I have returned to playing some BTB maps and haven't noticed the presence of the Scorpion yet. I remember how it used to be in Hemorrhage, but is no longer due to its over powered gun. So I ask you all, is the Scorpion on any BTB or any map still today? I suspect it is on Boneyard, which is like putting an aircraft carrier into a bathtub. and unless there is a Scorpion on another map, I would think that you have to put the Scorpion in a bathtub to make it more vulnerable???? And if my assumption is correct, would it be reasonable to conclude that bungie made the mistake of making the Scorpion so powerful that it cannot be used on maps today?
There's a neutral one on Boneyard that tends not to get used much because, as you imply, the map's too small for it (and the neutral location means that it gets blown up at the start of the match quite often). Paradiso is the last haven for old school scorpion usage, but the map design means that they tend to get used solely as defensive weapons, and even then they are less effective than the banshees (since the banshee/sniper/laser combo usually wrecks them in a hurry). I don't think this is new to Reach though - they've always been too powerful to be good for BTB. They probably worked best on Avalanche in Halo 3 due to the huge size of the map, the large number of other vehicles, and the paths and camo power-ups for infantry. Generally I think of the scorpion as much more suited to campaign.
Yeah I hardly think it's a unique reach problem, every halo game that i can think of went through a phase of having scorpions in matchmaking and then slowly phasing them out because people complain. I don't think they've ever satisfactorily balanced them. I think it's sort of ironic that they got taken out of haemorrage because of how easy I found the tank to destroy using the sniper rifle in reach but w/e.
The problem with the Reach Scorpion compared to the older iterations is that due to the better netcode, it's extremely easy to hit people. In Halo 1, 2 and 3 it was a lot harder to hit people because hit-detection wasn't as good. I remember in Halo 3 hitting people dead on without even doing them damage. But then again, Halo 3 BTB is extremely laggy.
I'm not too fond of Reach and the Scorpion's overpowered tendencies are one of my big reasons to not like it that much. Well, quite a load of vehicle physics were screwed up by Bungie due to their carelessness and/or errors, such as the "light-as-a-feather" Warthogs. Well at least Halo CE Anniversary won't have such an "easy-to-own-with" Scorpion since it's a remake of CE (I doubt 343 would mess that up).
You mean "light-as-a-feather vehicles so that they can be turned back over and put back into play right away?" I think that was intentional...
Halo has always had light-as-a-feather warthogs that flip over if they hit a slightly uneven patch of ground. In Halo 3 you could push them off a cliff with BR fire. In Halo CE if you rammed two of them together, one or both would go soaring into the sky like a wounded bird (we called it Hog Jousting). And every single warthog has always handled like a bar of soap - just as slippery, just as weightless. This isn't new.
Oddly enog, i think they have the damage-to-mass ratio down on reach. It's really easy to pop your buddy's shields if you tap them with the 'Hog. If I remember correctly, it was harder to splatter teamates in previous games..at least unintentionally. But yes, I agree that 'Hogs handle just as well as a bar of soap.