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  • Subject: The pistol in Halo 2: An analysis and suggestions
Subject: The pistol in Halo 2: An analysis and suggestions
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Bungie tried to follow their old weapons formula for Marathon in Halo. As much as I love Marathon, I think the old formula should be dispensed with for Halo 2. Think about it:

* The pistol = strong and accurate, a staple of your arsenal. In Marathon 2, the sprite for the pistol had a scope, I firmly believe that the Halo pistol is simply the next iteration of the .44 Magnum Mega Class. =)

* The AR = individual rounds are weak and inaccurate, but has a substantial clip and high rate of fire. The AR in the Marathons and in early designs of Halo had a grenade launcher attached to its underside. I think Bungie's choice to make grenades hand-thrown rather than launched from a particular weapon was genius.

* The Fusion/Plasma pistol = In Marathon it was the Zeus class Fusion Pistol, in Halo it was the Plasma Pistol. Average damage on the weak rounds, but use the overcharge and you get a healthy blast of energy.

* The SPNKR = The name didn't change between the two games and neither did the format. Twin barrels, shoulder-fired rockets with lots of impact and splash damage.

The arsenal similarties go on, but I digress. I listed these because they are examples in my argument that the old Marathon weapons formula made its way into Halo, and that it does not apply for Halo 2, given changes to the overall arsenal in Halo.

I think that Bungie was finally able to make the pistol as badass as they had always wanted in Halo. They kept the traits the same as in Marathon, and finally made use of the scope that appeared on it in Marathon 2. However, Marathon was, for the most part, all about creeping around dark corridors on a starship or alien ruins; not fighting in a lot of open areas ala Halo.

Granted, the Pistol in Marathon also doubled as your sniper weapon, since there was no sniper rifle in the game, but this only serves to build on my point further: The problem, IMO is that in the pistol, you got a weapon that filled two niches in the arsenal: a close-quarters handgun with high stopping power AND a bullet-based sniper weapon.

The point is, the pistol served those two purposes and that gave it an advantage over all the other weapons once it made its way into Halo, because of the addition of the scope and location-based damage gave you a much greater effective range with a high rate of fire and a healthy amount of damage. Not to mention a weak spot (the head) to be exploited. When a weapon is able to fill more than one niche particularly well, you have the beginnings of an overpowered weapon. A well rounded weapon is a good idea and in many cases necessary, but when you have a weapon that actually excels at several things, you have a superlative by definition, don't you?

I spoke to the esteemed Louis Wu, headman over at HBO, at a lanfest this past winter about this very subject. He enlightened me to the fact that the pistol's damage is beefed up in multiplayer. I can't go in-depth on his explanations as I've honestly forgotten most of them, but I bought all the reasons he gave me for it and it all made sense why. I believe that, given the circumstances, it was the right thing to do to keep the pistol in the realm of useful weapons in multiplayer. That said, I still think it is too powerful and it must be changed if it is to be included in Halo 2.

Long story short, this is what IMHO should be done with the pistol, and to a degree sounds a little like the newer pistols in First Strike:

Don't tone down the damage on the pistol, increase it. Yep. Take off the scope, shorten the clip by 4 rounds, lower the firing rate. There could even be a slight amount of inaccuracy thrown in, but that might be a bit much. Even with Dual wield, you'd have 16 shots and a lot of stopping power. The scope doesn't matter much, I've found, a lot of the better players I've seen don't even use it, they know where to keep their crosshairs and have little need of it. Besides, the sniper rifle and battle rifle will be sniping weapons anyway, not to mention there may be covenant sniper weapons.

In closing, I think that the BR may fill the niche that the pistol had in Halo, I just hope it's damage is toned down enough to keep every match from becoming a BR snipefest, just as a lot of Halo matches now become pistol wars. I'd really love to see the covenant weapons be able to match the human ones, most people seem to prefer human weapon sets and generally ignore the covenant ones as it is. I think the beefed-up needler, the covenant carbine, and the brute weapon are well on the way to making a strong case for alien weaponry.

What do the rest of you guys think?


