Remove Bloom on the Commando; Add Bloom to the BR's hipfire (hear me out)

Games Halo Infinite
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Every weapon in an arena shooter needs to fill a somewhat unique role and have an optimal use case, especially in Halo.

This was part of the reason the 2 weapon system was used and not a weapon wheel. It makes you try to predict what circumstances you will be in and have you to decide what weapons to grab since you can’t carry them all. It also encourages certain tactics with each weapon if you want to have the biggest advantage over an enemy. This is why the Utility Weapon design needs to go; it is counter to a core design philosophy of Halo.

Here is my suggestion followed by my explanation:

BR

  • add bloom to hip fire

Commando

  • remove bloom

Removing bloom on the Commando really wouldn’t make it much better. The heavy recoil makes it more optimal to control your shots into bursts anyway. Bloom is really just doing the same thing and doesn’t affect the burst fire that much because it takes a few shots to bloom the reticle anyway. So in essence bloom doesn’t affect the Commando when it is used properly therefore removing the bloom from it would be safe.

After these changes people would actually have to use close range map weapons to help defend themselves with BR spawns during close range encounters. As it sits, outside of one hit kill map weapons, the BR is never at too big of a disadvantage even at close ranges. With the change above it would finally fall into a clear role.

The ranged weapons would then all have a unique weakness.

  • Sniper = slow firing, small mag
  • Stalker Rifle = overheats quicky if spam fired
  • Commando = heavy recoil
  • BR = bloom when hipfired
  • Shock Rifle = slow firing, better against shields

The close range weapons already have weaknesses so they are pretty well balanced already.

If this isn’t an option then how do you prevent ranged precision weapons from being the best weapon category in the game by miles if they are also just as good or close to as good in close range?

With Covenant/Banished weapons you can have overheating but with UNSC you only have a few options:

  • lower bullet velocity
  • low mag size
  • low damage (if it has high range then you have to use said range to stay safe while using the lower damage weapon)
  • slow fire rate
  • higher recoil

If every UNSC precision ranged weapon is balanced using lower bullet velocity ranged weapons would still be incredible up close just a bit harder to use at longer ranges which is counter to its role.

With a low mag size its basically just the human version of overheating quickly. That would get old on every ranged weapon.

Lower damage is an option but people would definitely not like it in a game like Halo with already longer TTK making but it would honestly be kind of fair.

Slow fire rate only helps so much. If you slow it down too much people expect higher damage per shot and even then without this in addition to a smaller mag the weapon would still be really strong at close range. The sniper also aready has this exact set up so there shouldn’t be another weapon just like it.

High recoil is an option and it works well on the Commando. Only problem now is the BR is so strong that it can more easily descope and suppress any Commando user to force them to descope making them way less effective. (and while we are here the Stalker Rifle is easily suppressed by the BR too)

Again the BR is simply too well rounded and needs to fill a bit smaller of a role because as it stands you rarely need another weapon with BR starts. Its so good that even descoped you are barely at a disadvantage. Bloom would bring it into a proper ranged weapon role. The BR with Bloom would still be amazing at range and just a bit weaker at close range; thus making you rely on the close range weapons to more effectively protect yourself if an enemy gets in close.

For those that disagree do you:

  • Just not want your favorite crutch gone and want be able to ignore Halo’s arena shooter elements?
  • Have another idea you would like to share below?

0 voters

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Halo gameplay has 3 elements in general combat:

  1. Player Loadout
  2. Situation (comprised of enemy placement, quantity, and loadout and the player’s own location)
  3. Player Skill

Giving players a Utility Weapon that is very useful in most situation dramatically lowers factor 2 above without adding to 1 or 3. Halo is missing out on a key function of the 2 weapon system by allowing the BR to stay as strong as it is.

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Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get all the bloom you could ever want when they add the Bandit rifle.

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I find that the Commando actually competes really well with the Battle Rifle as of late.

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The commando already absolutely shreds any enemy who uses a BR for people who know how to use them. Removing bloom from the commando (without even the nerfs you want for the BR) would make the commando the only viable weapon. It would completely wreck the weapon balance. So hard no here.

And by the way: why do you need to spam this over and over? 1 time is enough, don’t need to make multiple topics about it.

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Genuinely advocating removing bloom from the Commando while adding it to the BR is frankly bizarre.

Full Auto utility weapon with no bloom and a significantly faster TTK and recently increased aim assist = Fine
Slow burst firing utility weapon with a recent aim assist decrease = too powerful.

Seems more like you dislike the BR more than you actually seem to dislike the concept of the utility. The Infinite BR is one of the weakest BR’s we’ve ever had, especially relative to the rest of the sandbox and you are still acting like its some unstoppable force. Versatile weapons get use, this would not change whether you spawned with a BR, a Carbine, a Commando, DMR, Light Rifle, CE/H5 magnums, because they are inherently more useful more scenarios.

