Dream Loadouts for Halo XBO

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Hey guys, I was bummed to find out you are unable to post pictures on these boards, but I made an image displaying my most wanted tweaks and additions to loadout weapons to the next Halo FPS entry. Link below:

http://i.imgur.com/gcyb6Fd.png

I’ll start off saying that 343’s implementation of fully customizable loadouts breathes new life into Halo 4’s multiplayer, and they did an exceptional job on balancing the loadout weapons against one another. I’ve logged thousands of hours on Halo’s multiplayer ever since 2001, and this entry seems to have the best balance between weapons for how many there are (especially post-patch).

I hope (and strongly believe) this trend will carry on to future entries.

That said, for anyone who doesn’t feel like opening the image, here are my ideal weapon lineups and some of the key changes:

STORM

NEEDLE RIFLE:
Acts as a counterpart to the DMR. Full auto with significant accuracy drop at top rate of fire (as in Reach). Slight fire rate drop from Reach, but now with a slightly stronger, 2.5x zoom.

COVENANT CARBINE:
Largely unchanged from Halo 4, but with a small reload speed boost.

STORM RIFLE:
Largely unchanged from Halo 4, but takes a bit longer to overheat, and its effective range just a tad closer than Halo 4’s Storm Rifle.

PLASMA PISTOL:
Largely unchanged from Halo 4, but uncharged bolts now cost 1% battery (as opposed to 2% in Halo 4)

FORERUNNER/PROMETHEAN

LIGHT RIFLE:
Unchanged.

SENTINEL BEAM:
Replaces the suppressor. This would serve as an interesting counterpart to the Storm and Assault rifles. Similar kill times to the two, battery operated, scopeless, and fires a constant beam as it does in Halo 2 and 3. It would overheat about 1/3 faster than the Storm Rifle. It would also slightly benefit from headshots, meaning if the beam was aimed at the enemy’s head, it would do slightly more damage than if aimed at the body. This is an attempt to redeem the Sentinel Beam (as it was less than popular in its previous incarnations) and introduce an automatic headshot weapon that functions differently than any other in one fell swoop.

BURST SHOT:

Replaces the Boltshot. (It is my hope that they remove the Scattershot and replace it with the Boltshot as a power weapon, perhaps with increased range and decreased charge time). The Burstshot close range, battery operated sidearm that functions similarly to the Storm Rifle. The user can choose to hold the trigger for a powerful burst, or feather the trigger for smaller flurries of bolts. The gun would overheat 2/3 faster than the Storm Rifle.

UNSC

DMR:
Largely unchanged from Halo 4, with a slight drop in either rate of fire or reload speed.

BR:
Largely unchanged, with a tiny drop in fire rate.

ASSAULT RIFLE:
A 4 round increase to magazine capacity, putting it at 36 rounds per mag.

MAGNUM:
Unchanged.

I have a few ideas floating around that are maybe to wacky for the next Halo, such as:

-SMG and/or Plasma Rifle as sidearms (Smaller mags and closer effective range than H4 suppressor)

-Keep the Suppressor, scrap the Sentinel Beam, throw in the Bishop Beam as the Forerunner sidearm, and bump Boltshot up to power weapon status with tweaks.

-Possibly separate STORM and SEPARATIST loadout factions.
Maybe STORM: Needle Rifle, Storm Rifle, Needle Pistol (See: Needle Pistol | Halo Alpha | Fandom), Fire Grenade?
SEPARATIST: Covenant Carbine, Plasma Repeater, Plasma Pistol, Plasma Grenade.

Anyway, PLEASE give me some feedback as I’ve only had a few buddies to kick these ideas around with.

And remember, If you have ideas or critiques, SHARE THEM HERE.

Thanks! Hominix.

EDIT: Removed the youtube footage of -Yoink- that was on Halo 4’s disc which apparently is “posting links to modded content” cus 343i/Microsoft has a giant stick up their -Yoinks!-.

I mean honestly, the people who mod your game, especially to check out stuff like that are the people that love your game the most, and you’re punishing them instead of supporting them?

