Starting Rifle Balance

Games Other Halo
1

As we all should know, Halo 4 has four different precision rifles you can spawn with. These four precision rifles (the Battle Rifle, the Designated Marksmen Rifle, the Light Rifle, and finally the Covenant Carbine) will be what is talked about in this thread.

In the current state of the game, the DMR has won over most Halo 4 players as the best of these four precision rifles, and the Battle Rifle has also maintained a fairly large user base (probably due to user nostalgia), however unfortunately the Light Rifle through my experience playing the Halo 4 makes far fewer appearances then the DMR and Battle Rifle, and the Covenant Carbine rarely if ever makes an appearance.

What this suggests, is that the rifles aren’t properly balanced.

I’ll start with Battle Rifle:

Through my personal experience of playing Halo 4, the DMR dominates the Battle Rifle. At close range, a skilled DMR user who hits all his shots will beat a skilled Battle Rifle user who also hits all his shots every single time. At mid range, the Battle Rifle user will find themselves fighting an uphill Battle every time they face off versus a DMR user due to the incredible ranged ability of the DMR. And at long range a Battle Rifle user should never engage a DMR user, due to the spread of the Battle Rifle shots, and the x3 scope of the DMR.

What this suggests, is that 343 intended the Battle Rifle to be a powerful option against the DMR at close range, and as the range of the fight grew the fight would turn more and more in the DMR’s favor. Unfortunately their intentions didn’t turn out to be a reality as the DMR as I explained above beats the Battle Rifle in every single range scenario.

However this reality of 343’s intentions could be achieved through a few simple changes. I’ll suggest the following.

  1. Make the Battle Rifle a weapon that needs only 4 perfectly landed shots to eliminate another player.

  2. Eliminate the recoil that is exclusive to the Battle Rifle.

  3. Eliminate the effects of flinch while someone is getting shot while in scope using the Battle Rifle. This is because the spread of shots fired from the Battle Rifle already limits its long range potential, the flinch makes the Battle Rifle, which was already weak in long range firefights, downright useless during these occasions.

I’ll continue with the Light Rifle:

I love that 343 introduced a weapon similar to the Battle Rifle in its Halo 2 beta’s form. However, the Light Rifle in close range encounters gets handled by the DMR, and while the Light Rifle’s long range ability is certainly adequate, its close range ability certainly isn’t. I’ll suggest only one change to the Light Rifle.

  1. While out of scope, four perfectly landed shots should result in a kill.

I’ll continue with the Covenant Carbine:

The Covenant Carbine is the weakest of these four precision rifles you can spawn with, in my opinion. The gun currently takes eight perfectly landed shots in order to kill someone. That with the very high rate of fire, makes for a very powerful combination you may think. However, this ideal scenario rarely plays out, and due to the fact that it takes five body shots to kill someone after their shield breaks, which takes seven shots to accomplish by the way. This gun quickly becomes very weak to many players, because players who didn’t get the headshot have to reload after the fight cause they only have at a maximum 6 shots in their clips, which isn’t even enough to break someones shield. Here are my suggestions to balance the Covenant Carbine so it can receive adequate love from the Halo 4 community.

  1. It should only take three bodyshots to kill someone after their shield breaks.

  2. Only six shots should be needed to break someone shield.

My goal when I starting making this thread was to make adequate suggestions to balance the starting precision rifles without nerfing anything. Thank you, for reading, and have a wonderful Christmas!

2

Some slight modifications;

BR = 4sK close + medium range,
and maybe some damage dropoff?

DMR = Good, if above modifications were made

Lightrifle = Good, if above modifications were made

These tweaks make it so BR is dominant close range, DMR will be outmatched close range, but dominant long range, and Light Rifle will be some what of a hybrid, although taking more skill to land that 4sK scoped in.

3

My fear of making the BR 4 shot is that instead of the DMR being the dominate weapon the BR would be. It would be trading one for another. Instead I’d like them to try increasing the fire rate of the BR to be equal to the DMR because I think that’s what a lot of the problem is. Also removing or reducing the recoil would be nice.

The Light Rifle sucks when firing from the hip and I think this has to do with it not being hitscan. You have to lead your shots when the other 3 don’t. So I agree with you make both functions 4sk.

Agree with you on the Carbine too. Reducing the shots to kill by one or 2 should work.

4

What I propose is anyone complaining about weapon balance please load up halo CE and tell me how balanced that pistol was compared to the other weapons.

Thank you and have a good evening.

5

My favorite mid range weapon is the Covenant Carbine usually in 4v4 or 5v5 team game type. I think the DMR is too strong at all ranges dominate gun.

6

That would make the BR to dominate over the Covenant Carbine in short to mid range.

7

> What I propose is anyone complaining about weapon balance please load up halo CE and tell me how balanced that pistol was compared to the other weapons.
>
> Thank you and have a good evening.

We’re all well aware of the balance issues in Halo CE, however in this thread I discussed the balance of Halo 4 not Halo CE.

8

> My fear of making the BR 4 shot is that instead of the DMR being the dominate weapon the BR would be. It would be trading one for another. Instead I’d like them to try increasing the fire rate of the BR to be equal to the DMR because I think that’s what a lot of the problem is. Also removing or reducing the recoil would be nice.
>
> The Light Rifle sucks when firing from the hip and I think this has to do with it not being hitscan. You have to lead your shots when the other 3 don’t. So I agree with you make both functions 4sk.
>
> Agree with you on the Carbine too. Reducing the shots to kill by one or 2 should work.

It’s truly is nice to know that I’m getting close to optimum balance. I think the BR wouldn’t be overpowered because of its spread personally.

9

> That would make the BR to dominate over the Covenant Carbine in short to mid range.

