Vehicle combat was a staple of Bungie's Halo games and they largely complimented those games' sandboxes. They've approached Destiny's vehicle combat with a very similar philosophy, but I believe it has fallen short of delivering the same gameplay experience. Many Destiny players will agree that Bastion, First Light and now Skyshock are the weakest PvP maps in the game. The following reasons illustrate why this is the case: [b]1. Players in Destiny are more powerful than Vehicles.[/b] This is the biggest issue with Destiny's vehicle combat. When Bungie designed Halo, vehicles were considerably stronger than the player. This made them desirable because in order to take out a vehicle, you had to either grab a power weapon off of the map or hop in another vehicle. This is not true of Destiny. If a vehicle is on the map, I can simply switch to my Sniper rifle and pick off the exposed pilot. Or I can just as easily glide in the air and Nova Bomb it or pick it off across the map with a Golden Gun. Hell, I had a Titan Sparrow his way behind my Interceptor and chain right into a Fist of Havok to destroy it (which was admittedly cool). Point is, there are a million ways to kill vehicles off of your spawn, and hopping in one just makes you an easier target, therefore the incentive is lost. [b]2. Destiny's vehicles require large amounts of space.[/b] If anyone went back to The Master Chief Collection after playing Destiny for so long, you probably had the same reaction as me when you hopped in a vehicle: [i]Why can't my Mongoose boost? Why is the Ghost boost so slow?.[/i] The Sparrow, Pike and Interceptor are ridiculously fast, so they require a lot of space to drive on. These wide open spaces are seldom traveled by players because of how easy it is to die in the game. So to echo my first point, you have wide spaces players don't want to move around in, and vehicles players don't want to use. This means vehicle maps largely consist of untraveled, dead space. [b]3. Players can spawn with Snipers in Destiny.[/b] It's well known that Bastion, First Light and now Skyshock are havens for long-distance sniping, and this compounds the problems above. We have all this dead space that is not being patrolled by vehicles - dead[i] flat[/i] space I'll add - and players don't want to get in a vehicle because you die in them so often. So everyone finds a rock and pitches their tent. When Bungie built vehicle maps in Halo, these weapons were few and located in neutral locations. Now that everyone has them (on top of invisibility), it limits the player's ability to roam about the maps. The reason this is such a problem, especially on Skyshock, is because Destiny's maps often do not follow the [i]Principle of Visual Clarity[/i]. This is the ability of a player to discern other players from the environment. Because Skyshock's palette is a mix of reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues and browns, it's difficult to see players at a distance. Bastion and First Light are more monotone, but the glare of the sniper blends in with the former and the latter masks its draw distance with a light haze. [b]4. Players spawn far away and out in the open.[/b] When is the last time you spawned inside a building on one of these maps? Multiplayer Design Lead Lars Bakken mentioned in IGN's First Light Tour that they spawn players on the edges of the map to "keep you safe and remind you that you have your Sparrow". Each of the vehicle maps have entire areas created specifically for spawning you this way. What we instead see more often is players being spawn killed or spawn killing others with their snipers. On First Light especially, you'll often be shot in the back after a player spawns behind you. [b]5. Not much incentive to move around the map.[/b] Well, Bastion nearly does in that B Room is a hotspot largely sheltered from long-ranged snipers and vehicles while remaining open, but you're still running into the aforementioned problems. These infantry routes are disconnected from one another to give vehicles the opportunity to intercept players on foot (no pun intended). Why go to these positions though when I can just as easily find a rock, pull out Patience and Time, and watch all the people foolish enough to jump towards these buildings? There [i]is[/i] actually a way for vehicle combat to work in Destiny, and I don't think it involves taking a player's preferred loadout or playing style away from them. Rather, Bungie will need to take a vastly different approach to the way the maps are built, and maybe even redesign the vehicles. [quote][b]-Vehicle maps need to be visually clear so that players can discern other players at a distance. -Vehicle maps need desirable positions for infantry so that being on the outskirts of a map is less advantageous than being at a position worth fighting over. A power position that promotes movement is not the same as a building that encourages you to camp. -Vehicle maps also need to take advantage of natural terrain elevation to break up some of the ridiculously flat lines of sight. This terrain elevation will also serve as a desirable position on the map for infantry. -The spawn hives on the outskirts need connecting paths that allow infantry safe routes back into the action. -Lastly, these maps shouldn't be so HUGE. Skyshock feels like an expansion to the Old Russia patrol. These maps play very slowly with 12 players and I don't think adding more players (and therefore more snipers) is going to help. Instead of making flat spaces, the paths need to coil and connect more intelligently. Vehicles and Infantry should be weaving around, above and below each other in ways that makes the map size comfortable. Introducing more vertical playing space is the best way to shrink the map size and increase the pace of matches.[/b] [/quote] Anyway, that's my lecture. I'd appreciate if any Bungie folks can chime in with their goals and improvements for the vehicle gameplay.