: Your idea is interesting, but many people have known and accept this is the
: way it is. They designed the entire encounter around this idea, so it's
: not changing. As most have said, it sucks, but that's why holding the area
: is what's important.

Some encounters you can't hold the area for though, as there are just too many avenues or too much range to cover. I've glanced through most of the thread and in discussions with some other people I've come to the conclusion that distributed points with a kill bonus would be preferable. You still have some risk/reward, but I've had Warzone games where someone from the enemy team just shows up with a Splaser at the last second on every single legendary boss. It motivates un-sportsman-like gameplay.

I actually like the suggestion of a tug-of war bar, as well as the fill up meters as damage is done. The model that I discussed with my friends was sectional rewards. Currently I think a Legendary boss is 125 points. For every 20% (partials round, ties split) of boss health you deal you are awarded 20 points at the Boss Kill, and the team that deals the final blow gets the 25 point bonus.

So if your team does 20% of the damage and lands the killing blow, you get 45 points. Enemy team gets 80 points. You do 30% of the damage and your team gets 55 points, and the and the enemy team gets 70 points. At 31% your team gets 65 points and the enemies get 60 points. If you lock down the area and do 91% of damage and land the killing blow, you get 125 points.

Same ratios work for non-legendary bosses. (In these examples it would be 9:16, 11:14, 13:12, and 25:0 respectively.)

A model like this, due to potentially more even distribution of points, will lead to more robust games (reaching REQ 8-9 more often) as well as could open up more frequent Boss encounters, or the inclusion of points for non-Boss AI kills. Currently one of the biggest failings I consider for Warzone is that the AI combatants aren't really all the well implemented. There are no cross map patrol routes for them. And it's the same pattern every time.

And while it's disappointing that the encounters feel designed around kill stealing, that really doesn't mean that they can't change it. Warzone for all intents and purposes feels terribly under tested (I don't get an assist for doing 99% of the damage to AI combatants or for having them killed out from under me during an assassination? How does that make sense) and 2 of the 3 maps don't support the Base Sway turn-around win that was lauded as a way to win games even when you're losing - they just support spawn trapping and farming Spartan kills.