I notice a big argument for one of the reasons why Halo 4 isn’t so successful is due to the lack of “equal” starts, yet some players want to claim that Halo is the Chess of FPSs. Excluding the AAs and the Tac/Sup packages(for the sake of keeping the topic focused), I do not believe this is to be true at all. The idea of a custom loadout itself is not bad. It’s the devs’ inability to balance the weapons we were given and their inability to balance loadouts to the game we known today.
First off: Weapon balancing. Anyone who has ever played Halo in the past will know that Bungie’s attempt to balance their online Halos is not perfect. Precision Weapons were always dominant. Dual Wielding was powerful, then was not so great, then dropped. And the PP only had Reach were it was useful as a weapon as well as a tool to take out shields and disable vehicles in MP. Even though Automatic weaponry was mostly poor in combat, BR/DMR starts were available. 343 only went one step further to skip this part by allowing us to pick whatever weapon we want in a limited list, and advertised that as long as we know what we were doing, we’ll be good to go.
That is one big turn off. To me, its not the fact we start differently. IMO, we only stayed the same in the first 5 seconds by immediately dropping our ARs and Pistols for a BR or a nearby power weapon. The real issue was the “ILLUSION” of choice they made by not committing enough effort to ensure one weapon bleeds into another weapons effective range or making one choice significantly better when compared in its same branch.
How many of you picked up a CC only to find out a target has an easier time escaping? Then you picked up a BR and find it was faster to use that? Then picked up a DMR and found it was even easier? Then picked up a LR and noticed how harder it was to line your shots up compared to it? This is punishment for experimenting in multiplayer, and just about puts anyone in a bad spot if they don’t have the game’s “Go-to-Gun”. Skill should come from.learning the gun, not by one guy saying, “Pick X and you’ll always win.”
Next: Power to the Player. Assuming the first scenario never happens, this would still be a big topic. Players are given too much power over the options we can choose. Yes, they kept their promise on not allowing us to spawn with Rockets, Snipers, Shotguns and the others, but it doesn’t matter if we are given an effective equivalent anyway. Rockets: Plasma Pistols/Plasma Grenade combos wrecking vehicle combat and giving players suicide stickies. Snipers: DMRs having a rediculous RRR, auto aim and magnetism causing players to hardly move about the map. No cover and the only tracks you will only see tire tracks. Shotguns: Boltshots being a 1-hit kill weapon on spawn makes navigating small maps without grenades a hard time. Often times requires a player to need HLS just to deal with them, if they can react fast enough and point it.in the right direction. Again, they did promise us we won’t have power weapons to start, but they ended up not going through anyways by giving us too much power.
Excluding the Perks and AAs, Loadouts’ problems stem from these two big issues. Weapon balance is on the way, but it doesn’t fix the power issue. I really see Halo 5 at the latest to fix that. My point is this: illusion of choice via unbalanced weapons and too much power to the player is what really puts loadouts in a negative light. Does it deserve to replace the old? No. But it doesn’t belong in Halo if it just shows how unbalanced the individual player can become by coming back to life. They did fulfilled their promise, and they didn’t at the same time.