Dumb

I fully encourage you to search for footage of the scrapped “Burst Pistol” and “Bishop Beam”

2

Well made thread, may I say before I start.

Now, one piece of critique I have is the inclusion of the ranged weapons. Specifically, DMR, Needle Rifle and Light Rifle. Now i don’t mind them being in game, but I have to admit I don’t like them being in loadouts either. Partly because I believe they could serve a better purpose as map pickups, and partly because I don’t like being able to spawn with the most effective tool for every map.

The ability to spawn with the ranged weapons means that for large 4v4-8v8 games, player’s don’t have to particularly worry about picking anything up. They already have the weapon that will give the most consistent results (other than power weapons) and there’s no logical reason to really seek out any weapons (thus giving up your position, or possible position).

Now the second thing I disagree with is choice of secondaries, or more importantly the plasma pistol. As an on-map weapon, it can almost be considered semi-powerup (as it was used in Reach MLG) due to it’s ability to be combined with melee for a quick kill, and how it can be used on vehicles. Putting it in loadouts both deprives the map of a useful weapon to divert player attention in BTB, and puts a heavy damper on vehicle gameplay. It just makes it too easy to stop that already vulnerable warthog if you can spawn with an EMP, not to mention any other vehicles that may be a problem.

Your solution to the boltshot is an interesting enough idea. Making the charged shot burst fire will at least make it more difficult to connect with, but what’s the power on it? Would it still be a one shot kill? I suppose it would have to do more than simply strip shields, but if it’s a one shot kill it’ll still be abused, which wouldn’t exactly be great.

Anyway those are a couple critiques I had. I’d also like to add a suggestion.

The ODST SMG as a spawn weapon. With lack of ranged weapons, we’d need something to bring in a little variety. So the ODST SMG would be similar (if not exactly the same) as it was in its first appearance. A scoped, mid-ranged automatic with high recoil. Preferably it (and realistically, all the automatics) would have a 2x headshot multiplayer (so accuracy is rewarded) against both shielded and unshielded targets. Kill times are up for debate, but I think adding a mid range automatic is long overdue.

3

Thanks for the reply, SilentA98!

I do agree, 343’s addition of default sprint speeds up gameplay, which has its ups and downs. It inherently forces maps to be made a tad bigger, to make up for the increase movement speed, which in turn USUALLY means that precision weapons are more viable in more situations it seems, which is a profound change.

However, I don’t think precision weapons should be stripped from the loadouts altogether, but a dedicated playlist (none of this put-playlists-on-shuffle bull that 343 pulled/is pulling for many Halo 4 playlists) that doesn’t allow you to spawn with precision weapons, but still allows you to customize your autorifle and sidearm.

Maybe in this playlist, a team ordnance system would be in place awarding key performers on the winning/losing teams with nearby precision weapon or ammo drops.

As for the plasma pistol: They could nerf it a bit and perhaps even add a 3rd charge sequence 2-3 seconds after the full charge that would be reserved for EMPing vehicles. The super-overcharge could use the Xbox One’s impulse triggers to set a new vibration intensity for the top charging sequence. This super-overcharge would eat 50% battery, meaning it could only be done twice per plasma pistol (3 times with Ammo perk)

For the Burstshot, it would work similarly to Gears of War 3’s iteration of the Gorgon Pistol (if you’ve played that). It would kill a target with a full burst only if all the bolts in the burst land on the target, which would be around the same range of effectiveness as the Boltshot, but with more of a random element (a la Scattershot) and would take a bit more skill to use successfully than the Boltshot.

Love the silenced SMG idea, and I would still like to see it implemented as a sidearm (as it probably wouldn’t contend with the AR or Storm Rifle)

ALSO: As a sidenote: Invis should be treated the same as Overshield, Speed and Damage boosts, only available as map pickups or ordnance drops. It never ever should have been migrated to Armor Abilities.

4

Dream loadouts? A few weeks ago, I dreamt that I was playing Halo 5 and loadout options were selectable via a radial menu in-game and would change on-the-fly (meaning you wouldn’t have to die to change equipment). I woke up screaming–not because it’s a bad idea (I actually kind of like this idea), but I’m really tired of loadouts in Halo.

