Core Weapons Sandbox

Games Other Halo
1

The starting weapon sandbox in previous games has led to a style of gameplay that does not encourage players to pick up other weapons. This is because the initial weapons you start out with are some of the best. While this is nice, it tends to lead to one gun games that aren’t all that interesting. I suggest that instead of players looking around for better weapons, they search for more context specific weapons (brute shot, good at close range or against vehicles), while the core weapons play primarily against their different strengths and weaknesses.
So here is a list of stats for the four most used weapons in the game:
Basic Traits:
For need of a basic reference for where I am going to take this.
You will play as a Master Chief with his established shielding system and armor. Your shields will have a value of 80 points and your health will have a value of 40. Headshots will drain an unshielded Spartan’s health at a higher rate than body shots.
Movement/Player Traits:
Speed: 105% of H3
Jump Height: H3 (7ft)
Movement acceleration: H1 (very high). Having high movement acceleration allows for effective strafes as opposed to the HReach system where the acceleration is so low that most strafing is made useless.
Fall Damage: Moderate. While suffering slightly less damage than H1, crouching will soften the fall much more than H1
Max incline movement: 50 degrees/ no change between 0-23, moderate decrease between 24-45, very apparent decrease between 46-50 degrees
Crouching: (very different). Can stay crouched until taking 7 bullets of any kind, can crouch while still moving when standing (ie. In HReach one cannot be moving and then go into crouch), jump-crouching is just as effective, crouching at the bottom of a jump negates some of fall damage
Zoom function on scoped weapons: most weapons will be knocked out of zoom when the player sustains damage
Grenades: Plasmas fly relatively quickly to stick far away targets. Frags are thrown similar to H3.
Melee: Similar to H2, 40 pts/ ½ shields/ three melees to kill fully shielded opponent. Damage bleeds through to health.
Bloom: Will appear on all automatic weapons, some precision weapons. For the most part, it will function similarly to HReach.

Weapons:
The Halos made after H2 have all had power ups such as Equipment and Armor Abilities that many consider to be annoying gimmicks to spice up gameplay. Unfortunately, these power ups have slowed down gameplay and created inconsistencies when players with different equipment meet and the lesser skilled player had a power up that happened to favor the situation better. Also, the existence of these power ups has caused there to be very little need for weapon diversity as most encounters focus on these differing inherent advantages. So my goal of this sandbox is to make every weapon so unique that there is no need for any silly power ups.
Dual wielding: Returns similar to what is was in H2. A player can store both weapons on back so one can alternate between duals and standard weapons more easily. Melee will work without dropping weapons. The only hindrance of dual wielding is increased recoil, separating reticules, no grenades, increased bloom and loss of some special abilities (ie. No plasma freeze).
The Big Four: AR, Pistol, BR, DMR
These four weapons will appear as the primary starting weapons in the pairs: [AR, Pistol]-small maps, [BR AR]-Medium maps, [BR, DMR]- large maps. The idea of these weapons is to be able to compete across a broad spectrum of ranges, and effectively be the “one weapon to rule them all” that the BR was. These weapons don’t possess any special abilities that make them special but they do have higher DPS and range flexibility that most of the other standard weapons
AR:
Fire Mode: Auto
Clip: 40
Damage: 6.666
Bullets to Kill: 18
Bullets to Bring Down Shields: 12
Headshot Bonus: X2
Bullets to kill with Headshots: 15
Rate of Fire: About HReach
Bloom Expansion: About HReach
Bloom Reset Rate: 3X bloom
Scope: none
Dual Wield: No
Thing to Nerf/Buff: Fire Rate
Summary: ideal to be used from close to medium range. The fast bloom reset rate makes it ideal for burst fireing in bursts of about 6 shots for close range or 4 shot bursts for longer ranges. The headshot bonus encourages intelligent fireing so as soon as the shields pop, a player could let the bloom reset so they could get a 3 shot kill as opposed to a 6 shot kill, creating a more significant skill gap than previous ARs. The longer range would allow it to engage a BR at medium range and have a fighting chance.
Pistol:
Fire mode: Semi-auto, Auto
Clip: 8
Damage: 20
Max Shots to Kill: 6
Bullets to Bring Down Shields: 4 (3 with headshots)
Headshot bonus: Shielded: 26.6667, Unshielded: instant kill
Bullets to kill with headshots: 4
Rate of Fire: H1 style: relatively fast when pulling trigger, faster when trigger is pulled in, activating automatic
Bloom: H1, nonexistent if semi, small bloom if in automatic
Scope: 2X
Dual wield: Yes, more bloom would be present
Thing to Nerf/Buff: Fire Rate, amount of bloom
Summary: The H4 pistol should be the more skilled equivalent of the AR and be capable of winning most medium range fights against anything besides a BR or DMR. If all shots are headshots, it will kill in 4 shots, but body shots and then a headshot will give the wielder a 5 shot kill.

