Ideal H5 Sandbox

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

This is my idea for a balanced H5 sandbox (or for any future Halo game, for that matter). Sandbox is made so that each weapon is just as useful in its own special way. Some weapons are omitted to avoid redundancy, or for the sake of keeping balance. If you have any criticisms or suggestions, explain your reasoning please. Please tell me what you guys like and/or dislike about my ideas :smiley:

Magnum
Silenced variant. Extremely hard to hear. Has a slower rate of fire (not spammy like Reach or H4’s pistol). Would be good for stealth and as a sidearm, but not much else.

Assault Rifle
Would perform like Halo Reach’s AR. Slower bloom expansion rate but less damage. It would be geared towards beginners. Easy to use but isn’t very effective overall. However, it does come with a headshot multiplier.

Battle Rifle
Would be more like H2’s BR with tight spread, slower rate of fire, and more geared toward medium range (the BR from H4 was more or less designed for close range).

Shotgun
Like the Shotgun from H4, but with a more consistent pellet spread. The pellets would be arranged in a ring-like pattern that’d loosen up over distance, so it’d be a bit harder to hit with.

Sniper Rifle
Similar to its H2 counterpart, except the reticule would disappear when unscoped. Still same accuracy, just no reticule to make the Shotgun more useful for skilled players at close range.

Railgun
Just like it was in H4, but without the massive bullet magnetism and aim assist.

Chaingun
Replacement for the SAW. Similar damage and firing rate, it just has to spin up for a brief moment before firing, and it would also reduce your movement speed whenever the barrel is spinning or firing (but not when you’re just carrying the weapon around). It would also have extra recoil and feature a single endless magazine (not unlimited ammo), rather than using multiple seperate clips. These changes would restrict the weapon into a support/covering fire role, to better balance it among your everyday automatics. Lastly it would also have similar accuracy to the AR.

Frag Grenade
The usefulness of Reach’s grenades with the grenade indicators from Halo 4, to make them a bit less “cheap”.

Plasma Pistol
Slower rate of fire, higher accuracy and damage per shot.

Plasma Rifle
Performs exactly like it did in CE with the stun and accuracy intact. The only change is that it’s firing rate would start out fairly slow, but it would accelerate over time, eventually firing as fast as the Brute Plasma Rifle.

Carbine
Closer range oriented. Wayyy higher rate of fire to increase the skill gap with the weapon, with less damage and more spread to compensate.

Needler
Ripped from Halo 4.

Energy Sword
Performs just like it did in H3. Little to no changes

Focus Rifle
Redesign. Think of the Quake 3 Lightning Gun. The beam sways when you turn around while firing, you must try to aim with your movement to compensate. It would have low damage per second, but very high push force.

Concussion Rifle
Redesign. Heavier arc, more damage, slower rate of fire. It would be designed for firing over obstacles that block your aim. Yes, it’d be situational, but that would make it more useful if you remember how crappy it was in H4.

Plasma Grenade
Like Halo: Reach, but with grenade indicators.

Laser
Promethean blaster pistol. Slower projectile speed and higher damage than you might expect. Harder to hit with but very rewarding for higher skilled players who can lead their shots. Firing at the ground while jumping would boost you very high into the air (“Laser Jumping”). It would also have enough push force to easily screw over an airbourne player. Has a charged firing mode that acts as a flamethrower, lighting up surfaces and damaging players over time.

Light Rifle
Like it is from Halo 4. Designed for longer ranges.

Suppressor
Redesign. Plays like a carbon copy of the SMG, with higher recoil and spread than the AR, but a faster TTK and a larger magazine size.

Scattershot
Redesigned to function like a double barrel slug shotgun. It fires two slug like projectiles at once, that spread apart over longer ranges. The projectiles would bounce off walls with consistent accuracy, and it would take two shots (four slugs) to kill a fully shielded enemy.

Incineration Cannon
Redesign. Fires one large molten ball of magma (or whatever that red stuff is), releasing a huge shockwave upon impact that either kills enemies or strips away their shields. It has very limited ammo, and has a slow projectile speed that makes it fairly dodgeable (if the player has good enough reflex). Good for launching assaults against multiple enemies at once.

Flash Grenade
Stuns players, blurs vision, and deafens hearing. It doesn’t detonate instantly, but is very, very useful.

2

Less redundancy. We don’t need so many long-range precision weapons. We don’t need so many automatics.

Campaign can function fine with numerous weapons, in fact, it needs them given halo’s design. But there is little need for every weapon to show up on every map in multiplayer.

