Are Legendary Weapons Something We Should Promote?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
#1

First off, I’m not against Legendary weapons, I actually think they are really pretty awesome… But I think back on all past Halo games, and how every weapon felt viable and able to compete up against each other as long as they weren’t a ‘power weapon’.

We saw the start of what I consider ‘Legendary Weapons’ in Halo 4 with the SAW being the big brother to the Assault Rifle, and in H2A, we saw the Assault Rifle being the big brother of the SMG.(I’m not counting Halo 3 SMG and AR, because those had different strengths and Weaknesses)

In Halo 5, we have seeing the SMG and AR able to compete against each other in different scenarios, with the AR being for longer range, and the SMG for short range. With that said, we are seeing the Legendary version of both the Energy Sword, and the Rocket Launcher.

I love that they are bringing back our beloved Rocket’s aesthetics, and I love the Prophet’s Bane, but the question I have is that is seeing these improved weapons getting in the way of more unique weapons. Halo Reach has shown us the the Concussion Rifle (which is not nearly as cool as the Brute Shot 343!) and the Needle Rifle replacing the Carbine. We have seen the Plasma Rifle, Plasma Repeater, and the Storm Rifle, all being AMAZING ideas that all could have a place in Halo 5.

We have seen some amazing ideas from the Halo series, but what I am curious of is if we are seeing the fan’s demands for a return of weapons bringing about a new class of weapons that maybe Halo shouldn’t have. We are used to what I consider 3 classes of weapons:

  • Starting Weapons (AR, BR, Pistol)- Pick Up Weapons (Plasma Pistol, Needler, Plasma Grenades)- Power Weapons (Sniper, Rocket Launcher, Sword)But we are seeing Power weapons now divide into Power Weapons, and Legendary Weapons. This is going to bring about future problems with the series in terms of keeping weapons balanced. Who’s to say that we won’t slowly work up to having not 3, but 5 or size ‘classes’ of weapons?

In Halo 4, they did something good with weapons. What they did for the (majority of weapons) is not have 3 classes of weapons, but 2:

  • Loadout Weapons- Power WeaponsWeapons that were weaker like the Plasma Pistol found themselves pushed into Starting Weapons (probably not a great idea) and Weapons like the Needler pushed into becoming a power weapon. While some weapons needed to be more powerful like the Suppressor, the majority of weapons felt very balanced and that compression of 2 weapon classes, tended to work rather well.

Less weapon ‘classes’ means that we see individual skill matter more. It is up to the player to show that they can beat their opponent with the same level of weapons.
More weapon ‘classes’ means that we see more group cohesion matter more. It is up to the team to hold down the map, and rain death down unto the other team with rockets while they use their Assault Rifles. At the end of the day, I think that Halo has leaned more to the prior, while games like CoD have been leaning more to the later, with kill streaks. I’m not here to say one is better than the other as this is all opinion.

I love that 343 gave us back our classic Rocket Launcher, and the Prophet’s Bane is really cool… But what I want to see more than this new ‘Legendary Weapon Class’ is seeing these power weapons changed, possibly nerfed to be like what we now see between the Battle Rifle, and the DMR, or the Energy Sword and the Gravity Hammer; Both able to beat each other depending upon the situation…Make the ‘Legendary Rocket Launcher’ have a larger blast radius with less potential to survive within that blast radius and make the Hydra more useful for taking out Aerial Targets, or Vehicles… Change the Prophet’s Bane so you don’t run faster with it, but you can hold it in front of you like a shield, and reduce incoming damage at the cost of the sword’s battery (making it more act like a shield, as the Energy Sword used more like a true sword).

343, consider Halo 5 being the last game that you give us ‘Legendary Weapons’, but don’t get rid of them, just make sure that like the DMR and the BR, that each weapon feels like it has it’s place, and that we don’t see more than 3 classes of weapons in Halo.