5

Pretty sure the loadouts were a huge part of what killed Halo 4s multiplayer incredibly early.

6

> Thanks for the reply, SilentA98!
>
> I do agree, 343’s addition of default sprint speeds up gameplay, which has its ups and downs. It inherently forces maps to be made a tad bigger, to make up for the increase movement speed, which in turn USUALLY means that precision weapons are more viable in more situations it seems, which is a profound change.
>
> However, I don’t think precision weapons should be stripped from the loadouts altogether, but a dedicated playlist (none of this put-playlists-on-shuffle bull that 343 pulled/is pulling for many Halo 4 playlists) that doesn’t allow you to spawn with precision weapons, but still allows you to customize your autorifle and sidearm.

Well it’s not to say precision weapons are at fault (I have no problem with CC/BR spawns) just that the ability to spawn with weapons of all ranges seems like a little too much. Personally I think BTB would benefit from a lack of loadout available long range weapons, but that may very well just be me.

Separate playlists would always be nice, although I feel like Halo 4 made it pretty clear the likelihood of that happening (given how long it took them to bring Legendary in, and then removed it without even bothering to test BR starts… but that’s another debate entirely.

> Maybe in this playlist, a team ordnance system would be in place awarding key performers on the winning/losing teams with nearby precision weapon or ammo drops.

Eh, not really sure how that would be beneficial compared to picking them up off the map. If you’re winning, chances are you have control of the powerweapons. If not, well that’s pretty much you’re fault, and you won’t be winning for long… ah well, I digress I suppose.

> As for the plasma pistol: They could nerf it a bit and perhaps even add a 3rd charge sequence 2-3 seconds after the full charge that would be reserved for EMPing vehicles. The super-overcharge could use the Xbox One’s impulse triggers to set a new vibration intensity for the top charging sequence. This super-overcharge would eat 50% battery, meaning it could only be done twice per plasma pistol (3 times with Ammo perk)
>
> For the Burstshot, it would work similarly to Gears of War 3’s iteration of the Gorgon Pistol (if you’ve played that). It would kill a target with a full burst only if all the bolts in the burst land on the target, which would be around the same range of effectiveness as the Boltshot, but with more of a random element (a la Scattershot) and would take a bit more skill to use successfully than the Boltshot.

Still not entirely in favour of the weapon. Without the one shot, it would still be very difficult to counter (charge shot plus melee would be deadly), and with the one shot it would be near impossible (depending on the situation). Making it random doesn’t really make the situation a whole lot better, just means the weapon is less consistent (making it less fun to use).

I like the idea though, just don’t fully agree with the presented settings is all.

> Love the silenced SMG idea, and I would still like to see it implemented as a sidearm (as it probably wouldn’t contend with the AR or Storm Rifle)

Depends on the damage they gave it. I’d personally put it as a primary as a bridge bettween the two weapon styles (being close range auto and mid range precision).

> ALSO: As a sidenote: Invis should be treated the same as Overshield, Speed and Damage boosts, only available as map pickups or ordnance drops. It never ever should have been migrated to Armor Abilities.

Agreed.

> Dream loadouts? A few weeks ago, I dreamt that I was playing Halo 5 and loadout options were selectable via a radial menu in-game and would change on-the-fly (meaning you wouldn’t have to die to change equipment). I woke up screaming–not because it’s a bad idea (I actually kind of like this idea), but I’m really tired of loadouts in Halo.

So a counter-strike esque menu that can be used on the run?.. that’s… interesting I guess. Seems a little bit pointless, but interesting.

Still, I think a choice between 4-5 primary weapons wouldn’t be too bad. Considering that it’d really just be a choice of 3 (automatic, scoped automatic and precision) there wouldn’t really be a whole lot of variation involved. That or just spawn us with one precision and one automatic of our choice and put the ODST SMG on map. Personally i think giving them a choice that looks remotely meaningful would be better though.

7

I’d still rather have no loadouts at all.

