SpaceWolf4

Quit being a fanboy. Both consoles have great exclusives and have their ups and downs.

From my experience with the weapon, I personally think the Light Rifle is fine. It's a 4 shot kill in scope, which makes it the most powerful utility weapon in the game (again as long as you're scoped in with it). I don't have much kills with it, but I've simply put that down to me not being skilled enough with it and I will get more kills with it as I get better at aiming with the weapon. As for the comment on removing the DMR from SWAT... Personally, I don't think that's necessary. Plus, I tend to have more fun using the DMR in SWAT than I do with the BR (although it's the other way around for standard gametypes). The DMR also seems fairly balanced in SWAT gametypes. I tend to find myself getting killed by the BR more than anything else when playing SWAT. Not like discussing what should and should not be in SWAT matters, though. The playlist is going to be removed next week.

I’ve seen weapons nerfed in Halo before, and it’s not pretty. The Focus Rifle in Reach and the Trip Mine in Halo 3 are prime examples of why we should fear the word “nerf” when it comes to Halo’s weapons and gadgets. But obviously weapons can’t go for the rest of the game’s lifespan unbalanced, so something has to be done about them (just not the nerfs that I’ve seen). So far, I’ve encountered 3 things that need balancing out a bit in Halo 4. Now, I’ve been gaming for years and have been playing Halo since Halo CE back in 2001, and I am confident that my solutions will not nerf these weapons up to the point of uselessness. 1. Boltshot. I’ve recently had the displeasure of facing someone that has used nothing but this weapon throughout the entire match. I don’t even think the Scattershot or Shotgun would have been able to kill me at the range that he killed me from. Now, the standard shots on the Boltshot are headshot capable, so that gave me an idea… Solution: 343i should lower the damage slightly on the Boltshot’s charged shots so it just takes down shields rather than instantly kills people. People would still be able to kill enemies with the Boltshot, because as I’ve said, the standard shots are headshot capable, so you’d just charge up your Boltshot, fire it at someone to take down their shields, then aim for the head. This not only maintains the Boltshot’s effectiveness (as well as requiring a bit more skill to use), but also gives players on the receiving end of its deadly fury a small reaction gap by perhaps a second or so. Now, you might be thinking a second isn’t a long time, but trust me when I say it goes a long way in Halo. 2. DMR. Yes, it is overpowered. But no where near what people have been claiming it to be. It’s only slightly overpowered, and that’s only because it’s dominating in ranges that it’s not supposed to be dominating in. It’s supposed to be a long range weapon, beaten in range by nothing else but the Sniper Rifle (and its counterparts). In shorter ranges, the Battle Rifle (and Covenant Carbine) is supposed to win against the DMR, but the DMR appears to be winning most of the time unless shots are missed. So how do we fix this? Solution: This one is rather simple, actually. The DMR is only dominating because of its firing rate. It can fire as fast as the user can pull the trigger, and that I think is where the problem lies. Lowering the rate of fire ever so slightly gives the Battle Rifle a fighting chance in shorter ranges, while the DMR still keeps its effectiveness in longer ranges. Once again, the lowering of firing rate on the DMR will only give BR users just under a second or so of extra time in combat, but as I’ve said before, that time goes a long way in Halo. 3. Active Camouflage. Ah, the camper’s true love, this one. Basically, the camo is more effective when you’re not moving around so much. This is where I think the problem lies. It promotes camping and overshadows a lot of other Armour Abilities because of this. So, how do we fix it? We need only look to the past… Solution: …Because we already have the ideal Active Camouflage in Halo 2! Remember the Arbiter levels? Remember the Active Camouflage you could use in them? That’s our balanced Active Camo right there. A short burst of semi-invisibility, lasted around 15 seconds or so and you could move around as fast as you wanted without revealing yourself. The cool-down period was about 20 seconds, although I think it varied depending on what difficulty you were playing on. But let’s say around 20 seconds, because that seems pretty balanced to me. Oh, and if you fired your weapon or performed a melee attack, the Active Camo would deactivate and you’d have to wait for the cool-down period to end before you could use it again. Ah, but you’ll probably think that you won’t have enough time to kill someone within 15 seconds. Well, it was more than enough time to use it effectively on Halo 2, even on Legendary. As I’ve said before, that ti- ah, screw it. You already know what I’m going to say. So those are my solutions. Again, I’m just using my experience as both a gamer and a long time Halo fan to come up with these ideas. I don’t really know what you guys and gals think of them, but hopefully you’ll find them reasonably effective at balancing out Halo 4. Thanks for reading!

Yes, the Boltshot is overpowered. I've recently had the displeasure of facing someone using that weapon multiple times and I don't even think I could be killed with a Scattershot or Shotgun from the range the Boltshot killed me at. There's an easy fix for this, just make the Boltshot's charged shot take down shields rather than a one shot kill. The weapon is headshot capable so it's not like it'll be nerfed to uselessness. You'll just need to get a headshot to earn a kill, which will make the Boltshot take a bit more skill to use effectively.

