I have come to the conclusion that I indeed do not like the ability to spawn with plasma nades and a plasma pistol in BTB. They made the Hog stronger in Halo 4 and then nerfed it right back down again with that.
Or that the Boltshot is IMO stronger than the Scattershot, a freakin power weapon? Sure, it can't bounce, but it has a larger/more reliable kill range and can headshot with regular bolts for cleanup. I got a triple with the Boltshot alone when 2 of the guys had swords. I should not have gotten one of those kills, but because of Bolt/Dex, I walked out with full shields and two swords. Wat. Winshot is for 4v4, PP is for BTB.
There's also a glitch video for those of you who are not yet aware.. Halo 4 Quick Tips: Boltshot Reload & Thruster Lift Glitch - YouTube I can't seem to use the Boltshot, however. It'll take some practice..
And here is my greatest issue. I love being able to put together my own load outs, picking which armor abilities I want with which guns and which packages make sense, but there are just a few bad eggs in the mix. I haven't had as many issues with the boltshot, but I've heard a lot of complaints, but the PP and stickies in BTB I know for a fact is too much. But if I want to make a custom game mode without personal loadouts I lose all the other customization and the parts I actually like. The only way to fix it would be to have something that makes certain weapons unavailable, such as setting all secondaries to be replaced with magnums in personal load outs. /RageRageRage Edit: And yet it is still better than MM BTB was in Reach at least.
heh yea right. Anyway it's fixed now. Was just that stupid glitch with the servers not connecting properly. Left it for a bit and came back later to see they were all done again. However I was still 56 so I did lose XP.
I just don't like loadouts. It's very random and combined with the personal ordinance and instant spawns it just makes for uncontrollable chaos. Killing a player no longer keeps you and your position safe from them for a few seconds because they could spawn with LoS on you, controlling weapon drops and which weapons the enemy can and cannot have is now impossible and identifying perks and AAs your opponent has before combat is impossible. Teamwork means less (though it still helps) because control means less and is harder to keep. The game is boring me because some depth and control has been removed. Not to mention everyone and their dog votes for Team 'Stand on the hill and DMR each other to death from 100 ft away, killing anyone who tries to make something interesting happen' on Ragnarok. Otherwise, I would have fun in BTB. I honestly have a really hard time having fun in War Games now. I'm finding out that more and more I'm just playing to get certain commendations (I wanted the Believe pose, so I've actually been calling in the Scattershot a bunch, sigh) and not actually playing to play the game. I hate to make this analogy, but that's exactly what I thought about CoD and BF a month or so before I stopped playing them. I've never really had this problem with Halo before. At least I find Campaign and SpOps to be fun. When the SpOps season ends I'll probably ship off for the PC master race. /rageofmyown On another note, I find it funny that some people on Waypoint are now calling Reach 'true Halo' when they attack Halo 4.
I don't know what they were thinking with the boltshot. It's like having a combination mauler/magnum in your back pocket, except the mauler half is stronger than the actual mauler was. Oh, and everybody has one. It's atrocious. When you add in the prevalance of power weapons through ordnance drops, you basically never know when somebody will have a weapon that can kill in a single hit - but you better plan on it being about 75% of the time, because that seems to be how it works out. And even worse, the boltshot is easily the equal of the close range "power weapons" - god help you if you have a sword and try to, y'know, use it on somebody, because your ass is gonna get boltshotted. If the guy is smart he probably won't even pick up your dumb sword. I haven't yet seen the plasma pistol issues in BTB but I'm sure that's coming, too. I still wake up screaming when I recall elite slayer BTB matches in Reach. In the few BTB matches I've played so far it seemed like I was one of the few people using a plasma pistol - I was probably just playing with morons sticking to their trusty boltshot. Ultimately I am having (or foreseeing) serious issues with the loadouts in this game, but what's interesting is that it's not for the reasons I thought I might have issues. I thought the transformation of Halo into a loadout shooter would be annoying in and of itself, but it's not the variety or the rock-paper-scissors nature of it that I mind. It's that in order to diversify the sandbox they gave us access to some weapons (particularly in the secondary category) that just shouldn't be available to all players - they're too problematic by half. And I like the weapons enough that I don't want to see them nerfed; I just hate the idea of everyone having them.
Oh dear, I may have issues with the new game but Reach was worse in my eyes. I'm not quite as competitive so I don't pick up on everything you listed but I do notice imbalances fairly easily, and they are rampant in certain game modes. I'm just looking for the best possible fix to the game type I can make in custom games so we can enjoy ourselves there. I suppose at least this time around I can enjoy MM a little and actually play it without getting bored within 2 games, but what things they fixed form Reach it seems they re-messed up in other ways. And I agree, Ragnarok is so broken by the DMR and Light Rifle. @ Nut, I agree, I love the weapon set, it's how players get them that is a problem. I have a similar issue with personal ordnance: I like the idea and it seems to spice up the game, but there are around 10 weapons I would remove from rotation, including rocket-like weapons, snipers, and melee weapons. And random drops. What the hell are those? If these changes were made and initial ordnance was changed back to respawning weapons (could still drop from the sky, I'm okay with that) then I'd be happy with Infinity Slayer. I can play and have a good time if I really don't give a **** how I do, but when I am playing and interested in winning I tend to have a bad time anymore. To customs, awaaaaaay!
That was inevitable as the sun rising. Give it another six months and some people will be talking about Reach like it was one of the best Halo games ever. Hindsight for gamers is exactly the opposite of 20/20.
