Is it time to upgrade the binoculars?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

The binocs have been around since Halo 2, adding a (2x) zoom scope to weapons that don’t normally have zoom.

Yet, it feels so… lacking. It basically has no real purpose, because if you have a BR/DMR/LR - you’ve got a better (3x) scope anyway, and you can shoot while still zoomed.

To be honest, the binoc scope in Halo 4 is actually a work of art - but it could have been so much more.

So, here’s a few thoughts I had to make it something a little more useful.

"Advanced" zoom levels.
Hit d-pad (down) while zoomed (or not), to bring up a more detailed interface, with two zoom levels (2x / 8x).

You would still not be able to fire your weapon without it unzooming, but it would allow for some more advanced functionality…

Object and enemy tagging/tracking/stats.
Tag objects, enemies and teammates to keep track of, and prioritise them as targets.

Imagine being able to switch to binocs and “tag” a pesky banshee, and set it as a priority target, so that one of your (co-op) friends can take it out with their RL. Or tag a Hunter to get marines to focus their fire on it.
What if after you tag something, it brings up a small stats bar in the binocs that shows the health/shields of it?
You could tag up to 8 objects/enemies and have their stats displayed in the “advanced” interface, on either side.

Maybe you’re on Team BTB or Dominion, and red team is camping ‘mid cliffs’ with a Scorpion and a Mantis - tag them, and let the rest of your team know. Co-ordinate your ordinance!

Top-down map.
From “advanced mode”, hit (button) to toggle to a basic overview map. That or use the (select/back arrow) button.

After ODST introduced the map, I was rather disappointed that it wasn’t a function in any of the games after that. Being able to set your own navpoints, especially on the large, complicated campaign maps - was particularly useful.

Having call-outs and areas in multiplayer displayed on the map would be useful for larger scale combat co-ordination. If you died, perhaps just hit (back) and use it to put a navpoint on your map, if you want to try and retrieve a weapon you had.
For better flow of combat, call-outs would also be displayed on the normal HUD - much like they were in Reach.

All in all, most of these are designed to encourage better teamwork and co-ordination - building off one of the more unused and unknown functions in Halo.

Got other ideas/suggestions/opinions? Feel free to add them below.

tl;dr - No-one uses the binoculars, how can we make them better?

2

Heck, all I want is VISR to become a function for Spartan IVs on a normal basis it could really fix problems for people (active camo) and add a cool tactical feel to gameplay.

On topic: All I’d like to see happen to binoculars is the ability to swap through zooms via D-Pad.

3

actually its a 5x zoom now

4

We should have the option to make the darker areas more subtle. I’d love to have a non-focused clear view. One thing’s for certain, the binoculars need to display useful data.

Also, while we’re on the subject of scopes, revert the Covenant scopes to clear blue. Green is terrible for gameplay and ruins fights/exploration in bright environments, even if it makes more sense.

Edit: it’s actually 4x zoom in H2/H3/Reach. Not sure about H4, but 5x sounds awesome if true.

5

They could take inspiration from Crysis 3’s Tactical Visor.

6

I would like to always have a range finder active, no matter the weapon.

Pretty much if it’s without a scope, we get the default HUD range finder. If it’s a scope, we get the new weapon’s range finder.

Something for the default HUD that scoped weapons don’t have to have… An angle indicator.
It seems so insignificant but once you have both distance and angle from your position, you’ll wonder how you were without.

As for magnification overall… I don’t believe x2 or two levels of magnification are proper.
Perhaps we can start at x3 or x5… Or be given the player choice to choose a default zoom of x2, x3 or x5 for our no-scope weapons. A choice that doesn’t require an armour mod but is instead based on an option set that includes:

Right or Southpaw stance. It does not effect our gameplay if we are left or right handed. Blocking the screen on the right or left because one has a PW isn’t effecting how the PW works… It’s an immersion thing, it’s a personal connection thing, it’s a must be done thing.

