Ordinance drops breaking maps?

I think both have their ups and downs. Ordnance is pretty cool in essence, and I like that you can choose your own weapons as some kind of reward for your previous kills, but I don't like how there's always an indicator on every single ordnance so not only people that know the layout and the weapon spawns and spawn timers of the map, but also noobs will be able to get those weapons. And something that really bothers me is when noobs are going triehard and use power weapons when they don't know how to use them, thus wasting them.
Besides, in custom games it's just plain stupid having to use ordnance drops, especially in Flood and minigames.

 

I agree with REM on Personal Ordnance.

Random/Initial Ordnance vs plain spawns:
Competitively, they both are somewhat evil - ordnance punishes you for picking up a power weapon without contention, and regular drop spawns disappear after just a couple seconds in Halo 4.. so they have to be dynamic. Which is not as effective at forcing encounters.

 

I dislike how linear maps have become in progression. Most weapons usually only spawn once per game and its kinda annoying. I preferred when you had to predict when that power weapon was going to spawn again and rush over to it before the enemy got it. At least we can bring this back in customs.

 

Personally, I like all the Ordinance stuff. The fact that you can get power weapons from personal ordinance as well helps prevent one team just being able to constantly control the power weapons that spawn at the start of the match. Get enough kills on your own and you've got a chance to get one of your own, or even something better, giving you a chance to counter.

It also makes the game less predictable overall, which I personally like, because you never necessarily know just what the other guy might have.

 

I like the kill streak rewards, Like i Like swat, Not as the main game experience but as a side game.

Kill streaks don't stack which annoys me (because I keep them till i absolutely need them, 99% of time i can kill people with DMR/BS/Nades. But if 3 guys in CQC running at me I'll just spawn a shotgun), And would be cool if it was customizable like only got killstreaks on CTF capture or some options.
Weapon spawns is more competitive and funner game experience imo. But 343i screwed it up by having weapons despawn randomly and sometimes instantly.

IMO the game would be a lot funner with weapon spawns, I miss the initial rush and mini initial fights during the initial rush fighting for an advantage at start of the game, I miss been able to control a map with timing and skill or having to work around a enemy team that has map control(rather then people running randomly around), I miss been able to be rewarded for having a understanding over the game(Rather then get 10 kills to get a better weapon to kill more)

So removing the strategy to make people run around randomly making the stronger people stronger. (though giving them free power weapons, Instead of having them be stronger though skill)

 

I feel that finding a better weapon is based too much on luck, not only there is only 1 spawning in the whole map like every 2 minutes, but you don't even know what it is going to be and where. in timesplitters you had guns everywhere, and they respawned in 25s, so it was very easy to find better guns. now, maybe this game would have balance problems if everyone was running around with a power weapon, I don't know...

 

As a competitive-minded player I hate that with a fiery passion. It makes slayer too close to fiesta, which is good for a laugh but is honestly closer to a minigame than a competitive gametype, in my mind. Any time I play a mode with personal ordnance (which is less and less) I get more cautious and try to stay away from enemies on the off chance they have a rocket launcher or incineration cannon to pull out of their ass. And I don't like what it does to map flow at all. Halo maps used to have key locations emphasized or de-emphasized by weapon placements; now people can use the map basically however they want, because personal ordnance will give them power weapons no matter which hole they choose to sit in.

I've suggested this in other threads, but here's what I would love to see done with ordnance to make it work better (in my mind):

- Only a handful of fixed locations for ordnance drops, equally spread around (and more on bigger maps). If you earn a drop, it goes to the nearest of them. They would function sort of like power weapon locations in previous Halos and bring back some semblance of map flow, perhaps. Players can memorize the locations and try to control them; ordnance would become a lot more contestable (right now, ordnance is only ever stolen if the person who called it in immediately dies); and the specific weapons that drop would be more known to all players due to the indicator being on-screen longer. This is all how I thought the system was going to work from how they described it, pre-launch, and I think it would be a huge improvement on what they actually did.

- Ordnance is more tailored to maps, or at least more intelligently tailored; and you can set it on your own custom maps. Unpredictable drops of snipers, binaries and splasers on Ragnarok makes me passionately angry. Guys running around Haven with a gifted incineration cannon, almost equally so. I'm very concerned that if they keep the system how it is now (you can end up with almost any weapon on basically any map) it will further move the game series toward CoD as it goes along. Not that there's anything wrong with Call of Duty, objectively speaking, but I choose to play Halo multiplayer and not play Call of Duty's multi for a reason. The thing is, if anybody can have any power weapon at any time, the easiest way to balance the sandbox is to make all the weapons more powerful; they've already done that a little bit, but not so much that it's unpleasant. It could quickly become so if it goes any further though. And additionally, it makes vehicle play very secondary on maps that should be dominated by them, which bugs me as a long-time BTB fan.

