The idea of ripping a mounted gun of its tripod and running into battle with it is a fantastic idea introduced in Halo 3 that has never really lived up to its full potential. As cool as it was in theory, in practice it wasn’t terribly effective, you’re slow, in most cases you have very limited range, you lose the ability to throw grenades and melee, you can’t switch weapon. You trade most of your utility for a marginal increase in firepower(at best) while making yourself extremely vulnerable from ranged attacks.
Another part of the problem is that most of the weapons in the class don’t really have a lot to offer. The support weapons in Halo 5 are a better, but some of them just feel like little more than Warthog turrets without the advantage of being attached to the warthog.
So with all that in mind I have a a few suggestions on how to fix the turret class to make them more usable.
- No movement penalties for support weapons, since player can’t switch weapons or throw grenades, I think they have enough drawbacks that we don’t need to reduce their capabilities any more than necessary. - Allow Players to melee while holding support weapons. Again, I don’t think player should have to lose 2/3rds of the “golden triangle” just to use support weapons. I think trading indirect firepower(grenades) for more direct firepower(support weapons) is a fair enough trade. - Each Support weapon needs to be unique in its own right, turret weapons should have a variety of roles that are not just 1:1 equivalents like the Human Turret and Plasma Cannon. - Shots that hit the support weapon don’t deal damage to the user. IE if you hit someone in the shield plate of the MG turret it doesn’t do damage to the player.Something else I’ve thought about is giving the turrets(things like the Machine gun turret, not the flamethrower) the ability to redeploy elsewhere on the map with limited ammunition. I find myself wary of the idea if only because I don’t think the idea of being stationary and trying to lock down a certain location really fits with Halo’s gameplay style, but I am curious to here what other think.
As for the support weapons themselves, I also have as few suggestions on how to change them up.
- Machine Gun Turret: I actually think H5 got this pretty close to perfect. Its accurate and usable at a pretty decent range(though I would bump up its red reticle range to around 60m as opposed to 40m). Just to change things up a bit it should require reloads. - Plasma Cannon: Now fires fires in a fixed shotgun like pattern similar to the CE shade turret and the CE Spirit. Give it a faster projectile speed to make it a bit more viable at range, but this would give the Covenant a “shotgun” that many folks have been asking for over the years in a way that doesn’t step on the normal shotguns toes. Let’s also paint pink/purple for the CE callback. - Splinter Turret: The splinter turret is also basically perfect more or less as is. A unique way to give the Prometheans a turret without just following the same archetype as the human MG. - Missile Pod: Can now switch between direct fire with lock on by hitting the zoom button. When using direct fire it functions much like its Halo 3 counterpart and can only lock on to flying vehicles. When using indirect fire mode it functions more like a mortar you can use some entrenched positions. When using it in the “mortar” mode the missiles do less direct damage, but do more splash damage to deal with clumped up and entrenched enemies. - Hunter cannon: Also has a dual fire mode. First fire mode lets you fire a charged shot like the hunters in CE/Reach/H4 which is better for fast moving targets and targets at range. Second mode fires H2/H3 style which are slower but deals much more damage. - Flamethrower: Now fires at much longer range, but deals significantly less damage to shields and metal enemies. Walking through fire slows down players. Can also switch to a napalm “lobbing” mode where has greater range at the cost of DPS. - Brute Shot 2.0: Replaces the standard Brute shot(should brutes return). Imagine a Brute shot crossed with a MK19 complete with a giant bayonet. A Brute auto grenade launcher that is effective against vehicles and infantry. Downsides include a relatively shallow magazine and the grenades have a minimum range before they explode and do full damage, which is where the big bayonet comes it.I don’t necessarily think we need all of these weapons I just listed, but those are just some of my suggestions should any of those weapons return.
So I’m curious to see if anyone has any other ideas on how to fix this often underpowered class of weapons.
Variety is always a plus. If they want to stick with the movement penalty thing, they could do it like D.Va in Overwatch where she moves normally, and only slows down when actually firing. That way, you aren’t a sitting duck just trying to move around the map.
I think they should add a shield to the turret, make it harder to damage the user. That way you get a benefit for the loss of mobility.
Great post, we haven’t seen much improvement on the mobile TerGreat post, we haven’t seen much improvement on the mobile Turrent since Halo.
