BR Starts Encourages Weapon Variety

this isn’t the way to go with this conversation, the Stalker Rifle is objectively way stronger than the BR. It’s a power weapon in ranked for a reason

No, you’re just delusional if you think spawning with the BR will get people to explore the sandbox.

They won’t. They’ll keep the BR forever and pick something else up. Reason? BR is too darn good to drop.

Everyone here saying keep AR understands they will trade up the AR for something else the moment they find something to replace it asap the moment the match starts.

You also seem to forget your own argument and topic: we are talking about encouraging weapon variety here yet you suggest that the one weapon which people will never replace if spawned with to be the one to encourage variety. What a joke.

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Why do you want an AR if your goal is to get rid of it

Because it makes sure everyone of all skills levels have enough kill power that even a braindead baby or the most skilled pro player to compete with, then build your power from there based on map knowledge and skill.

You know, like an arena shooter should.

You don’t start a Counter Strike match with everyone using the AWP/AK despite it being the best guns to use do you? I mean why not right? Why buy Pistol and Armor when you gonna work toward an AK or AWP?

Why start everyone with AR when everyone wants to discard it? Answer: because it’s part and parcel of Arena shooters to trade your weapon up for better ones to build an advantage. If you start with a strong weapon, you have lesser reason to explore other options.

By your logic, people should all start with snipers and swords cos why not right? Jfc.

In CS:GO, every weapon has a near-instant ttk, or at least a fraction of the kill time of the fastest weapons in Halo. CS:GO weapons aren’t about actual power, they’re about other factors like ammo capacity, accuracy at range, and how easy they are to aim.

Halo is about fighting and controlling the map and powerups to win the matches. It’s not fun to do that with an AR. It IS fun to do that with a BR.

I really don’t get how this is hard to parse out at this point…wanting a forced handicap is odd. Just drop the BR for something if you don’t want to use it.

And comparing the Sniper and Sword to a BR is just odd. The Sniper is a power weapon that kills in one shot at any range, and the sword kills in one swing at close range. The BR is the slowest killing weapon in the game but can be used at any range.

The BR is FAIR. That’s the point of it.

And everyone spawning with the AR isn’t fair? Are you daft? You’re grasping at straws to even maintain your own argument and stop deflecting, stay on topic.

We are not talking about fair or fun, we are talking about your bold claim to say “BR encourages variety”

Fact here is it doesn’t.

Just bloody say what you wanted from the start:
You want BR starts because you don’t like AR starts. If you had just said that, there is a huge majority of players who will agree with you, including myself.

But throwing out this claim that BR encourages variety is straight up false or unproven, which is why people are disagreeing with you, not because they love the AR.

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The BR does encourage more variety, because every weapon but the Plasma Pistol has a faster TTK than the BR.

The AR and Sidekick overpower about 1/3 of the sandbox, making many weapons completely pointless when you have them.

The only weapon you pick up more often in either mode is the weapon you didn’t spawn with. In AR starts you drop either the AR or Sidekick for a BR, and in BR starts you pick up the AR or sidekick. Beyond that, you see far more weapon variety in BR starts than in AR starts.

I don’t really know how people can argue this fact. It would be much easier to prove if Infinite somehow tracked which weapons people use the most.

OP is correct. BR starts are across the board, healthier for the game, whether we want to admit it or not. You never spawn at a disadvantage, but if you’re good at the game, almost every weapon you can pick up is either an augment to the BR, or strictly better than it at another job.

Need a quick kill at close range? It won’t beat a well used AR or Bulldog.

Need a better kill at long range? Stalker has you covered.

Need a specific tool for a specific job? Most other guns have their uses.

And it sure isn’t gonna’ outshoot a power weapon.

But you are NOT helpless, spawning with it, in any situation. You can ALWAYS contribute with a BR.

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nah, if lucid was goingg hard in social, he would still pick up all the weapons…

heres what would encourage weapon variety for everyone. less ammo. force people to find new weapons

:expressionless:…again i never said the BR was stronger. I said that outside of the vacuum of a perfect kill the BR is the easier weapon to use and can easily descope and out perform the SK. In ranked i can only recall maybe one time this season I’ve died to the SK. Even when i am shot first by it i can so easily use the BR to make the person retreat or kill them because the SK gets descoped more often and the SK overheats so fast.