 

I completely agree with Nutduster. Truthfully, almost every time I play I say to myself, at least once, "Now, if I'd known he had that weapon, I wouldn't have put myself in that situation."

For me, ordnance takes away any strategic planning Halo once had. In competitive games, every player would know the location of every weapon, and their rough spawn times. You would get that rush at the start of the game, as well as a rush later on when the weapon came back. People rushed for the weapons because they did give a significant advantage over the other team.

In Halo 4, at least one person on the enemy team will, unpredictably, have a power weapon. When weapons randomly drop on the map (something else that bugs me), most of the time I leave them because I already have a better weapon from personal ordnance.

What I'd like to see is map-specific ordnance or something of the sort. No moar Binaryz on Haven pl0x! I'd also like to see a fourth option - could be Up on the D-Pad - that gives you ammo for your primary loudout weapon. There's been too many times when I've depleted my BR ammo, and due to the dominance of the DMR, and the stupidly quick despawn times of dropped weapons, I find it extremely difficult to find another BR. If I really want one, I have to put myself at a disadvantage by running nearer to the enemy team and into dangerous situations. I've died too many times simply wanting to find a BR, and that bugs me.

 

Good point, Forgot to mention this, I'm pretty sure it happens to players on a semi regular basis.

At this point when you have ran ammo your choices are:
-Run around looking for a random weapon (wasting time and weapon despawns make it unlikely to find anything)
-Stand around an ally wait for him to die and pick up his weapon (wasting time and relying on a teammate to die, Putting team at disadvantage of dead player and useless player till he dies, Which to an impatient person gives incentive to betray)
-Try and kill an enemy with your secondary(Most likely die because they will have primary and a team around them since games mostly in long range and if your going in close yourself)
-Suicide. (Get -1 or give enemy team +1, But quicker then trying to kill enemy)
-Pick up a weapon at a predetermined weapon spawn

My question is why is this situation where we are given these horrible game/flow/pace/play/immersion ruining choices allowed to happen semi frequently?
It's a massive oversight and flaw in the games design imo but least they got what they wanted to accomplish "remove weapon spawns so people who knew where weapons spawned didn't have an unfair advantage"

 

yeah, I have that problem from time to time, in particular with the dmr. well it's still better than weapons exploding in your hands in far cry 2 oO

 

Ordinance certainly hurts the competitive merit of the game. Randomness has no place in any competitive environment.

But, it does give the game more variety/utilize the versatility of the weapon sandbox.

And, it is one less element to encourage player movement, which is bad.

 

I think randomness has its place in competition, but a limited amount of randomness. because players who claim to be competitive, should be able to adapt themselves and not just mechanically repeat the same strategies over and over and over.

having a situation where an incineration cannon randomly spawn in one of the team base and the other team gets nothing isn't acceptable in competition. in another hand, having a spot with a power weapon in the center of the map, but not knowing if it is a saw or a rocket launcher could work (depending on the map)

 

Disagree. Randomness is inevitable, but we should do whatever in our power to remove the randomness. The main element should be which party has the better skill/strategy/teamwork.

 

isn't it part of the strategy? in the real world, war strategists have to take into account any random factor.

 

And in the real world, there aren't weapons on map, maps in general respawns, tac jumps, symmetrical areas, radar, armor abilities, gravity lifts, teleporters, or ordnance meters.

The goal of the game is to be competitive in a creative sandbox. The goal of real life is well.. survival and a greater goal. With such different objectives in mind, it's hard to equate "good" things from one to the other.

 

a map can probably be competitive and have random elements. the way 343 did it, luck plays a big part, but it probably doesn't have to be the case.

 

Randomness does have value in games, But randomness shouldn't be a goal. It can be contributing factor to achieve a goal but not be the goal.

Example some games use random critical strikes to deter a player from engaging until they have a significant enough advantage, This wouldn't work in Halo at all but its still a feature which involves randomness that helps certain competitive games, Goal is to "Not allow a player to dominate/insta-win the second he gets a tiny advantage" and the way of achieving that is though slight randomness, there goal isn't "Lets make it random".

In Halo 4 removing a working competitive mechanic to add a new random feature for the sake of been random or new was a bad decision imo.

Not just because its random because the HUGE power weapon advantage it gives at random and because its a flawed system when you run out of ammo.

 

of course.
btw, are you all talking about random ordinances, personnal ordinances or both? I was talking about random ordinances.

I doubt the mechanic itself is the problem. it's probably more 343's level design.

 

If the mechanics of the game are bad enough, no amount of level design can make it competitive. There's a limit to how much people can (or are willing to) work around.