Vehicular Combat

Games Halo Infinite
1

Can we make vehicular combat fun again? Feels like it hasn’t been good since Halo 3. There’s just a huge emphasis on guns and shooting mechanics now, and it’s taken away a lot from stuff like Big Team, and even Warzone which was supposed to have more open spaces that give vehicles some wiggle room. It’s certainly better in Halo 5 than it was in 4 and Reach, but vehicles still just feel… Meh. In Halo 3 they felt like power weapons, and I liked that. It meant something to fight for the laser (which once was useful… wistful sigh), or to make a run for a plasma pistol and plasma grenades.

It probably has to do with map design as well–a lot of big team maps feel claustrophobic as hell, with rocks and buildings sticking up every which way to give infantry people cover and excuses to clamber and use SAs. It says a lot that one of my favorite big team maps in Halo 5 (at least for vehicular play) is the Valhalla remake. And in that vein, even the claustrophobic vehicular maps in Halo 3 were fun to drive ghosts and warthogs around on. I’m thinking of Rat’s nest here. Vehicles use to be meaty enough to hold their own even in tight spaces, and that just aint the case any more.

I miss vehicles feeling powerful and meaningful, and I hope they find away to bring back that feeling while maintaining what feels like really tight gunplay from Halo 5. Any thoughts as to how they might make that work in the next one?

2

More vehicles in the sandbox would be good too

3

Funny how different people remember things differently. I remember matches on Standoff where a good driver and gunner could lock down the map and make people quit. I couldn’t tell you what the average vehicular kill streak was in Halo 3, but I bet it was just plain too high. That said, you’re completely right about H5 BTB having no use for vehicles, and that’s too bad because no matter what vehicle you get into in a Warzone match, there’s always some guy on the other team who calls in an Endgame and that’s pretty much that. The only worthwhile vehicular game play in Halo 5 is in Heroic Firefight and that’s virtually ruined because everyone has too many and are calling them in every three seconds. It just shouldn’t be so hard to get it right.

4

> 2533274873843883;3:
> Funny how different people remember things differently. I remember matches on Standoff where a good driver and gunner could lock down the map and make people quit.

Personally, I just think Standoff is a very poorly designed map. It has the visual illusion of being similar to maps like Blood Gulch and Valhalla, but it doesn’t function the same at all. The popularity Standoff has amongst players is undeserved in my opinion. It isn’t a fun map to play on.

5

I absolutely get where you’re coming from. Vehicles other than the aerial ones do feel slightly weaker than they probably should, but I don’t think they are useless. A good Hog team can still absolutely wreck face and Scorpions…well…they just get boarded two seconds after their first shot. BTB maps are absolutely way too cluttered, I agree, but I kinda see where 343 were coming from. Back in ye old days (H3 and Reach) you’d find dozens of forum posts complaining how vehicles can dominate the map and “break the game”. They didn’t, as you say a good player with a Splaser or even just good ol’ focused fire could still down pretty much anything, but infantry to vehicle combat could definitely be better balanced.

Halo 5 kinda feels like an attempt to correct that issue that went a bit to far in the other direction. Still it is WAY better than the “everybody has plasma pistols so good luck turning that corner” Halo 4 BTB experience so they are getting better at their design game. Infinite seems to be being set up as a more open experience, so I hope we’ll be getting some nice and open BTB maps (and mid size vehicle maps, seriously I REALLY miss those) in the near(ish) future.

6

Man, I would pay serious money to be able to drive through massive open areas like this in Halo: Infinite! It definitely has a Halo CE vibe (reminding me of the 2000 E3 trailer, the second level of Halo CE, and Blood Gulch all at once. This is exactly what I’m wishing for.

