If Dual Wielding Returns...

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

If Dual-Wielding were to return I believe this ‘request’ (may require more tweaking) is a fundamental solution to the balancing, and value for weaponry, both single-wield and dual-wield.

Now at its core, the idea of dual-wielding was to mix different light-arms weaponry, with other like weapons, to get a unique grasp of the battlefield, and possible bonuses…

For example: A Needler-SMG Dual-Wield applies decent high-end pressure, using the high rate of fire from the SMG, with the tracking and super combine of the Needler… creating a devastating power weapon.

Yet this created some in-balancing issues… on one case the dual-wielded weaponry was too strong, due to the game buffing almost every stat, and doubling the output it had… yet when this was recorded and attempt to fix in the following game, it made the dual-weldable weapons by themselves, far too weak, and so useless.

My theory is, doubling almost every state was the wrong way to go… as well as perhaps giving the full battlefield customization of unique combinations… was too adventurous.

Essentially the only thing that gives the dual-wielding players their ‘buff’ or advantageous edge in certain combat situations is… a faster rate of fire… not in-terms of the guns are firing faster, but that there are two bullets projecting per the normal one… which gives a faster kill time. And the weaponry can only be dual-weldable by the same weapon so Dual SMG, Dual Plasma Rifles, Dual Magnums… etc. It can still retain double the amount of ammunition.

That is it… this would remove the double damage or different affects ambiguity… that were present in the problem of balancing. The no melee, no grenade and no zoom disadvantages still apply.

For Example: A player is playing Halo 5: Guardians, he is dual-wielding two SMGs (Sub Machine Guns), and so he has the same damage stat, as holding one SMG, the same accuracy, the same precision, maximum of double the ammunition (360 bullets - 180 per gun), halved kill time (single - one bullet per shot, dual - two bullets per shot), looses his advantage of close quarters melee and scoping/zooming (binoculars).

So dual wielding weaponry could be:

  • Magnums
  • SMG
  • Machine Pistols
  • Plasma Rifles
  • Spikers
  • Plasma Pistols
  • Maulers
  • Forerunner Beam-based pistol

BOLT SHOTS AND NEEDLERS REMAIN SINGLE-HANDED AS LOW-END POWER WEAPONS.

Okay so suggested changes:

DUAL WIELDING

  • Halved Kill Time. When dual wielded…
  • Double Magazine Ammunition Size. When dual wielded…
  • Weapons can be fired separately, or simultaneously. When dual-wielded…
  • Can retain all mobility, jumping and crouching. When dual wielded…
  • Same Weapon, required to dual a weapon. Has to be the exact same weapon… so two Plasma Pistols, two Plasma Rifles, two SMGs etc.
  • Static Damage (remains the same throughout), both single and dual wielded.
  • Static Precision and Accuracy, not counting bloom… perhaps bloom is slightly larger when dualing, due to more recoil?
  • Loss of Melee Strikes, if attempting to perform a melee strike, the second weapon is automatically dropped.
  • Loss of Grenades, if attempting to throw a grenade, the second weapon is automatically dropped.
  • Loss of Vehicular Combat, if attempting to drive a vehicle, the second weapon is automatically dropped.
  • Loss of Switching Weapons, Armor Abilities and Equipment, if attempting to switch weapons, armor abilities and equipment, either inventory or dropped, the second weapon is automatically dropped.
  • Loss of Armor Abilities/Equipment, if attempting to use Armor Abilities or throw Equipment, the second weapon is automatically dropped.
  • Loss of Zoom, the player cannot zoom in with binoculars or scopes, until second weapon is dropped manually.

SINGLE WIELD

  • Normal Kill Time.
  • Normal Magazine Ammunition Size.
  • Can retain all mobility, jumping and crouching…
  • Static Damage (remains the same throughout).
  • Static Precision and Accuracy.
  • Use of Melee Strikes.
  • Use of Grenades.
  • Use of Vehicular Combat.
  • Use of Switching Weapons, Armor Abilities and Equipment.
  • Use of Armor Abilities/Equipment.
  • Use of Zoom.

It all bottles down to this one logical statement:

"If you pick up two of the exact same weapon, what has changed? The bullets… no, the bullets shot over time… yes. But you have lost the use of your secondary hand, and control of some situations."

