Hey, I just need to get this off my chest in some way after seeing the recent waypoint post from 343. I loved Halo Infinite in almost every aspect except one which is quite major for me, the BTB vehicles. 343 touch on vehicle spawns, but they refuse to make any major changes to the vehicle spawning system (With the exception of adding new vehicles). As a vehicle enthusiast in Halo this hurts to see that 343 is neglecting vehicles in my most anticipated game of the decade. I’ll explain to you in 8 reasons why the vehicle spawning system is bad and why they should change it.
- The first reason is the dinner bell ringing, every time people hear the commander speak and say “pelican drop inbound” that’s basically calling everyone on both teams to hang out at their bases and wait 30 seconds for the pelican come in and drop whatever its coming in with. This behavior encourages teammates to compete with each other to get the first dibs on the fresh new vehicle (especially if its a powerful vehicle like the tank).
- The second is vehicle power throughout the match. 343’s reasoning behind the pelican drop system is the idea of having vehicles increase in power throughout the match, this sounds like a good idea on paper but isn’t gameplay wise. I don’t know if this is just me but I really don’t care if the end of the match has a powerful tank or not, I just want the powerful tanks in my matches.
- My thirds reason is lame drops. When you see a pelican come in you’d best expect it’s coming to drop off something huge and game changing, but instead all we get is Ghosts and Warthogs 90% of the time, which aren’t very game changing. We expect a pelican to come in packing some big heat but instead we get these lame low tier vehicles.
- My fourth complaint is the idea of constantly facing clones 24/7. Halo has always mixed and matched certain vehicles on certain maps (Ex: Banshees and Scorpions, Mantis and Wraiths, Banshees and Falcons etc). With this new system we only ever face the same vehicles we are using which doesn’t allow much diversity in combat. I want to pin a Wraith against a Scorpion, or a Chopper against a Ghost. I don’t want to constantly face the same vehicle I’m using.
- My fifth gripe with this game is that their is almost no opportunity to get powerful vehicles. After playing the BTB flight for 8+ Hours I was able to drive a grand total of 30+ Ghosts, 1 Wasp, 1 Banshee and 1 Scorpion. Their shouldn’t be Ghosts spawning 90% of the time, we need more diversity in our vehicles. 343 have stated that their will be more vehicles at launch (Wraith and Choppers) but what I’m hearing is that their will be Choppers and Ghost Spawning 90% of the time.
- Reason #6 for why I don’t like this new vehicle system is for how rare certain vehicles are. Anything that wasn’t a Ghost was super rare to see and if the opportunity came where I got one I made sure to not try to lose it. Having certain vehicles become rare has encouraged people to be super careful on using them and making vehicle combat a lot more slow. If I or anyone else gets a Scorpion I want to see them rush the enemy base taking out enemies in a blaze of glory instead of hanging out at our base 24/7
- My reason #7 for why the pelican drops are lame is that they aren’t at all dynamic. The idea of pelicans coming in and dropping off vehicles is cool and all but having them only drop in one area doesn’t make them very interesting. They should be able to drop into at least 3 areas on each side of the map to make them more interesting, otherwise they just feel like normal vehicle spawns but with extra steps…
- My final reasoning for this post is vehicle shortages. BTB for me has always been about using the sandbox of Halo to its full potential but Halo Infinite isn’t doing that. Throughout all of Halo we start out with all of our vehicles right off the bat, normally spawning 3 or 4 minor vehicles (Ghost, Warthog, Mongoose etc) and 1 or 2 power vehicles (Scorpion, Wraith, Banshee). Halo Infinite BTB claims to be a bigger BTB then ever before but what we get is about half of what we’ve gotten before when it comes to vehicles, we start out with a Warthog and a couple of Mongooses but everything else comes through the pelican at a slow rate.
Solution: For my personal solution to this vehicle problem I would have their be more vehicles spawning at the base, remove certain vehicles from the pelican drop, more pelican drops, slower pelican drop rate. The vehicles we need to spawn at the bases are 2-3 Ghosts/Choppers, 1 Warthog. For the Pelican drops they should not be at all dropping low tier vehicles like Ghost or Warthogs. Their should also be 2 pelican drops happening at the same time so people don’t camp the one pelican drop while waiting for the vehicle to drop down. To make sure there isn’t too much of a surplus of vehicles they should also decrease the pelican spawn rate.
I’m hoping other people (Even 343) can see this because I really needed to get this off my chest. My goal isn’t to make vehicles the forefront of BTB, I just want them to play a bigger role then what they are right now.
Thank You