7

I think non of the Halo games nailed vehicles completely so far. I will say something on front though: I had wonderful memories and a ton of fun with vehicles until Reach. From H4 onward the situation just got worse. The main issue imho is the addition of advanced movement mechanics becoming core elements of the gameplay instead of limited power ups. Anyway, this are the main issues from every main enry from my point of view (feel free to disagree):

Halo Combat Evolved / Custom Edition
Ghosts were too slow while Banshee’s fire power mattered only because of the green plasma bolt of doom (playable only PC also). Plus the life meter was way too high while never giving enough protection to the actual player. Human vehicles on the other side were undestructible while giving you zero protection towards sniper fire. Not to mention splatter was a question of touching something at a min. of 3km/h (or 1,86 Mph for my american friends out there)! X’D

Halo 2
Much better. All vehicles now are destructible, you can steal them now, Banshee’s are now usable on console (no bolt shot though, plasma fire does damage though and shots land were they are supposed to land), speed to splatter-damage makes sense now as well, but every heavier vehicle starting from the Warthog had way too many life.points. Not to mention that it was bound to the driver’s health meter now as well. If a team got two Scorpions or even Wraths good luck leaving the spawn point. The only good thing is, vehicles have weak points now. Focus on them and you can overcome them. It’s still hard and unbalanced like hell though.

Halo 3
Got a bit better thanks to EMP equipment, stationary weapons with great damage output against vehicles, anti-air missiles, plasma pistol secondary fire and better spawn points overall. That said all life system problems mentioned before still remain, and now it might be even worse. What made H3 vehicle combat so memorable though compared to H2 was thanks to the extremely diverse sandbox combined with amazing maps build around them. Sandtrap anyone? -Yoinking- Elephants?! Hell yes!

Halo Reach
Vehicles now have separate life bars to the driver, the sandbox got even more choices and the focus here is clearly on cooperative driving with maps heavily focused on Falcons, Warthogs and even the newcomer Revnant, while at the same time increasing the damage output of secondary turrets on Scorpions and Wraths. On the other side simple transportation now is useless due to loadouts (sprint and jetpacks first and foremost), not to mention people now can spawn with plasma pistols - aka the trolls heaven! Reach for me was the death of the Mongoose frankly. Another major problem was that vehicles got way too easily damaged by simple bullet fire… Three Spartans with DMRs can easily take down a Banshee for instance, common! And while Reach certainly offered maps build around vehicles, especially in Invasion, it just lacked the creativity and epicness H3 gave us three years prior.

Halo 4
Also known as “Plasma pistol troll eden of green destruction with personal vehicular torture chamber attached to it”. It’s a long but damn fitting title! Plus even when green bolts of death weren’t around (highly improbable), without vehicle specialized commendation driving around was pretty much an useless effort. Not to mention sprint is now a core mechanic. Halo 4 proves why sprint in Halo should never be a core mechanic! We got a Robot though. There is that! Doesn’t really fit Halo, it’s fun to use though! … so it’s okay, right? … I want to forget this game ever existed frankly! :slight_smile:

Halo 5 Guardian
343i added something small but great: press “A” to jump from seat to seat. You never know you need something until you get it! This aside Halo even with all the balancing problems it provided in vehicle combat until Reach it always was a fun experience at the end of the day. You spawned, turned around and fought for that alien flying machine of death. Now you only use them in Warzone and there is no fight for them, you select them - and of course lose them to EMP shots shortly after. It should be better in firefight, but the only thing it does is creating chaos, and not the fun one. Plus the cooperativeness is gone! All vehicles that are worthwhile only got one seat or provide little fire-power for the second driver.

Halo Infinite
Based on this the next Halo installment should have the following to make vehicles good again, or even better to prior tiles:

  • No advanced movement as core mechanic - Higher life-span than Reach (maybe make it visible on the screen) - Separate life bars - Little damage received by gun-fire - Cooperative mindset (multiple seats, secondary turrets, support roles) - Weak-points - Map design build around terrain and flying vehicles - Interactive level design elements to counter or help vehicles (closed down secondary paths, light bridges, Elephants, EMP towers…)I also would love to see space combat making its introduction to MP. Let’s cross fingers for Hi!
8

> 2535415876049274;4:
> > 2533274873843883;3:
> > Funny how different people remember things differently. I remember matches on Standoff where a good driver and gunner could lock down the map and make people quit.
>
> Personally, I just think Standoff is a very poorly designed map. It has the visual illusion of being similar to maps like Blood Gulch and Valhalla, but it doesn’t function the same at all. The popularity Standoff has amongst players is undeserved in my opinion. It isn’t a fun map to play on.

