Suggestions for weapons having more defined roles + balance. Please comment and discuss.

[Lazycollinator]

It can be done, but its gonna take a lot of work, and its not just a game of numbers. Buff this damage, nerf this damage. There needs to be specialities to predator weapons.

As it stands right now, we have 5 melee weapons for pred. As far as I am concerned, No matter how much they nerf the combistick, it will be better than every other weapon because it can be THROWN.

So what do we do? I think its simple.

Elder sword, wider swings, make it the weapon for hitting multiple enemies at once.

Handheld Plasma caster, Buff damage a bit, so that it can down a fireteam member in 4-5 shots point blank, but slow its fire rate. Its effectively now a melee weapon that cant be parried. But at long range, it should be as piss poor as it is now.

War club, Slow the swings even more. Make it break parries, Slower swings means easier to dodge, Breakable parries and maybe a bit more damage means it will be good at punishing players that sit in a corner of a building.

Smart disc, Full rework. Pred shouldnt have to control it, Make it do its thing and try to return automatically, Leave damage piss poor. And if it hits something on the way back, let it get stuck as it does already.

Combistick, Remove the ability to hit multiple enemies. Its effectively a spear, not a double bladed lightsaber, Make it excel at single target DPS, but it is parryable as it is now, let it be thrown still.

Keep everything else exactly the same.

Boom predator weapons balanced.

As for fireteam weapons, I hate to say it, but those are as simple as damage buffs. Assault rifles and smgs need to be buffed. first two pistols too tbh. Snipers need to have any scopes below a 5x removed, force them to be used at range. Minigun needs tighter spread, GL should get impact grenades back.

(Copied from my comment on another post.)

Edit 1.

Down range perk, up to 5 perk points, make plasma caster charged shot one shot again. This will give the plasma caster power back to scouts and even hunters, but also force berzerkers to gimp themselves to use it

Edit 2

Smart Disc. I have completely changed my opinion on the smart disc over the past 5-6 hours, and I think that flying it is honestly fun. Heres my suggestion though.

Decrease the light trail it has, to make it a little more difficult to tell where it came from. Keep the default flight speed the same, but increase the boost significantly. Default speed for turns, boost for attack.

When a player is using the smart disc, and cloaked, make it so that even very close AI dont attack. Being attacked by random AI spawning on you, and losing control of the disc is frustrating. Even more so when you consider that I am cloaked, and not moving. There is no reason that AI should see me.

And finally, Remove the ability to destroy the smart disc. I have had several games now where I throw it, pop off plasma, and then it disappears. At first I thought it was a bug, but now I am fairly certain that the smart disc, if stuck in a wall, can be destroyed. Remove this please, as having to retrieve a thrown weapon is good enough, you dont need to take it from me like that.

[FattBrando]

I like where it’s going. Especially the war club. There needs to be more reason to use it. I love the idea of it, especially as a zerker. Charging in with a big meaty club barbarian style. If there were some inherent perks to the weapons beyond just better damage and speed it’d open up the playstyle a lot.

The disc is tricky. I like the idea of losing the controlled aspect. It’s currently really weird and wonky anyway. I guess the idea is the Predator can try to get some damage while remaining in cover but the thing can’t corner worth a damn. Let the “smart” part of it be an auto aim. Not unbeatable, but if well aimed it should adjust enough to make it difficult to dodge. And speed it up! Obviously the would need to be balanced so it’s not OP, but imagine tossing the disc out and then running at your target with the stick. Getting that damage boost from the disc and then wailing away. I much prefer a set it and forget it disc. This would be great for players who have trouble with aiming things like the bow, which I’ll be honest is still tricky for me. I’m getting better, but I don’t use it much because I just don’t like the way it feels.

Speaking of the bow, maybe I’m trash with it but I don’t get it. Seems super hard to hit anything with, and it slows the target if hit but…so what? Doesn’t seem like the effect is long enough to switch weapons and close the distance to take advantage of it. I suppose it’s mean to make it easier to hit the follow up? What if instead the damage was reduced and the slow remained until the player pulled the arrow out? Similar to the net gun but the could still shoot and parry, just there movement would be slowed until dealing with the arrow.

[Lazycollinator]

Thank you for your feedback man, you made some good points. Now assuming that the smart disc works how you just said, and is fire and forget, which is what I want too, It will have to be balanced with the combistick, as both are essentially the same type of weapon. I think its clear though from my balance perspective of the combistick.

Combistick does single target, good dps, but can be parried, It also Can be thrown, for significant damage, but gets stuck wherever it was thrown.

Smart disc, is only slightly better than the wrist blades in melee, and can still be parried, but when thrown, it does low damage, but the flight speed is faster, as well as the fact that it also returns to the user. Also make it automatically re equip when returned. Of course it can still get stuck if it hits something on the way back, but it should do its best to avoid that, rather than once hitting the target, immediately flying straight in the direction of pred. You could always make it fly back the way it came if its too complex otherwise from a dev standpoint to do.

