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> > In the past this game was BR based because it required skill. All other weapons (except power weapons) were ineffective against a good BR. There was a reason for all of this: At a certain level, if everyone uses the same weapon (BR), duels are won by the better player. This was a unique feature of Halo, which made it special compared to other games.
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> This is kind of a shallow view on how Halo works that focuses too much on raw aiming skill while ignoring all the rest. The reality is that there is more to weapon use than raw aiming skill. Power weapons are the most obvious example of this, since they are what the game revolves around. However, there is more to power weapons than map control, since even if you have the weapon, there are various levels of effectiveness at which you can make use of them. The obvious thing that everyone understands is not to get in close range encounters with a sniper rifle, but what is less obvious is how to avoid said situation and put yourself in a position where having the sniper rifle gives you the greatest advantage.
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> The understanding of what having a specific weapon means for you, and why you should care about specific weapons extends beyond power weapons. If everybody in the game spawns with a powerful close range weapon, and you go into every encounter with a precision weapon “because that’s what good players use” and you lose, you’re a bad player. If you get caught off guard by that weapon, and have no chance to fight back because it kills so fast at close range, it’s not because it’s an “OP noob weapons”, it’s because you had bad awareness and were caught by surprise. If you drop that powerful close range weapon for a sniper rifle, leaving you with the sniper rifle and a utility weapon, and you get killed at close range by a superior weapon, you had poor awareness or didn’t understand the ramifications of your weapon choice.
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> The main utility weapon (whether it be a Magnum, a BR, or a DMR) is there for you to be able to have sensible fire power at any range. It is in fact at its best at mid- to long range, which happens to be the range at which you will most likely need to fight back most of the time. However, it is not there for you to dominate or excel at every encounter you might find yourself in. The sandbox a collection of niche weapons that are in some situations better than the main utility weapon. Having the understanding and ability to make use of these niche weapons makes you a better player. Having these weapons in the sandbox requires the player to have a deeper understanding of the sandbox, to understand the ramifications of their weapon choices, and it puts more emphasis on both situational awareness and understanding of the playspace. Halo is not, and should not be, a one gun + power weapons games. The niche weapons serve a very concrete purpose of increasing the strategic depth of the weapon sandbox.
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> Of course, all the above comments are entirely hypothetical. Whether a given Halo game does a good job of executing the niche weapon portion of the sandbox is another matter. Halo CE does it the best to date, Halo 3 does perhaps the poorest job of it, and Halo 5 tries by giving weapons more power but fails because it misses the point of “niche”. However, the fact that the current game has a poor niche weapon sandbox is a bad argument against ignoring niche weapons altogether. Rather Halo Infinite should improve on the failures of Halo 5 to create interesting niche weapons, giving the weapons unique attributes that make them functionally different (in contrast to, e.g., the Storm Rifle being just a Covenant version of the AR) while also tightening the niches of weapons.
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> The bottom line, in any case, is that a game where an AR user beats a BR user at some range is overall a deeper game than one where the BR user always dominates.
Imho, the problem is not ignorance about niche weapons, or not being in the condition to always have the best weapon at the best moment.
Inevitably, the game leads to situations where you do not have the ideal weapon. The respawn for example, is a phase in which you look for your ideal weapons (smg or storm rifle for the close distance and a BR or DMR for the medium-long). But it happens that around the corner you find an enemy that push you with a most suitable weapon of yours, and inevitably you at that moment are disadvantaged.
Seen from the opposite point of view, I’m happy if I have a storm rifle and I find a nearby enemy with the magnum. I kill him fast. But what would have happened if I had to kill him with the magnum? would I kill him anyway? Using a magnum requires more skill than a storm rifle. It does not seem right to blame my enemy because he did not have a storm rifle him too, maybe it’s just spawned or the area of the map where it is is inaccessible at that time.
All this may seem obvious and normal, but i remember the times when close combact was solved with the BR because it was better than an SMG and do you want to know something? It was fantastic. Because there is not any satisfaction to kill an enemy from behind with an SMG, but there was more satisfaction to do it with a BR or DMR, perhaps having the precision of putting a frag grenade under his feet. And having both the same weapon, you could not blame anything else but yourself if you died.
It also happened that you surprise an enemy behind him and start shooting at him, but he is better than you and he had time to turn around and, although he was already half shielded, could kill you. These were the unique things that happened in Halo. Today with the power of new weapons, it happens very rarely.
Now, Halo is more realistic and rational. As in reality, every weapon has its own reason. Now, Halo is a good game, better than any others. But at the time it was epic, and imho, it was better.