Standoff is tons of fun. Id rather see more H3 Btb maps return then have maps like Gullitone, boulevards, & the map with one ghost & 1 hog, water on the one side, the name isnt even memorable because i barely plat on it. At least H3 btb maps had tons of vehicle play. Btb heavies should of been a thing too in H5, not sure why ot wasnt.

9

> 2533274826044245;8:
> > 2535415876049274;4:
> > > 2533274873843883;3:
> > > Funny how different people remember things differently. I remember matches on Standoff where a good driver and gunner could lock down the map and make people quit.
> >
> > Personally, I just think Standoff is a very poorly designed map. It has the visual illusion of being similar to maps like Blood Gulch and Valhalla, but it doesn’t function the same at all. The popularity Standoff has amongst players is undeserved in my opinion. It isn’t a fun map to play on.
>
> Standoff is tons of fun. Id rather see more H3 Btb maps return then have maps like Gullitone, boulevards, & the map with one ghost & 1 hog, water on the one side, the name isnt even memorable because i barely plat on it. At least H3 btb maps had tons of vehicle play. Btb heavies should of been a thing too in H5, not sure why ot wasnt.

I agree! Heavies was the best. And Standoff is good too, I think. A lot of the btb maps are truly forgettable.

> 2533274873843883;3:
> Funny how different people remember things differently. I remember matches on Standoff where a good driver and gunner could lock down the map and make people quit. I couldn’t tell you what the average vehicular kill streak was in Halo 3, but I bet it was just plain too high.

I actually LIKE that vehicles used to be able to wreck house in that way. I feel like a significant part of Halo always used to be the vehicular play; that was a huge contributing factor to the goofy fun side of Halo that’s sort of lacking these days–even with action sack in there. And I feel like vehicles have received an inherent nerf in that weapons have much greater range and accuracy than in Halo 3. You can easily snipe gunners from the back of a warthog or ghost in a way that you just couldn’t before. Add to that the fact that vehicles are just less beefy and the maps are claustrophobic af, and you get the problems we have.

I didn’t mind getting wrecked every once in awhile by another team’s warthog. Part of the fun was getting stuck inside your totally locked down base and doing a team hump dance in submission to the other team. I don’t see that being all that different from getting paired against a really difficult team every other game and just getting dommed on because their players are out-shooting yours. The tools are different, but the experience is the same and ultimately there’s just less variety. A good team (and often just an individual) could take down even a good gunner/driver in Halo 3. Strong vehicles gave less super-star players the chance to do some real damage, and that was part of the fun of them: big team doesn’t need an insane skill gap because it’s -Yoinking!- big team. I think part of Halo 5’s problem in general is that they’ve stripped it down so much for the sake of streamlining its competitive aspects that it’s only fun if you want to try your little heart out. I have fun in Halo 5, but only if I’m really gunning for a win and focusing on my reticle and trying to wreck house. There’s no way to cool off in the game, because the playlists that are supposed to be a bit sillier and less intense ultimately just boil down to shooting galleries–same as in the competitive playlists. I guess that makes sense given that it’s an FPS (lol), but Halo 3 had ways of making that experience feel less static. Oddball, king of the hill, VIP, rocket race, a lot more ctf… These things made going game to game distinct. And vehicles too. Halo 5 didn’t even have a lot of those things for a while. I think it’s great as a shooter, and the competitive aspects are really satisfying to sink your teeth into. There’s just no good way to lean back, it feels like–and that was a big part of old Halo.

