Matchmaking Feedback Update – November 13

Games Other Halo
1

Ranked Oddball

As some of you saw in the blog update, we will be rolling out Ranked Oddball with Battle Rifle / Gunfighter Magnum starts fairly soon. We are currently doing a due diligence pass on the maps to make sure a) we have weapon placements that make sense in a Ranked Oddball (including there actually being an Oddball on the map…) and 2) the weapon placements work with BR/GFM starts.

Once that work is done, we’ll switch the HCS playlist over to being a Halo World Championship Oddball Preview list. We’re doing that to focus feedback on a potential new HCS mode, and to more quickly find any blatant issues we missed on our first pass.

As some of you have already correctly guessed (based on me reading some reddit comments), with the new weapon tunings, we are testing the BR/GFM as a starting loadout because it gives a precision primary, with a skilled close quarters clean-up weapon.

Playlist Feedback

Although in the past we haven’t used this topic as much for playlist feedback, I want to officially say that’s fine going forward. I’ll be working more directly on our playlist offerings. That said, when we post specific topics on specific playlists, please use that thread instead of this one.

Also, please don’t repeat everything you’ve ever posted on playlists before since I’ve probably read it.

In addition, we’re working through some playlists changes down the road, and it would be good to wait for those to go out before making any significant feedback. This isn’t happening super soon, but close enough that we feel we already have the feedback we want up to this point, and won’t have the bandwidth for much more feedback until after we make those changes.

As for feedback on the Ranked Oddball list, I believe we’ll have another spot for that coming soon. Until that time, it’s fine to give a few high level comments here, but to be honest I really don’t want a lot of theorycrafting. I’d prefer you wait and play the list for a week or so before giving detailed criticism or feedback.

2

> 2533274839818445;1:
> Also, please don’t repeat everything you’ve ever posted on playlists before since I’ve probably read it.

Funny, I feel like this may specifically relate to me. Haha.

Anyways, I look forward to the Halo World Championship Oddball Preview playlist specifically for the opportunity to use the Gunfighter Magnum as I haven’t had much opportunity to try it out since the change because I don’t have it unlocked within my REQ system and there are not many Arena gametypes that include it; plus, the custom games I partake in don’t often include it either.

3

Played some 8’s with these settings and spoken to a lot of the EU competitive/LAN community and some of the NA LAN community and there’s been very little positive feedback about the direction competitive settings seem to be heading, I’ll explain below.

On the plus side, no-one’s had a bad thing to say about bringing Oddball back and it’s a lot of fun to play both casually and competitively (With Magnum starts, not nearly as much with BR/GFM starts). Truth, Eden, Empire, the Rig and Plaza all seem to work very well for Oddball (Some bad kids complain about people hiding the ball bottom lift on Plaza but it’s easy to break running pairs to Posters and Garbage Truck and it’s just them not putting the effort in).

With regards to the new loadouts, the BR specifically has been met with a lot of hostility, criticised for the random spread (Elements of RNG =/= competitive gaming PERIOD), which is going to cause even more problems for hit registration on poor servers, inconsistency at ranges where the magnum does a better job (In the grand scheme of things this isn’t very practical - a common pistol outclassing the primary rifle should not be a thing) and the idea that we need a secondary weapon in the starting loadout. The biggest issue I’ve heard from the guys I’ve played with and spoken to are that there wasn’t a problem with just Magnum starts, it was the other problems with the game (Matchmaking, servers, unnatural lunging with melee’s, servers, pre-weapon tuned Railguns, servers, radar still being a thing, servers, etc.). Also players won’t get the chance to use their new team skins that they’ll have paid money for because those weapons won’t be in rotation anymore.

We’re 2 years into the cycle now with Magnum starts, and as the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I personally, along with several other people in the competitive scene, don’t like the direction Halo 5 is going if BR/GFM starts are going to continue to be a thing. I predict the pace of the game is going to slow down with the meta going to become a case of not challenging unless you absolutely have to, which’ll lead to duller gameplay with less highlight-reel clips and a smaller playerbase.

