AR starts wasn’t that bad in pervious games because…

Games Halo Infinite
1

AR starts weren’t as bad in older games like halo 3 because everywhere you turned you had 100 BR spawns… (or carbine) most maps in infinite have … 1-2 BR

1 BR isn’t enough for 8 people. That’s the only problem. Add BRS everywhere laying around the map and the skill gap will increase significantly because noobs won’t pick up the battle rifle lol

There’s nothing that annoys me more than spawning on the opposite side of BR tower and all the other weapon boxes have freaken commandos in them. Or worse, spawning on a map with ONLY commandos.

16 Likes
2

There’s no way to edit my posts after my time out the other day anymore but I figured I’d also mention a lot of games people just sit in front of the BR box and wait for a BR before doing anything on aquarious lol

7 Likes
3

As much as I miss the old weapon sandbox, the BR was overpowered simply because every other standard weapon was so weak in comparison. The BR hasn’t changed in infinite, but the other weapons were buffed to be a solid competitor to the BR. Having one weapon dominate an entire weapon sandbox is not balanced. I love halo 3, but the BR in that game is the equivalent to the gnasher from Gears of War a.k.a. boring.

10 Likes
4

I love that other weapons have a fighting chance. Maybe I’m just getting used to it, but it just feels a little demotivating finally getting a BR after 3-4 spawns and then turning a corner with it and getting almost instantly needled.

Stuff like that makes me wanna pull my hair out. It’s made me alot better with the pistol though to be fair

1 Like
5

Yup. Nothing is as boring as being in quickplay standing next to the BR spawn waiting for the blue bar to fill (and then a teammate runs past you and picks it up a millisecond before you).

7 Likes
6

Honestly in quick play it doesn’t matter. The game wants to close the skill gap as much as possible to make it more accessible for players. Just learn to use and abuse it. The AR melts shields, use it as intended to pop the enemy shields so quick that they have no counterplay to it (strafing? HA! My AR bullet spread will make it where I don’t even have to move my crosshairs and still land my shots!), then either drop the AR or swap to your sidekick/commando/BR to finish the kill. It’s cake mode. Yeah, you don’t get many, if any, good 1v1’s in Quick Play anymore, but you can now mindlessly play the game and do pretty well, which is obviously their goal for the unranked modes.

1 Like
7

I remember the other day I felt like such a jerk doing that lol. I got like 3 kills and headed back to one of the bases on aquarious and ran right by the box when it was about to spawn, grabbed up the ammo instantly since I already had a BR and the guy starts shooting wildly in anger lol

But yeah they need to add more imo because people will just wait lol

2 Likes
8

I don’t really lose AR fights, but it’s not a great way to get multi kills that’s for sure. Unless you roll as a team with your randoms lol but they’re usually doing the chickens with their head cut off strategy while I do some work in the confusion XD

9

AR starts have been bad in every Halo game, Infinite included.

8 Likes
10

Blood Gulch had 2 Pistols (and was PP starts by default, even worse than AR starts)

Guardian had 1 BR and 1 Carbine.

Lockout/Blackout had 2 BRs.

Midship/Heretic had 2 BRs and 1 Carbine.

Just a few examples but I could keep going.

2 Likes
12

2-3 rifles is better than 0-2 lols carbine served a identical role to the BR in halo 3

also blood gultch had pistols because halo 1 had no rifle and the pistol was really good long distance. The pistol in halo infinite isn’t comparable

1 Like
13

It’s true that Bungie felt they needed to place multiple BR spawns so we didn’t feel useless in most scenarios, but let’s not exaggerate this… AR starts in Halo 3, and especially SMG starts, were the worst. Infinite isn’t that bad, thank gawd, but their BRs are just more relaxing to use, in my opinion, because of their versatility and ease of use, while also promoting movement and map/weapon control.

1 Like
14

The only times we older gamers played the Default PP starts was by accident and to laugh at how dumb Bungie was, lol.

I also think that if Infinite was run exclusively on local or LANs like the original CE, majority of the community would be playing BR starts, because usually the passionate hardcore fans would set up the games and bring in the casuals to have fun with.

Matchmaking changed all that and began to socially engineer the fanbase toward Bungie’s goal of making us miserable while trying to SMG someone who’s camping our spawns with BRs, lmao.

15

I’m comparing the CE pistol to a BR, not a Sidekick, in CE it filled the role that would become the BR’s in later games.

Also the BR has equivalents in this game too, like the Carbine. The Commando and the Stalker Rifle in particular are precision rifles filling a very similar niche to the BR, you can also stretch that the Mangler is one too, but given it’s range cap I won’t treat it like one. So if we compare:

Bazaar, Live Fire, Behemoth, and Recharge have 2 BR/Commando spawns. The symmetrical maps always have one or the other at both bases while the asymmetrical ones always have one of each, but the positions can be flipped each match.

So that’s comparable to something like Lockout, Guardian, Blood Gulch or Coagulation, Rat Race, Beaver Creek, Ivory Tower etc.

Streets and Aquarius have 2 BR/Commando spawns with a chance at a Stalker. The same sub-rule about symmetrical maps applies.

So that’s comparable to maps like Midship, Sword Base, Powerhouse etc.

Launch Site has 5 BR/Commando spawns, and a each side always gets one of each while the central one can be either. There’s also a possible Stalker spawn for a possible 6.

You can compare that to The Pit, Sandtrap, Colossus, Zanzibar etc.

Deadlock has 5 BR/Commando spawns, with a small chance that a 6th will spawn closeish to Pelican, but I’ve only seen it happen once or twice as usually it’s a Hydra or Ravager, and 2 spots that could be stalkers (there could be 1, 2, or none)

Highpower has 8 BR/Commando spawns, and there will always be either 1 or 2 stalkers depending on the spawns.

These two maps are comparable to Valhalla for BR spawn count.

Fragmentation has a whopping 14 BR/Commando spawns, with a chance at 2 stalkers (there will always either be 2, or none).

No map in any Bungie Halo game ever had this many BR equivalents on it. I’m pretty confident there’s never been more than 10 BR equivalents on a Bungie map before.

AR starts sucks in Infinite because the AR is oppressive, not because of low weapon pickup counts on the map.

1 Like
16

when your standing there, hold your interact button before it spawns, you’ll grab it first everytime (provided they arent doing the same and on lower ping than you)

1 Like
17

i still say that the worse thing that has ever happened to reach, was when 343 decided that the pistol and dmr would be the best guns in the game. honestly a sandbox being given to you then very loud people demanding everything else be put in the corner and only be given instant stalemate weapons is just pour decision making from the community and devs

18

Halo just isn’t as fun when the AR is this OP, if it actually took any skill to use whatsoever or it’s range wasn’t so damn long it would be a lot better.

19

So just increase the skill required for the AR and nerf it’s range

20

How much skill will you get out of a weapon that you hold the trigger down and run at the enemy? Nerfing the range will make gameplay even more noob-friendly, players will start camping corners, more than they already do.

BR/DMR requires precision, pacing (with bloom) and allows you to take out multiple targets without having to reload which makes chaining multi kills fun.

21

So wrong. CE AR was a STAPLE with clear design going into its use.

It stripped Shields, but Plasma weapons do it better giving you a reason to trade for it.

It killed Banshees really well, and is the only personnel weapon that can do so with ease.

It has a hefty clip so suppression fire is a valid tactic to keep enemies pinned or stop their Shields from recharging.

Honestly after H2 with the introduction of the BR, weapon balance was never the same again and it never treated the AR or Automatics that well again.