The ground/air divide is massive in gameplay terms. It's not just a case of "more cover," air vehicles are largely exposed pretty much the entire time they're in use, as they're almost entirely isolated from the battle ground by dint of being in the air. Or rather, they're exposed to many more positions at any given time, meaning the number of threats they're open to is drastically increased. I also think that your point about being faster and having more firepower is true on paper but doesn't really work out that way. Hogs are able to do much more damage simply because they're able to get up closer without sacrificing their safety as much. In practical terms of doing damage, they're more nimble. Range affects the vehicle chain gun quite a lot as well, meaning that it's more useful at the Hog's functional/safe range than it is on a Falcon. The gun on a Falcon is, in my experience, more of a hassle weapon than something which can get plenty of kills. You also fail to factor in that the Hog gun has a 360 degree field of view, whereas the Falcon's is much more limited, placing more onus on the pilot to position themselves such that the gunner can do damage. I feel this is one of the biggest limiting factors on how much real damage the thing ends up doing. The vulnerability of anything in the air means that to be an significant influencing factor it has to do some pretty serious damage, just like the Banshee. As for the Sky Warthog argument, I still just don't see it. Halo is inherently designed around land combat, and I'd say there have never been any default maps which even come close to focusing enough on the advantages of air travel to make your point true. The Spire and Avalanche come the closest imo, but the former is basically a one-trick pony in that sense, and Avalanche's vehicle ring which promotes potential use of the Hornet is, as always, offset by a mandatory focus on viable infantry paths through the centre corridor. To actually make what you're saying true, a map would have to go so far away from consistently viable infantry combat that it'd be eroding an essential tenet of Halo gameplay.
I missed this post until Pegasi quoted it. Well first of all, I think warthogs are too vulnerable in Reach. They use to be things to be feared, in all the Halos 1-3; in Reach they are easily chewed to pieces. But the main problem with them is their vulnerability to damage in general, not how they interact with other vehicles or power and anti-vehicle weapons. DMR fire destroys a warthog far faster than BR fire did in Halo 2 and 3 - I hear they're nerfing that again in Halo 4, which is a good thing IMO. Basically all vehicles are a little too vulnerable to that, but the warthog suffers from it more than any other except probably the banshee (however, the banshee has better defenses against it since it has thrusters and tricking). Second, I think Pegasi already explained the big difference here. An aerial vehicle is exposed like crazy. Think of the current BTB maps that include falcons. If you're on Abridged, or that canyon map with the neutral falcon and big structure in the middle that always comes up for heavies, where are you going to hide from an enemy almost anywhere on the map? There's nowhere to go that you aren't incredibly exposed, unless you just land behind your own base. Warthogs have natural cover by virtue of being at ground level; they are only exposed in the same way vs. someone very high up, or jetpacking. (The Spire is a decent falcon map because it's so broken up and has enormous height variation and huge land formations to fly around, but it's a crappy map in most other respects.) Yes, you have increased protection from EMPs, though not to a great degree - any smart warthog driver will just not drive near any infantry, letting the gunner do the work and avoiding easy EMPs. And you have the same vs. 'nades, though it's the same deal - plus timing a frag properly isn't easy against any warthog moving in any direction; however, I give you that sticking a hog is much easier than sticking a falcon. Still this doesn't remotely offset being a larger and more predictable target to laser or snipe, or the fact that locked-on rockets take you out very easily on most maps due to lack of air-level cover and the falcon's non-maneuverability. Fundamentally, I think the falcon requires a lot more tailoring of both the map and weapon set to make it work at all. It is always going to suck in heavies and be somewhat underpowered in any wide-open, standard BTB map, unless your pilot is REALLY good. They should have given the thing rocket-turrets - now that would have elevated it somewhat on the food chain.