I wish they just made you faster though. Because your a huge beefy SPARTAN super soldier and you can move pretty fast with like a 50. CAL sniper rifle and then you grab the turret and you movement speed instead of being at like a usually 1 speed or a two speed when sprinting you have to move at 0.25 which is very slow compared to walking speed. I think Jorge’s chaingun gives you a speed boost so if they just have that to the chainguns that would be awesome.
Buffing the heavy turrets sounds good to me. And it definitely would be nice to be able to melee while holding one, even if just for the animation of whacking someone with a big gun barrel.
The Plasma Cannon needs the most attention. Faster projectile speed will be essential. And I think it would be neat if there was an extra effect on top of it. For instance, what if the plasma short-circuited energy shields, causing a slightly longer than normal delay for shields recharging? It could also be something a bit more traditional, like stunning enemies a la Plasma Rifle, or perhaps an EMP effect on vehicles if the user lands enough consecutive shots. Really, I’d love the Plasma Turret to be unique and useful, and not just a bad version of the UNSC turret.
The Splinter Turret works well enough as is, but it would be even better if it also gained an extra effect. What if each blast emitted a strong concussive force that pushed around players and light vehicles? I mean, who wouldn’t want to juggle a Warthog through the sky?
And a Flamethrower could serve a purpose that I don’t think we’ve seen much of in Halo (at least, I don’t think we have,) an area-denial tool. Players could aim the flamethrower toward the ground and cover it with a long lasting inferno, like about 8-10 seconds. This could be used to cover a chokepoint, or surround a flag that’s away from base so anyone who tries to nab it gets toasted. Maybe light up the end of a teleporter, or a man cannon landing zone, for some cheeky kills.
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> I wish they just made you faster though. Because your a huge beefy SPARTAN super soldier and you can move pretty fast with like a 50. CAL sniper rifle and then you grab the turret and you movement speed instead of being at like a usually 1 speed or a two speed when sprinting you have to move at 0.25 which is very slow compared to walking speed. I think Jorge’s chaingun gives you a speed boost so if they just have that to the chainguns that would be awesome.
With Jorge’s chaingun I think you get a speed boost, damage boost, and damage resistance. As far as movement goes, I thought the speed boost you get with Jorge’s chaingun (without other buffs) would be a good place to start with the regular chaingun. I feel as if with the Halo 5 one, although you can do good damage even at range, the slowness just makes it less fun and viable so if the speed boost was made to be the base speed for the regular chaingun while keeping majority of other tradeoffs, it would see more usage eithout being overpowered.
Balancing support weapons doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all actually. The best way to describe how I felt about H3’s support weapons were that I jokingly considered them to be “noob filters”.
Things I agree with:
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Each support weapon should 100% be unique in it’s own way, not necessarily entirely different but each should have it’s own quirks. Maybe each could be versed in different levels of effectivity in combating different vehicles (there could perhaps even be a support weapon specifically designed to combat players with certain power ups). - Shots that hit the support weapon shouldn’t damage the player (or really any weapon for that matter, iirc that was for all weapons in H3). - Brute shot 2.0 sounds badass.Things I disagree with:
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Perhaps H3’s movement penalties were a bit overzealous but I don’t think there should necessarily be zero movement penalty. It’s higher fire power so you have to lose something in exchange for that. - The offered flamethrower changes I feel kind of screws it up, but then again I don’t think the flamethrower should even be in multiplayer. It was designed as a flood combat weapon and so is really good for campaign but it’s purpose is questionable in multiplayer; it’s just a close range weapon that doesn’t kill your opponent immediately.
The redeploying idea sounds really cool. Maybe there could be a bonus for being stationary versus mobile?
I have mixed feelings about players being able to melee with support weapons. Most of them have close range effectivity (which I think is part of the point of the support weapon) versus long range, so I think it’s virtually pointless to be able to melee while also having close range dominance. But then is taking melee away too much to ask in terms of opportunity cost? I don’t know.
I also have mixed feelings about the general direction of these changes. I feel that combined they would just turn support weapons into shotgun/close range competitors. I also don’t think that support weapons are even classed as weapon elements of the sandbox so much as they are vehicle elements since their dynamic typically involves directly combating vehicles more often than players (and is also the reason of their inclusion at all I believe). For that reason I think the changes should be less aggressive in making support weapons more viable in the weapon end of the sandbox and instead be more aggressive in making support weapons more viable in the vehicle end of the sandbox. What I think should be talked about and analyzed more is if the UNSC turret should be more tuned to effectively combat, for example, the Banshees on Valhalla.
Overall this is a great post though.
