THIS is why Reach vehicle combat was so poor*

Games Other Halo
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Hi I’m DS xHunterZx SD, you may remember me from such threads as “This is why Reach vehicle combat was so poor”. I’m returning to give an update to that thread as after some deeper research, have made an startling and important discovery…

(Read this first to catch up on the story so far)

> UPDATE: Just watched some Longbow footage, A blue sticks a Red controled warthog and the gunner recieves ZERO damage on grenade explosion! link(28:20) So it looks like my prayers have been answered and the halo 3 system has returned! The game looks better with every bit of footage!
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> Ok so as we all know by now Halo reach felt like it had terrible vehicle combat, most of it being down to the “anti-tank” DMR’s. In fact, it was so bad that a once great aspect of halo games (Vehicle combat) was basically crumbled under the new physics and laws of Reach, but i think i know why the vehicles in Reach felt so weak compared to other Halo’s.
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> When in any vehicle in Halo 3 (this part excludes the “ghost”) you felt as if you had the upperhand in 9/10 situations, right? So why was that? It comes down to a number of things. Superior fire power, more speed and most of all the feeling of being protected by your vehicle, as you should be! When someone fired their AR, BR, needler, SMG or any other non-power weapon at me, my spartan wouldn’t feel a thing. Unless the bullets/projectiles directly struck me, I wouldn’t recieve damage to my shields, my screen wouldn’t flare up and my controller wouldn’t vibrate. Due to all this, if I could see that someone was fireing at me, I didn’t give a $@!* becuase i wasn’t being hurt, there was no need to panic.
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> But then when I hop into a vehicle in Halo Reach and zoom into the battlefield, one stray AR bullet hits me and I get 3 over the top warnings! My screen flares to show me I’m being shot, my controller has a fit and my shields start to drop. Because of all of these warning lights I’m now descending into a panic to try to either escape my attacker or try to find him and finish him. For god sakes, I’m in a tank! The strongest and most powerful land vehicle in MM and I feel like I’m being beaten by some little -Yoink!- with a single shot rifle.
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> Vehicles should be something that make you stronger, not something that just increases your hit-box! It’s crazy that if a bullet hits my tire, I take the hit! Seriously?! WTF!
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> As longs as this is addressed in Halo 4, vehicles will be well on there way to returning to there previous gloryful selves!
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> So, do you agree that this may be an important reason as to why they feel so underpowered in Reach and do you think that these should be corrected in Halo 4?

After posting, I received a lot of approving replies and it really made me realise I wasn’t the only one who cared about this. So after my thread faded I looked closer into my claims of the Halo 3 vehicle system returning and found out that they were entirley wrong, dead wrong.

The video evidence I gave demonstrated that the gunner of the warthog did not receive damage from his vehicle being damaged, this was what I thought Reach did differently and previous Halo’s got right, but after testing it out further I discovered that this was actually no different in Reach. The gunner doesn’t receive damage in the vid, however the driver does… and that is the point that is concerning to me.

What this means is that Halo 4 looks like it has very similar vehicle combat to Reach, which IMO would be a huge disapointment as 343i had promised to re-vamp the system to allow vehicle combat to be valable again.

tl;dr - Halo 4 appears to be using Halo Reachs vehicle combat mechanics.

So what do you guys think? Do you think that 343i should continue with this "your vehicle is your hit-box" system that Reach conjured up, or should they have gone back to previous Halo’s "Your vehicle is your cover" system?

Discuss

Please take time to read the FULL post, it’s a lot more than just the over powered DMR, I put a lot of thought into it :smiley:

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I think that damage indicators should be shown so that you know where you’re being shot from, but damage done to the vehicle should not translate to the pilot.

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Well the first part of your post reminded me of this guy

http://static.fjcdn.com/comments/Hi+I+m+Troy+McClure.+You+may+remember+me+from+such+_1196212659b243fd1a5bc259650a8ff3.jpg just’ sayin

I do agree that vehicular combat in Reach was very poor and I do agree that Halo3 does have much better combat but with so many anti-vehicle weapons (Laser, rail-gun, rocket, fuel rod…) and with AA which could allow players to get to power vehicles (like the tank) unnoticed perhaps it is not the DMR we should be looking out for.