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> > Love the silenced SMG idea, and I would still like to see it implemented as a sidearm (as it probably wouldn’t contend with the AR or Storm Rifle)
>
> Depends on the damage they gave it. I’d personally put it as a primary as a bridge bettween the two weapon styles (being close range auto and mid range precision).

That was kind of my intention with my ideal Sentinel Beam as a quasi-precision weapon, but would mainly be compared to auto weapons. Your ideal ODST SMG sounds like it would be just on the other side of the mid-point between Auto and Precision weapons, as the ODST SMG has a scope and my Sentinel Beam doesn’t.

Maybe they both have a place.

I do think if they were both in the Halo XBO sandbox, I’d like for the Sentinel Beam to get the headshot bonus, and the SMG would rely on its scope and accuracy for controlled bursts at mid range. It should have a larger mag than the sentinel beam (ie. the Sentinel Beam would overheat before the SMG would have to reload if they began autofiring at the same time)

I just really dig the idea of an auto weapon with headshot bonuses, as it hasn’t really been done yet (except for the CE pistol and the Needle Rifle, but those don’t really count)

9

My ideal loadout system for Competitive MP would be like this:

-All Promethean weapons removed and buffed to be be mid and top-tier power weapons. Pulse Grenades is individual explosives are replaced with a Pulse Launcher weapon, which fires a belt of them.

-All automatic primaries given a zoom function, so that all primary weapons work up to at least mid-range, so that choice of primary is more preference than necessity.

  • You only spawn with one grenade, regardless of type.

PRIMARY

Assault Rifle
Storm Rifle
Battle Rifle
Carbine
DMR(Should have decreasing magnetism/aim assist the closer the target is)

SIDEARM

Magnum
Plasma Pistol (Vehicle EMP is nerfed to only partial effect. Multiple team-mates using PPs in tandem will result in complete stop for vehicles)
M7 SMG (40 rounds)
Plasma Rifle

  • Heavy Revolver, slow rate of fire, high damage, no zoom. (Not necessary, but would be a good addition)

GRENADE
Frag (if it hits an enemy or vehicle, detonates on impact)
Plasma
Incendiary
Stun (Combines mild smoke, stun and EMP effects)

Armour Abilities

  • All AAs have a generally longer recharge time. This would just be a general suggestion, rather than concrete set of abilities.

Active Camo (functions like Halo 3 Cloaking, 10 seconds of strong camo. Ideal for crossing open areas without being shot at or quick repositioning)
Autosentry
Promethean Vision
Hologram (More realistic decoy)
Hardlight Shield or replace it with a Hardlight Barrier that can be deployed as a barrier that stops incoming fire but allows outgoing.

As a side thing, Jetpack could either be left as-is, nerfed to a Jump Pack style AA, or made into a universal Double-Jump by double-tapping A. Thruster Pack/Evade could receive a similar treatment. Generally speaking, I feel that any sort of AA that modifies player movement doesn’t quite belong in in the same group as what basically works as Equipment.

For Competitve MP, Armor Mods should be left out. That said, having them in Campaign/Spartan Ops/Firefight etc would not be a bad thing.

10

No loadout

11

Is there an option for no loadouts?

12

Halo 4’s load outs are balanced? Last I played the DMR was the best at close,mid, and long range. There new alien pistol was a one hit kill and had range to it. Jet pack broke maps.

To be fair I have not played Halo 4 in a long time. Main reason being that the franchise has become streamlined. It no longer feels or plays to differently from every other FPS released in the past 4 years. I guess I’m just stuck on the times where Halo felt like Halo, BF felt like BF, COD felt like COD, Rainbowsix felt like…you get it. Now every FPS feels and plays like the others with different skins.

Any way before i when on that little rant, if the game got patched so all the weapons play well with each other, great. I just wish games did this at launch, and not months afterwards. Two of the biggest A-holes about not released the a full game are Rockstar (GTA V online with heists) and EA (BF 4 with about everything online).

13

> Is there an option for no loadouts?

No because, for better or for worse, 343i’s vision of halo includes loadouts. We must come to terms with this fact.