The future of the utility Weapon

Games Other Halo
1

Question: What makes a good FPS?
Awnser: Well, quite a few things, but guns are a vital one.

In my humble opinion, (and I’m new here, so really quite humble) Halo 4 needs to suceed in several areas, and weapons are one. (Movement is another, more on that later)
Now allow me to say something shocking: The Assault Rifle doesn’t work.
And now allow me to explain:
Halo 1’s Rifle was a BEAST. 60 shots to a clip, 15 shots to a kill, giant spread and that awesome BUDDA-BUDDA-BUDDA sound? Fantastic. For campaign anyway. Halo 1 didn’t have a utility weapon BECAUSE IT DIDN"T NEED ONE. No online community= Fairly causual community. Think about this: In Goldeneye, by default you don’t spawn with a gun. Imagine that in modern day, online; not fun! Owned by a guy who got the rifle first! Kinda the same principle for the Halo CE AR.

Halo 2 circumvented this problem by having the Assault Rifle and (in)famous pistol being broken down and “remixed” into two weapons; the SMG and Battle Rifle, the former with the AR’s rate of fire and huge reticle, and the later with some of AR’s shape intact as well as the fast kill times of the pistol. This is, in concept, the best Halo has done thus far.

Halo 3: The AR here is actually not bad, but I would like to see it as more of a close range powerhouse with a slower rate of fire and more “POW!” and close-ish/medium range, so in Halo 4, so the SMG or whatever may replace it can still have its purpose.

Halo Reach: I hate everything about this thing. Thankfully, cannonicaly it shouldnt come back. Phew.

So I will now attempt to design the optimal utility weapon:
3 round burst, as to prevent spaying
30 round mag, because that’s a good number,
2x scope, so it can function as a mid/long range weapon if handled right.
The burst scatters at range, as to prevent sniping with a Utility weapon.
Bloom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ 'Nuff said, you get the point.

Anyway, i kinda hope this topic doesn’t become irrelivant as soon as Microsoft does their “Spring Fling” or whatever on the 29th, but in the meantime: Am I right? Wrong? Some a-hole you never want to hear from again? Discuss!

2

So, a reskinned BR?
Don’t mean to be offensive OP, but that’s what it sounds like.

3

Well yes… but also no.
I guess now I eloborate: Faster fire rate, more spread (not bloom!) and of course a graphical update. I mean it could just be a lightweight carbine version of the BR55 for all I care, I like the BR a good bit.

4

> Well yes… but also no.
> I guess now I eloborate: Faster fire rate, more spread (not bloom!) and of course a graphical update. I mean it could just be a lightweight carbine version of the BR55 for all I care, I like the BR a good bit.

Exactly what I want.

5

I agree, the AR needs to be a close range power house.
As the BR is a long range power house.

6

We Need 870 Bazzilion more Guns

7

What does this have to do with the BR?

Are you saying that you don’t want the BR to come back and would like your idea to replace it as the utility(starting) weapon?

Well I don’t really care what the utility weapon is as long as it has the following: Consistency and as large a skill gap as possible. The most important thing with a utility weapon is making it very difficult to master. That way when it beats weapons like the AR at close range it is due to the players extreme skill. That is what makes it okay for a utility weapon to be effective in every situation.

8

You guy should know by know, that the BR is practically confirmed to be in Halo 4. Not by text, but by audio. On the latest bulletin, it displays a waypoint video that shows us weapon sounds that will most likely be implemented in Halo 4. One of them, sounded like a 3-burst weapon, and also sounded very similar to the BR. In the video, the burst rifle that the workers test, looks similar to a BR, not in colour, but in form.

And yes, it’s spelled colour, i’m Canadian, deal with it =]

9

> You guy should know by know, that the BR is practically confirmed to be in Halo 4. Not by text, but by audio. On the latest bulletin, it displays a waypoint video that shows us weapon sounds that will most likely be implemented in Halo 4. One of them, sounded like a 3-burst weapon, and also sounded very similar to the BR. In the video, the burst rifle that the workers test, looks similar to a BR, not in colour, but in form.
>
> And yes, it’s spelled colour, i’m Canadian, deal with it =]

that doesn’t confirm it, but i did hear the 343 employee mention to shoot in a burst of 3. so it’s likely :smiley:

10

> <mark>I agree, the AR needs to be a close range power house.</mark>
> <mark>As the BR is a long range power house.</mark>

Yes! This would be fantastic!