10

I honestly hope that they bring back the old vehicular combat because i even find myself steering away from the vehicles in Halo 5 because they’re just taken down so easily that i find more use in a sniper or various other power weapons.

11

> 2533274809073993;9:
> > 2533274826044245;8:
> > > 2535415876049274;4:
> > > > 2533274873843883;3:
> > > > Funny how different people remember things differently. I remember matches on Standoff where a good driver and gunner could lock down the map and make people quit.
> > >
> > > Personally, I just think Standoff is a very poorly designed map. It has the visual illusion of being similar to maps like Blood Gulch and Valhalla, but it doesn’t function the same at all. The popularity Standoff has amongst players is undeserved in my opinion. It isn’t a fun map to play on.
> >
> > Standoff is tons of fun. Id rather see more H3 Btb maps return then have maps like Gullitone, boulevards, & the map with one ghost & 1 hog, water on the one side, the name isnt even memorable because i barely plat on it. At least H3 btb maps had tons of vehicle play. Btb heavies should of been a thing too in H5, not sure why ot wasnt.
>
> I agree! Heavies was the best. And Standoff is good too, I think. A lot of the btb maps are truly forgettable.
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274873843883;3:
> > Funny how different people remember things differently. I remember matches on Standoff where a good driver and gunner could lock down the map and make people quit. I couldn’t tell you what the average vehicular kill streak was in Halo 3, but I bet it was just plain too high.
>
> I actually LIKE that vehicles used to be able to wreck house in that way. I feel like a significant part of Halo always used to be the vehicular play; that was a huge contributing factor to the goofy fun side of Halo that’s sort of lacking these days–even with action sack in there. And I feel like vehicles have received an inherent nerf in that weapons have much greater range and accuracy than in Halo 3. You can easily snipe gunners from the back of a warthog or ghost in a way that you just couldn’t before. Add to that the fact that vehicles are just less beefy and the maps are claustrophobic af, and you get the problems we have.
>
> I didn’t mind getting wrecked every once in awhile by another team’s warthog. Part of the fun was getting stuck inside your totally locked down base and doing a team hump dance in submission to the other team. I don’t see that being all that different from getting paired against a really difficult team every other game and just getting dommed on because their players are out-shooting yours. The tools are different, but the experience is the same and ultimately there’s just less variety. A good team (and often just an individual) could take down even a good gunner/driver in Halo 3. Strong vehicles gave less super-star players the chance to do some real damage, and that was part of the fun of them: big team doesn’t need an insane skill gap because it’s -Yoinking!- big team. I think part of Halo 5’s problem in general is that they’ve stripped it down so much for the sake of streamlining its competitive aspects that it’s only fun if you want to try your little heart out. I have fun in Halo 5, but only if I’m really gunning for a win and focusing on my reticle and trying to wreck house. There’s no way to cool off in the game, because the playlists that are supposed to be a bit sillier and less intense ultimately just boil down to shooting galleries–same as in the competitive playlists. I guess that makes sense given that it’s an FPS (lol), but Halo 3 had ways of making that experience feel less static. Oddball, king of the hill, VIP, rocket race, a lot more ctf… These things made going game to game distinct. And vehicles too. Halo 5 didn’t even have a lot of those things for a while. I think it’s great as a shooter, and the competitive aspects are really satisfying to sink your teeth into. There’s just no good way to lean back, it feels like–and that was a big part of old Halo.

Thank you so much.

12

> 2533274795098161;7:
> Halo InfiniteBased on this the next Halo installment should have the following to make vehicles good again, or even better to prior tiles:
> - No advanced movement as core mechanic - Higher life-span than Reach (maybe make it visible on the screen) - Separate life bars - Little damage received by gun-fire - Cooperative mindset (multiple seats, secondary turrets, support roles) - Weak-points - Map design build around terrain and flying vehicles - Interactive level design elements to counter or help vehicles (closed down secondary paths, light bridges, Elephants, EMP towers…)

Well, there was a lot in that I agreed with and a lot that I didn’t, but I’m gonna leave all that aside and just address your upshot.

