We don't know a lot about Halo 5: Guardians just yet, but we do know looks rather promising. We know that the game is aiming to return to Halo's roots as a competitive arena shooter. We know that even starts will finally be returning to the franchise and that map and weapon control will return as core elements of the experience. We also know that there will be eleven weapons appearing in the beta including a Battle Rifle equipped with a red dot sight, an Assault Rifle, a Designated Marksman Rifle, a Sub Machine Gun, a Sniper Rifle, an Energy Sword, and some sort of Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher. This RDS-equipped BR is what I want to talk about today.
Starting weapons (the weapon(s) players spawn with) have always been a point of contention among Halo players. We know that in Halo, customization takes place in-game, on the battlefield rather than in pregame menus, at odds with the current trend of multiplayer FPSs. Knowing that even starts are returning, the question of what the primary starting weapon will be comes to mind. After giving this some thought, I began to realize that this BR RDS could make for an ideal starting weapon. An RDS-equipped weapon would have either minimal zoom functionality, or none at all. However, the BR is still a headshot weapon, meaning that it is much more skillful to use than an automatic weapon like the AR or SMG. This could make a great starting weapon as it is still skill-dependent, but does not have long range capabilities. This increases the incentive for players to customize how they play by picking up weapons on map such as the AR, SMG, and DMR as all three have these weapons have an advantage over a scopeless BR in certain scenarios. Incentive to attain non-power weapons in-game has been mostly absent since Halo 3 due to the starting weapons available in Halo: Reach and Halo 4.
Let's look back at Halo's history of somewhat flawed starting weapons to get some context for why an RDS BR would be a better alternative. In Halo 2, the SMG was the primary starting weapon. This left players to engage at close to mid range off of spawn, creating incentive to attain weapons like the BR, Carbine, and other dual-wieldable weapons to bolster their effectiveness. However, there were two problems with the SMG as a starting weapon. First, it was not a headshot weapon, leaving a minimal skill gap in SMG battles. Second, the SMG was dual-wieldable meaning that players spent more time dual-wielding and less time throwing grenades and engaging at longer ranges. A large part of the community turned to the BR as a starting weapon instead, and this had several advantages but also left much less incentive for players to search for other pickups on maps aside from power weapons. Halo 3's solution to the SMG problem was to bring back the AR, but this weapon still had no real skill gap. Players again turned to the BR as a starting weapon.
In Halo: Reach, we had even bigger problems. The AR followed in the problematic footsteps of previous games, but when the community turned to the DMR as the starting weapon of choice, even larger issues emerged. The DMR's extreme range was enough to throw off the distance-based segmentation on most maps, and the weapon's inconsistent bloom was also rather frustrating. With a weapon with such long range capabilities at players' fingertips upon spawning, there was no incentive to attain other weapons except for power weapons. Halo 4 simply through all of these problematic starting weapons into the mix and allowed players to chose which one they wanted. Not only was this horribly balanced, it carried over all of the problems from the starting weapons in previous games and compounded on them.
The traditional Battle Rifle doesn't make for a poor choice for a starting weapon, however an RDS BR is arguably the better option. This weapon would limit the range of engagements, thus creating incentive to acquire pickups, while still maintaining a skill gap by giving players access to a headshot weapon off spawn. We'll have to see if this is 343i's plan for Halo 5, and if it is, I look forward to seeing how it plays out. While I am confident that this would be the ideal starting weapon for arena play, I am less sure about the effects it would have on larger scale engagements. We'll just have to wait and see.
It has come to my attention that this could be iron sights rather than a red dot sight, but the functionality will be the same either way.
Let's look back at Halo's history of somewhat flawed starting weapons to get some context for why an RDS BR would be a better alternative. In Halo 2, the SMG was the primary starting weapon. This left players to engage at close to mid range off of spawn, creating incentive to attain weapons like the BR, Carbine, and other dual-wieldable weapons to bolster their effectiveness. However, there were two problems with the SMG as a starting weapon. First, it was not a headshot weapon, leaving a minimal skill gap in SMG battles. Second, the SMG was dual-wieldable meaning that players spent more time dual-wielding and less time throwing grenades and engaging at longer ranges. A large part of the community turned to the BR as a starting weapon instead, and this had several advantages but also left much less incentive for players to search for other pickups on maps aside from power weapons. Halo 3's solution to the SMG problem was to bring back the AR, but this weapon still had no real skill gap. Players again turned to the BR as a starting weapon.
In Halo: Reach, we had even bigger problems. The AR followed in the problematic footsteps of previous games, but when the community turned to the DMR as the starting weapon of choice, even larger issues emerged. The DMR's extreme range was enough to throw off the distance-based segmentation on most maps, and the weapon's inconsistent bloom was also rather frustrating. With a weapon with such long range capabilities at players' fingertips upon spawning, there was no incentive to attain other weapons except for power weapons. Halo 4 simply through all of these problematic starting weapons into the mix and allowed players to chose which one they wanted. Not only was this horribly balanced, it carried over all of the problems from the starting weapons in previous games and compounded on them.
The traditional Battle Rifle doesn't make for a poor choice for a starting weapon, however an RDS BR is arguably the better option. This weapon would limit the range of engagements, thus creating incentive to acquire pickups, while still maintaining a skill gap by giving players access to a headshot weapon off spawn. We'll have to see if this is 343i's plan for Halo 5, and if it is, I look forward to seeing how it plays out. While I am confident that this would be the ideal starting weapon for arena play, I am less sure about the effects it would have on larger scale engagements. We'll just have to wait and see.
It has come to my attention that this could be iron sights rather than a red dot sight, but the functionality will be the same either way.
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