I was sitting here contemplating loadouts and realized a few things.
Maybe we are overanalyzing. We are coming up with rules for Halo 4 and shunning any change that has been made.
You hear loadouts and you instantly assume Halo is copying Cod. It really isn’t guys. While Cod has custom classes that allow you to change every aspect of your character, i suspect Halo 4’s loadouts to be very basic.
You will probably be able to choose
Your starting weapon
secondary weapon
grenade type
armor ability
and one unknown type.
Let’s begin with the armor abilities. Yes you hate them because you spawn unequally. But lets face it. Armor Lock, the worst ability, is gone. Sprint is now default which means everyone will be relatively the same speed. ( depending on the unknown factors effect). Hopefully 343 realizes the communities concerns and balances the other abilities accordingly. Remember we have yet to see jetpack, hologram, or camo in use yet so we have no idea how they will work.
grenade type: Frags, plasmas, and the new one. pretty basic. Plasma may become to prominent, 343 will have to think about that.
weapon spawns: This is really upsetting people. First of all this aspect will probably be more like gears of war. In gears you could pick your preferred rifle and shotgun, and it works decently well. In Halo 4 I suspect the choices will come down to your preferred rifle and sidearm. Like the AR,BR,DMR,Carbine, Needle Rifle etc. And for sidearms magnum and maybe some unrevealed choices. Plasma pistol would be abused with its charge ability.
It may bother you because it isn’t perfect balance but think about it. In past Halo’s everyone spawned the same yes, but there was always a BR or 2 right in front of the spawn. So basically whoever spawned closest got the BR and everyone else had the starting weapon. Is it really all that different for everyone to get their preferred starting weapon than for someone to pick one up 5 feet from spawn? Yes someone may have a BR and he may fight someone with a DMR. But is it any different than the guy who spawned closer to the BR meeting up with someone who didn’t and only had an assault rifle? In fact, if 343 manages to make all the starting weapons balanced with one another, it may be even more balanced than before.
And obviously power weapons will appear in pivotal locations creating map control and that aspect will remain.
Just something to thin about. I’m sure classic Halo will be there, but it isn’t the end of the world guys.