Many have seen my essay regarding balance (and if you haven’t, you can find it here.). That was just the basics, however, and I’d like to take a more in-depth approach into how Halo’s balance can best function, starting with the Utilitarians and their relation to the rest of the sandbox we have to choose from.
Some consider “utilities” as inherently overpowered and want them “equalized” with the rest of the sandbox. Some go to the other extreme and want the utility to be the best weapon in the game except against power weapons in their fields of use. Neither are right when it comes to the logical formula that must be created.
The utilities are the cornerstones of the sandbox. They are meant to be the best starting weapons possible with versatility and a good skill gap. As I have said in my balance essay, the utilities must not, however, overlap another weapon’s niche to the point of superiority. Rather, a utility must be decent in both short and long range niches while excelling primarily at mid-range. It must also be the starting starting weapon (complemented perhaps with another utility or a range niche weapon that’s close to mid range such as the Assault Rifle) because it’s only logical that a player start with the cornerstone of the sandbox.
A utility is also inherently the skill weapon. Why you might ask? This is because of their mechanic of the headshot bonus. The bonus allows the capability of the utility to be better than a weapon in its niche provided that the one wielding the utility has good aim and makes all of the headshots needed. The base kill time, assuming no headshot, must be considerably longer than the average killtime of the rest of the weapons in the game, but the killtime assuming headshots would be faster. This allows a good player to win like he/she should rather than being completely dominated off the spawn: the only possible second chance a team that is failing in the match may have instead of certain implementations devoted to such (Armor lock, for example). This is not to say that it will be easy (and the amount of bullet magnetism should be vastly decreased by comparison to how it is currently on the DMR) but installing an automatic “skill” mechanic into the game helps to ensure a more skillful and competitive environment.
The other weapons in the sandbox are there to complement the utilities. Surely, these other weapons must be worth picking up should the situation call for it (which, in turn, might involve dropping the utility) because that helps bring in a better sense of tactics to the game. These other weapons, however, must not overlap in niche to the point of superiority, either, nor have niches so secluded that they are only useful in the most exact of situations (see CE’s Needler).
There are two ways with going about balancing them with each other: equal but different and different overall.
Equal but different would allow for range niches to be overlapped more often but the two or more weapons doing the overlap would accomplish the niche in such a way that they are still unique and worth picking from each other depending on their traits but sill accomplishing the range niche they are intended for (For example, Assault Rifle versus Plasma Repeater: Assault Rifle gets bullet output and longer firing time with the Repeater would get plasma stun and more magnetism on each bolt fired). Different overall would call for weapons to not overlap at all and have them all accomplish both different situation niches and different range niches.
The best possible choice is obvious: a combination of the two. We would have some weapons that would indeed overlap in range (Assault Rifle, Plasma Repeater; Dual SMG’s, Plasma Rifle; Shotgun, Sword) and different weapon altogether (Flamethrower, Grenade Launcher, Concussion Rifle/Bruteshot, Plasma Pistol, Rocket Launcher, Spiker, Sentinel Beam, Needler, ect.)
Thus, in conclusion, the utilities must have an average kill time on par with the average kill time of the rest of the sandbox while having a minimum kill time being shorter than the rest and “maximum” longer than the rest. The rest of the weapons should be structured to where we have range “clones” but not niche clones along with weapons that are completely different and set apart from these range-niche weapons.