BR:
Fire Mode: 3 shot burst
Clip: 36
Damage: 10.1
Max shots to kill: 6 (18)
Bullets to bring down Shields: 11
Headshot Bonus: instant
Shots to kill with Headshots: 4 (12)
Rate of Fire: H2
Bloom: none
Scope: 3X
Dual Wield: No
Special Ability: The reticule will display where your next shots will land. The first bullet will always land in the center, the second will switch between just above or below the first shot, and the third shot will be diagonally placed from the second shot. The bullet setups will follow a predictable pattern so that skilled players will be able to take advantage of this information rapidly.
Thing to Nerf/Buff: Fire Rate
Summary: The BRs greatness comes from its insane versatility and damage output, but allows no room for error if one wants to achieve its 4 shot kill. This creates a very large skill gap throughout the community which is stratified more so by its ability to predict were the bullets will spread. The gun will provide the basis of competitive gameplay as it can compete against any weapon at nearly any range.

DMR:
Fire Mode: Semi
Clip: 12
Damage: 16
Max shots to kill: 8
Bullets to bring down Shields: 4
Headshot Bonus: Instant
Shots to kill with Headshots: 5
Rate of Fire: Max HReach
Bloom: Only movement bloom. Any strafing or running will make the DMR wildly inaccurate. Crouching will increase accuracy more than just standing.
Scope: 4X
Dual Wield: no
Special Ability: an asset and a liability, the player is not knocked out of scope while wielding the DMR. This allows a DMR user to constantly barrage enemies with perfect accuracy and uncompromised fire rate from long ranges while being shot at. But if a player sneaks up on a DMR user, the DMR user is at an inherent disadvantage as he must un-scope manually to engage a player within its ideal range.
Thing to Nerf/Buff: Amount of bloom
Summary: The DMR is great as a long range rifle, but has major shortcomings as a short range weapon due to the inability to strafe and the problems associated with its scope.

2

I agree totally, especially with the better weapon sandbox. every weapon needs to be useful, not just one or two master weapons and then the rest are just nice scenery.

3

Having a DMR, a Pistol, AND a BR is at least two weapons too many. Add to this that the Enemy in Halo 4 is likely to have some sort of scoped precision weapon and it gets pretty silly. It’s just clutter. The more detail you have, the bigger a chance you have at not balancing the weapon sandbox and then it turns into Halo 2.

I’d go the other way; up the damage the Reach AR does, give it a 2X scope, it only fires semi auto in scope.

Bam, there’s your utility weapon.

4

> Having a DMR, a Pistol, AND a BR is at least two weapons too many. Add to this that the Enemy in Halo 4 is likely to have some sort of scoped precision weapon and it gets pretty silly. It’s just clutter. The more detail you have, the bigger a chance you have at not balancing the weapon sandbox and then it turns into Halo 2.
>
> I’d go the other way; up the damage the Reach AR does, give it a 2X scope, it only fires semi auto in scope.
>
> Bam, there’s your utility weapon.

stamps seal of approval on post

5

> Having a DMR, a Pistol, AND a BR is at least two weapons too many. Add to this that the Enemy in Halo 4 is likely to have some sort of scoped precision weapon and it gets pretty silly. It’s just clutter. The more detail you have, the bigger a chance you have at not balancing the weapon sandbox and then it turns into Halo 2.
>
> I’d go the other way; up the damage the Reach AR does, give it a 2X scope, it only fires semi auto in scope.
>
> Bam, there’s your utility weapon.

