I am upset about making the BR the same amount of shots as the DMR to kill. When I envisioned the BR and DMR facing off I imagined that the BR would be the Pro weapon and would be faster than the DMR to kill yet require a lot more skill. I still think it will work if the BR has a faster firing rate than the DMR as long as skillful people will be able to kill the non skillful DMR every single time if they land their shots perfectly.
I am not too worried about BRs facing off against DMRs as I’m sure 343 will address this and ensure that the BR reigns supreme and would not turn their back on the competitive community.
The BR in previous Halo games required 12 headshot bullets in order for it to be a 4SK. This added a huge skill gap as landing 12 shots perfectly on a burst weapon is extremely difficult to do. The large majority of players would take 5-6 shots to kill with the BR while the pros reigned with their 4SKs. This is what made the BR into such a skillful weapon. If the BR required 15 bullets to kill and its firing rate was increased along with ammo capacity It would actually turn into a more skillful weapon to use as you would have to land 3 bullets 5 times at a faster rate. This would not even slow down kill times as the halo BR fires 5 shots in pretty much the same time rate as Halo 3 BR fires 4 shots However if the BR is a 13 or 14 shot weapon its skill gap will be destroyed.
If the BR is 13 shots all this will do is remove the ability to be able to skillfully pull a 4SK and make it a 5SK almost every time. This would completely destroy the BR skill gap b/c a player would be able to shoot:
13 Shot BR
1st shot: 3/3 of bullets make contact
2nd shot 2/3 of bullets make contact
3rd shot 3/3 of bullets make contact
4th shot 3/3 of bullets make contact
5th shot 2/3 of bullets make contact.
2nd player has exact same kill time as previous player even though he is more accurate.
1st shot 3/3
2nd shot 3/3
3rd shot 3/3
4th shot 3/3
5th shot 3/3
As you can see even though the second player landed his shots perfectly he is still killed at the exact same time as player 1.
In the case of a 13 shot BR when two BRs face off against each other the skill gap would be drastically decreased and this would be extremely destructive to the skill gap.
In the case of a 14 shot BR a similar thing would happen, but it wouldn’t be quite as detractive from gameplay as a 13 shot BR. However it still wouldn’t allow the skill gap to be at the level that it can be at.
B/C of this I believe that if the BR in Halo 4 is not 15 shots then the skill gap in the game will be destroyed and competitive gaming will not be as existent in the game as past halos.