I've been hearing a lot of complaints about recent Sandbox map submissions. The maps are nice to look at, and they are well built, but the gameplay always feels so dry. Like a cat slept in your mouth kind of dry. I looked at the more recent submissions (10 pages back. Yes, I was bored today because I was off work) and noticed a bit of a trend. Almost every single one of these maps has 8 or more Battle Rifles. This is absolutely ludicrous, most times the Battle Rifles make up more than half the map's weapon total. I have several problems with this. 1. First of all, if you want everyone to have a Battle Rifle, put BR starts. This prevents spawn-killing. If there is almost enough Battle Rifles for everyone just laying around, you're all shooting eachother, basically it's all fun and games, until someone dies. Then they spawn with a piece of **** weapon and cannot defend themselves properly. Let me say when this happens it is absolutely retarded. When you die in a first person shooter, you are punished by having your weapons and equipment taken from you and you have to start over after a set time penalty. You should not be further penalized by having to start with a weapon with which you are incapable of defending yourself with. When 9/10 players have a Battle Rifle, and one guy is running around with an Assault Rifle, there is no way he is going to get kills. He is going to get gunned down easily, and on the off chance he manages to get close to killing someone, God knows some asshole is going to headshot his shieldless victim and then finish him off for an easy double kill. 2. The Battle Rifle is a very powerful weapon and should be treated as such. By making the Battle Rifle semi-rare, such as having two in a small map, and four to six in a very large map, the game will still have plenty of viable tactics and strategies with which a player can achieve victory. When everyone has a Battle Rifle, you have no choice but to gear up and grab one for yourself, either that, or camp behind some corner with a Shitgun like a total noob. Halo's weaponry is split into three distinct camps. You have the long-range weaponry (sniper rifles and beam rifles), the medium-range weapons (BR, Carbine, and maybe the Magnum). Then all the other weapons fall into the close-range category, which is basically a nice way of saying they can't hit anything outside 10 feet. When the Battle Rifle is so abundant, you immediately render all of the close-range weapons obsolete, because a smart BR user can keep his distance and pick his opponent off with relative ease. The only worry he has is maybe the odd spike, bullet or plasma blob somehow sneaking outside the magical 10 foot bubble. Long-range weapons are more difficult to use effectively as well, thanks to the Battle Rifle's ability to ping scoped in Snipers with it's fairly accurate burst. This forces all but the most skillful and tenacious snipers to give up and grab a Battle Rifle, adding to our problem. 3. Most of these Sandbox maps are very ill-prepared to handle a Battle Rifle firefight of this magnitude. Many have small corridors and huge barren spaces that make the fighting boring and repetitive. When you have tiny corridors, there is no where to strafe so it basically comes down to who pulled the trigger first, as well as the damn RNG. Wide open spaces means no cover, and eventually players catch on to this and refuse to venture outside. Anyone brave enough to go into the open gets a nice helping of bullet bukkake. This basically ensures matches degrade into taking pot shots at one another from the safety of your bases, which I'm sure we all agree isn't exactly thrilling to play. ______________________________________________ Go back and check out any Halo 2 map. There is a maximum of FOUR Battle Rifles on the very largest maps. Most have TWO. Fewer Battle Rifles ensures that the Battle Rifle is accessible but somewhat limited, so not everyone can have one. This encourages other strategies such as dual-wielding, sniping, close-quarters combat and more. By over-saturating the map with Battle Rifles you are suffocating other styles of play and making the game very repetitive. Battle Rifles are very fun... to a point. When every single goddamn match is just Battle Rifles Battle Rifles Battle Rifles it doesn't matter who's map your playing on, it will be the same old tired gameplay that you get on nearly every Forgehub map posted in the last month. If your map desperately needs mid-range combat options, put some Carbines and Magnums on the map in high-traffic areas as well as a couple Battle Rifles at strategic locations. The Carbine is actually a bit more effective than the Battle Rifle and fits in nicely with the Sandbox theme. The Covenant alternative will at the very least add a different mood with it's unique sound and lime green tracers. The Magnum has the same rate of fire as a Battle Rifle but takes five shots to kill and has no scope. This makes it a poor man's BR of sorts. You can make the Magnum common and easy to find and it can help fill the void in mid-range combat that the reduced amount of Battle Rifles creates. However, the Magnum will not easily outclass other weapon alternatives. Plus Magnums are badass. If you want exclusively Battle Rifles on your map go post it in the MLG forum. You can have a competitive map with other weapons too you know. /RANT
I agree. My mate was showing me a map yesterday, and i'm not kidding, this was the wep. list. 2 Plasma rifles. 1 Rockets 2 magnums 16 BRs. BLOODY SIXTEEN. Too many. On my map, Impossibility it has 2 carbines & 2 brs. It's a very small map, but because it's very high, they are needed. EDIT: I realised near the end of your post, you mentioned MLG. MLG know nothing BUT Br's and sniper. They are good players, I'll give em that, but they need to have a variation in map design and weapon use. Remember 90% of the foundry MLG maps? They were interlocked pieces of cheese with a base at one end and another base in the other end. Even the matchmaking maps are like that.
