Improved gun mastery system

Games Other Halo
1

you know how when you get kills with a certain gun you rank up right? go from novice to adept to expert to master or whatever it is, how about this: at each gun mastery milestone, the player should unlock unique abilities specifically for that gun! This would reflect his increasing skill with that weapon and make him more competent in its use.

For example lets say that I just recently became an expert with the assault rifle. the expert ability I unlock is a minor decrease in bullet spread when using the assault rifle. Now I keep using the assault rifle and get to master, and unlock boosted red reticule range for the assault rifle! that would be pretty cool huh?

each gun could have a totally unique set of rewards for each of them, designed to enhance that particular gun to the fullest upon mastery. This would also give incentive to have players master all the guns, and of course add lots of new strategy and entertainment to halo! whatcha think?

2

At first it sounds like a good idea, but after I think about it a little I realize that it would be unfair to those that don’t play Halo much, and are put at a disadvantage when they decide to play because they’re weapons are weaker than everyone else’s. I believe it would just lead to unbalanced gameplay.

3

Uh, no. Those who spend years of their lives playing Halo don’t need the game to stack the deck for them when facing us infrequently playing normals. Its a neat idea to upgrade weapons but in order for the game to be about, well, gameplay rather than how much time you’ve spent grinding Team Slayer those upgrades need to do two things.

  1. Always come with a drawback, which adds an element of choice and strategy. Say for your AR example, decrease spread but also rate of fire or damage. Otherwise its simply a matter of checking all the win boxes which defeats the purpose of upgrades except as a way to screw over newbies.

  2. They need to be accessible to EVERYONE. That isn’t to say “oh just make it so that with only a little bit of grinding you can get all the gameplay tools.” What I mean is that all unlocks that effect gameplay should be available FROM THE START. There are plenty of other items (armor, emblems, weapon skins, ect.) that you can bait players with but things that directly impact balance and gameplay styles should be accessible from the moment the player first enters matchmaking so they can have the fullest experience possible (which might just help Halo retain a player base.)

4

Sigh.

  1. More mechanics does not automatically mean more strategy. Explain what strategy a progression system adds? All it does is raise the gap between newbs and veterans, it doesn’t add any new tactics.

  2. Say I’m on a competitive team, and it’s decided I need to switch from BR to DMR. Only problem is I haven’t invested the time to max out the DMR. So I’m hurting my team just because I have 1000 kills with the DMR instead of 10000. This type of system really kills flexibility.

Even worse, I find a shotgun or sniper on the map but I’m useless with it because I haven’t “leveled it up”. Completely game breaking.

  1. Let’s just bury Halo’s arena shooter status and piss on its grave once more.
5

Sammy just does not give a Yoink about what the haters say!

I can’t support this idea though. Would make the game less about how skilled you are and more about how long you’ve grinded.

6

It sounds like a terrible idea for a HALO game for matchmaking- nobody should be at a disadvantage at the start of the match.

As an idea for a skull in campaign, its not bad. You could gain skill the longer you lived, then lose it all when you die.

7

Sammy, I appreciate your ideas and have fun reading them but I have yet to see one that would even slightly work in Halo. We certainly don’t need anymore gimmicks (AA’s, POD etc) in future Halo games. See MudmonkeyMagic’s post for why it wouldn’t work.

Then again, who am I to say what ideas will or won’t work in Halo?

8

> At first it sounds like a good idea, but after I think about it a little I realize that it would be unfair to those that don’t play Halo much, and are put at a disadvantage when they decide to play because they’re weapons are weaker than everyone else’s. I believe it would just lead to unbalanced gameplay.

That’s not that big of a deal; not having as many loadout options is worse and such players already deal with that disadvantage. Plus I think this would encourage players who don’t play much to play more to unlock mastery rewards, a good thing. Also, its being fair to people who DO play, (who I think take precedence) as receiving a reward such as this is much more satisfying than “oh, here’s your little sticker that’s says mastery” thanks for putting in hours of your time. Finally, it gives players a reason to continue using a gun post mastery, they are going to want to use their new ability.

9

> Sigh.
>
>
> 3. Let’s just bury Halo’s arena shooter status and piss on its grave once more.

Um, what arena status?

10

> Sigh.
>
> 1. More mechanics does not automatically mean more strategy. Explain what strategy a progression system adds? All it does is raise the gap between newbs and veterans, it doesn’t add any new tactics.
>
> 2. Say I’m on a competitive team, and it’s decided I need to switch from BR to DMR. Only problem is I haven’t invested the time to max out the DMR. So I’m hurting my team just because I have 1000 kills with the DMR instead of 10000. This type of system really kills flexibility.
>
> Even worse, I find a shotgun or sniper on the map but I’m useless with it because I haven’t “leveled it up”. Completely game breaking.
>
> 3. Let’s just bury Halo’s arena shooter status and piss on its grave once more.

your exaggerating. you would not be “useless” with the DMR or sniper or shotgun, you would just be a tiny bit better if you had them mastered. It add strategy too because now teams can consider what guns their members have mastered and factor that into their team’s load out selections. It would also encourage teammates to communicate over ordnance more; for instance if I got a beam rifle in mine and I have a teammate who has his beam rifle mastered, then I would meet up with him and let him have it.

