Thoughts on PO

Games Other Halo
1

Alright, so it’s a well known fact that competitive players hate PO, and one of the main reasons for this is its randomness.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge this as an issue; I can’t remember the last time I got an explosive/sniper weapon as a drop, though my Plasma grenade stock, Needler Ammo, and Speed boost figures are through the roof.

So, how about, everyone gets the same drops?

E.G. Haven, on the first drop people get, they will always get the option of Plasmas, Speed Boost, and Needler.
On the second drop, they get Pulses, Overshield, and Shotgun.
The third drop…You get the idea…The third drop can be Rockets/Fuel Rod/Incineration Cannon with max ammo :wink:

Maybe randomise what people get when the map begins, but make sure everyone’s on level ground when it comes to ordnance. Don’t give the professional a Sniper and leave the guy with 3 guests a Scattershot.

I dunno if this is even gonna be considered for H4, but I think it’s worth some thought if H5 is gonna have PO.

Oh, and Requisition could place your Ordnance one step up. So on the example given, you’d get super Rockets on your 2nd drop, not third.

Also, dunno if this’s been mentioned/advised before, so credit to whoever came up with it first, if I didn’t.

2

For all the things 343 copied from CoD, how they did their rewards should’ve been one of them. I should be able to pick a 5 kill reward, 10 kill, and 20 kill all in advance to reduce randomness. Sure I won’t know for certain what my opponents will get, but there are always Meta Game analyses for that, and I’ll definitely be able to control what I get.

3

How about players get no drops like Halo? I think you misunderstand why people hate Ordnance. Its not so much the randomness in the options but the randomness that it adds to the game that drove 90% of the usual Halo community away from the game.

4

Oh no no no personal ordnance is greatly appreciated by competitive players. The competitive player must skillfully obtain as many kills and assists as he possibly can as quickly as he can in order to obtain the advantage giving personal ordnance package, then carefully select the best option for the situation and put it to skillful use. All the while the competitive player must be aware of what opponents have received in their packages and skillfully react in a manner mitigating their advantages as he extends his own. All the while the competitive player must be constantly communicating with his team to let them know this information as well.

PO added an entire new level to competitive play.

5

> <mark>Oh no no no personal ordnance is greatly appreciated by competitive players</mark>. The competitive player must skillfully obtain as many kills and assists as he possibly can as quickly as he can in order to obtain the advantage giving personal ordnance package, then carefully select the best option for the situation and put it to skillful use. All the while the competitive player must be aware of what opponents have received in their packages and skillfully react in a manner mitigating their advantages as he extends his own. All the while the competitive player must be constantly communicating with his team to let them know this information as well.
>
> PO added an entire new level to competitive play.

April fools day is long gone now.

Unless of course there are big major gaming leagues that I’ve missed using vanilla Halo 4 in their tournaments. Care to show me them? If competitive players appreciate personal ordnance then it’d be features in the leagues.

6

> Oh no no no personal ordnance is greatly appreciated by competitive players. The competitive player must skillfully obtain as many kills and assists as he possibly can as quickly as he can in order to obtain the advantage giving personal ordnance package, then carefully select the best option for the situation and put it to skillful use. All the while the competitive player must be aware of what opponents have received in their packages and skillfully react in a manner mitigating their advantages as he extends his own. All the while the competitive player must be constantly communicating with his team to let them know this information as well.
>
> PO added an entire new level to competitive play.

If Ordnance was that competitive and appreciated the competitive players wouldn’t have left or asked for alternatives.

haha I’m a casual player and didn’t touch Infinity Slayer for how stupidly random it is. People use Boltshots, Camo, Jetpack, PV and then call down Rockets and Snipers ect. Halo 4 Infinity Slayer is not so much a game determined by skill but in fact a game determined by who has the cheapest tactics. The only thing competitive about Infinity gametypes is the competitive mindset you may chose to enter with.

7

> How about players get no drops like Halo? I think you misunderstand why people hate Ordnance. Its not so much the randomness in the options but the randomness that it adds to the game that drove 90% of the usual Halo community away from the game.

Wouldn’t blame PO for 90%, maybe 40-50%. There were other things.

8

> How about players get no drops like Halo? I think you misunderstand why people hate Ordnance. Its not so much the randomness in the options but the randomness that it adds to the game that drove 90% of the usual Halo community away from the game.

I agree with “no Ordnance”, and no I don’t misunderstand, it’s just that it’s not like they’re going to remove a system they’ve put work into, but maybe a slight tweak to balance it more wouldn’t be too much for ask. I think if they kept the drops map specific, and relevant to the map/gametype, then it would appease a lot of people.