Magnum can work at long range, so can BR and carbine, Splaser and Rocket Launcher. It's pretty much either Long range or Short range: Long Range Sentinel Beam Sniper Rifle Magnum (Sort of) Beam Rifle Battle Rifle All types of Grenade. Some types of Turret Needler Plasma Pistol (Works at long range) Brute Shot (Works at long range) Rocket Launcher Spartan Laser Short Range Assault Rifle Flamethrower SMG Gravity Hammer Energy Sword Shotgun There isn't really any Medium range, it's just very hard too use things like grenades and turrets at long range.
I agree with you, the BR is overrated when it comes to maps. Map makers should think of the maps that Bungie created, and what they feature. Maybe a basic styled map with two bases, like The Pit, Valhalla, or Narrows, or a map like Construct, High Ground, or Ghost Town, maybe even Sandtrap. All of these maps have two things in common - balance and variety. They don't have too much of anything, although it may seem that they put too many BRs on the map because everyone uses it, its an all around weapon. They also have different weapon types, for close range, and all the way to long range. Take Sandtrap for example. It's a vehicle based map, but trip mines, rocket launchers, brute shots, gravity hammers, and plasma grenades spawn to help balance the map out. That's a variety in weapons also. You can't put 16 BRs in a map, and have one rocket launcher in the middle, it has no variety, therefore making it boring. IF the map was a vehicle oriented map, it has no balance, which makes it unfair to the side that doesn't have the rockets. I'm pretty sure you get my point, I can explain further and in more detail, but I'm tired, and its too late to rant.
In games of infection, you can snipe zombies with zombies from the length/width of the map away, I can fire a brute shot grenade onto someone the length of sandbox away, and plasma pistol goes on for ever.
What a poorly constructed argument. Infact, most of your post is a poorly constructed argument. Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, but you reasons don't support your conclusion very well at all. Weapons like the BR are often set to a Run Time Max of 16 and palced at bases and middle ground. Quite often, on a map like this, nobody has far to go for one. Run Time Max of 16 means everyone can have one. A BR does not encourage spawn killing any more than any other weapon. Knowing where your enemies are going to spawn next requires logic, not a BR. I don't seek out the key spawn points on purpose, I do it sub conciously. I know that its logical for players to spawn away from their enemy and away from where they just died, so if I can't see any of the other team around, it makes sense to go to the other side of the map and look there. Nothing to do with a BR. 16 individual BRs on a map? A terrible idea and has never happened in any of Bungie's maps. However, even in Halo 2, the number which can be picked up is not equal to the number on the map. The Run Time Max of BRs is often equal to the recommended number of players, Run Time Max of all grenades is always 32. Go look at the default maps in Forge, I don't think any of the weapons or equipment have their Run Time Max equal to the Number of Map (other than the 4 Bubble Shields on Avalanche)
MLG is a tournament, tournaments are there to test players/teams skill not to test how much fun everyone can have. with the weapon pallet they use it makes the game as balanced as it possible can be and reduce the chances of luck while increasing skill. what are you taking about interlocked pieces of cheese? MLG maps are some of the most well made maps out there, remember there designed for COMPETATIVE gameplay. There are plenty of maps out there that are just played for fun but allot of people consider competative = fun. like i prefer all of the MLG maps over the Bungie maps because the weapon pallet is just garbage.
I say load the **** out of your map with Brs incase the dumb ass party leader thinks it's a good idea tohave AR starts.
BRs are so not l33t. Everyone knows that REAL Halo players use Flamethrowers and Plasma Rifles. I say make a map sans BR. I'm tired of one ****ing weapon causing people to mess themselves left and right. Down with BR.
I agree, I remember watching the FH vs Neir Prod. and they were on a forged map and all i saw was BRs. and Deaddraco I completely disagree with your weapon range list. the only effective long range weapons are the sniper and beam rifle and maybe spartan laser. the rest are better used at close-medium range.