The SK takes so much more skill to use effectively so most people are not going to be as effective with it as the BR. Even if someone is good with the SK they have to hope the person they are shooting isn’t equally as good with the BR because the BR can descope and counter with more shots before a reload.

I don’t think you want to go down the road of saying the SK is always better than the BR. The SK has a lower optimal TTK but the situations in which its the better option over the BR is very niche. I don’t think it even comes up in ranked at all because the maps aren’t big enough. In BTB at the longer ranges it can be effective because not everyone has a BR and even if they do you can push out past the BRs range and then the SK is very effective.

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haha, nice joke you made there!

Exactly why the Spanker (rocket launcher) only has two rockets in it now.

The various “snipers” on various maps encourages players to control and utilize those weapons throughout game play.

It really does though. It’s one of the most hotly contested weapons on Streets. People at low and mid tier play don’t use it, but you can bet your balls pros do. Lucid is a prime example.

I’m not joking. Have you been watching the HCS competitions?

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Thank you, so many people don’t get this. If you are going head to head BR vs Stalker Rifle, the BR is more likely to win because it is hit scan vs projectiles and it fires a burst of 3 bullets (which means the Stalker Rifle user will be descopes for the entire burst). The BR can be easily used without the scope compared to the Stalker Rifle. Yes the Stalker rifle has a faster TTK, but try hitting someone who is strafing at mid range with it while you are being descoped with the BR hit scan.

The BR’s role in the sandbox is almost to be a counter against other scoped weapons.

Edit:
I should say if you are at that spot where you dont need the Stalker Rifle’s zoom and you have the skill / precision with it, than you should clean up with the Stalker Rifle in comparison.

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Congratulations you’ve discovered the basic scope balancing mechanic intended to reign in the effectiveness of scoped weapons, BR included.

The inability of you or other players in your bracket to make effective use of the Stalker Rifle does not make it only a “marginally” better option. Even if we did go with that nonsense, then the obvious solution is to lower the aim assist and slow down the projectiles on the BR, which should happen anyway.

AR starts don’t play differently, it just ensures only a few players with access to precision weapon get free reign over to map to farm fresh spawns. If any given weapon is not worth using in BR starts it isn’t worth using in AR starts. The most effective strategies in BR starts are still the most effective strategies in AR starts, only with a higher likely of lopsided matches. There has never been a shortage of close range engagements in BR starts. Its only in BTB that certain close range weapons lose some overall value, but that is what happens when you blow up the map and player count, complaining about a fewer cqc opportunities in BTB would make you look ridiculous.

There is no reason to bloat the game with inferior gametypes because some people don’t like seeing a certain weapon model so often. At best AR starts belong as training playlist with a limited number of matches you are allowed to play on it and AR starts have absolutely zero business being in BTB whatsoever.

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This is another problem. I don’t want to balance the game around the .01% of pro players. Thats how wr got the mangler nerf and now i never use or see it used.

So my guess is for 99.99% of players the BR is so much easier to use, especially at the shorter ranges of ranked, that it will almost always be able to outperform the SK.

Eitherway thats just one weapon that in ranked i personally have no trouble defeating and find the BR more effective and would consider it not worth my time to go out of my way to go pick up when i could instead push the objective, get to a better spot for kills, or push an easier to use power weapon i.e. the rocket.

This is why people prefer AR starts. We think that from spawn you shouldn’t be able to help your teammate who is across the map.

People will say “spawning with an AR leaves you defenseless against people with ranged guns” but at the same time say that “spawning with a BR doesn’t limit map movement”.

So what is it, do ranged weapons make it easy to gun down people at range forcing you to move less and take cover more or do they really not and thus not limit map movement? It can’t be both.

If you are worried about spawning with an AR because you don’t want to get killed by a BR outside of your range then help me in asking for more playlists not destroying ones we already have.

This is why BR proponents still don’t understand AR proponents. You BR people point out an issue you have with AR starts, well that problem for you is one reason why we like AR starts. I understand perfectly well why you like BR starts, i have listed the differences and people keep denying facts for no gain.

Why can’t people just admit what they like, realize how it plays different and then tell 343 “We like this style of play, we know why the other side likes their style so instead of killing their style please just add ours”?

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4 rockets would be fine, if the user is weak after depleting them. basically if everyone spawns with 2 good weapons, that rocket user will be at a disadvantage when he has no ammo so when he’s on his last rocket, he needs to plan on getting his next secondary weapon which has risks. some players would just fire their last rocket across the map with a hit and hope just so they can easily get their secondary weapon back thats near to them.