#2

I honestly don’t see the problem here. When playing the beta, no weapon felt useless. The starting weapons, pick-up weapons, the power weapons, or the legendary weapons. While the legendary weapons were more powerful than power weapons, they were never on the same map. You never had a bunch of power weapons with one legendary weapon on top of it. Now I don’t know if in the full game there will be maps with 4 classes of weapons, but it seems the purpose of the legendary weapons is to instead use one very powerful weapon to replace multiple power weapons, in that case, it’s not unbalanced. Legendary weapons are made to replace power weapons, not overlap them.
Just my two cents, so I don’t really think they need to be changed. We’ll see when the full game launches.

#3

I don’t necessarily think they are overpowered either, but a Legendary Weapon is based off a stronger version of an already existing power weapon. I just don’t want to feel like people that have a starting weapon, have no chance at all against someone who has a Legendary Weapon, and while that may not be the case for Halo 5, I want to talk about it before Halo 6 ever gave us that problem.

#4

I have yet to decide whether Legendaries are the worst or okay-est thing ever. A Legendary is really just defined as a power weapon that gives a buff to player traits (or I assume, anyway) and I still don’t know whether this is good or bad. It could potentially fub up the sandbox, or it could add a ton of new possibilities. It might screw with balancing, or it would leave it completely unchanged. I really won’t know until I’ve had more hands on experience with a Legendary besides Prophet’s Bane.

As of now, I see nothing wrong with it. It’s an interesting idea, potentially, but skepticism is to be warranted.

EDIT: I’m starting to see your point. Regardless of the damage output of an enemy, everything else about them remained the same. A player with a good jump and a BR could take on a Sniper or Rocket. With the weapons now changing the actual physics of how the enemy interacts with the environment…

…I honestly need to see another Legendary.

#5

Honestly I don’t think it should be thought of in classes at all. I think they should just think up a weapon and then see how they can balance it and then put it in. There shouldn’t be a consideration as to the type of “class” it should be in. That should be something that it should be placed in after they play with it and balance it.

#6

> 2535421619942348;4:
> EDIT: I’m starting to see your point. Regardless of the damage output of an enemy, everything else about them remained the same. A player with a good jump and a BR could take on a Sniper or Rocket. With the weapons now changing the actual physics of how the enemy interacts with the environment…
>
> …I honestly need to see another Legendary.

That is my thoughts too. While I haven’t had an issue with Legendary Weapons thus far, the door they are opening is potentially amazing, or concerning. For the wellbeing of the franchise, I just thought it’s worth talking about it.

#7

I can’t really find any source about what 343I actually intends Legendary Weapons to be.

I’m assuming they’re just uniquely powerful weapons, and that there won’t be very many of them.
Makes me wonder why the old rockets are classified as one…they’re just rockets…kind of devalues the ‘legendary’ vibe…

Conceptually, not sure how to think about this. I think if we are really going to have these they shouldn’t be nerfed to the level of regular power weapons because that eliminates the entire point and no longer makes them ‘legendary weapons’. If they turn out to be non-competitive they can always be relegated to custom games.

As said above, since I don’t see very many of these being made, I don’t think they will have a significant negative impact on the variety of the sandbox anyways. That isn’t something worth being worried over.

#8

> 2533274819302824;7:
> I can’t really find any source about what 343I actually intends Legendary Weapons to be.
>
> I’m assuming they’re just uniquely powerful weapons, and that there won’t be very many of them.
> Makes me wonder why the old rockets are classified as one…they’re just rockets…kind of devalues the ‘legendary’ vibe…
>
> Conceptually, not sure how to think about this. I think if we are really going to have these they shouldn’t be nerfed to the level of regular power weapons because that eliminates the entire point and no longer makes them ‘legendary weapons’. If they turn out to be non-competitive they can always be relegated to custom games.
>
> As said above, since I don’t see very many of these being made, I don’t think they will have a significant negative impact on the variety of the sandbox anyways. That isn’t something worth being worried over.

When I say nerfed, I mean just make the power weapons that are different, like how the DMR and BR share the same purpose, but each is better at something than the other. For the Rocket Launchers, make it so Hydra is multiple Rockets but less blast radius, the SPNKR less rockets with large blast radius. For the sword… Well I talked about it above, but the Sword is tougher to really claim how to make it different.

