Discussion of Similarities Between Armor Lock and Assassinations

[highplainsdrifter]

This is going to be a long one so I'll just dive into it.

No Halo before Reach incorporated the ability to assassinate other players and while it has some hiccups (like unintentional use, lag working it's shenanigans) and inherent balancers (vulnerability, duration) there are some other issues that haven't been addressed in this discussion so far.

(WARNING if you have had the following discussion before, just punch me in the mouth and let's get it over with)

So far,

ways of fixing the beat down/assassination problem boil down to

1.) Assassination itself being a setting that can be turned on or off and

2.) Lengthening the melee button hold time.

What hasn't been talked about are some things that i haven't seen much debate over in other similar threads, this mainly has to do with an epiphany i had the other day in a match.

When the armor lock or assassination animation ends, you can instantly rotate your character to any angle if you were facing that way at the end of the animation. In a SWAT Magnums game this allowed me to instantly turn, crouch, and kill a passive third party which i assume was keeping a distance in hopes of headshotting me.

 

I made this a single topic because they both have to do with the same principle. I don't know the technical term for this segment in the animations but I'll just name it "exit snapping"

I would mostly like to discuss with players what their opinion is concerning the validity of the instant rotation that can be utilized when exiting these two animations. Is this a good way of balancing the dangers involved in performing assassinations and deactivating armor lock? Should it be altered somehow and if so to what extent or in what way? Can changing the assassination animation itself (length, positions of players, etc.) fix this? Or is this simply not an issue?

 

Please keep it clean and friendly.

 

 

I placed this topic here because the future of AA's and assassinations in Halo 4 is not certain, and while even I don't think another TU is a probable event in Reach this is something that could change Reach gameplay drastically and it is currently a factor in Reach's gameplay.

[The Director]

It's not an issue for assassinations because during the entire assassination mini-cinematic you are vulnerable to attack, and cannot attack back. However, for armor lock, you are invulnerable. So it should be changed a bit for AL, but changing it for assassination will just hinder the person getting the assassination even more. And if you are one of those who go for beat-downs and want it changed because you hate assassinations, just imagine what will happen if you accidentally get into an assassination. Now you will be completely vulnerable to being killed upon exiting it instead of being able to aim at an opponent immediately after exiting it.

[RedStarRocket91]

Agreed with Director, there really is little more rage-inducing than getting killed while accidentally assassinating someone when you just wanted to go for a beatdown: I can imagine controllers being thrown across the room if you actually survived the assassination but then died because your character wouldn't turn fast enough.

 

If you did it on purpose, then you deserve to be able to snap directions for taking the risk involved in performing one to begin with. Again as Director said, there is no inherent risk in using Armor Lock, so it's a different situation there. What actually bothers me more is that the EMP doesn't need time to charge, so you can do that stupid Armor Lock-Melee combination where the attacker literally can't survive if they've already started the melee.

[highplainsdrifter]

 

I was hoping that leaving this thread alone would encourage some free speech but it looks like that didn't really work.

Anyway, I completely agree with both of you, during an assassination you are completely vulnerable to attack and snapping should be left as it is. As for armor lock; with invulnerability, the EMP lacking an actual charge time as RedStar mentioned, and exit snapping helping with the melee combo this feature is kind of overpowered to say the least.

 

I think getting rid of the additional advantages of exit snapping and the unbalanced EMP would keep armor lock from being the odd AA out. Even keeping exit snapping from being involved with armor lock would help out a lot with the melee problem but a lot still needs to be done to this AA in particular. I wonder if the snapping has something to do with the code that makes it hard to remove, it doesn't really seem to belong with armor lock.

[Twinreaper]

The terms you are looking for are indeed "camera snap" and "3rd person camera". Unfortunatly taking the snap effect away from armor lock is not.possible. Armor lock forces and only includes a 3rd person pov when used. Inherently when in armor lock and coming out of it, your character faces which ever direction you have that camera pointing too. Unless there is some way to have Megal use a specific hook to override this, your stuck with it.

 

I agree about the animation trigger during animations. You should have the optikn via a button, to stop the assassination animation to prevent mishaps such as accidental assassinations. Ibwas going to suggest hitting random buttons during the sequence...but I am sure people have already tried tbis before with no luck?

[RedStarRocket91]

Yeah, I've tried to cancel it before - tossed 'nades, fired, reloaded, jumped, even tried enabling night vision once... I have literally no idea why I thought that would work...

[highplainsdrifter]

Excellent point TwinReaper (and thanks for the data as always) if you're saying that the option to cancel an assassination would result in simply a beat down then I agree with you. Canceling the kill altogether would be very frustrating for players who already have a problem with assassinations, and I can see how players trying to exploit this alternative by repeatedly jumping out of a single assassination would be a major point of conflict. Assassinations are essentially a surprise and exiting the animation quickly could leave the prey stunned even though the would-be-assassinated is subject to the camera snap as well and could have a chance to gain the advantage, any result other rerouting to a beat down would simply serve as a point of debate IMO.

 

I had really hoped this could easily be changed for armor lock though, what a disappointment.

 

 

Yeah, I've tried to cancel it before - tossed 'nades, fired, reloaded, jumped, even tried enabling night vision once... I have literally no idea why I thought that would work...

lol

For some reason I feel like I have been let loose from an assassination once before but I wasn't doing anything to escape it, it just kind of lagged out and I was free. Have you guys been experiencing more recently that weird effect from lag that allows the assassination to initiate, then you think you're out of it, but then you die anyway? Or is that nothing new?

[RedStarRocket91]

You mean where a teammate should have had a showstopper but you still died? I've never been on the receiving end of that, although I've definitely missed out on showstopper medals. I think as long as the knife isn't actually in the body, it's supposed to be safe, although dying even though that hasn't happened is nothing new.

[highplainsdrifter]

No it will actually happen without a third party, it's weird I'll get snuck up on, after I'm dead the other player walks away and usually no one else was firing at us. I have experienced what you're talking about before though.

 

I'll have to capture this in theater, sometimes I can even shoot in between the initiation and dying.