FIRST COME FIRST SERVE FTW! I never had a problem with the halo 2 system of melee when it came to who won a fight. If my smack missed then sure it maybe annoying, but that happens just as much in halo 3. The only thing that is different in Halo 3 is now that you can never pull out something clutch. There will be many times now when both players die and both are screaming and frustrated. In the past Bungie has been innovative and intelligent with their gameplay. Now they are caught up in trying to please all the players who can not swallow the fact that they are not the best player in the world. The only issue with halo 2 was when you encountered the host, the host always had the advantage. That does not matter in casual play. Bungie always claims match making is for fun and is only to find good matches. The host advantage was much more prevalent in bullets registering than Melee's. I played around 20,000 games of halo 2 and never once questioned the melee system. If you shortened the lunge a bit then that would be fine, but not this. If the person is one your screen for god sakes then you get the melee, let alone basing it on health because of a false fear of latency. In reality bungie, if most players have a latency of 90, then when 2 non host players hit the melee the outcome is accurate. Having a bad connection has always been a well known disadvantage in online shooters, your communistic efforts to help the poor takes away from the overall gameplay. I have been an avid bungie fan for years. I say this from my heart, please look back to your roots where balance and gameplay mattered. If someone has a bad connection or slow reflexes, -blam!- them, they lose. That's life. In the near future I see bungie losing their reign and CoD 4 rising to the top. CoD 4 already has more players logging onto xbox live and is growing daily, while Halo 3 is falling. I want to play halo, not CoD. But if you're going to make ridiculous gameplay changes like this fix (which as I feared would not fix anything), I have no choice but to bring my competitive edge to another medium. Get well soon Halo, Zach The One