Weapon balance and dual-wielding Thoughts

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

(This is kind of a copy paste from another thread, but I really didn’t feel like retyping all that… lol)

ONLY CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS!
I do not want anyone who is going to shut down anyone else’s ideas. If your comment is unconstructive in nature I will not respond to it. If you have concerns or comments, lets talk it out respectively, and lets remember that were all here to play a game together!

Heres my thought on this subject. Why does every weapon need to be balanced perfectly? Hear me out…

In halos 1-3, there were quite a few weapons that were balanced well for online play, such as the battle rifle or sniper rifle… these weapons respectively were choice weapons for people who played online, and were very widely used.

Then there were weapons that were not often seen in in the online scene, such as the spiker. A little gun that often got you killed due to other players being able to beat you in a duel with the BR (Sometimes)

BUT!

The spiker itself was very well and widly used in the campaign, and it was excellent for takeing on brutes and grunts, and it was fun to run around with two of them and shoot up a room full of brutes and dudes. The spiker respectively was a fun gun for those who weren’t online.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that allthough the spiker itself was not balanced for online play, it still respectfully was balanced for campaign and offline game modes.

Is this bad?

Not at all, it just means that the E-sports community will avoid it well online, and durring the campaign may choose to use the battle rifle instead, thats just their preference.

But Sniper, dosnt this mean the sand box is broken?

Depends on how you look at it, from a hyper competetive standpoint, if not every gun is fine tuned to perfection, the game is an unbalanced mess. But from a more neutral standpoint, we can see that its not unbalanced, but its just not every gun is meant to be used online proper.

How does this relate to duel wielding?

Simple, dual wielding is not balanced for online play. What weapons do people want most online?

  • AR - BR - DMR - SMGBased on my analysis this is the most widely used of the weapons (I know there are more than this, this is just a small example). My verdict? Well, if the comp community were willing to do some compromising, the only dual wielding weapon I would like from this list is the SMG.

Dual-Wielding was a fun addition to the games before, I have a lot of fond memories of running around with two plasma rifles through the campaign with my family, (I was very particular about that lol) My comprise to competitive players, is that we give online weapons the best tunning possible, but keep a certain group of guns intentionally balanced not for online play, but just for fun.

Example,

Bring back the spiker, make it Dual-Wieldable, and through it into campaign and forge. Leave it out of online (except in social)

In conclusion, not every gun needs to be balanced to perfection for online play, comp players dont even tend to use a lot of these guns, and they just end up being put into the corner. So why not let those who want to screw around have some fun with them? We’re here, and we’ll give em’ some love.

2

I’ll just quote what I said before in a Spoiler.

I remember seeing the Spiker relatively often in multiplayer, just on the ground because it wasn’t that good, at least nothing worth switching your BR over.

The Spiker itself was used a lot in the Campaign because it was held by one of the most common enemies in Halo 3. But it wasn’t anything special, there was just a surplus of it and not always a surplus of the AR or Plasma Rifle. The Plasma Rifle, Needler, or Plasma Pistol was better at taking down Brute armor, and the BR is just better at killing everything period. The entire Campaign can realistically be solved by the BR except for vehicles and Hunters.

Also, it’s a lot easier to tune something for the Campaign than online. You can change the AI’s parameters are less restrictive, and killing them doesn’t bring a negative response.

It wasn’t that the Spiker was unbalanced online, the BR was just the utility weapon and was better to use, and in most cases more abundant, since you spawn with it.

I wouldn’t mind putting Dual Wielding in the Campaign, but then they’d have to create the UI, the models of holding two guns, the control scheme for using two guns, and balance the weapons themselves so they don’t kill everything in a couple of shots on Legendary. That’s a lot of work for something that’s going to be on one section of the game and is purposely not being brought over to Multiplayer. The closest example I can think of is the Target Locator in Reach, but that was available in Firefight, an explosive weapon in terms of damage, and didn’t change the UI or HUD in any major way.

Dual Wielding Needlers was fun to some people in Halo 2, but they didn’t bring it back to Halo 3’s Campaign or Multiplayer.