The bow, As it stands, is very balanced. It is meant to be used in cloak, as it doesnt break your cloak. In most cases, it takes one charged shot + 1 or 2 Non charged shots (depending on the class of the target) to down. It is a high skill, but high stealth weapon. Beyond that, it can also take out a downed enemy it 4 quick shots roughly. That means in 7 shots, you can down and secure a kill. All from stealth if done perfectly. That means that you can take out 3 of the 4 fireteam members with the bow alone. But you have to pick up the ammo as you have 30 shots only, so retrieval is important. Its very well balanced, but in all honesty, if the aoe of the plasma caster isnt increased, then the plasma caster is nothing but a dollar store version of the bow that is worse, but no matter your loadout you always have it. and maybe thats a good thing. Im not sure yet about the plasma caster.

Edit:

Didnt read the last part entirely. I do agree that the slow is worthless, but I think that adding anything else to the bow will make it a bit too strong.

Also, the net gun is amazing, so I dont even need to comment on that. It does its job, if you are skilled enough to know when and where to shoot it.

[FattBrando]

Yeah, net gun good as is, also best counter to parry ninja masters.

[Fenris]

Think as of now the main way to counter it

[Lazycollinator]

Though honestly, if they did all of these balance changes as I suggest, there would be enough counters that you wouldnt NEED to run net gun anymore. It would be purely preference at that point. and thats what I expect from all games. True balance, is when your weapon selection is based on preference, not exploitation.

Edit

If they did do all of these changes, they could increase the damage of the netgun, that way it isnt outclassed by everything else, like most melee weapons are outclassed by the combistick to this day.

[FattBrando]

Only way to counter it lol. Parry stamina cost still needs to be higher. 2 parrys max before player is drained.

[Fenris]

Exactly my point XD

[WhiteKala78]

I disagree to an extent. I feel FT weapons are very flexible and work well, when it comes to buffing them, the loadout system needs to be reworked.

I’ve said it all over but some weapons should not be secondaries or have their extended clips (some not all)

If they don’t rework weapon attachments then make pistols the only secondary and work from there with buffs

As for the lesser used melee weapons on Predators, I think the hit detection should be cleaned up first then damage touch ups. Also why not throw them too? They can be?

No comment on the smart disc cause I will never touch that thing ever again. Escort it out MY options please lol

[Fenris]

Well the disc is useless XD

[WhiteKala78]

I hope they can add a shuriken style from AvP because that was sweet. I just wanna throw it. Pin an AI to the wall like the chick from AvPR

[Lazycollinator]

I will admit I dont play alot of FT, but I can tell you that I have always found everything besides the most powerful weapons, extremely underwhelming. Its too extreme! If I use snipers, I one shot literally everything, but if I use an assault rifle, I have to burn entire mags on some enemies, and when it comes shooting predator, I can speak, as a pred main, Assault rifles and smgs are like throwing literal pebbles.

That being said I agree with you fully, That the loadout system has some highly questionable choices. but I understand why it is the way it is. Aside from the minigun, I am fine with shotguns and smgs being secondaries with the pistols.

I would make the minigun more accurate, and increase its mag size, but otherwise leave its slow movement speed and spin up time the same. Then I would move it to the “special” category for primary.

Hit detection isnt the problem for melee, At least not in my opinion. In my opinion its in fact the targetting system itself that is the issue. But that can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

In terms of most melee weapons, it is horrendus, And needs a tune up. But in the case of my suggestion of the war club, having the slower animation would work with its primary use, and make it easily dodgeable. Which would be Sort of the point.

The smart disc is a rough spot in my heart. I want so much to use it and love it, but as it is, I cant, and I have yet to see anyone make good use of it, except in footage from the trial when it was broken, and no one knew really what they were doing. The suggested change to the smart disc would make it a really interesting weapon. Though I respect that your distaste for it is so strong that you wont touch it ever again, not everyone feels that way.

That being said, Of course I do want a smoother experience. But I EXPECT that these things get touched up, and smoothed out. I dont want to tell the devs how to make things work perfectly, that is why they are devs and I am not.But when it comes to giving weapons a purpose, which clearly they severely lack currently, That is the point of this post.

[Fenris]

That would be pretty cool but how long till that would be nerfed?

[WhiteKala78]

If it’s a smart disc? Never because no one will use it.

If its a throwable that comes back? Depends on how fast it leaves and comes back.

If its throw then pick up? It probably won’t see much play outside Scouts.

[Lazycollinator]

That would be a very interesting weapon to balance actually. Because unlike the smart disc, That would not return to the user, However, Unlike the combistick, it would have more potential to hit multiple enemies, considering its basically a handheld buzz saw. Now this is what I would do with such a weapon.

Hits multiple targets, but sits on the lower spectrum of melee damage between elder sword and the wrist blades, However when thrown, does more damage than the combistick when its thrown. But still not enough to instantly down. Gets stuck in wall like combistick.

