I figured it was just a crazy mode for exhibition, but at the Halo Reborn panel pains were taken to show how the tank was rebalanced for matchmaking (more effective turret, the cannon round drops with distance, longer pauses between shots).
It was weird when they talked about 'rebalancing' the Banshee so it maneuvers more slowly (and is thus more vulnerable) but fires faster (and is thus more powerful), when the problem most people seemed to have with the Banshee in Reach was that it was simultaneously too powerful
and too vulnerable. It's like they set out to make it even more of a glass cannon than it was before, likely shortening average lifespans for both Banshee pilots and those on foot. That doesn't make sense to me.
Why not make the Banshee more nimble, more challenging to fly and fight (in terms of its maneuvering), and more of a suppression/assistance vehicle rather than being a easy-to-use devastating killing machine for the thirty seconds it can stay in the air before being shredded by small arms?
It seems to be a game where you die frequently, but that's not punishing because you can just jump back in and rack up more points, brah. Comeback kill, you bad thing you! I like slower-paced building of sprees, staying alive, withdrawing from situations to fight another day, while from all the footage I've seen 343 seem to want to make everything as cluttered and hectic as possible.