  • 06.03.2004 8:07 AM PDT
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Just a bit of speculation: I’m guessing that Halo 2 will have a pistol, but not so powerful and with a silencer. The official answer from bungie if Halo 2 is going to have a pistol is “No Comment”. Since my guessing, so far, turned out to be accurate, maybe this will to, it makes perfect sense and it would be really balanced. Wright my words! lol

  • 06.03.2004 8:09 AM PDT
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I think the pistol should be made weaker.
I mean come on, it is a sidearm not your main weapon.
Agreeing that matches become pistol wars, that was silly.
I use the plasma pistol human pistol/AR most of the time now.

  • 06.03.2004 8:38 AM PDT
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the pistol will be back and itll be more powerful read first strike and youll see why it ant
the same pistol but the rounds are the size of a human thumb and it can kill an elite
with shields with 5 hits(the elite was in camouflage but in the books thay have shields dont ask i dont know)

[Edited on 6/3/2004 10:03:08 AM]

  • 06.03.2004 10:02 AM PDT
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My opinion

Keep all old guns and add new. Simple as that. No changes are needed now that some of the new guns are leveling the playing field.

  • 06.03.2004 10:06 AM PDT
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I agree with Swain, the pistol is a sidearm, and unless things have radically changed in the 26th century, the pistol is a sidearm, and should only be used as such.

  • 06.03.2004 10:19 AM PDT
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I agree that covenant weapons deserve some love from Bungie. After all, they're built using highly advanced technology that surpases anything human. Now tell me why would a very high-tech weapon be worse than some balistic based weapon? On the other hand, I'd say the plasmarifle is by far my favorite close range weapon. Most of the time I'd rather have it than a shotgun, and it's always a best friend when somebody picks up an overshield. Unfortunately it's next to useless in open levels. I hope the Covenant carbine and sniper rifle fix the Covenant's range disability.

  • 06.03.2004 10:22 AM PDT
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Only Human weapons are effective against other Human shields and the same goes for Covenant

  • 06.03.2004 10:25 AM PDT
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Ah but human wepons are best against the flood well apart from the sniper rifle

  • 06.03.2004 2:20 PM PDT
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The pistol in Halo is just awesome. Yet, I would like to see a different pistol in Halo 2, even if it is just for the sake of diversion. The "Deser Eagle" like pistol from First Strike sounds awesome. I would like to have that one for Halo 2. It is a brutal close range weapon and sucks in long range. This way it covers up only one niche and isn't at all overpowered.
Anyways, the Battle Rifle replaces the pistol for mid- to long range combat.

Nice analysis posted. Readworthy thread!

  • 06.03.2004 2:32 PM PDT
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i trust the people in bungie and i think they will probly keep it and make another i don't know

  • 06.03.2004 2:36 PM PDT
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I think change the pistol look so people feel it has been "updated" give it the same power as it has now and drop the scope and range a bit, make it just a short range weapon. Yes a pistol is a side arm but every weapon in halo has a purpose that is the point of balancing there should be no dominant weapon but there should be no pointless weapon if you drop the scope and lower the damage it may become a realistic sidearm but no one will use people will drop it in the first five seconds. Maybe drop the clip size a bit to to about 8 so in battle it will have less ammo then a shotgun but a higher rate of fire and faster reload time and if you dual wield it will have 16 shots making it and effective weapon in close quarters combat. So drop the range, lose the scope, lower the clip size, but keep the power the same.

  • 06.03.2004 2:38 PM PDT
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I think the pistol should be toned down a little bit, not too much. I don't think it should be less effective than other guns, just because its a sidearm. Thats one of the things I like about Halo, most of the guns are about equally usefull. Though it does depend on situation and your skill with specific weapons. Its not like those games where there's a definate weapon heirarchy and you are screwed if you have the worst weapon.

Ok, fencr beat me to it. His thoughts are about the same as mine. I was thinking maybe the scope should be dropped, because now with the battle rifle you have another weapon with a scope so it won't just be the sniper rifle.

[Edited on 6/3/2004 2:42:20 PM]

  • 06.03.2004 2:40 PM PDT
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January 30, 2004 (Warthog's Day)
The Master Chief emerged from his code. After seeing his dynamically lit realtime shadow, he went back for 9 more months of development.


