Borderlands 3 also has gun that you can throw and detonate like a grenade. So maybe something like those could work too. They’re damage is dependent on how much ammo is in the gun as well.
Ramping up the fire rate over time is something that I adore the BPR for especially in Halo 5. Titanfall 2 has an LMG cold the “Devotion” that has similar function. Maybe this could be a feature to make the SAW stand out more.
Yeah, combination of trait would be cool, and something I kind of wish was the primary feature of Promethean guns since they have a tendency to transform.
For inspiration I looked back at some old games I liked (like really old) and Perfect Dark had a really unique weapons for it’s time.
The Laptop Gun, which could be deployed as an automated turret was something that made me think about that feature for the Sentinel Beam.
The Dragon was just an Assault Rifle that could be thrown and detonated as well - a weird ability but something that just makes sense for the Fuel Rod Cannon especially since it would be a throwback to Halo CE.
Then there was the Reaper. An automatic weapon which was basically a bladed turbine, it used a fire rate ramp up and the bladed turbine (which spun while firing) inflicted melee damage… I wonder if instead of the SAW this could be a Banished weapon using Hardlight. Call it the Cyclone.
And the ability to make new ones ourselves (forge / scripting).
The most important sandbox is the one within the individual game / map. As long as the weapons on the map in that game all work with each other then the game is balanced.
I just wand M6D starts in multiplayer and included in campaign and a classic settings playlist: no power weapons with exception of rocket launcher & sniper, no vehicles with exception of warthog, and no equipment.
This right here. I honestly think that I enjoy Halo 3’s multiplayer more with the Spiker than the Assault Rifle. I can confirm the possibility of better luck with a different weapon here. I still like both the Spiker and the AR though (except the Halo Infinite AR, I feel its great in Campaign but bad in multiplayer).
There’s only so many roles that exist. Duplication is inevitable at that point.
Is making the Heatwave a weird weapon with a gimmicky bounce effect and one weapon mode that doesn’t work better than just making it a shotgun like the Scattershot? There’s no real purpose for the Heatwave to exist they simply didn’t want two shotguns in the game.
Plus in campaign, does it really make sense the Sentinels to be using Banished Weapons? Even the Banished using UNSC Weapons to the extent they do. It’s immersion breaking and limits the variety. A campaign should offer that variety in weapon and enemy types. You’re not selling on this big sci fi world if you only have eight guns to keep the multiplayer sandbox free of “clutter”.
You would also have to get rid of quite a few legacy weapons to avoid duplication. BR-DMR-Covenant Carbine. Spartan Laser-Railgun-Skewer. Shotgun-Bulldog. Etc etc Which means you have less content.
Also it’s not thirty copies of the same gun. At most you’re talking 4 with BR, Carbine, DMR and Light Rifle. With those two arguably being slightly heavier versions. Being purist to the point of only having a single precision gun is extremely limiting and it does not make the game better.
Overlap in roles is always okay because Bungie designed weapons to have different sort of behaviours regardless of role.
Bungie era games are unafraid of making some weapons weaker than the other, but stronger in certain situations.
You can see 343’s “fear of unbalance” all the way in Reach (which has most of these dudes moving to 343 after Reach) This can be seen in the AR vs Plasma Repeater. Repeater actually does poor damage to shields, same as the AR, and to compensate for no bloom, shot slower over time like wtf lmao. AR in that game just peppers and blooms.
That fear has lingered on onto Infinite, where you have the Plasma Pistol being brought up in kill power for no reason while its utility stripped, Commando being nerfed for no reason while keeping all its flaws of low ammo, aggressive recoil and bloom, and the most despicable nerf which was Ravager splash radius.
Yep, other games do this, except Halo and Titanfall because doing it would take away from the movement mechanics that the games are known for. Titanfall is all about moving as fast as possible. If players suffered an accuracy debuff for jumping or sliding…? That wouldn’t be a popular feature, to put it lightly.
As for Halo, fans of the series love that you can fire a gun full auto while jumping and spinning around and not suffer a lick of an accuracy debuff. As for ADS, Halo never really had true ADS (where your accuracy is pinpoint). H5’s ADS really just narrowed the firing cone (which is still helpful, but not the same). As for slowing down ADS, as far as I know, every gun has the same ADS speed in Halo, so changing it on the SAW would mean adjusting it on other guns too, leading the balancing questions. COD also has the Gunsmith which lets players adjust their mobility, accuracy and ADS speed with the different gun parts, another feature that Halo doesn’t, and likely will never, have. But in the end, Halo has descoping, so player would need to be able to hip fire it effectively anyways.
