- Mastery (ability to improve constantly),
- Meaningful Choices (tradeoffs exist regardless of which choice you take, choose the one that mitigates the risk for best reward),
- Counterplay (the player on the receiving end has opportunity to outplay you in most any situation),
- Teamplay (the team covering weaknesses or enhancing the strengths of something),
- Clarity (the game should make information clear to the player, letting them focus on playing the game, rather than tracking obscured variables), and
- Evolution (room for the vehicle's usage in the game should be subject to change dependent upon the metagame of completitive play as players learn each others' tendencies and the vehicle's true capabilities).
Part 1 covered strictly UNSC (Human)
vehicles of Halo's history, so for Part 2...it's time to visit the
enemy's arsenal and hold the Covenant vehicles under the microscope.
So without further ado...
Ghost (Halo 3)
It was a tough
choice for me to pick which title to analyze for the Ghost. The
Ghost underwent significant changes regarding its mechanics each time
it migrated to a new title. And, although the Ghost is strong in a
4v4 environment, it wasn't often that useful in a Big Team
environment, so it was seldom seen as a true terror of a vehicle.
Regardless of the
title you approach, the Ghost's areas of Mastery were still the same
– using the slow(ish) projectile plasma cannons to kill, or using
the boosting ability to run over scrambling infantry. Dealing with
enemy vehicles was rarely a job for a Ghost, as the Ghost's inferior
armor often led to dire situations, unless you were able to get on
the exposed tail of a Warthog and pick off the gunner. The only BTB
map where the Ghost was truly seen to be used effectively in Halo 3
was Rat's Nest, where some teams had a player who would run
interference on spawners or lurkers in the Mauler tunnels in order to
draw attention away from the hot zones of the Kitchens. Only those
who were confident in their Ghost abilities really bothered, but a
well-used Ghost could mean big results.
As far as
Meaningful Choices go, the main one encountered by Ghost drivers is
usually the same: Do I try to gun this player down, or do I try to
time a splatter for him? Sitting still gunning can give rocketeers
time to land the coup-de-grace on your Ghost, but botching an
attempted Splatter often means loss of ownership of your vehicle (or
getting yourself stuck by a Plasma Grenade from the baiting victim).
Bubble Shields made bait even juicier at times, and were a great
magnet for Ghosts (and sometimes Warthogs) to set up a plasma
grenade, where you must have tons of confidence in your abilities
before driving headlong into the safety of the bubble.
The driver's seat
of a Ghost is possibly the most exposed vehicle seat (rivaled only by
the Chopper) in the game – leaving it open to all sorts of
Counterplay from the opposition. You can shoot the driver, snipe the
driver, stick the driver – so long as you aren't looking dead at
him (or more specifically, he's not looking at you). The hoverbike's
agility may mitigate some ability to land shots on the driver, but
it's unlikely the driver will escape unscathed from a situation where
he presents anything but the hulking bulb of an engine at his
enemies. The ability to highjack the Ghost coupled with its usual
reliance on splatters for kills rather than utilizing the
effective-but-not-efficient plasma cannons increases room for
Counterplay with the Ghost by playing a sort of matador mini-game
between the players. One player jumps “Toro, toro!” to bait in
the hoverbike, and prays he can time the next jump or side-step in a
way to ensure he can take away the enemy's precious mobility.
Regardless of whether you've just spawned or have been in combat for
a while, the Ghost's low time to kill with its guns leaves you with
options on how to handle a situation of being run down by the
Covenant bike. Unlike Halo 2 and Reach, however, the Ghost lacks its
signature “weak spot” of the gas tank on the side – where
previously a few shots of the default gun or one shot from the Sniper
to the tank could completely eliminate the Ghost from play, Halo 3
leaves it to taking down the exposed pilot and leaving the vacant
Ghost ripe for the plucking should you wish to attack its weakness.
If worse comes to worse, the final bit of Counterplay for the Ghost
is to simply seek shelter elsewhere – on Rat's Nest, stick to the
bases, the bridge, and the Kitchens. On Last Resort, stick to higher
ground. The Ghost can't fly, so you're safe up high, right?
As far as Teamplay
goes, the Ghost is the icon of the lone wolf – it's a vehicle that
can draw some attention, but most people will ignore it unless it
poses a direct threat to them, so its value as a distraction is not
huge. It doesn't take a team full of players to take down a Ghost,
either. One of the Ghost's best uses from a Teamplay perspective is
the ability to use it in Assault variants to force potential
disarmers off the Bomb area in order to secure a score. Apart from
that, the Ghost neither requires nor encourages much teamplay from
either side.
The only
Clarity-related issue there is to the Ghost in Halo 3 is the
continued existence of its gas tanks on the model while taking away
their status as a weak point from Halo 2. Players coming into the
game from the previous title may expect the weakness to carry over,
but alas, that is not the case. The Ghost's appearance barely
changed, but the function of the gas tank was completely removed,
leaving an out-of-place bit of appearance that doesn't actually do
anything.
