Personal ordnance has caused quite a controversy in halo and I get it, It can be fustrating.
I think it can be redone to work in halo, here’s my idea for a more fair and fun personal ordnance system.
As players begin to rack up points more and more options become available to them. Starts small with things such as needlers and speed boosts and works up to rocket launchers and binary rifles.
Every option has a price in points. Here are a few arbitrary numbers.
Use the left and right d-pad to scroll through available ordnance options, based on how many points you have saved. Call it in by pressing down on the d-pad. The cost of the ordnance is subtracted from your total, and that’s that.
There are a number of reasons this is better.
Get exactly what you want
More strategic
You get what you deserve, everything is properly priced.
not random
You never lose or miss out on points like you do now when the ordnance is ready and not used immediately.
So that’s my Halo 5 PO idea, hopefully it or something similar is used. What do you think?
> > No power weapons in ordnance drops it destroys Map control trust me, needlers are ok though.
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> Oh I think power weapons will work, they just need to be priced appropriately point wise.
Price is not the problem. If I was to sit back and camp with a DMR on let’s say, blood gulch, no map movement would be made and I would get an inc. cannon. Minor power weapons would work better but it is still a random system. I don’t know when someone gets it, what they get or who gets it. This system is very similar to the well known tier system, but yours is a little more simple, which is nice. In light of that though, gonna have to pass on this system though. Search for the “evolution of ordnance” thread I made. That is how I feel ordnance drops should return, though I’m also fine with their removal.
Your suggestion would be an improvement of the current system but it would still be something that does not appeal to me because it is simply unfair.
Every Personal Ordnance system (be it static or random) that rewards a player for his/her individual performance with an advantage won’t be truely fair.
To achieve an Ordnance, a bonus advantage, especially a higher tiered one in your suggestion, you have to perform well. Now, performing well already implys an advantage over your opponents, be it a power weapon/up, a powerful position, personal skill, a well organized team or simply luck.
Giving the leading player/ team an advantage on top of that is simply not fair for the player/ team that is currently on the losing end, since it will diminish the fair chances for a comeback.
You don’t reward the leading team in (i.e.) football with a bonus advantage either, do you?
It doesn’t even add significant strategy to the game since all such a Personal Ordnance system primarily does is boosting your current advantage(s).
Besides, another issue I’ve experienced with H4’s Ordnance system is that the value of power weapons/ ups has significantly dropped.
For example:
When I obtained a sniper in H3 or Reach I made sure that I don’t waste it because it could be the only time I have the chance to use it in this match.
In Halo 4 I often didn’t really mind anymore when I miss a few shots because the chances were high that I receive another sniper or another power weapon either via personal ordnance, static map spawn or random ordnance.
I had many matches were I was getting flooded with power weapons, where I was wielding two power weapons, had another suiting power weapon ready in my PO and another good power weapon dropped right beside me via a static spawn or a random drop.
Therefore getting a large amount of kills or going on a high killing spree wasn’t something so special anymore either since it got a lot easier to achieve that.
I strongly realized that the value of them has dropped for me when I turned back to Reach for a while. I obtained a sniper in one of my first matches, didn’t pay attention to the ammo count that told me that I only have 8 rounds and finally ended up with only 3 sniper kills for that match.
The moral of the story was: when you get all the good stuff thrown at you you will reach a point where you don’t value it anymore.
If we must keep Ordnance, at least make the drops somewhat skillful weapons, weapos with some kind of skill curve, not Beam Rifles and Needlers. Granted the Overshield is used best by a player who knows how to use it appropriately, however it is very annoying playing a team of players with the OV.