There’s been a lot of talk about players moving over to CoD because of this new direction, and even if they do come back to Halo, they won’t be putting the time in, which’ll drop population numbers even further and less likely to attend the upcoming LAN events for 2018.

EDIT:

If we’re going to make Oddball a permanent thing, what’s going to happen with SH?

Those are just my 2 cents.

TL;DR - BR/GFM starts are met with hostility and the focus should have been on servers and radars, but the idea of Oddball coming back isn’t a bad thing in the slightest.

4

I’ll wait and see and I may have misunderstood but I’m extremely concerned that you’re replacing the hcs playlist

5

Might be premature but why not make Team Arena a social offering (Team Skirmish 2.0) with Snipers as a rare option in it and make HCS the ranked equivalent?

That way there’s a semi-sweaty warmup playlist that offers social objectives and Slayer gametypes while retaining a different feel from the HCS options.

6

> 2533274839818445;1:
> That said, when we post specific topics on specific playlists, please use that thread instead of this one.

When the time comes that a specific topic is posted for a specific playlist, would you do us the favor of posting a link to that thread?

I have a really hard time finding other topics that moderators only hint at existing, but don’t provide locations for, and I’m sure that there are others that have the same issue…

> 2533274793057312;5:
> Might be premature but why not make Team Arena a social offering (Team Skirmish 2.0) with Snipers as a rare option in it and make HCS the ranked equivalent?
> That way there’s a semi-sweaty warmup playlist that offers social objectives and Slayer gametypes while retaining a different feel from the HCS options.

Snipers doesn’t really fit in with the Team Arena style of play.

7

Can you mention which section(s) (Ranked, Social, WZ or all 3) are affected by those down the road playlist changes?

8

Really looking forwards to the new starts, and to test the new playlist - H5 is just a smidge too frantic with the Magnum and I’ve been harping on about a slight bump to TTK since the beta. I really love the more deliberate engagements and the ability to turn around and duke it out when you get caught from behind, as opposed to now, when you’re just boned.

With the Oddball test may I suggest that all storm rifles are removed.

Josh knows my playlist thoughts!

> “It seems that perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.”

9

It kind of boggles my mind how someone that only played a handful of games in the last half year (0 Ranked games this season, 60 Sept-Oct, 4 in July-August, 0 in May-June) actively participates in a discussion about starting weapons. Is that enough to be able to judge the game? Did you play HCS with magnum starts, or just judge based on videos?

No, Halo isn’t too frantic with pistol starts. Players love their Magnums, which is not only what Viable Manatee already explained, but what the majority of reddit seems to think as they criticise the BR+GFM starts already (“343i wtf?” - https://redd.it/7cozay).

Oddball seems a great addition (if it wouldn’t be with BR+GFN starts), but I’m really worried about the number of playlists. Halo 3, the most played game at it’s time, had only 11 playlists at launch (a couple more were added later). Why does Halo 5, a game that isn’t even in the top 20, need 18/19?

The population is too low. Europeans/Asians/Australians can’t find any games in the mornings and afternoons during the week. And even in the evening it now only seems to work, because it matches you with Americans when searching “balanced”. This is the main playlist problem among the people that I’m playing with. They know they can’t find games (or just laggy games) at certain times of the day, so they just play less and less. (More people talking about that issue: https://redd.it/75hhj8)

As someone who enjoys HCS I’m also really unhappy that HWC Oddball will replace HCS and hope this change doesn’t last a whole season. Isn’t it possible to just add Oddball to HCS and Arena, and give it higher probability to come up than other gametypes?

I’m also still struggling to understand why we still have a “Team Arena” & a “HCS” playlist, when “Team Arena” was introduced as the playlist with official settings at the beginning. It just was known as the playlist that "reflect the official HCS Pro League maps and game types" (343 INDUSTRIES - 5/27/2016). Splitting it in two when the new settings came out just further fractured the already small player base.