Can people please avoid posting if all they have to say is "BR sucks" or "AR is for n00bs". This is not a flame war and I'd actually like more discussions in the Halo Discussion section, rather than annoying contradiction threads which this is verging on the brink of. I like AR starts, especially AR with Magnum as secondary starts, I don't feel put off from going to pick up other weapons like the spiker or plasma rifle. In BR starts I feel I won't stand a chance with any other weapon because the whole other team is going to scoped in on the "n00b with the spiker" (me). I like using other weapons and the AR is a great weapon to start with because its range isn't too short buts its not so powerful that everyone starts the game with insta-kill weapons. As for the Short-Mid-Long Range weapon list, the Halo 3 Guide (the book) has 6 groups of weapons. Shortest range first: Accuracy and damage inflicted are considered with with these ranges. A Sp. Laser for example, can basically shoot in a perfect line for as far you can see. Even though its scope is not a good as that on a Sniper Rifle, the damage it inflicts is constant for as far as it travels, that is why it is in the same group. The Sentinal Beam also travels for as far as the eye can see but its harder to aim at targets which are further away so will do less damage to them, its most effective at a similar distances to the SMG or Spiker. So yeah, I count 4 groups between Short and Long Range. Even if you do a bit of reshuffling of that list, you won't get the weapons represented accuratly with just "Short Range" and "Long Range" [Note: For some reason, the AR is not present in that list but I think its a safe bet to put it in list 2.]
1:the bruteshot doesnt fire forever,set up a dummy controller,and take a look. Use it at short range,with a blast/slash combo. 2:the plasma pistol doesnt either,set up a vehicle far away,set up a sniper rifle on the vehicle,dont move the cursor,swich weapons,and fire charge shot,the vehicle will not get emp'd.
I think you're missing my point. If everyone except the player spawning has a Battle Rifle already, then he's at a severe disadvantage as the Assault Rifle loses to the Battle Rifle except at awful range, and again, chances are someone will just fire a burst and headshot his weakened victim, then turn their gun on the AR user. If you have enough Battle Rifles on the map, yeah, you can spawn and then you're only vulnerable for the 5-10 seconds it takes to find and pick one up, but then why the hell don't you just have BR starts? Instead of having the player be disadvantaged as the only BR-less person for the first bit of his life, why not have everyone start with one and eliminate this disadvantage? Also, you're basically FORCING a player to go on a Battle Rifle fetch-quest, which isn't exactly how I like to spend the first minute after I spawn. I'd like to get straight into the action. When everyone else is kicking my ass with the Battle Rifle I do not have that option. I either grab a Battle Rifle or get pounded back into the stone age. AR + Magnum starts with 2-4 BRs per map is how it should be on small to medium sized maps. Larger maps should have BR starts recommended, but still have 4 BRs in the event that the AR + Magnum start is used. I actually prefer the AR + Magnum start for three reasons. 1. The Magnum satisfies the need to have a head-shot capable spawning weapon without being overpowered. This allows a spawning player to attack at range and also to defend themselves from other ranged users like Snipers and Battle Rifles to *some* degree. 2. The Assault Rifle allows the spawning player to defend against close ranged weapons like the SMG and Mauler while being versatile enough to attack targets slightly farther away if bursted. 3. Since you do not start with a Battle Rifle, not only is the weapon actually important due to it's difficulty to acquire, but it doesn't over-centralize gameplay by being ubiquitous. The Magnum and Assault Rifle allows a spawning player to defend themselves against a wide variety of targets (with the exception of certain power weapons like Rockets and Shotguns) so the Battle Rifle start is not needed. My apologies, I didn't mention the Laser, Fuel Rod Gun, Sentinel Beam Brute Shot or Rocket Launcher because they are largely considered power weapons (save for the brute shot which I honestly forgot) or aren't on any maps (sentinel beam). EDIT: I have found a Weapon Spawn Time chart for Halo 2. Not only are the Battle Rifles rarer, but they quite often have ridiculously longer respawn times. LINK Most notable are Midship, with respawn times of 1:30 for the Battle Rifles, and Burial Grounds. On Burial Grounds, the 4 Battle Rifles have respawn times of 0:15. HOWEVER, they are flagged as power weapons, and therefore do not respawn until they are dropped by a player. This means there is rarely more than 4 BRs as weapons disappear 30 seconds after being dropped, all but ensuring there will be only four players holding them.
Yeah. The AR is better for closer ranged combat because you pump more lead (assuming the bullets are still lead) into the other guy. Toadking07 posted a video that was put onto Machinima's youtube page and it showed AR vs. weapon x and the AR downright one from two and a half Warthog lengths away.
First of all I agree the BR is over used on almost all forge maps and secondly I think you made a typo
AR is one of the best close range weapons in the game, and all the "pro" players treat it like garbage because they can't use it right.