Personally if we must have some weapons in Ordnance, I would rather we have the more inconsistent weapons or the weapons that at least have somewhat of a skill curve. Concusion Rifle, Scattershot, Laser, Sniper, Sticky Det and Railgun come to mind (however Railgun and Sniper need a massive aim assist reduction…)
By the very nature of the POD, it is an individual rewards system. In contrast, competitively-speaking (and by “competitive,” I just mean two teams against each other), power weapons are team advantages. It goes against the nature the game to hand out team advantages according to individual performance. PODs are detrimental to the game in the same way that an individual ranking system is: it encourages players to play for themselves instead of for the win. Yes, you can “share” PODs, but to do so is counter-intuitive to the nature of the system, which is why you almost never see this behavior in matchmaking.
Even if you were to somehow make it team-based, rewards systems are inherently imbalanced because of the “snowball effect”: as players do well, they get rewarded with advantages to do even better. The superiority of the on-map pickup system is that with every power weapon or powerup, both teams have the exact same opportunities to obtain it each time. Even if Blue Team grabbed the Rocket Launcher for the first two spawns, Red Team is still capable of stopping the “snowball” by grabbing it the third time.
This is only possible because with on-map pickups comes the ability to control: not only can you gain advantages, but you can keep your enemies from gaining them. You cannot keep an enemy from gaining Ordnance as the game goes on, and so there is no possibility for control.
I can see plenty of people being frequently overshielded with that. Won plenty of games on Adrift with mainly the Assault Rifle and Overshields alone thanks to the current system.
Here, we’ll get even more of them.
Personal Ordnances filled with power weapons along with power weapons that spawn on the maps hurt the game by having too many power weapons at one time on the map. This can lead to a snowball effect that ends up making a comeback increasing difficult as time goes on in the match. Even if you made them static, players will know what to pick based on what the maps allow best. Snipers are good, but if you have maps like Adrift, you will probably pick stuff that will help maintain control easier, such as Overshields and Damage Boosts.
They don’t work with power weapons. I can understand Grenade and Ammo resupplies, but that’s just about as much as I am willing to go at this point. I’ve had enough games in Halo 4 where personal Ordnance became the deciding factor of the game, both for my benefit and the enemy’s, to make me have the opinion that personal ordnance with power weapons are just not good for the game.
Your idea in my eyes is better than the current system in place, however any reward system that gives advantages to players that the other team had no equal opportunity of getting is unbalanced to the core.
For instance player A and B spawn equally apart from a rocket launcher. The both have an equal opportunity of getting it. The player that is able to outsmart the other is rewarded with the rocket that spawned on the map.
In the current system player A gets his ordnance drop and gets a needler, While player B gets a rocket launcher they both had the same amount of kills/ points. Is that fair or balanced, no!
In your system sammy, you still have a scenario in which player B gets a rocket launcher while player A gets a needler. The difference is that they don’t have the same amount of kill or points. You are still dishing out advantages and disadvantages with your system.
Ordnance drops either got to go or should only refill your grenades or primary weapon ammo.
> Ordnance drops either got to go or should only refill your grenades or primary weapon ammo.
Turning POD into a loadout/ammo refill will make it pointless and redundant because running out of ammo is a quite rare occassion since you can easily pick up ammo or another weapon from the battlefield.
What will leave us with the first option: removal.
I see that the snowballing/rich getting richer effect is being cited as a reason to remove personal ordnance, so here is my rebuttal. You get the same thing with static spawns. Good players that know exactly where and when weapons spawn will grab them and snowball all over the people they are already thoroughly beating.
Personal ordnance gives players something to fight for. If players know they will be rewarded for doing well, everyone is going to be trying quite hard to do so.
It fights camping. Players are encouraged to be agressive as a passive campy playstyle will not grant you many kills fast, thus not granting you personal ordnance very fast.
Personal ordnance is exciting. It is simply fun to get one.
Halo needs an alternate way for players to obtain power weapons. Static spawns alone just don’t cut it. Many players go game after game never seeing a power weapon in their hands and they have my sympathy. It’s not fair. No everyone know exactly where and when power weapons spawn on various maps.
> Personal ordnance gives players something to fight for. If players know they will be rewarded for doing well, everyone is going to be trying quite hard to do so.
Just so do static power weapon spawns. The difference is that every individual fights for its own Personal Ordnance while a team fights for the control of a static spawn.
