Should there be armor abilities in Halo 4?

[Fang]

I don't know how valid this is but IMO if there weren't AA's, not even sprint, in Reach the DMR would be so overpowered that people would be complaining again. Reach was different, yes, but pickups from Halo 3 also changed the game, they're all different and play to their own balances. I don't agree with throwing things out solely because it was part of the balancing act of a certain title. Take for example the BR, it's definitely the ancestor of the DMR in the evolution of Halo. For me it will depends on what happens to the big picture of Halo 4.

 

Of course they would but thats because the DMR also has many problems and needs tweaked a little or just trashed all together. Pickups from halo 3 barely mattered in the grand scheme of things. AAs seem to be all this game is focused on. Its not halo anymore just a battle of AAs. It shouldnt become the game, only accentuate the gameplay like equipment did with h3.

[highplainsdrifter]

I agree with you there, AA's definitely shouldn't be the focus of Halo 4 the way they can be in Reach. Pickups for sure were a main part of gameplay especially in objectives and could easily go back to their roots in Halo 4. Nobody complains about bubble shield or active camo except for being in loadouts because they were in Halo 3. The DMR is not a balanced weapon for any other game than Reach (it still has it's problems however), if it made it back i'd like to see it combined with the BR into a variable semi-auto three round burst rifle with far less power or accuracy (error angle deceleration) than either of them had.

I think they could salvage this by keeping the AA's from Reach out of competitive matchmaking and convert to pickups the ones people don't hate. Jetpack could become a leap with a cooldown like evade, bubble shield and invisibility could make it back, sprint duration or cooldown lengthens, and armor lock returns to oversheild...

They should keep the orginal AA's for customs, firefight, and Dino Blasters. Because how can you hate Dino Blasters?

[The Director]

I think some people are forgetting that Halo Reach was a prequel. The fact that AA's are present in Reach but not in Halo 2 or 3 means that the UNSC scrapped the AA program for equipment. Most of the weapons in Halo Reach are NOT advanced versions of the weapons in Halo 3, but in fact are preludes to the current stock of weaponry. The fact that they weren't in Halo 3 means that they were scrapped for the evolved forms. The ship that Master Chief is on is not a ship that was just on Reach, but had just been on Earth and had a chance to resupply before it left for the Ark. A DMR or an AA making an appearance on Halo 4, unless the Spirit of Fire comes into play somehow, would be nonsense and break canon. Also, I'd like to point out to those inevitable responses saying, "In the trailer Master Chief had a jetpack!" that no, that wasn't a jetpack, that was a thruster pack, which never came into actual gameplay because Master Chief did not combat anyone in an actual ZG environment. If there are AAs and DMRs on Halo 4 with no explanation other than "well they are there, deal with it" then Halo will no longer be Sci-Fi FPS, but rather FFPS (Futuristic First Person Shooter), and would lose even more of it's current fan base than was lost when Reach came out.

[ZB-85]

Sprint and maybe jet pack.

[Exploseth]

I would enjoy armor abilities but if they are not in the game then I wii not be much dissapointed either. Sprint shouldn't be an armor ability, you should just be able to run. I think it would be good with either Halo 3's version of abilities or Reach's.

[highplainsdrifter]

I think some people are forgetting that Halo Reach was a prequel. The fact that AA's are present in Reach but not in Halo 2 or 3 means that the UNSC scrapped the AA program for equipment. Most of the weapons in Halo Reach are NOT advanced versions of the weapons in Halo 3, but in fact are preludes to the current stock of weaponry. The fact that they weren't in Halo 3 means that they were scrapped for the evolved forms. The ship that Master Chief is on is not a ship that was just on Reach, but had just been on Earth and had a chance to resupply before it left for the Ark. A DMR or an AA making an appearance on Halo 4, unless the Spirit of Fire comes into play somehow, would be nonsense and break canon. Also, I'd like to point out to those inevitable responses saying, "In the trailer Master Chief had a jetpack!" that no, that wasn't a jetpack, that was a thruster pack, which never came into actual gameplay because Master Chief did not combat anyone in an actual ZG environment. If there are AAs and DMRs on Halo 4 with no explanation other than "well they are there, deal with it" then Halo will no longer be Sci-Fi FPS, but rather FFPS (Futuristic First Person Shooter), and would lose even more of it's current fan base than was lost when Reach came out.

I agree that the inclusion of equipment/AA's and weapons should be canon factual or at least have a good explanation but i have a few opinions on this that i think add something to the rest of what you talked about.

 

First of all, the assault rifle went missing for all of Halo 2 (which begins on board an Earth orbiting MAC platform, so yes of course it is possible SMGs are favorable in the close quarters of boarding actions, but MC sets foot on Earth and the In Amber Clad without ever seeing an AR) and then reappeared in Halo 3 (which begins on Earth immediately after the events of Halo 2). Bungie didn't have qualms about reinstating weapons that apparently had been deemed replaceable in previous titles, what remains to be seem is whether or not 343 has these qualms. I agree with you that there is a possibility they were both scrapped but as this has happened before, i won't agree that they indeed were due to canon.

 

Remember there are several points in Reach when you can pick up AA's as if they are equipment, and since Noble SIx can only carry one at a time i would venture so far to say that maybe Noble Team and he are just using different equipment from that which is used later during Halo 3. I might also add that the bubble shield in Halo 3 is a bulky device, not a flattened wafer. IMO the advanced technology of the AA's found on Reach got glassed, this however doesn't preclude the possibility that the technology was simply not mass produced elsewhere at the time or transmitted before the glassing. Furthermore, AA's are only viewed as opposites to equipment because they almost all function with entirely different purposes from Halo 3 equipment which is mainly offensive.

 

Although, there is still the lingering conflict of Noble Team NPCs using armor lock and sprint at any time, but spartans do sprint... the inclusion of sprint has always confused me somewhat because they didn't do a similar ability sooner and that it fills an AA slot.

This strikes me as a translation of canon into gameplay (a Spartan could easily carry an extra one if not all AA's with him/her, but this would make gameplay in Reach extremely easy). This doesn't mean i agree with every AA, just that i can see them coming back in similar forms.