[quote][b]WARNING: This topic criticizes Armor Lock![/b] If you find yourself weary of the repetitiveness of Armor Lock threads on the Reach Forum, I encourage you to read my post anyways and keep an open mind. I've put a lot of work into this, and I feel my suggestions are not unreasonable. [b]WARNING: I am TERRIBLE at writing succinctly![/b] If a 4,876 word post spread out over four posts is too much for your reading abilities to handle, then I suggest bailing out of my thread now. But feel free to post those [i]witty[/i] "tl;dr" memes to your heart's desire, it will only get you banned for spam, and bump my thread up to the top of the front page. [/quote][quote][/quote][b]Introduction: My First Game of Halo.[/b][quote][/quote]It all started at a birthday party back in the 7th grade... My friends wanted one more player to play this game called Halo CE with them, so they called me over from the snack table to fill in. I was hesitant to join them, as back then I was a devout Nintendo Fanboy and any other console was clearly the devil, but I decided to humor them by playing their inferior game. My very first match of Halo was 8 Player FFA on Battle Creek, AR Pistol starts. Looking back on the game, it was a bit of a train wreck, but it couldn't be helped as the odds were stacked against me. It was a foreign game from a foreign genre on a foreign console with foreign controls, and my friends were the sort of jerks who neglected to tell me the basic controls or nuances of the game before throwing me into the midst of it. In hindsight my biggest mistake was deciding that the pistol was garbage because it was smaller than my AR, and therefore less powerful. As a result, I had trouble defending myself from my opponents who were mysteriously capable of killing me quickly from across the map. It didn't matter what weapon I used, I couldn't score a single kill. I'd climb a ladder, and my friend would snipe me at point blank range in the head. I'd be running along behind the base and a rocket would come out of nowhere and blow me away! I was starting to get very frustrated. I didn't understand anything about this game! I was just about ready to put down the controller and walk away, but that's when I saw [i]it[/i]. There was something blue floating beneath the river that flowed through the central part of the map. I went to investigate, and as I passed over the orb, I saw a message flash up on my screen: "Picked up a Plasma Grenade". Grenades. I use the left trigger to throws those, right? At that moment my friend burst out from behind a rock and charged straight towards me, intent on farming yet another kill off the new guy. Without thinking, I tossed that Plasma Grenade directly into my friend's face, and to my surprise, it latched onto him and began to burn! I heard him let out a curse from the opposite side of the room as his Spartan Character started to panic! Four seconds later he dissapeared in a brilliant Blue Explosion, my very first kill in a Halo game! That single Plasma Grenade that I had scooped from the waters of Battle Creek completely changed the game for me. In my hand I held a weapon that was as deadly as it was beautifully comedic! I had become a wielder of burning blue death! I had the power to strike fear into my opponent's hearts! And damn was it funny to watch them freak out when they were stuck! That first game led to many others, each one teaching me a little bit more about how fun this game was. I learned how to drive a Warthog on Sidewinder, experienced the chaos of Rocket starts on Prisoner, and learned how to Snipe on Boarding Action. Altogether I left the party with a positive outlook on both Halo and the Xbox, and about a year later I got an Xbox of my very own and a copy of Halo 2 and I've been hooked on Halo ever since. Now that being said, I've never been really all that good at getting sticks with the Plasma Grenade. Sure, I could get kills at point blank range, but anybody can do that, I wanted something a little more. I was very jealous of the players online who were seemingly capable of consistently sticking me from any angle at any moment, and I too wanted to be able to stick people from a distance. Right before Halo Reach came out, I made myself a personal goal to improve my sticking ability in the new game so I could be just like those awesome players I had met. While my current abilities are definitely nothing to brag about, I am very proud of how far I've come since Halo 3. Every day I feel more and more confident whenever I throw a Plasma Grenade, and I've gotten some pretty cool sticks over my couple thousand Reach games. Finally! I understand the joy of the world of Sticking! ...Unfortunately, with that joy came a great deal of frustration. Frustration that Plasma Grenade Fans have been feeling since the Beta. Frustration that stems from a feature of Armor Lock, commonly known as Plasma Grenade Shedding. [quote][/quote][b][i]Continued on Post 2[/i][/b][quote][/quote] [Edited on 04.24.2011 4:47 PM PDT]