Let’s face it, the gravity hammer and the energy sword are some of the coolest weapons the halo universe has to offer. That’s not even to mention how useful they are. Although both melee weapons are very cool, they both belong to the covenant. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes I wish that the UNSC had some kinda “spartan sword”.” Granted, there are concepts of this, but what about the prometheans? The knights carry hard light blades, I’m sure we could see them as personal spartan weapons in halo 6. After all, the forerunners got a flying vehicle and a turret in this game.
THIS! THIS IS THE GREATEST THING POSSIBLE! Seriously. Halo melee is lacking and it would just be awesome. Also the single blades energy sword.
It sounds cool on paper but tbh I can’t think of many ways to differentiate the new swords from the energy sword and gravity hammer, especially since there are so many variants of those now. Maybe for the UNSC you could have fisticuffs that increase melee damage but that sounds more like it should be a boost or something.
I don’t know about a UNSC melee weapon, doesn’t really seem their style, but…
How about a Promethean Lance? Picture it having a long silver handle, maybe 6 feet long, with hardlight sticking out of one end for another 2 or 3 feet. Maybe hardlight running through the handle as well to give the design some flair. It would have a long melee distance but require a lengthy animation. Also, could have a pretty cool assassination animation where you sneak up behind and enemy, impale them on the Lance, and they slide down it.
Possible Variations: You can throw it and it either strikes an enemy, killing them instantly and disintegrating. If it misses, it forms a splinter grenade pattern, possibly twice as large as a normal splinter grenade.
> 2533275031113013;1:
> Let’s face it, the gravity hammer and the energy sword are some of the coolest weapons the halo universe has to offer. That’s not even to mention how useful they are. Although both melee weapons are very cool, they both belong to the covenant. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes I wish that the UNSC had some kinda “spartan sword”.” Granted, there are concepts of this, but what about the prometheans? The knights carry hard light blades, I’m sure we could see them as personal spartan weapons in halo 6. After all, the forerunners got a flying vehicle and a turret in this game.
yeahhhhh… i don’t think theres a need for more obnoxious melee weapons.
I’ve always wanted to see a high-frequency blade for the UNSC, though my candle probably won’t be able to burn for that long.
We sort of have one in Warzone if that is an actual Promethean blade as a bayonet. It doesn’t really bother me that Spartans don’t have an actual sword or something similar though.
Do we really need more weapons bloating Halo 5’s already over-inflated sandbox? I could see maybe the Knights’ Hardlight Blade become something like the Brute Shot if they gave it the ability to launch Pulse Grenades as they did in Halo 4, but otherwise I don’t see a point, since we already have the Shotgun and Scattershot to fill the CQC niche for the UNSC and Prometheans.
And if I’m being honest, I already think having multiple weapons fill the same combat niche is far too much. The more weapons you add, the more diversity you have to add to keep them from being too redundant. The more you have to make them distinct, the harder balancing becomes. And as balancing becomes more difficult, the weapon sandbox is more and more likely to become unbalanced.
> 2535437652903765;8:
> Do we really need more weapons bloating Halo 5’s already over-inflated sandbox? I could see maybe the Knights’ Hardlight Blade become something like the Brute Shot if they gave it the ability to launch Pulse Grenades as they did in Halo 4, but otherwise I don’t see a point, since we already have the Shotgun and Scattershot to fill the CQC niche for the UNSC and Prometheans.
>
> And if I’m being honest, I already think having multiple weapons fill the same combat niche is far too much. The more weapons you add, the more diversity you have to add to keep them from being too redundant. The more you have to make them distinct, the harder balancing becomes. And as balancing becomes more difficult, the weapon sandbox is more and more likely to become unbalanced.
I mean for a sandbox game like halo I think I can benefit from more weapons and vehicles. The only real issue is the req system becoming clouded. The idea of redundancy seems odd to me because you’ll only make the weapons redundant if they’re all on the same map at once but spreading them out via theme of the map or rotating weapons around every month or so can make it better.
Like the BR. DMR. Carbine. Needle rifle and light rifle. Light rifle with its 3 shot kill ability is a pseudo power weapon whereas the other 4 are more normal. Having the BR and carbine on one map and dmr and needle rifle on another will mix things up and help maps be more unique to each other.