I just think the 10 min penalty needs to return, to be honest. We don't need anything drastic if you ask me. The 10 min suspension should be enough to stop habitual quitters. Having quit bans isn't going to stop people from quitting. We have laws against downloading music, yet thousands of people still do it on a regular basis. As for how it affects me, people quitting in Halo 4 doesn't bother me as much as it did in previous games, mainly because of JIP (which means I can finally play through a BTB game and not worry about it becoming 2v2 woo!). Still, I can understand players quitting can still be a bit of an annoyance. Especially when they get replaced by people who charge in and hand the enemy team kills on a silver platter. I will say this however. The lack of maps isn't really helping, at least from my experience anyway. Even I've quit when Haven has been voted for the 100th time, and it's very rare that I quit matches in Halo.

The Carbine hasn't been nerfed from what I can tell. The game is probably just matching you up against people who are equal to your skill now. I know this because I too was kicking ass with the Carbine last week and now I'm having difficulties.

I agree. Although I think the community would be in much better shape if 343i introduced a Classic playlist. At least then, both the people who wanted the change and the people who wanted the classic gameplay would be happy, which would from my experience with the community would make the majority of fans happy.

This is perhaps the best detailed review of Halo 4's multiplayer I've seen yet. Good job. Also, I'd like to add that Social and Ranked didn't have much difference in Halo 3. The only difference was that your rank was displayed in ranked, but TrueSkill still worked behind the scenes in Social. This is how it is for almost every Xbox 360 game that has a matchmaking system. Active Camo is too powerful for campers, yeah. IMO, Halo 2 got it right when they added Active Camo for the Arbiter. A short burst of camo that deactivated if you performed a melee or fired your weapon, and had a 20 - 30 second cool down (if I remember correctly).

It's funny you should mention the whole lag thing, because the same thing used to happen to me all the time in Halo 3. People blamed my connection, but I knew it wasn't since I have 50 down and 5 up - not to mention that I haven't played any other game that was as bad. It's just how the Halo games are from the look of things. Even Halo 2 suffered from lag in some cases. In my opinion, Reach had the best netcoding. It rarely lagged for me in that game, and shots almost always registered. I think all the Halo 4 servers need is a bit of an update now that we have a bit of a consistent population, rather than it jumping from a few hundred thousand to a million during the first couple of days or so during the game's release. As for the changes, I don't really care what they do to change the game. I personally liked some of the changes. Loadouts need some work done, but they have potential to be "Halo". I think as long as ways of accessing the classic Halo gameplay are there, the community would be happy enough. This is probably where 343i messed up the most, because there is a huge lack in Custom Game options when compared to both Halo 3 and Reach, not to mention that there aren't any classic playlists. We have Slayer Pro, but from my experience that's more similar to Infinity Slayer than Classic Slayer. What I do like however is that 343i made a decision that Bungie didn't make with Reach, and ultimately left a lot of fans disappointed: Having the BR and DMR in the same game. Bungie were so self-convinced that the DMR was going to work well as a replacement for the BR that they didn't include the BR in case if they needed a weapon to fall back on in future playlist updates should the DMR and Needle Rifle not meet fans' expectations. This tore the community in half, as half were happy with the DMR and the other half wanted the BR back. Of course, the solution to that problem is to have both weapons in the game, which is exactly what 343i have done. It's just a shame that there are some minor balance issues, but I suspect that it's nothing that can't be fixed through a title update.

I don't really care what they do to change Halo, personally. So long as they have classic playlists from the start, which 343i didn't do. If they had classic playlists from launch, I can guarantee that half of the complaining would have gone away, since people would still have access to their core Halo gameplay. What I do like however is the fact that 343i gave us both the BR and DMR. It's something Bungie should have done with Reach, to be honest. Sadly, when I said it was what they should have done, I was in the minority because at the time, the Bungie forums were full of BR haters.

I used to hate Regicide but now it's growing on me. However, it shouldn't get the amount of challenges that it has been getting. I'm starting to prefer the Reach challenges which weren't game specific, to be honest.

Is this a preference poll or a "which weapon is more powerful" poll? If it's a preference poll, both. I like what 343i have done here. Including both weapons is a huge bonus for me, as DMRs are more fun to use in SWAT, and BRs are more fun to use in standard gametypes. The DMR has a slight advantage over the BR in terms of weapon power, though.

He was 41 during Halo CE - 3, so in Halo 4 he'd be 45.

It's like I said on another thread, the Infinity is basically a Spartan training centre, there's no need for ODSTs. Although the armour is cool, and I wish we got it in Halo 4.

1. Mark V 2. ODST 3. Mark IV Grenadier 4. Halo 3 Rogue (call it 1st Gen Rogue or something so it's not to be confused with H4 Rogue, or a new name altogether) 5. Security (don't mind which one, I liked them both although I'm leaning more towards the Reach one) 6. Mark V 7. CQB 8. Military Police

If the BR was to get a buff, or the DMR a nerf, then it should only be a slight one. Anything significant would either make the BR too powerful, or make the DMR too weak. That is the problem, I think. All 343i need to do is slightly decrease the firing rate of the DMR and the BR would be able to beat it in shorter ranges, while the DMR could maintain its long range effectiveness.

I would love for the SMG to return, but a lot of people would start worrying about the weapon sandbox getting overcrowded. Don't get me wrong, I love having more weapons to play with in an FPS, but I know that a lot of people don't think this way. I'm a little shocked that people didn't get worried over the BR and DMR being in the same game, to be honest. As for the ODSTs, the Infinity probably doesn't have ODSTs on board. It's basically a big Spartan training center, there isn't really a need for ODSTs to be honest.

I'm a Halo 'veteran', but new to these forums though.