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Couldn’t you just put this in your previous thread? I personally think that a separate health system for the player and vehicle is better.

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> I think that damage indicators should be shown so that you know where you’re being shot from, but damage done to the vehicle should not translate to the pilot.

Agree with you 100% man, in my other thread one guy mentioned that and I said it was good to let you know where the attacker is, i just think the damage to the driver is stupid.

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> Well the first part of your post reminded me of this guy
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> http://static.fjcdn.com/comments/Hi+I+m+Troy+McClure.+You+may+remember+me+from+such+_1196212659b243fd1a5bc259650a8ff3.jpg just’ sayin
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> I do agree that vehicular combat in Reach was very poor and I do agree that Halo3 does have much better combat but with so many anti-vehicle weapons (Laser, rail-gun, rocket, fuel rod…) and with AA which could allow players to get to power vehicles (like the tank) unnoticed perhaps it is not the DMR we should be looking out for.

I thought somebody would pick up on that, but not that quickly :slight_smile:
I was watching some classic Simpsons earlier :smiley:

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> Couldn’t you just put this in your previous thread? I personally think that a separate health system for the player and vehicle is better.

I needed to make it new because if I edited it then people who had already posted would have ignored it because they had already seen/replied to it, so they would see the update.

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Halo 3 - Not Hitscan.
Halo Reach - Hitscan

So it was easy to use the speed of a vehicle to avoid shots in Halo 3 due to their travel time so unless you were an expert at leading your shots you wouldn’t be able to BR a hog across the map on Standoff. However in Reach there is no travel time as it’s instant so it’s pretty easy to just 5 shot people out of vehicles regardless of the range unless it’s the gulch.

Vehicles are weaker but hitscan plays a large part, it’s just too easy to be killed as a gunner.

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> Halo 3 - Not Hitscan.
> Halo Reach - Hitscan
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> So it was easy to use the speed of a vehicle to avoid shots in Halo 3 due to their travel time so unless you were an expert at leading your shots you wouldn’t be able to BR a hog across the map on Standoff. However in Reach there is no travel time as it’s instant so it’s pretty easy to just 5 shot people out of vehicles regardless of the range unless it’s the gulch.
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> Vehicles are weaker but hitscan plays a large part, it’s just too easy to be killed as a gunner.

Yeah, true. But, my post was more about the “Vehicle being your hit-box” and the driver taking damage for his tires being shot :slight_smile:

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> > Halo 3 - Not Hitscan.
> > Halo Reach - Hitscan
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> > So it was easy to use the speed of a vehicle to avoid shots in Halo 3 due to their travel time so unless you were an expert at leading your shots you wouldn’t be able to BR a hog across the map on Standoff. However in Reach there is no travel time as it’s instant so it’s pretty easy to just 5 shot people out of vehicles regardless of the range unless it’s the gulch.
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> > Vehicles are weaker but hitscan plays a large part, it’s just too easy to be killed as a gunner.
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> Yeah, true. But, my post was more about the “Vehicle being your hit-box” and the driver taking damage for his tires being shot :slight_smile:

The tires are actually the weakest part of the hog surprising which is very odd, you shouldn’t take damage to your shields for having the wheels shot.

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> > > Halo 3 - Not Hitscan.
> > > Halo Reach - Hitscan
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> > > So it was easy to use the speed of a vehicle to avoid shots in Halo 3 due to their travel time so unless you were an expert at leading your shots you wouldn’t be able to BR a hog across the map on Standoff. However in Reach there is no travel time as it’s instant so it’s pretty easy to just 5 shot people out of vehicles regardless of the range unless it’s the gulch.
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> > > Vehicles are weaker but hitscan plays a large part, it’s just too easy to be killed as a gunner.
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> > Yeah, true. But, my post was more about the “Vehicle being your hit-box” and the driver taking damage for his tires being shot :slight_smile:
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> The tires are actually the weakest part of the hog surprising which is very odd, you shouldn’t take damage to your shields for having the wheels shot.

