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Re: I've got the answers...
Posted By: Gravemind <kuukan_no_kage@yahoo.com>	Date: 8/13/12 6:36 p.m.
In Response To: Re: I've got the answers... (NotTheVacuum) : Halo: Check Your Brain at the Door? I'll pass. Phoenix has a point. Lots of stuff in Halo doesn't make a lick of sense. Take the damage done by a lot of weapons. The AR and DMR both use 7.62 NATO, yet the latter does twice as much damage. The shotgun does about the same damage as the rocket launcher and about twice as much damage as a sniper rifle (assuming all the buckshot from the shotgun lands on target), when in reality the shotgun would be utterly useless. Even if it was using depleted uranium buckshot, it wouldn't hit much harder than a round from the DMR, and it would have poor penetration (shotguns are notoriously poor against even relatively weak armor, and a standard shotshell used in combat has comparable muzzle energy to the 7.62 NATO). Or how about the oddness of the SMG? If the Chief, a friggin' Spartan-II, cannot hold a single SMG steady with both hands, then Miranda should have broken both her arms when she dual-wielded them in that one scene in Halo 2. No normal person could withstand that much recoil if it gives a Spartan a hard time. They have tropes for these kinds of things, BTW. See: Gameplay and Story Segregation and Acceptable Breaks From Reality : I would say that Halo 3's shield is just as predictable and consistent (in : that it always behaves the same way) but perhaps less obvious. Still, it : gives you what you need to know. If you have a lot, you're fairly safe. If : you have a little, not as safe. If you have none, you're a hairs breadth : from respawn. As far as a shield meter goes, it's identical in function to : Reach's. However, Reach (Vanilla) just happened to have this peculiar, : physics-defying "pop" mechanism that gave you a crutch. The only : valid argument I've seen is that it saves your rear-end more often, and : I'm saying that's not a good thing. I actually fully understand the positives of no bleed-through. There's no guesswork involved. With no bleed-through, I know that if my shields are up, I can not die from a headshot from a DMR, NR, or pistol, but if my shields have popped I know I am vulnerable to headshots. When the TU came around an allowed for bleed-through, that certainty was replaced with uncertainty for TU gametypes as bleed-through is universal to all attack. For example, say the DMR does 20 HP of damage. My shields are low, but I don't know if I have 22 HP of shields (in which case I'll survive if shot in the face with a DMR) or 19 (in which case that DMR round will punch through my shields and leave me with a big honkin' hold in my head). With bleed-through disabled for all but the most powerful attacks (e.g., explosives, sniper rifle rounds, and shotgun blasts), there is no ambiguity or uncertainty, and a lot of people like that. It's one less thing to keep track of (important in the heat of battle), and it makes things simpler, more consistent, and easier to understand, with that audible pop of the shields being valuable feedback mechanism, and a lot of people like that. : No, I don't think you're ever lacking that much information in Halo 3. It may : be more obvious in Reach, and even a less dangerous situation (never mind : how much more believable), but it's not rocket science or voodoo. : An observant player will learn that a little bit of shield is false security. : Certain weapons can still take you out instantly, most anything else : pretty rapidly. If you have no shield at all, then it's time to either go : down swinging or get out of there because you're one-shot. I don't think : it needs to change your play style much whether there's a specific health : meter. I find that the lack of a health meter is a very bad thing. It contributes to that ambiguity and lack of certainty I was just talking about. Without the ability to monitor your health, you honestly have no idea how much damage you're capable of sustaining once your shields are down. Am I at 100% health? 90%? 50%? Or am I so weak that a single AR round to the foot will kill me if my shields fail, or that a single Carbine round will eat through my last bit of shields and deplete my last remaining HP of health? I have no way of knowing. That actually happened to me the other day when I was playing some Halo 3 co-op with some friends. I literally died from one hit from some automatic weapon the moment my shields dropped. If I knew I had that little health left, I would have been more cautious, hanging back to let my teammates cover me while my health regenerated. The amount of health you have is important, need-to-know information, just like how much shields or ammo you have is necessary info, and the inability to monitor it is something I dislike in Halo 2 & 3 and is something I'm not looking forward to in Halo 4.

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Message Index

Grenade Indicators	Andz	8/13/12 10:21 a.m.
Re: Grenade Indicators	iForge	8/13/12 10:44 a.m.
In Pro mode there are no indicators *NM*	RC Master	8/13/12 10:52 a.m.
Make that "Hardcore Mode" lol *NM*	iForge	8/13/12 11:06 a.m.
Re: Grenade Indicators	NotTheVacuum	8/13/12 11:03 a.m.
Why I'm mad	Andz	8/14/12 4:39 p.m.
Why you should calm down	Jooms	8/14/12 6:08 p.m.
Re: Why you should calm down	uberfoop	8/14/12 7:58 p.m.
Re: Why I'm mad	RC Master	8/14/12 8:02 p.m.
I've got the answers...	Bryan Newman	8/13/12 11:11 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	ZackDark	8/13/12 11:27 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	Phoenix_9286	8/13/12 12:44 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	NotTheVacuum	8/13/12 1:44 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	Phoenix_9286	8/13/12 2:17 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	NotTheVacuum	8/13/12 2:28 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	Jooms	8/13/12 2:50 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	General Vagueness	8/13/12 4:31 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	Gravemind	8/13/12 6:36 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	NotTheVacuum	8/14/12 8:46 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	uberfoop	8/14/12 9:33 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	NotTheVacuum	8/14/12 9:39 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	General Vagueness	8/14/12 1:26 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	uberfoop	8/14/12 7:55 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	RC Master	8/14/12 8:34 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	NotTheVacuum	8/15/12 8:44 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	General Vagueness	8/15/12 6:38 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	notthevacuum	8/15/12 8:19 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	RC Master	8/15/12 9:16 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	General Vagueness	8/16/12 1:29 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	NotTheVacuum	8/16/12 10:30 a.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	General Vagueness	8/14/12 1:19 p.m.
"It's a game, it doesn't have to make sense."	thebruce0	8/15/12 8:56 a.m.
Re: "It's a game, it doesn't have to make sense."	Phoenix_9286	8/15/12 3:26 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	General Vagueness	8/13/12 4:23 p.m.
Re: I've got the answers...	stabbim	8/14/12 6:52 p.m.
Go nuts with it 343i.	uberfoop	8/13/12 8:06 p.m.