I would say, go ahead and make a smaller BTB map, then. Leave some vehicle paths, but not huge, open ones. Make people use clever driving to get around, and force them to use the smaller vehicles. I personally do not like the flying vehicles and tanks because of the problems you mention for pathing and for the fact that while you are waiting for the room to fill up, some guy is making everyone quit out by spawn killing them with the tank they only have because they joined first or started the lobby themself. Also, I have created a prefab for only releasing vehicles when the player count exceeds the # you program them for. It involves garage doors, but you could probably find a different way to implement something like this.
the trick is realizing that almost nothing is impossible, and most of the things people say are impossible are because they cannot personally figure it out or no one has yet.
If I made a vehicle map, it would probably be 80% infantry and 20% vehicles. But the only vehicle in this game that doesn't give me hemorrhoids is the Mantis. It's just hilarious to me. Maybe the Warthog can be fun on the right map. I had a really cool concept a while ago that I might revisit.
I totally agree with everything said here. BTB was my draw to multiplayer and Forge. Absolute favorite gametype...or was. BTB just feels like the right player count for objective. Mostly 1-sided objective rip. The ability to make a map that felt more like an open world as opposed to a cage we run in circles in just opens up sooo many more unique encounters. Unfortunately, to pull off a decent map in H5 you have to work around not overly saturating the map in detail. That leads to stagnant areas and overall takes down the maps quality imo. One thing I've always listened to that Salty says is you've gotta design maps for what the game is and it plays a little more like a COD game than a Halo game in some ways.
Well yea the game is really grindy so when you build these large Halo environments, people just fly around and ping you with their BRs. So you have to build really linear and cluttered to slow people down and force them to push with their team. At one point I wanted to do a BTB map inside a frigate that was just infantry with the mantis and a few light vehicles. That way you had to have your mantis up to make a direct assault down the main trench, and if you didn't, you were grinding on catwalks or claustrophobic interiors. So Titanfall indoors basically.
Everyone hates the Mantis from what I've heard but its honestly my favorite vehicle. Stomping around tight corners, makes you feel like you need to run for your life unless you can get the jump on it.
I like the fact that it's a vehicle without being a vehicle, if that makes sense, so there's room for it to grow. It just looks uncool as expected.
The way forward is standing on that fine line between order and chaos. The known and unknown. Everything that is now possible was once in that unknown, and seemed impossible.
Btw what the hell is that glitch in forge when you suddenly see huge white coordinates in the screen? I'm at 1200 pieces and the light map is still pretty high sure, but that isn't at first.