In this thread I will analyze and explain in depth why some of the changes in Halo 4 aren’t accepted by some people, mainly the competitive playerbase.
1. Static Spawns Vs Global Ordnance
In the past, weapons spawned at certain spots on the map, and they respawned at fixed intervals. A player could not camp a location all game because that would leave the weapons on the map untouched and vulnerable to being stolen by the enemy team. It promoted dynamic play, and was balanced because both teams would have the same weapons on a Symmetrical map. Power positions often overlooked these weapons and allowed teams to guard them from the enemy.
Global Ordnance means there are fixed spawn locations, but the weapons that spawn do so at complete random. A spot that held a shotgun might hold a needler the next time a weapon spawns. This leads to imbalance as one team might randomly get better weapons on their side of the map than the other, and it ruins map flow because teams can generally just camp the random spawns because they aren’t as sought after.
2. Sprint and Player Encounter Times
In the past, you would increase player encounter times by either making maps smaller, or by making more ways around the map, such as Man Cannons and drop-down holes.
Sprint allows people to close in and escape enemies faster, but it has a negative impact on map design. Maps are made much larger than before to accommodate sprint, making some of the closer range choices unfavorable. It is also a very simple way to approach the issue of encounter times, it gives developers an excuse to not make complex maps.
3. Random Personal Ordnance
Personal Ordnance, in theory, rewards players for doing well and grants them power ups or power weapons. The rewards a player gets however are completely random. One person might get a rocket launcher on their first ordnance, another might take three.
Ordnances are also based on points instead of kills, and they do not reset or have any other negative impact on dying. Meaning, someone who got distractions left and right and wasn’t contributing very hard to their team could still “earn” an ordnance drop.
Now I believe these issues would be quite easy to fix. Personal Ordnance shouldn’t be as random, and it should actually penalize people for doing poorly. it could perhaps be turned into a tiered system. Global Ordnance needs to be removed or put into a separate playlist. At the very least you could relegate global ordnance to only a FEW spots on the map. Sprint I’m not sure how to address.
If you are reading this Jeffuray just sit back and observe.