COD also has proning and mounting (forces you into ADS) which also improve accuracy but severely limits/stops mobility. But Halo has neither of these, and likely won’t since they go against the movement philosophy and this would have to apply to every gun which is almost certainly gonna cause balancing issues.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
The only gun in Halo that could do something like this was Reach’s Plasma Repeater. It could fire indefinitely until the battery reached 0%. However, as it got hotter, the fire rate would slow down (almost to 60 RPM) and the bloom would increase more and more, forcing you to vent it. The Repeater was actually the OG gun to use a venting mechanic. Unfortunately for the Repeater, it was a Tier-0 trashcan.
I’m gonna bring your attention to Titanfall 2 once again because it’s got a bunch of guns that Halo should honestly just copy (sorry, not sorry).
From the Titanfall 2 wiki verbatim:
"The L-STAR has multiple advantages in multiplayer - high damage and fire rate. However, this is offset by the travel time of its projectiles making it fall short at longer range. Skilled players can compensate for this however by effectively leading their shots.
Basically it’s a plasma Rifle. Obviously the SAW is kinetic, hit-scan and has more effective range. But this isn’t really important.
Due to the L-STAR’s long reload animation, you should always keep an eye on your heat levels, and stop firing before it reaches the maximum level. Short-medium bursts followed by short cooldown periods are recommended.
So, here’s the thing about that reload animation, it’s not a reload animation, it’s an overheat animation. Unlike the Repeater, you can’t vent the L-STAR, so you have to rely on fire rate control. And if you overheat it, the reload is LOOOONG. Your pilot actually has to replace the melted components. Basically it combines old school Halo heat management with the venting mechanic. The SAW uses bullets, but it could benefit from a long reload kind of how COD has your character realign the belt.
Another problem is there’s a brief one-second pause, after releasing the trigger, which could mean either losing your intended target, or your life. Finding a break in combat would be the best moment to allow such moments between attacks.
Tap firing the L-STAR is basically useless because of this animation. So it almost forces you to fire in long chains, putting out high volumes of damage. This naturally takes advantage of a large magazine.
EDIT 2: That 1 second delay on the L-STAR is very similar to the Sentinel Beam, for reference.
The Devotion should actually be fired early since it needs time to ramp up the DPS.
So what could a Halo LMG learn from the L-STAR and the Devotion?
Favor sustained fire over short bursts
Increase DPS with sustained fire
Large Magazine
Long reload/overheat
Heavy Recoil/Spread
No it doesn’t have to be the SAW, and maybe the solution is a Banished/Forerunner model. UNSC guns don’t typically overheat. A redesigned Plasma Repeater that ramps up DPS, DOESN’T have a vent option (I think having to wait for it to cool off would be a better balance), and has a lengthy overheat animation might work. I’m not sure about spread and ADS values though.
That being said, is this new Repeater different enough from the Plasma Cannon?
One last option is to… (don’t get your pitchforks)… bring back dual-wielding, but only for the SMG (or have some kind of setting toggle that turns it off for select guns).
The issue dual-wielding caused the SMG and other guns is simple math:
Damage X 2 = Bad things.
Bungie either had to make the SMG weak on its own so dual-wielding didn’t make it OP, or they could make the SMG normal, but dual SMGs are broken. They should have gone with the latter, because here’s dual-wielding’s dirty little secret:
You don’t have to put 2 SMGs on the map. Even better, you don’t have to the 2 SMGs right next to each other.
Bungie could have not spawned the guns in pairs. If you want that SAW-esque power, you have to grab 1 SMG from red base, and 1 from blue base. Uh oh! Blue team already grabbed it? Now you have to kill them for it. Of course, the SMG would have to be moved to a red pad so more don’t spawn until the first 2 are used up.
In short:
A single SMG performs how it normally does (H5 for example)
Dual SMGs do double damage with all the disadvantages that come with DW
Heavy Recoil (H2)
Longer reload when DWing
Only spawn 1 SMG at a time so players can’t get 2 immediately (unless the map is meant to have a SAW-like weapon)
EDIT 1: One of the things I really like about Infinite’s Sentinel Beam is how much ammo is in the gun. It only needs .8 seconds of contact to kill, but it can fire for a full 5 seconds.
Role vs. Behavior are 2 words to keep in mind when thinking about the sandbox.
