Now that the controversial title is out of the way, I hopefully have at least a few people reading this. But, allow me to explain what I mean before you go off on one about ‘muh classic halo’.
First of all, I specify warzone for a reason. Descope is fine in Arena, because scoping in needs to be a risk in those game modes. The crucial factor, however, is that Arena maps are a lot smaller; typical encounters will rarely exceed the optimum range of a mid-tier weapon (IE the Battle Rifle, Covenant Carbine and so forth). In Warzone, the map design, combined with the way players move around the map, makes typical engagement range consideravly larger, with little-no cover in many scenarios. And DMR’s and Longshot weapons aren’t all that common. The key here is that, like arena maps, the tighter confinements of bases, particularly the middle bases on each map, plays well (when the bases aren’t being tactical nuked by grenade spam)
Because of the Pistol/ Battle Rifle’s popularity in Warzone, and the fact that the maps do not cater to this very well, it makes a frustrating experience when wandering around a map. Whoever gets the first shot guarantees the other player is not likely to be able to gain victory, provided both players are of roughly equal skill and have the same health. This doesn’t work in Warzone, as it eventually means the game turns into a stalemate after the first five or so minutes, with neither team able to push forward much (until the tanks start rolling out, anyway). I’m sure everyone has encountered situations where a duel between two groups just devolves into spam fire as it is largely impossible to land an accurate shot before taking a small point of damage and losing your aim.
Ultimately, the maps do not play well with the primary weapon of choice for near everyone. Either the typical encounter range of a Warzone map needs to be reduced,by increasing the available cover on a map (Honestly, you shouldn’t be able to fire upon other bases while in a base yourself.) To allow players to play to the game’s strengths, or by allowing players to use their weapons at longer ranges to accomodate bad map design by increasing range of weapons or removing descope.
Ideally, I’d take map design philosophy changes over changing base gameplay mechanics, but that wouldn’t solve problems on existing maps too much. Right now, most warzone games are a frustrating experience to play if you are not destroying an enemy team, and it’s putting people off. As a guy who prefers large scale warfare (ala Battlefield or Titanfall), I want to enjoy Warzone, but the experience is more frustrating than it is fun.
As I said before, the descope thing was a click bait for drawing in people. Ideally, I want map design changes, but that’s nowhere near as juicy a title. Eh.