Alternative fire modes for Abilities / Equipment

Games Halo Infinite
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The drop shield felt so slow to deploy, and that got me thinking.
What if it could function like the Sensor? Quickly shoot it at a surface and it deploys almost instantly.
Developing further in that.
What if each Ability had a secondary mode? Activated by holding the ability button rather than just clicking it.

So I came up with some examples for an additional mode.

Grapple: Pull enemies towards you, it slows your movement speed as long as they’re attached but to you they’ll come.

Sensor: Send out a single ping on your own location.

Thrusters: Return of the dreaded Spartan Charge. Deal damage in the direction you’re going.

Drop Shield: Can attach to any surface, deploys immediately. Is spherical from the centre so it can go around corners.
Normal shield could be made somewhat stronger, and have the damage increase found in the campaign?

Repulsor: Create a constant but somewhat weaker repulsion shield for a period of time. Think the Hardlight shield from Halo 4, but a weak repulsion effect on slow projectiles, grenades, players and loose objects, altering their course to miss you rather than being forcefully pushed back.
Bullets still go through.
It also needs a visual redesign badly, in my opinion.

Worthy of inclusion?

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I like these.

It adds much needed combat depth

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I’ll try and go through each one.

Grapple, sounds like it could be a fun idea but a netcode disaster and I have a feeling it’ll unintentionally break something, not sure what.

Sensor, that just sounds like the motion tracker but with more steps.

Thrusters, I hate Spartan charge but it sounds like a reasonable way to get it into Infinite.

Dropwall, this sounds way too OP and it makes the standard version a bit redundant. Maybe if it was more like a bubble shield where you can’t shoot out of it.

Repulsor, this just sounds awkward and it’d make the player a sitting duck since hopefully they wouldn’t be able to shoot at the same time. As for the redesign, I completely agree. It’s way too big. Maybe a circle like a buckler would look better.

I will say rather than having alternate firemodes, which may not be possible what with limited button mapping on controllers, why not just have these as additional equipment?

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We came full circle. Asking for the spartan charge back

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In campaign you could pull in enemies one by one.

For multiplayer you could “fish” with your team mates. Pulling in opponents for the team.
Or pull team mates out of harm’s way.
I doubt the limited amount on MP maps would make it much of an issue.

The netcode is what it is.

Well you could have the range of the ping a lot larger than the sensor is when it’s normally deployed, and exceed the range of the radar. It also detects stationary enemies so that’s a plus.

If the standard is buffed with an added emp effect on projectiles passing through it, it’d be a small incentive to use it.
The other to quickly deplay cover on any surface, but functionally somewhat the same as it is now in terms if strength.

Limited supply would surely be a balancing act.
Though there would perhaps have to be some boost to the original thruster function, or some disadvantage in the Charge.

I always like Spartan Charge as a concept, I think that it would have needed a Charge up time like how the Splaser and Rail Gun function. Once it’d reach full strength it’d charge.

Depends on enemy armament, no?
If they’d switch to another weapon, the repulsor shield could just be canceled and you’d do something else?

Buckler would probably work, though I have at the moment no idea myself on how I’d design it.

Holding the button would do the alternative mode.
I’m sure they could be made into individual items, but allowing them to have more functions put more usability into them as they are, differentiating them from their weapon and grenade relatives, atleast in most cases, and there wouldn’t be too many similar items in the asset pool, like for instance the Grappling vs Fishing hook. Grappling can already pull some assets to the user.

I said it back then, Spartan Charge needed to function like the Rail Gun and Splaser instead of being a knee jerk reaction. That would’ve balanced it far better.

Nontheless, it’d be a pickup item with limited uses as well as having two different functions where you may use the other function to save yourself or close a gap, decreasing the amount of Charges you can perform.

Your post makes it seem like I’m asking for Spartan Charge back as it was in Halo 5, as a base mechanic for all players.

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i like the grapplehook how its now and see it more with the First Strike upgrade from the campaign more.
same go’s more for the other 3 equipment there are in the multiplayer to use more 1 upgrade abilitie from the campaign mode then a complete chance.