2

Thats definitely a way to go! I mean, im cool with the original setup but its an idea.

Either way I really want DW back!

3

Bro,
These are some great ideas.
They gotta make these changes in Halo 5 or I will kill myself.
I was hyped up for the Dual Wield thing but was pissed when I found out it wasn’t in Halo 4.

4

Im not entirely sure what you are suggesting, but maybe I’m just misreading it.

Are you saying that dual wielding should have the same kill time as single wielding, only you can fire twice as long without reloading? because if it is that makes no sense to me.

I think what you are suggesting destroys what made dual wielding so awesome in the first place: the option of a third weapon gave you a large tactical advantage at the cost of limiting certain other options (lack of melee, and grenades, for example).

Granted, that made most dual wield weapons useless when held singly and rather strong when they were used together.

I personally would suggest several counter proposals to balance it:

One is that certain weapons, such as SMGs, would be dual wield-only (you pick it up and you are holding two, you swap to your other weapon and swap back and you are still holding two), allowing two otherwise weak weapons to act as a minor power weapon that has the drawback or not being able to throw grenades. This might be similar to what you said but no single wield option.

A second could be limiting the left-hand weapon to sidearms (magnum, plasma pistol). This prevents the massive power bonus that dualing SMGs has, and you trade grenades/melee for the ability to either noob combo or use the SMG for shields and follow up with an immediate headshot.

A third Idea I had was to reduce the total ammo capacity when dual wielding. If you could always only hold 180 rounds for SMG ammo even when dual wielding, sure, you can dual SMGs, but you will burn through your ammo twice as fast, which could be a disadvantage in the long run. this could be used in conjunction with your idea of only being able to dual wield two of the same, or with the old system (perhaps offhand would have less ammo than normal in that case)

That said, I do want to see dual wielding again.

5

> Im not entirely sure what you are suggesting, but maybe I’m just misreading it.
>
> <mark>Are you saying that dual wielding should have the same kill time as single wielding, only you can fire twice as long without reloading? because if it is that makes no sense to me.</mark>
>
> No. I was saying that each weapon logically fires twice as many bullets in the same amount of time. So a faster kill time… think of this… a single wielded SMG takes 5/8 of your clip to kill an opponent… while using two it takes the exact same amount of bullets but less time… so 2.5/8 per gun clip… and so you can get 3 kills while dual-wielding over the 1.
>
> I think what you are suggesting destroys what made dual wielding so awesome in the first place: the option of a third weapon gave you a large tactical advantage at the cost of limiting certain other options (lack of melee, and grenades, for example).
>
> Granted, that made most dual wield weapons useless when held singly and rather strong when they were used together.
>
> I personally would suggest several counter proposals to balance it:
>
> <mark>One is that certain weapons, such as SMGs, would be dual wield-only (you pick it up and you are holding two, you swap to your other weapon and swap back and you are still holding two), allowing two otherwise weak weapons to act as a minor power weapon that has the drawback or not being able to throw grenades. This might be similar to what you said but no single wield option.</mark>
>
> This was my original suggestion after playing Halo: Spartan Assault… yet it just meant it would be counted as one weapon… the idea of dual-wield is being able to change your advantage on the fly… so close-quarters heavy or all rounder…
>
> A second could be limiting the left-hand weapon to sidearms (magnum, plasma pistol). This prevents the massive power bonus that dualing SMGs has, and you trade grenades/melee for the ability to either noob combo or use the SMG for shields and follow up with an immediate headshot.
>
> <mark>A third Idea I had was to reduce the total ammo capacity when dual wielding. If you could always only hold 180 rounds for SMG ammo even when dual wielding, sure, you can dual SMGs, but you will burn through your ammo twice as fast, which could be a disadvantage in the long run. this could be used in conjunction with your idea of only being able to dual wield two of the same, or with the old system (perhaps offhand would have less ammo than normal in that case)</mark>
>
> This is a good concept… hmm perhaps a place inbetween 3/4 of double clip. So 180 Max per single-wieled gun so… 240 Max (due to sixty bullets already being in the second gun) and so still holding the same spare amount of ammo as normal single wield.
>
> That said, I do want to see dual wielding again.

