What do you want from Halo 5’s melee system?
Here’s what I want:
Most weapons can deliver a lethal bleedthrough melee when the target is at 33% shields.
Most Brute weapons can deliver a lethal bleedthrough melee when the target is at 50% shields.
One specific Brute weapon can deliver a “damage over time” melee similar to a very close range automatic weapon; like a chainsaw.
For most weapons, I’d like the melee system to remain untouched. However, I completely agree that for Brute weapons, the melee should be more powerful.
Perhaps even “bleed” damage, where a melee from a Brute weapon results in residual damage that continues to harm the player for a few seconds after the initial strike.
I don’t mean to derail but I just thought about something with your damage over time proposal.
I think the Plasma Rifle would be a lot less of an AR rip off if it stopped your shields from charging for a duration after being hit by it. That way it doesn’t need to worry too much about competing with the AR for kill time, as it could still be the good shield drainer but keep the shields drained as well for longer.
Anyways back to your post I like the concept of brute weapons returning with a better mechanism for melee damage. I love the concept of them doing more damage like they had in Halo 3 pre-TU.
I’d love to have certain weapons be better at melee by circumventing the stupid double beat down system in place by allowing the person using the gun with said circumvention to always win in said situations where both players beat down resulting in a two-way kill. It’s not a complicated situation to understand like the pre-tu Halo 3 melee system apparently was. (Still don’t get the confusion there)
The player with the specific weapon (probably does less damage by shooting) does better in melee situations by allowing them to come on top of a two way beat down tie. It’s a small addition to the sandbox that separates brute weapons.
With your DoT concept I would like to see it in some form that’s well thought out. A weapon which provides DoT to health would need a health bar system implimented to understand better for the more casual of players, while a DoT to shields sounds like a great weapon for suppression, but making it worthwhile to use said weapon would be hard to balance.
You could give it the same damage as the AR (after factoring in DoT) but allow the DoT to essentially bleed into the next shield charge by having the shields take longer to charge due to DoT reducing said shields as they charge.
Not sure, but it’s an interesting concept mechanic none the less.
> Perhaps even “bleed” damage, where a melee from a Brute weapon results in residual damage that continues to harm the player for a few seconds after the initial strike.
Damage that continues after the initial hit sounds like “fire damage” to me. The initial hit sets the target ablaze and the target continues to burn for a short duration after.
CQC weapons like the SMG should have an inherent melee advantage over other weapons, whether that be faster melee attacks, or more melee bleedthrough, or etc. If they are to be strictly CQC they may as well be good at CQC.
A Battle Rifle user shouldn’t feel comfortable in all situations. At the least it shouldn’t be better at meleeing than a CQC weapon is, that’s just ridiculous.
I don’t agree with Brute Weapons inherently having better melee, partially because of the above. Cosmetically it makes sense, gameplay wise there’s potential issues with that.
> I think the Plasma Rifle would be a lot less of an AR rip off if it stopped your shields from charging for a duration after being hit by it.
I like weapons with “special projectile properties”, like how the Needler can track and the Grenade Launcher can bounce around corners, but I think shield recharge delay is so core to game pacing that it should not be altered by a weapon’s projectiles.
Did you have any other special projectile properties in mind?