And the second you bring it to Forge (and especially Social), that means you have to balance that weapon to multiplayer, because the projectiles are meant to damage other players. Which means you have to balance Dual Wielding in multiplayer which comes back to the original problem…

But other than that, why the Spiker specifically? What if people wanted to Dual Wield SMGs like Halo 2 Master Chief and don’t care about the Spiker? Now we head into a whole new problem.

What’s the point of carrying two weaker guns to be useful when you could just make it one good gun?

3

> 2533274833081329;2:
> I’ll just quote what I said before in a Spoiler.
>
>
>
>
>
> I remember seeing the Spiker relatively often in multiplayer, just on the ground because it wasn’t that good, at least nothing worth switching your BR over.
>
> The Spiker itself was used a lot in the Campaign because it was held by one of the most common enemies in Halo 3. But it wasn’t anything special, there was just a surplus of it and not always a surplus of the AR or Plasma Rifle. The Plasma Rifle, Needler, or Plasma Pistol was better at taking down Brute armor, and the BR is just better at killing everything period. The entire Campaign can realistically be solved by the BR except for vehicles and Hunters.
>
> Also, it’s a lot easier to tune something for the Campaign than online. You can change the AI’s parameters are less restrictive, and killing them doesn’t bring a negative response.
>
> It wasn’t that the Spiker was unbalanced online, the BR was just the utility weapon and was better to use, and in most cases more abundant, since you spawn with it.
>
> I wouldn’t mind putting Dual Wielding in the Campaign, but then they’d have to create the UI, the models of holding two guns, the control scheme for using two guns, and balance the weapons themselves so they don’t kill everything in a couple of shots on Legendary. That’s a lot of work for something that’s going to be on one section of the game and is purposely not being brought over to Multiplayer. The closest example I can think of is the Target Locator in Reach, but that was available in Firefight, an explosive weapon in terms of damage, and didn’t change the UI or HUD in any major way.
>
> Dual Wielding Needlers was fun to some people in Halo 2, but they didn’t bring it back to Halo 3’s Campaign or Multiplayer.
>
> And the second you bring it to Forge (and especially Social), that means you have to balance that weapon to multiplayer, because the projectiles are meant to damage other players. Which means you have to balance Dual Wielding in multiplayer which comes back to the original problem…
>
>
> But other than that, why the Spiker specifically? What if people wanted to Dual Wield SMGs like Halo 2 Master Chief and don’t care about the Spiker? Now we head into a whole new problem.
>
> What’s the point of carrying two weaker guns to be useful when you could just make it one good gun?

The spiker specifically was just an example, although I would love it to return.

As for its abundance in campaign, this is true. However this is only one point to be made. For instance, I loved picking up one or two of those weapons and just laying into an enemy for fun, it ripped through there sheilds on lower difficulties. It didnt really be considered an necessity until you hit heroic or higher.

As for dual wielding just being in campaign (and maybe even pve games) I could live with that if there we’re no other solutions to be found (which is unlikely)

I do have another solution that touches a few of your points, why don’t we make two versions of some of the guns?

  • Smg: We give two versions of the weapon, the heavy, and the light version. The heavy version will be balanced for online play, (as the halo 5 smg) and the light will be the one picked up for dual wielding for stuff like campaign, (exactly like halo 3) - Plasma pistol: we have the halo 5 one that can disable vehicles, which would be for competitive, and we have the halo 2 version which would be for dual wielding. - Spiker: halo reach spiker would be the heavy, and h3 would be the light - Needlers: I liked dual wielding that, but I will admit in halo 2 that one did feel weak to me. Just put in the one from halo 1 and i’ll be okay. (I know some people would be upset at no dual wielding needler, but compromising has to be made unless thay have ideas of course)It’s also not impossible for these weapons to cross over in some ways, campaign mostly.

This can easily be dismissed as devs not haveing the time ability or money to do this, however I can claim that as false.
With Halo 5, 343 has proven that they are not above makeing several variants, and new versions of existing weapons. We also must keep in mind 343 is heavy on community feedback, and at this point are willing to do things for us if they think it will make us happy.