10

> 2775209234672000;2:
> > 2533274839818445;1:
> > Also, please don’t repeat everything you’ve ever posted on playlists before since I’ve probably read it.
>
> Funny, I feel like this may specifically relate to me. Haha.

You know it! I was thinking the same thing when I read it, haha.

> 2533274826968356;3:
>

It is unfortunate that this whole bolded section is posted here instead of the actual weapons update thread. The exact thing Josh asked us not to do.
EDIT: Josh’s post made this comment irrelevant. Misread the OP.

> 2533274849470050;4:
> I’ll wait and see and I may have misunderstood but I’m extremely concerned that you’re replacing the hcs playlist

It will only be for a short while. They need to hyper track this with as much info as possible if they want to implement it in HWC.

> 2543997646665974;9:
> It kind of boggles my mind how someone that only played a handful of games in the last half year (0 Ranked games this season, 60 Sept-Oct, 4 in July-August, 0 in May-June) actively participates in a discussion about starting weapons. Is that enough to be able to judge the game? Did you play HCS with magnum starts, or just judge based on videos?
>
> No, Halo isn’t too frantic with pistol starts. Players love their Magnums, which is not only what Viable Manatee already explained, but what the majority of reddit seems to think as they criticise the BR+GFM starts already (“343i wtf?” - https://redd.it/7cozay).
>
> Oddball seems a great addition (if it wouldn’t be with BR+GFN starts), but I’m really worried about the number of playlists. Halo 3, the most played game at it’s time, had only 11 playlists at launch (a couple more were added later). Why does Halo 5, a game that isn’t even in the top 20, need 18/19?
>
> The population is too low. Europeans/Asians/Australians can’t find any games in the mornings and afternoons during the week. And even in the evening it now only seems to work, because it matches you with Americans when searching “balanced”. This is the main playlist problem among the people that I’m playing with. They know they can’t find games (or just laggy games) at certain times of the day, so they just play less and less. (More people talking about that issue: https://redd.it/75hhj8)
>
> As someone who enjoys HCS I’m also really unhappy that HWC Oddball will replace HCS and hope this change doesn’t last a whole season. Isn’t it possible to just add Oddball to HCS and Arena, and give it higher probability to come up than other gametypes?
>
> I’m also still struggling to understand why we still have a “Team Arena” & a “HCS” playlist, when “Team Arena” was introduced as the playlist with official settings at the beginning. It just was known as the playlist that "reflect the official HCS Pro League maps and game types" (343 INDUSTRIES - 5/27/2016). Splitting it in two when the new settings came out just further fractured the already small player base.
[/quote]
They will be merging TA and HCS fairly soon. They mentioned it in the last update, and I really don’t think the HCS playlist will stay Oddball only for a whole season. A two month long test is kind of stretching it.
> I look forward to the change up, and further seeing how the BR/GF starts feel. I don’t think they will remove anymore playlists. There are way too many players complaining there aren’t enough. Not to mention the fact that there was a big backlash when Team Skirmish was removed. I would love for them to consolidate more, but I really don’t think it is going to happen.