I doubt that it would be the case, since the Carbine would receive some pretty large buffs if my plan became reality for Halo 4.

10

> > What I propose is anyone complaining about weapon balance please load up halo CE and tell me how balanced that pistol was compared to the other weapons.
> >
> > Thank you and have a good evening.
>
> We’re all well aware of the balance issues in Halo CE, however in this thread I discussed the balance of Halo 4 not Halo CE.

Fair enough let me put it this way

halo ce pistol > halo ce most everything else

halo 2 br > halo 2 most everything else

halo 3 br > halo 3 most everything else

Get the point?

11

> > > What I propose is anyone complaining about weapon balance please load up halo CE and tell me how balanced that pistol was compared to the other weapons.
> > >
> > > Thank you and have a good evening.
> >
> > We’re all well aware of the balance issues in Halo CE, however in this thread I discussed the balance of Halo 4 not Halo CE.
>
> Fair enough let me put it this way
>
> halo ce pistol > halo ce most everything else
>
> halo 2 br > halo 2 most everything else
>
> halo 3 br > halo 3 most everything else
>
> Get the point?

Just because Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo Reach were essentially one gun games, doesn’t mean Halo 4 should have the same faith.

12

> Some slight modifications;
>
> BR = 4sK close + medium range,
> and maybe some damage dropoff?
>
> DMR = Good, if above modifications were made
>
> Lightrifle = Good, if above modifications were made
>
> These tweaks make it so BR is dominant close range, DMR will be outmatched close range, but dominant long range, and Light Rifle will be some what of a hybrid, although taking more skill to land that 4sK scoped in.

The BR wouldn’t be dominant at close range because.

  1. The light rifle out of scope would also be 4sk

  2. The carbine would be much improved in this update

  3. The DMR is still a fast shooting, single shot, pin-point acurrate weapon. The BR while it would most likely beat the dmr up close, would still struggle against the dmr long range.

13

> What I propose is anyone complaining about weapon balance please load up halo CE and tell me how balanced that pistol was compared to the other weapons.
>
> Thank you and have a good evening.

Actually to be honest the Pistol in CE had no guns to compete with it.

You had eight weapons in that game
Pistol, Shotty, Sniper, Rockets, and the AR for the UNSC side.

And for the covenant you the plasma pistol, plasma rifle, and the needler.

No guns we’re designed to compete with the pistol anyway, and since it was the only weapon to serve the role as the utility weapon, of course it would appear over powered.

14

the only thing I disagree with you on is the light rifle, the light rifle is great at long range and poor at close range, to me this is exactly the way it was meant to be, its great the way it is.

the only thing I would like to see changed about the LR is an increase in the range of its scope, this way it would be a better competitor against the DMR at longe range.

but yeah everything else I agree with.

15

Somebody call the Wahahahambulance… There was a “best” weapon in every edition. Deal with it.

16

> the only thing I disagree with you on is the light rifle, the light rifle is great at long range and poor at close range, to me this is exactly the way it was meant to be, its great the way it is.
>
> the only thing I would like to see changed about the LR is an increase in the range of its scope, this way it would be a better competitor against the DMR at longe range.
>
> but yeah everything else I agree with.

While currently it works fine the way it is, with the BR and Carbine buffs, I think it had to be buffed so it wouldn’t become very weak.

17

> > the only thing I disagree with you on is the light rifle, the light rifle is great at long range and poor at close range, to me this is exactly the way it was meant to be, its great the way it is.
> >
> > the only thing I would like to see changed about the LR is an increase in the range of its scope, this way it would be a better competitor against the DMR at longe range.
> >
> > but yeah everything else I agree with.
>
> While currently it works fine the way it is, with the BR and Carbine buffs, I think it had to be buffed so it wouldn’t become very weak.

well it actually has the fastest kill-time out of all the rifles (when zoomed) so the idea that it would become weak is unlikely, as long as your playing on large maps (BTB anyone?) it should work fine.

it seems as though you have a different view on weapon balancing then I do, it seems as though you want weapons to be equal regardless of the situation, I prefer the idea that a weapon that exceeds at long range should be weak at close and vice versa.

I think that the LR and DMR should be the best at long range and that the BR and carbine should be best at close/medium range.

I guess it depends on how you look at it though.

18

> > > the only thing I disagree with you on is the light rifle, the light rifle is great at long range and poor at close range, to me this is exactly the way it was meant to be, its great the way it is.
> > >
> > > the only thing I would like to see changed about the LR is an increase in the range of its scope, this way it would be a better competitor against the DMR at longe range.
> > >
> > > but yeah everything else I agree with.
> >
> > While currently it works fine the way it is, with the BR and Carbine buffs, I think it had to be buffed so it wouldn’t become very weak.
>
> well it actually has the fastest kill-time out of all the rifles (when zoomed) so the idea that it would become weak is unlikely, as long as your playing on large maps (BTB anyone?) it should work fine.
>
> it seems as though you have a different view on weapon balancing then I do, it seems as though you want weapons to be equal regardless of the situation, I prefer the idea that a weapon that exceeds at long range should be weak at close and vice versa.
>
> I think that the LR and DMR should be the best at long range and that the BR and carbine should be best at close/medium range.
>
> I guess it depends on how you look at it though.

Well close range it would be by far the weakest weapon, and it’s scoped in ability wouldn’t be enough to make up for it.

19

> Somebody call the Wahahahambulance… There was a “best” weapon in every edition. Deal with it.

So just because there has never been a Halo game with multiple utility weapons means that we should avoid balancing the game so it would?

20

Why not just nerf the DMR instead of screwing around with half the sandbox? The DMR’s versatility is the problem, not the power. It needs to be pushed into its role as the long-range gun.