Major Flaw #1: Warthog

Games Other Halo
1

I remember the good 'ol days of Halo, the days where I would sneak around to the enemy base to steal their Warthog right as it spawned; the days where a map like Harvest with four Warthogs would have meant epic vehicle battles with all four vehicles being used.

So I played Harvest today about 15 times.

I’ll be honest, I’ve hadn’t had enough experience with the Warthog in the Halo 4 sandbox to see if it worked until today. In Halo 3 I had thousands of wheelman medals, driving was my favorite activity in Halo. Kills mattered almost nothing to me, as long as I saw my gunner getting twenty and thirty kills.

If you want a crash-course in why the Warthog needs to be changed, just play Harvest.

During the course of a normal game of Harvest (or pretty much any Big Team Battle game, but Harvest because it has four Hogs), the Warthog isn’t used. At all. I love the Warthog, so my buddy and I brought the Hog out for a spin (multiple, multiple times) and what I experienced brought hateful tears to my eyes.

The Warthog has died.

Never in a Halo game before Halo 4 have I found myself running away from blips on my radar, or found the Spartans on foot actually chasing me. As a driver in previous Halo’s, you had to worry about the occasional rocket launcher, spartan laser, or sticky grenade. Now I drive a Warthog against an entire team loaded out with every anti-vehicle weapon imaginable.

You can actually load-out with a plasma pistol and sticky grenades.

Almost everyone has a power weapon. The Warthog has finally become the Meals-on-Wheels. The predator has become the prey. Whether I’m watching sticky grenades that should have missed simply “jump” on to my Warthog, dodging rockets, or watching my gunner get sniped while being lasered by -two- lasers, I can’t help but feel that Halo isn’t supposed to play like this.

The Warthog shouldn’t be a coffin.

I simply ask this: If 343 has chosen to give everyone anti-vehicle weapons, give vehicles a fighting chance. Otherwise I have simply watched my favorite aspect of Halo gone the way of the Dodo, or maybe just the way of the Warthog.

2

Amen.

(And I think dmr’s are a huge contributor to this problem as well)

3

I’m a big fan of the Warthog as well, love driving it around. Biggest problem with it is the amount of damage it can take, it is pitiful. Loadout weapons should do miniscule damage to vehicles, its sad to see two to three DMR users blow up a Warthog. Second problem with it is the gun, its damage output is extremely low in this title compared to past versions.

4

I won’t jump in a hog for the same reason, most times that I do bad happen to me or a passenger. That said I’ve had some decent runs in the gauss hog. Haven’t played on harvest yet but Ragnarok and Exile seem to be full of splazers and binary rifles, I can understand why everyone now runs past them.

5

The PP and Plasma Grenade starts killed vehicle combat. Who wants to be in a vehicle when they know they’re just going to be PP’d and stuck right away? I know I don’t and I was a great driver/gunner in Halo 3 and Halo:Reach. I loved driving more. Now I don’t even look at a Warthog unless it’s to stick it with a Plasma Grenade.

6

Agree and you forgot to mention that even small arms fire can heavily damage the Hog.

7

I agree. The warthog was always my favorite part of halo. My best friend and I LOVE that thing in halo 1-3. It was even still pretty good in reach but now it has even less health and everyone starts with anti-vehicle weapons. Add to that the fact that sticky grenades seem to have warthog magnets built onto them and you got a problem. That being said, we can still make the hog work sometimes but we can only play harrasment, never any type of assault. I wish I had a suggestion to help the warthog but I don’t. Everyone starts with PP and stickies. This is a basic problem since the vehicles used to be a HUGE part of BtB to me. They went WAY to far to give people on foot a chance. Now vehicles are MUCH tougher to use and a million times easier to kill.

