Halo: Reach Discussion

[p0lar_bear]

What do you guys think of cooldowns in general? I mostly just tolerate them. I understand their role in allowing instant, tactical access to an ability and then restricting that ability to prevent abuse, but it strikes me as being too contrived. You hit a button and then that button does nothing for X amount of seconds, where X increases proportionally to the usefulness of the ability. If you come upon a situation that you wuld need that ability before the cooldown is up, you'll naturally tend to just start tapping the button, muttering, "c'mon-c'mon-c'mon" and trying to will time to speed up, so you can use that ability again, in the nick of time. I just don't think that is a behavioral pattern that should be associated with playing a fun game.

I understand why they use it and I'm not saying I have a better solution, it's just that in my Bungie-worship days, if you had told me a future Halo game was going to have cooldowns, I'd have said, "No way, "Bungie will come up with a better idea that makes the very notion of cooldowns obselete." It's disappointing to see that my faith wouldn't have been rewarded.

If Bungie had a better system worked out, they would be using it. Then again, what system, exactly, is "better?" Even though ability cooldown systems encourage mashing a button/command when you can't use it, any limit on any ability whatsoever in a video game promotes annoyance. Case-in-point: ammunition and reloading. It would be fun to just fire your gun all day at your enemies without a care in the world, but when you throw down a layer of resource management on your weapons, then you will end up getting annoyed when you die when your mag runs empty, or you just spent your last shot. Nobody thinks about this, though, because ammo management just goes with guns.

When one's in their right mind and they can manage their resources effectively, then they're having fun. Once things start slipping and the button-mashing happens, they either need to learn how to manage better, or take a break if they're just tense.

Also, if only Elites can jump then I am NOT going to be a happy bunny > They should give you the ability to be able to jump out of the way by default... like Gears of War. If they don't then I am going to slap Bungie accross the face with my cock!

I hope you mean with the cooldown system in place; unlimited dodge rolls in Gears took the tactical-cover-based campaign and turned it into a "who can roll around like a retard while spamming the longshot/shotgun the best" pissing match in multiplayer. Not to mention it rendered all other weapons obsolete, except for MAYBE the Lancer's chainsaw in certain situations.