There has been much discussion around the Plasma Pistol and its role in Halo 5 on these forums. The large majority agrees the Halo 4 implementation was flawed, and many advocate it be removed as a starting weapon based because of the various flaws. Some of these flaws include, but are not limited to, availability as loadout option, weak vehicles and long shield recharge times.
As a proponent of personalized loadouts (but NOT Halo 4’s implementation, which I consider flawed) I think the plasma pistol can work as a loadout weapon – if significant changes are made. I propose the following changes are made to the overall multiplayer game, for the sake of improved gameplay and a more interesting and enjoyable plasma pistol.
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Charge time = EMP damage. A big flaw with any iteration of the PP to date is that one charge can strip infantry shields and stop vehicles of all sizes. A more skilled approach would be something like this: A charge of 1-3 seconds can drain opponent shields up to 50% and stop a Ghost but only slow down a Hog. A charge from 4-6 seconds strips infantry shields and stops a Hog cold, but barely slows down a larger vehicle. A 6-9 second charge can stop a Tank. *Substitute wraith for tank, revenent for hog, etc.
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Splash damage. Plasma is messy. The PP should be a niche weapon, and as such provide a “con” to go alongside it’s unique “pro”. Longer charges should affect the shooter shields. This prevents abuse by giving a disadvantage to the shooter. It will promote teamwork for both the offense and the defense, as a PP wielder becomes more vulnerable, and the vehicle will need some infantry support. This is one way to prevent abuse of the weapon.
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Better vehicles. Halo 4’s vehicles were weak for various reasons, including easy-to-use PP, perks, low vehicle damage thresholds, a multitude of heavy weapons, and nuclear sticky grenades (more on those next). Halo 5 should remove the perks and gives us more durable vehicles (think Halo 3/Reach). The weapons sandbox should ease off the heavy weapons (they’re too prevalent, and while they destroy infantry - which is their purpose - they also destroy vehicles, which makes them unbalanced). If vehicles are more difficult to kill, then you encourage strategy and teamwork to take down a vehicle - suddenly, the PP has a niche where it can be used carefully, not carelessly.
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Non-nuke stickies. The days of one player with a PP and 2 stickies bringing down most vehicles should never return. If the PP’s EMP is commensurate to the charge time, and the stickies are not so overpowered, then taking down a vehicle becomes more challenging, and more rewarding.
What do you think? Can these proposed changes make the plasma pistol a viable option? Will it make for a richer multiplayer experience? What would you do to make the plasma pistol a reasonable starting weapon?
*For our purposes, assume loadouts are coming back - this isn’t a “loadouts have no place in Halo” thread – there are enough of those as is.
I can see you’ve put some thought into this, but nonetheless I would much rather PP be a map pickup. Currently and even with your suggested changes, the potential for the PP to be used in sheer numbers is still far too great. If one vehicle in particular is giving a team a certain level of trouble, even if there’s no team consensus to use the PP, people will naturally gravitate to using it.
A prime example takes place on Ragnarok, where one by one until a legion is formed, equip their Jetpacks and Plasma Pistols and launch out of the man cannons in an attempt to overwhelm the Mantis with EMPs.
In the unfortunate event where it remains a Loadout option, the strength plasma grenades and shields of the player shouldn’t be compromised for the sake of the PP. Instead vehicle tracking should be zero or next to.
Vehicles though need a serious health buff, regardless of what happens to the PP. Taking out a -Yoink!- tank with a Sniper Rifle is ridiculous to a large degree, particularly with their increased abundance. Halo 5 Sniper shouldn’t be “Anti-Matériel” and should refocus on infantry.
Also, small arms fire shouldn’t displace the Warthog in the manner it does.
Basically the CE or Reach PP since you could actually kill someone without extreme difficulty with the standard fire thus lowering the EMP combo.
I still wouldnt have it in loadouts unless it lost the EMP feature and they made other weapons that er map pickups have that feature, and it returnedto the consistent damage like in CE
It only takes 1 charged shot to line up 2 plasma grenades into the seat of a warthog.
