Retribution review and why I feel these Portal makeshifts are ruining good ideas

I think the portal builder is an excellent tool for *the community* and we've already seen some fun and unique experiences coming out of Portal.

But as developers of the game, who have much more resources and a higher control over the game, **should not** be using the Portal builder to release new official game modes.

When Portal was announced, I expected the community to come up with unique ideas, the best of which would then be realized into full fledged game modes with dedicated HUD elements, mechanics, etc.

Retribution and S2's 'Blockade' are perfect examples of a good idea being gimped by the limitations of Portal builder. I was really excited to play Retribution as I've always liked the idea of Conquest having an end objective, and marrying CQ and Rush is a great idea, but there are so many makeshift mechanics in this mode that it makes it extremely unbalanced/unintuitive to play. The lack of dedicated UI/HUD elements for these modes also makes it very difficult to understand the underlying rules of the mode.

Some examples of Retribution's limitations (and possible ideas for rework):

• Overall design
  
  The design of this mode as it stands makes very little sense, as the defenders win every single time in my experience. Ideally you want 'Retribution' to be a sector based gamemode, where each sector acts like a mini conquest round that the attackers must win to progress, with the final sector turning into Rush.
  
  But right now, the attackers run out of tickets by the time they make it to the 3rd sector while the defenders have no real stakes. They can just keep throwing bodies and spamming vehicles until they force attackers into submission. It's unbalanced.
  
  
  
• Vehicle Layout and Balance
  
  A huge problem with the current mode is the vehicle balance and the static layout. The attackers right now have such underwhelming vehicles that you can't really push with them. The new railgun tank is good at camping but it's not designed to be an offensive vehicle by any means. The defenders meanwhile get a gunship, a railgun tank, a MAV and a AA tank which is a ridiculous vehicle combo that will counter every attacker vehicle, and then some.
  
  The vehicle balance is completely broken. If you are going to give one side a gunship, then the other side *needs* to have a AA tank, that should be the rule for every game mode as rock/paper/scissors is at the heart of Battlefield's vehicle gameplay.
  
  The static layout of vehicles is another issue that's down to the portal limitations. The game mode would feel far more interesting and fun if different sectors had different set of vehicles for each team, similar to Rush/BT.

• HUD Elements 
  
  The HUD elements aren't as bad as Blockade as this is a fairly vanilla CQ mode, but they are still mostly makeshift and don't do a good job at explaining the game mode or showing accurate statistics throughout the round. The HQs for example are static and do not move with each sector despite the previous sector being pretty much null as the round progresses.
  
  The ticket count is basically the same as Conquest but it makes no sense for the game mode as it currently stands. The defenders have almost infinite spawns so a ticket count for the defending side makes no sense.
  
  Similarly, the scoreboard does not show Captured/Defended statistics, nor the Armed/Disarmed statistics for the supposed end of round mission (i have never reached the final stage so I don't know how it works).

My Ideal Version of Retribution

• The mode is a true marriage between Conquest and Rush
  
  
  
• Each sector acts as a mini conquest round with ~75 tickets for both sides where you have to hold majority objectives within the sector to bleed enemy tickets down to zero. The sectors can have anywhere between 1 (King of the hill) to 3 objectives.
  
  If Attackers win, the round progresses to the next sector where tickets will reset back to the max amount (+ bonus tickets for killing retreating defenders). If defenders win, the round ends.
  
  
  
•  Each sector may or may not have different vehicle types available to each team, depending heavily on what makes sense for that particular sector.
  
  
  
•  Progressing through sectors locks the previous sector with the attacker HQ moving inwards, keeping the map short and suitable for 16v16.
  
  
  
• If the attackers manage to reach the final sector, the round turns into classic Rush, where attackers can spend ~75 tickets to try and destroy 2 MCOMs.
  
  
  
•  The mode will have unique HUD elements like accurate ticket and objective elements, and the scoreboard would show a unified 'objective' stat that includes both objective captures and MCOM armed/disarmed.
  
  
  
• At the end of the round, the round bonus is determined for each team based on sectors. The more sectors Attackers are able to capture, the higher the bonus will be. Similarly, the fewer sectors that the defenders manage to forfeit, the higher their bonus will be. Victory adds an additional bonus on top of it as usual. 

 I feel this would be a far more engaging game mode than what we currently have and a worthy addition to the CQ variants. With these portal limitations however, I feel a lot of these new modes have no chance of becoming long lasting fan favourites.
I don't imagine modes like Frontlines or Outpost or Chainlink would've been as popular as they are if they weren't full fledged modes.