There is also the argument that it can over saturate the weapon sandbox. Personally I think that the more weapons the better, but it is a valid claim.
This can also be put into question though, by the sheer amount of guns that were and are still being put into halo 5. It may not be hyper crazy weird weapons, but a lot of us are willing to sacrifice the crazy weapons for something we would like.

These are just ideas though, straight from my mind. What do you think?

Edit: There is also the question of what to do about the weapons being weaker, which that I will admit I really don’t have any thoughts on at the moment, its just one of those things to me that dosn’t feel like an issue personally.

4

> 2533274847563380;3:
> > 2533274833081329;2:
> > I’ll just quote what I said before in a Spoiler.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I remember seeing the Spiker relatively often in multiplayer, just on the ground because it wasn’t that good, at least nothing worth switching your BR over.
> >
> > The Spiker itself was used a lot in the Campaign because it was held by one of the most common enemies in Halo 3. But it wasn’t anything special, there was just a surplus of it and not always a surplus of the AR or Plasma Rifle. The Plasma Rifle, Needler, or Plasma Pistol was better at taking down Brute armor, and the BR is just better at killing everything period. The entire Campaign can realistically be solved by the BR except for vehicles and Hunters.
> >
> > Also, it’s a lot easier to tune something for the Campaign than online. You can change the AI’s parameters are less restrictive, and killing them doesn’t bring a negative response.
> >
> > It wasn’t that the Spiker was unbalanced online, the BR was just the utility weapon and was better to use, and in most cases more abundant, since you spawn with it.
> >
> > I wouldn’t mind putting Dual Wielding in the Campaign, but then they’d have to create the UI, the models of holding two guns, the control scheme for using two guns, and balance the weapons themselves so they don’t kill everything in a couple of shots on Legendary. That’s a lot of work for something that’s going to be on one section of the game and is purposely not being brought over to Multiplayer. The closest example I can think of is the Target Locator in Reach, but that was available in Firefight, an explosive weapon in terms of damage, and didn’t change the UI or HUD in any major way.
> >
> > Dual Wielding Needlers was fun to some people in Halo 2, but they didn’t bring it back to Halo 3’s Campaign or Multiplayer.
> >
> > And the second you bring it to Forge (and especially Social), that means you have to balance that weapon to multiplayer, because the projectiles are meant to damage other players. Which means you have to balance Dual Wielding in multiplayer which comes back to the original problem…
> >
> >
> > But other than that, why the Spiker specifically? What if people wanted to Dual Wield SMGs like Halo 2 Master Chief and don’t care about the Spiker? Now we head into a whole new problem.
> >
> > What’s the point of carrying two weaker guns to be useful when you could just make it one good gun?
>
> The spiker specifically was just an example, although I would love it to return.
>
> As for its abundance in campaign, this is true. However this is only one point to be made. For instance, I loved picking up one or two of those weapons and just laying into an enemy for fun, it ripped through there sheilds on lower difficulties. It didnt really be considered an necessity until you hit heroic or higher.
>
> As for dual wielding just being in campaign (and maybe even pve games) I could live with that if there we’re no other solutions to be found (which is unlikely)
>
> I do have another solution that touches a few of your points, why don’t we make two versions of some of the guns?
>
>
> - Smg: We give two versions of the weapon, the heavy, and the light version. The heavy version will be balanced for online play, (as the halo 5 smg) and the light will be the one picked up for dual wielding for stuff like campaign, (exactly like halo 3) - Plasma pistol: we have the halo 5 one that can disable vehicles, which would be for competitive, and we have the halo 2 version which would be for dual wielding. - Spiker: halo reach spiker would be the heavy, and h3 would be the light - Needlers: I liked dual wielding that, but I will admit in halo 2 that one did feel weak to me. Just put in the one from halo 1 and i’ll be okay. (I know some people would be upset at no dual wielding needler, but compromising has to be made unless thay have ideas of course)It’s also not impossible for these weapons to cross over in some ways, campaign mostly.
>
> This can easily be dismissed as devs not haveing the time ability or money to do this, however I can claim that as false.
> With Halo 5, 343 has proven that they are not above makeing several variants, and new versions of existing weapons. We also must keep in mind 343 is heavy on community feedback, and at this point are willing to do things for us if they think it will make us happy.
>
> There is also the argument that it can over saturate the weapon sandbox. Personally I think that the more weapons the better, but it is a valid claim.
> This can also be put into question though, by the sheer amount of guns that were and are still being put into halo 5. It may not be hyper crazy weird weapons, but a lot of us are willing to sacrifice the crazy weapons for something we would like.
>
> These are just ideas though, straight from my mind. What do you think?
>
> Edit: There is also the question of what to do about the weapons being weaker, which that I will admit I really don’t have any thoughts on at the moment, its just one of those things to me that dosn’t feel like an issue personally.

