Now, before I start, this is all my opinion. I know some of you will have different opinons, and may or may not agree with everything listed below.
I’ve been playing Halo 4 on and off since the game came out on November 6. I really like the game. The game is overall well made. There’s just a few mistakes that 343 made in making this game. If it weren’t for these few things, Halo 4 would be excellent. Now here’s my list of things that made Halo 4 what it is that I think should be changed. TL;DR at bottom.
- The DMR
What can I say? The DMR is a beast. Just, too beast. The rate of fire being faster than it was in Reach, almost zero bloom, extreme effective range, and still retaining the 5 shot kill make it the most powerful weapon in the loadout primaries. These atributes make the weapon, in my opinion, overpowered. Plus, with no descope when shot, you can stay scoped all day and destroy anyone in your path. It’s devastating for the other players on the team that choose not to use it. Now, there’s 3 things that could be done to fix it:
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Nerf it. Easy, cut down the effective range, reduce the RoF, make it a 6 shot kill, and/or increase the bloom. All these, and some combined, would make the weapon a more balanced loadout weapon.
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Make it a map weapon. If they could take it out of the loadouts, maybe (or not, whatever floats their boat) choose one nerf from #1, and make it a map/ordinance weapon, it’d be just fine.
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Remove it. That’d be probably the simplest way to resolve the situation. Some say it’d be a little to radical to just remove it. I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but that’s just me. I never really liked the DMR in the first place when it first made an appearance in Reach.
- Loadout Secondaries
I found it pretty cool to customize what sidearm to start off with at first, but now it’s become not so great. You can choose between the Magnum, which I think should be the only sidearm you can choose for a secondary at the time, Plasma Pistol, which is an EMP master and allows you to start off with the dreaded “n00b combo”, and the Boltshot, which put simply is a little shotgun with big power. Easily, what they could do is just make the other sidearms map weapons and only allow a Magnum secondary sidearm to use. That way, you have to fight to get your EMP or mini shotty.
- The Boltshot’s power
It’s a semi automatic pistol with the ability to deliver an overcharged shot with the power larger than the Shotgun and Scattershot. From many tests and from experience online, the Boltshot’s 1 shot kill range is larger than the 2 map shotguns. And easily, what they could do is decrease the Boltshot’s 1 shot kill range to not as big as the 2 shotguns. Plus, making it a map weapon would be great so that when you’re in CQC, one can not spawn with a shotgun and they have to fight to get their shotguns.
- Armor Abilities
They were a nuisance, of course for me, in Reach. And now they made the unwanted return in Halo 4. Really, I don’t see a place for Armor Abilities in Halo anymore. They were tested in Reach, brought back in Halo 4, and are now beginning to be, like I said before, a nuisance. Just trash them. I’ve already started. None of my loadouts have them, but I think we should guarantee that no one has any.
- Kill Cams
From everyone’s experience, they’re pretty much useless. Most of the time, they aren’t reliable. They show the first person view of your killer, but half the time it shows them shooting like 10 feet to either side of you and not directly at you. They’re really glitchy, and I see no point in them in Halo 4.
- Instant Respawn
It was kind of cool at first, but now it’s not so great. You kill a guy, he respawns instantly, you now have to deal with him again. Or, you die, instantly respawn, and now you don’t have time to think of something else to do without watching the pointless kill cam in some gametypes and more enemies are just around the corner. It’s a lose-lose situation.
- Join in Progress
Once again, another failed project not meant for Halo 4. It obviously doesn’t work very well according to many other user accounts. And, like many have said already, most of the time you’ll end up on the losing side at the end of the game or at the point where it’s no use trying to catch up.
- Flinch and No Descope
Yeah, flinch does impair your ability to aim for a short time, but it’s easy to counteract. And with Stability, you reduce the flinch and now you can stay scoped and mow down enemies all day. This was a bad idea due to all scoped weapons, like the Sniper, DMR, ect. being able to stay scoped and stay on target, thus reducing strain in a firefight. Now, DMRs can cross map with ease, snipers can stay on target, and everyone who’s not staying at a range with a long range weapon is doomed unless they get up close and personal. Descope always tested your ability at a long range engagement in past Halos and was widely accepted. I don’t understand why they had to get rid of it for this.
- No “X” when dead
This was a great indicator that your team needed help where you weren’t at and allowed you to know where oncoming enemies were approaching. Now it’s gone, along with the famous “-on my X” call out that was very useful in past games. Once again, confusion as to why it’s gone.
- Perks
Like most ideas that we learned that would be in Halo 4, these sounded cool for a time. But right now, they aren’t really fitting in to the Halo gamestyle we are used to. Yeah, some are good, like extra ammunition and firepower to have AR and BR starts like Slayer BRs in Halo 3, but a lot are kinda in the way and are game breaking, like extra grenades, more explosive damage, and resupplying grenades. Just adds more hectic grenade spamming to the game. All in all, I could sacrifice extra mags and a BR secondary to have no perks period.
Well that’s all I got for now. I give thanks to those that read through the entire post. But for those who didn’t read through the entirety of the post, here you go:
TL;DR
DMR needs a nerf or needs to go, only Magnum sidearm secondaries (you can still use your firepower perk 
), nerf the Boltshot, get rid of Armor Abilities, Kill Cams, Instant Respawn, and Join in Progress, bring back Descope and “X” when dead, and remove perks.
Thanks for your time. I really hope 343 sees this post and take some of these changes into account. I love Halo 4, but somethings really need to change. Have a nice evening, or day.