I feel that the game doesn’t need a utility weapon. I feel that each of my proposed weapons is powerful in its own but can be beaten by one of the others if the user is attempting to use it outside of its intended range.
And weapon variety is good. The more weapons you have to mix up the gameplay the better.

6

The game absolutely must have a utility weapon. Remember how much fun spawning with an SMG was in pre-patch Halo 2? The more complicated you make the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

So you’ve got an elaborate playground of weapons, how many ammo drops are you going to have to have to support them? Clutter, clutter, clutter. Look at the weapon sandbox for Combat Evolved; you had one, ONE weapon for each role. They were ALL useful (yes the needler too). That is the model I hope 343 is aspiring to.

7

> The game absolutely must have a utility weapon. Remember how much fun spawning with an SMG was in pre-patch Halo 2? The more complicated you make the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.
>
> So you’ve got an elaborate playground of weapons, how many ammo drops are you going to have to have to support them? Clutter, clutter, clutter. Look at the weapon sandbox for Combat Evolved; you had one, ONE weapon for each role. They were ALL useful (yes the needler too). That is the model I hope 343 is aspiring to.

  1. all weapons should be useful and be able to defend their owner off the spawn
  2. ammo drops have never been a problem in halo (maybe they should?), these are all possible starting weapons so there should be a large supply of ammo just lying about
  3. AR, PR, and Needeler all filled a similar role abit with some differences, all were close range guns with medium kill times (one had alot of ammo, one could blind opponents,one could shoot around walls)
    ps this is a good argument , making me think
8

> > The game absolutely must have a utility weapon. Remember how much fun spawning with an SMG was in pre-patch Halo 2? The more complicated you make the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.
> >
> > So you’ve got an elaborate playground of weapons, how many ammo drops are you going to have to have to support them? Clutter, clutter, clutter. Look at the weapon sandbox for Combat Evolved; you had one, ONE weapon for each role. They were ALL useful (yes the needler too). That is the model I hope 343 is aspiring to.
>
> 1. all weapons should be useful and be able to defend their owner off the spawn

Oh absolutely! That’s why there was such a push for BR starts in Halo 2 and Halo 3.

> 2. ammo drops have never been a problem in halo (maybe they should?), these are all possible starting weapons so there should be a large supply of ammo just lying about

You could always go with the ammo lockers that Reach Firefight uses that replenish all non-power weapons.

> 3. AR, PR, and Needeler all filled a similar role abit with some differences, all were close range guns with medium kill times (one had alot of ammo, one could blind opponents,one could shoot around walls)

They all played very very different and had different roles though.

The AR was a close quarter MONSTER with that melee. It was also a health eater and good at both blinding and knocking opponents out of scope. Burst fired it had a surprising reach; I loved trolling sniper and pistol one trick pony players with it. Paired with a plasma pistol on a small map it was more versatile than just -Yoink!- the shottie.

The PR’s biggest asset was the plamsa freeze, may Bungie’s genetalia freeze for all eternity for robbing us of that in Halo 2 and on. You could stun a guy and either close for the melee kill while doing it, or my personal favorite chuck a plasma at his feet, he mocks you for your crappy toss, and you freeze him on top of it HA HA HA HA! It also did double damage if aimed at the head.

The needler was a denial weapon. You emtpy it at somebody, and their options are either continue to commit to combat and get blowed up, or they have to break contact to break the needle homing and you escape. Great for covering somebody with the flag or if you feel you are losing an encounter and want to break contact.

> ps this is a good argument , making me think

I’m here all week folks!