Yes, the AR and Plasma Rifle fill similar roles (automatic, short range, fast rate of fire, easy to use), but they behave differently (AR is hitscan, and does high health damage), (PR is projectile, high shield damage, overheats).
I was thinking about this more also, and I think there are two answers right in front of us and you’ve touched on both of them.
Correct me if I’m wrong here but I think there are currently 3 types of detachable turrets in Halo Infinite.
Chain Gun
Plasma Cannon
Scrap Cannon
So that’s a UNSC one (similar to the SAW), a “covenant” one (similar to the plasma repeater), and also a “brute” one. These are all heavy and limit mobility.
So I think for a unique Tier 3 LMG it should be a forerunner hardlight weapon (which are supposed to be stronger and more advanced lore wise). Going back to the idea for the “Cyclone” it should have a ramp up feature which means it needs to have sustained fire in order for it to be effective. I want to keep playing on that though and add in the ADS feature. Rather than ADS limiting accuracy or mobility, ADS could just be an option for pre-ramping the fire rate without shooting the weapon. This way, the Cyclone can still be ready to fire (like the SAW) but it forces players to stay ADS or ADS pre-emptively before an engagement (which does limit field of view and mobility… no sprint). This plays into the theme so far of forerunner weapons having special ADS abilities, the Cindershot laser guiding, the light rifle stonger ads shot, the heatwave horizontal / vertical fire mode.
Then the 2nd thing i was thinking about was exactly what you just said. A properly implemented dual wield system would make the need for the SAW redundant if you could dual wield 2 SMG’s, the limitations / drawbacks of dual wielding would be enough to balance this while adding depth to a new addition like the SMG. I think dual weidling is a great idea if implemented properly (it really wasn’t in Halo 2 and 3).
Edit: Dual wield plasma rifles could also be like a plasma LMG. The question really is what is the best way to implement dual wielding. I think the idea of keeping them far apart on the map is excellent, a must actually (if you put them together it is really like you are making them a tier 3 weapon).
You would also have to limit which weapons can be dual weilded. Dual weilding pistols is cool and all, but dual wielding sidekicks would be super OP unless they were significantly nerfed because they are dropped all over the map as a default weapon. The other solution to this would be like making the weapons only dual wieldable if they are a specific variant, example “Akimbo Sidekicks” similar to call of duty.
Legion Gameplay video (titan appears at 3:50):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Ygv39cM1E
Let’s talk about RPM first.
There’s a titan called Legion. His entire gimmick is that he has a big gun called the Predator Cannon. It’s basically a UNSC chaingun. But when you ADS with it, it zooms in a bit and pre-spins the barrels so you’re ready to fire immediately. This slows Legion to a crawl though, so you have to know when to do it.
But what’s really cool about the Predator Cannon is that it has 2 fire modes, a short range mode, and a longer range precision mode. The short range mode is practically identical to the chaingun. The long range mode gives you more range, at the cost of doubling ammo consumption.
But what’s really, really cool about the Predator Cannon is that it actually has 3 fire modes. Legion can use a Charge Shot (it has a cooldown) that turns the short range shot into a shotgun blast that deals heavy damage (H4 Boltshot for reference). And in the Long Range mode it fires a skewer-esque precision shot that travels, deal heavy damage (slight splash damage), and (I think) pierces armor. Which means the Predator Cannon actually has FOUR fire modes, which makes it really, really, really, cool. Only two of these modes are available at one time though, separated by which range mode you are in. Finally only 1 ammo is consumed per power shot (but Halo could change to half a magazine like the H4 boltshot).
One more thing that the Predator Cannon does is deploy a Gun Shield that can travel with you and protect you from forward facing threats. It can be destroy with enough damage, it has a time limit and cooldown, and the legs and part of the shoulder are unprotected, so well-aimed shots can still do damage. Also it forces you to remain in ADS for its duration, so if you need to melee or run away, you can’t. So it can get you killed too.
So what can Halo do with this?
Maybe we have a UNSC or Brute gun that:
Has multiple barrels that needs to be spun up before firing. While spinning up (ADSing), you are slower than usual. Naturally this would be a gun doesn’t have descope.
It has a slow reload (assuming it’s handheld).
Maybe it has some sort of charge blast that uses up a bunch of ammo by pressing melee while ADSing?