11

> your exaggerating. you would not be “useless” with the DMR or sniper or shotgun, you would just be a tiny bit better if you had them mastered.

No, I would be underpowered because I didn’t have them mastered.

Halo is a shooter, not an MMORPG. The gameplay is about skill and not who grinded the most.

> It add strategy too because now teams can consider what guns their members have mastered and factor that into their team’s load out selections.

This doesn’t add anything.

If my teammate is naturally a better sniper, or a better shotgun user, or a better BR user than I am, I simply let him get those weapons while I get something else. That mentality has existed since Halo CE. And it already exists in Halo 4, where players can pick whatever weapon they want to upon spawn, instead of picking them up off the map.

A person who favors a DMR will choose a DMR in his loadout. He doesn’t need to “unlock” the full potential of the gun.

12

I am against any unlocks that grant the player advantages over other players.

If the unlock was cosmetic, such as a skin or effect, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.

13

> > your exaggerating. you would not be “useless” with the DMR or sniper or shotgun, you would just be a tiny bit better if you had them mastered.
>
> No, I would be underpowered because I didn’t have them mastered.
>
> Halo is a shooter, not an MMORPG. The gameplay is about skill and not who grinded the most.
>
>
>
> > It add strategy too because now teams can consider what guns their members have mastered and factor that into their team’s load out selections.
>
> This doesn’t add anything.
>
> If my teammate is naturally a better sniper, or a better shotgun user, or a better BR user than I am, I simply let him get those weapons while I get something else. That mentality has existed since Halo CE. And it already exists in Halo 4, where players can pick whatever weapon they want to upon spawn, instead of picking them up off the map.
>
> A person who favors a DMR will choose a DMR in his loadout. He doesn’t need to “unlock” the full potential of the gun.

oh jeez, you claim not to be exaggerating yet proceed to suggest this would turn halo into an MMORPG.

Practically every game today has rewards that players work for. That’s what gamers like; gives incentive. halo is no different. look at all the load out rewards you get as you play.

14

> > Sigh.
> >
> >
> > 3. Let’s just bury Halo’s arena shooter status and piss on its grave once more.
>
> Um, what arena status?

The Arena status it had when it was still in the original Trilogy.

Halo didn’t need to evolve as much as it did, it would have been more accepted and widely popular if it maintained it’s arena roots that is:

Fast movement in AND out of Combat (messed up by Sprint)

Players spawn even to one another, and fight for control of more powerful abilities off the map. (There can be SOME leniency, such as the difference between a Spartan and Elite in Halo 2/3 (very minor, nearly pure cosmetic) or the difference between a BR and Carbine in H4, but there really shouldn’t be 7 different primary weapons, let’s say 2 or 3 tops and they all have to fill the same niche, don’t mix Automatics, Utility Rifles, and Precision Rifles together. The BR and Carbine, OR the AR and Storm Rifle, OR the DMR and LR depending on gametype, but don’t cross the lines. Weapons that are similar enough in function, niche, and killtime, with the only real difference being player comfort level with Rate of Fire or other minor mechanics, without lording over rock-paper-scissors style advantages and disadvantages.

No perks, and sure as hell no AAs. Stick to Powerups, though limited-use AAs on map would be perfectly fine.

A focus on small-medium size map design for 4v4s. Doesn’t necessarily need to be all symmetrical, look at maps like Rat Race, Midship, and Guardian. Keep larger maps in BTB.

ALL power weapons should be fought for and earned as map spawns. Ordinance itself can stay so long as what you get out of it is more along the lines of an ammo/grenade resupply, or heck even AAs as Ordinance is fine.

15

Sammy are you still trying to pitch this type of idea? I sure I’ve read at least 1 or 2 other posts of yours that say more or less the same thing, all with the same responses. This type of thing is terrible for Halo and would make it more unbalanced than it already is.

Like Vektor0 said, any kind of unlock that gives an advantage is a bad idea, as it gives the people who have spent time levelling up certain weapons an edge over over those who didn’t.

16

Sorry Sammy, this is a terrible idea. In fact the very premise of it is broken. Instead of increasing replay value you would end up giving some players an advantage over others simply because they played more, or used a certain weapon more. I wouldn’t mind this sort of thing in Campaign, or SpOps but it does not belong in a PvP environment!

A better idea that I’ve seen on these forums is to unlock an aesthetic piece for your player card when you master a certain weapon. For example, if you master the UNSC Sniper your Spartan can wield it in the pregame lobby.