Yeah balancing will take some time but it’s about what you do with what you have
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> > 2535437652903765;8:
> > Do we really need more weapons bloating Halo 5’s already over-inflated sandbox? I could see maybe the Knights’ Hardlight Blade become something like the Brute Shot if they gave it the ability to launch Pulse Grenades as they did in Halo 4, but otherwise I don’t see a point, since we already have the Shotgun and Scattershot to fill the CQC niche for the UNSC and Prometheans.
> >
> > And if I’m being honest, I already think having multiple weapons fill the same combat niche is far too much. The more weapons you add, the more diversity you have to add to keep them from being too redundant. The more you have to make them distinct, the harder balancing becomes. And as balancing becomes more difficult, the weapon sandbox is more and more likely to become unbalanced.
>
> I mean for a sandbox game like halo I think I can benefit from more weapons and vehicles. The only real issue is the req system becoming clouded. The idea of redundancy seems odd to me because you’ll only make the weapons redundant if they’re all on the same map at once but spreading them out via theme of the map or rotating weapons around every month or so can make it better.
>
> Like the BR. DMR. Carbine. Needle rifle and light rifle. Light rifle with its 3 shot kill ability is a pseudo power weapon whereas the other 4 are more normal. Having the BR and carbine on one map and dmr and needle rifle on another will mix things up and help maps be more unique to each other.
My issue with having multiple weapons fall under the same classification is that they have to compete with each other for usage within that niche, and one distinctly stands out above the others because it ends up functioning better in all roles than the others as a result. It may not be a very conspicuous effect when there’s only a single weapon of this class available on a map, but most maps feature multiple weapons within the same niche.
Comparing Halo CE and Halo 5:
Halo CE has one mid-range headshot-capable weapon- the Magnum.
Halo 5 has five weapons that fit into that range- the Magnum, BR (BR85N and BR55), DMR, Carbine, and LightRifle.
The Magnum in CE has no weapon that overlap its role, which means they can spend more time balancing it with the other weapons, vehicles, and grenades available in the sandbox.
All of the midrange weapons in Halo 5 have a massive overlap in functionality, covering the mid- to long-range region of combat. There’s slight differences in how they function, but there still ends up being a weapon that dominates the classification. For the longest time, that weapon was the Battle Rifle. Following the tuning adjustments, the Magnum filled this role. Having five weapons fill the same role seems like a bad decision to me, as they have more variables to take into account when designing the sandbox, which gives more room for error and poor design as opposed to building a simpler sandbox where fewer variables to affect balancing allows the designers to more finely tune everything.
And this is only considering the mid-range precision weapons. If we look at anti-armor/anti-vehicle weapons, it creates another set of issues because then you’re going to have to balance all of them to not only be not overpowered for infantry combat, but also so they don’t run vehicles into the ground.
> Yeah balancing will take some time but it’s about what you do with what you have
And look at how well that went for Halo 5. We may not know how Halo 5’s development went, but given its state at launch, I’d say it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that they were in a hurry to launch it in time. They may not have the time to balance and finely tune a weapon sandbox as excessively large as Halo 5’s. For nearly two years, the Battle Rifle was effectively the meta weapon because it only fell short in anti-armor and sniper-range usage. Otherwise it had basically no weaknesses. So to avoid something like this from occurring in the future, I’d say that cutting down the weapon sandbox by roughly 60%-80% would be helpful, because then we’d have fewer weapons filling the same combat niche for the sake of “diversity”.
> 2533275031113013;1:
> Let’s face it, the gravity hammer and the energy sword are some of the coolest weapons the halo universe has to offer. That’s not even to mention how useful they are. Although both melee weapons are very cool, they both belong to the covenant. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes I wish that the UNSC had some kinda “spartan sword”.” Granted, there are concepts of this, but what about the prometheans? The knights carry hard light blades, I’m sure we could see them as personal spartan weapons in halo 6. After all, the forerunners got a flying vehicle and a turret in this game.
I must say that is a very good idea.
