a damage buff will not fix the warthog

Games Other Halo
1

in one of the past bulletins, it stated that 343i were going to buff the LAAG hog’s Chaingun, as well as the other weapons tuning.

any good Driver or pilot in Halo 4 can easily notice that almost everyone now spawns with a Plasma Pistol and Plasma Grenades, and now driving in almost any vehicle is a guaranteed death trap, no matter how well you drive, or how well the Gunner shoots
all it takes now is two stickies to blow up what was once a very fearsome vehicle, the warthog
and since everyone can spawn with Two Stickies and a PP pistol, it almost completely negates the purpose of vehicles

in past halo games, if ANY vehicle (excluding the mongoose) with a good driver was harassing your team, they could and would decimate you if you don’t try and take it down
your team had to scavenge for power weapons in order to take a vehicle down
back then it took skill and some teamwork to take out a vehicle
AS IT SHOULD BE

now, if you see a warthog come around, a single person has the power to take it out, by HIMSELF
he just shoots off an EMP, and chucks two stickies at it

Free Double kill

back in the past Games, the Scorpion tank was a HUGE threat
one tank could SINGLE-HANDEDLY wreck your team
having an extremely accurate cannon, and having the ability to move pretty fast by itself
you really had to find power weapons/vehicles fast if a tank came along

now in Halo 4, one person can deal with it
the Plasma Pistol locks the gun in its original position, disables the ability to fire, and disables ALL movement
that person can easily board the tank and eliminate it before it can even get a Killing Spree

this is the case with pretty much all vehicles

no one has the chance to use a vehicle as they should be used because they get blown up too fast by a single person, Off-the-spawn.

and to add to that, i have yet to see a single argument SUPPORTING Plasma Grenades in Loadouts, which makes me ask
“Why are they still there?”

it’s quite obvious that no one wants them in, and there have been several threads highlighting this issue, but instead of listening to that, 343i gives the Warthog a buff it doesn’t need.

It does not need the buff
it needs to get its position back

Plasma Grenades need to be removed from loadouts

i have played a small few games where few enemies used Plasma grenades (crazy right?) and the warthog did extremely well, i ended up giving my team a free extra 22 kills, and giving my gunner a rampage

eventually, someone came out a stuck me with his Plasma grenades, just like every other time i try and drive a Hog

and before you tell me, “Don’t Drive into people and you’ll be fine” i NEVER go for splatters, i try and give my gunner a better angle
i’m so far away from the enemy, yet they find a way to stick me/ EMP me
and trust me, those things are hard to dodge now that you have 20 of them flying at you every second.

i have yet to find someone who has driven more than 8 wheelmans in a LAAG warthog,
that’s a problem

in past games, one could drive as many as 20 wheelmans, and still have enough armor left to finish the match

please give this issue some love
vehicles have been nerfed to uselessness and the hypothetical buff will fix nothing

2

Disagree. If they buff the damage on the hog it will be better for the people who actually try to run a chain hog like me. I can make it work NOW< it’s just terribly unrewarding and difficult and a matter of luck.

With the ability to shred spartans in half the time I’ll be guaranteed at least a killing spree before they take me out. And when the Pros get into the mix, big team, 6v6 flag games, support fire, best routes… the hogs will be a force to be reckoned with once again.

Just imagine someone popping a damage boost + the buff. Hogs will = death and fear.

3

While I agree, the chain hog is in more of a need of a significant spread reduction, so that it doesn’t have to park beside an enemy to hit them. I am curious as to why exactly you feel like vehicles should be a free killing frenzy once your team controls the map. Do you only play btb with a full team and never really experienced the fun of losing the splaser on sandtrap? Because as someone who plays with randoms I don’t miss games being decided by which team has more derps wasting their op vehicles.

4

So far I only use a hog and ghost for distraction purposes to mess with the enemies awareness.

5

The PP and Plasma Nades aren’t the problem, the problem is bad map design. The maps that are most played on BTB are not vehicle friendly.

If 343 made maps similar to what it was like before on Halo 3 and Halo 2 it would be much better.

Maps like Standoff or Containment. The vehicle play is very short unless you have a good driver or gunner but even then players that use Stickies and Plasma Pistols can easily get in close enough without putting any effort in it. The road ways for vehicles are too small and closed in. The only open map I would consider being the best map for vehicles is Ragnarok. The maps we have now are IMO only good for the Ghost and the Banshee.

6

While I agree with the most part of the OP, I have to say that for me, as a competent driver (perhaps average according to some others) I believe that while not ideal, at the very least the buff to the LAAG chain-gun is a step in the right direction.

Why?