Now let’s look at ADS alt-fire modes:
Ion Overview video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMOl9o8vZIE
Ion gameplay video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA-o7oyM7oQ
So the main thing I wanna focus on with Ion is her Splitter Rifle. It hipfires energy bolts very much like Halo’s Plasma Rifle. However, when you ADS, the gun “opens up” (kind of like a Heatwave) and fires a spray of 3 (or 5 if you have a certain perk) energy bolts that deals more damage. The split shot doesn’t consume extra ammo. The trick here is that Ion can’t do that forever. She has an energy meter that is shared between her other abilities (Vortex Shield, Tripwire, and Laser Shot). So if she is out of energy, the split defaults back to the single hipfire mode.
So what can Halo do with this?
It would likely have to be a Plasma or Hardlight gun (I wouldn’t go with Shock because then you have to balance the EMP):
We have a single barrel gun that ramps up RPM over time.
Maybe the hardlight bounces?
It uses a battery and overheats. An overheat requires you to replace the melted parts (like the L-STAR).
If you ADS with it it splits the plasma/hardlight into a flat spread. This does more damage, and use more ammo (3x, 5x) depending on how many times it’s been split. Maybe it heats up faster too. Again, not a gun that should allow de-scoping.
Maybe the split fire has an energy meter that goes down and slowly builds back up over time.
Maybe it shares this energy meter with an energy gun shield. The gun shield depletes the entire meter for balance. Halo’s turrets actually actually have gun shields, but they don’t really protect you much unless they’re mounted.
Maybe the gun shield slowly depletes AMMO while it is active (like holding a plasma pistol charge).
We could call this one the Refractor or the Refraction Cannon… or just the Suppressor.
There’s one more thing I want to mention, but before I spend time typing it up, I want to ask if you are familiar with DOOM: Eternal’s Plasma Rifle? If you are, then you already know where I’m going with this.
Also I added two edits on “Comment 49”, so check them out when you get a chance.
That’s why I suggested some sort of Forge toggle to remove the DW property from a gun if you don’t want players using 2 of them. If you think dual Sidekicks are bad what till you see dual Manglers… or dual Disruptors. A 3-shot, double DoT that kills you 10 seconds later? No thanks.
Part of the fun of DW was mixing and matching, but that might be something that has to be sacrificed in this case (not really sacrificing it, but you know what I mean).
For role I think of the answers to the questions when and where. When and where is it optimal to use the weapon? Is it a long range sniper? A CQC murder machine? More of a jack of all trades? Is it optimal for destroying vehicles?
For behavior I think of the answers to the questions how and why? How does the weapon itself function? Does it have spread/recoil/bloom? Does it behave more like hitscan or projectile? How does it handle? In general, with movement and as range increases? Why is it optimal to use it when and where you would? What makes it ideally suited for spreading Spartans on a cracker?
I see no issue with redundancy or similarities in either area. The only time I think it’s pointless is when both areas are too similar. When weapons become reskinned versions with a different sound profile.
Well the og pr could be more like the ce variant rather than the other versions of the gun. In ce the plasma rifle had a stunning effect on players movement if they add it that way it would be its own gun.
The stalker rifle is like a stronger battery powered stalker rifle unless the add zooming x2 to the stalker its as much of a marksman rifle as the carbine.
I would argue that a “pure” sandbox is best. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the number of weapons needs to be capped. If we selectively place weapons on maps we can have variety, and a functionally “pure” sandbox simultaneously.
@Windjammer19 I’m going to have to look into Titanfall and Doom more lol.
With respect to the Titanfall inspirations, I think when playing as a Titan it makes sense to have these very wild weapons with so much depth, abilities, firing modes etc. When it comes to Halo’s player weapons unique depth is desired but it is also ideal if something can be unique without having too much necessarily (ie don’t overcomplicate it).
Perhaps the detachable turrets could have added depth from these ideas. For example, the Chain Gun could be ramped up premptively, the Plasma Cannon could have an energy shield on it that protects you from incoming damage, the Scrap Cannon could have a charged blast, etc.
In the vehicle suggestions thread, perhaps the Titans could be used as inspiration for a UNSC and a Banished mech, the Mantis and the Reaver.
They’re both really good. Although you can’t play Titanfall multiplayer last I heard because EA is literally satan. The campaign still slaps though.
Yeah, Titans pretty much function as a hero shooter, so each one has roughly 4-5 abilities. Obviously this wouldn’t work in Halo. But I think taking 1-2 of the abilities/traits that I listed and applying it to the appropriate faction’s LMG would work. Like giving the Forerunner turret a spread shot that eats up ammo.