In terms of
Evolution of the Ghost's usage over the course of Halo 3, or any Halo
really, the pattern is fairly consistent: players attempt to use it
early in the game's lifespan, learn it's not really useful in 8v8
scenarios, and then abandon it except when they need a faster
transport to a power weapon in certain Big Team maps. Of course,
that doesn't mean there aren't champions of the vehicle, but as far
as being a staple of the metagame, the Ghost is more of a
tactical-use only sort of vehicle, and its presence in Halo 3's BTB
reflected that quite clearly.
Overall, the Ghost
was really a vehicle more tooled toward skirmish/objective-related
4v4 maps, as facing off against smaller forces highlighted the
Ghost's strengths without its weakness being exploitable from almost
any position. When elevated to an 8v8 format, however, the Ghost and
its driver were often too fragile to be formidable, leaving it mostly
only used for transportation except on a map (Rat's Nest) where the
majority of combat took place isolated from vehicles. However, its
design in the 4v4 sense highlights what a Light Vehicle should be
like – strong, but with plenty of avenues for it to be countered.
Wraith (Halo Reach)
How fitting, I
took the “light vehicle” from UNSC in Halo 3 and the “tank”
from UNSC in Halo Reach...and now I'm doing the same for the
Covenant.
When it comes to
Mastery, the Wraith is a vehicle that is at the top of the food
chain. The nuance to the vehicle is something that cannot be taught,
only learned. The angles to fire, when to boost for a splatter, or
how to choose which to choose when that monkey-fucker crests the hill
jumping to attempt to board you. All of these are amassed as a part
of that underwater mental iceberg I like to talk about when
referencing how good a player is. No sane player would be able to
tell you precisely why he aimed there to land that shot with the
Wraith; he did it because it felt right. And he just so
happened to get a triple kill on that flag-loaded Warthog as a
result. The Reach Wraith was strong – especially given its ability
to shoot off boarders with its primary cannon given a proper aim. A
Wraith driver's ability was the difference between tying a game of
anything-on-Hemorrhage and losing a game of anything-on-Hemorrhage.
If you weren't good enough, you'd die, and your team would suffer.
But focusing strictly on the Wraith again, everything about it
encourages kinetic learning of the vehicle's limitations. A
slow-moving, gravity-affected projectile main cannon and a
limited-burst booster for splattering nearby infantry. The vehicle's
mobility was greater than that of a Scorpion, leaving room for
outplaying incoming rockets or Plasma Launcher rounds, but not enough
to prevent a good Warthog run from ending a Wraith's life. In terms
of Mastery, the Wraith is near perfection.
The Meaningful
Choices are mostly tied into Mastery – do you fire at the incoming
boarder, or boost at him – if you're near a hill or a place where
boosting could lead you into yet another member of his team, do you
just let him board you, then fire at the ground and sacrifice a stage
of damage to get rid of the gnat that nipped at your ankles? Knowing
whether to boost or fire, or fire then boost, or whether to focus
downfield with long-range artillery or watch for incoming vehicles
are all a part of the decisions the Wraith pilot must weigh over the
course of his defensive duties. When the enemy Wraith is down, do
you move up to try to bait enemy Sniper fire (to discover his
location and have your Sniper take him out) – or do you stay a
little more patient and wait for a larger advantage before moving up
for a potential flag run? Aggressive positioning of a Wraith
prematurely could lose your Wraith and give your opponents a window
to rebound when their Wraith comes back up before yours, so sometimes
simply keeping yours alive may be the better choice.
As for
Counterplay, the Wraith is a tough nut to crack – its slow turning
speed enables light vehicles to get behind it to its weak spot in its
back vent, and its limited boost potential allows infantry
opportunities to board it, though as mentioned before, the Wraith can
sacrifice some damage to itself to shoot you off if the pilot knows
how. Given the Wraith is often played as a stalwart defensive unit,
its options for counterplay are limited even further. However,
weighed against the Scorpion, the Wraith has more room for error
given its less-ensured kill potential, and a single mistake from the
Wraith driver can mean potential death. As the vehicle also contains
Reach's vehicle health system, sustained DMR fire from a team can
also eventually take down a Wraith, though it requires several clips
in order to do so. Also, there's ALWAYS the Plasma Pistol. (Or Armor
Lock, fuck Armor Lock.)
In terms of
Teamplay, taking down a Wraith or protecting a Wraith as it moves up
onto the map requires team coordination. While a Wraith CAN be taken
down by a one-man covert operation deep behind enemy lines, chances
are Sylvester Stallone will be too busy raking in his Planet
Hollywood money to star in John Rambo: Combat Evolved to take on the
arduous task. Whether you use a bait-and-switch tactic to take down
the Wraith with mobile vehicles like the Ghost and Revenant, or
simply harass from long range with the Warthog turret, the Wraith
encourages a team effort to take it down, especially any time it
moves forward on the map. Its hulking frame being weak to Snipers
also encourages direct teamwork between your Wraith pilot and Sniper
to assist one another in neutralizing the biggest enemy threat. In
the case of the Breakpoint map, teams could elect to sacrifice the
Wraith (blow it up) if they thought their player rushing it would not
be the first to grab it.
