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4/25/2011 12:14:37 AM
268
The Fall of the Plasma Grenade, a thread on Plasma Grenade Shedding
[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]
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I'm back! [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] rejected1s did you get hacked or something? oh i see what you were doing, you just didn't do it very well[/quote] I think I did it flawlessly >_> Just look at uninterrupted original post. Beautiful. Simply Beautiful. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] SiCkSniPer117 How did you play 8 People on one console? I didnt know CE had LIVE...[/quote] We system linked two Xboxes together silly. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] SH4D0W0733 You need 4 posts of 1000 characters each to explain why AL is bad? Are you okay? [/quote] Well over 1000 characters. And as I did warn in the original post, I am TERRIBLE at writing succinctly. Could easily have been longer too, but I cut out much of the unneccessary stuff. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Kaitou Kudo This post is odd in a sense is why is it on b net and not 343i? I doubt bungie cares or could do anything about this. As such any problems that you have with reach that are not matchmaking online playlist/rank you need to got to 343i forums. They are in charge of future halo games and title updates.[/quote] I don't really post much on the 343 Industries forums, and I thought it would be rude to make my first post there be this massive wall. I mean, it would be like saying "[i]Oh hello Waypoint Forum! I'm only posting this here because there's a chance that the people from 343 Industries will see my thread! Now that I've gotten that out of the way let me go back to Bungie.net and not participate in future discussions on your site![/i]" Besides, those barbarians don't have any Spiker Avatars. Simply disgusting. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] darkoverlord3000 another solution may be to not give armor lock the ability to be used twice in rapid succession, so if you have two nades than they can only effectively counter one and you get another chance.[/quote] I still think that if I successfully aim and actually stick my opponent that I kinda deserve the kill the first time >_> [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hippnotic Copy and paste your book into 343i's forum, if they even have one? (Everyone keeps saying they do, but I don't see it anywhere when I google?)[/quote] [url=http://halo.xbox.com/forums/]Ba-BOMB![/url] [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] master jako11 How bout when someone gets stuck, he/she ALs, the sticky goes under with it, getting your kill. The Armor Locker gets to save his teammates if there around him/her by trapping the blast in the Armor Lock so both sides will have fair results?[/quote] That would be an acceptable and pretty cool nuance. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] AgingWhite Fire i have to say one thing against this post, while it is very well written which is a nice change.Currently there is no way to know if someone has a plasma grenade kinda the same way it is hard to tell if a user has AL.Keeping that in mind i ask, how is it fair for the AL user if a player sprints up to you and sticks you without you having a chance to fight back if as soon as they are stuck they die.[/quote] I figure that in general whenever someone starts sprinting towards your spartan, you should assume that he has something devious in mind, and in preperation for his arrival, you should be on your toes and be ready for close quarter manuevering. Doesn't matter if they intend to stick you, melee you, or sword you, anticipating the attack and getting yourself good positioning will help you survive in the long run. On the other hand, if I assume that all my opponents have Armor Lock (except for the jetpackers of course) and try to anticipate the possibillity that they will be able to shed my attack... then what? I know that Plasma Grenades can't beat Armor Lock so long as Plasma Grenade Shedding is around to back it up, so I'm left with conserving all Plasma Grenades for targets armed with Jetpack or targets that I know for sure don't have Armor Lock. That's really not all that fun. I'd much rather prefer a game where if I see an opportunity to stick, I'll be able to take it without needing to worry about automatically failing just because they chose a certain armor abillity. Also keep in mind two things. If a Sprint / Point Blank Stick combination is too powerful, then it's much simpler to increase the weapon drawing delay time as you exit Sprint than to sacrifice Plasma Grenades as a whole to solve the same problem. Also, out of all the armor abillities, Armor Lock (without Plasma Grenade Shedding) gives you the best odds of surviving a Sprint Sticker thanks to it's instantaneous effects. Does that clear things up a bit? [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] IonicPaul I'm pretty apathetic towards Armor Lock, but it'd make canonic sense for it not to shed already stuck grenades; as in they're already stuck to the armor. The armor lock shield quite obviously appears several inches off the armor. That space would keep the plasma grenade inside the shield, not push it out. This'd just cause the grenade to explode inside the shield and kill the player. Makes me think of when the Pillar of Autumn blew up a nuke [i]inside[/i] the Covenant flagship's shield. It didn't knock the nuke away - it just diverted all the damage back into itself and got itself utterly destroyed.[/quote] Not to mention that the Plasma Grenade literally fuses itself to your armor by burning it's way in, so if Armor Lock is strong enough to undo such a strong chemical bond, it's probably going to knock all your weapons and a few armor plates off your body as well. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] No Naku Koro Ni_ ever tried throwing a sticky at their feet before they get out of AL??? It works very well[/quote] But that's a very boring way to kill someone. Sticking is far more exciting, I love betting it all on a single attack and then watching them freak out for a second before they explode! I don't care so much about the kill; I just don't want my excitement to be punctured like a balloon everytime someone Armor Locks and sheds my grenade. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] SD2522 I know a lot of people hate armor lock and I do have some issues with it as well, but if we break it down to its core mechanic even if it didn't send the sticky flying it would still negate the damage from the explosion. That's what Armor Lock is intended for at its core to give a brief moment of protection. [/quote] At it's core Plasma Grenades are supposed to latch onto your opponent and kill them without fail. Or at least this is what I've understood from the past ten years of Halo. Ignoring the fact that the Plasma Grenade has seniority rights so it's core definition should be honored first, it really comes down to this. Should Armor Lock be the exception to the definition of the Plasma Grenade or should Plasma Grenades be the exception to the definition of Armor Lock? With the former, we have an overpowered counter which kinda takes a lot of fun out of sticking people. With the latter, Armor Lock still has the advantage, but Plasma Grenade users at least have a chance, it's a much more fair alternative. Seems clear to me which one we should go with. It's not too hard to imagine the shield forming over the Plasma Grenade anyways. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Justice831 Very good read, you got you're point across very well. I would like to see change implemented. However, I fear that we may see a new problem arise. When Players learn that Armour Lock will no longer block their Plasma Grenades, I fear Players will not think twice about throwing their precious Plasma's. Personally, when I pick a Plasma Grenade up, I view it as a very valuable commodity. I only throw my plasma Grenades at those who I can see plainly are using an Armour Ability other than Armour Lock, so I don't waste my grenades. But if Player's know that even if their target Armour Locks, they will still get the Sticky Kill, we will see a vast increase in the already annoying grenade spamming. [/quote] Eh, I've played a few custom games where there was no Armor Lock and the Plasma Grenade Spam didn't seem much different than usual... [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] SonOfTheShire [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos certainetly[/quote] *Certainly Were I not so incredibly humble I might think you did this just to spite me. :p [/quote] No. Certainetly is now an official word. I can deal with taking out the extra l in abillity, but don't you dare ask me to compromise my et's! That's how I pronounce the word anyways... [quote][/quote] Running out of characters for this post... I think that's enough replying for now.