Utility weapons, BR or not are a core part of Halo. Its something the community pushed at the literal beginning of the franchise. This didn’t change even with a dev like Bungie who were known to be opposed to the whole concept couldn’t escape it in over a decade of development over 4 games. When are y’all going to accept that utility weapons are never going away unless …

A.) you radically change Halo’s core gameplay into an actual Arena shooter ala quake(and no despite its roots Halo is fundamentally not a traditional arena shooter), where have the speed and lower aim assist to actually survive spawning with inferior/limited weapons.

or B.) You remove a popular weapon archetype and let snipers and close range power weapons be completely unthreatened by fresh spawns.

To top it all off we already know that slapping bloom on a precision weapon doesn’t keep it from being utility weapon so it just seems like a pointless change directed at a weapon you have irrational dislike for.

Utility weapons are popular, always have been, if your upset people are not showing the same enthusiasm for a minority of the sandbox perhaps you should do something about them. If you think people are supposed to be just as excited to use a full auto bullet hose or passive lock-ons over weapons based around skill or precision or that those inherently shallower weapons should see just as much use I don’t know what to tell you.

And again, just so we are clear, this doesn’t mean I think the BR is fine as is, I will always advocate for a higher skill gap utility weapon with slower projectiles, lower aim assist to balance out a faster TTK(and yes, the BR should have a faster TTK) with the BR(or insert equivalent precision weapon here) should be the weapons with the highest skillgaps after sniper class weapons. But you are also clearly unwilling to entertain the idea of balancing a utility weapon via skill because that would undermine your own position.

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Remove bloom entirely, and entirely replace it with recoil.

I understand that there are lore reasons that our Spartans should basically never encounter recoil, and that’s why it was kept out of the games for so long. I also don’t care, because it’s a better balancing mechanic than RNG bloom.

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I think the skill should come down to knowing how to use a weapon effectively in its intended role. That and knowing how to position yourself in a map/situation to avoid people taking advantage of the weaknesses of that weapon.

The BR is a shallow weapon. Usually the only thought is aim. I rarely care as much about positioning or what weapon the enemy has, at least when compared to other better balanced weapons. The commando with its very high recoil is the perfect example. At close range it is pretty difficult to use especially if the enemy has an AR or Bulldog etc. But at range you can burst it to easily get precision kills.

Thats the kind of design every weapon should have. All the short ranged weapons already have this. They are either low accuracy, slower TTK, and their range inherently gives them a disadvantage to guns with more range.

Back to the commando. The bloom really only kicks in around the same time a person has been holding the trigger long enough to make the recoil too much to control effectively. So in effect you are taking 2 stones to kill one bird. Its just inefficiently wasting a good balancing method when its not needed. All the weapons should not be balanced identically which is why i don’t think bloom should be on every weapon. Using different methods to balance weapons gives more variety.

Also slower projectiles as i stated above just nerfs a ranged precision weapons usefulness at range which is counter to how a ranged weapon should function.

Every OP weapon in every game is popular. Only difference here is devs usually nerf the OP weapon but in Halo’s case we had 20 years of an OP weapon class and now to take it away is taking away people’s crutch they have been able to abuse for years.

Im sure ive already told you how it was never intended to be that way in CE nor Halo 2 but in Halo 2 the SMG goes counter to 2 parts of the combat triangle Bungie had created.

Another problem is for some reason the devs refused to make any mid ranged weapon. The SMG and AR for the longest time were short range so that left a huge distance gap for the BR to be unchallenged. This also meant most engagements would have been super close if the BR wasn’t the spawn weapon. Infinite has fixed this issue with the first decent AR. So i would say there is no logical reason to still have a Utility Weapon that has way less down sides than all the other weapons in the game.

And before you say the AR would be the utility weapon or is OP its not. All ranged weapons smoke it at range and it loses to every other close range weapon at close range. There is really only a small medium range window where it is the best weapon.

Limited a bit yes but to a decent use case. Before without the AR being what it is now that use case just didn’t exist. Now we have just a decent mid range weapon with a small window where it is the best and yeah other than that map weapons in certain circumstances will be much better. I don’t see a problem now. Before Infinite yes this was not possible but now it is.

Despite what you may think i don’t just hate the BR. I hate the Utility Weapon role that has been allowed to exist where one weapon has very little downsides. I want each weapon to have pros and cons that you have to learn. That is what is fun to me. Not just everyone mainly using the same weapon game after game because its the most useful thing to use. I really don’t understand why people enjoy it because in litterally every other shooter people ask for nerfs when something gets anywhere near as strong as the BR is in Halo.

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Remove bloom and add recoil to everything that had it. There, done.

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1.) People will twist themselves into knots to pretend shooting skill shouldn’t be the primary skill in a shooter. Knowing what ranges and situation to use any given weapon is not an impressive skill in and of itself, especially if the weapon in question has little to no depth as is the case with various bullet hoses or lock on weapons. Knowing when to throw rock in a situation that is inherently disadvantageous to scissors is not a skill, it just means you’re not a corpse.