6

I loved dual-wielding, I dream about dual-wielding…

but I think this is why they cut it out of Halo after a short lifespan. It’s just too difficult to balance with the amount of weapons they had. Sure, they might be able to make it work if they did mathematical formulations for each weapon, and each weapon combo, factoring in ammunition count, hitbox changes, kill times, etc., but it is just too much complication, when Halo thrives on a simpler sandbox. I think it worked in H3 almost as good as it possibly could, and could be improved upon only by limiting the number of dual-wieldable weapons to the bare minimum. Maybe only the pistol, SMG, and plasma rifle- a maximum of 6 combinations. The more weapons are added… spiker, mauler, boltshot, needler, plasma pistol… the amount of combinations builds exponentially and muddies the sandbox too much.

Again, I’d love to see it happen but even your post is confusing. Doubled kill time while dual-wielding- do you mean HALVED kill time? How would it possibly double?

7

They should just make it so dual weilding weapons causes twice as as much damage as when they’re on their own. What’s wrong with that? It’s no more over powered than a shotgun since most dual weildable weapons are best for close range.

8

Dual wielding Magnums is slightly inferior to grenades + BR, but is easier to do and can be done more often due to having way more pistol ammo than I do grenades. So I’m pretty much just shredding BR users at anything but long range, and having an easier time doing it. You could nullify this by reducing the ammo count, or reducing the damage of the Magnum itself. Doing the latter would lead to the “half-weapon” syndrome we’ve seen in Halo 3.

9

> They should just make it so dual weilding weapons causes twice as as much damage as when they’re on their own. What’s wrong with that? It’s no more over powered than a shotgun since most dual weildable weapons are best for close range.

You say its no more overpowered than a shotgun, and while you may be accurate when referring to damage output, the thing you are forgetting is that these weapons are often far more common than shotguns, which are classified as power weapons and are hard to come by as a result. The simplest fix for this, making the individual weapons weaker, causes another problems as Ramir also pointed out: dual wield weapons, when used alone, are often very weak compared to other weapons.

That is why balancing them is an issue that, since halo 3, the developers have found more productive to avoid. One solution that i think was implemented to some degree in halo 3 (its been a while, so i could be misremembering) was reducing the damage of the weapons when dual wielded. This makes little sense and reduces the effectiveness of certain combos/makes you burn more ammo, but to be able to freely dual wield doing something was necessary.

Short version is, I wish it was that easy.

This is why the primary argument AGAINST dual wielding is this: if balancing dual wielding, which I think we all have to admit is an an optional feature, takes so much time and effort, would it not be better to spend that time balancing the normal weapons and ensuring that the sandbox overall is that much tighter?

10

You know that duel wielding actually decreased the damage that a single weapon could do, right?

11

And that is why I basically suggested a low-end trade off 3 kills (dueling) per the original 1 kill (single). This would only need the halved kill times… due to more bullets being fired… no not faster rate of fire.

Stat - Single/Duel
Magazine Size - 180/240 bullets
Weapon Damage Per Hit - 5.0 damage/ 5.0 damage
Reload Time - 1.5 seconds/2.0 seconds
Shots Per Kill - 36 shots/36 shots
Shots Per Second - 18 shots/32 shots
Time Per Kill - 2.0 seconds/1.13 seconds
Shield - 20 shots/20 shots
Body - 16 shots/16 shots
Melee - 2 damage/N/A
Head Shot - N/A

12

One of my number one priorities in Halo 5 is to get a load out system that works.

Both load outs and duel wielding are things that we haven’t seen perfected.

Putting these two things together and balancing them both at the same and hoping it all works out ok seems like it’s doomed for failure.

But if you can assure me that your system can work in unison with a revised load out system in Halo 5 you have my support.

13

I liked mixing and matching other weapons though, like the plasma rifle and SMG

14

> I liked mixing and matching other weapons though, like the plasma rifle and SMG

As do I… but in Catherine Halsey words… Power starts with Ignorance… we need to start at the most basic of iterations to revitalize the duelers fan-base. We may see a unique return over co-combinations again… but with perhaps the weapon damages of both weapons being 3/4 of single… due to balancing and the different bonuses one can have.

15

So it seems.

16

I believe there is a different, maybe better idea.

And that is to make dual-wieldable weapons come as fixed pairs only, and to be treated as semi-power weapons for closer quarters combat.

Why?

