, melee will kill in 3 hits to the front, or 2 hits to the back. This way, there is still an advantage to hitting a spartan in the back, and you can't simply one hit kill a spartan without going through the special effort of performing an assassination, like I have outlined above.

 

A melee to the back, and then a melee to the front will result in a kill. A melee to the front, and then a melee to the back will kill (just to clear that up).

 

How would you guys feel about a function like this in Halo 5?

 

 

[Rue]

I really like the whole idea of having to pull out the knife and perform the assasination. That way, it requires a little bit more skill and I think it'd make people feel more like a boss once they accomplished that. I can also see that being used as a type of weekly challenge maybe! My next favorite thing about this is that players can unlock new knives, that would be really cool. It would definetely add some flavor to the game!!!

 

The only thing I don't really like is the two hits to the back thing, although I can see how it's fair with the new assassination feature. I can just see that as getting annoying to players who are so accustomed to Reach and H4 that they forget that some of the buttons don't do what they used to. Maybe I'm biased because I really enjoy surprising players with a beat down

[ChristopherRyan]

Yeah, I agree, I can see people being miffed by not being able to one hit kill from behind, though there is still an advantage to hitting a spartan in the back. In this way, some of the original spirit is retained.

 

I think mostly, this feature is attractive to "casuals" because it allows for another item to unlock and customize, and will be attractive to "competitives" because there is the opportunity to gain a tactical advantage from the function in the form of a longer respawn timer for the victim. I don't think the double respawn time would be too frustrating for the victim.

 

Some more notes: 

 

Yoinking becomes a serious problem: If a player takes the risk of assassinating an enemy, his teammates should not be able to so easily steal the kill. Yoinking is easy to achieve in Reach because the shields are broken long before the victim is actually killed. In this rendition, the kill should be achieved as soon as the knife enters the victim. The assassination animation would continue for a moment after the kill is achieved, showing the assassinating spartan pulling the knife out of the victim. In this way, the assassinator's teammates don't have a super easy opportunity to steal the kill. If the victim has little to no shields when he is assassinated, your teammates will have a better chance of achieving the yoink. Otherwise, yoinks on fully shielded victims shouldn't happen. If the assassinator is killed after the knife enters the victim, but before it is removed, the knife should remain in dead victim's player model.

 

There shouldn't be any assassination animations that don't involve the knife.

[ChristopherRyan]

Here are some revisions with the help of the guys over at TeamBeyond

 

A player can score a one hit backsmack, but it would count as a melee (medal), and there would be no added respawn time. You cannot assassinate (animation) by holding the melee, so you will never be caught in an accidental animation.

 

2 Melees to the front gets the kill as well, rather than 3.

 

Also, a player can choose to pull out their knife by pressing DOWN on the dpad, and perform an animation on an enemy, adding a flat 5 seconds to the spawn time, resulting in a 10 second respawn for slayer, or a 15 second respawn for objective.

 

Players can unlock different knives, and skins for those knives. All knives perform the same.

 

Holding a knife does not change base movement speed, you cannot throw your knife.

 

Advantages to this system:

-you can still backsmack, keeping with tradtion

-no changes to melee speed or hits to kill are needed

-you can still assassinate (animation), adding flavor to the game

-there is a point to assassinating, being the flat added time to the victim's respawn

-assassinating is risk/reward rather than risk/risk

-you will never be caught in an accidental assassination animation

-there are multiple knives to unlock, and skins for the knives, adding more non-gameplay affecting customization

[Twinreaper]

I personally never liked the idea of assassinations. They leave you open to attack, they are only astetic, and it's a waste of perfectly good play time. However, I would rather leave the mechanic as it is, rather than introduce yet another button into the already abysmal button layout.

[ChristopherRyan]

I personally never liked the idea of assassinations. They leave you open to attack, they are only astetic, and it's a waste of perfectly good play time. However, I would rather leave the mechanic as it is, rather than introduce yet another button into the already abysmal button layout.

It's an unused button though, and leaving it as is means leaving it with no point, only aesthetics. Also, if you left it as is, you would still have the risk of accidentally triggering an animation by holding melee for too long.

 

If you don't like assassinating, this function might be better for you, as you would never have to assassinate if you don't want to, and you would never trigger them on accident. You could just backsmack all day with no risk however, you would have to endure the longer respawn time if someone landed an animation on you, or here is a different option for the incentive to go for the assassination: they could be worth 2 kills, rather than 1, and you wouldn't have to endure a long respawn.

[BeckoningZebra1]

I like the idea of having to press down on the D-pad to switch to a knife that would be the only means of assassination. I really like the idea of being able to have different knives. But I don't think that the current melee settings or respawn time should be changed as a result of this. 

 

Having to switch to your knife to get an Assassination would take more skill than a simple pummel from behind, but the incentive to assassinate over an easy kill could be that you would get points toward a special Assassination commendation, which in turn would unlock new armors for you.  I mean, who doesn't like that Venator armor, am I right?

[ChristopherRyan]

I like the idea of having to press down on the D-pad to switch to a knife that would be the only means of assassination. I really like the idea of being able to have different knives. But I don't think that the current melee settings or respawn time should be changed as a result of this. 

 

Having to switch to your knife to get an Assassination would take more skill than a simple pummel from behind, but the incentive to assassinate over an easy kill could be that you would get points toward a special Assassination commendation, which in turn would unlock new armors for you.  I mean, who doesn't like that Venator armor, am I right?

I agree with you. I don't know if you've noticed, by I modified this theoretical system to not change the way the melee looks. See the whited out section above. Melees would be 2 hits to kill, and you would be able to one-hit backsmack

 

Yeah mostly the point of this whole idea is

-to take away the risk of accidentally triggering an animation-

-add a tactical affect and incentive to assassinating

-create more unlockables that don't change gameplay (different knivess wouldn't offer different function in any way.

[TheXploit]

I would also like to add to this idea that YOINK has to go. I'm tired of going for assassinations just to have them taken from me by one shot from teammate. However I still think the ability to save a teammate who is being assassinated should still be in.