11

> 2533274826968356;3:
> Played some 8’s with these settings and spoken to a lot of the EU competitive/LAN community and some of the NA LAN community and there’s been very little positive feedback about the direction competitive settings seem to be heading, I’ll explain below.
>
> On the plus side, no-one’s had a bad thing to say about bringing Oddball back and it’s a lot of fun to play both casually and competitively (With Magnum starts, not nearly as much with BR/GFM starts). Truth, Eden, Empire, the Rig and Plaza all seem to work very well for Oddball (Some bad kids complain about people hiding the ball bottom lift on Plaza but it’s easy to break running pairs to Posters and Garbage Truck and it’s just them not putting the effort in).
>
> With regards to the new loadouts, the BR specifically has been met with a lot of hostility, criticised for the random spread (Elements of RNG =/= competitive gaming PERIOD), which is going to cause even more problems for hit registration on poor servers, inconsistency at ranges where the magnum does a better job (In the grand scheme of things this isn’t very practical - a common pistol outclassing the primary rifle should not be a thing) and the idea that we need a secondary weapon in the starting loadout. The biggest issue I’ve heard from the guys I’ve played with and spoken to are that there wasn’t a problem with just Magnum starts, it was the other problems with the game (Matchmaking, servers, unnatural lunging with melee’s, servers, pre-weapon tuned Railguns, servers, radar still being a thing, servers, etc.). Also players won’t get the chance to use their new team skins that they’ll have paid money for because those weapons won’t be in rotation anymore.
>
> We’re 2 years into the cycle now with Magnum starts, and as the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I personally, along with several other people in the competitive scene, don’t like the direction Halo 5 is going if BR/GFM starts are going to continue to be a thing. I predict the pace of the game is going to slow down with the meta going to become a case of not challenging unless you absolutely have to, which’ll lead to duller gameplay with less highlight-reel clips and a smaller playerbase.
>
> There’s been a lot of talk about players moving over to CoD because of this new direction, and even if they do come back to Halo, they won’t be putting the time in, which’ll drop population numbers even further and less likely to attend the upcoming LAN events for 2018.
>
> EDIT:
>
> If we’re going to make Oddball a permanent thing, what’s going to happen with SH?
>
> Those are just my 2 cents.
>
> TL;DR - BR/GFM starts are met with hostility and the focus should have been on servers and radars, but the idea of Oddball coming back isn’t a bad thing in the slightest.

Thanks for your feedback, it’s appreciated. The issue with the magnum at this point is that it is over-powered with respect to the rest of the sandbox, so there would be no need to pick up anything on the map, which I guess I don’t see as a good thing.

The BR does have more spread now than it did before the tuning, but keep in mind that it still has some of the lowest spread of any BR in the history of Halo. All previous Halo’s have had a spread on the BR bullets, and H5’s was just a historical low until the tuning. This made it a great pickup weapon, but over-powered as a primary. The new tuning brings it in line with what a primary weapon should be able to do, and brings its range in line with previous Halos.

Having a spread, or cone of fire is common in just about every competitive FPS including past Halos, so I guess I feel it doesn’t ruin the competitiveness. Do you feel it ruined previous Halos? Would you prefer a form of bloom to balance range?

The new BR is less powerful than before, less powerful than the magnum, takes more skill to aim with, which overall balances the sandbox better. You now have a stronger motivation to balance against pickups.

As for Team Skins, as far as I understand, they should appear just fine on the GFM.

As for servers, shot registration, etc., that’s a completely separate and ongoing investigation. So far, ping has been the most likely suspect, but we’re still looking into it. It doesn’t happen consistently, with a lot of players having zero problems, which also makes ping a lot more likely. I myself am going to try and do a little analysis when not trolling you guys even though it’s not specifically my area.

12

> 2533274793057312;5:
> Might be premature but why not make Team Arena a social offering (Team Skirmish 2.0) with Snipers as a rare option in it and make HCS the ranked equivalent?
>
> That way there’s a semi-sweaty warmup playlist that offers social objectives and Slayer gametypes while retaining a different feel from the HCS options.

We are actually already doing some preliminary planning for filling that gap, but the current priority is getting ready for the HWC.

As I said in the blog, we’ve had a goal for awhile to merge Team Arena and HCS into a much healthier list than they ever have been separate. Once that’s done, we’ll be working on Social and general playlist strategy.

13

> 2727626560040591;7:
> Can you mention which section(s) (Ranked, Social, WZ or all 3) are affected by those down the road playlist changes?

We’ll definitely talk about all 3. Our goal will be to increase health, but still let people play what they want at least part of the time.

