BS Angel first addresses two questions:
Is she a girl?
What do you do all day?
Next she goes on to expound upon the first question by talking about last weekend’s AGL tournament in Nashville.
This next part however is the real “MEAT” of the bulletin, so I’m going to repost that section here:
Current State of Weapon Tuning
Touching any part of a game, regardless of how insignificant it may seem, is a risky, complicated and lengthy undertaking. We often don’t divulge the minute details of the process, simply because it’s tedious and, quite frankly, boring. We know there’s a large amount of interest in the upcoming weapon tune update, however (yes, we read the forums!), so we wanted to invite you into this process so you can get a glimpse behind the curtain and a head start on providing feedback. The cracking open of this door started last week when we shared our basic goals in regard to weapon tuning. Today we’re opening it even further by discussing the progress that was made last week.
As you read today’s update (and the rest that are coming), I ask you to remember that everything is subject to change. One of the facts of shipping games and updates is that until it’s out the door and in the wild, changes, both big and small, happen for a variety of reasons. We anticipate going through several waves of iteration and even more waves of testing before landing on our final design. So below is where we are today but not necessarily where we will be tomorrow.
TL;DR: The below tweaks are nowhere near final. In fact, they are as far from final as they can be without being not final. Please recognize this is a work-in-progress, we will clearly communicate our final plan once we know it, and until then, we’ll provide weekly updates about its current status.
With that out of the way, we’re now going to take you through the past seven days of Halo 4 weapon tuning efforts.
More news on overall weapon balance. We have been actively tweaking, tuning and testing the weapons in the Halo 4 sandbox, and we’re now at the point where we can share some of the details with you. We sat down with Quinn, a fellow member of the Matchmaking Systems Team, to get an update on these particular efforts, and the following details the progress we’ve made since last week. Please note these details are not final, and we’ll once again provide an update on the current status of the weapon tuning efforts next week.
As you may have guessed, the first area that we felt the need to tackle was primary weapons, specifically the precision rifles. There are two schools of thought with rifle balance: One suggests that we should reduce the power of the DMR, and the other suggests that alternate weapons should be bumped up to balance out the sandbox. Both things being said, there can be a middle ground. Looking at the DMR, we currently feel that the kill time should remain unchanged, as the weapon has become a clear favorite amongst the community due to its reliability and consistency. So tuning the Battle Rifle, LightRifle and Carbine against this weapon presented quite a challenge. Here are the tweaks that have currently been made, and the challenges associated with each.
Battle Rifle
Right now, we feel that the mid-range role of this weapon is undermined by the strength of the DMR. To combat this, we are looking at decreasing the kill time for the Battle Rifle through various tweaks. This means testing a “4-shot BR” (currently, the Battle Rifle takes 5 bursts to kill) with a reduced rate of fire, though these changes are not final.
HFFL: I know people like the idea of the 4-shot BR kill coming back. When you read below though how much change had to be done to other weapons to accommodate that it just seems like it would have been easier to keep it as is. Alas, 343 has heard your pleas though and will be changing the BR to reflect previous Halo title kill shot numbers for the BR.
LightRifle
At this time, we have adjusted the range at which the reticle turns red to match the DMR.
HFFL: This is weapon I wish would have more change. If it required just one less shot or you could shoot it slightly faster, then it would easily rival that of the DMR. I’ll certainly be commenting in the official Waypoint feedback thread asking for this.
Carbine
The Carbine has been adjusted to take one less shot to kill, bringing it to a 7-shot kill. This change was applied because we felt that players who used this weapon and took the time to become skilled with it were not rewarded due to the weapon’s kill time.
HFFL: Ah finally. Too bad I’ve already “mastered” the weapon in Halo 4. Still making this change means for me, I won’t be so apprehensive to pick it up again.
