So now let’s let the fun begin, and see if we can’t pull together a weapon sandbox we’d like to see appear in Halo 5: Guardians. Keep in mind you are allowed to suggest something new, and even some mechanics you’d like to see on said new suggested weapons. But I expect most of us will look at weapons throughout the series and pick the ones we feel are most appropriate.
Also, it’d be nice if you could explain your preferred means of attaining different types of weapons. For instance, I’d like it if you had the freedom to choose your Primary, Secondary, and Grenade type. However you couldn’t customize your loadout entirely, and the weapons available to choose were built into the gametype. Similar to a more flexible variation of Halo Reach’s static loadouts. In Slayer, you’d have Automatic Primaries, and Sidearm Secondaries. In Slayer Pro you’d have Utility/Mid range Primaries, and Sidearm Secondaries. In Big Team, you’d have Precision Primaries, and Automatic Secondaries.
So based on this, and the idea of 3 factions in the game, here’s how I’d like to see it go:
Automatics:
Assault Rifle Confirmed (Halo 4 Post TU)
Plasma Repeater (Damage Tables akin to Halo 4 Post TU Storm Rifle)
Sentinel Beam (Halo 3)
Utility/Mid Range:
Battle Rifle Confirmed (Halo 4 Post TU with less aim assist and fast moving projectiles instead of Hitscan)
Covenant Carbine (Halo 4 Post TU with fast moving projectiles instead of Hitscan)
Light Rifle (Modified with a higher unscoped rate of fire, and a lower scoped)
Precision:
DMR (Halo Reach TU)
NR (Halo Reach TU/ZB)
Light Rifle (As above, emphasis more on flexibility, being more accurate than BR/CC, but more powerful unscoped than DMR/NR)
Sidearms:
Magnum (Halo 4 with less aim assist)
Plasma Rifle (Blend Halo CE’s Accuracy/Headshot Bonus with Halo 3’s Shield/Health damage ratio, less powerful but more accurate than Repeater)
Boltshot (Reworked, fires more of a burst when charged than a shotgun blast, and can’t one burst kill, in contrast a little more power given to semi-automatic shots)
Grenades: !! ONE GRENADE PER SPAWN !!
Frag (Halo 3)
Plasma (Halo 4, but with a buffer between throwing, and becoming sticky. Before it becomes sticky, it just looks like it would when on the ground, the grenade “falls flat” off things it hits. Then once outside of “noob stick” range, cyan-flare activates and it becomes sticky.)
Pulse Grenade (Relatively unchanged, the slight nerfs to other grenades should balance it out better)
Close Quarters:
Shotgun (Halo Reach I felt had the best range/consistency/rate of fire balance)
Energy Sword (Halo Reach for Lunge Range/Swing mechanics, Halo 3 for Clash/Parry mechanics)
Scattershot (Made slightly less powerful per shot. But can fire automatically)
Sniper:
Sniper Rifle (Halo 3 Reticle Size and Aim Assist, but Hitscan)
Focus Rifle (Reworked to deal SIGNIFICANTLY more DPS (kills faster than two sniper shots), but also overheat much faster (literally overheats just a few milliseconds after it kills, so missing with any of the beam can be punitive if you don’t heat-manage). Aim Assist reduced drastically. Headshot instant-kills after shields are drained. Thinner beam of a darker colour, but very deadly sound effects.)
Binary Rifle (Completely remove both Reticle and ability to fire while unscoped, when scoped in, Reticle starts at Halo 4 unscoped size, than over the course of about a second and a half shrinks to regular scoped size, dedicating the weapon further to it’s long range domination niche)
Heavy Ordinance:
Rocket Launcher (Halo 4, with ground vehicle lock on, but no air vehicle lock on)
Fuel Rod Cannon (Halo CE PC, more of a Mortar, overheats instead of reloads, wider blast radius, slightly lower Rate of Fire. Also, the “Green Screen” on the side of the weapon should show you an angled view of the downward arc of a shot’s trajectory (putting an interesting spin on aiming your mortar), and it should no longer be able to scope.)
Incineration Cannon (Initial Burst deals significantly less damage, “Cluster Bombs” deal significantly more. Putting more emphasis on catching them with the cluster effect than the initial burst. Also, cluster now shoots “away” from the surface it hits and spreads like a fountain. Only detonating on ground impact. So if you hit a ceiling or a high wall, you can rain cluster bombs down to the ground, or bounce cluster bombs around the corner into a room. Clusters will still auto-detonate after flying half the maximum distance the main projectile can fly before auto-detonating. Meaning you can’t just shoot up in the sky and rain bombs all over the map. But it will make for some very pretty fireworks.)
Light Ordinance:
Grenade Launcher (Relatively unchanged from Halo Reach)
Concussion Rifle (Relatively unchanged from Halo 4)
New Forerunner Light Ordinance Weapon. Not sure what to call it or what the effect should be. Perhaps some kind of trap-launcher that can deploy lightly explosive proximity mines.
Automatic Power weapon:
SAW (Somewhere between the power of Halo 4’s Vanilla, and TU version. Or perhaps given high power, but significantly more spread when fired full auto.
Needler (Similar to Halo 4’s power, but with tracking and Rate of Fire more akin to Halo Reach)
Super Sentinel Beam (Halo 2’s Golden Sentinel Beam with a Blue Laser, Power similar to Halo 4’s Vanilla SAW, Aim Assist similar to Sentinel Beam/Unscoped Reach version of the Focus Rifle, as new version would have very little aim assist if any)
Anti-Air Power Weapon:
Spartan Laser (Halo 4, but with more consistency)
Plasma Launcher (So long as the Banshee isn’t as broken as it was in Halo Reach it should work alright without any tweaks)
New Forerunner Anti-Air Weapon (Only comes with two shots, shots “fly by wire” so when you shoot, you directly control the projectile as it flies through the air and your camera is within the projectile itself, kind of like Perfect Dark’s Slayer, detonates either on impact, or with a second RT press. Also since you aren’t in control of your Spartan while flying, leaves him vulnerable if fired from an unsafe position, if your Spartan dies, the Projectile just explodes)
Niche Power Weapon:
New UNSC Niche Weapon (Completely unsure what to do with this one, alternative suggestion is a Flamethrower)
Plasma Pistol (Tracking buffed, not to Halo 2 ridiculousness but better than the other Halos. Semi-Automatic power similar to Reach Beta)
New Forerunner Niche Weapon (Perhaps alluding to the Gravity Gun from Halo 4’s pre-alpha. Gravity Zone should do some kind of very weak Damage Over Time, an interesting effect would also be if it can make falling fatal from high distances, and painful from Jumping height for players who jump into one, or are jumping when a field is deployed beneath them. Players lose ability to jump, and move slowly within the Gravity Field, and physics from weapons like the Concussion Rifle reduced drastically.)
Turrets:
Machinegun Turret (Halo 4 style, now the only turret that can be removed and carried around)
Shade Turret (Designed more after Halo 2’s Shade)
“Beam Turret” (The Turret from Campaign/Spartan Ops in Halo 4, only now pilotable. After charging, fires a devastating beam)