> 2535437652903765;10:
> > 2533274857165616;9:
> > > 2535437652903765;8:
> > > Do we really need more weapons bloating Halo 5’s already over-inflated sandbox? I could see maybe the Knights’ Hardlight Blade become something like the Brute Shot if they gave it the ability to launch Pulse Grenades as they did in Halo 4, but otherwise I don’t see a point, since we already have the Shotgun and Scattershot to fill the CQC niche for the UNSC and Prometheans.
> > >
> > > And if I’m being honest, I already think having multiple weapons fill the same combat niche is far too much. The more weapons you add, the more diversity you have to add to keep them from being too redundant. The more you have to make them distinct, the harder balancing becomes. And as balancing becomes more difficult, the weapon sandbox is more and more likely to become unbalanced.
> >
> > I mean for a sandbox game like halo I think I can benefit from more weapons and vehicles. The only real issue is the req system becoming clouded. The idea of redundancy seems odd to me because you’ll only make the weapons redundant if they’re all on the same map at once but spreading them out via theme of the map or rotating weapons around every month or so can make it better.
> >
> > Like the BR. DMR. Carbine. Needle rifle and light rifle. Light rifle with its 3 shot kill ability is a pseudo power weapon whereas the other 4 are more normal. Having the BR and carbine on one map and dmr and needle rifle on another will mix things up and help maps be more unique to each other.
>
> My issue with having multiple weapons fall under the same classification is that they have to compete with each other for usage within that niche, and one distinctly stands out above the others because it ends up functioning better in all roles than the others as a result. It may not be a very conspicuous effect when there’s only a single weapon of this class available on a map, but most maps feature multiple weapons within the same niche.
> Comparing Halo CE and Halo 5… (too long for me to comfortably quote)
This guy knows how to balance.
Further examples of games outside of Halo which have similar issues; such as CoD or Battlefield, both fun games but certain guns in each class are the guns that everybody uses. The only reason Player 1 isn’t using AR 1 is because they haven’t unlocked it.
Further, a poll on Gamefaqs with 330 answers shows that in CoD Black Ops II, ~50% of ARs used were 2 guns out of 9. A majority of other ARs weren’t used, with the SCAR-H having 8% usage despite being the third most popular AR in the game. The same again applies for ARs in Black Ops III , where a further ~60% percent of ARs used were two guns.
Not only is EMPEROR NOVA01’s logic sound but it also has statistical evidence supporting it. Halo 5’s sandbox is cluttered enough as it is; more weapons is fun but there is definitely a limit of too many guns in a game.
Although, while this is often an over-suggest suggestion, I’ve never understood why more weapons don’t have more drastic skins. I wouldn’t mind seeing an Energy Sword with a model designed to look like a Knight Blade. That would be awesome!
> 2535437652903765;10:
> > 2533274857165616;9:
> > > 2535437652903765;8:
> > > Do we really need more weapons bloating Halo 5’s already over-inflated sandbox? I could see maybe the Knights’ Hardlight Blade become something like the Brute Shot if they gave it the ability to launch Pulse Grenades as they did in Halo 4, but otherwise I don’t see a point, since we already have the Shotgun and Scattershot to fill the CQC niche for the UNSC and Prometheans.
> > >
> > > And if I’m being honest, I already think having multiple weapons fill the same combat niche is far too much. The more weapons you add, the more diversity you have to add to keep them from being too redundant. The more you have to make them distinct, the harder balancing becomes. And as balancing becomes more difficult, the weapon sandbox is more and more likely to become unbalanced.
> >
> > I mean for a sandbox game like halo I think I can benefit from more weapons and vehicles. The only real issue is the req system becoming clouded. The idea of redundancy seems odd to me because you’ll only make the weapons redundant if they’re all on the same map at once but spreading them out via theme of the map or rotating weapons around every month or so can make it better.
> >
> > Like the BR. DMR. Carbine. Needle rifle and light rifle. Light rifle with its 3 shot kill ability is a pseudo power weapon whereas the other 4 are more normal. Having the BR and carbine on one map and dmr and needle rifle on another will mix things up and help maps be more unique to each other.
>
> My issue with having multiple weapons fall under the same classification is that they have to compete with each other for usage within that niche, and one distinctly stands out above the others because it ends up functioning better in all roles than the others as a result. It may not be a very conspicuous effect when there’s only a single weapon of this class available on a map, but most maps feature multiple weapons within the same niche.