3

> Less redundancy. We don’t need so many long-range precision weapons. We don’t need so many automatics.
>
> Campaign can function fine with numerous weapons, in fact, it needs them given halo’s design. But there is little need for every weapon to show up on every map in multiplayer.

You mean my idea needs less redundancy or has less redundancy?

I think I included enough weapons per faction for this sandbox to work in Campaign. Not counting grenades, it’s 7 weapons for UNSC, 7 weapons for Covenant, and 5 weapons for Prometheans. Each faction would have a pistol, an automatic, a utility rifle, a cqc weapon, and an explosives launcher of some kind. I guess it could use a rocket launcher for campaign only (easy anti-air weapon). Sure it may not have a sniper weapon for the prometheans, but the Crawler Snipes could work with the LR if they want to, and it’s not like the Prometheans are really seen at long range that often anyway.

4

I didn’t actually read your ideas to be honest. Now that I have, I don’t see anything particularly standout.

The CE sandbox gave covenant weapons some finer distinctions that should return. Promethean weapons, assuming we fight them again, shouldn’t be variations of established weapons currently available. They should be entirely unique.

5

> I didn’t actually read your ideas to be honest. Now that I have, I don’t see anything particularly standout.
>
> The CE sandbox gave covenant weapons some finer distinctions that should return. Promethean weapons, assuming we fight them again, shouldn’t be variations of established weapons currently available. They should be entirely unique.

The Plasma Rifle stands out with its stunning capabilities, Needler stands out because its the Needler, my Concussion Rifle idea stands out because its heavy arc trajectory makes it useful for firing over cover (which other weapons can’t really do), my Focus Rifle stands out because it’s one continuous plasma stream with high push force, my Carbine stands out because it would fire as fast as you could pull the trigger (causing 1-on-1 Carbine duels to be very, very intense), and the Plasma Pistol stands out because of it’s alt fire and the fact it doesn’t feel at all like a UNSC pistol.

The Laser would stand out for its laser jumping technique, the Light Rifle would stand out for it’s anility to choose between burst-fire and single-shot, the Scattershot would stand out because of how it’d fire two energy slugs side-by-side, and the Incineration Cannon would stand out for its giant, slow-moving ball of magma and the resulting energy shockwave (think of the BFG10k from Quake 2).

What’s that you said now about alien weapons not standing out enough? That’s 6/7 Covie weapons and 4/5 Promethean weapons that stand out from the UNSC weapons I listed.

Not to mention that the Silenced Magnum and the Chaingun would both be very unique weapons within the Halo sandbox, as well the Railgun which was a fairly unique weapon from Halo 4, alongside the traditional BR/AR/Shotgun/Sniper that a Halo game is essentially required to have.

So let’s look at this:
•8/19 weapons are traditional Halo weapons almost untouched
•2/19 weapons are very unique weapons from Halo 4
•3/19 weapons are original ideas
•5/19 weapons are complete redesigns of old, boring weapons to make them more unique
•1/19 weapons can be considered average/boring (the Suppressor, but that’s only because the Prometheans need their own automatic weapon)

So again, what was that you were saying?

6

I was saying that none of your ideas were remarkable. That doesn’t mean they were bad.

For example, making a variation of rockets using magma is not a unique weapon idea. Its cool, but is a redundancy for rockets.

7

Where’s the DMR Brah?

8

> I was saying that none of your ideas were remarkable. That doesn’t mean they were bad.
>
> For example, making a variation of rockets using magma is not a unique weapon idea. Its cool, but is a redundancy for rockets.

The Rockets wouldn’t really be in the sandbox except for campaign and customs for the sake of balance, so the Incineration Cannon wouldn’t be THAT redundant. My idea of the Incineration Cannon is that it would be redesigned into a BFG-style weapon. Wayyyy larger area of effect but slower projectile that’s fairly dodgeable. It would only be 1sk when you’re close to the center of the blast, unlike with Rockets which give free kills.

9

> Where’s the DMR Brah?

Kept it out to avoid redundancy, because the LR would be there to fill the DMR’s role. When scoped in, it acts like the DMR, just not hitscan. Not that it couldn’t be added for Customs.

10

Chaingun is essentially a reworked, portable version of the Mounted Turret. But, I like it. I’d remove the recoil, give it a lengthy charge up time, and give it high DPS. So basically it’s a death cannon, but only if you properly predict when/where the enemy is going.

Carbine, Assault Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Suppressor, Magnum. This is quite a mess of similar weapons. There’s multiple solutions that would thin down this list.

Needler was only ever OP in Halo 2. In Halo 3 it wasn’t that useful, and in Halo CE it was quite underpowered. There’s nothing all that wrong with Halo 4 or Halo Reach’s implementations in terms of being overpowered.

