What exactly does this title mean, you ask?
In World War I, the main style of combat that was performed was “trench warfare”. Essentially, this meant that each faction dug large, interconnecting pathways that were deeply built into the ground to provide cover for soldiers as they traversed the battlefield. The soldiers would then aim just slightly above the top part of the cover so only their rifles were peering over the cover to look for enemy soldiers while being relatively protected by the respective trench. Neither side of the conflict would dare go over their trenches, for they would enter “No Man’s Land”, which was a large, open space with no cover, and the soldiers that do walk in there get obliterated by dozens of bullets. The victims that made the unfortunate decision to go into NML didn’t stand a chance, dying a swift death.
So what does this have to do with Halo 4 (a futuristic FPS) and playlists such as Big Team Battle?
No longer are large games about fast, chaotic action, thanks to one feature built into this game.
If you think I’m talking about the DMR, you’re partially correct. It’s not necessarily the weapon’s fault that gameplay has to resort to this newly-founded cover-based system. Even Reach, which also had the DMR, did not even come close to having this large-scale issue in BTB games.
In past Halo games, when you were aiming through a scoped weapon, and you got shot while zoomed in, you would be put out of your scope and you would have to re-zoom in. This effectively suppresses enemies from longer ranges and forces them to come closer into the battlefield to attempt to get some points for their team.
I mention Halo 4’s DMR being part of, but not the MAIN problem, because, on larger maps, it benefits the most with this new feature revolving around not being de-scoped. It’s low recoil and high power per shot makes this weapon lethal at range, which is what it’s supposed to be, anyway. Because of this, walking on foot in large, open areas is basically asking for death, ala the “No Man’s Land” from the World War I reference from earlier before.
On a side note, the DMR, just like in Reach, wrecks light vehicles and the Banshee, and with a whole eight-man team shooting DMRs at a light vehicle, it will get taken out in seconds. Plus, with the fact that even when a Warthog gunner is shooting you and you still don’t get de-scoped when shot at, you have a higher chance of killing the gunner with a headshot than in previous Halos, defeating the purpose of the chaingun’s role of suppressing infantry units with a high volume of automatic fire.
On an even bigger side note I want to bring up here rather than making a new topic about this, is the fact that BTB in its current state is Infinity Slayer ONLY, which means that Ordnance can possibly give half the team Sniper Rifles, which also benefits from the lack of de-scoping and the massive damage it does to vehicles. Seeing as how you can call in power weapons for yourself in BTB, this is also a huge encourages for players to set up tents, get a fire started, roast some marshmallows and camp in mountainous areas, ala Ragnarok and Vortex.
TL:DR version: De-scoping when shot at needs to return to encourage map movement and faster-paced games.