- Shai Hulud
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- Exalted Mythic Member
With B.B. gone, the passion of Bungie.net has lessened.
Posted by: Hylebos
In essence, yes. If you are going to have custom starting weapons like in CoD, I think this is the only way it would work in Halo (I could be wrong) without completely changing the Halo gameplay mechanics (i.e., limited options a la Gears 2, but perhaps more options (and more balanced options)).
I'm not a fan of starting with weapons as powerful as the BR or Carbine in most settings. It's only a necessary start if you're on large maps where gameplay quickly becomes unfun if you're being spawn-sniped-or-BRed from teams that are able to control those weapons (the game becomes too power-weapon based in these instances), and that's only with existing maps. Halo maps could be re-engineered to never need this; even the large ones. Thus, in my opinion, the choices of starting weapons should be limited to side-arms and weapons like Assault Rifles. If the way maps are made in Halo doesn't change (which it doesn't have to), then for certain gametype/map combinations, perhaps there could be an expansion to this to allow for choosing which mid-to-long range rifle you start with).
If you simply added this option to Halo 3, it wouldn't work. The aren't enough choices, nor is there enough balance with the current choices, in order to make a mechanic like this be sensible. So, you could add different weapon variants, like the with ARs: MA3B, MA5B, MA5C, and MA5K (I think those numbers are right; variants described in the books). All could essentially be the same weapon, but with slightly different edges over one another in certain situations, different firing rates, clip sizes, damage per round, and mechanics. Let's take the MA5B and MA5C, for example. These are the Halo 1 and Halo 3 ARs, respectively. If you pictured a graph (sorry) of effectiveness (y-axis) to range (x-axis), I would say that the MA5B would be more effective than the MA5C at close and medium ranges, but not as effective at anywhere in-between (and this is simplified and idealized). At closer ranges, the MA5B with it's superior firing rate, excels over the MA5C, and at the far end of what we would consider medium range, the MA5B excels again due to its ability to be burst-fired for much greater accuracy (but decreasing the damage per second). At anywhere in-between, the steady accuracy and lower kick-back of the MA5C gives it a bit of an edge over the MA5B.
If you took those two weapons as-are and put them in the same game, it wouldn't be as simple. The MA5B would probably average out as something better than the MA5C. However, if you made minor tweaks to both, their average "effectiveness" could be equalized without making one the obvious better choice over the other; the MA5B being a choice for those who operate at extremes (up to far-mid-range, but not long), and the MA5C being the choice for those who like something that's a bit more consistent at any range.
This idea could be easily expanded to alien weapons, too, like the Plasma Rifle and Spiker. Both of these, as they are now, are essentially the same weapon overall, except one does more damage to shields, while the other is more damaging to un-shielded health, and with slightly different accuracy/range. The trick there would be finding a way to truly balance these weapons out with the AR choices. That balance may already exist, due to those weapons having the ability to dual-wield while lacking the stand-alone power of an AR, but this hasn't been fully tested.
You wouldn't have actual classes, just a slightly better ability to choose your playing style from the start of a match.