Looking back into the past, I remember being excited about loadouts, mainly for two reasons:
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Cuts the whole AR/DMR/BR(whichever game you are looking at) slayer out, confine them in one playlist and vote primarily on map.
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I always wanted choices when taking on an opponent. It makes the game feel more like chess instead of checkers, especially with the BR/DMR starts picked all the time.
However, I feel 343 gave us way to much flexibility when it comes down to what we start with, primarily with secondary weapons and grenade selection. At first, I thought it was going to be no big deal. We’d probably need to use them, especially when they said vehicles were going to be more durable than Reach’s. Oh did I thought wrong.
Especially with the recent map pack(which I enjoy playing), I find myself staying the heck away from vehicles more and more as I play thanks to 2 readily available weapons: Plasma Pistols and Plasma Grenades(and drivers who can’t grasp that concept of thier existance after 5 months of exposure). To me, this really took a beating on vehicle combat. What was once a staple to the Halo series, the Warthog now collects almost as much dust as the mongoose since players often don’t trust each other’s intelligence to safely drive in battle.
The other secondary weapon, the Boltshot, is getting on my nerve(though not as bad as plasma pistols). Even with the nerf, it still feels too powerful in my taste. What used to be its Max killing range now acts as a shield breaker, allowing for an easy headshot that’s about as bad as Halo 2’s PP, minus the rediculous tracking. Add the dexterity pack and you effectively don’t have to worry about a long cooldown. It just makes small maps frustrating to clean out.
Out of the loadout selections, secondary weapons and grenade selections are what holds this new feature back. 343 added some cool ideas, but didn’t look at the overall picture of how this would turn out during development. Adding new things shouldn’t have to involve harming an aspect of the game for the wrong reasons. Loadouts was something to look forward to, but I’d be more happier if this came out with just us selecting a primary weapon, AA, and our perks. The secondaries and grenades should’ve been left on the ground for players to pick up at a base.