imo, its not all too much the current weapons availability that ruined Halo. Theres quite a few other reasons as well, but even if the weapon changes happen the way they are currently set up, it will still be somewhat bad. IMO, the main problem is the grotesque increase of the map sizes, even pre-Reach. If the maps werent all hugely large, the DMR wouldnt be the all around weapon for nearly any map, ever. The vast distances that must be traversed to usually even FIND an enemy in most games we play, is what gives the DMR its unjust advantage. Nobody really needs to go anywhere, and they can just shoot anything. There is no need to push. There is no need to move. Light a fire. Your enemy will eventually try to run somewhere, maybe to try and take out your teammate whos skillfully ducking behind an obstacle somewhere, and he’ll be easy picking from a distance as youre also skillfully behind a rock, impossible to kill. If youre in the lead by one kill, you can just lock down your team next to a choke point, or behind a strategic, skillfull, map viewing head glitch spot, and the opponent is at every disadvantage to try to do anything about it. The unusually open (solace, relay, dispatch, abandon, Complex roofs, SETTLER), and unusually enclosed areas (adrift, bases on Solace, Complex buildings,) alongside Halo 4s increase to 5 shot kills, makes it all about strength in numbers, power weapons, and sitting in a spot where you have such a stupid advantage that given a certain caliber of players, should honestly be nearly impossible to break. So boring. This is really the only situation where i get glad that POD exists, as id need that relentlessly powerful weapon to make a singlehanded attempt to break their defense, even if they’ll just do it again in another area on the map.
This mostly deals with slayer gametypes, king of the hill, swat, snipers.
Luckily for me, i hated most strict slayer gametypes over the past few halos, and always tried to stay away from it since it either became a spawn camp death fest, or some other really boring, really unbalanced situation.
And so i always loved objective games, games where people had to accomplish things and not always sit still. But look what happened to CTF. Adrift? Solace? Relay? There is no possible way to “secure” the entire map to “set up” anything. If one team scores, its easy then to just hunker down and keep the enemy out of the base. Its just lots of people running away from each other, or constant 5 man pushes that lead to big stalemates. Even if you get their flag, they spawn outside, due to map size, just right for you to have to go through them again, or easily grab your flag. I have spawned INSIDE enemy bases before. Just a huge blob fest. Then the 35 second flag timer gets involved. half the time if your opponent gets a flag 15 feet out of the base, its easily within a 1 second run of some other obstacle anyone can use for cover to get near. sweet. another 35 seconds. (repeat 15 times.) The camping is practically forced. The only map i see as a nice map so far for CTF is maybe Exile, but my favorite is Simplex, even though it runs terrible with 5 shot mechanics.
Oddball? blob. Ive played games where i constantly chase ball guy around the maps, and i could maybe get one or two shots on the ball guy because he has so many ways to go, so far he can run. And the games over, 300-0. No chance. Even if we catch up, or cut him off, woom, run back towards his team and hunker down and camp before the blob resets and off they go again. So boring.
King? Ive really grown to just never vote for it. Nades and constant death without any ability to form a defense is quite lame. Having the next hill spawn on the opponent spawn side is lame. Having the hill spawn 15 seconds of running away from you is lame. Bring back Battle Creek.
Due to map sizes, the spawns are so erratic, that quite often youll get a pile of kills because youll spawn behind someone (most BTB maps), or spawn way out in the open and just constantly die (complex, exile, most BTB maps.)
Its plain to see that this game was built around the sprint mechanic, and DMR. In any future halo, itll never go away. All these things are here to stay, and that is sad. The core gameplay of being able to make pushes or stances has become worthless given the sizes of the maps and ineffective loadout weapons. We always have to run somewhere, usually quite far, to get into any action. I’m hoping that the well needed BR buff will change some aspects of this. Many people will die quite more. We wont have to yell “one shot” 35 times a game. Pushes will be able to be made with greater success against the ever growing camp crowd.
I’d already left halo 4 after the first month, but came back a few weeks ago, as my 11 years of playing since Halo CE really breaks my heart to give up. Ive actually enjoyed it quite immensely, until these various aspects become more and more apparent at the “skilled player” level. The obscene comments and various declarations of bovine excrement have already returned to my vocabulary.
I saw it coming in Halo 3 and got told i needed to “adapt” cuz im just bad at the “new halo”. I flat out microwaved my Reach disk. The Halo 4 daily players numbers shows that everyone finally realized my plight, and have since gave up. This BR buff might be my last hurrah. Hopefully it brings people back, and more, smaller competitive non-campy-camp maps get forged up and added to playlists and the community returns. Halo 5 will end up being the end if these trends continue.