I am with you there. The BR is too strong and could use a few minor nerfs.

  1. If they don’t play differently then why even argue about it

  2. You just said it ensures something that is a different outcome than if everyone had BR starts so you’re contradicting yourself

  3. I already said you have to stay near or be in cover constantly with BR starts. If this isn’t the case then BRs are bad at range which is a lie so since it is thats part of the problem for AR fans. We don’t want to have to sit in cover constantly. Only when your opponent has ranged weapons which is way less often if not everyone spawns with one. Again here is another example of how they play different.

Dude i have already said im not a bad player. I have made it to Onyx only playing at most once a week but now its basically become once every few weeks.
I can’t check your rank because you don’t have your gamertag listed but even at Diomond/Onyx people are not absolutely destroying with the SK and outperforming the BR by wide margins. Most of why the BR is the better option is the map size in Ranked since thats all we have for BR spawns. So can all you BR fans out there stop using the “skill issue” argument. Its a bad one because i am not some no skill chump.

What is so wrong about acknowledging how the guns fundamentally play different as spawn weapons? They have to or else you wouldn’t care. So get over yourselves and just get on the side of adding more instead of taking away.

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Because for some reason you keep pushing this notion that that AR starts are this magically different experience. AR starts are not fundamentally different then BR starts, they are just worse.

The idea that you have to constantly be in cover is just more of the same “BR starts are static and campy” with the serial numbers filed off. Its just a blatant misrepresentation of how BR starts play out. There has always been plenty of movement and no real need to treat the game like a cover shooter. Unless you believe map control = camping, the idea that you have to play in some super careful style tiptoeing around cover is not based in reality.

You do have to be mindful of various angles as you move throughout the map, but that is just a normal part of playing a shooter and one that doesn’t disappear when you start everyone with an AR. Precision weapons haven’t disappeared, just because fewer players have access does not mean that you know longer have to care about moving across certain longer sightlines. Only now if a fresh spawn does get targeted by a precision weapon they have no recourse whatsoever.

The fact that you can engage at a variety of ranges does not mean you can engage at longer range at all times, we are not playing on a flat open field.

You might say “well if you can avoid getting melted all the time in BR starts then surely its the same for AR starts so we don’t need BR spawns”. The difference is with a utility weapon you still have the capability to fight back even if you do choose to travel mid-long range friendly pathways whereas with an AR or similarly close range only weapon, you are forced to take the cqc friendly paths, which make you incredibly predictable and easy to counter.

This is why snowballing is so much more common in auto starts and why they don’t have any real place in the game. I acknowledge the guns play differently but the overall game does not. Spawning with limited auto guns makes the game play worse.

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I will fully admit snowballing occurs much more frequently in AR spawns. See this is where BR people don’t understand. AR people like it this way. You are rewarded more for getting map weapons.
Saying the game plays worse is objective so again not a good argument.

BRs spawns play so much different as a spawn weapon. The range of engagements on average is longer. The absolute need to stay closer to cover than in AR starts is a huge difference. Taking the covered paths isn’t always an easy prediction as on most maps there are many so that may just be a skill issue on your part. If you only know how to run straight at an enemy who outranges you you don’t understand how to play AR starts. It’s a different skill set. Different parts of the map become important, different parts become less important.

Again no AR person will ever agree to give up AR starts. So why are you arguing that? It doesn’t help your cause calling other players bad when I am proof that not all AR proponents are bad with BRs and i am in fact better with a BR because i find it so incredibly easy to use compared to AR starts.

So last time, help me argue for more game modes or i can almost guarantee 343 won’t ever give BR starts their own social playlists because they will see BR people only want to destroy AR starts to get it and there won’t be enough of a majority (if one even exists) to kill off a playlist and replace it.

But if we work together to give you your playlists and you leave mine alone and help me get the ones i want we can all get what we want.

If you want to hate ARs no one is saying they are going to force you to use them, at least i am not. But i would rather never play Halo MP again than have to use precision weapon spawns. And 343 must know there are a ton of people like me or else they wouldn’t have made AR spawn playlists. I basically quit playing Halo Reach because the DMR was so dang OP and i didn’t find it fun to use. Halo 4 and 5 were plagued by having “variety” but all it was was a couple of precision weapons being the best gun in most cases again. You may like that but i and many other don’t so you can either agree to disagree on what we find fun or no one on the AR side is going to help the BR side.

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