I actually liked the sentinel beam type sniper from Reach. It felt like an old-school quake type weapon. I don't know why it didn't get any love.
i thought it was a great weapon, i loved using it. i just didnt think it was an appropriate replacement for a sniper, and that seemed to be what it was meant for. [br][/br]Edited by merge: good, so they didnt nerf it too much
Agreed with both of the above. I think Reach was by far and away the best Halo game for new weapon additions. GL = win. Concussion Rifle = win. Focus Rifle = win. But yeah, the FR in particular was a great addition imo, precisely because of it's similarity to the Lightning Gun from Quake 3/Live like you said, RST. Rusty and I had a discussion a while back where he explained to me how auto weapons are potentially more skilful than semi auto, but only if done right, basically a precision auto. The Lightning Gun and Focus Rifle are exactly this, and imo how auto weapons should be done. The real problem with it in Reach is that it runs out of charge way too slowly, thing lasts for ages. I understand that MLG would have been quite likely to use it if it weren't for the charge issue, and if Bungie had just given us the option to alter starting charge like we can with ammo on human weapons then it wouldn't even have been an issue. But yeah, it's not a great sniper type weapon. The disparity between ranged and close range combat in a console, aim assisted shooter is too great imo, so the most effective use of the FR is as a close range face burning weapon. For this purpose I absolutely love it. I've pulled off some pretty sweet multikills by switching to the FR, turning round and burning an enemy's face off whilst I was one shot. The graphical effects make it really disorienting, and the fact that it's so rarely used means people seem to expect it less, especially in those situations. Still, if you do choose to use it as a sniper type weapon then it's a beastly assist machine.
I was actually hoping that some of the 1v1 maps would take advantage of the focus rifle as a power weapon, but no luck so far. It can completely suck if you can't stay on target with it, but if you know how to use it, like you said, it's beastly. The Focus Rifle and the Grenade Launcher are power weapons that take skill to use, the best kind for smaller situations imo.
Yeah same. The main problem is that the high ammo issue becomes even worse in 1v1. Power weapon control is such a huge deal in 1v1s anyway, giving someone an advantage which lasts that long is just really tricky to balance. Still, with the prevalence of over-ammo'd Snipers on 1v1 maps I would have thought an FR wouldn't be too overbearing on them. Or you could just play my duel gametype with forced Elites, infinite evade and bottomless clip FRs and CRs as starting weapons .
Tbh, I never really felt like the rifle had too much ammo in it. It feels comparable to the human sniper rifle in terms of skill and kills. If you're good with it, you miss a lot less, and can get a lot more kills with less ammo. Same with the Sniper. I don't know though, I wasn't always the most competitive minded player in reach, so I'll have to take your word on the large-clip issue.
The problem with the Focus Rifle is that it kills too slow and overheats too fast. For a power weapon it isn't exactly powerful. Kinda wish the Light Rifle would end up like this. Make it a bit easier to aim at mid-range and reduce the scope to whatever the BR has and you're done. Right now it's pretty just a DMR and BR combined into one weapon. Regarding the Concussion Rifle: I'm a much bigger fan of the Brute Shot. Fighting against the Conc Rifle is annoying more than anything. You get thrown around and your screen shakes furiously after each impact, not exactly enjoyable to me. The Brute Shot didn't have these features which made it a lot more fun to fight against. I never really got why they replaced it with the Conc Rifle in the first place.
Yeah on paper it doesn't seem too bad, but I ran a couple of MLG setting games with it included early on and and even a decent player just hangs on to it for aaaaaages. 70-75% of the clip size would be better imo.
Hard to say, but Bungie has never seemed to be satisfied in this category of weapon. The brute shot in Halo 3 behaves very differently from the Halo 2 incarnation, which is more useful for bouncing shots off flat surfaces. In Reach they seemed to bifurcate the weapon into both the concussion rifle (more similar to the H3 brute shot) and the grenade launcher (more similar to the H2 brute shot, but with some neat new properties like the EMP and manually-controlled detonation). Personally I think the annoyance factor of the concussion rifle is part of its charm - in my mind, there's nothing wrong with a weapon that has annoying its victim temporarily as an attribute. Or at least not if you go by the rest of the weapon set, which has featured, in chronological order, all the plasma weapons in CE (freeze effect = super annoying); the sentinel beam in H2 (predecessor to the focus rifle in behavior and visual feedback to the target); the grav hammer in H3 and Reach (throws you around when it doesn't insta-kill you); the fuel rod gun in H3 and Reach (throws you around when it doesn't insta-kill you); and the focus rifle in Reach (visually annoying and hard to fight through). On top of which getting killed by any power weapon is never exactly fun, though it's annoying for a shorter period of time as a general rule. You don't want weapons that just suck fun out of the game, but I wouldn't characterize the concussion rifle that way. Also, the concussion rifle is truly great for minigames - to name just one example it's better for rocket race than the rocket launcher is, IMO.
Didn't the Focus Rifle used to be super powerful during the Beta? I remember it tearing **** up on Powerhouse. And I think the CR was a neat weapon, but a bit less shaking of the victim's camera would be nice. I'd like to see what I'm doing. Getting thrown around I understand; that's part of the gun. I think a blind and stun effect together is just mean.
I really wish of all weapons to come back, the silenced smg from odst would've come back. It was different than any other automatic weapon. It worked to my playstyle wonderfully.
the limit of weapons is actually why I like halo, they force you to try new weapons, instead of you running for the same gun over and over. You would try it, and it might be awkward, but after a while, you could turn it into a truly devastating weapon. adding to this is allowing the smaller set of weapons to be balanced. it is hard to balance 40+ guns well, so limiting that would result in better, and more diverse gameplay.
? he said he wanted them to bring back the ODST smg the most, i dont really understand what youre trying to say in regards to that...
oh i see. im pretty happy with the weapons they brought back. the only one i really care about not returning is the focus rifle. call me crazy, but i never cared much for the GL, even after i got pretty good with it. although that silenced smg would be pretty awesome in MM
New gametype Dominion looks pretty sweet. Its like territoies, but your bases fortify the longer you hold them. Turrets pop up after a while and weapon and vehicle drops.. and new map Solace looks awesome. It looked symmetrical, kind of the same look of Haven, but with more nature.
New map: Solace - Symmetrical forerunner style map. New Gametype: Dominion - The point of the game mode is to capture a base and as the game progresses your base fortifies and you get weapon drops allowing you to keep hold of your base. As far as I've been able to tell... it's Territories + Invasion Slayer.
I didn't care for any of the new reach weapons, except for the DMR. I'd rather they create new ones rather than re-use old ones anyway.