As far as Clarity
goes, the Wraith has some good points about it – the back vent, for
example – it's a strange looking area that seems it may be
susceptible to enemy fire...Hot damn, it is! Of course, it suffers
from the same issue the other Reach vehicles suffer from – a
vehicle health system that NEVER TELLS YOU WHAT YOUR VEHICLE'S HEALTH
IS, except in terms of stages. I beat this horse to death last blog,
though, so let's move on. The reticule for firing the Wraith isn't
perfect – it could offer more information such as your current
turret angle, or something along the lines of a distance the mortar
would travel assuming the land ahead is flat – while information
like this would reduce the nuance/mastery level of the best Wraith
pilots, it could help less-experienced drivers better guess where
they need to aim – or help them find the angle they need a second
time should they return to a situation they've been in before. The
previous point is mostly neutral, but communicating information to
the player that can help them make better decisions improves the
potential level of play. After all, the information suggested
wouldn't guarantee a hit – the player still has to play the
situation right, they're just better equipped to read the situation
should it return in the future.
The Wraith's usage
in its two primary maps didn't evolve much over the course of Reach.
Its usage was tied almost entirely into the Mastery of its user or
the standing of the other 7 members of the team controlling it.
Controlling Spine on Breakpoint defense meant the Wraith could move
up to spawn kill, but lacking Spine control meant the Wraith's duties
were usually focused on the main vehicle tunnel at the top of the
map. As mentioned earlier, Hemorrhage Wraith aggression was usually
dependent upon the status of the enemy Wraith, although one of the
unique usages of the Wraith in Hemorrhage Territories was as a
complete meat shield for Territory 3 (near Grassy Knoll) – blocking
bullets for the players capturing the territory.
Overall, the
Wraith is possibly the best-designed vehicle in Halo. It requires
the user to be GOOD to really be effective – and only allows the
user to be GOOD by actually using it and garnering a feel for its
controls and firing mechanism over time. Its mobility is enough to
give it room to outplay others, while also being sluggish enough to
allow it to be outplayed as well. The vehicle health mechanism added
to Halo Reach also allows the Wraith to be susceptible to long-range
sustained fire, preventing it from regenerating its health while
slowly being chunked through stages of damage. Situations of
infantry rushing in close quarters feel engaging for both parties
involved (although the Wraith has a substantial advantage regardless)
and although the Wraith fills the role of the Covenant “Tank” it
feels much more fair to play against than its UNSC counterpart.
(Adding this bit
after I've finished the Wraith section as I forgot it and it'd be
easier to just mention it here: the secondary turret on the Wraith...
this thing is about as useful as a mall cop. Yeah, go ahead and hop
in, Paul Blart, I'm sure you'll be enormously effective in keeping me
from getting boarded! Oh, wait, I can do that on my own. Well, you
can sit there in the enormous hovering baby walker and entertain
yourself by shooting at the wall, because God knows that turret's
about as accurate as a platoon of Storm Troopers at any sort of
range. Seriously, please stop putting secondary turrets on the
fucking tanks unless they're going to DO something. Tanks aren't
mobile enough to justify wasting a second body to use in a piss-ant
turret. Stop it.)
Chopper (Halo 3)
“Master Chief,
that Ghost is operating without core containment!”
“That can only mean one thing... Gorram Reavers!”
No, but seriously, if the Reavers from the Firefly/Serenity universe were to move into the Halo universe and modify a Ghost, you would have the Brute Chopper. The thing is a fucking monster that, while it looks like a Ghost, operates in an entirely different capacity.
“That can only mean one thing... Gorram Reavers!”
No, but seriously, if the Reavers from the Firefly/Serenity universe were to move into the Halo universe and modify a Ghost, you would have the Brute Chopper. The thing is a fucking monster that, while it looks like a Ghost, operates in an entirely different capacity.
There's a vast gap
between a Champion of the Chopper and even a veteran of the vehicle.
Mastery of the Brute bike was not easy – the thing's momentum and
handling made controlling the beast a task in and of itself. On the
open maps like Sandtrap (or Standoff Heavy or 1SO on Avalanche), the
Chopper was a threat to any vehicle – even those in the sky –
hell, a Chopper can SPLATTER Banshees and Hornets if it hits a jump
the right way. On the Sandbox variants, the Chopper's power was an
entirely different entity – sitting back like an unassailable
artilleryman, feathering the trigger to fire long range harassment
shots to keep people off the tops of bases and from pushing in the
open. No aggression was ever required from the Chopper on Sandbox –
just sit back, stay alive, and you will always have to be a
consideration of the opposition. The Chopper wasn't really able to
be killed on the map unless a lucky Rocket landed or it let the
Missile Pod stay locked on a moment or two too long. But even with
the simple task of “stay back, stay alive” there was a marked
difference between good Chopper drivers and GREAT Chopper drivers. I
harp on Gamesager's Banshee prowess a lot – but Fall of Reach was
just as good when it came to the Chopper. There were countless games
where his Chopper simply could not be taken down and his team came
out victorious on the map as a result.
