alisdair said:
No, they don't. It has been designed this way on purpose.
The new melee stops close encounters from being a test of lowest ping (or best lag adjustment). Now the skill is not in when you press B, it's in everything before that point -- and after, if you want to survive long enough for your shields to recharge.
It's not broken, and lots of people (myself included) think it's much better. More importantly, so do Bungie, so don't bother waiting for a patch.
The fact is that ping comes into play in every part of an encounter, from the initial shots to the melee at the end. So if you have a bad connection or lag you are going to be at a disadvantage at the start unless you definitely get the jump on someone. So why should the person that has the reflexes to know when a melee will kill get punished when the opponent reacts slower but as a byproduct has a fraction more health?
won said:
You have better reflexes because you press the meleebutton first? In the described situation the better player wins because he put more bullets in his opponent. In that situation the player with the "reflexes" wins because he waits out, dealing a bit more damage with his weapon and reacts to the opponents decision to jump in and melee.
I'm also not a fan of the system but that's how I see it at the moment.
I suck at keeping the damn crosshair on my enemy therefore I lose in most melee situations. I hate it, it has problems but I think it is fair in most situations.
However I never played Halo 2 mp so I can't really compare it to other systems. I see the meleeattack as a finisher and the current system discourage to jump in at the first possible chance, which has nothing to do with reflexes.
Also what alisdair said.
We arent talking about someone meleeing an opponent when their shields are still up all the way, we are talking about when a melee strike will kill the opponent, the first to strike should get the kill, not the person that is slower and happens to have more health when they melee because of an extra bullet or two.
To put it simply to describe what is so frustrating about the system:
Player A has 100% health
Player B has 100% health
Player A and B happen to spot each other at the same time and start shooting at each other at a very close moment (too close to tell if it was one or the other).
They start to close as most players do, by the time they are in striking distance player A decides to melee, at that point Player A has 8% health and Player B has 8% health (again basing this off of an even fight). Player B then goes to melee immediately after Player A but at which point it is at least a fraction of a second or more later. Since Player A stopped shooting and went to melee first, Player B got a few extra bullets in. So now at the point which Player B goes to melee in reaction Player A has 6% health and Player B has 8% health still (because the system waits to register melees, or it would be based on reactions wouldnt it) when he finally melees. At that point the host processes the data and based on the current melee system rewards Player B with the victory because when he melee'd he had more health even though Player A melee'd first and at a point where Player B would be killed by a melee.
What defines the time the system should wait to register a melee? Based on the video I posted it seems like it can wait a long time at least in game terms.
I really feel the system is based on flawed logic and really gives improper play the nod, that and luck. Its not like we can see who has more health when both shields are down, but the game knows... how can a player be tactical enough to know when to melee or not in a situation, or do they just have to pray it works? Thats how it is now, whack and pray.
Edit: Also what everyone else said in response to those two. I made just one example that shows the flaw, but there are so many more.