Hi. Who was asking for the BR to be worse? I have been playing Halo competitively since Halo 2. I lived through the pre-patch BR in Halo 2, the slow pace of Halo 3 prior to MLG settings, the Reach bloom, and don’t even get me started on the need for a pistol start in Halo 5. We need a good starting weapon. We need to be able to consistently get kills without zooming. Our weapon needs to feel powerful and reliable, within the sandbox. Right now, the BR loses out to almost every weapon on the map. It loses to Sidekick, Needler, Carbine, Heatwave, Bulldog, PP, Distrupter, and Commando. Our starting weapon, arguably, is the worst weapon in the sandbox right now. Pre-patch, I did not feel that way. Pre-patch, the gunplay actually felt good. Now, it feels incredibly unfair. It feels like even firing across an open map is a waste of time, especially when a player is one shot.
343, I beg you. Please consider reverting the Battle Rifle back. This weapon is painful to use right now, and it’s making me hate the game.
It only loses to those weapons when you are using the BR outside of its intended function.
No weapon should be so good it can counter most things with ease in any given situation. The Utility Weapon has been a plague on Halo since CE and in CE and H2 that was not even the original intent, it happened by odd circumstances.
The BR is already incredible in Infinite. Just use the BR how it should be used: at upper medium to long range. Outside of that try to use the rest of the sandbox. I know its hard because the devs gave players and easy crutch in the magnum/BR/DMR in previous games but using the weapon for its intended function should solve all your problems.
It’s hard to tell if the problem is the patch or if the patch is just magnifying the horrible desync and hit registration issues that plague this game.
Weapon balancing seems pretty pointless when the desync and hit registration are as bad as they are. It’s basically a crapshoot who is going to win 1v1 battles depending on who desyncs more and who has more shots register. It doesn’t matter what weapon you use. Even rockets are known to disappear into the void of desync.
LOL This is literally the opposite of the truth. No one wants to play Halo because there’s no room for outplay with a low skill, slow ttk starting weapon. If we had something like the h1 magnum, or the h5 pistol, that allowed players to actually compete in a 1v2 fight, then Halo might still be more popular with the modern gaming crowd. What happens when you try to fight someone who has rockets but you have a BR? You get killed by a rocket, you’re literally a free kill. Even if you sneak up behind him he’s going to turn around and blow you up because your ttk is too long to actually capitalize on your superior positioning. Now what happens if you have the H1 magnum? You 3 piece the rocket user before he can even turn around. Your positioning is rewarded and the rocket users lack of awareness is punished. That’s skillgap.
edit: for anyone interested in how low ttk/effective starting weapons impact Halo
youtube com/watch?v=KoxcQ9-UNc8
I think your problem is with arena shooters in general.
Halo emphasizing map and weapon control is why power weapons exist. If i can easily outkill everyone with the starting weapon at all ranges in most if not all scenarios then why ever go for map weapons?
The utility weapon goes directly counter to Halo’s design in both discouraging map movement/weapon pickup and by negating the point of the the 2 weapon system, which is meant to force players to think about, predict, and stick to a plan that makes use of the weapons they have.
I will give you that in previous Halo’s the only other option for a starting weapon was an underpowered AR or SMG. Thats no longer the case as the AR is finally decent.
Halo is not some arcade shooter with a low TTK. It has a high TTK to encourage vehicle use and map movement to obtain power weapons that can kill faster in certain situations.
Watch the video at the end of my post, not going to bother responding to what you just wrote because it’s wrong, you don’t even understand the argument that’s being made, and it’s not worth my time, sorry.
Feels very balanced now if you ask me, it’s not the nearly insta-kill, free-headshot gun it used to be that stomped every other gun out there on any given distance. Sidekick needs such adjustments as well, it’s just stupid how fast it melts the shield only to give you almost guaranteed headshot without even trying, whether from 10 or 100m…
I am not saying all starting weapons should have a long TTK in all situations. Just that each weapon should have a specific use case and when used outside that use case you should be at a disadvantage.
You are arguing “From spawn i should always be able to effectively fight back in all situations” and i disagree with that philosophy. It discourages map movement, vehicle usage, and weapon variety. It also goes against many core Halo design systems.
People got used to an OP utility weapon and don’t want to play an arena shooter like an actual arena shooter.
Biggest problem I have with the BR is the constant jamming and misfiring. How can that even happen in a shooter? That is terrible, and the fact they can’t seem to figure out how to fix it is even worse.
Not to the extent Halo has one. The BR in Halo is vastly stronger than any other utility weapon in an arena shooter. It is so strong in Ranked i really dont bother going for map weapons unless its a rocket or a sword on a close range map. In previous games it was even stronger and basically made the AR, SMG, spiker, mauler, suppressor, most magnums, sentinel beam, etc useless because even at close range it outkilled these close range weapons.
Before the “well the BR takes more skill so it should kill faster” argument comes out, it barely takes any more skill to use and i honestly find it harder to use these closer range weapons because they have bloom, effectively smaller mags (when considering how manh kills they can get per mag), less range, less accuracy, and don’t have near hitscan bullets. You have to consider your own position as well as the enemies position and what weapon they have much more when the BR isn’t the OP starter it used to be.
Also if the more skilled weapons need to be the best then the BR needs a hard nerf. Nothing about it makes it difficult to use. Perfect accuracy, low recoil and the little it does have helps with headshots, a large mag, a scop, no bloom, and basically hitscan bullets. If the argument is higher skill cap weapons need to be better than the commando would need a massive buff as using it effectively is 10x harder than using a BR.
That’s one reason why the Reach DMR is probably one of the best comp weapons. If you’re good with it, it can demolish. If you can’t manage the bloom, it falls behind.