14

> 2533274839818445;11:
> > 2533274826968356;3:
> > Played some 8’s with these settings and spoken to a lot of the EU competitive/LAN community and some of the NA LAN community and there’s been very little positive feedback about the direction competitive settings seem to be heading, I’ll explain below.
> >
> > On the plus side, no-one’s had a bad thing to say about bringing Oddball back and it’s a lot of fun to play both casually and competitively (With Magnum starts, not nearly as much with BR/GFM starts). Truth, Eden, Empire, the Rig and Plaza all seem to work very well for Oddball (Some bad kids complain about people hiding the ball bottom lift on Plaza but it’s easy to break running pairs to Posters and Garbage Truck and it’s just them not putting the effort in).
> >
> > With regards to the new loadouts, the BR specifically has been met with a lot of hostility, criticised for the random spread (Elements of RNG =/= competitive gaming PERIOD), which is going to cause even more problems for hit registration on poor servers, inconsistency at ranges where the magnum does a better job (In the grand scheme of things this isn’t very practical - a common pistol outclassing the primary rifle should not be a thing) and the idea that we need a secondary weapon in the starting loadout. The biggest issue I’ve heard from the guys I’ve played with and spoken to are that there wasn’t a problem with just Magnum starts, it was the other problems with the game (Matchmaking, servers, unnatural lunging with melee’s, servers, pre-weapon tuned Railguns, servers, radar still being a thing, servers, etc.). Also players won’t get the chance to use their new team skins that they’ll have paid money for because those weapons won’t be in rotation anymore.
> >
> > We’re 2 years into the cycle now with Magnum starts, and as the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I personally, along with several other people in the competitive scene, don’t like the direction Halo 5 is going if BR/GFM starts are going to continue to be a thing. I predict the pace of the game is going to slow down with the meta going to become a case of not challenging unless you absolutely have to, which’ll lead to duller gameplay with less highlight-reel clips and a smaller playerbase.
> >
> > There’s been a lot of talk about players moving over to CoD because of this new direction, and even if they do come back to Halo, they won’t be putting the time in, which’ll drop population numbers even further and less likely to attend the upcoming LAN events for 2018.
> >
> > EDIT:
> >
> > If we’re going to make Oddball a permanent thing, what’s going to happen with SH?
> >
> > Those are just my 2 cents.
> >
> > TL;DR - BR/GFM starts are met with hostility and the focus should have been on servers and radars, but the idea of Oddball coming back isn’t a bad thing in the slightest.
>
> The BR does have more spread now than it did before the tuning, but keep in mind that it still has some of the lowest spread of any BR in the history of Halo. All previous Halo’s have had a spread on the BR bullets, and H5’s was just a historical low until the tuning. This made it a great pickup weapon, but over-powered as a primary. The new tuning brings it in line with what a primary weapon should be able to do, and brings its range in line with previous Halos.
>
> Having a spread, or cone of fire is common in just about every competitive FPS including past Halos, so I guess I feel it doesn’t ruin the competitiveness. Do you feel it ruined previous Halos? Would you prefer a form of bloom to balance range?

Very insightful post Josh, I hadn’t really thought about it this way

I was talking with some of my company mates last night and here’s a short description of our feelings: The old H5 Br felt almost exactly like H2 played. The new BR feels like a shorter range version of the H3 BR.

I actually think the new BR wouldn’t be so bad…if we didn’t have enhanced movement abilities.

Would the sandbox team consider looking into maybe compromising on the aim assist and/or magnetism to help offset the effects of enhance mobility? I think some of the latency issues people are seeing might be clouding their opinions on the BR.

