I’ve been thinking about it. What if Halo 4 included a 3sk magnum with 7 shots, and a 5sk BR with 15 shots/45 rounds. At first you would think “Well, OF COURSE you would use the magnum”, but I’ve been thinking, well maybe not. If the 5sk shot quickly enough and 3sk shot slowly enough, and the 5sk had a faster 1v1 kill time, maybe you would see some co-existence.
Obviously these numbers aren’t final, they would need some testing, but I was thinking, what if the BR fired its 3-round burst every .2 seconds, so that a 5sk kill would take .8 second, and the magnum fired a single shot every .5 seconds, so it had a kill time of 1.0 seconds. With 2 man team shot, the magnum would kill every .5 seconds, and a 2 man team shot from the BR would kill in .4 seconds. Magnum would gib with 3 or more teamshooting, but the kill-time from 3 or 4 teamshooting would still be incredibly fast.
There would be pros and cons to each. Magnum is better for combat where LOS is constantly being broken so its cooling off is less of an issue, whereas BR is definitely better for sustained fire and can punish a player who is exposed easily. If the magnum user misses, he’s in big trouble, whereas it wouldn’t be as big of a deal with the BR.
With kill times that fast, I would definitely be for other weapons and such being more deadly. More grenades, more deadly melee attacks, further lunge on sword, other weapons doing more damage (also you could bump up the AR to 60 rounds), etc.
With all this going on as well, faster movement speed and faster shield recharge seem appropriate.
Anyways, just some thoughts on that subject.