Well, the health/damage to the LAAG, Gauss and Rocket hogs are the same. I have driven 8 people to Unfrigginbelievable medal’s Halo 4 (drove my first one on Reach yesterday :slight_smile: cough, cough); Rampages in the Rocket Hog but, only 8 kills (six gunners now) in the LAAG. Obviously then, it’s not the hogs that are problem but the weapon on their backs. My time on Halo 3 this week saw me drive a gunner to 18 kills in the LAAG. So, the Halo 4 LAAG chain-gun’s buff will make a difference, not withstanding the PP/PG debate.

A good driver after the proposed buff, will be able to drive all three versions of the hog like always but, teh difference will then be, that the LAAG’s weapon can actually achieve some kills, well, more than in the past for Halo 4 at any rate.

Now,as for the PP/PGs, I love driving the Hogs and do well with those two items in the game. As a driver, I personally do not mind them being in the game. I’d rather see the PP preform more weakly on all vehicles and perhaps foot soldiers only being able to carry one PG, as is the case with the Pulse nade. And, even perhaps have it that it would take 3 or 4 PGs to destroy a vehicle; that is not unreasonable in my view.

7

> The PP and Plasma Nades aren’t the problem, the problem is bad map design. The maps that are most played on BTB are not vehicle friendly.
>
> If 343 made maps similar to what it was like before on Halo 3 and Halo 2 it would be much better.
>
> Maps like Standoff or Containment. The vehicle play is very short unless you have a good driver or gunner but even then players that use Stickies and Plasma Pistols can easily get in close enough without putting any effort in it. The road ways for vehicles are too small and closed in. The only open I would consider being the best map for vehicles is Ragnarok. The maps we have now are IMO only good for the Ghost and the Banshee.

warthogs are best on Open maps with a good amount of cover

maps like Perdition, Outcast, Vortex and Settler all have traits that can let a warthog do as it should
but because it’s open, it’s very easy to stick/EMP the enemy hog,

while Map design is a problem that hurts vehicles, it’s not the MAIN problem
if Plasma weren’t in loadouts, the warthog would do well even on a map like Meltdown, which IMO is the WORST map to drive on

8

So this is coming from someone who hates using vehicles and was a master at destroying warthogs in Halo 3 BTB using only a few grenades (not stickies). Lots of people would rage quit on maps like Standoff and Valhalla when the enemy team had a warthog circling your base but not I. I knew how to deal with those suckers only using 1 frag.

The warthogs in Reach and Halo 4 are a disappointment. Even more disappointing players have to use stickies and the plasma guns to destroy them. In Halo 3 the way I killed a crew of Warthog guys was throw a well placed frag to flip the hog then BR the guys to death. I still can do this in Reach and Halo 4 but let’s face it, it’s 10x easier with the paper thin armor the hog has lol.

Just one of the many reasons while I will never like loadouts. Back in the day you had to deal with it if a warthog was shooting you and invading your base. Now players can easily destroy an important threat like a hog in a matter of seconds because everyone can spawn with stickies.Unfortunate for all the new players who never played Halo 3. They never saw how much better vehicles were in that game and actually could stay alive an entire match without a dent.

9

The damage buff to some of the vehicles most certainly will help. But will also help is if they lowered the amount of plasma grenades you spawn with from one to two and if they buffed the Warthog’s armor from two grenades to kill to three.

10

Just so you know; Plasma Pistols both spawn inside the bases of Stand Off and Valhalla while stickies spawn inside Stand-Off’s base as well. I can’t quite remember at the moment but I’m pretty sure stickies spawn in Valhalla’s base too.

The problem with Valhalla or Stand Off occurs when teams are very mismatched, the Gauss is used without lots of heavy weapons spawning or the spawns take too long to spawn you back inside the base to get a PP and/or stickies to deal with the 'Hog.

The only problem with this is that I have to slow the game down (as some would put it) and wait for either tool to spawn so I can go out and take down the threat. Actually 2 problems, the other is of course mismatched teams where my team is feeding the enemy instead of getting a PP and/or stickies to take down the vehicle.

My only wish for BTB is that vehicles spawn slightly faster. I greatly welcome the buff to the LMG 'Hog but find little wrong in the health of vehicles. Placement of firepower and latency play a large role in how quickly or not a vehicle dies. They’re the things that capitalise on an unaware driver or unaware gunner.
A good Rocket 'Hog or good Gauss 'Hog take a long time to kill because the driver knows how to drive the map and the gunner knows how to prioritise targets and they dispatch enemies very quickly. Where you could call those 'Hogs “Glass Cannons,” the LMG 'Hog currently is just a “Fragile Speedster.”
Glass Cannons are effective in the right hands, Fragile Speedsters are well… Let’s see how the buff goes to the LMG and if players can learn to use the power rather than be given the vehicular equivalent of the “OP H4DMR”.

11

I still think a Spread/bloom reduction would be much better than a damage boost. Making the turret more accurate would result in more bullets hitting targets at further distances. This would allow gunners to kill threats before they get close enough to use their plasma weapons effectively.