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Posted by: Hikaru 119
My opinion

Keep all old guns and add new. Simple as that. No changes are needed now that some of the new guns are leveling the playing field.

In my opinion its not really feasable. With the addition of new armor and new weapons a totally new balancing system is needed for the weapons. I believe most of the weapons will be tweaked.

Remeber how Frankie discussed them adding new weapons to Zanzibar and they had to do it very carefully to keep the balance. Same way with the guns they need to be tested very carefully to create a true balance.

[Edited on 6/3/2004 2:48:46 PM]

  • 06.03.2004 2:47 PM PDT
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i agree wiht making the pistol stronger but also making it slower to shoot and keep the accuracy the same. just think for a second if you got all head shots wiht a sniper rifle you could kill 4 people. if you got all head shots with a pistol you could kill 4 people, now thats not right.

  • 06.03.2004 2:48 PM PDT
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I agree that there should be a pistol in Halo 2, and agree that the scope should be removed. A gun as small as a pistol should not be deadly from long range as it was in Halo. Pistols are traditionally used as secondary weapons, not a weapon that people strive to acquire. I also agree that covenant weapons should be comparable to human weapons. I think Halo 2 will be incredible if they find a way to make each gun equal in a sense. My meaning is that each gun is good at certain things, while other guns are equally good but at seperate things. I think each weapon should be just as useful as the next, when used in the right situation. This is of course my own personal opinion, but it aggrivates me because halo has evolved into a pistol, rocketlauncher, and sniper war, rather than a killfest with greatly different arsenals.

  • 06.03.2004 2:51 PM PDT
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from the e3 videos it looks to me that the br is really a mix between the pistol and ar so im thinking that the pistol wont be coming back and keep in mind that bungie is rebabalncing weapons too so the alien weapons will probably be alot better

  • 06.03.2004 2:52 PM PDT
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Yeah, and didn't the OXM article say that the pistol has been replaced by the battle rifle?

  • 06.03.2004 3:33 PM PDT

My thumbsticks will be your Doom.... sorry 'bout that.
My Stats

From looking at the BR and it's scope I have a tendency to think that the pistol -as it was- will not be returning.

First of all, I loved and still love the Pistol. I loved the concept of linking it to your HUD and zooming in. It made it almost more of a sniper weapon (leaving the close range stuff to the Shotgun) but when used in close-quarters it forced you to have some accuracy as well, even when things got hectic.

If it does make it back at all, i wouldn't care if it has a scope or not (main reason is because I have so much faith in Bungie that they will not release an unbalanced game). They are still going to give us the same amount of Zoom opportunities in the game, it will be just up to us on how we use 'em. Same thing with the change in the power of the weapons. It looks like all the enemies (even the Grunts) are going to be bigger and/or badder so I trust Bungie will gives us bigger and badder guns to handle them with.

As for the weapons doing different damage in MP than they do in Campaign is something i've never really thought about (mainly i guess because they're such two different animals). And I always reasoned that Plasma weapons damaged the energy shields (of Spartans and Elites and just think about facing a Jackal) and human weapons work so well on exposed flesh (just think about Grunts, the Flood, unsheilded/invisble Elites and a Jackal-without his shield).

Granted while human weapons are more fun to use Covie weapons serve a powerful purpose in Halo and that's the Shielding Damage difference already stated and the fact that when taking plasma fire it's hard to move,( but the Covenant aren't so bad-ass, they mainly copy their tech not improve on it, even in the books humans/Spartans don't like using their weapons).

I like to use a Plasma Riffle (while strafing so it's much harder for them to hit you) to take down an enemies shields then pull out the AR (usually when their sheilds are depleted or almost so) to cut through em and finish them off. Plus, when using the rocket launcher, if my first shot is slightly off mark, instead of using a second rocket to take 'em out i switch to any other human weapon to finish them off (but never the sniper riffle, especially on MP i try to make it a rule to never have a Rocket launcher and a Sniper Riffle at the same time).

  • 06.03.2004 3:45 PM PDT