View Profile
View Forum Posts
Private Message
View Articles
For those of you (everyone) who don't know me I am a pretty avid Halo player, I have been playing the game 5-6 times a week since about the time Halo 3 came out, so I guess you could say I have a bit of experience. When Reach came out I was excited, I had played the beta and couldn't wait to see what the full version was going to offer. Now the game has been out for almost 6 months and I have played almost 1,300 multiplayer matches, when I first started out in Reach everything seemed golden, however as the months carried on I have found a few thorns on this otherwise beautiful rose. The main one being the controversial armor ability: Armor Lock! In this article I will examine why Armor Lock throws the balance of any game off by trumping all of the power weapons in the game. It also nullifies other aspects of the game such as sticky grenade kills and makes close quarters combat awkward. Finally I'll suggest some tweaks that could make it a more balanced armor ability.
The issue with Armor Lock is one of balance, to put it simply: it is just too powerful, it acts as a trump card to any and all weapons and grinds combat to a halt. In previous Halo games if you picked up the rockets, or a sword you instantly felt powerful, you should after all considering they are called "power" weapons. This is not true in Halo: Reach, with the sword or shotgun you have to be so close to an opposing player that your shields can be dropped with a quick Armor Lock, then all the player has to do is melee you once to get a kill or kill/death(he kills you, you kill him) or lock again and have a nearby teammate take you down. The rockets can be brushed aside by Armor Lock with a classic double lock: going down once for the initial rocket then locking again for the second one. At that point you have to reload or change weapons and all of a sudden the opposing player is at an advantage.
This balance shift is unfair to the player who was previously in a power position, they earned the right to that power position through solid play. They fought to get into that place of power in the game, a position that only comes around 2 or 3 times per match. Unfortunately Armor Lock takes all that away, now just by spawning your opponent has a weapon in his arsenal that completely nullifies the power of the sword, rockets, or any other power weapon.
This doesn't just apply to power weapons either, lets not forget about another fantastic feature of the Halo series: sticky grenades! There is nothing better than getting a fantastic stick kill. The feeling of perfectly throwing a grenade into an enemy and watching as he is inevitably destroyed is probably one of the best moments in any Halo game. However this feeling is gone from Reach due to the addition of Armor Lock, now it seems that 80% of the time when you land a great sticky the player who you stuck simply Armor Locks and walks away unharmed. This is especially true in games of elite slayer where you spawn with sticky grenades, you are forced to switch on Armor Lock because thats all anyone else is using to combat all the grenades being thrown.
The Armor Lock is also not only a defensive system, but an offensive one as well which makes it unique amongst all the other armor abilities, take a look at this:
armor ability - primary use
jet pack - transport
evade - transport
sprint - transport
camo - defensive only
drop shield - defensive only
hologram - defensive only
Armor Lock - defensive and offensive
Armor Lock is the only ability that can be used to drop the shields or inflict any damage on another player, putting it head and shoulders above the others. The obvious argument is that Armor Lock only hurts those in close proximity to the player, or if you melee an Armor Locked spartan. Which is true and makes this a non-issue for the average player, unless that player has a sword or shotgun. Now the enemy only has to quickly lock and unlock to take your shields down, and then melee you once to kill you. The problem is the basis of these weapons is close range combat and defending against them is what Armor Lock does best. I understand that Bungie doesn't want players to be unstoppable with the sword or shotgun but this has never been a problem in previous games that featured these weapons. Besides that the sword or shotgun are setup to spawn only 2 or 3 times a game, whereas Armor Lock is available ALL GAME LONG!
Which leads me to my next point, one of the popular arguments for Armor Lock is that it is available to everyone in the game, that if I so choose I can use Armor Lock and put any of the techniques mentioned above to use myself. However this is not a very good solution, it just creates a vicious cycle that causes every game to play out in the same way, take this as an example: Imagine if one of the load outs in a match featured rockets as a starting weapon, while all the other load outs used the traditional dmr/ar/pistol setups. One load out is obviously more powerful, so anyone who picks it will be at an instant advantage, and because it is available to all players everyone will inevitably pick that load out so they are not at a disadvantage. In this scenario every game is going to become a rocket battle, which can be fun at times but I don’t want all of my games to be thoughtless rocket battles.
I'm not someone who whines about an armor ability I don't like without offering solutions. I love the idea of Armor Lock and in theory I think it sounds like a lot of fun, but some tweaks should be made to it, and here are a few of my suggestions:
1) No more double locks - you can only lock once and when you unlock you have to wait for a full recharge of the ability before you can lock again.
2) Longer recharge cycles - make it take something like a minute to recharge the ability, that will keep people from over using it as they ask themselves, is this really a situation I need to Armor Lock in, or should I just fight it out?
3) Remove the shield dropping ability - or, alternatively make the shilled dropping function only work when you are locked for the full amount of time
4) Remove the invincibility factor for some weapons - Lets face it rockets should kill Armor Locked spartans! I understand the need to make it slightly more difficult to kill them though so perhaps it takes 2 rockets to kill someone? 2 close range shotgun blasts? If they were still vulnerable to some power weapons then things would not be so out of hand.
When playing Reach the game presents a system of punishments and rewards based on how you play: If you are not timing the power weapon spawns correctly you are punished for missing when they spawn by being killed by a player who timed things correctly. Conversely if you time the rockets exactly and pick them up as they spawn, you are rewarded with the use of the rockets, which guarantees a few kills. Armor Lock takes all that away, if you miss time the rocket spawn and arrive late, it rewards you by letting you lock down and survive an onslaught of rockets from the opposing player, possibly killing them in the process. If you make it to the rockets it punishes you by giving your opponent the ability to survive your rocket onslaught.
I don't know how feasible it is for Bungie to implement any of the changes I mentioned above, and it may be more cost effective for them to merely remove Armor Lock like they have done in The Arena, but either way something has to be done. Armor Lock is killing some of the great things that Halo offers: power weapons, stick kills, close range combat, all of these are staples of the Halo matchmaking experience that Armor Lock completely nullifies. It is the only offensive armor ability and its mere existence in a game can force all other players to use it in order to balance the playing field. Hopefully Bungie will take a serious look at the effects of Armor Lock and what they can do to modify it. Hopefully the next time you get a great cross map stick on an enemy he doesn't simply Armor Lock and escape what should have been certain death, instead you get to watch that great kill and be rewarded for playing well.
Reply
RUL on YouTube
RUL Poll
Recent Threads
