12 v 12 on giant maps with pistol and AR spawns is beyond frustrating. Especially when the other team is in a dominant position. There simply is not enough random weapons laying around to accommodate.
The vehicles are widly imbalanced.
The Warthog instantly explodes from small arms fire.
The Ghost is near invincible.
The Wasp is nuclear in the right hands.
The Brute Chopper stops driving if you run over a pebble. I thought this was supposed to be the ultimate bad -Yoink!- space bike?
Overall, the vehicles aren’t even close to balanced.
The game types are also droning and prolonged. The one where you need to pick up random bits of trash and recycle them in green receptacles is particularly annoying.
I don’t know what it is specifically but Infinite BTB seems to have lost all sense of urgency and flow.
Please take a another crack at this 343. And please please please bring back 8v8.
It needs to return to it’s classic BTB setup. This could be alright with some changes but it’s not BTB. It lacks structure, balance and map control. The concept to hold neutral weapon/vehicle spawns has pretty much gone out of the window. It just looks like a bunch of psycho’s rioting with AR’s and launching fireworks at each other. I wish they would get some people that really know multiplayer to look at these things before throwing it out there. Just because on paper a pelican dropping vehicles in, bigger player count and overloading of power weapons sounds cool doesn’t mean it works and makes sense.
If you think balance means all vehicles need to be the same strength, then your smoothness is showing again.
The sniper, BR, and Rockets aren’t the same power, but they are part of a balanced sandbox. They play well together because they are well balanced, IE the delay it takes before you shoot a rocket after pickup or how no scoping is hard.
Just like weapons, vehicles can be balanced in a way that makes them play well together.
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Behemoth and Launch Site are the only 2 maps that would make any sense.
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OK, your point is what, 343 should have released more? I agree. They certainly can release more by the time classic 8v8 launches. … Talk about not being constructive. Jeez.
12 v 12 is fine.
AR and sidekick starts are great because this is no longer the “camp on your side of the base taking peek shots with BR/DMR meta” from MCC. They also have great range and TTK.
On to fixes.
-Heavy vehicles need to spawn in more frequently. BTB with a chance of a getting a tank and only in the last 2 minutes is lame as hell.
-Ghosts and Choppers need to have their own spawning platforms.
-Random ordnances need to be replaced with static map pick ups.
What you said about some of the vehicles being useless is true. But that is a separate topic since these vehicles are kinda useless in 4v4 also.
Sidekick and AR are not OK. AR range makes no sense at all and feels completely random. But if they insist on AR starts because they decided that hitscan small arms was a good idea and BR would be OP starts, AT LEAST HAVE BRS SPAWN OFTEN ENOUGH THAT I CAN GET ONE OVERY OTHER LIFE.
I don’t think heavy weapon spawns are the answer and I disagree that the weak vehicle is another topic. I think the lack of vehicle balance is the main issue. Well, that and the lack of BRs.
Oh … and screw those stupid covenant shielded turrets. Those things suck.
I gotta disagree with that last point there. While I have no ill regards to 12 v 12, having an 8 v 8 playlist to run alongside the new BTB would be tons of fun as well IMO. I imagine 12 v 12 is probably overwhelming to some players, who aren’t interested in arenas.
The AR has the same range has the BR and a faster TTK. Same goes with the sidekick. The BR zooms out when shot while AR and sidekick do not. AT the moment all weapons, including rockets, have inconsistent damage. Hopefully that is solved when the Beta is over.
BRs spawn every 30 seconds and there is a blue bar on top of the pickup station to show you how close it is to coming back. There are multiple stations that you can pick up a BR too. You are absolutely able to get them every life or every other life.
Static Heavy weapon spawns are better than random ordnance drops we are getting now. You need a rocket or skewer to take out the warthog/wasp? Too bad here is a sword and a hammer. Static heavies have been a staple of BTB since forever
Vehicles are a separate issue because they are weak in every game mode, not just BTB. They all need a buff across the game. The rockets on the wasp/rocket hog are pretty much useless. 3/4 people unloading a mag of an AR destroys hogs, ghosts and choppers.