What you’re describing for Infinite sounds to me like what I remember from Halo 3, which is to say an environment where vehicles run rampant and if you happen to be on foot then forget having any fun because your only purpose for being in that match is to help the driver and gunner get every single vehicle commendation the game has to offer. Unless that happens to be your idea of fun.

I’m not sure I believe that it’s even possible to “balance” vehicular game play with traditional foot soldier golden triangle stuff. I didn’t find the right balance in any of the earlier games and so when Bungie and 343 pushed back with sprint and stickies in loadouts and “paper” vehicles… none of that seemed unfair to me because it can never be made fair, and given that truth I’d rather see them push vehicle combat to the margins than let drivers and gunners take over BTB.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is a way to make it all work together without making vehicle or foot soldiers feel like they’re getting the shaft. But if there is then I’m definitely not seeing it in your bullet points. They sound to me like a recipe for a vehicle-dominated game.

13

> 2533274873843883;12:
> > 2533274795098161;7:
> > Halo InfiniteBased on this the next Halo installment should have the following to make vehicles good again, or even better to prior tiles:
> > - No advanced movement as core mechanic - Higher life-span than Reach (maybe make it visible on the screen) - Separate life bars - Little damage received by gun-fire - Cooperative mindset (multiple seats, secondary turrets, support roles) - Weak-points - Map design build around terrain and flying vehicles - Interactive level design elements to counter or help vehicles (closed down secondary paths, light bridges, Elephants, EMP towers…)
>
> Well, there was a lot in that I agreed with and a lot that I didn’t, but I’m gonna leave all that aside and just address your upshot.
>
> What you’re describing for Infinite sounds to me like what I remember from Halo 3, which is to say an environment where vehicles run rampant and if you happen to be on foot then forget having any fun because your only purpose for being in that match is to help the driver and gunner get every single vehicle commendation the game has to offer. Unless that happens to be your idea of fun.
>
> I’m not sure I believe that it’s even possible to “balance” vehicular game play with traditional foot soldier golden triangle stuff. I didn’t find the right balance in any of the earlier games and so when Bungie and 343 pushed back with sprint and stickies in loadouts and “paper” vehicles… none of that seemed unfair to me because it can never be made fair, and given that truth I’d rather see them push vehicle combat to the margins than let drivers and gunners take over BTB.
>
> Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is a way to make it all work together without making vehicle or foot soldiers feel like they’re getting the shaft. But if there is then I’m definitely not seeing it in your bullet points. They sound to me like a recipe for a vehicle-dominated game.

Thank you for reading all that stuff in first place mate! :smiley:

Back to topic, well, yes! Imho vehicles should have advantages over foot soldiers and/or provide for a central transportation role in CTF, Invasion and Warzone.If that’s not the case vehicles become utterly useless like it was in H4 or in BTB on H5G, and that’s the worst case scenario from my perspective.

At the same time I don’t want the H3 situation back either. I disagree however with having weak vehicles back. That’s not fun to me, no. And that’s why I made that wish list.

First and foremost by separating the driver’s life bar from the one of the vehicle it means damage will add over time. The more it drives around and stays in combat the sooner it will face its demise. By doing so Standoff situations should be avoided. However I just don’t want vehicles to get way too much damage by simple bullet fire like in Reach either. There needs to be at least some sort of weak spot exposed before starting to damage to a vehicle with a BR or AR.

Specialized anti-vehicles weapons like in H3 would be a welcomed comeback as well. Plus I would love to see environmental additions to counter vehicles, similarly to H2A basically. Just imagine light bridges as the main way into a base and you being able to temporarily deactivate it while sending a tank to its doom. Halo Wars docet!^^

With this additions vehicles would have a way bigger impact than in H5’s BTB (I wont even mention H4). They would be a lot more effective in combat, but at the same time they wouldn’t feel as over-powered or unfair like they were in the past.All imho of course!