Unlike the Ghost,
Meaningful Choices for the Chopper rarely related to splattering
infantry – the Chopper's guns were much more powerful versus
isolated infantry, so simply staying back and gunning them down was
more efficient. Engaging an enemy Chopper often had the choice
available of going for a Splatter, if you got behind in damage and
simply wanted to go for a trade of kills (double-suicide splatter).
The Chopper was stronger playing defensively and focused on
interception on larger maps, able to plug Keyhole from any vehicle
aggression on Avalanche, or able to control the Rocket-side Dip and
keep the map clean of rogue Warthogs. If an enemy light vehicle got
onto your tail, you had the option to try to escape into cover and
engage when they followed, or to whiptail and head straight into
them, using your thresher-like wheels to crush their vehicle and
their dreams. Sorry kids, there's no Santa Claus...or Easter Bunny.
On the open maps,
Counterplay for the Chopper centered around the same weakness of the
Ghost – the pilot is heavily exposed on the rear, while the vehicle
itself has a hulking front that protects him from whatever he's
looking directly toward. Frag grenades were also much stronger
against the Chopper than other vehicles, since throwing the Chopper's
momentum off meant forcing a spin out that would leave him disabled
almost like an EMP for a moment. On Sandbox, however, there was
almost no Counterplay for the Chopper, as I mentioned in the Mastery
section, save for lucky Rockets or Missile Pod usage. The bastard
would move out to the dunes, position his wheels toward the enemy
base, and be protected from any attempts at long range BR fire. Had
the game been like Halo Reach and vehicle damage could kill it, the
Chopper could've been whittled down until it was disabled, but since
Halo 3 had no such mechanic, the Chopper on Sandbox was a stifling,
overpowered mess of a harassment vehicle. It could stop any Warthog
in its tracks with the physics-heavy weapons that sent a Warthog
flying, so the only other vehicle on the map couldn't counter it, and
it could stay back out of range for any other weapon to truly be
effective against it. It was a nightmare playing against a team with
a good Chopper on their roster.
The Chopper itself
on Sandbox though was a great assistant for Teamplay – weaken the
people in an area, tell your team to push. Clear enemies off the top
of the base so your team can push. It was great for racking up
assists and a few kills but ensuring your team had the advantage. On
Sandtrap, the vehicle was more a lone-wolf style of play, but putting
your Chopper on defense in Flag meant the rest of your team could
generally play a bit more freely, since the Chopper's ability to stop
Warthogs and Mongooses was strong enough to rely on for defense,
should anything slip past your Spartan Laser user. The Chopper was
great at locking down areas of the map to free up your team to focus
elsewhere, knowing they wouldn't be giving up much where the Chopper
was patrolling.
There's one issue
of Clarity for the Chopper, which also applies to the Halo 3 Hornet,
and it's something that all the best users of those vehicles knew:
holding the trigger isn't the fastest rate of fire for the vehicle.
Feathering the trigger allowed you to fire faster. How's a player
supposed to know this outside of experimentation or being told by a
source outside the game? They aren't. Bad Clarity. Apart from
that, everything about the Chopper is communicated pretty clearly by
its visual design – the spiked wheels suggest you may not want to
drive straight into it, lest ye become spare parts and the wheels
turning sideways as you turn suggest the handling may not be the
best. The Chopper's role is made pretty clear the first time you see
its weapons in action against a vehicle, as the poor helpless bastard
gets sent into a death roll from which there is no recovery prior to
being blown to smithereens.
The Evolution of
the Chopper depended on the map and the player/team using it. On
open maps, some preferred to use it aggressively to stop vehicle runs
before they started, some saw it as a stalwart defense. On Sandbox,
there was a sort of arms race between the safest defensive positions
and ways to get the missile pod-wielder in position to take down the
Chopper. The best Chopper pilots stayed ahead of the curve, and as a
result, stayed alive. The other unique evolution of the Chopper was
strictly on Sandtrap – where, originally in high level games, teams
would simply Laser the Banshee rather than rushing for it (meaning,
the 1-3 people on the enemy team rushing for it were suddenly put
without a task, and thus their manpower was wasted), it was
eventually realized the Chopper could fit the same role, flipping and
eventually destroying the Banshee faster than a Mongoose or Warthog
could reach it. Either way, top teams avoided the initial Banshee on
Sandtrap and elected to blow it up instead.
