Yesterday, I hung out over at my friend’s apartment to hang out. We then played GoW3 for a while. After a few matches on that game, we swapped to Reach and played a few matches before we called it a night.
One of the things I liked about GoW 3 over Reach was that it didn’t have “Lancer start” or “HammerBurst start” gametypes, which those weapons are equivilant to the Assault Rifle and Battle Rifle/DMR respectfully, causing me to pick a weapon I feel would do better for me. At the same time, I can swap to another weapon when I die if I felt I need something else to get the job done.
With Reach, I felt like the population kept limiting my choices due to popular demand. At the same time, I think the Assault Rifle was still a bit weak enough that many people would rather use the DMR because it had ammo and it killed relatively quicker due to the crazy large range it had. I wanted to swap to AR starts so the maps could be movement oriented, but alas it didn’t happen.
Hopefully, if 343i can get the weapon balance right, I believe AR/BR/DMR starts could actually become unnecessary due to the loadouts we can actually customize. Add to it that players can swap out weapons mid-match before respawning, I think this could make those 3 possible gametypes pointless, and allow more room for actual different gametypes and possibly maps.
Besides Team Snipers and SWAT and Team Rockets, as those play out entirely different than regular Slayer, I think it would be best if AR/BR/DMR starts should be kicked, so long as the weapons are balanced well enough that one felt like the learning curve is to throw the weapon away into a nearby trashcan and pick another weapon.
What do you guys think?