Splitting the gun “in half” for the Campaign gives the implication of using inferior equipment and limits your abilities. You get a powerful SMG in multiplayer, but in Campaign you get this weaker SMG, and holding two of them removes the ability to throw grenades and limits your melee. If you put both the “heavy” and “light” weapons in the Campaign…then why bother getting the light one if you can do so much more with the heavy one? At that point the only thing Dual Wielding is good for is the aesthetic of holding two guns at the same time. Also on top of that, you’d have to make visual differences of each gun version so you don’t always try to Dual Wield a heavy version with a light version.

Even then, putting in Dual Wielding weapons isn’t the same as putting in a REQ variant. A REQ variant is just another weapon with slightly different stats like rate of fire and magazine size, or slightly different abilities. But they still function as a Halo 5 weapon. You can only hold two weapons, they don’t change the hud, and they all control the same.

A Dual Wieldable weapon requires 343i to make the UI of the mechanic, because it now has to tell you you can Dual Wield, they have to make the control scheme based around it (because now you have to press a different button to switch to it, LT now fires your second gun, and you have to drop the weapon when you melee/switch weapons), model the gun to appear on the character in the first place, change the HUD so it now shows you both guns and their ammo count, and then balance the gun around being held solo and Dual Wielded. It’s a whole different system in itself.

5

maybe set up settings that you could make the game a bit like Halo 2 and Halo 3 being able to pick up these smaller weapons for duals battles, could make for some fun forge games and what not. I could go with that. But I don’t think it would work so well in the whole concept of abilities now like clamber, bashing, and so forth. It is kind of a fun idea, but it is also in the past. So if done, should be done cautiously and aware.

6

If you’re referring to the HCS competitive players, they only make changes to one playlist while the rest keep the default settings so I’m not sure why you’re singling them out.

I think your argument would be better suited for something like Warzone. That’s where all the unbalanced stuff goes anyway so you’d have a better chance of getting it implemented in that instead of the regular playlists. That being said, I don’t think it would be a simple implementation. You’d have to change all kinds of stuff in order to implement it correctly and I doubt 343 want to do big updates.

7

I miss my dual wielded Plasma Rifles. I’d gladly bring it back if I could.

8

I feel like LNG said this not too long ago lol. My question is why can’t all the weapons be balanced for arena and campaign? The main problem with halo 3’s sandbox was that the BR was the dominant weapon at almost all ranges (excluding power weapons). If the spiker, AR, PR, etc. killed faster, it would’ve been a much better sandbox without hurting the campaign. For dual wielding, only have it in campaign and social modes and only have the same weapons dual wieldable. For instance, only 2 pistols, 2 SMGs, and 2 PRs, not a pistol and a plasma pistol or something like that. Also, I don’t want them to nerf the damage, I just want increased bloom and decreased range when dual wielding.

9

What if you have a lighter version of the weapon like you say that does 1.5 the damage of the regular one or more but increase recoil, reload, and ammo consumption significantly. If that’s not enough you could add a cool down like on Plasma pistols so you have to burst fire it. Increase ammo capacity to a point where dual wielding it forces you to conserve but just wielding it will give you a lot more ammo. Change percentages too like spikes is slow firing and doesn’t heat up as fast projectiles start coming out faster as weapon is fired more. Like a spin up phase. SMG doesn’t heat up as fast but consumes alot more ammo, does medium damage.

10

Never thought of it that way. If they either kept dual wieldable weapons out of competitive play or just made them non dual wieldable in certain playlists, I’d be all down for this. Dual wielding spikes in H3 was so fun.