It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of anti-vehicles, it
was the age of suppression, it was the epoch of patrolling, it was
the epoch of artillery – in short, the Chopper was such a massively
different vehicle depending upon the map, that I insist on its being
received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of
comparison only. (That's right, I just gave you a Dickens reference
in my blog.) The Chopper is truly a marvelous design in that its
usage was so versatile depending on the map's geometry, though it is
unfortunate the vehicle was so overpowering and oppressive on
Sandbox. If the vehicle existed in a more recent Halo, the power
would not have been as great, since it could've been whittled down.
Regardless, the Chopper is a monument to beautiful vehicle design.
Revenant (Halo Reach)
The Revenant was
the bastard child of the Wraith and the Ghost. An agile artillery
vehicle that packed a punch. It was Reach's replacement for the
Chopper as there were no Brute vehicles in Reach. It ended up being
used in a substantially different niche, however.
Mastery of the
Revenant wasn't as pronounced as mastery of the Wraith or Chopper.
The Revenant's faster movement speed, projectile speed, and rate of
fire made it much easier to use the main weapon than the Wraith.
Missing isn't as punished, and should you get in over your head, you
can usually flee without much consequence. The prevalence of Armor
Lock in matchmaking made attempting to splatter with the Revenant the
equivalent of rolling dice – one wrong decision meant one dead
Revenant. But patience circumvented the issue and baiting out a
player's Armor Lock gauge made the roads a bit safer for more
reckless driving. The Revenant wasn't so much a vehicle for
dominating your opponents (passenger bug aside, I'll address later)
as it was a tool for intercepting advancing enemies without putting
yourself at much risk of death.
The Revenant's
superb handling and mobility mitigated several of the Meaningful
Choices the Chopper had to make regarding when to boost – the
Revenant was fast enough to rarely have to worry about a situation
that didn't involve a power weapon. The only risky choice a Revenant
ever really had to make was whether or not to pick up a passenger
while a Wraith was looming nearby. If you got a passenger into the
Revenant, you had a good chance to escape with the flag (though, the
DMR's accuracy made it quite strong for taking down a passenger and
stop the flag run). Really the only choice a Revenant worried about
was whether or not to splatter the guy who hasn't used his armor
ability in front of you yet. Because it was always a gamble to find
out the hard way whether or not he had Armor Lock.
Counterplay for
the Revenant is difficult to measure. Without the existence of Armor
Lock (read: in BTBnet settings), the Revenant is given free reign as
a splatter-mobile and can be a bit more careless in its
decision-making. The DMR is able to inflict damage into the
Revenant, however, and Reach's permanent vehicle health damage
ensured that attempting to do so enough would eventually whittle the
bastard down. Even if your Warthog got taken down by the Revy, as
you drove it to the levee, you wouldn't come up dry. The chain gun's
damage would stick with the Revenant until your next run, increasing
your chance of coming out ahead the next time. Still, the Revenant
was a powerful vehicle and essentially a mini-tank with ridiculous
agility, and could be a major thorn in the side if not dealt with
quickly. Reach's nerfed Spartan Laser and preference to include the
Plasma Launcher on maps gave the Revenant a little more wiggle room
compared to Halo 3 vehicles, even for a side that was behind.
The major points
of Teamplay for the Revenant focused around using its agility as an
objective carrier or abusing a bug present in all passenger seats in
Halo Reach. Although it applied to the Warthog/Mongoose as well, the
bug was given the nickname “The Revenant Bug” because it was in
the Revenant it was first discovered that the aim assist for headshot
weapons was given enormous weighting to grant almost a guaranteed
headshot...and this included the Sniper. Putting your Sniper into
the Revenant and driving around meant easy sniper kills (although, it
also usually meant you were picking on weaklings.) This bug wasn't
practical to abuse in high level play, but several clips circled the
BTB community showing off the enormous Sniper sprees players could
rack up against teams of randoms. Apart from those aspects, the
Revenant's teamplay usually revolved around keeping threats away from
the Wraith and patrolling the map to stop flanks. Teamshot could
take the bastard down, but it took enough bullets to discourage
trying unless you were safe from other infantry fire.
Clarity, Reach,
Dead Horse, vehicle health. SHOW US HOW MUCH DAMAGE OUR VEHICLE CAN
TAKE BEFORE THE NEXT STAGE OF DAMAGE. SHOW US WHEN/IF THAT DAMAGE
REGENERATES. Everything else about it was pretty clear cut. Your
remaining boost amount was tied to the Armor Ability gauge, and the
reticule even has an indicator to let you know how long until you can
fire again (it blinks three times). So apart from the dead horse
complaint, the Revenant does a fine job of letting the player know
what's what.
Unlike the
Chopper, the Revenant's usage didn't vary much depending upon the
map. In fact, because of its mobility and mortaresque firing
mechanism, it wasn't really as useful on the smaller or medium-sized
maps as the Chopper. As far as its usage on the maps where it was
utilized, it was fairly predictable, but there was always room for
individual decision-making regarding how to utilize the fuchsia
bullet. Individual playstyles mattered more for its deployment than
a strict metagame of players, so the Revenant was a vehicle of
freedom of choice. And given its mobility, it had plenty of choice.
