POLL: Should Dual Wielding Return?

Games Halo Infinite
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21

I don’t recall this being an issue in Halo 3 with Equipment, however this is a good issue to bring up.

Perhaps this would be a “Restriction”. If you use Dual Wielding you cannot have equipment. You could even go a step further, adding a new piece of equipment to the game “Holster” which could be a requirement for Dual Wielding. If you pick up a Holster you could then Dual Wield and even switch weapons in order to keep your Dual Wield weapons (rather than drop it like Halo 2 and 3 - which made Dual Wielding annoying IMO). Just an idea. I don’t see clamber being an issue, after all it is easier to clamber with a gun in hand than to reload with just one hand but that is overlooked in every video game.

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22

I’d like to see it as a toggle option. But with a catch, sure you can double weild, but your accuracy drops.

23

I really do feel like it should be a feature implemented in some fashion, but I’m really not sure how.

Highly restricted to just custom games imo, similar to how the Automag and SSMG were given dual wield animations but ultimately cut from the final release.

It could be fun one to play with in the larger perspective of the sandbox (custom games wise) , but it would come with the implication that balance will not be tuned around the feature and dependent entirely on the current balance of the weapons that allow for it.

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24

So the driving point behind this poll is weapon uniqueness.

I will point to the M7 SMG here as an example. Compared to the MA40 AR, the M7 SMG is not very different. They are both automatic kinetic weapons, the SMG has a higher rate of fire and more ammo capacity, but less range. So the SMG is slightly different than the AR, but only in terms of role… and this role is already filled by the Sentinel Beam, and to a lesser extent the CQS48 Bulldog with respect to the UNSC. So at the end of the day the SMG is not a meaningful Sandbox addition. Enter Dual Wielding, if the community was open to Dual Wielding the SMG would have it’s own unique feature.

So far the results have shown the community is not open to this. More people voted YES than NO, however the YES is so divided its almost as if in the event Dual Wielding did return it would just upset people more than anything.

For those of you that do want Dual Wielding to return, start a discussion on how that should look like, see if common ground can be found. For those that don’t want it to return, I Challenge you to come up with an idea for how it could return in a meaningful way (right now more people want it to come back than not - so if you could have your say on the topic how would you like it to be implemented?).

Lets see what kind of feedback / ideas we can come up with.

25

While dual wielding will never return to Halo, Favyn made a compelling video as to how it could be implemented if it theoretically did come back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXBvMIM5cc8

26

Dual Wielding should come back if only to force the return of SMG, Plasma Rifle and other 1 handed weapons.

Notice ever since Halo 4 swung around with no Dual Wield the guns became more and more “Rifle” and less “Alien Gun”? Everything was a rifle in some form, or a pistol, no alien looking weapon which would probably fit the hands of an alien in sight.

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27

Campaign and customs, maybe fiesta or a dual only playlist, but mostly campaign and customs.

28

@Cybernyde My takeaway from the video is Dual Wielding can be balanced (and it doesn’t have to be about Damage purely).

The video discusses weapons losing their utility (which can still be achieved) but this fits the theme as discussed above with @Oggsta_UNSC , what if players lost the ability to pickup equipment if they were Dual Wielding? That is now a tradeoff that would have to be considered.

29

49 votes for YES (21 for Classic, 18 for Campaign, 10 for restricted) and 32 votes for NO.

I think its encouraging that people want dual wielding to return, but I have to say I’m actually suprised people liked the classic dual wielding system in Halo 2 and 3. I think dual wielding in those games made half of the weapons just weak (unless they were dual wielded) and to me that is a real balancing issue.

I’ve been thinking about this more and I want to discuss the one idea for a restriction that was brought up earlier, and that is restrict which weapons you can dual wield with. Lore wise I think this is a very easy thing to implement, if a weapon cannot be reloaded with one hand then it shouldn’t be Dual Wieldable. This means the Sidekick, Disruptor, and Mangler are all eliminated from Dual Wielding (which is good because those are all functional weapons without Dual Wielding). For the sake of consistency, I’m also going to add the Plasma Pistol in here (this way none of the pistols are dual wieldable, this could be due to the Charge function).

So what guns can be Dual Wielded? I think it would be interesting to play off of the SMG class of weapons.