9

OP- good ideas, however, I do believe the AR is still too weak. It either needs a higher rate of fire or more bullet damage. I’m sick of the AR being the crappy weapon everyone just throws done for something else.

10

no utility weapons are needed. a weapon that’s good at all ranges, even point blank, is unbalanced and makes other weapons unusable.

11

the AR needs to be removed and instead of AR starts it would be SMG or BR like Halo 2
well this is my opinion

and whats up with this everything has to be balanced -Yoink-

12

if there is 1 weapon that’s good at all ranges, what’s the point of having any other weapon.

thats why there needs to be balance, and no utility weapon.

13

The problem isn’t so much 1 weapon good at all ranges, it’s having other weapons good at only 1 range.

The H2 and H3 shotguns, both had too limited a range for them to be useful beyond camping, baiting or smothering the much lesser skilled.
The dualing weapons only dominated when paired and imaginatively used, or when pushing CQB-short ranges and with grenades a blazing (not so bad in thought, much harder than having a BR than it needed to be).
Mostly averted in the Mythic Map Pack as many maps had nooks, crannies and all those pesky corners to duck, weave or camp in that precision players don’t like.

The H3AR isn’t useless in the grand scope of the sandbox as it shreds non-heavy vehicles pretty darn well.
It’s that it isn’t much of a PvsP weapon.
Yes it can pepper an area to descope and enemy, but it can’t engage with its spread and an unscoped BR is still pretty damn deadly compared to a burst AR as it’s still headshot capable on bleed-through shielding.
So it’s not as versatile in PvsP (and 1vs1), but PvsV and as a team, it holds its own very well.

But as stated, if it had a scope, perhaps as is but with similar mechanics as the DMR where scoping really does shrink the area of spread for none-Red Reticle, while adding a boost to magnetism by giving the x2 scope to extend RR range, it could just feel right.

Feeling useful is more important than “true” balance as paper-balance is over-thought in most cases. 10,000 hrs of play testing and tweaking is over-thought.
Though it can be defined by science, science should not dictate the outcome. Science should reflect on it afterwards because it was feeling, it was art that created something to which science seeks to define. (like discovering fractals baby!)
It should be about getting the weapon to work right for its intent without nerfing it to fit inside a niche.
The skill will determine the niche range as it’s always an equilibrium fight between both players to find that range where one no longer dominates.
And from there, communities that never use the AR in the first place won’t be effected in their game-play by having a weapon designed to work with their needs in fear of it competing with another yet “less skilled” weapon because they don’t use it in the first place (sorry, long one).

Now, whether the AR goes instantly to burst or not when scoped, I don’t know. That is “noobing it” and I won’t mind if the spread is kept tighter than the H3BR’s. When scoped we’d be sacrificing time to kill with a CQB capable weapon that isn’t headshot registered for the sake of a tight burst shot that kills in about 6-7 perfect bursts. Which is about what the H3BR did in the first place.
That is why I don’t mind the auto-burst in scope mode, but I do like the idea of having to always control the full-auto.
I won’t complain with either model.

14

> if there is 1 weapon that’s good at all ranges, what’s the point of having any other weapon.
>
> thats why there needs to be balance, and no utility weapon.

The alternative is the old paradigm of spawning with a crappy weapon, leading to a supremely frustrating feedback effect of “I die because the spawn weapon sucks, I spawn with a sucky weapon which causes me to die again”. Halo 2 SMG spawns is an excellent example of this, compounded by the fact that you spawned with a dual wieldable gun and melee and grenades had been castrated. UT2004 was even worse.

Utility weapon does not mean a weapon that’s best at all ranges. It means a weapon that is usefull at all ranges; that is a very important distinction. The Halo CE magnum came close to this, Halo has lacked one ever since, usually degenerating into the game revolving around either the power weapons or an unbalanced precision one.

Giving the AR a damage buff (150%) and a scope would give you that weapon. It’s useful at short range but doesn’t trump the shottie or plasma pistol punchout. It’s useful at medium range but doesn’t trump a sniper.

