The Focus Rifle is not supposed to be an "equivalent" to the Sniper Rifle, it's supposed to be a unique gun that fills a specific niche. Equivalent weapons are unnecessary. Even though I suck at sniping, it is fun to just walk up to people and blast the Focus Rifle and yell "OH HAI DERR!!!" And it's an interesting suppression weapon; whereas the Beam Rifle felt...wimpy. It overheated a bit too fast and, idk, whenever I picked it up I just lost my ability to aim. Maybe it's a psychological thing because the crosshair was so tiny.
while the focus rifle is badass, i will miss beam rifle. i'm gonna have to vote for the focus rifle though. :ninja:
The focus rifle is not a sniper rifle. Just because people have put high power scopes on heavy machine guns and used them at long range doesn't make them sniper rifles. The whole theory behind a sniper rifle is to line up a kill shot, fire, and repeat, at a range where the threat from the target is negligable. Typically the rifle will be aimed correctly only for the moment needed to fire. Aiming at the target continuously as with the focus rifle is not at all part of sniping.
I agree with you that it's technically not a sniper rifle, but if it's not supposed to be the covenant sniper then why did they take away the Beam Rifle?
I really like the Focus Rifle when playing the beta, especially when shooting some guy in the air it looks awesome how they die
I'm wit you dude i think the Focus Rifle is complete garbage. its just dumb how could it be a snipr weapon if it shoots a constant beam? its just not the same. they coulda had a much more badass idea. better than the beam rifle too.
Are you kidding me? Equivalent weapons are completely necessary. As it was in the Beta, let's see if I can remember what the weapons were by round... Rd 1 Pistols, ARs, and DMRs vs Plasma Pistols, Plasma Rifles, and Needlers. If Spartans can keep their distance, they have the clear advantage. If the battle is more mid to close range, it switches to favoring the Coveys... especially if the Coveys pair up a Plasma Pistol with either of the other two. Rd 2 I believe it was : DMRs, Shotguns, ARs, Pistols vs Needle Rifles, Swords, Needlers, and Plasma Pistols with access to Sniper Rifles, Focus Rifles, Rocket Launchers, and Plasma Launchers Long and mid range battles went to the Coveys. Spartans owned the short range battles every time because the shotgun was significantly superior to the sword. Rd 3 Grenade Launchers, Shotguns, ARs, and DMRs vs Needle Rifles, Needlers, Plasma Rifles, and Swords Again... Long range battles went to Coveys, while short ranged and especially close quarters battles went to the Spartans. In Invasion games, if the Spartans managed to keep the power core inside the building for the first 30 seconds, all they had to do was loadout with shotguns and grenade launchers and guard the closest exit. If the Coveys managed to get the power core outside the building immediately after the 3rd round started, they had a significantly better chance of being victorious because they could needle rifle all the shotguns and grenade launchers making them pretty much ineffective.
I think they removed it because getting one shotted in campaign is really bad for the game. To give the elites no sniper in invasion is really a mistake though.
Since Bungie took it out of the game, I get the feeling that they wanted a new weapon that was pretty effective at long range, and pretty effective at short range, but not exceptional at either. I guess it all goes back to Bungie's attempt at balance?
During the beta I hated the focus rifle, it felt really weak and it seemed like I wasn't even getting kills before it overheated with a continuous blast, which pissed me off to no end but maybe I just suck with it. The beam rifle sucked to in my opinion, so I only picked it up to YY with it in Team Snipers and I never really got kills with it so I couldn't care less about the beam rifle being replaced with an equally terrible weapon I'll never use.
I think that that focus rifle and sniper rifle are balanced. Sniper rifle is better than focus rifle at long range and focus rifle is better than sniper rifle at short range.
I personally like the focus rifle better. The beam rifle just felt cheap and because of the quick overheating, useless. The focus rifle also takes more skill to use at long and close range.
And therein lies the problem. Although lack of real sniper might be nice in campaign the elites have no extreme long range weapon. Giving elites human sniper rifles for invasion will just not seem right.
Focus rifle is still really powerful weapon at long range, it just takes bit longer to kill and you can't headshot with it.
Yes but the point of a sniper is to take a quick, accurate shot and move on, commonly usually described as "boom headshot." The sniper rifle need only quickly pass over the enemy's head momentarily while the focus rifle requires following the target. Like the needler, the focus rifle really does not match anything; it's like a novelty weapon.
So you would perfer the beam rifle? I think the game is more fun when every weapon is different, it's more fun to have two different weapons that perform slightly different roles than to have a replica just for balance.
Yeah, that is why it's great. Bungie made a long range weapon that isn't ordinary sniper rifle. I hated beam rifle, cause it was just like the sniper rifle, only instead of magazine it had overheat. But sniper rifle and focus rifle are completely different weapons.
In one of the recent articles (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=261725) they mentioned something that makes the beam rifle sound a bit different than it was in the beta. sounds pretty cool.