No thanks. I don’t want to rely soley on Plasma Pistols to take down vehicles, nor do I want to spawn with them. Keep plasma pistols and grenades on the ground, and give the frags its ability to flip vehicles back. That way, it would make the situation much more fairer for the guy getting assaulted, and results on alot less destroyed vehicles. It would also result with needing less heavy vehicles all the time, allowing more map movement.
We shouldn’t need to rely on just plasmas and heavy weaponry. We don’t need to buff the vehicles to a major level. We need to tone down on the EMP, make frags useful again, and keep the plasmas down on the ground.
I personally think that the Plasma Pistol should never have been considered for Loadouts. Rather they should have brought back the Plasma Rifle.
When it comes to Plasma Grenades, I think that them (and frags) both simply need their count at spawn reduced to 1.
The only Halo game in the entire franchise where you could never argue that grenades were an issue was Halo 2. In Halo CE they were too powerful (and there were too many), in Halo 3 there were too many, in Halo Reach they are too powerful again, and in Halo 4 there are, once again, too many.
Halo 2 is also the ONLY Halo game that didn’t spawn you with more than one grenade. Coincidence? I think not.
You can’t one hit kill a Warthog with a single plasma in your pocket. Hence: Balanced. You also can’t spam ONE frag, once again balanced. You also won’t be completely turned off from taking the Pulse nade knowing you’ll get less than other types, balanced.
Or we can just go back to the CE or Reach Plasma Pistols(who have useful single shots and more responsive overcharges) and ditch this personal loadout business all together. I am tired of weapons getting the life sucked out of them in order to be balanced for gimmicky gameplay elements like dual wielding and personal loadouts.
> I personally think that the Plasma Pistol should never have been considered for Loadouts. Rather they should have brought back the Plasma Rifle.
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> When it comes to Plasma Grenades, I think that them (and frags) both simply need their count at spawn reduced to 1.
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> <mark>The only Halo game in the entire franchise where you could never argue that grenades were an issue was Halo 2. In Halo CE they were too powerful (and there were too many), in Halo 3 there were too many, in Halo Reach they are too powerful again, and in Halo 4 there are, once again, too many.</mark>
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> Halo 2 is also the ONLY Halo game that didn’t spawn you with more than one grenade. Coincidence? I think not.
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> You can’t one hit kill a Warthog with a single plasma in your pocket. Hence: Balanced. You also can’t spam ONE frag, once again balanced. You also won’t be completely turned off from taking the Pulse nade knowing you’ll get less than other types, balanced.
I agree. However I want loadouts to stay, there’s a way to balance better and 343i is probably working on it.
It should still be viable in the Campaign. Personally, I’d like to see a carbon copy of the CE plasma pistol in Campaign mode while the one balanced for MP appears in MP.
It’d be a shame to lazily toss it into the Campaign again… unaltered.
In CE, the plasma pistol had a fast overcharge and cooldown time, not to mention it did a lot of damage to unarmed enemies. Whereas the Reach and Halo 4 plasma pistol overcharged shots are worthless against Grunts and Jackals.
The CE plasma pistol functioned like a Boltshot, the newer plasma pistol is just a slightly buffed version of H2/H3 plasma pistol, it’s still not appealing.
Change it in MP, but change it even more in Campaign.
> Or we can just go back to the CE or Reach Plasma Pistols(who have useful single shots and more responsive overcharges) and ditch this personal loadout business all together. <mark>I am tired of weapons getting the life sucked out of them in order to be balanced for gimmicky gameplay elements like dual wielding and personal loadouts.</mark>
It’s not just the weapons, EVERYTHING has been affected.
And to make it worse, the balancing exists in Campaign. Nerfed max ammo, can’t pick up dropped grenades from dead teammates, etc.
Keep the MP balancing out of Campaign, deviate from the path Bungie took.
The CE PP was fair, maybe remove tracking in MP?
All I have to say is NO! The PP is already super weak as it is. What needs to be done is make it a useful weapon like in Halo CE and Halo 2. Who ever came up with the idea to make the plasma shots so small and weak was high on something. Like keep the game new, fun, and different was destroy with that idea. Now all you see is people only using human weapons instead of every weapon. Which leads to old and boring gameplay.