Is that not still the case though? I mean sometimes ordinance drops will throw in some really good weapons but it never feels like it truly dominates the game.
Ordnance throws way too many power weapons into the mix and rewards players for (usually) camping and not getting involved so much in the game. They create a "must not die" mentality, especially if that person is using a power weapon dropped at the start. People love chaining ordnance and the fact that you can do that is horrible. You just kill people for rewards. You don't really control an area of the map for a weapon spawn and to me that's a horrible decision by 343. You remove the need to at least try and have some team work, and moving about the map becomes pointless.
As a BTB player, with most weapons being anti vehicle now, having more in the mix makes using vehicles a chore. People don't try and tactically move on an enemy hog anymore. They use a power weapon because they usually have one on hand.
As for the whole weapon disparity issue, for the most part people are generally packing a BR or DMR which both generally feel like they have the same damage output (correct me if i'm wrong though, I know they did some balancing).
A lot of the loadout weapons feel incredibly similar and I don't see why we have 3 slight variants of one type of weapon. The only ones that actually vary to a large degree are the pistols. I also dislike the DMR because it doesn't feel anywhere near as satisfying to get kills with and it creates a horrible cross map pinging gameplay. It doesn't feel like Halo to me. People should be moving up a map and controlling key points, and they were forced to do this because the weapon didn't have near sniper capabilities like the DMR does. Once again the emphasis on map movement and control has been lessened drastically.
I personally dislike the balancing myself. I'll probably take some heat for this but I thought kill times, in a situation where neither player decided to run off, were too fast before the TU. Now it's faster which annoys me to no end. I feel that the DMR should have been nerfed.
I love being able to pack a plasma pistol with one of my loadouts just so I can deal with vehicles, or have a boltshot for some one on one combat.
This is probably one of my largest issues with Halo 4. Thanks to loadouts including a Plasma Pistol and 2 Plasma grenades, you basically become a one man army against pretty much all vehicles. This issue is the reason Survivor (new perk in the latest TU) was introduced. This combo is massively overpowered and once again lessens a vehicles impact on the game. There's no more tactical thinking when it comes to taking on that enemy hog. It's just a game of spam the Plasma pistol until you hit, and then spam grenades for a basically guaranteed kill/vehicle kill.
I can see the frustration with the difference in armor abilities though, that can be quite... unpredictable I guess. But never have I ever felt like any of them gave some sort of great advantage or disadvantage in regards to match ups.
Jet Pack destroys map movement and allows players to easily remove the height advantage another player has worked for, all at the push of a button. It makes a lot of maps play horribly if abused and normally results in crap gameplay, in my opinion.
Regen field isn't used much but It's something I don't like as it allows a player to quickly recover from a fight which makes them think a lot less about how they plan on getting to cover to recover from a battle. Not used much though so I don't usually complain about it.
Thruster pack is the only good armour ability in my opinion. It allows for some quick movements and change of direction with breaking map flow, and can be used very effectively if you got a bit of know how. It allows you to make some great decisions in map movement such as speeding up a drop down to a lower level or altering the flight path of a man cannon. It's not as simple as pressing a button and gaining a height advantage.
With all of this variety, it feels like Halo has never been better personally, I would hate for them to backtrack and cut out the capability of personal loadouts in future installments.
I'm glad you're enjoying the game and getting your moneys worth. But there are a lot of people who feel differently which is why we voice our dislike of features in the game, and why some of us want a return to past games. I personally want to hit it back to Halo 3 and try again from that point. I don't just want to go back to a past installment and never have it updated. I feel there are other paths we can go down to make Halo a better, more innovative game. I don't think making people one man armies with loadouts is the way to go. There needs to be a huge balancing when it comes to loadouts. One thing I asked myself on the first week is why on earth 343 saw that the Pulse Grenade was somehow powerful enough to warrant only one on spawn, yet you can get 2 Plasma Grenades? For loadouts to work we need balance. I'm not saying that all the things be the same, but that they don't absolutely decimate.
Then again, I don't even know why I wrote all of this stuff, 70% of the time I'm playing swat
You're just curious as to why people can dislike the game when you find it so fun. It's perfectly understandable.
Well Halo 3 was the first Halo i've ever played at launch with an active community. Should have rephrased that. I started at Halo 1 near launch when a friend got it, later played on the PC with that online community (made an
amateur montage as well). Didn't play much of Halo 2 besides the story and a few online matches (Never stuck with me, least favorite game of the series).
I started on Halo 2. I only ever played Halo 1 on a modded Xbox or in the campaign. Sorry if stuff feels jumbled or whatever. I'm not good at posting walls.