I don’t like the idea of the Concussion Rifle having a heavy arc. If anything give that to the fuel rod gun. The ConcRifle should remain similar to the Quake Launcher. If anything apply your laser jump idea to this gun instead.

Flash Grenades, Idunno.

Laser Pistol…too tired to really talk about it at this point. But I feel it’s doing too many different things in one gun.

11

> Magnum
> Silenced variant. Extremely hard to hear. Has a slower rate of fire (not spammy like Reach or H4’s pistol). Would be good for stealth and as a sidearm, but not much else.

If this means putting H3’s Magnum back, then 1000x NO.

> Assault Rifle
> Would perform like Halo Reach’s AR. Slower bloom expansion rate but less damage. It would be geared towards beginners. Easy to use but isn’t very effective.

I think that’s a bit unfair. Making automatics into a skillless weapon isn’t a good idea. I say give it H4’s mechanics with a headshot multiplier for burst-fire mid-range.

> Battle Rifle
> Would be more like H2’s BR with tight spread, slower rate of fire, and more geared toward medium range (the BR from H4 was more or less designed for close range).

I wouldn’t say that the BR in H4 was close-range. You try using against a good AR user and you’d get shredded.

> Shotgun
> Like the Shotgun from H3, where it was only one shot kill when you were basically touching someone.

If it’s like that again, then we might as well make it a melee weapon. People will just blast and lunge. I say let people get shotgun kills rather than melees.

> Chaingun
> Replacement for the SAW. Similar damage and firing rate, it just has to spin up for a brief moment before firing, and it would also reduce your movement speed whenever the barrel is spinning or firing. It would also have extra recoil and feature a single endless magazine (not unlimited ammo), rather than using multiple seperate clips. These changes would restrict the weapon into a support/covering fire role, to better balance it among your everyday automatics. Lastly it would also have similar accuracy to the AR.

Love this one.

> Carbine
> More close range oriented. Wayyy higher rate of fire to increase the skill gap with the weapon, with less damage and more spread to compensate.

Precisions already have a bit too much leverage at close range,(Melee + headshot)
where automatics should rule.

> Needler
> Ripped from CE, with the slower rate of fire and slower projectile speed that incarnation is known for. Less OP.

The CE one was underpowered, IMO. H4 was fine. You had to lead/keep a bead on your target to get results.

> Concussion Rifle
> Redesign. Heavier arc, more damage, slower rate of fire. It would be designed for firing over obstacles that block your aim.

Bit too situational. I agree that it should have more of a kick to its shots with a bit more bounce on impact, but a heavier arc isn’t something I’d want.

> Laser
> Promethean blaster pistol. Slower projectile speed and higher damage than you might expect. Harder to hit with but very rewarding for higher skilled players who can lead their shots. Firing at the ground while jumping would boost you very high into the air (“Laser Jumping”). It would also have enough push force to easily screw over an airbourne player. Has a charged firing mode that acts as a flamethrower, lighting up surfaces and damaging players over time.

I’d give the jump ability to the Concussion Rifle, but this seems like you replaced the Boltshot’s traits with others.

> Suppressor
> Redesign. Plays like a carbon copy of the SMG, with higher recoil and spread than the AR, but a faster TTK and a larger magazine size. Isn’t dual wieldable though.

No DW confirmed in H5, so…

12

> Chaingun
> Replacement for the SAW. Similar damage and firing rate, it just has to spin up for a brief moment before firing, and it would also reduce your movement speed whenever the barrel is spinning or firing. It would also have extra recoil and feature a single endless magazine (not unlimited ammo), rather than using multiple seperate clips. These changes would restrict the weapon into a support/covering fire role, to better balance it among your everyday automatics. Lastly it would also have similar accuracy to the AR.

I would actually be pro scrapping heavy weapons as they currently are in favor of a handful of 1st person view Power weapons held in the heavy weapon hip fire position. I like power weapons to have easily identifiable silhouettes. Weapons that allow you to run at full movement speed, and allow you to use grenades and melee just as usual. A chain gun could be one such new weapon. I like the charge up. Not sure I would enforce a slow down mechanic, I think I might prefer a skill mechanic like a head shots bonus.
Side notes: bullet smoke trails, ricocheting bullets, vehicle shredder.

Another such weapon could be a 1st person view flame thrower.