More and more though I’m starting to think the real solution is removing all auto aim, camera adhesion and bullet magnetism, the eye patch skull in Halo Anniversary has been a real eye opener. The weapons that benefit the most are the precision ones.

15

> The problem isn’t so much 1 weapon good at all ranges, it’s having other weapons good at only 1 range.
>
> The H2 and H3 shotguns, both had too limited a range for them to be useful beyond camping, baiting or smothering the much lesser skilled.
> The dualing weapons only dominated when paired and imaginatively used, or when pushing CQB-short ranges and with grenades a blazing (not so bad in thought, much harder than having a BR than it needed to be).
> Mostly averted in the Mythic Map Pack as many maps had nooks, crannies and all those pesky corners to duck, weave or camp in that precision players don’t like.
>
> The H3AR isn’t useless in the grand scope of the sandbox as it shreds non-heavy vehicles pretty darn well.
> It’s that it isn’t much of a PvsP weapon.
> Yes it can pepper an area to descope and enemy, but it can’t engage with its spread and an unscoped BR is still pretty damn deadly compared to a burst AR as it’s still headshot capable on bleed-through shielding.
> So it’s not as versatile in PvsP (and 1vs1), but PvsV and as a team, it holds its own very well.
>
>
> But as stated, if it had a scope, perhaps as is but with similar mechanics as the DMR where scoping really does shrink the area of spread for none-Red Reticle, while adding a boost to magnetism by giving the x2 scope to extend RR range, it could just feel right.
>
> Feeling useful is more important than “true” balance as paper-balance is over-thought in most cases. 10,000 hrs of play testing and tweaking is over-thought.
> Though it can be defined by science, science should not dictate the outcome. Science should reflect on it afterwards because it was feeling, it was art that created something to which science seeks to define. (like discovering fractals baby!)
> It should be about getting the weapon to work right for its intent without nerfing it to fit inside a niche.
> The skill will determine the niche range as it’s always an equilibrium fight between both players to find that range where one no longer dominates.
> And from there, communities that never use the AR in the first place won’t be effected in their game-play by having a weapon designed to work with their needs in fear of it competing with another yet “less skilled” weapon because they don’t use it in the first place (sorry, long one).
>
> Now, whether the AR goes instantly to burst or not when scoped, I don’t know. That is “noobing it” and I won’t mind if the spread is kept tighter than the H3BR’s. When scoped we’d be sacrificing time to kill with a CQB capable weapon that isn’t headshot registered for the sake of a tight burst shot that kills in about 6-7 perfect bursts. Which is about what the H3BR did in the first place.
> That is why I don’t mind the auto-burst in scope mode, but I do like the idea of having to always control the full-auto.
> I won’t complain with either model.

I like your idea, and I agree with you that weapons shouldn’t just be created in some way, and then nerfed for the sake of balance, it should be something you enjoyed creating, something really neat and unique that the players will enjoy using, and the players determine where it fits in the sandbox. An example is Halo CE, the weapons were overpowered, but were they really? It was the first Halo! And from then on, the weapons have since been nerfed further and further for this ‘balance’ they’ve been seeking, all the while making the weapons more and more frustrating to use.

However, as for you idea for the AR, would it be headshot capable in burst mode, what is its rate of fire, and how many rounds/mag would it have?

16

Where the weapons in CE overpowered? Not really. One of the things that set Halo CE apart from the state of the art of the time was that the kill times fell between the “insta death” of things like Counterstrike or Unreal Tournament, but they weren’t long and drawn out.

Since then Halo has stagnated with longer and longer kill times with the standard weapons, unless you use some sort of gimmick or noob combo. All this did was make gimmicks and power weapons mandatory.

Ya ya ya I know “CE Super Pistol kills in three shots that you can spam out in a millisecond” but did it really? Getting three headshots in quick succession usually only happened if you caught somebody by surprise (in which case you deserved the kill), or the guy was standing around in the open not strafing (in which case he deserved to die).