- fifthderelicte
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IMO, there are several problems with it:
1. Being a burst weapon is fine. Heck, we have automatic weapons in Halo. The problem with this burst weapon, however, is that it's headshot capable. Think about SWAT and how easy it is to get headshots on unshielded people as opposed to using a single magnum or carbine. BRs allow you to swipe shoot and it makes headshotting take 0 skill. All the other weapons in the arsenal that can headshot take a precision aim AT THE HEAD, not at the chest, shoulder, head, belly button, etc - which will then jump their way up to the head. You also can't be off their whole body and swipe to the side and allow a burst to headshot others with a magnum, carbine, or sniper.
2. But what about all those times you're in an epic battle with someone because you can't get the headshot at the range you're at? Doesn't that mean it does take aim? Not at all. Just think about all the complaints about the BR's accuracy. It is random at all but the closest medium range situations (it starts to go at a distance from gold to in front of snipe on guardian). This randomness makes for imprecise battles and can cause the victor not to be the one with the most skill, but the one who got the lucky break.
3. Of course a lot of weapons work that way, and we don't want a sniper, right? Well, how many snipers take 12 bullets to kill? The BR and carbine are both intended to be medium/medium-long weapons. When you make the core weaponset (those weapons which control the map the best, but aren't power weapons - so you can find them more readily)random, it means that you are randomizing the most used guns in the game. When you do that, it means you downplay skill. So how can you make a core weapon be just that - a great map controlling weapon - but one that is not a sniper and overpowered? I'll tell you.
What needs to be done for a headshot capable, core weapon, is to not have burst, first of all. When that's completed, the accuracy needs to be bumped up to almost perfect. On top of that, the zoom may be toned down just a bit, or maybe kept the same. Think about how hard it would be to headshot someone across standoff, even if the BR accuracy was almost perfect. The lack of zoom on the reticule makes it harder to hit targets because you're not zoomed in. The same thing applies to any of you hunters out there. You know what I'm talking about, when you move from your 22 with the dinky scope to your 243 with the massive scope.
This will allow the BR to be a skilled, accurate core weapon, but it will actually make it harder to get headshots at range (you can't get lucky with a random burst), but doable with skill. This not only makes the gameplay much better and more consistent, but it makes the skill gap larger too, which would be great. Compare the amount of those in the 40s from H3 to H2. It's gross.
4. Finally, if you still think the BR would be like a sniper, think about this. If the BR were made to be single fire, you would then technically need 12 bullets to kill. I think that's a little too much, and should either bump up the rate of fire, or move it down to 8 shots to kill (same as carbine). The big thing with these tweaks are to play with the power and rate of fire to make the BR kill in the amount of time you want it to be able to kill (around the time it kills now). With this and the single shot implemented, you have to skillfully land 8-12 different shots, rather than allow the burst to help you get lucky (or unlucky) at times.
As it stands, the current BR is very used because it's a core weapon, it's powerful, and it's prevalent. However, it is a random, lucky, and easy weapon (in terms of HS anyway). They need to fix it to be a fine tuned, sklled, consistent weapon that will increase the skill gap.
[EDIT] I suppose another solution would be to have the carbine take the BRs place, keep the BR as is (but bump up the ROF) and make it a non-burst weapon. Then it would take 8 shots anywhere, be a medium weapon, zoom capable, but it couldn't headshot. While 8 shotting would take a bit longer than the current 4 shot, it would still provide range and it would be good with team firing. Then this BR wouldn't really be a precision weapon like it's role should be when it's the dominant weapon in a game, so a little randomness wouldn't matter.
[Edited on 10.08.2009 7:50 AM PDT]