Hey, ho! Let's Go!

[OK, so the title doesn't actually have anything to do with today's post... that song was just in my head.]

343 is gearing up for their first "Title Update". Don't know what that means? Basically it means that 343 Industries is about to take the reins of control from Bungie and grip it firmly in their hands for this first time. Now a title update is where the developers address the games code and make tweaks that will affect game-play. [Hopefully for the better.] Otherwise it would just suck and everyone will complain that. "Man, I liked it better when Bungie ran the show... this sucks."

343 loves Halo, that's actually where their name comes from. 343 is short for, "343 Guilty Spark". You might recognize that name, its the name of that douche, malfunctioning monitor of instillation 07. (i.e. that jerk floating robot ball that tried to kill you in the first game for wanting to blow Halo... and then later unnecessarily killing Sergeant Major "Badass" Johnson; when you were trying to re-blow up the new instillation 07 in Halo 3)

[Yeah, I don't exactly know why they picked 343 either... my guess is that the doofus spark was the "Caretaker" of Halo, and that's what they're trying to be... you know, without the suck part.]

TITLE UPDATE AND YOU!

343 hears you, the fans, [Who piss and moan about how hard the game is and how you hate getting PWNED by Armor Lock or that "The DMR no shoot straight when I spam the trigger"... Or, maybe even a possible, legitimate issue.] So you hop on the forums and gripe about the little irritations. 343 loves all of HALO's fan equally; whether you agree with the issues or not. If you don't, it's time to adapt or die, 'cause the changes are a come'n. 343 wants to make the experience more enjoyable, for everybody. So this is what they plan on doing.

First and foremost. Let's talk Armor Lock. This one gets a lot of heat. Too many see it as a "Survive anything" button. [Which it is.] For the amount of time which the ability has charge in the meter, you can survive it all. From a Sticky Grenade, to a Tank trying to squish you like a one ton, bug, in super tougher than steel combat armor, with shields. [Yup...] Armor Lock, blocks it all.

Many find this feature too powerful, and a maneuver abused by too many players. So the changes are as follows. AL (Armor Lock) now bleeds damage to the ability power meter. [What does that mean?]
It means that the damage you take isn't just shrugged off into lala-land, it's going somewhere. Since it's redirecting the damage, it has to go someplace, that place in you ability power meter. Take damage and that meter falls. Meaning you spend less time in AL. So lets say you see a rocket coming, you hit AL and are now safe. When the rocket hits, all the damage it would have delivered to you now goes to the armor ability energy, and depletes it. You're now out of the armor ability until it recharges.

Also, if you get stuck by a sticky grenade before you activate AL, you're a dead SPARTAN. So those who manage to stick you still get a reward once robbed, the "Sticky Medal" you would've been awarded for said stick. so if you want no go boom, hit AL sooner.

Next, is AV-CAM (Active Camouflage)
In AV-CAM, if you refrained from moving, your ability power bar wouldn't drain as fast, allotting  you more time in near invisibility. This is no more, if you're moving, it drops at the same speed as if you were standing still. They're also reducing the time you can actual spend in AV-CAM by a short margin. Apparently, many think being invisible for the original amount of time was just a bit too long.

The Reticule bloom [That's what happened when you pulled the trigger, the target reticule would expand. Meaning the recoil affected your aim. The faster you shot, the more varied your shots would become. This was a great game mechanic that's been in all the previous games, just used differently. You'll remember most recently the "BR-Spread" from HALO 3. Same basic idea.

But the problem is that some weapons, became lackluster in the wrong place. Like being at a certain distance between you and your foe with a weapon that was supposed to be it's fiercest. (i.e the DMR "Designated Marksmen Rifle") The DMR at medium range has a tendency to be unreliable, forcing you to stick to a cadence; which means, fire, pause, fire, pause, fire. In the end, instead of adding to a level of skill, most players just spam the trigger and hope that enough led will come flying down the map and kill whomever they're "Aiming" at. You had to really rein in the self-control and count off your shots at the right pace to gain the advantage. This is being tweaked, on different playlists and in different degrees of severity. Basically this means that the DMR will act properly in its designed sweet-spot.

Lastly, I wanted to point out that 343 is bringing the end-all-beat-all Standard Issue Sidearm of the Original HALO: Combat Evolved into multilayer.  When you've got Combat Evolved Anniversary in your Xbox and you're playing online with your friends. the M6D Magnum will be able to feel that raw power you used to know, when you first picked up HALO; but only in HALO: CEA Matchmaking. Not, HALO Reach Matchmaking.

For more in-depth information and any additional tweaks, check out 343's HALO WayPoint's official post on the matter. [Official Post On the Matter]

Later!
-Fox