A realization that secondary fire modes, now fit the sandbox a bit more then in the past. Before we only had the plasma pistol, sure there where other attempts at it but they always fell flat our just felt like the base weapon.
Of them I can only name two that felt good, and those where the bolt shot from halo 4… which was broken, and the plasma caster which wasn’t really a secondary. But now with infinite we have three of note just from the flight.
The heatwave, which in its base horizontal is a low damage area chaos weapon, seriously fire it in this mode while indoors and people will try to dodge those projectiles as they bounce back at all angles. Or it can be an accurate single target close range weapon in its vertical config which is slower to fire but makes for easier bank shots and hits in general.
We have the plasma pistol, which thank god they removed the drain on it, seriously the fully charged shot drains the battery less in infinite then any other halo game. Not only that but you actually are making a choices as spam firing the base mode is quicker to burn down shields but over charging tracks and makes it easier to combo. Both modes feel useful now as in the past you never used the spam fire mode unless you where in single player.
then we have the ravager, seriously this gun is just epic. its primary fire is an arced splash damage weapon which acts like a weaker grenade launcher but is really good at dealing with single targets, while its secondary its charged mode leaves a pool of damage that is heavy area denial and allows you to easily push enemies out of cover like seriously in the flight this thing was really good at pulling people out of the power position on the map.
Before in halo secondary modes felt more like a Gimmick designed to make the weapons more unique while they where normally just a weaker version of what ever they where a clone of. Yet in the flight I found myself actually using the fire mod differences in the weapons we had. Like seriously in halo 4 I never use the alt mode for promethean weapons other then the broken boltshot. But in the flight I was constantly using and swapping on the three weapons above.
…
also because this is me a suggestion for a weapon that takes this function.
MA40 /w m301
info: the standard issue mA40 but with a grenade launcher where its flash light normally is. the addition of the launcher removed the smart link, resulting in a harder to use weapons platform. That said the addition of the grenade launcher gives it a much better area of effect. unlike the standard MA40 this one is equipped with the quad stack 60 round mags commonly found in the MA5B.
Sandbox niche: an LMG class weapon that the players can use to lock down choke points, while it lacks the accuracy of things like the SAW and commando do to the lack of a smart link, it does have that grenade launcher, which will fire when you press the key to activate your scope, this launcher holds a 3 round “metal storm” ammo load allowing one to rapidly fire off three grenades though once they are out, they are out reloading takes time.
game play use: in gameplay this weapon is pure suppression, allowing the user to rapidly launch impact grenades in an encounter.