Haha I know, and I’m glad to see that you agree with the problem of you vehicle being your hit-box. Most seem to be in aggremaces with me on this one.

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I like Reach’s vehicle combat. In most games with vehicles they are easy to use and require 0 skill. In Reach however, vehicles take more skill. You can’t just drive a Warthog like an idiot in Reach or it will flip over. If 4 players are simultaneously focusing fire on a vehicle they should be able to take it down rather quickly. Players on foot need to be able to take vehicles down with teamwork.

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> I like Reach’s vehicle combat. In most games with vehicles they are easy to use and require 0 skill. In Reach however, vehicles take more skill. You can’t just drive a Warthog like an idiot in Reach or it will flip over. If 4 players are simultaneously focusing fire on a vehicle they should be able to take it down rather quickly. Players on foot need to be able to take vehicles down with teamwork.

Never said anything about not being able to take out vehicles, just think that the punishment for being shot are excessive.

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I think the driver should take some damage. Just a bit.

Altogether, as I’ve said before, I like Reach’s vehicles better. H3’s were a bit too powerful. Reach’s gave players a chance against them, while still making them great threats; you had to use them more cautiously.

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I think the driver should only take damage if shot OR if the “milemarkers” of vehicle damage happen (I.E. parts fly off, windshield breaks) this would be a sort of compromise that gives the driver more coverage but doesn’t make it almost impossible to kill him

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> I think the driver should take some damage. Just a bit.
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> Altogether, as I’ve said before, I like Reach’s vehicles better. H3’s were a bit too powerful. Reach’s gave players a chance against them, while still making them great threats; you had to use them more cautiously.

This so much.

I think a lot of people forget the many matches that turned into slaughterfests due to having only a single hard counter or two on the maps.

If you didn’t get the Spartan Laser on Valhalla, guess what you’re screwed. Almost no way to take out vehicles effectively.

Sandtrap was basically the same way. If one of your dumb teammates took the Spartan Laser and went for infantry kills (Not vehicles), and wasted it, have fun getting killed for 10 minutes straight.

Halo: Reach’s vehicles are fine… They added a soft counter (Sniper, DMR, etc.) to help combat the massive imbalance from past games.

It takes a bit more skill in vehicles when you have to be afraid of more than just a single weapon on the map. You have to be careful and tactical.

No more bumrush with 2 Warthogs and dominate. You have to actually take players on foot seriously.

Love it, hope it stays.

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You’ve only scratched the surface. The vehicles seem “flighty”. I’ve recently played several games of Halo 3 multiplayer and remembered how much I loved driving the warthog. It was solid. If a grenade went off or another explosion, you didn’t kareen out of controll spinning 300 rpm bumper over bumper. You could take a hill without flipping forward.

And besides control issues there were issues with the Banshee specificaly. You can lock onto the vehicle when it flips and it can flip once a secondish. Certainly short than the time it takes to lock on. It’s super quick and people own with about 30+ kills in that thing. Rediculous. And it’s made of paper mache so might aswell use team DMRs instead of locking missiles right? So it kills hard, dies quick, and is more vulnerable to rifle fire than anti-air and vehicle power weapons. Ugh!

If the vehicles were a copy/paste of Halo 3 I’d be happy with vehicle warfare. Don’t get me wrong…Reach has provided me some great times in vehicles. But the problems can’t be ignored in Halo 4. Happy to see things are looking up in that regard.

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> You could take a hill without flipping forward.

Full speed is not always the best speed.

> If the vehicles were a copy/paste of Halo 3 I’d be happy with vehicle warfare. Don’t get me wrong…Reach has provided me some great times in vehicles. But the problems can’t be ignored in Halo 4. Happy to see things are looking up in that regard.

Copy and paste of H3?

Ugh.

Why go back to the days of nigh-invulnerable flaming Warthogs? Static health and being able to chip away at it through small arms fire are benefits that need to be brought back into H4.

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They need to fix the broken banshee. I don’t really care for anything else.