The Revenant was a
fun vehicle to use, but overall it felt like it lacked a clear
identity. It wasn't as strong as the Chopper in anti-vehicular
duties (though, given Reach's implementation of vehicle health, it
isn't as though that niche was a necessity), and its mobility and
inclusion of a passenger seat made it outshine the niche of the
Warthog as an objective delivery driver, while also carrying superior
firepower. The vehicle was less like a light vehicle and more like a
light tank, with all the mobility of a Ghost. It was almost as
though the Reach designers realized how powerful the Chopper had
actually been and tried to find a way to match that while attempting
to design something intended for more aggressive use. I'd almost
compare the Revenant to new champion designs in League of Legends –
it had an overloaded kit designed to rival other champions' mobility
while having higher damage potential and extra utility, to make sure
it got used as much as possible. It was a case of having too much,
though it was balanced by the power of the DMR in 8v8 settings. And
Armor Lock. Fuck Armor Lock.
Banshee (Halo Reach)
I know I'm pretty
centered around Halo Reach for this. Kinda funny, as much as we
voice disdain for Halo Reach, when my former team and I reminisce
about the different Halos, we realize a lot of the good things Halo
Reach gave us. That's right, I said Halo Reach had some good things.
(A shame it got buried under bloom and armor abilities and a 3x zoom
heavy aim assist weapon.) Anyway, to the point... The Halo Reach
Banshee seemed weak to most players. It seemed to fly like a brick.
Attempting to use the primary guns got you shot out of the sky and
melted by DMR fire. The Halo 3 flight method of sitting at the
ceiling of the map and reigning down plasma like napalm was no longer
a viable strategy. Then came Gamesager (the most prominent of good
Banshee pilots – don't get me wrong, there were other good Banshee
pilots...but if you ask a Reach BTB player to name a Banshee pilot,
you will ALWAYS get the response of Gamesager.) And then the Reach
Banshee's secrets were unlocked.
Mastery. Oh lord,
the difference between someone who hopped in the Banshee because
there was a Banshee and someone who actually knew how to use the
Banshee. Mastery is the
selling point of the Halo Reach Banshee. Top pilots controlled
games. If you let an Ace pilot get in a Banshee, you fucked over
your team. If you didn't immediately have your Sniper dump his
entire clip into the Banshee, you fucked over your team. When a top
pilot got in the Banshee, there was no more DMRing it. Aerial
acrobatics were a must – if you stopped flipping, your armor
started melting. Of course, timing your flips was also important,
flipping as you fired a Banshee bomb accelerated the missile as well
as increased the aim assist. If you flipped randomly, you couldn't
ensure you were picking off stragglers with ease in the process.
Even on a map like Tears of Joy with its neutral Banshee and hugely
open sightlines, an ace pilot could stay alive long enough to reach
Rampage sprees or beyond. Paradiso was controlled by the better
Banshee, where although the Scorpion could take it down in one shot,
a pilot with balls and skill could neutralize the enemy Scorpion and
set up for full control of the mountain.
The
Mastery spilled over into Meaningful Choices. Enemy has Laser, you
don't have to be afraid. Hell, you're so goddamned acrobatic you can
dodge it, right? No need to fear the lock-on mechanisms of the
Plasma Launcher and Rocket Launcher. Those are just for Falcons.
Just flip, you're free of locks! The Banshee was so feared on Spire,
some offensive-side teams made the ultimate choice: They would lift
3-4 players to top Spire and unload their DMRs into the Banshee to
ensure that no one got it off the start. As your health whittled
down to dangerous levels, it became a question of whether you
continue to make bomb runs and lose the Banshee or keep lurking in
the shadows for an opportunity to make a safer assault. If the
enemy's Sniper was active, do you wait for him to burn his shots on
infantry, or do you fly free from fear, hoping he doesn't choose to
target you (note: 5 shots from a Sniper would kill a Banshee.)
In
terms of Counterplay, the options for a regular soldier against a
-good- Banshee were highly limited. Your DMR could put in damage,
(and, unlike Halo 3, where the SMG and AR were more effective against
the flying menace, actually using your DMR was better, since it dealt
more damage to the vehicle.) but mostly it was the equivalent of
buzzing mosquitoes and simply made the Banshee retreat to regenerate
the invisible health before a stage of damage was taken before
retaking the skies and smiting the nuisances with the green bolts of
doom. If you didn't have a Laser, a Sniper, a Banshee of your own,
or a Tank...your chances against a Banshee were nearly zero. Your
best bet in matchmaking occurrences was to Armor Lock to survive the
Banshee Bomb and then resume shooting it until it fled or bled.
Teamplay:
EVERYONE SHOOT THE BANSHEE. SERIOUSLY, JUST LOOK UP AND SHOOT IT.
