Reasons for the change
I know a lot of people didn’t like bloom in Reach, but seeing there are other rifles with no bloom in halo 4 which they can use, I don’t see why the DMR shouldn’t have bloom. Bloom would make it more difficult to use, which would compensate for its superior kill times, creating a rewarding skill based gun, rather than an overpowered gun that unbalances the sandbox.
Details of the change
The exact changes I propose for the bloom are an increase of the maximum reticle, so the player is punished more firing too quickly. I also propose an increase in the reticle shrinking speed, so the reticle returns to a useful size relatively quickly. this would reward players who wait for the reticle to shrink, because they can fire again sooner. As maximum rate of fire will have to increase in order for optmimum rate of fire to produce similar kill times to the current DMR, the tactic of triple body shotting instead of head shotting needs to be nerfed. So the number of shots to the body required to kill an unshielded Spartan should be increased to 4.
Likely impacts of the change
Firstly it will be more difficult to use the DMR and the long range kill times will be longer. Thus it’ll be harder for a player to 5 shot you across the map, making open spaces in BTB a little more safe, improving opportunities for map movement. Kills with the DMR will feel more rewarding because they are more difficult to achieve. Many people are likely to abandon the DMR in favour of other rifle because they do not like using a difficult weapon, this will create more variety in spawn weapon of choice.
tl:dr
- increase maximum reticle on DMR
- increase bloom reset speed on DMR
- increase body shots required to kill on DMR
- this makes the DMR harder to use, so less people will use it
Please tell me what you think and support his topic if you’d like 343i to introduce changes like these.
Good and constructive idea on the DMR balance, something rarely seen on Waypoint Forums.
In my eyes, bloom is an alright concept but it still got the best of me and many others in Halo Reach. The good thing was I do not remember being spammed across the BTB maps and constantly dying.
Many people dilsike bloom becuase of the ranom factor. Many times when I needed to land one more shot, it completely missed even with pacing, and then the enemy got lucky shots from spamming.
If bloom was implented, it should like you stated; a slightly larger reticule but less than Reach. There should however be a slight ROF nerf so that the mininal kill time is around the 1.55 - 1.65 second range. Also, reduce the RRR to 100m and buff the LR RRR to 100, or decrease the DMR RRR to that of the current Lightrifle.
343i stated they wanted to increase LR RRR to that of the DMR, but then this game will have 2 weapons outclassing everything.
Bloom would also prevent cross map spamming and would make larger maps more fun.
I like the idea.
Make it harder to use, but rewarded when used right.
Bloom is an outright flawed concept for semi-automatic weapons.
It makes the weapons easier to use, more random, and overall removes the “marksman” aspect of the Designated Marksman Rifle. The Carbine has bloom, and the BR has spread. You completely disregard how good the Light Rifle is at range, and has absolutely no bullet deviation when scoped in. It will not make BTB “safer,” it will just make medium range more random, and cause players to move onto an even faster-killing weapon than the DMR.
> Good and constructive idea on the DMR balance, something rarely seen on Waypoint Forums.
>
> In my eyes, bloom is an alright concept but it still got the best of me and many others in Halo Reach. The good thing was I do not remember being spammed across the BTB maps and constantly dying.
>
> Many people dilsike bloom becuase of the ranom factor. Many times when I needed to land one more shot, it completely missed even with pacing, and then the enemy got lucky shots from spamming.
>
> If bloom was implented, it should like you stated; a slightly larger reticule but less than Reach. There should however be a slight ROF nerf so that the mininal kill time is around the 1.55 - 1.65 second range. Also, reduce the RRR to 100m and buff the LR RRR to 100, or decrease the DMR RRR to that of the current Lightrifle.
>
> 343i stated they wanted to increase LR RRR to that of the DMR, but then this game will have 2 weapons outclassing everything.
Minimal kill time on Halo 4 DMR is currently 1.5 seconds if my memory serves me. Seeing as increased bloom will decreased the chance of getting the minimal kill time, and make striving for it a bad idea at longer ranges, the minimal kill time does not need and increase. Short minimum kill time is not a problem if it is difficult to achieve. Remember the Halo CE pistol? It’s minimal kill time was 0.6 second, less than half that of any rifle in subsequent Halo games. However bloom and low aim assist and low bullet magnetism meant that this kill time was vary rarely achieved, balancing the pistol.
> Bloom is an outright flawed concept for semi-automatic weapons.
>
> It makes the weapons easier to use, more random, and overall removes the “marksman” aspect of the Designated Marksman Rifle. The Carbine has bloom, and the BR has spread. You completely disregard how good the Light Rifle is at range, and has absolutely no bullet deviation when scoped in. It will not make BTB “safer,” it will just make medium range more random, and cause players to move onto an even faster-killing weapon than the DMR.
Making the DMR more difficult to use at mid to long range will stop so many people using it, which will make BTB safer, because most player will switch to BR/carbine not LR. This is because although while scoped in the light rifle has a quicker kill time than the DMR, a 3x scope renders this mode useless at close range, forcing LR users to descope. This gives their gun a much longer kill time than any other rifle, so most people don’t pick LR, even on BTB.
It is true that among people who are not good at using bloom it adds a lot of randomness. However for these people, the DMR would then be weaker than the other rifles so they would switch, and there would be very fewer random DMR battles. The only people using the DMR would be those who can handle bloom. So there would not be more randomness in mid range combat with this change.