When voting and posting assume you cannot remove personal ordinance completely.
People often complain about stalemates and lack of map movement in Halo 4, in BTB especially. Many jump straight to blaming the DMR and while I would agree it is too easy to use at range at the moment, it is not the cause of these stalemates.
The main cause of these stalemates are the way personal ordinance and random world ordinance has been handled. Aside from initial drops there are very few reasons to push out of your spawning areas. Why push up to the hill on Ragnarok when you can have your own Laser delivered right too you?
The Random nature of world ordinance does nothing to help this. When the Incinerator cannon or sticky detonator can spawn on what can be easily considered your side of the map on Solace, why would want to push out then either?
People then respond that you wouldn’t be able stay put if you didn’t have the range of the DMR. But even removing the DMR(and LR for that matter) only shortens the maximum distance for engagements, it doesn’t change the fact people will still be taking potshots at each other from the farthest and safest areas possible.
Valhalla worked in Halo 3. Why? Even though it would often devolve into poking wars with the BR, the team with hill control was rewarded with sole control of the laser. That meant the team had basically free reign with their vehicles, which kept the other team off balance and allowed friendly infantry to more easily approach and slay the enemy in their territory.
So the main issue is that map control is no longer rewarded like it used to be. But that can change without removing personal ordinance or even really abandoning ordinance.
SOLUTIONS
1.) Remove God-tier weapons from personal ordinance in all modes
*This means making rockets, fuel rod, iCannon, Laser, and Binary only accessible as map pickups.
*These weapons should then be placed in fixed positions on the map that can be contested(depending on the map).
*This creates a consistent reward for maintaining control of the map and gives the team with map control a distinct advantage in all forms of play.
*NOTE:This does not even mean they have to be the same every time. As long as players know that “hey if we can control hill on Ragnarok we can get something powerful like a Laser or a Binary” That is enough to entice players.
2.) Remove Snipers from personal ordinance in all modes
*As with the heavy weapons the the human sniper and beam rifle offer too much of an advantage to allow players to have more than what is allotted per team
*If you want to talk about what shuts down map movement, when any number of the opposing team has access to a ranged OHK weapon that slow down gameplay and map movement.
3.) 4v4 maps must limit personal ordinance even further
*While a sticky detonator or hammer can have comparatively little impact on a BTB game, in 4v4 their become much more important.
*Some weapons and power-ups could potentially stay as an ordinance in infinity(needler, concussion rifle, speed boost, grenades, even 1x overshield) these have comparatively little impact to the other OHK weapons.
*OHK power weapons should be omitted completely as well as other powerful weapons like the SAW
Halo 4 has so much potential and reigning in personal ordinance and ensuring the most powerful weapons must be fought over(like rockets) or distributed fairly(one sniper per team) would go a long, LONG way.