: in all seriousness tough. I'm more then a bit surprised to see you
: complaining about "balance" in MM and requesting everyone have
: the same loadouts. Each time I've played with you, you've been far less
: then fair in "balanced" games. Shooting at team mates because
: they have the gun you want

Now that's BS. I'm not a team killer. If I called a weapon first and someone else grabbed it just because, I might call them an asshole for deliberately wasting my time, but I'm not going to harass or kill them. Besides, friendly fire is disabled in Halo 4 anyway.

: or cursing/swearing and mouthing off EACH TIME
: anyone (at all) gets a kill on you. And almost always quitting games (even
: though your team was winning) because you kept getting killed by a sniper
: or something else.

Yeah, I get frustrated easily and I swear and complain a lot. That's pretty much how I am about everything, not just video games. I'm irritable and foul-mouthed, but I've really been trying to work on that. In any case, my temperament is relevant to the discussion of balanced gameplay... how, exactly? If it's not relevant, then that's just an ad hominem.

: And I'm talking about Custom games as well as MM games.
: Mister "I have the hologram/Camo/PV/Jetpack so I'm going to take
: advantage of it."

Just because I don't approve of a game's mechanics doesn't mean I won't use them to my advantage myself. There's nothing hypocritical about that. You have to use the game's mechanics to your advantage to be able to compete effectively. "Fight fire with fire," and all that. If someone thinks the queen in Chess is OP, that doesn't mean they should never bother using the queen themselves.

: And mowing down players who are less skilled then you.

If the objective is to kill them, then I'm going to kill them. It's not unfair if I get matched up with someone less or more skilled than me, nor is it unfair if I get matched against someone better than me. It's impossible for everyone in a match to be of perfectly equal skill. What is unarguably unfair is if someone won because they spent more time playing the game and had access to better gear and abilities than another person. I'm not good at Chess, but I never thought it was unfair when I got beaten (which is most of the time) because my opponent and I were on a level playing field: same pieces, same arrangement of pieces, same abilities, same rules. You don't start off with just a king and the pawns in Chess and then have to unlock all the stronger pieces, nor can you customize the numbers, abilities, and/or arrangement of the pieces you have. Chess is as symmetrical and balanced as you can get, except maybe Checkers, though Chess is more dynamic and fun.

: I'm not trying to call you out, Shadow ( though I guess I am),

Yeah, you are, and it's not cool. Most of what you posted here is simply an ad hominem attack, plain and simple. Instead of attacking other people's personalities, how about you stick to discussing the validity of their arguments.

: but you ALWAYS
: refuse to play truly balanced games like Swat, FFA, or Snipers. And when
: were thrown into FFA games, you would do nothing but complain the entire
: time even though you were winning! Sorry, buddy, but you really shouldn't
: be complaining about balance when you refuse to play a simple game like
: swat where the only thing that unbalances it is a player's skill.

I don't mind SWAT or Snipers. It's just not my cup of tea. I especially have issues with SWAT due to shots not connecting, but even in LANs or online games with good connections, I generally don't like single-weapon gametypes. I'll play them, but I'd prefer not to. Sure, it's a completely level playing field, but a complete lack of variety can be a bad thing, too. I do try to vote for gametypes in Halo 4 with fixed loadouts or no loadouts fairly regularly. And I don't like FFA because I've had a lot of bad experience, especially with objectives games. There's always that one asshole running around playing it like its a damn Slayer match. That's why when I got my 45 in Lone Wolves in Halo 3 I never touched the playlist again, and that was about two month after launch. A negligible number of my matches (about 0.6%) in Reach were in Rumble Pit, and I think I've played maybe one Rumble Pit Match in Halo 4, and it wasn't voluntary.

: I'm all for balance as well. And the Plasma Pistol does get on my nerves when
: I'm in a tank, ghost, or mantis. But that's where having a friend as your
: wingman comes in handy. Otherwise, if you have so much trouble with being
: "PPed" (still makes me smile) then just don't get into a power
: vehicle. You clearly don't need it to keep your K/D up.

Good teamwork does help. It still doesn't change the fact that Halo 4 is inherently unbalanced.