So I think I hit that cutoff point in BTB where people start knowing what they are doing, right? And they all vote for Ragnarok, I dunno why. So take these people, all LR/DMR, PP, 2 stickies and either PV or Regen, or Camo or whatever. It is so damn hard to make something happen. People keep their distance because any attempt at leaving your rock cover is met with Mantis, some random ordinance or a hail of DMR bullets. Have a Ghost or Warthog? I hope you can survive 8 plasma grenades, Incineration Cannons, rockets, Fuel Rods, whatever. The only time something happens in the games I play is when a mantis pushes up the sides, which causes the middle hill to switch teams because the current occupants get flanked and executed by the firing squad of DMRs being escorted to the Pelican/turret by the mantis. That goes on for 15 minutes, and then THEY VOTE FOR IT AGAIN. It's like BTB hell. I play more Dominion and CTF (oh god not dropping the flag...) now because at least it provides an incentive for moving around. And 4v4 is turning into a Boltshot war with some DMRs strewn about. And here I thought loadouts made for diversity. My mistake. My primary joy as of late is seeing how much ammo you get from ordinance with the ammo perk. Including the 5 in the chamber, you get 20 shots for the FRG. Sniper gets 16 total, Rockets get 6 and the Railgun gets 6 or 7, I can't remember.
Seriously? That is gross. I hadn't tried that perk yet, because I had no idea it applied to power weapons.
It's so ridiculous that I find it hilarious. It applies to energy weapons too: Laser gets 125% and PP gets 150%. One sniper, used well, could last an entire match with 16 shots. I killed a Mantis, Banshee (granted I wasn't the only one to shoot at these two, but I put at least 6 shots into the 2 of them combined) and 5 people with the starting sniper on Ragnarok. That just shouldn't happen. It's in my BTB class because it gives enough ammunition to get your next drop with each power weapon it delivers. i once had a Laser with 3 shots, Binary with 3, and ordinance ready to drop me another laser. It's crazy. Weapon control is absolutely gone and everyone and their cactus has a power weapon. If you could have Ammo and Ordinance Priority at the same time you'd an unstoppable stream of explosions.
I love taking a Binary Rifle off someone who just got it and is using the ammo package, but it gets a little silly considering I'm not even using the mod. It's relatively common that I end up with a Sniper and a Binary on Ragnarok, which is pretty much a free Frenzy if I don't run forward blindly. Extra ammo only compounds that. But then I die, and everything disappears before it hits the floor... @Scorch: I think so many things that irk me about this game right now would be better without instant respawn. In fact I'm pretty damn sure of it, considering how much more I enjoy playlists without it. Winning battles means more and position control is more viable. Respawn times are, imo, a fundamental balance point with the shield mechanic and how it impacts upon map flow and control. Add a heavy emphasis on team spawning and suddenly it's a lot harder for good players to hold positions effectively against opponents noticeably worse than them. And Nut, yup BS is precisely that. I still use it because, well, I'm not dumb, but if it were actually something like a Mauler and required shot + melee then it'd be less obnoxious, though still an issue.
Exactly. Even in your standard infinity slayer games, the fact that players have the choice to spawn with plasma grenades is plain rediculous in my opinion. Ordinance drops are a whole different story...
That's very true. It's a big part of a large problem. I would also argue that personal ordinance plays a fairly big part in the problem too, seeing how your control of an area can be completely interrupted because of a weapon drop that was unpreventable and whose contents were randomly chosen. Not having instant spawn would allow someone or multiple people to gain control of an area, but I'd think you'd have a hard time keeping it when someone comes out of the blue with a rocket launcher you never knew about. It would definitely make the situation far better, but I see ordinance as another big problem. Loadouts are like a mini version of personal ordinance in that you can't control them at all either, but at least they don't one-shot you without warning. Oh wait, the Boltshot... Also, they took out one color in Halo 4, and it just happened to be my emblem color and secondary in every game: Pale. Notice how there are 29 colors now, not 30. That's the worse offense of all.
I'm increasingly wondering if I bought this game just to play campaign, spartan ops and customs. I am still sort of enjoying matchmaking because of the newness and sheer fun of running around killing people. But I'm finding that I'm just not good at it any more because all the things I know and like doing - controlling geography, rushing and timing power weapons, out-thinking people who don't know where I am - are thwarted due to instant respawn, personal and random ordnance, the lack of neutral power weapons that mean anything, and pro-vision. Not to mention the damn boltshot. In a few weeks once I've played enough to grind my teeth at all of these small frustrations a hundred times, I don't know if I'll be up to doing much more of it. Maybe I'm just a dinosaur. On the plus side, I did rattle off the quickest and most disgusting frenzy in BTB today. Good to see that the gauss hog is still incredibly OP as long as you have thumbs and a functioning brain stem.
You forgot a driver who knows how to drive around the map. There are surprisingly few people who can even find the gas pedal consistently in MM. You know, the first few days of MM were hella fun. Few people had unlocked the kinds of weapons we are complaining about and the no one knew the maps well enough to dominate them. Then all the sudden hogging on Longbow went from awesome to horrible and from that day forth everyone went to top mid.
If you couldn't choose your secondary and your grenade, I'd honestly be fine with picking the other elements of your loadout. Secondary should always be the mag and grenades should just be frags. Being able to choose your primary was actually a smart choice, in my opinion.