9

> > How about players get no drops like Halo? I think you misunderstand why people hate Ordnance. Its not so much the randomness in the options but the randomness that it adds to the game that drove 90% of the usual Halo community away from the game.
>
> I agree with “no Ordnance”, and no I don’t misunderstand, it’s just that it’s not like they’re going to remove a system they’ve put work into, but maybe a slight tweak to balance it more wouldn’t be too much for ask. I think if they kept the drops map specific, and relevant to the map/gametype, then it would appease a lot of people.

To my knowledge when 343i played the Weapon rebalancing before it came out, and other times they streamed games, they used a gametype that had no Personal Ordnance. If they aren’t playing it, then they either don’t like it themselves, or realized many of their fans didn’t like it and wanted to show they were with them. Whether it stays as a Custom Games option in the next game or leaves completely, I don’t think it will be missed.

10

> Oh no no no personal ordnance is greatly appreciated by competitive players.

You don’t speak for competitive players anymore than I do, but I think the actions of those players speak for themselves. Given that no major leagues use it in its vanilla form, that is.

> The competitive player must skillfully obtain as many kills and assists as he possibly can as quickly as he can in order to obtain the advantage giving personal ordnance package

If I may be blunt, there’s more skill in getting a CoD Care Package than there is getting Halo 4 ordinance, despite being nearly identical. Unless you’re AFKing the whole time, there is almost no doubt that you will receive at least one ordinance drop in the game, because your points towards it do not reset upon death.

Is it a race to get it? Sure, but everyone will get one eventually, and everyone will reap the benefits. It’s not exactly hard to accomplish.

> , then carefully select the best option for the situation and put it to skillful use.

There were two main points to ordinance: To give everyone the opportunity to use a powerweapon, and to add weapon diversity. The first part is by itself reducing the learning curve, the latter is basically undone by exactly what you said: choose the best option. The best pertaining the strongest or most advantageous, leaving things like the Sticky det or the pulse grenades abandoned.

Ordinance also has no say in how effectively or skillfully one uses a weapon. That is entirely up to the player, and they should be using the weapon to its utmost potential regardless of how they obtained it.

Ordinance is the delivery system of a weapon. Nothing more.

> All the while the competitive player must be aware of what opponents have received in their packages

Which is very literally impossible up until the time they shoot at you with it, which could be any point in the match really.

> and skillfully react in a manner mitigating their advantages as he extends his own.

Reacting efficiently and effectively to a weapon the enemy possesses isn’t an ordinance specific skill. The same happens regardless of how an enemy obtains a weapon, and ordinance has no part in anything other than that.

> All the while the competitive player must be constantly communicating with his team to let them know this information as well.

Which again, isn’t an ordinance specific skill. People do that regardless of how they or their enemy obtain the weapon.

> PO added an entire new level to competitive play.

A random advantage distributor that can and will be obtained by anyone doing remotely anything in the match and negating the ability to effectively form strategies around weapon sets hardly adds a new level to competitive play.

11

The randomness in Ordnance is only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that the metagame of pickup control is removed:

> Power weapon control is a strategy that adds an extra layer of depth to the gameplay. We can all agree that in a match, the primary objective is the most important, whether it’s capturing a flag, holding the hill, or just killing the other players. But on-map pickups are essentially a secondary objective: if you can “win” those items, they may not contribute directly to your team’s objective, but they can help. The game then becomes not just about completing the objective itself, but about controlling the power map positions and obtaining the power map pickups to gain an upper hand in completing your team’s primary objective.
>
> With Personal and Random Ordnance though, this depth is removed. I don’t need to work with my team to gain a team advantage because I can work by myself to gain an individual advantage. I don’t need to think about anything else except where the objective is and how I can get it, and power weapons and powerups will eventually come to me.
>
> To players who are new to the franchise or just never grasped this strategy, of course Halo is going to be fun without power weapon control, because Halo is still a fun game even without it. But to players like me who have been playing for a long, long time, the game feels less interesting without this extra layer of depth.

12

> Oh no no no personal ordnance is greatly appreciated by competitive some players. The competitive player must skillfully obtain as many kills and assists as he possibly can as quickly as he can in order to obtain the advantage giving personal ordnance package, then carefully select the best option for the situation and put it to skillful use. All the while the competitive player must be aware of what opponents have received in their packages and skillfully react in a manner mitigating their advantages as he extends his own hope that his drop is superior or more appropriate to the map than theirs. All the while the competitive player must be constantly communicating with his team to let them know this information as well.
>
> PO added an entire new level to competitive play allow unskilled players to get 'splody things without killing teammates for them, even according to the developer.

Fixed by removing unnecessary or inaccurate words and phrases. Adding buzzwords to a sentence doesn’t magically make said actions more important.

Example:
I carefully chose heads and skillfully flipped the coin.

Is the same as:
I chose heads and flipped the coin.