But, damage boost could effectively do the same. Just means more burst fire.

12

Of course it will help.

Personally, I would limit Plasma 'nades starts to 1 (without grenadier) and buff vehicle health a bit too, but this is a start.

13

I agree with the OP that spawning with a PP and 2 PG is not the right way to do btb. We unfortunately cannot know how effective our current vehicles are because they are playing with an external handicap. Similar to how the BR is outshown by the DMR. The BR is not an ineffective weapon but feels that way compared to the unnecessarily good DMR. I feel vehicles might be the same as the BR. Good but outshown by their external handicap

14

> I agree with the OP that spawning with a PP and 2 PG is not the right way to do btb. We unfortunately cannot know how effective our current vehicles are because they are playing with an external handicap. Similar to how the BR is outshown by the DMR. The BR is not an ineffective weapon but feels that way compared to the unnecessarily good DMR. I feel vehicles might be the same as the BR. Good but outshown by their external handicap

exactly

once in a while, when i find a match where no one uses Plasma Grenades, the warthog is as it should be

it becomes VERY useful against enemy players,but it can still be taken down by ordinance weapons

every time i drive a Warthog in one of these matches, i feel like i’m driving a H3 Warthog
it feels so great

15

Does anyone else remember the RTX gameplay where warthogs and ghosts seemed to tank stickies? That is basically the only way you can have stickies in loadouts. Ghost and Warthog hulls need to be much tougher and/or overall damage for stickies be much weaker.

16

> Does anyone else remember the RTX gameplay where warthogs and ghosts seemed to tank stickies? That is basically the only way you can have stickies in loadouts. Ghost and Warthog hulls need to be much tougher and/or overall damage for stickies be much weaker.

don’t remember Hogs tanking damage during the RTX footage
seemed pretty much the same to me

but if there is any armor difference, it must be because back then, the Warthog’s LAAG was a projectile weapon rather than a Hitscan weapon
so it couldn’t be as easy to get kills with it as it is now

but either way,
the warthog is supposed to blow up with just a few stickies
the problem is that people can spawn with them

having a warthog that can take 4+ stickies is ridiculous

17

> The PP and Plasma Nades aren’t the problem, the problem is bad map design. The maps that are most played on BTB are not vehicle friendly.
>
> If 343 made maps similar to what it was like before on Halo 3 and Halo 2 it would be much better.
>
> Maps like Standoff or Containment. The vehicle play is very short unless you have a good driver or gunner but even then players that use Stickies and Plasma Pistols can easily get in close enough without putting any effort in it. The road ways for vehicles are too small and closed in. The only open I would consider being the best map for vehicles is Ragnarok. The maps we have now are IMO only good for the Ghost and the Banshee.

The maps are not really designed well for vehicle game play, but even if they were the plasma pistol/plasma grenade combo would still make it too hard to use a vehicle. Fundamental changes need to be made to this game. Return of weapons on map and scrapping the whole infinity game type would totally fix so many problems and return this game to what Halo is suppose to be.

And as for the banshee, 343 must have something against it, because it has been nerfed so much, that the damage it does and the health it has make it useless, along with the new horrible controls. DMR shreds the banshee on this game, 343 over corrected when the changed the banshee from what the thought was an over powered Reach banshee, but the Reach banshee was perfect no matter what anyone says, that thing was what a banshee is suppose to be.

18

> > The PP and Plasma Nades aren’t the problem, the problem is bad map design. The maps that are most played on BTB are not vehicle friendly.
> >
> > If 343 made maps similar to what it was like before on Halo 3 and Halo 2 it would be much better.
> >
> > Maps like Standoff or Containment. The vehicle play is very short unless you have a good driver or gunner but even then players that use Stickies and Plasma Pistols can easily get in close enough without putting any effort in it. The road ways for vehicles are too small and closed in. The only open I would consider being the best map for vehicles is Ragnarok. The maps we have now are IMO only good for the Ghost and the Banshee.
>
> warthogs are best on Open maps with a good amount of cover
>
> maps like Perdition, Outcast, Vortex and Settler all have traits that can let a warthog do as it should
> but because it’s open, it’s very easy to stick/EMP the enemy hog,
>
>
> while Map design is a problem that hurts vehicles, it’s not the MAIN problem
> if Plasma weren’t in loadouts, the warthog would do well even on a map like Meltdown, which IMO is the WORST map to drive on

No, if there is nothing you can start with that can combat vehicles then the warthog would end up doing too well. If you have not noticed grenades don’t spawn on these maps like how grenades spawned in H2 and H3. They get dropped by Personal and Map Ordinance. There is simply not enough on the map and the fact that weapons de-spawn and you need a personal upgrade package to collect more grenades doesn’t help.