Visor HUD colour… Blue is already hard to see in certain maps, let us be able to choose the colour of our visor and opaqueness so that we can manage it ourselves. I love blue, I’ll probably stick with blue, but spice and variety and all those things nice.

Victory animations. Once we hit max level, we rarely see our victory/cash grab celebration. Personal choices for winning, tieing and losing so that we always see something other than a stationary avatar would be nice.

7

I agree on the target spotting or tracking as a secondary function for the visor/binoculars.

8

I really like this.

The tagging function could be super fun, both in Campaign and Multiplayer.

9

Amazing idea man!! Ideas like this will really man this game great and worthy of the new console.

10

> Heck, all I want is VISR to become a function for Spartan IVs on a normal basis it could really fix problems for people (active camo) and add a cool tactical feel to gameplay.
>
> On topic: All I’d like to see happen to binoculars is the ability to swap through zooms via D-Pad.

Having VISR to combat AC would render one of Promethean Vision’s most useful functions useless.
Not saying it wouldn’t look cool though.

> We should have the option to make the darker areas more subtle. I’d love to have a non-focused clear view. One thing’s for certain, the binoculars need to display useful data.
>
> Also, while we’re on the subject of scopes, revert the Covenant scopes to clear blue. Green is terrible for gameplay and ruins fights/exploration in bright environments, even if it makes more sense.
>
> Edit: it’s actually 4x zoom in H2/H3/Reach. Not sure about H4, but 5x sounds awesome if true.

Perhaps, if there were HUD customisation options, to set opacity, brightness and contrast. This would also allow colourblind players to adjust it so they can see certain elements better - an issue that was brought up a bit after launch.

Definitely agree on the covy scopes. I’ve done a couple of vector traces of them, and they are stupidly bright and green. The only bit I like, is the centre of the beam rifle scope. It’s still useless in overly bright environments though. The Covenant’s whole colour palette revolves around blue and purple - not sure why green was even an option.

@ SGTBookWork & SG - thanks for correcting me on the zoom level. I wasn’t entirely sure on the details there.

> They could take inspiration from Crysis 3’s Tactical Visor.

\ Implying I didn’t ‘borrow’ the “tagging” system and zoom levels from there anyway.
A Nanosuit 30 years in the future shouldn’t be better equipped than a Spartan 500 years in the future.

> I would like to always have a range finder active, no matter the weapon.
>
> Pretty much if it’s without a scope, we get the default HUD range finder. If it’s a scope, we get the new weapon’s range finder.
>
> Something for the default HUD that scoped weapons don’t have to have… An angle indicator.
> It seems so insignificant but once you have both distance and angle from your position, you’ll wonder how you were without.
>
>
> As for magnification overall… I don’t believe x2 or two levels of magnification are proper.
> Perhaps we can start at x3 or x5… Or be given the player choice to choose a default zoom of x2, x3 or x5 for our no-scope weapons. A choice that doesn’t require an armour mod but is instead based on an option set that includes:
>
>
>
>
> Right or Southpaw stance. It does not effect our gameplay if we are left or right handed. Blocking the screen on the right or left because one has a PW isn’t effecting how the PW works… It’s an immersion thing, it’s a personal connection thing, it’s a must be done thing.
>
> Visor HUD colour… Blue is already hard to see in certain maps, let us be able to choose the colour of our visor and opaqueness so that we can manage it ourselves. I love blue, I’ll probably stick with blue, but spice and variety and all those things nice.
>
> Victory animations. Once we hit max level, we rarely see our victory/cash grab celebration. Personal choices for winning, tieing and losing so that we always see something other than a stationary avatar would be nice.
>

I could understand having the rangefinder active if less of the weapons had hitscan, and you were taking really long range shots. Which would give a use to having an angle of inclination - to adjust for ballistic drop, but other than that, I’m not really sure what I’d use either of those for.