IGNORE THE OTHER 7 MEMBERS OF THE TEAM, SHOOT THE BANSHEE. This may
sound ridiculous, but that's basically what the communications of a
team left on the wrong side of an asymmetrical Banshee situation
sounded like. If you left the Banshee alone, you lost. If you
ignored the other 7 members and focused the Banshee, you may stop the
bleeding before you gave up an objective or fell into insurmountable
leads in Slayer, but oftentimes, unequal Banshee usage meant game
over. As far as using the Banshee, its teamplay encouragement
revolved around communicating the status of enemy threats – Tank,
Laser, Sniper. Find out where those are, fly elsewhere, or fly
straight at them and kill them, depending on whether you thought the
Banshee's boosters could support the weight of your enormous medicine
balls for testicles or not.
Clarity.
Reach. Dead Horse. Vehicle Health. Yadda yadda yadda. Once
again, the Reach UI makes it visible when you'll be able to fire
again (there's a small bar that fills up on the Banshee Bomb's
reticule). The Boost mechanism is communicated through the Armor
Ability slot. It's a little unclear upon first entering the Banshee
that there are two weapons – there's no indicator apart from the
reticule to show which of the two weapons you have active. If you
are coming straight in from Halo 3, you may wonder how to use your
Banshee Bombs, which were tied to the melee button in the previous
title (though, to highlight the step up in Clarity, Halo 3 didn't
show how long it took for a Banshee Bomb to recharge). Some sort of
UI inclusion to explain there are two weapons would be a nice help to
ease newer players into the vehicle. Furthermore, the aforementioned
“accelerated Banshee Bomb” from flipping is also not something
made clear to the player – though I suspect it is a bug with a
similar source as the Halo 4 “super grenade” that was patched
out, and therefore not something the developers were aware existed.
The
Banshee's Evolution in Reach was simple: Get good, kid. If you
learned how to fly as well as the best pilots, you were a major force
on the battlefield. If you couldn't fly, you were a deadweight in
the sky. You were fired years ago, but somehow through a glitch in
payroll you still drew a check. Better hope an enemy doesn't fix the
glitch. It's hard to overstate it, but a good Banshee pilot
dominated games. Period. The forward flips while boosting, the
flipbombs, the daring bomb runs with
seemingly-narrow-but-not-really-all-that-close escapes were all made
possible entirely by the user's aptitude with the Banshee. And being
able to pull those off meant you could rack up easy Running Riots or
Inconceivables or whatever spree you really wanted depending on how
cautious you decided to be.
Seriously
though, if you want a vehicle with a near-limitless skill ceiling
that highlights even a marginal difference in skill between two
pilots, the Banshee is the pinnacle of design in that regard. Was it
overpowered? Absolutely. Was that a good thing, given Reach's
vehicle health mechanics? Maybe. It may have been a little on the
too-tough-to-handle end of the spectrum, but that's not necessarily a
bad thing, given it required a huge time/skill investment to get that
good with the Banshee. It was seriously an artform that, even at the
end of Reach's lifespan, I could count on one hand the number of
pilots who had reached the level of Ace pilot. As a competitive
player, the frustration of being destroyed by the Banshee was
outweighed by the admiration for the level of skill required to
utilize the vehicle in such a dominant manner. Granted, weighing it
against unorganized play and unskilled players would DEFINITELY push
it into the zone of “too stronk pls nerf.”
Spectre/Prowler
(Halo 2/Halo 3)
I'm
doing a two-piece for the last vehicle, because both attempted to
fill a similar niche. They were a 4-seat vehicle in an 8v8 game mode
that rarely got used in the manner they were intended. The turrets
were ineffective against competent opponents, and the side seats were
rarely a place you'd want to be unless you were in an objective
gametype and some idiot decided to drive the Spectre or Prowler. I
will offer the caveat that I haven't played Halo 2 in 8 years, so I'm
a bit rusty on the Spectre, but for the most part, the only thing I
recall it being used for was climbing the wall on Coagulation to get
into the Sniper nest spot on one side of the map.
Mastery
of the Spectre/Prowler... It's like driving a Warthog that can't
actually deal damage at range. So you've got a greater chance of
being stuck, a greater chance of getting in too deep, and a greater
chance of just being absolutely fucked over. The Spectre had some
decent mobility, and wasn't as affected by terrain as the Warthog,
but its primary cannon was shit. It was a rapid-fire plasma cannon,
with standard plasma projectiles. It's good for dropping shields,
but actually finishing the kills meant having ridiculous accuracy,
and with the slower projectile speed plasma weapons have, it's hard
to actually get a kill beyond being in close. The Prowler mitigated
that SLIGHTLY in two ways – it put the turret up front (means,
you're a little closer to the target your driver is trying to deliver
you to), and it replaced the frame of the vehicle with a doom sled.