First up you have a brand new Sandbox addition, the Plasma Rifle (I think the Brute Plasma Rifle specifically would fit the theme of the Banished and be a more unique sandbox addition, both should be in the game though as variants). The Plasma Rifle has no reload, it overheats, and it can also be held with one hand, so lore wise it makes perfect sense for this weapon to be Dual Wieldable. I imagine the Brute PR having a similar TTK as the AR, but almost worse because it overheats quickly, and because it shoots slower projectiles. What seperates the Brute PR from the rest of the Sandbox here though is its ability to be Dual Wielded, making the Brute PR the only weapon in the game that can become more powerful by finding two of these things on the map (I think its important not to just gift a player two of these, make players find one in one location and have to travel across the map to get another). If you manage to collect two Brute PR’s you’ve now doubled your damage, so its a risk vs reward thing where you’re potentially downgrading on the AR, but its worth it if you can Dual Wield. Now naturally its not as simple as just doubling damage output of your weapon, for Dual Wielding you would also be trading out some things such as the ability to use grenades and even the ability to use equipment, so there is a tradeoff for Dual Wielding.

2nd, you have the Needler, which is reloaded by literally shaking the crystals out which can be done with one hand. What is unique about the Needler is it doesn’t really do traditional damage, but rather a certain amount of shots in a specific amount of time will cause the crystals to supercombine. This means when Dual Wielding the Needler damage doesn’t necessarily have to be “doubled”, 343 could balance the supercombine effect to work any way they want when Dual Wielding. In addition to losing grenade and equipment use, they could also take away the “Fast Reload” function of the Needler as a tradeoff for Dual Wielding as well.

Now here’s an interesting idea. So far we have established a theme of SMG’s having Dual Wielding functionality, how could that apply to the Sentinel Beam then? Here’s my idea:
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/sandbox-sentinel-beam/511853/23

To enable Dual Wielding for the Brute PR and the Needler you would be holding “Y” to pick up the second gun. In the case of the Sentinel Beam, holding “Y” would drop the weapon and deploy it as an automated Sentry making it in theory an automated Dual Wieldable weapon. In the thread I shared a link for it was discussed how this could be balanced by decreasing Sentry damage by half and also limiting the distance you can travel from the Sentry (due to your AI being what controls the Sentry and your AI being stuck with you). I think this ties the theme of SMG’s being capable of potentially increasing damage output so well.

Lastly I’d like to see a 4th SMG added to the game (343 likes weapons to have pairs, the Needler and Sentinel Beam would be Tier 2 so ideally a 4th Tier 1 SMG would be added to accompany the Brute PR). All I can think of right now is the M7 SMG, but the issue is it requires two hands to reload so this breaks the logic of not being able to Dual Wield the sidearms. Perhaps the SMG would not have Dual Wield functionality, maybe its Niche trait could be ammo capacity. While it wouldn’t have increased damage output it would have the ability of sustainable damage output. Being 60 rounds the M7 SMG can fire longer than the AR (which I think should have its ammo capacity reduced from 36 to 32 also by the way). This would essentially be double the ammo capacity of the AR, which in a way still fits the theme of the SMG’s having the potential of “Increased Firepower”.

Personally, I think this is the only way I can see Dual Wielding returning. If it was done like suggested above you wouldn’t have to balance an entire Sandbox to accommodate Dual Wielding, you would literally only have to balance 2 weapons, the Brute PR and the Needler.

As far as Campaign and Custom Games goes I say go nuts. Let the Chief be a Dual Wielding super soldier in campaign and let players do whatever they want with Custom Games.

What does everyone think? Feedback / Suggestions are welcomed

30

Even with the UNSC SMG you could probably find a work around lore wise.

“The M7 SMG is an easy to use Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) that utilizes smart reload technology feauturing magnetic magizines and a sensor that automatically discards an empty magazine while locking in a new one. This makes the SMG the ideal PDW for UNSC space operators & scientists because minimal firearm training is required, just point and shoot. Spartan’s have been known to Dual Wield the M7 SMG, however standard marines do not possess the strength to handle the SMG’s intense recoil”.

This now limits the Sandbox to 3 Dual Wieldable weapons:

  1. M7 SMG
  • A Kinetic short range rapid fire Tier 1 SMG with a 60 round mag.
  1. Brute Plasma Rifle
  • A tier 1 automatic plasma based weapon with a fast rate of fire that overheats quickly.
  1. Needler
  • A tier 2 exotic SMG that fires homing crystals that supercombine for an explosion.

The M7 SMG and Brute Plasma Rifle should be slight downgrades from the AR on their own, while being stronger when Dual Wielded (specifically strongest when mixed with each other, the Plasma is effective vs Shields and the Kinetic is lethal vs unshielded enemies (being able to mix and match is a controllable limitation with map design). The Needler would be unique as it really doesn’t damage enemies effectively but rather it Supercombines, therefore pairing it with an SMG or a Brute Plasma Rifle wouldn’t be advantagesous. Being a Tier 2 weapon, the Needler would also have controlled spawns meaning you can only Dual Wield it if a map has 2 racks for the Needler, and there would literally only be 2 Needleds on the map at the same time.

