> My train of thought goes that the weapons are going to return given how they have to give the Forerunner enemies something to use against the player and giving them all PW class type stuff of exotic slipspace weapons that people are imagining is going to go over about as well as a lead balloon.
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> So we are going to end up with a Promy automatic, precision weapon, sidearm and grenade in the game. Same deal with Covy themed versions. Since the weapons are going to be coded and modeled, it’s only a short amount of work to give them to the players. They still have to abide by the same rules as they were used in the Campaign though so they can’t deviate too much into exotic weapon categories.
You don’t need wild and exotic weapons for them to be more interesting than many of the redundant clones of the past. We must think about context as well, a weapon is only redundant if it has to share space with similar weapons.
As far as Promethean weapons they don’t have to be ‘OP’ or crazy to stand out. The Bi ri and the iCannon both outperform the human sniper and rockets in terms of raw firepower, but both have their own drawbacks as well. Applying this to the rest of the Promethean sandbox would help them stick out without having to rock the boat design wise.
As far as Covy weapons go we have plenty of options to fill out the Covy sandbox without while minimizing overlap. Reach did an excellent job with this for the most part.
> In Reach the Repeater did have tangible advantages over the AR. At the very least it was a noticeably faster kill than the AR. It was however hampered by so many cons it was at best a sidegrade and placed so far out of the way in relation to it’s power that pretty much nobody used it. It was just easier and more enjoyable to take your spawn weapon and jump face first into the combat rather than take a scenic route for a blue AR.
Compared to differences between the CE AR and CE PR, the repeater is practically a reskin. This is the issue I am having. We don’t have to settle for so many functional clones when more diverse options exist.
> I fear that providing tangible advantages to a specific scenario is going to end up niching the weapon for those specific scenarios that so infrequently happen that it’s better to carry the more versatile spawn weapon and just deal with it when said situations happen. Again the “grab spawn weapon, jump face first into combat” problem as above.
Having tangible does not mean having to be locked into a ‘rock-paper-scissors’ scenario. I grab a plasma pistol for its EMP, but in Reach its single shots are not to shabby either. We can have our cake and eat it too when it comes to having diverse and versatile weaponry.
> I also fear that trying to create another sub category for weapon upgrades (We currently have Starters; AR, Mid PWs; Sticky Det, and PWs; Rockets,) between Starters and Mid PWs is like trying to shoehorn the Magnum, and sidearms in general, back into the range coverage taken by rifles. AR covers close, BR mid, DMR long, so where does the Magnum go?
Why do we have to create a ‘subcategory’? Especially if their were no loadouts? We don’t need such rigid categorization. In a well balanced sandbox these lines will for organically and then should be placed on maps accordingly. I don’t know why you are so focused on range either, there is so much more that goes into a weapons design than range alone.
