So guys, should either of these 2 things make a return?
1.) back-pack reloading
2.) Health
I have a certain affinity
for healthpacks on the ground - a misplaced nostalgic feeling perhaps - and it's also something that I'm not entirely against. However, Halo is a very different game now than when it had healthpacks and I don't think it would support them very well.
I'd say the health system does a few things. It encourages players to avoid shots and punishes them for poor positioning by weakening them after an encounter, so you can't pop your head out every few seconds with no repercussions. Additionally, a healthpack spawn introduces another position on the map to control; however, it can also slow down the rate of encounters somewhat by requiring players to move to said healthpack spawn when they're weakened.
The last part is what bothered me the most about them. I despised being killed by a single grenade or body snipe in Reach when my shield was chipped and my health was red. That's not to say that the health system in Reach is the best or the only way to implement it in a modern Halo. Still, I think there are a number of other problems that would prevent its inclusion.
Firstly, the average kill time now compared to Combat Evolved has changed, and so has the general philosophy of the way Halo is designed. In CE, you could out-pistol one or two people and grab a healthpack all within the span of 10 seconds. This wont really happen in any other Halo game against even skilled opponents. You BR one guy and your shields are already down. There's no way you're going to survive another encounter or even make it to a healthpack unless you were already near its spawn. Again, this meant you were often killed by a belt-grenade or his teammate walking up and cleaning you up.
Fall Damage was also an integral part of the health system. They both worked in tandem to introduce risk-reward elements to the maps. On Damnation for example, players are punished for poor movement or aimless jumps by losing health, which balances the height advantage you earn. Without both the health or fall damage systems, the map becomes flatter and the advantages lose value. And then they had the audacity to put a Jetpack on it at some point...
Man-Cannons also rule out both systems. They're a risk-reward mechanism in themselves, so mixing the two usually means one or the other ends up being nerfed. A man-cannon without much cannon is no fun at all.
The other, perhaps more important aspect of it is that health is mostly outdated in console shooters. Players want to jump into the action at all times. Rechargeable health was actually a big innovation for the genre and it'd probably do more harm than good to go back on that now.
Anyone is free to chime in or say otherwise. I've been wanting to scratch that nostalgic itch for a while, and were it not for CE in this collection, I fear we wouldn't have been seeing much of them anytime soon...
RIP