11

> We Need 870 Bazzilion more Guns

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not post spam.

Original post. Click at your own discretion

MUFFINZ

12

You asked for bloom on it.

Idea rejected.

13

No no no no no. The three individual shots of the burst spread at longer range to prevent sniping. And did you follow the link?

14

> That way when it beats weapons like the AR at close range it is due to the players extreme skill. That is what makes it okay for a utility weapon to be effective in every situation.

Yeah, and call teh game CoD while you’re at it since the kids should only have to learn how to handle one gun?
Get real, “one gun rules all” is what’s been keeping the skill gap out, it’s making the game a lot easier then it should be. No matter how “skill full” a weapon is (spamming close, burst range = skill? is it really that hard? add strafing, are we “pro” now? facepalm

Halo needs what every other great game strives to get, a balanced weapon sandbox where every gun present, every one, is “the best” at something. Every gun takes skill too, but no one gun is “the best”, and a truly professional player knows that. Being good with 1 gun = easy, being good with 12-20 guns = amazing!
Homefront is a great example, the game only got 12 weapons but they’re very, very well balanced.
Every weapon can kill at every range, but some weapons are just a lot better at certain ranges. The AR in Halo is bad at every range, melee or BR/DMR is always better. THe BR/DMR is way to good for cqc, since spamming them kills faster then any cqc-mid range weapon, and they’re really easy to use.

What Halo ought to have:
CQC-weapons; sword and shotty. Godo for really close combat, sucks at anything else.
CQC-Mid: SMG or even the AR. Easy to use and “spray” in CQC but must fire in slow controlled bursts to kill at decent range, spray = no kill at mid. Had high fire rate and lots of ammo.
mid-long: DMR/BR and the like, should fire quite slow but have decent damage, should be used to counter snipers or pick off enemies at range with carefully placed shots, but is fires to slow/has to small clip to be used in cqc, the closer the worse (scoped weapon).
Long range weapons: Spartan laser, sniper. The “extreme” ranges should be covered by power weapons, extremely short or extremely long. However, even these needs to be balanced accordingly.
Sniping in Reach ain’t sniping, it’s spamming. Can’t remember the last time I even saw a sniper get HS. The sniper should deal a lot of damage, but fire very slow and have limited ammo (more like Halo 3). If you’re shooting with a sniper, you should always go for the HS unless you got support form allies in the field. shooting like in Reach, spamming shots to the body, should be punished.

15

> You guy should know by know, that the BR is practically confirmed to be in Halo 4. Not by text, but by audio. On the latest bulletin, it displays a waypoint video that shows us weapon sounds that will most likely be implemented in Halo 4. One of them, sounded like a 3-burst weapon, and also sounded very similar to the BR. In the video, the burst rifle that the workers test, looks similar to a BR, not in colour, but in form.
>
> And yes, it’s spelled colour, i’m Canadian, deal with it =]

ya, that rifle was automatic…they were doing up to 5 round bursts.

16

> No no no no no. The three individual shots of the burst spread at longer range to prevent sniping. And did you follow the link?

To clarify, that’s how the H3 BR worked, right? The first bullet of a burst was dead-on, the second had some spread, and the third had a lot of spread. Four or five bursts to kill, meaning twelve or fifteen individual bullets.

Meant you could ping a sniper out of their scope, giving your team a chance to move – but there was no way you’d be doing any meaningful amount of damage at extreme range. Only way you could kill a target at an extreme distance with a BR was if someone else was also damaging that target.

Sounds like it’d work well. It certainly did before.

17

I’m a believer of true weapon niches, none of that utility weapon stuff. Well, I LIKE utility weapons but believe firmer in true niches.

For the utility weapon in H4, I think if the reticle is red it should be hitscan like in Reach. If it isn’t, there should be bullet travel like in H3.