17

No.

Please God, no.

I hate to bring up the dreaded c-phrase, but this sounds almost exactly like what Call of Duty has been doing for years. The more you use a gun you unlock at a certain level, the more you advance it, and the greater an edge you have between you and your opponents. Customizeable loadouts are bad enough, but literal gun attachments are the worst thing you can do to Halo multiplayer.

Bottom line, this rewards people who have more time on their hands to play rather than those who are just plain better than the rest. No matter how good someone is with a battle rifle, they would be slaughtered by someone with a maxed out assault rifle. This would effectively destroy any element of pure skill left in Halo.

18

You say that the people who play all the time should take precedence over those who don’t? It should be the other way around.

For example:
You own a store and get regular shoppers and some-time shoppers who like other stores better.

So, you decide to put in a rule where ‘only people who shop here consistently can use the parking lot, all others will be towed’, What does this do? Make the some-time shoppers not want to shop there and just use all the other stores…

You don’t have to make the long-time players ‘want’ to stay because well… they’re staying regardless because they are happy. Instead you want to change things to make it a little better for the some-time players so that the have a good time and want to buy your game to play it more.

In my opinion, the the best thing they can do to reward you is a weapon skin or an emblem/armor. Cosmetic changes, not gameplay changes.

19

> > > Sigh.
> > >
> > >
> > > 3. Let’s just bury Halo’s arena shooter status and piss on its grave once more.
> >
> > Um, what arena status?
>
> The Arena status it had when it was still in the original Trilogy.
>
> Halo didn’t need to evolve as much as it did, it would have been more accepted and widely popular if it maintained it’s arena roots that is:
>
> Fast movement in AND out of Combat (messed up by Sprint)
>
> Players spawn even to one another, and fight for control of more powerful abilities off the map. (There can be SOME leniency, such as the difference between a Spartan and Elite in Halo 2/3 (very minor, nearly pure cosmetic) or the difference between a BR and Carbine in H4, but there really shouldn’t be 7 different primary weapons, let’s say 2 or 3 tops and they all have to fill the same niche, don’t mix Automatics, Utility Rifles, and Precision Rifles together. The BR and Carbine, OR the AR and Storm Rifle, OR the DMR and LR depending on gametype, but don’t cross the lines. Weapons that are similar enough in function, niche, and killtime, with the only real difference being player comfort level with Rate of Fire or other minor mechanics, without lording over rock-paper-scissors style advantages and disadvantages.
>
> No perks, and sure as hell no AAs. Stick to Powerups, though limited-use AAs on map would be perfectly fine.
>
> A focus on small-medium size map design for 4v4s. Doesn’t necessarily need to be all symmetrical, look at maps like Rat Race, Midship, and Guardian. Keep larger maps in BTB.
>
> ALL power weapons should be fought for and earned as map spawns. Ordinance itself can stay so long as what you get out of it is more along the lines of an ammo/grenade resupply, or heck even AAs as Ordinance is fine.

no thanks don’t like it.

20

> > > > Sigh.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 3. Let’s just bury Halo’s arena shooter status and piss on its grave once more.
> > >
> > > Um, what arena status?
> >
> > The Arena status it had when it was still in the original Trilogy.
> >
> > Halo didn’t need to evolve as much as it did, it would have been more accepted and widely popular if it maintained it’s arena roots that is:
> >
> > Fast movement in AND out of Combat (messed up by Sprint)
> >
> > Players spawn even to one another, and fight for control of more powerful abilities off the map. (There can be SOME leniency, such as the difference between a Spartan and Elite in Halo 2/3 (very minor, nearly pure cosmetic) or the difference between a BR and Carbine in H4, but there really shouldn’t be 7 different primary weapons, let’s say 2 or 3 tops and they all have to fill the same niche, don’t mix Automatics, Utility Rifles, and Precision Rifles together. The BR and Carbine, OR the AR and Storm Rifle, OR the DMR and LR depending on gametype, but don’t cross the lines. Weapons that are similar enough in function, niche, and killtime, with the only real difference being player comfort level with Rate of Fire or other minor mechanics, without lording over rock-paper-scissors style advantages and disadvantages.
> >
> > No perks, and sure as hell no AAs. Stick to Powerups, though limited-use AAs on map would be perfectly fine.
> >
> > A focus on small-medium size map design for 4v4s. Doesn’t necessarily need to be all symmetrical, look at maps like Rat Race, Midship, and Guardian. Keep larger maps in BTB.
> >
> > ALL power weapons should be fought for and earned as map spawns. Ordinance itself can stay so long as what you get out of it is more along the lines of an ammo/grenade resupply, or heck even AAs as Ordinance is fine.
>
> no thanks don’t like it.

Which was what Halo was at it’s prime…