The biggest issue with Dual Wielding is balancing the Sandbox, but with the above systems in place I feel like this is an easily balanceable gameplay aspect and it literally wouldn’t effect the current sandbox negatively at all (the SMG and Brute PR aren’t even in the game so these would be new additions, no changes to existing sandbox items needed!)

31

Dual wielding was never particularly balanced, I think it was the right decision to remove it with Reach and then keep it gone.

I don’t think it’s very interesting to design weapons that are only useful if you are using two weapons at the same time.

32

I agree, would the above suggestions not have weapons that are respectable when used alone yet rewarding when Dual Wielded though?

If done as suggested above, this trait would essentially be limited to one specific type of weapon, Tier 1 SMG’s.

The Tier 2 SMG’s the Needler and the Sentinel Beam would behave uniquely in the senes that the Needler would only be more effective if it was paired with itself (for a faster Super-Combine which can be balanced any way 343 wants). And the Sentinel Beam’s Sentry ability would have limited damage output as well. Additionally, being a Tier 2 weapon with “Controlled Spawns” the amount of weapons on a map at a time would be limited by map design.

33

this would be great if there were actully good guns in the game that we could do this with.

34

Such as the classic SMG and Plasma Rifle or do you have ideas / suggestions for something else?

35

One thing I failed to mention about the “traveling across the map” concept is that it would be very likely that you have to use the first BPR that you found in a fight on your way to the second one. Or you have to kill a player for the second one. This means that one of you BPRs will have less ammo than the other and run out quicker, forcing you back to 1 gun (and possibly desynchronizing the respawn timers).

I’d prefer if the SMG’s niche was a silencer. The SMG has kind of become synonymous with them because of ODST and H5’s implementation was pretty cool and it even comboed well with camo.

36

Good point, this concept would probably work best if ammo was shared between the two. In Halo Infinite you can fill Plasma ammo just by walking over the same weapon so in this case when Dual Wielding ammo could just be evenly split. Additionally, being a Tier 1 weapon I don’t think it would be necessary to limit the amount of Brute Plasma Rifle ammunition there is on the map. Even when you Dual Wield these things due to the nature of the Brute Plasma Rifle your weapon will probably overheat before you could get more than 2 kills… plus you’re trading out the ability to use grenades & likely equipment. An enemy using a Frag combo’d with an AR could still get the better of you.

I pictured the M7S SMG (the Silenced ODST version) being a Campaign variant. I’d like to have a Kinetic UNSC Dual Wieldable weapon in the Sandbox if possible, it makes for a deeper dual wielding system to combo with the Brute PR IMO. While both SMG’s are sort of iconic, I would argue the classic Dual Wieldable M7 SMG’s are a better fit for Halo Infinite’s Sandbox because you’re the Chief and the ODST aren’t really in the game.

37

I used to enjoy Team Duals in Halo 3 social slayer. It was funny, but outside of that the dual wielding weapons weren’t well balanced. It’s part of why the BR dominates so much of the Sandbox in Halo 2/3. They’re too weak on their own, and not too strong even as a pair. Not to mention you have to get two weapons and also not have grenades at the ready.

Part of me wants duals back, but also don’t know how it would work. I can’t think of a way myself.

38

I agree @Ken_CTF, I think Dual Wielding is actually impossible to balance if it is unrestricted which is why I proposed restricting it to 2 - 3 weapons (see post 29 and 30). If you only had to balance it for the M7 SMG, the Brute Plasma Rifle, and the Needler you wouldn’t really be upsetting the current sandbox at all (2 of those weapons are new additions to the Sandbox, while the Needler does not need to be changed. I discussed how being a Unique weapon that doesn’t really focus on Damage but rather the Super-Combine effect, 343 could make the Super-Combine work however they want when Dual Wielding without effecting the Needler on its own).

Now for Custom Game purposes you can allow players to choose which weapons they want players to be able to Dual Wield, and for a fun “Team Duals” playlist you could also fully unleash Dual Wielding. Start the players off with an M7 SMG (Primary) and a Brute Plasma Rifle (Secondary), they can use the drop weapon function to immediately start Dual Wielding or they can search the map for any Dual Wieldable weapons.

In post 29 I explained how it makes sense lore wise to limit Dual Wielding based on a weapons reload function. Thoughts on this? I think while balancing an entire Snadbox to work with Dual Wielding is impossible, balancing just 2-3 weapons is doable (and an interesting Sandbox addition).

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39

Dual wielding was just a novelty. All the “combos” didn’t really add anything to the sandbox that couldn’t be accomplished by other weapons.

40

Bring it back just like in Halo 2 for me!