> Comparing Halo CE and Halo 5:
> Halo CE has one mid-range headshot-capable weapon- the Magnum.
> Halo 5 has five weapons that fit into that range- the Magnum, BR (BR85N and BR55), DMR, Carbine, and LightRifle.
> The Magnum in CE has no weapon that overlap its role, which means they can spend more time balancing it with the other weapons, vehicles, and grenades available in the sandbox.
> All of the midrange weapons in Halo 5 have a massive overlap in functionality, covering the mid- to long-range region of combat. There’s slight differences in how they function, but there still ends up being a weapon that dominates the classification. For the longest time, that weapon was the Battle Rifle. Following the tuning adjustments, the Magnum filled this role. Having five weapons fill the same role seems like a bad decision to me, as they have more variables to take into account when designing the sandbox, which gives more room for error and poor design as opposed to building a simpler sandbox where fewer variables to affect balancing allows the designers to more finely tune everything.
> And this is only considering the mid-range precision weapons. If we look at anti-armor/anti-vehicle weapons, it creates another set of issues because then you’re going to have to balance all of them to not only be not overpowered for infantry combat, but also so they don’t run vehicles into the ground.
>
>
> > Yeah balancing will take some time but it’s about what you do with what you have
>
> And look at how well that went for Halo 5. We may not know how Halo 5’s development went, but given its state at launch, I’d say it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that they were in a hurry to launch it in time. They may not have the time to balance and finely tune a weapon sandbox as excessively large as Halo 5’s. For nearly two years, the Battle Rifle was effectively the meta weapon because it only fell short in anti-armor and sniper-range usage. Otherwise it had basically no weaknesses. So to avoid something like this from occurring in the future, I’d say that cutting down the weapon sandbox by roughly 60%-80% would be helpful, because then we’d have fewer weapons filling the same combat niche for the sake of “diversity”.
The magnum had no other weapon to over lap its role because it was the only one in its role, not to mention it was the first game and was originally meant to be a top down view game. Halo 5 does have many that fill each role but again reducing overlap on maps is one way to reduce the damage of the issue. Honestly you do make good points and it’s hard to argue but the thing is, halo is a sandbox game, it needs things to play around with otherwise it can get a bit stale. I doubt all the precision weapons will be completely removed at all which is why I suggested themed maps that reduce the chance of a meta weapon, pushing players to experiment. Looking at the anti vehicle weapons, whenever one got removed it was just replaced, from from reach to H4 the grenade launcher was replaced by the sticky det. They’re also meant to be powerful against infantry because anything that can effective damage a tank will probably kill you very easily.
343 obviously want to expand the sandbox so I fell we’re better off trying to help make it work through suggestions than pushing for reductions because that’s just not going to happen.
We have some idea how H5s development went and the engine was built from the ground up, which explains the excess bugs and lack of gamemodes on release BUT, they literally could have kept it development longer to fix them before release so that one is on them. Because of this fault they put most of their focus on bug fixes and content addition over balancing the sandbox and as it the sandbox grew so did the need for balancing. For Halo 6 they need to release the game complete with gamemodes and a base sandbox before adding in more weapons and vehicles, that way the weapons they begin with will act as a baseline for the new weapons to be tweaked around. I’d much rather a working sandbox that grows than one thats huge and broken. Even bungie added weapons in HCE in the DLC maps (fuel rod gun and flamethrower). I wont mind waiting longer for an unbroken game.
There’s a lot of ways to make each weapon fill the niche differently. For example BR and DMR, increase the bloom (making an actual bloom rate that starts accurate but loses it as you fire rapidly, but not a massive bloom, maybe as big as the DMR in reach went) and slow the DMR fire rate down a little. This way the BR can still be used at long range but you need to pace yourself and the DMR would be better because it simply maintains accuracy better, but in mid range BR users wont have to worry about the bloom because it’s much closer and would be able to dominate the DMR via faster fire rate. This is just one idea I have, it’s not perfect but it’s an idea. But it’s something they could look at before release.
Going back the original post Human melee weapon seems really pointless, we’ve got a sword and a hammer in the game and I dont see how a human one could fit, unless it could be blocked the Reach energy sword or something, though I can see a knight’s arm blade becoming usable.