- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Rant Off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said you'd take criticism so here it is. Please note that I do not hate you. These are all just non-candy coated frank issues that I had with your ideas. I'm sure you are a wonderful person. Also please forgive the sarcasm. I come by it quite naturally, and I'm currently cranky.
Now let's get to the good stuff!
Too complicated...some decent ideas, but for the most part these are all "wouldn't this be cool" ideas and ideas for solving non-existant issues.
Supply visibilty adds nothing of value to the game. All it would do is add unneccessary clutter and prevent surprise when somebody pulls out a sword or rocket launcher. Sounds like somebody is merely tired of being owned by someone that has a good secondary weapon.
How is hiding a sword unfair or out of balance? It is merely good strategy (something which a lot of your ideas would seem to counteract).
Supply dropping...H2 is fast paced and it is stupid to have to rifle thru the body to pick up grenades and extra ammo. You kill the person you have the choice to pick up their weapons and you automatically pick up nades and xtra ammo. It works great right now...don't try to overcomplicate things.
In first person shooter where you can carry more than one weapon at a time (suffice it to say most) you have to be able to switch quickly between weapons, otherwise if you have the wrong weapon for the range you are screwed. Quit trying to screw with the whole system just so you don't get killed by somebody smart enough to not run around waiving a sword saying "kill me". Do you really want it so that if you have a shotty and a sniper rifle and somebody gets close with duals you won't be able to switch before you are dead? Think thru the whole thing, don't just blanked things cuz you don't like one aspect.
I don't have a huge beef with the Scoped strafing thing, but why would MC necessarily strafe slower while zoomed in?
Yes Auto-Aim and tracking could use some work, but most of the problems from this in regards to balance merely comes from the fact that it's LIVE. Over LAN everybodies' weapons work the same.
To my estimation duals should take exactly twice as long to reload as non-duals. There have to be some downsides to dual wielding...with this and the dual melee idea there would be no point to carry only one dual wieldable gun. Methinks you like all duals game don't you?
Charged melee is a "WOULDN'T IT BE UBER KEWL IF..." idea that has no real merit. Unless it locks on and/or lunges like a sword it would be useless, and if it did it wouldn't be "balanced".
As for weapons changes:
Yes Shotguns currently suck. Surprise tho, this is merely a LIVE issue. They work perfectly fine over LAN. Same goes for BR's...no host issues if LAN. So even trying to "fix" these weapons is useless because they are not teachnically broken. They are just more effected by LIVE that others.
Are people still whining about swords and combos?!?!?!?
I would not mind seeing the PP revamped a bit, but it would just need finessed. Currently in H2 it is only useful as a method of taking shields down. IMHO this is why the charge is faster and tracks better than in H1. As I said I wouldn't mind a little finessing, but the PP is currently a STRATEGY weapon and I don't see a huge problem with it. All weapons have a certain something that they are good at and at least one major drawback. PP is great at taking out shields, and majorly sucks if it is to be used for anything else: Slow ROF, overheating, minuscule damage. All of these would need to be improved A LOT before you could think of taming down it's effectiveness as a shield destroyer. With your suggestions the PP would no longer be the PP and might as well be taken out completely. After all combos are so cheap.....visualize a lot of people rolling their eyes.
Rockets are rockets...kill instantly large radius of splash damage, but slowish moving projectile, limited ammo, kill yourself and/or teammates if to close....does anybody really have a problem with rockets being out of balance?
Yes the Needler does need reworked obviously...it was worthless in H1 as well as H2. It is fun to use, but highly impracticle for any serious use at present time.
Sorry your sword ideas are dumb, dumb, dumb. Taking out the lunge you have an empty rocket launcher as far as damage ability. The Sword has to have at least a little lunge or lock-on or you have to throw it out. As far as the charged melee where you can do a large swing all around you....imagine if you will KOTH Lockout, guy with sword runs into the middle and gets a killtacular with one swing. Yeah, that's much better than the current balance! Keep up the good work!
What you are suggesting for the battle rifle is exactly what everybody complained about that Bungie did to the pistol. There are no real balance issues with the BR!!!!!!! It is weaker than H1's pistol, has a relatively slow ROF, is pretty bad for close range, and good for medium to longish range. The only issues with the BR stem from LIVE issues and combo complainers.
Carbine....does anybody even remotely see a need to dumb down the current Carbine? I don't see anybody racking up huge kill totals with these. These things are pretty much the same as the BR but take more hits to kill with a little higher ROF. As far as the alternate use on it.....That is nothing but an attempt to make fun of Combo users. There would be no practical use for it...nobody is going to flip for a PP that takes longer to charge, uses up tons of ammo from primary fire, and won't let you switch after shot. C'mon you had a good enough education to write all this crap out, you couldn't have possibly thought that that would be a good idea.
Sniper....Neglected the primary problem....range needs to not have a distinct cut off point. Try it on coagulation get the right distance apart and you can zoom in and shoot somebody in the head for a kill, take two steps back and not be able to hit them. That's a problem. Don't mind auto-aim dumbed down a tad, but removing no-scope crosshairs is stupid. crosshairs for all guns show up on MC's HUD. Why would you do this in the first place? Are you getting owned by too many people that no-scope you?
Same goes for Beam Rifle. Jackal vision is another "OMG HOW KEWL WOULD IT BE IF..." idea that would be incredibly imbalanced if implemented as stated. "You mean I can just scope-in and search for white dots rather than actually looking for players that may blend in with the surroundings a bit, UBER AWESOME!!!!!!!". This would take a lot of tweaking to even be remotely workable.
The M6B would be imbalanced as part of a dual...think about it. The magnum had to be dumbed down for the SMG combo from what it was originally and what you are proposing is more powerful than the original magnum by a TON! The ROF would have to be very low or you'd have to decrease damage if you truly wanted a "balanced"system.
If the assault rifle has "some trouble with shield" it could very easily be useless depending on how much. It would have to go thru shield faster than dual SMG's in order to be at usefull. Looks like you are trying to fill a perceived range gap that doesn't really exist. Oh and yeah...we don't need grenad launchers. We have rockets, brute shots, and our arms. Do you really thing it is necessary or will add balance? Definitely an aforementioned "OMG...KEWL!!!!!" idea.
Carriable power-ups "OMG HOW AWESOME WOULD IT BE TO CARRY AN OVERSHIELD AND USE IT RIGHT BEFORE ASSAULTING A BASE!!!!!!!" Great....except for...oh yeah overshields make you temorarily invulnerable while they are charging up. That'd make for some interesting "balanced" firefights that's for sure.
The D-pad switch weapons hand idea is actually good tho!