15

Veremos y tendremos que adaptarnos a los cambios
Aún así echaré de Menos la lista HAS

16

<mark>This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not post spam.</mark>
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Veremos y tendremos que adaptanos a los cambios
Aún así echaré de Menos la lista HCS

17

> 2535440825046240;15:
> Veremos y tendremos que adaptarnos a los cambios
> Aún así echaré de Menos la lista HAS

<mark>Because we are not currently equipped to provide moderation in other languages, we ask that all messages be posted in English. Feel free to use an online language translation service, and then create a new post with the translated text.</mark>

18

the HCS list seems very complete and for a long time it was my favorite but the changes are good and we must adapt

19

> 2533274839818445;11:
> > 2533274826968356;3:
> > …
>
> The issue with the magnum at this point is that it is over-powered with respect to the rest of the sandbox, so there would be no need to pick up anything on the map, which I guess I don’t see as a good thing.
>
> The BR does have more spread now than it did before the tuning, but keep in mind that it still has some of the lowest spread of any BR in the history of Halo. All previous Halo’s have had a spread on the BR bullets, and H5’s was just a historical low until the tuning. This made it a great pickup weapon, but over-powered as a primary. The new tuning brings it in line with what a primary weapon should be able to do, and brings its range in line with previous Halos.
>
> Having a spread, or cone of fire is common in just about every competitive FPS including past Halos, so I guess I feel it doesn’t ruin the competitiveness. **Do you feel it ruined previous Halos? Would you prefer a form of bloom to balance range?**The new BR is less powerful than before, less powerful than the magnum, takes more skill to aim with, which overall balances the sandbox better. You now have a stronger motivation to balance against pickups.

So the 343i team is aware (per early data?) that the Pistol may have a few too many distinct advantages over the precision weapons that were addressed (BR, Carbine, and DMR), but I hope that the consensus amongst the team isn’t one that believes that the Pistol now requires tweaking instead of further adjusting and refining the re-tuned weapons?

Is the Halo 5 version of the Halo 2 BR not a replica of that iconic weapon’s bullet spread? I ask because I’m under the impression that it is and I’d argue that that weapon has less overall bullet spread than that of the pre-tuned Halo 5 BR even if the Halo 5 BR had pretty much no horizontal bullet spread. Now, I never performed a bullet spread accuracy test within the original Halo 2 game for the BR and can’t right now, so I’m left with searching videos online and the only accuracy information I can locate demonstrates past BR effectiveness against opponents from different ranges. These tests indicated that the original Halo 2 BR was very accurate (aka tight bullet spread &/or high bullet magnestism); although, it also featured a max range where bullet damage ended, but within its ranges it was extremely accurate against a stationary target. I’m not aware of anyone taking issue with the Halo 2 BR within this game; in fact, I think a lot of people appreciate its role and fit within the sandbox. The idea should be to ensure that the Halo 5 BR is a more difficult and skillful weapon to use in comparison to the Legendary version, but that they end up fitting a very similar role with fairly similar effectiveness and feel too. The legendary Halo 2 BR should simply have more aim assistance (reticle magnetism & body + head bullet magnetism) in comparison in order to make it easier to use in general, but the Halo 5 BR should be fairly similar on all other accounts.

I recall many, MANY people complaining about the bullet spread of the Halo 3 BR over the Halo 2 version when Halo 3 released. I don’t know too many people who wish to see the return of Halo 3’s BR with its bullet spread – some may wish it back because it wasn’t hitscan (I think there are more pros than cons in having it be hitscan), but I’d be hard pressed to find anyone who wanted it back for its bullet spread. I also recall tons of people completely disguised with the level of “bloom” featured within Halo Reach and it was the early start-up of 343i who addressed that issue within Reach by providing a Title Update that significantly reduced the “bloom” effect and even fully eliminated it for the competitive hoppers (aka Zero Bloom). So, yes I think there are lots of people who felt that too much random variance within a weapon’s spread ruined aspects of past Halo titles – not necessarily saying that’s the case here, but I would say that carefully choosing the type and amount of bullet variation is critical toward ensuring the game plays well without detracting from the competitiveness and skill curve. Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing a slight “bloom” effect associated with a weapon like the Carbine, so that players who use the weapon methodically can retain more accuracy than those who choose to use its high rate of fire for suppression purposes. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing if players end up dealing with some random variation to its bullets when spamming the trigger; in other words, I think the current amount of bullet spread on the re-tuned Carbine is fine if players are granted the weapon’s negligible bullet spread (pre-tune) when pacing their shots. I say this because the Carbine is a noticeably higher rate of fire precision weapon that also has one of the lower optimal TTKs and the re-tuned amount of bullet spread is as much as this weapon should ever see (it’s already borderline too much for the HCS).