When you refer to a Southpaw stance, do you mean the “Game Complete/Victory” stance, or how the player actually holds the weapon in first-person? Either way, that would require almost doubling (and inverting) the number of animations for the spartan model. There are also some models, like the Slaser, or the StickyDet that have deployable scopethings on one side of the weapon, that would have to be changed to accomodate doing this.
Next thing you know, people will want 'hogs with the driver seat on the right!

HUD colour, I believe, is theoretically possible - as 90% of the HUD is a 3d model rendered in game in real time - likewise for opacity. Having a master colour in player preferences, along with an opacity - would mean these colour setting can be multiplied through, or layered over the basic HUD colour, or replace it.

11

VISR binocs. Not the kind that blinds you in bright places like in H3 ODST though.

12

I think the current binoculars are fine, adding any features to them could throw off balance.

But VISR Mode could return as an Armor Ability that would replace Promethean Vision.

13

> I think the current binoculars are fine, adding any features to them could throw off balance.
>
> But VISR Mode could return as an Armor Ability that would replace Promethean Vision.

Add the ability to label and track vehicles like the OP mentioned and you have an AA that really is about teamwork.

14

> > I think the current binoculars are fine, adding any features to them could throw off balance.
> >
> > But VISR Mode could return as an Armor Ability that would replace Promethean Vision.
>
> Add the ability to label and track vehicles like the OP mentioned and you have an AA that really is about teamwork.

But how would balance be thrown off, it would come standard with everybody’s binoculars.

How could VISR replace promethean vision? VISR outlines geometry and is hardly usable in day light. Its purpose is to allow visibility in low light environments. Maybe as a campaign feature, but VISR would not be useful in multiplayer.

15

> > > I think the current binoculars are fine, adding any features to them could throw off balance.
> > >
> > > But VISR Mode could return as an Armor Ability that would replace Promethean Vision.
> >
> > Add the ability to label and track vehicles like the OP mentioned and you have an AA that really is about teamwork.
>
> <mark>But how would balance be thrown off,</mark> it would come standard with everybody’s binoculars.
>
> How could VISR replace promethean vision? <mark>VISR outlines geometry and is hardly usable in day light.</mark> Its purpose is to allow visibility in low light environments. Maybe as a campaign feature, but VISR would not be useful in multiplayer.

The balance would be thrown off due to it adding a crutch to gameplay. You can say that everyone having it would balance it, but everyone had the HUD in Halo 4 that shows the location of every power-weapon in the game, didn’t they…

VISR mode in general can be adjusted by users to adapt to environment that it is in. And it’s sole purpose is not for being able to see in low-light environments, but for being able to locate equipment in the battlefield.

16

I still do not see your point. I did not think the HUD in Halo 4 showing all the power weapons was necessary, but it is a useful feature.

The OP would be a great upgrade to the binoculars. If giving players a map, greater zoom options, and the ability to tag or spot enemies is unbalancing than I do not know what balance is.

17

> I still do not see your point. I did not think the HUD in Halo 4 showing all the power weapons was necessary, but it is a useful feature.
>
> The OP would be a great upgrade to the binoculars. If giving players a map, greater zoom options, and the ability to tag or spot enemies is unbalancing than <mark>I do not know what balance is.</mark>

That might be part of the problem.

Knowing where everyone and anyone is on the map is not good for the game. There’s no element of surprise, there’s no strategy that can be made to get around it. As soon as someone sees you, then you’re practically dead. Motion Tracker does more than enough to let players know where the enemy is, and many people think it does too much.

If it was an AA that could label 1 target at a time, then it could still be OP. Add a time limit to how long they’re tracked for, or make it so you need to keep looking at them to label them, then it might be balanced.

18

I had a temporary spotting system in mind not permanent. Similar to GoW3 or BF3. You see an opponent and spot them for the rest of your team to see.

Here is an example from GoW 3

19

The Binoculars actually are a 3x scope. The same as the DMR…

And the BR is only a 2x. Your binoculars actually scope farther than the BR does.