How to Improve: Weapon Balance

Games Other Halo
1

Agh, man. There is just so much to say on this issue and I’m not sure how to organize it all, but I’m going to attempt it. I’m too tired at the moment to do every weapon that needs balancing, and it would lead to a massive post, so I will focus on the DMR and Boltshot for now.

First off, the DMR. No, I’m not going to go into kill times or shots per kill or any of that. I’m going to go into the REAL issues breaking this weapon. The issues that are the most significant but also the most ignored.

The DMR has a significant fire rate, the longest aim assist range of any loadout weapon, and the largest flinch of any loadout weapon.

Let’s say a DMR user is fighting a Lightrifle user:

The Lightrifle hits first, and slightly flinches the DMR. The DMR, due to having more aim assist, recovers easily and shoots back.

Now let’s say the DMR shoots first. The Lightrifle is hit with massive Flinch, and since it has very low aim assist it has trouble recovering.

Ok, so we have established flinch. Now let’s talk about firing rate.

The DMR fires faster than the Lightrifle. The Lightrifle user is not only receiving more flinch, but he is receiving it more often as well.

The DMR user is not only throwing off his enemy’s aim, he is also recovering easier from the enemy’s shots. Despite being statistically inferior to the Lightrifle, it wins battles because of these factors alone.
In short, the DMR is too easy and too rewarding to use.

Solution: Make the Flinch and Aim assist equal to every other precision weapon, leave the firing rate and damage alone. The statistics are fine, it’s just the fact it’s so easy to use compared to other weapons is the problem.

Next, the Boltshot.

The Boltshot is too strong when paired with armor abilities. It can also effectively out-perform shotguns.

Honestly I have no idea what to do with this weapon at the moment, except reduce the range to keep it from overpowered shotguns.

Lastly, Map design itself.

Let’s take a look at Blood Gulch. You spawn with the Magnum, which can shoot effectively across the map. At the same time, Blood Gulch has many cliffs, rocks, caves, and hills that provide cover.

This isn’t the case in Halo 4. Most Halo 4 maps have very long sightlines, leading to the DMR and Lightrifle being the most dominant choices in most situations.

Maps need more cover.

2

Why does everyone want to nerf the Boltshot? it has a short range and can be countered a number of ways including just watch your distance to enemies and check corners properly. If there was a secondary weapon I could see needing a nerf it would be the Plasma Pistol, the Charged shot homes to its target and travels more distance then the Boltshot’s charged shot can. I dont see any problem with any of the secondary weapons in the game, my opinion of course.

Also, I would hate to see more items thrown on to the maps, iot would be clutter and nothing else. The cover Halo 4 has currently isnt bad and isnt underdone. The open spots on maps are there for a reason, personally I think the map design was well done, not perfect but nothing in this world is.

3

Yes the Plasma Pistol needs tweaked, as do plasma grenades any many other features. But as I said, I’m tired.

You don’t need to throw items onto the map for cover. Cover can be built into the terrain itself, hills for example.

Halo 4 has a plethora of wide open maps that if you run across, you die. All this does is make it so most of the map goes unused. Relay is particularly horrible for this, all anyone does is stand around the outskirts and shoot across the middle or at the middle.

Haven solves this issue by putting a tower in the middle so you can’t just cross-map all the time. The middle actually sees some use in Haven.

Having wide open areas isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the game has too many of them in my opinion. There are very few maps I feel comfortable using the BR or Carbine on due to this.

> it has a short range and can be countered a number of ways including just watch your distance to enemies and check corners properly.

This is a very simplistic argument that ignores many factors. You could say the same thing about the Shotgun or Energy Sword, doesn’t make them any less of a power weapon.

4

I’m agreeing with OP on the DMR and MAP issues.

The aim assist of the DMR makes the weapon feel like the last weapon you’d unlock. (Next to boltshot. There should be more CQC areas in each map, so the automatic weapons don’t feel forever alone.

I’m thinking of another way to tweak the boltshot.

the primary shots from the boltshot are real weak, so I was thinking of giving the secondary fire (boltshot’s charge shot) less firepower and the primary fire (regular shot) more power.