13

> Chaingun is essentially a reworked, portable version of the Mounted Turret. But, I like it. I’d remove the recoil, give it a lengthy charge up time, and give it high DPS. So basically it’s a death cannon, but only if you properly predict when/where the enemy is going.
>
> Carbine, Assault Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Suppressor, Magnum. This is quite a mess of similar weapons. There’s multiple solutions that would thin down this list.
>
> Needler was only ever OP in Halo 2. In Halo 3 it wasn’t that useful, and in Halo CE it was quite underpowered. There’s nothing all that wrong with Halo 4 or Halo Reach’s implementations in terms of being overpowered.
>
> I don’t like the idea of the Concussion Rifle having a heavy arc. If anything give that to the fuel rod gun. The ConcRifle should remain similar to the Quake Launcher. If anything apply your laser jump idea to this gun instead.
>
> Flash Grenades, Idunno.
>
> Laser Pistol…too tired to really talk about it at this point. But I feel it’s doing too many different things in one gun.

Plasma Rifle would be unique for its accuracy and stun, like it was in H3. Maybe it’s rate of fire could accelerate the longer you fire, starting out a little slow but soon firing as fast as the Brute Plasma Rifle, just to make it a bit more unique within this sandbox idea.

The Suppressor would function like the SMG with it’s high recoil and spread, but larger magazine size and faster TTK.

The AR would be your basic assault rifle, easy to pick up for newbie players.

Good point with the Needler.

The thing is with the Concussion Rifle, it’s very underpowered in its current form. Even if it was turned into a Quake Rocket Launcher, it’d still have to compete with the normal primary weapons. Since it’s going to be a pickup, my idea was to rework it and give the weapon its own niche, to make it more useful.

The laser-jumping and flamethrower mode is what’d make this weapon useful. The primary firing mode would be fairly hard to use due to its slower projectile speed.

14

> > Magnum
> > Silenced variant. Extremely hard to hear. Has a slower rate of fire (not spammy like Reach or H4’s pistol). Would be good for stealth and as a sidearm, but not much else.
>
> If this means putting H3’s Magnum back, then 1000x NO.
>
>
> > Assault Rifle
> > Would perform like Halo Reach’s AR. Slower bloom expansion rate but less damage. It would be geared towards beginners. Easy to use but isn’t very effective.
>
> I think that’s a bit unfair. Making automatics into a skillless weapon isn’t a good idea. I say give it H4’s mechanics with a headshot multiplier for burst-fire mid-range.
>
>
> > Battle Rifle
> > Would be more like H2’s BR with tight spread, slower rate of fire, and more geared toward medium range (the BR from H4 was more or less designed for close range).
>
> I wouldn’t say that the BR in H4 was close-range. You try using against a good AR user and you’d get shredded.
>
>
> > Shotgun
> > Like the Shotgun from H3, where it was only one shot kill when you were basically touching someone.
>
> If it’s like that again, then we might as well make it a melee weapon. People will just blast and lunge. I say let people get shotgun kills rather than melees.
>
>
> > Chaingun
> > Replacement for the SAW. Similar damage and firing rate, it just has to spin up for a brief moment before firing, and it would also reduce your movement speed whenever the barrel is spinning or firing. It would also have extra recoil and feature a single endless magazine (not unlimited ammo), rather than using multiple seperate clips. These changes would restrict the weapon into a support/covering fire role, to better balance it among your everyday automatics. Lastly it would also have similar accuracy to the AR.
>
> Love this one.
>
>
> > Carbine
> > More close range oriented. Wayyy higher rate of fire to increase the skill gap with the weapon, with less damage and more spread to compensate.
>
> Precisions already have a bit too much leverage at close range,(Melee + headshot)
> where automatics should rule.
>
> > Needler
> > Ripped from CE, with the slower rate of fire and slower projectile speed that incarnation is known for. Less OP.
>
> The CE one was underpowered, IMO. H4 was fine. You had to lead/keep a bead on your target to get results.
>
>
> > Concussion Rifle
> > Redesign. Heavier arc, more damage, slower rate of fire. It would be designed for firing over obstacles that block your aim.
>
> Bit too situational. I agree that it should have more of a kick to its shots with a bit more bounce on impact, but a heavier arc isn’t something I’d want.
>
>
> > Laser
> > Promethean blaster pistol. Slower projectile speed and higher damage than you might expect. Harder to hit with but very rewarding for higher skilled players who can lead their shots. Firing at the ground while jumping would boost you very high into the air (“Laser Jumping”). It would also have enough push force to easily screw over an airbourne player. Has a charged firing mode that acts as a flamethrower, lighting up surfaces and damaging players over time.
>
> I’d give the jump ability to the Concussion Rifle, but this seems like you replaced the Boltshot’s traits with others.
>
>
> > Suppressor
> > Redesign. Plays like a carbon copy of the SMG, with higher recoil and spread than the AR, but a faster TTK and a larger magazine size. Isn’t dual wieldable though.
>
> No DW confirmed in H5, so…

A buffed H3 magnum that fires faster. It would have the firing rate of the H4 DMR.