Most often, when you saw a player on HaloCharts with a high amount of
Prowler kills, they weren't from the turret – Bungie paid so little
attention to the vehicle in its design that it counted both splatters
and turret kills as the same weapon...and the enormous block of a
front the Prowler had made it great for splattering. In fact,
although the Chopper was known for its ability to Splatter anything,
the Prowler, used properly, could splatter a Chopper. It was that
scary.
The
only Meaningful Choice for a Spectre is “Don't.” Don't get in.
Don't attempt. Don't drive. Don't waste your time. The Prowler's
adjustments to the design gave it a little bit more leeway. Again,
the hulking front made passengers a bit safer from damage, and the
vehicle's penchant for splattering made it a fantastic tool for the
variant One Bomb on Sand TARP. Deliver the Bomb, use Doom Sled to
splatter anyone off of it. Win round. But mostly, either vehicle
was dead weight. The Prowler just gave you better potential to run
over foes who underestimate the Prowler's size and speed.
Countering
the Spectre and Prowler is as simple as ignoring them. Okay, not
completely ignoring them, they CAN kill you. They just probably
won't. I mean, they've got those useless plasma turrets. Just stay
away from the roads where they can splatter you and you're pretty
much safe from them. They can't turn on a dime, so stick to lateral
movements when attempting to escape. Their frames are huge, throw a
Plasma Grenade. It's not difficult to deal with a Spectre or
Prowler. And, if they were dumb enough to load up to the T, then
congratulations on your Killtacular / Overkill (depending on the
game) that was just gift-wrapped for you and delivered by the Sleigh
of Sangheili Claus. Hey, I only said SANTA doesn't exist.
Teamwork
makes the Dreamwork. But while you may think you're on the Road to
El Dorado, you're really on your way to being Shrekt if you attempt
to seriously utilize the Spectre or Prowler. They're too weak to be
effective. Seriously, you'd have better luck trying to learn How to
Train Your Dragon than trying to drive a gunner for either of these
vehicles to get kills. Unless your opponents are straight out of the
jungles of Madagascar and just learning how to play video games for
the first time, you're better off ignoring these vehicles and
sticking to playing the game on foot. Or, if you remember the “Halo
True Men of Genius” series, being “Mr. Take Off In the Warthog
with No Gunner Man” – except in the case of the Spectre or
Prowler, you may actually be a true man of genius by doing so. Hell,
you may even call yourself MegaMind as you roam the dunes of Sand
Tarp in a lone Prowler, splattering the Nomadic Spartans attempting
to walk the earth a bit. But seriously, these vehicles suck (in
terms of effectiveness.)
To
be honest, I couldn't actually remember if the Spectre had a booster
or not and looked up some YouTube videos to refresh my memory (it
appears to). Not that it matters much, you don't need to know if the
Spectre can boost or not to know it's as effective and likely to
enact change and reform the status quo as a third-party Presidential
candidate. Regardless, the Clarity of the vehicles is somewhat cut
and dry. The Spectre's side seats are a bit easier to recognize than
the Prowler's (which, in Sand Tarp bomb, were sometimes problematic
attempting to find and get your bomb carrier on in a timely manner.
The Prowler's front design does suggest it's not a wise idea to run
into – the teeth/mouth appearance make it seem it eats smaller
vehicles for breakfast. The turret's reticule is static, although it
has a very apparent Bloom mechanism behind it if you hold down the
trigger as opposed to pulsing it. I'm honestly not sure why a plasma
turret has bloom given the (relative to bullets) slow travel time of
the projectiles – it's hard enough to get the bead on your
opponents to START hitting them, why make it even harder by
introducing randomness?
The
Evolution of these vehicles...well, let's just say they were taught
Evolution by Red State schools deep in the Bible Belt, and leave it
at that. It's just nonsense, that's all.
Overall,
these are less effective Warthogs with a less clear purpose (why are
there TWO passenger seats?) and more exposure to danger (gunner in
Spectre is highly exposed, driver on Prowler is). The one advantage
the Prowler has over the Warthog is how protected its gunner is, but
given the Plasma's comparatively weaker damage versus vehicles, a
Warthog still has the advantage. Still, most players who insisted on
using either vehicle used them alone, relying on the mobility and
potential for splattering over actually attempting to utilize the
guns. I'm going to say it one more time: Plasma Turrets in Halo
suck. They don't do anything effectively. If they had an effect of
stunning vehicles like Halo: CE's Plasma Rifle stunned players, maybe
it'd be better, but... since they do not, it's a moot point.
That's
the end of my two-part series analyzing Halo's vehicles versus Riot's
6 core gameplay design tenets. I know it was a lot of words; I tried
to weave in some humor and pop culture references to add brevity and
make it worth the read. If you read it and disagree with anything or
think I've missed something, PLEASE, comment below or message me some
feedback – I'd love to hear it. It's how I can grow as a game
designer and competitive gamer.
I
hope those of you who made it through this 21 page, 14,000 word
thesis of a rant enjoyed the ride. Because unfortunately, the game
didn't tell us how much vehicle health we had left and now we're
about to blow u
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