So, I've taken notice as I'm sure many other players have as well, that assists in Halo Reach are way down from what they were in Halo 3. You're just not getting as many. Anything above 5 seems like a large amount. I wanted to find out why. It's an important topic and especially so if you like to play Arena. I've created a video showing how assists work in Halo Reach. This experiment only deals with 2 players. As in, 1 teammate gets the kill while the other gets the assist. It doesn't deal with multiple teammates getting an assist for 1 kill. (In Halo 3 Team Slayer you'll notice teams get more than 50 assists) This also only deals with the DMR as it is the weapon you start out with in Arena.
How assists work in Halo Reach
If I shoot a player 1 time with the DMR(20% total damage, 25% shield damage) and my teammate finishes the kill, I won't get the assist.
If I shoot a player 2 times with the DMR(40% total damage, 50% shield damage) and my teammate finishes the kill, I won't get the assist.
Now, If shoot a player 3 times with the DMR(60% total damage, 75% shield damage) and my teammate finishes the kill, I get the assist. I think that's fair actually. If you deal more than HALF of the damage you deserve to get the assist. Obviously this works with 4 shots as well with the DMR(80% total damage, shields dropped)
That's not the issue with assists though. The issue is that it seems as though their calculation is based on time. If I drop a player's shields and my teammate cleans up the kill 5 seconds after my final shot has registered (educated guess) I won't get the assist. It takes MORE than 5 seconds for a players shields to recharge passed the 75% qualifier and even more to fully recharge. You can see it in the video.
After watching the video it will be clear to see why assist calculation needs some tweaking. Maybe the time limit should be equivalent to the time is takes for a players shields to recharge passed the half way point or whatever the exact percentage is. Or maybe you could tweak the Arena formula so that assists are worth more than kills. What if you only need to deal 20% damage to get the assist or 40%. I don't know. It may seem as though it's nitpicking here but it really is a big issue. It seems like nothing on the surface but just look at the stats after each game you play and you'll see just how assists have gone down so much in Reach.
I just hope that it's an issue that can be fixed and fixed quickly.