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Why I don't want health (as in healthpacks - though I would like a visible, recharging health bar).
1. Healthpacks don't inherently create better tactics. Sure, camping kiosks can be a tactic, but does that really add to the game? Sure, counting the cost before rushing into battle is important, but don't we do that now? Don't you determine if going into battle is worth it based on if you will live or die? If you mean that you should carry the punishment of damage across battles, are you saying that you think good tactics are equal to those where you come out with no damage at all? How is that even possible in most situations?
2. Healthpacks are redundant and have the potential to diminish teamwork. We are already punished for losing a fight as well as for getting hurt in a fight - our shields go down. While you say healthpacks increase tactics by making you only engage when - not only certain of a win - but certain of no damage done to self, couldn't this discourage teamwork in some ways? Right now it's vital that a teammate assists you or your opponent can walk away from a fight and have shields back up within twenty seconds. Having a teammate with you gives you a higher chance for a kill. With healthpacks, you can hurt a guy and be happy, because you know it'll be easy to clean them up later.
I would like to note that I realize healthpacks can also encourage teamwork, as team firing not only kills faster, but reduces damage done to you. However, teamwork is vital now but isn't always used. How many times have you died and wished a teammate would have cleaned up the kill? With healthpacks, dieing in a fight alone isn't so bad.
3. Healthpacks slow down the gameplay. Halo is one of the slowest paced shooters out there. Don't get me wrong, I love it. It can definitely be intense and fast paced, but it's a relatively slow shooter based on the type of map control and weapon sets necessitated. If you add healthpacks, it will invariably slow down the game. No, I don't have scientific evidence for this, but common sense has tended to serve me well in the past. I love Halo as it is, even though it's slow, but I can't imagine it being much slower and being enjoyable. That, of course, is just my opinion.
4. Objective games go out the window with healthpacks. OK, so of course Bungie could shift some things to make objective games work with healthpacks. However, I don't think healthpacks are very conducive to this type of gameplay. If my team assaults a base and kill everyone fairly quickly, but before we get out, the team starts to spawn - we're low on health. We don't have time to go look for health in between our killing and their spawning because we need the objective.
5. Randomness is even more evident in healthpack gameplay. Taking the concept of number four into slayer, if I lose a fight on the enemy's side or near an enemy spawn, I am instantly at a disadvantage. Why? I have superior map control, I earned my power weapon, and now some guy who isn't as good as me spawns in front of me. Of course I'd normally be able to take him, but not now, as I'm low on health. When we talk about spawn kills now, it's usually the one who spawns who gets owned. But now you're turning the tables and making it a disadvantage to be aggressive and be skillful. Regenerating shields/health provides players with a fair fight each time. If they get out of the fights they choose to enter (or are entered into by an action of the enemy) due to better skills, luck, or poor teamwork on the other side, great. But with health, you really randomize the fights and take away the fair fight concept.
As one possible result, I could see teams grabbing the power weapons and just sitting. Some do this now depending on the maps, but a lot of good teams take control of the middle and are aggressive. But with a health system on top of the shields, this would be a bad move. Now teams will always sit back on their own side so that when a power weapon is lost (as it will be fairly quickly, as the health is depleted) and you take away the fair fight), it drops on their side.
6. Complexity does not always mean better. Adding a healthpack to the game would definitely add complexity, but so would making a player jump up and down and turn around three times before they fired each bullet. Add a little dizzying effect for MC and it would take a lot of skill and judgment to hit another player... I know that's not really a fair comparison, but I hope you see my point. Complexity can definitely add a skillful element to the game, but sometimes making something more complex is deleterious to gameplay and skillful tactics.
Healthpacks, IMO, are a complexity that takes away from the game. They bring in randomness, cheap tactics, redundancy, slow gameplay, and a plethora of other minor annoyances. I don't think it would absolutely be gamebreaking, and I'm sure I'd still play and like Reach. However, the fluidity of multiplayer would be greatly diminished. Just play ODST for a while and you'll see how much you have to sit and wait. As it is now, the lack of healthpacks allow tactics to be performed over and over again relatively quickly, as opposed to waiting for your teammate to go get a healthpack before you attack, falling back because one of your team needs a healthpack, etc.
I just don't think healthpacks add any strategizing that isn't already there in Halo without them.
Posted by: blue3232
Canon-wise, we should have health packs. The reason we don't have them in 2 and 3 is because Mk. VI armor has biofoam injectors built in. Mk. V did not have injectors, but had injection ports, thus, health packs should be biofoam canisters.
Personally, I still don't want them. It just makes sense that we would.
I don't think the Halo books discussing this armor were out before H2. I'm pretty sure the chicken (H2, or at least its development) came before the egg (the book or the story). They made the story that way so they could make the gameplay that way, IMO, though I could be wrong.
[Edited on 11.17.2009 3:07 PM PST]