Vehicles in reach had a overall nerf which really annoyed me personally (Its the reason I hate the sniper with a passion) but Not sure how the warthog suffers from the general nerf to every vehicle defenses more then other vehicles. DMR could take down any vehicle including tanks, Many times on hemorrhage I've instructed my team of randoms 8ppl to focus fire on a wraith with DMR till run out of ammo, Dies quicker then you would think. Banshee has a hard time dodging DMR and takes packeted damage(irreversible damage) quicker and had lower HP pool so its more susceptible to DMR fire. Mongoose ghost are weaker, Revenant I can't remember but don't see how warthog suffered more then any other vehicle.(except DMR physically rolled the warthog like bullets where made out of cows) Only place I can think of a falcon map i can think of on top of my head is spire and falcon>warthog on that map it wins a 1v1(with 1 gunner each) and covers more areas(shutdown more areas to), Just as you don't stand in middle of hemorrhage with warthog you don't stand in middle of air with a falcon (ignoring the FUUUUU sniper and DMR deaths) any competitive BTB player knows what power weapons are alive or potentially alive at any moment so rockets aren't really a big issue (they kill you but it's not OMG I cant do anything with rockets on a map) sticky launcher your dead though but Falcon>Banshee in CQC or medium range(limiting its flips,then limiting its banshee bombs because it has to flip at bad time and falcon just flat out beats banshee at sub par gameplay) so it can be viable IMO. Main thing I'm gonna miss about it in Halo 4 is having a chopper in custom games for "GET TO THE CHOPPA" moments and descending down next to a building and open firing into a window breaking all "glass"(like would in movie) while they run etc and I prefer helicopter gameplay in halo over constantly moving and flipping(just to stay in same general area most of time) banshee gameplay
The warthog has the worst combination of low maneuverability (can't thrust like a ghost/banshee/revenant, can't trick like a banshee) and low damage tolerance (it's a bit more durable than the three I just mentioned, but nowhere near the shot-eater that the wraith is). You're right that a concentrated team can kill a wraith with just DMR fire but it takes a pretty long while, certainly far, far longer than it takes to kill a hog or any of the light covie vehicles. I actually really dislike most of the things they did with the banshee in Reach - it's both too powerful AND too fragile, and no, that doesn't qualify as "balance." But apart from it I think the general fragility of vehicles affects the warthog the most - not that it's the most fragile one, but it has not much in the way of defenses, and is just the right combination of easy to shoot and large enough to draw the attention of multiple players, even if they aren't coordinated at all. My experience in Reach is that relative to how effective the same vehicles were in Halo 3, the warthog suffered the most. The ghost is basically the same (it takes less damage but fewer people generally shoot at it, so it doesn't end up mattering); the tanks are basically the same though somewhat more fragile (but not enough that it usually comes into play; in most games it's still anti-vehicle weapons or other vehicles that take them out). The banshee is very different and far more fragile, but it's also far more powerful and easy to get huge killing sprees in.
Responses in bold, as per usual for walls of text in response to walls of text. Mostly @chrs Spoiler It was massive, so I spoiler'd it.
Those are fair points scorch, I was more replying to zeppy..thought you were on the same page as him. I will say this though: we haven't actually gotten our hands on the new weapons and they really haven't gotten all that much facetime. I think we could be surprised just how uniquely they may end up functioning once people know how to use them.
Whoops, thought that was directed at me. My bad haha It's true, we don't have the weapons yet; I'm basing this off of assumption. That being said, I do think we have a fair amount of info and the role of the weapon is usually very apparent, but there could always be a surprise. Like I said before, I've had this problem with each game in the series, this isn't just "I hate Halo 4 because it's new" stuff. Just thought it was a relevant time to bring it up again. I really wish they'd work on fleshing out how the weapons function more. With the whole Custom Games options at our disposal, a super-varied sandbox would be amazing in customs.
Perhaps this is a bit cynical of me, but in terms of precision primaries I think we're gonna see a pretty clear go-to weapon emerge quite quickly.
Oh for sure, which is why it annoys me that they put so many in there. It will be unfortunately the DMR because it is far more versatile while killing faster (this is a stupid decision IMO). Unless it's incredibly hard to use (which it won't be), it'll be the go-to weapon (puking right now). LR on big maps though with its powerful as hell scope + the perk that increases your stability in scope when shot could be devastating.
Probably. I'd say it'll be the DMR if I were to guess. However, the Carbine looks like my favorite so far, but of course I'll have to get my hands on all of them to be sure.
My thoughts exactly. I wanted to, you know, be able to use the BR or Carbine again and have them work well, so long as they decide to fill the game with near-identical precision weapons. And then imagine something like Boardwalk or Blood Gulch with the LR? Oh god. I hope the LR isn't that fantastic in BTB. Otherwise BTB might become Scope Wars: The Playlist
Eh, at least the LR is a new weapon. I'm not feeling a second game of DMR Warz. That weapon is just so boring, icky, yucky, gross, disgusting, shitty, crappy, gross, gross, boring, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Gives me a headache shooting it.
i'll probably just use BR and covie carbine anyway. while the DMR will be slightly better based on what we've seen, its not enough to justify using it for me.
I second that notion. The chatter about weapon balancing and what not means little to me until the game actually comes out.
And the fact that zepp just posted a ****ing novel. Please, for the love of Glob if you're going to be making such long post, put them in a spoiler. Especially if you're arguing only to one or a few people. The rest of us don't really want to see it. I think I've had enough info for multiplayer, I'm going to go dark til the game comes out. Cya guys.