Do you believe I'm at that point? Your post doesn't seem to take a stand
I don't think I am.
I am arguing that the new system does MORE to encourage team play. Before I could just run around, making NO effort to get kills, and just try to spray every opponent with a few shots. I would rake in assists, and rake in arena ranking.
This new system forces players to actually make a deliberate effort to take down an opponent. When you do significant damage to an opponent but fail to kill him, and your buddy comes in and gets the kill... bam, assist. If you didn't do significant damage, no assist. To me, it makes complete sense. To me, the "assist" medal is an "almost got a kill" medal.
What I think lies at the heart of this isn't team play dynamics, though. I think people, deep down, are disappointed that they are now getting less shinies than they used to. They used to get 12 assists and now they get 6 and don't like it. The timing for multikills is currently 4 seconds. If Bungie changed it to 3 seconds people would lose their minds. Even thogh *everyone* would then be getting less multikills.