#9

Honestly they just seem like normal PWs with different skins. Which is fine and would probably be pretty cool in campaign.

#10

All of the weapons in the Halo 5 beta felt useful in some way, which is remarkable for a Halo franchise that has a history of dozens of useless guns in the old games. Legendary weapons are a great idea and a great fan service, and once again, change doesn’t automatically = bad. Sure it’s a little scary but it seems kind of crazy you are worried about Halo 6 and asking for the removal of Legendary weapons when we don’t even know for sure how Legendary weapons will play out in Halo 5.

Let’s give 343i a little time to implement and balance the idea before we outright consider dialing it back or removing the feature entirely.

#11

> 2533274800197828;10:
> All of the weapons in the Halo 5 beta felt useful in some way, which is remarkable for a Halo franchise that has a history of dozens of useless guns in the old games. Legendary weapons are a great idea and a great fan service, and once again, change doesn’t automatically = bad. Sure it’s a little scary but it seems kind of crazy you are worried about Halo 6 when we don’t even know for sure how Legendary weapons will play out in Halo 5.
>
> Let’s give 343i a little time to implement and balance the idea before we outright consider dialing it back or removing the feature entirely.

Like I mentioned above, I haven’t had an issue with Halo 5, and to be fair, we have only seen a select few weapons in the Beta. I honestly love what Halo 5 has offered us, it’s the best Beta from the series easily. I just want to talk about this, and like everyone else here make the series as amazing as it can be, another reason I made this a poll, and while there is no way for me to prove it, my answer to this poll was. “I don’t know.”

#12

While i’m not usually one of those “Wait till its out to judge” people. I feel like this is one of the cases where it needs to be said. The only legendary weapon so far has been an energy sword that was brighter, visually blocking to the user, but gave longer lunge wasn’t it? That’s not really grounds to be worried over.

#13

> 2533274964189700;12:
> While i’m not usually one of those “Wait till its out to judge” people. I feel like this is one of the cases where it needs to be said. The only legendary weapon so far has been an energy sword that was brighter, visually blocking to the user, but gave longer lunge wasn’t it? That’s not really grounds to be worried over.

Once again, not really worried about what has occured thus far, it’s that I want to voice concern it doesn’t get out of hand.

#14

> 2533274964189700;12:
> While i’m not usually one of those “Wait till its out to judge” people. I feel like this is one of the cases where it needs to be said. The only legendary weapon so far has been an energy sword that was brighter, visually blocking to the user, but gave longer lunge wasn’t it? That’s not really grounds to be worried over.

Didn’t it also provide a higher base movement speed?

#15

> 2535421619942348;14:
> > 2533274964189700;12:
> > While i’m not usually one of those “Wait till its out to judge” people. I feel like this is one of the cases where it needs to be said. The only legendary weapon so far has been an energy sword that was brighter, visually blocking to the user, but gave longer lunge wasn’t it? That’s not really grounds to be worried over.
>
>
> Didn’t it also provide a higher base movement speed?

it did

#16

> 2533274819302824;7:
> I can’t really find any source about what 343I actually intends Legendary Weapons to be.
>
> I’m assuming they’re just uniquely powerful weapons, and that there won’t be very many of them.
> Makes me wonder why the old rockets are classified as one…they’re just rockets…kind of devalues the ‘legendary’ vibe…
>
> Conceptually, not sure how to think about this. I think if we are really going to have these they shouldn’t be nerfed to the level of regular power weapons because that eliminates the entire point and no longer makes them ‘legendary weapons’. If they turn out to be non-competitive they can always be relegated to custom games.
>
> As said above, since I don’t see very many of these being made, I don’t think they will have a significant negative impact on the variety of the sandbox anyways. That isn’t something worth being worried over.

It’s just an excuse to bring back the old rocket launcher.

#17

> 2533274833380875;16:
> It’s just an excuse to bring back the old rocket launcher.

I REALLY hope you are right. If Legendary weapons are exactly the same as power weapons, I’ll dance for joy.