Should the balancing trade-offs between the BR and Magnum not be these?

  • The BR is provided aim assistance (reticle magnetism & body + head bullet magnetism) to a further distance (RRR) when Aiming-Down-Sight (ADS). The BR and Magnum should share the same hip-fire RRR. - The BR is provided more aim assistance at mid-range. - The BR is a bit more lethal when used with a melee (6 bullets or potentially 2 trigger pulls + melee = kill). - The BR is a better suppression and clean-up weapon. It fires multiple bullets down range in a fairly quick fashion which increases odds of de-scoping an opponent and landing a critical headshot. - The Magnum is a bit more lethal weapon via firing shots because it features a better optimal TTK. - The Magnum is a more accurate and consistent weapon; especially, outside its RRR thanks to negligible or no bullet spread + firing 1 single bullet per trigger pull verses 3. - The Magnum is provided more aim assistance (reticle magnetism & body + head bullet magnetism) within closer range of mid-range.
20

I’m really glad Oddball is back (why it wasn’t here day 1 is beyond me, but anyways…) And happy that the HCS will be bringing it into the fold.

As far as playlist thoughts, concerns, etc my understanding is you’ll be doing something soon and you’d rather us wait for those changes before making comments. Ok, fair enough, I’ll wait then. Hopefully you do some things I’m thinking. It’ll save me time in writing stuff lolol :wink:

I hope ZaedynFel and Viable Manatee don’t mind me commenting on there conversation, but I have some thoughts/comments. ZaedynFel, am I understanding you right here… are you saying the current BR’s range is the same now as previous Halo games?? If so, ok… (honestly found that hard to believe, but you would know)… but because halo 5 has bigger maps, due to the inclusion of sprint and Spartan abilities, then previous Halo games, doesn’t that warrant Halo 5 having a longer range BR don’t you think? Heck, weapons in general have longer ranges…

You also said the magnum is over powered compared to the rest of the sandbox now… Well, I agree it is, but only because of the changes made to the BR and Carbine mainly. I don’t think anyone has a problem with the BR being more skillful, but both weapons range reductions have really killed those weapons. The fact the BR shoots a lot slower then it did doesn’t help either. If something is going to shoot slower, there needs to be an advantage to that and in the BRs current state, I feel there is none. To me, and many others, even if those weapons got JUST there range back to what it was, or close to it, they’d be a heck of a lot better and the sandbox would be too I think. I’d add the SMG as well, as now it’s pretty useless compared to the AR. It most situations, the AR makes a lot more sense to have then the SMG. Would be times where you wouldn’t of died if you had the SMG and not the AR, sure… but far and few between I feel.

I feel your comments (not trying to read into them, but hard not too) tell me that a magnum nerf or something is coming. If that’s the case…well… All I can say is tell your fellow 343I co-workers to prepare for a huge backlash, because there will be one more then likely.

As far as spread goes, I don’t mind and can even understand why the BR has some due to the 3 shot burst, but on weapons like the carbine I don’t at all. I’m pretty sure previous Halo games the carbine did not. As far as bloom goes, I absolutely do not want that back.

Anyways, wasn’t trying to get off topic there, but really wanted to throw some of my thoughts in the conversation.

EDIT: I’ve just been told that the Carbine did have noticeable spread in previous Halo games. I couldn’t recall…im getting old lol Thanks for the information eLantern.