If you think the AR and the Sidekick have the same range and a faster TTK than the BR I’d kindly like to invite you to a 1v1 where I use BR and you don’t. I think it may be eye-opening.
Vehicles are what make BTB fun, and I see no vehicles. I have yet to see a Scorpions in this game and I am level 12. I tried the Banshee twice and it just suck, the plasma fuel shot are so bad, there is no more splash damage, you have to snipe people with it. All vehicles should be ready to use from the begining and respawn as fast as power weapon. Shade turret should respawn too after a while. I want to see some epic fight between 4 scorpions.
Honestly think BTB is in a largely good place. 343 wanted vehicles to be less overpowered that’s why they gave you so many options to counter them. Repulsor, grapple, skewer, electric weapons, ect. It was obviously a design decision and one I personally like. You could solve your problem with vehicles being “weak” by removing everything new in the game. Then they’re just as powerful as before.
I’ll never understand peoples desire to always have a BR start but the map design really nerfs the need for them to be starts now. Instead of wide open spaces with sight lines across the entire map you get a lot more cover to have interesting engagements other than pot shoting with your BR.
The only really problem I see is with the uneven vehicle spawns. Those need to be equal. That change is a terrible change I don’t understand why they did it.
In general I feel the human vehicles (warthog and mangoose) drive like crap, they are too slippery and feel almost massless. I can drive them sure, but they feel so crappy, they bounce off ways like rubber and slide around like they aren’t apart of the world. They are also way too fast, maybe take off like 10 mph off them.
I kind of disagree with the “no BR starts” being a big issue (at least compared to games like Halo 5 and older), this is the one Halo were the starting weapons are actually useful if the skill gap between teams isn’t overwhelming (which I notice sometimes happens a lot more than I admit I feel is right, but this seems to always be the case, games have this psuedo match making balance were they scum you with clowns and then next time you end up against overly skilled players, I rarely get those “fair” close matches which are my favorite to go through, and seeing companies like Blizzard, it seems like it’s common practice to create unbalanced games to artificially make you win 50% of the time, when in reality you probably would either have a better or worst win rate further from 50% than currently).
I do feel like the AI and BTB voice are overly “cringe” but I understand the point. I personally want less chatter and just want to have an AI that isn’t a fluff nugget.
I also think it would be nice if the pulse carbine had further red reticle range to make it more comparable to the BR and Commando in terms of effective range, if anything a skilled player will be able to play around the pulse carbine like they already due, but it feels horrible when an enemy is in the open and you can’t engage them because your pulse carbine can’t lock on
It’s almost like some dude at 343 saw the red fuel canisters at the back of the new warthog design and thought “I’m gonna do what’s called a pro-gamer move”.
Also completely true. The ghost in the past could always be shredded quick by heavy arms fire like the warthog’s 50cal turret. The advantage of the ghost over the warthog was always its ability to form a defensive line with others whilst also having extreme sideways agility against slower moving vehicles, especially tanks.
Currently as it exists, it’s a nigh indestructible mobile dual-turret that floats and is too quick to board.
True again. It has almost zero function relative to what it used to be; a fast-moving chaotic vehicle that required constant movement to make work, and was functionally as close to the thematic function of the Warthog that existed in the Covenant arsenal, by which i mean its function is to ride into an enemy line of defense, break it up, and just start firing like a madman amidst the chaos, with the obvious weakness being your extremely exposed back.
Currently it serves as nothing more than an incredibly clumsy and unwieldy mobile-artillery platform. You park it up somewhere topologically favorable, and you just try to pepper enemies with the disappointing canons at its side from a distance. Avoiding in-the-fray combat as a matter of survival.
They are supposed to, at least, be functional relative to their canonical purpose.
80% of the time people won’t even get into the warthog if you drive up to them and honk the horn, because it’s a death-trap. Even flag carriers prefer to just sprint on foot back to base than get into these things unless they’re in absolute pristine condition and there’s definitely no enemies on the way.
The warthog is and always was supposed to be the UNSC’s armored cavalry equivalent. To bust into the enemies defensive line, create havoc and be rock-solid and capable of taking extreme punishment, even if the people inside it are killed via precision fire. The current warthog feels like someone did a body-mod on their old Ford Pickup.