I don’t know why you need a bonus reward for doing well since doing well and eventually coming out on top is reward and motivation enough in my opinion.
> It fights camping. Players are encouraged to be agressive as a passive campy playstyle will not grant you many kills fast, thus not granting you personal ordnance very fast.
It actually supports camping since you can call down your PO when and where you want.
Therefore you will likely search the best position for getting kills, camp that position, savely call down your advantage and continue the progress with more fire power.
> Personal ordnance is exciting. It is simply fun to get one.
Well, fun is subjective. Personally I don’t enjoy unfair aspects in a game.
> Halo needs an alternate way for players to obtain power weapons. Static spawns alone just don’t cut it. Many players go game after game never seeing a power weapon in their hands and they have my sympathy. It’s not fair. No everyone know exactly where and when power weapons spawn on various maps.
Perhaps, but I think not in the form of a personal reward system.
Lesser skilled players would not see many power weapons in their hands either with your system. I mean when player A has the lead over player B, A can call down its advantage first what will also increase his/her chances to continue his/her lead and likely call down another ordnance while the chances of B to call one down are getting decreased.
With static spawns they have at least a fair chance to obtain one.
The latter problem could be solved with waypoints over the weapons at the beginning of the game. Then everyone will know where the goodies are located.
> Many players go game after game never seeing a power weapon in their hands and they have my sympathy. It’s not fair.
And thus we have come to the actual distinction between players who prefer on-map pickups and players who like PODs.
Some players just like big guns. They don’t care how they get it or where they get it, as long as they get to use the gun they want and kill people with it.
Other players view power weapons as a means to an end: the point of obtaining a power weapon isn’t “to use it,” it’s to gain an advantage over the enemy and win the match. It doesn’t matter who gets the power weapon as long as he is on the same team and is competent with it.
The quote above is the exact reason (almost verbatim) 343i gave for the addition for Ordnance: to cater to the players who don’t care about victory, they just want to kill people with 'splody guns. The entire motive behind the creation of Ordnance was noncompetitive in nature. For this reason, you will not be able to convince anyone who is competitive (meaning they focus on and have fun by winning) that Personal Ordnance in any form should return.
That is exactly, literally EXACTLY how I am. I could care less if the game is won or lost so long as I get a good KD and get to turn the SAW barrel red hot.
> No power weapons in ordnance drops it destroys Map control trust me, needlers are ok though.
Funny, it seems that map control is able to exist just fine in dozens of other games that use complete loadout systems. It might be harder to control maps given that you aren’t given a free set of power-weapon-driven kills for holding an arbitrary plot of ground (ie. you have to work with only the advantages the map gives you in terms of positioning, line of sight, and elevation) but that said I don’t think it’s a big loss to “ruin” Halo’s style of assisted strategy. Granted power weapons as rewards for performance probably isn’t the best way to do it (see. the rich get richer) but we should dismiss the OP’s idea out of hand because there are other aspects we can work with (ex. point-based call-downs (see. Section 8, Iron Brigade), variety weapons as ordnance)
> > <mark>No power weapons in ordnance drops</mark> it destroys Map control trust me, needlers are ok though.
>
> Funny, it seems that map control is able to exist just fine in <mark>dozens of other games that use complete loadout systems</mark>. It might be harder to control maps given that you aren’t given a free set of power-weapon-driven kills for holding an arbitrary plot of ground (ie. you have to work with only the advantages the map gives you in terms of positioning, line of sight, and elevation) but that said I don’t think it’s a big loss to “ruin” Halo’s style of assisted strategy. Granted power weapons as rewards for performance probably isn’t the best way to do it (see. the rich get richer) but we should dismiss the OP’s idea out of hand because there are other aspects we can work with (ex. point-based call-downs (see. Section 8, Iron Brigade), variety weapons as ordnance)
He was talking about how calling in Power Weapons destroys map control. He didn’t even come close to mentioning loadouts…