The BR is too easy to use as is, most weapons are, its been an issue in the series pretty much from Halo 2 onwards, but you still refuse to actually consider raising the skill gap. If the BR is shallow, the AR and bulldog are braindead.

I still find all this love for the Commando hilarious given is is just as versatile, but has a balancing feature you refuse to consider for the BR, while wanting to slap its biggest skillgap lowering feature(bloom) onto the apparently already shallow BR.

2.) Your argument against slower projectiles is a complete handwave. You don’t have to have “near hitscan” bullet velocities for a weapon to be considered a mid- long range weapons. Between Halo CE and Halo 3 both easily demonstrate this along with any number of other shooters with significant ranged combat having slower projectiles.

3.) My point about the community and the devs is precisely that “intent” is completely irrelevant. It just serves to demonstrate that both you and certain devs refuse to recognize what Halo is and always has been and keep trying and failing to turn it into something its not.

Decades of players enjoying Halo for what it is, but instead of trying to work within that framework you’d rather smash your heads into brick walls over and over again trying to put the square peg in the round whole.

Sidenote, the narrative that Infinite has the “first decent AR” like we are pretending Halo’s 4 and 5 don’t exist. Bumping up the firepower of a bullet hose does not make it a good starting weapon in Halo, it just makes more close-mid range encounters dumber than they were. The AR is still a high bloom hose with a giant reticle and extending the range in which you can hose someone down does not give the weapon any actual depth.

The AR still doesn’t have to range to defend itself fend off either ranged weapons nor close range power weapons with any reliability, which again is a problem when this is Halo where the players are slower and the aim assist heavier than it would be in an actual Arena shooter.

Your distaste for utility weapons is abundantly clear(and your acceptance of the commando hypocritical), which makes it all the more puzzling why you can’t understand that utility weapons are the core of Halo’s mainstream multiplayer appeal and nothing has been done about it in any meaningful capacity despite dev attempts at pushback.

20 years of this and you think that everyone else is the problem? “In every other shooter…” Yeah, those games are not Halo why is this so hard for you? What you want out of Halo is clearly no what Halo can actually give you. All you are doing here is stamping your feet demanding people stop having fun in a way you don’t approve of.

And how has it worked out for the franchise, a fizzled population so low that other anti-BR folks claim we can’t add social BR starts(a historically popular spawn setup) because it would be too popular and that would actually kill the game.

*Note I am not claiming the lack of social BRs to be in any way the sole contributor to Infinite’s failures, only that it is one. The fact I have to make this note at all is just the exhausting nature of precision phobic Halo discourse.

TL:DR your balance suggestions here don’t actually change anything you seek to change and only serve to make the game more shallow than it already is.

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half the sandbox already beats the br at close range. i think you just want better aim assist with other weapons as the br has the easiest aim assist. thats the impression i get reading between the lines of your frustration.

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just get rid of the vk5 commando if youre not going to make it like the dmr and make it do more damage. as it is its weird to aim.

or at least give us single fire toggle mode and single fire does more damage or something like the ftac recon in cod.

its a shame because its very cool looking and sounding in game, and i wish i could want to grab the commando as much as i want to grab the br.

also put in the carbine because the pulse rifle is cool but its just not a covenant carbine.

also the needle rifle was weird and i would much rather have covenant carbine instead of needle rifle. put in needler grenade instead.

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IMO a much better way to balance weapons to make them both viable and serve they different purpose would be to just drop their damage with the distance. So for example the sniper rifle would have constant damage no matter the distance, BR would lose very little damage as it’s also a long range weapon, the Commando and AR would be good at mid range, with AR being more close-to-mid range focus gun of the two, and the Sidekick would be strictly a close range gun which your suppose to use in and exchange to finish someone off, not as a main gun that gives free headshots from across the map like many people abuse it.

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Whoa.

You tore them a new one.

It’s not a DMR. Stop pretending it is one. It’s the Rain of Oblivion but not quite as good. Sheesh, why are you folks so thick and so set on making The Commando a DMR when it has NEVER been designed to fill that role, ever?

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The commando has enough recoil as is! I always pick up the sentinel beam over commando 100% of the time because sentinel shreds and i can handle it better. If they want to raise the recoil on commando, then they should make ttk fast as sentinel.

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No one is suggesting they raise the recoil on the Commando nor is the sentinel beam an equivalent weapon…

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The issue i have with the long range precision utility weapon is the same issue i currently have with the Marksman Rifle weapon class in MW2.

They are longer ranged weapons that way too easily over perform at closer ranges which should be where they are at the biggest disadvantage.

Maybe they should add flinch to the ranged weapons. That might help out but i have a feeling people would hate that more than bloom.

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Actually you were as this quotation implies.

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@DRad2011 no i didn’t. If you would read more thoroughly, i am talking about the state all the ranged weapons would be in after the changes to the BR and Commando i suggested.

See ^
I never said add recoil to the commando

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Halo is not MW2.

Utility weapons are not dedicated marksman weapons.

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