Waypoint: These changes have sped up the kill times of some of these weapons, which will provide a faster overall Halo 4 competitive War Games experience. The above tweaks have also led to the need to adjust the automatic weapons, which would likely be beaten at even the closest of ranges if tuning ended with the above changes. As a result, the Assault Rifle, Suppressor and Storm Rifle have all received a slight damage buff along with an auto-aim decrease that requires players to be more accurate than they would have previously. This means that while these automatics will be slightly more deadly at close range, they will require that players are more accurate.
HFFL: I’m glad to see the three auto class rifles getting upgrades to damage. I use these mostly in close-quarter combat scenarios anyway, so the auto-aim nerfing isn’t going to affect me so much.
Waypoint: Lastly, as we’ve mentioned in the past, we understand the need for viable and effective vehicles in Halo multiplayer, and as a result, we’re looking at bumping up the damage on both the Warthog and the Mantis chain gun. This is not the extent of our tuning, and we are actively investigating tweaks to additional weapons, such as an aim-assist decrease on the Beam Rifle.
HFFL: Hmm, ya know, how about added the amount of damage vehicles can take? This is one thing that really needs to happen. How vehicles 500 years from now can’t take more damage..especially when then could in previous Halo titles… Seriously, it’s one reason why drivers are so much more apprehensive to getting into vehicles now. While it’s not unheard of to drive someone to a perfection, it’s certain MUCH decreased when in comparison to previous Halo titles.
The Plasma Pistol IMO is the weapon that needs nerfed. How it can so easily power down vehicles is amazing. Okay so one overcharged blast to a ghost/mongoose should power that down. However, as vehicles get bigger, they should take more powered up plasma blast to power the vehicles down. I think it should be two for the warthog/banshee, 3 for the scorpion/wraith. Then at least it would take a team effort to take down those vehicles, instead of one person being able to do so. That was something relatively unheard of in previous Halo titles. The Scorpion just can’t PWN anymore. Also, while I’m talking about this… It’s not just the plasma pistol, but the fact that anyone can spawn with two sticky nades. That combo just about KILLS any fun for vehicle drivers/gunners.
I know it’s too late to make changes to that as stickies are part of people’s loadouts. I can only hope this is taken into account for Halo 5, OR a NEW competitive playlist in Halo 4.
Waypoint: If you’d like to leave your thoughts and opinions about this update, head to the ‘Discuss’ link at the bottom of this page, orjoin the discussion over in the Weapons Feedback thread in the War Games Feedback section. We’ll continue to monitor the forums as we test and tweak these changes, and once they go live, we’ll be looking for and reacting to feedback to ensure that the weapon tune provides optimal experiences across all of Halo 4’s game modes and playlists.
HFFL: Following the above section is the weekly playlist updates. Regicide gets an overhaul. Griffball gets some changes. One of which I’d like to point out. It’s the use of Safe and/or Kill Zones as visual aids (when their attributes are reset). To find out how to do that go
HERE. You can bet I’ll be looking to utilize this is some other fashion on maps.
Waypoint: Multi-team slayer games get bumped from 300 points to 500 points.
HFFL: That’s a change I’m whole heartedly behind! Also, Join-In-Progress looks like it’s going to be addressed further. THANK GAWD! (This is one thing about Halo 4 that I absolutely HATE. I know some people like it. I just wish 343 would have given US the option to turn it off for ourselves and/or our party if we are the party leader. I really hate joining games in progress… The UNSC themed Ford Raptor is shown. Wow, is it awesome!
And finally, BS Angel posts a Screenshot Spotlight on Griffball pics.
-Sal
Ooh, there are some goodies in this week’s Bulletin.
Here is nearly the same as the first pic, but a little higher up and turned almost 180. The island on the left has some of the “anvil” type islands attached to it, or very near it. The big island to the right is the same as the other island with some minor derivations. The size is a bit smaller and the texture shaded differently. However, since their orientation to the 3 “Great Anvil” islands of Forge Island themselves are different, these far off islands appear to be different somewhat when view from the normal map level.
Finally, there is one of these same islands further off and MUCH MUCH bigger. So much so that it follows the curvature of Requiem. I’m calling this island, “Epic Island.” It’s quite beautiful. (Click to make bigger)