Dual Wielding in the past

DW has traditionally been more or less a ‘cool’ factor without making you a real unstoppable force. I somewhat believe DW also originated from the lack of an AR in H2, where dual SMG’s acted as placeholders. More or less like the burst vs single shot options the BR and DMR offer.
That aside, all weapons you could use (apart of the Needler) have traditionally been CQC weapons: SMG, Pistols, Maulers, Plasma Pistol and the Plasma Rifle for a bit longer ranged combat.

What did they do? Well, offer higher rate of fire, more stopping power, and an edge of single weapons in tight situations. But they never really made you invincible so to speak.

Until people discovered combo’s like Plasma Pistol & SMG/Pistol.
That is where it went wrong.

How DW should be fixed

To start where I left in the previous paragraph: Plasma Pistols…they’re exemplars for the kind of weapons that just should not be allowed to dual wield.
Ergo: traditionally we had weapons that should stay single usage only.
I suggest we scrap these weapons from being able to dual wield:

  • Plasma Pistol
  • Needler
  • Maulers

Now, lets see what weapons we can keep:
SMG’s SMG, Plasma Rifle and Spikers.
Pistols Pistol (H2 style), Boltshot (without shotgun option)

All of those weapons are, again, either CQC or mid-range orientated. But most are also completely ineffective on their own. A SMG gets destroyed by the AR, a Pistol by the scoped variant, a Boltshot by everything else. Same for Spikers, and also same with PR’s if we get the return of either the Storm or Repeater Rifles.

Why? Because the counterparts are more accurate and more mid-range orientated, without recoil.

That means there is either no point in bringing back the CQC orientated weapons, or to rework them.
The latter option, to me, means they should come in fixed pairs without the option to mix and match weapons. That would mean no more overpowered combo’s and it would give these weapons a specialized spot in the sandbox.

Example:
DW-SMG vs AR.
SMG would have a higher RoF, but with more spread, a bit of recoil and more CQC orientated. Ergo: inside buildings a great weapon, but in the open it wouldn’t be wise to go against a player wielding an AR across a field.

How to implement them

Treat them like Power Weapons are treated: rare map spawns with limited ammo and thus an ‘expiry date’. Whereas PW’s are mostly mid-to-long range weapons (Snipers, Rockets), DW’s should be the opposites: CQC orientated.

They might have relatively more ammo than PW’s, but due to the RoF you would probably kill as many players with it as a sniper would with 8 rounds in his rifle.

They would give players wielding them an edge over those wielding the regular counterparts in closer quarters, might be great at ripping through Ghosts, but because they’re like Power Weapons players can not abuse them.

Add to that: the fact it makes you more powerful within their intended range of action they will feel more awesome to use. Instead of "oh I got another pair of weapons’ it would be running for that temporary advantage it gives you.

The trade off is you lose mix-and-matching. The upside is you get specialized weapons and no more noob-combo’s.

17

Making it so you can only dual wield 2 of the same weapon loses all of the fun of combining weapons that dual wielding gave us. I completely disagree with this. If we are going to dual wield, it has to be realistic. Let us mix and match weapons for fun combinations.

18

> Making it so you can only dual wield 2 of the same weapon loses all of the fun of combining weapons that dual wielding gave us. I completely disagree with this. If we are going to dual wield, it has to be realistic. Let us mix and match weapons for fun combinations.

And end up with nood-combo’s again?

No thanks. I’d rather trade the mix-and-match for set pairs of weapons that perform well at all times within their niche than to have the possibility of people finding ways to make overpowered combinations again.

19

Part of the fun in Duak Wielding was mixing and matching different sets of weapons. I wouldn’t want that to go…

IMO the way to do it is something like this:
-1.5x damage when DWing rather than 2x (as in, each separate gun deals 75% damage when dual firing, but deals normal damge if you only hold down one trigger)
-2x as much recoil when DWing
-75% of original accuracy when DWing
-slower reload when both guns run out simultaenously
-no grenades, melee, vehicles or weapon switching

But, single weapons would not be incapable. They would still put up a fight. One SMG should be a great close-quarters weapon with or without DWing it.

20

If duel-wielding returns… we better get loadouts too.

Not trying to push anything, just throwing that out there.“Cool factor”, “the fun of mixing and matching weapons”, etc.