Headshot multiplier, good idea.

When I said close range, I meant closer range in comparison to the other utility weapons.

Maybe Halo 4’s shotgun range then?

When I said close range oriented, I meant the range of H4’s BR.

Good point with Needler. H4 it is.

You could still use the Concussion Rifle effectively in other situations, it would just be best for firing over obstacles.

I gave the Laser that ability so it’d be more useful, because the primary firing mode would be very hard to hit with.

15

> > Chaingun
> > Replacement for the SAW. Similar damage and firing rate, it just has to spin up for a brief moment before firing, and it would also reduce your movement speed whenever the barrel is spinning or firing. It would also have extra recoil and feature a single endless magazine (not unlimited ammo), rather than using multiple seperate clips. These changes would restrict the weapon into a support/covering fire role, to better balance it among your everyday automatics. Lastly it would also have similar accuracy to the AR.
>
> I would actually be pro scrapping heavy weapons as they currently are in favor of a handful of 1st person view Power weapons held in the heavy weapon hip fire position. I like power weapons to have easily identifiable silhouettes. Weapons that allow you to run at full movement speed, and allow you to use grenades and melee just as usual. A chain gun could be one such new weapon. I like the charge up. Not sure I would enforce a slow down mechanic, I think I might prefer a skill mechanic like a head shots bonus.
> Side notes: bullet smoke trails, ricocheting bullets, vehicle shredder.
>
> Another such weapon could be a 1st person view flame thrower.

It would just be a 25% movement speed decrease, and it would only take effect when you’re spinning up the barrel or firing. Whenever you’re simply carrying the weapon, you’ll have the normal running speed.

16

> It would just be a 25% movement speed decrease, and it would only take effect when you’re spinning up the barrel or firing. Whenever you’re simply carrying the weapon, you’ll have the normal running speed.

Even so. I would prefer it to be balanced by other means. I like full movement capabilities in combat. For strafing and such. I don’t particularly like the slow down mechanic when aiming down sights in other games, to draw a parallel.

17

> > It would just be a 25% movement speed decrease, and it would only take effect when you’re spinning up the barrel or firing. Whenever you’re simply carrying the weapon, you’ll have the normal running speed.
>
> Even so. I would prefer it to be balanced by other means. I like full movement capabilities in combat. For strafing and such. I don’t particularly like the slow down mechanic when aiming down sights in other games, to draw a parallel.

The reason it’d be balanced as such is to increase emphasis on the fact that it’s a weapon designed for support and covering fire, not a weapon for going kamikaze like players did with the SAW. Even if it was just a 15% movement speed decrease it would still work though. It also increases the teamwork aspect, as because of your slower speed you would need one or two teammates to have your back, otherwise you’d be very vulnerable to a flanking maneuver.

How else would you suggest balancing it to keep it within this support and covering fire role?

18

Cover fire works because human beings die easily and do not respawn.

This is not how halo works.

19

> Cover fire works because human beings die easily and do not respawn.
>
> This is not how halo works.

It would work well in this case, because it would give the Chaingun a unique role to fulfill while not overpowering the AR, PR, or Suppressor.

Covering fire just means you’re psychologically intimidating your enemies. Players would deny enemy access to certain routes by using the Chaingun to intimidate and scare, with its extremely loud noise, very wide cone of fire, very fast kill time, and endless magazine. You wouldn’t want to go through an area that a Chaingunner is blocking. You would use it defensively to lock down areas of interest.

Support would also fit into the role of the Chaingun. Assisting with kills from a distance, and cleaning up hordes of weakened enemies.

20

> The reason it’d be balanced as such is to increase emphasis on the fact that it’s a weapon designed for support and covering fire, not a weapon for going kamikaze like players did with the SAW. Even if it was just a 15% movement speed decrease it would still work though. It also increases the teamwork aspect, as because of your slower speed you would need one or two teammates to have your back, otherwise you’d be very vulnerable to a flanking maneuver.
>
> How else would you suggest balancing it to keep it within this support and covering fire role?

I wouldn’t necessarily go for a support role. I think I would go for a more DPS role. I would have it work something similar to the chaingun in Titanfall, hip fire with the accelerator perk attached. I’d give it the ability to shred vehicles and I would give it smoke trails and ricochets similar to the Sniper. Then for the AR I would make it behave more similar to the CE plasma Rifle or Destiny Auto Rifle. That’s the direction I would go. Not that your idea is bad.