8

> I agree. The warthog was always my favorite part of halo. My best friend and I LOVE that thing in halo 1-3. It was even still pretty good in reach but now it has even less health and everyone starts with anti-vehicle weapons. Add to that the fact that sticky grenades seem to have warthog magnets built onto them and you got a problem. That being said, we can still make the hog work sometimes but we can only play harrasment, never any type of assault. I wish I had a suggestion to help the warthog but I don’t. Everyone starts with PP and stickies. This is a basic problem since the vehicles used to be a HUGE part of BtB to me. They went WAY to far to give people on foot a chance. Now vehicles are MUCH tougher to use and a million times easier to kill.

that is exactly it, regular hog takes forever to kill one guy, even close up, and the fricken thing is made of cardboard.

i dont mind the cardboard if they would buff the turret a little bit more

9

This applies to ALL vehicles. The Plasma Pistol and Plasma Grenades have ruined BTB. EMP effects should last one second less than it does now and you should only be able to spawn with one grenade unless the player is using Grenadier.

10

Rules for driving Warthogs in Halo4:

1- Never try to splatter players: Driving directly at a spartan will just result in you being naded or PP’ed.

2- Drive with skill: Be a good driver. Drive really, really fast, balls to the wall. Don’t stop for anything and don’t hit any obstacles.

3- Don’t stop: I don’t care if your own teammate is in the middle of the road with a fully loaded binary rifle. You run him over because he shouldn’t be standing there. Period. If you stop you are an instant doublekill + a vehicle kill. Do the math.

4- DON’T STOP: Don’t turn around. Don’t even slow down. I don’t care that your gunner just popped the shields on that guy in the corner. Get him on the next pass or let him go. Somebody else will get him.

5- FOR CHRIST SAKE DON’T STOP: Never stop moving! If you stop you are dead. If you hit something you are dead. If you take a turn too wide and hit the wall you are dead. A hail of plasma grenades, PP, DMR, Rockets, Railguns, Cats, Dogs, Frogs, and Brimstone will rain down from the sky upon you like burning hellfire! Drive you stupid a-hole! DRIVE FASTER!!!

11

I still have fun in the Warthog, but the days of the splatter are long gone.

12

If there’s no warthog, there’s no Halo. As simple as that.

13

What I find baffling is that the warthog killed faster in past games, and players had less ways to take it down…yet it was still balanced.

Now everyone can spawn with vehicle killing loadouts, yet the the turret now has bloom and does less damage? Huh?

14

Oh, 343 Just wanted to nerf all vehicles to avoid people actually using TEAMWORK to use and operate these vehicles effectively.

They don’t want people pwning all the 12 years that get the game for Christmas and make them hate the game.

15

Vehicles mean nothing in this game anyway.

16

See this? This is one of the REAL issues in Halo 4. Vehicles are underpowered, all of them. But the Warthog is by far the worst.

The Warthog needs a significant buff, no doubt about it. But I think they should also remove Custom Loadouts from Big Team Battle. a geat feature in most gametypes (I love it in FFA myself), not so great in Big Team.

The DMR, Plasma Pistol, and Plasma Grenades starts can be real game-breakers in BTB. A buff to the Warthog is desperately needed, but if everyone is still able to start with vehicle-wrecking loadouts like that, then it probably won’t mean much.

17

I like Halo 4, but I agree that the vehicle combat is toned down. With the personnel ordnance, and spawning with plasma pistols and stickies, driving vehicles is much riskier. An easy fix would just to increase vehicle health. Its not perfect but at least its something. Its a shame though, my favorite part of the past Halos was vehicle driving and such. Just as a side note I find it interesting that 3/4 of Halo 4 maps are vehicle based, and yet vehicles are not that great.
Off topic, didn’t 343 say there would be two new vehicles? Whats the other besides the Mantis…

18

They should have made the vehicle physics like Halo 3. The Warthog wouldn’t flip so easily then, it would be way stronger, and the turret wouldn’t spray like crazy. If Halo 4 had Halo 3’s engine for lighting and physics, we would probably all be happy. Except for the fact that the DMR is still overpowered.

19

The impression I get from H4 is that 343i just don’t think things through before implementing them.

“Hey should we let them start with plasma pistols and sticky grenades?”
“Sure! Why not!?”

Decision made.

20

Any of you try the wheelman tactial package unlocked after you complete the Operator specailization and try it. It’s suppose to increase vehicle duability and cut the emp effect on vehicles in half. The Pathfinder specailization unlocks the gunner support upgrade. The Gunner upgrade is suppose to reduce overheating of the warthog turret and stationary turrets. Also the gunner support package allows demounted turret users to move without a speed pently.