[WhiteKala78]

The only reason I say what I say about secondaries is because of extended clips

SMGs with drum mags and that spas with 12 rounds is a bit much.

It should be a tradeoff for a pistol, not a another AR to keep in your back pocket

[Lazycollinator]

Sorry, Im back.

Back to the smgs and shotguns, I agree, having the extended mags for those, is difficult, because if they do buff them, its a bit much. But also consider that as I said, in many cases, you have to dump entire non extended mags into some of the AI, so its a necessary evil. It might not make the best sense, but it is required. What they should do is buff the damage of the pistols so that they are still a good choice, despite the lack of ammo in the mag.

But if I am running a sniper rifle, especially if I can only equip it with larger scopes only, then I would want a back up weapon, whether it be pistol, shotgun or smg.

It all comes down to the whole reason I made this post. The whole reason that any of this is important to me. Every weapon should be viable. Every weapon should have a purpose. I dont want filler weapons. I want my selections to be off of what I prefer, and what matches my playstyle. Not whats “Best” as it is now.

I believe that my suggestions are the best way to achieve this. To create a balance. And if you balance weapons properly, People wont “Need” New weapons constantly to break up the monotony, because there will be so much variety, that everyone will have lots of fun with the game. That is the biggest problem with so many games that are multiplayer these days. Its always whats “best” Not whats “fun” and I believe that the foundation to make fun weapons to match almost every single possible playstyle are already here, they only need to make these weapons work together.

That was the beauty of halo when I was growing up. Every weapon was viable, every weapon had a purpose, and while that was primarily true in singleplayer, that can be made to work in multiplayer. They just have to put the effort into it.

I just really hope someone on the dev team reads this post. And the only way I can make that possible, is by creating a discussion, like I offered in the title of the post. Because every time someone comments, this post will be brought back up to the forefront, and the more people read, and assuming that people do agree, The more unlikely these ideas are to be buried under the much more popular posts where people complain.

I love this game, It has the most potential Ive seen in a long time, but that potential is far from realized.

[WhiteKala78]

Extended mag is the bigger issue I see. That in combination with the rsstt of the weapons starts to step into the too strong area, not hugely but 4 GL running around with SMG drum clips, bit too much.

If the SMG didn’t have it, that tones it back enough.

Shotguns kick hard enough that shooting 8 times is enough before a reload, it all adds to too much DPS per player stacking times 4. I also say target this so they dont have buff the predator directly. He doesn’t need major HP boosts, the Scout class getting more gear room is an example a nice buff that doesn’t mess with stats directly.

Fireteam needs to be addressed a 4 stack at all times regardless of someone quits. Thats all.

Halo nailed its gunplay with years of errors but also they didn’t do asymmetrical PVP which unfortunately is not supposed be “even” persay.

Predator 1v1 is supposed to dominate, 1v2 same

1v3 and 4 is where the challenge comes in but it comes in team work and multiples of 4.

[Lazycollinator]

Yes, I agree with what you are saying. Perhaps The better option is to let them have extended mags for their smgs still (along with buffing them) However, they are not drum mags, just larger mags, so they have only maybe 10-15 more rounds than the base. There still needs to be progression for each weapon, which makes it hard to remove things such as my suggestion to remove cqb sights from snipers. So they shouldnt be completely removed, but rather just less effective than the extended mags on the primaries.

As for shotguns, I love shotguns, but they really dont feel too grossly overpowered, even when we are talking about the aa12 which is a full auto shotgun. Which by the way, while not overpowered, is a good weapon for warding off predators that are squishy. Another thing to consider is that shotguns dont get surpressors, And as such, make noise that the predator can track.

In fact I would argue that instead of messing with the clip size on the smgs, they should also be unable to equip surpressors. That way if you want to use them over a pistol, You have to give away your position with noise!

What do you mean by “Fireteam needs to be addressed a 4 stack at all times regardless of someone quits. Thats all.” ? I dont quite understand fully.

And finally, I agree, pred should dominate in 1v1 or 1v2, he should be able to fight 1v3, and still win, but only with skill, and in 1v4 he should be very careful.

Like I said though, I think the automatic weapons the fireteam has, need a moderate buff, because they are not really as strong as they should be. The trade off for using an assault rifle, is that even though it doesnt hit as hard as a sniper does, per shot, per mag, it should have the fire rate and mag size to out dps over sustained periods, and they really dont, not significantly enough at least. Smgs should be much the same, but to a lesser extent because they are secondary weapons. Shotguns are already limited by range, so they are perfect where they are. And pistols need a damage buff, but not too much. They should be more enticed to use with the fact that they have access to surpressors.

[WhiteKala78]

Addressing a 4 stack means, everthing Fireteam does or has should looked at multiple of 4

For example say we buff 50 DPS on an AR (numbers for example only), because it seems too weak. If everyone is using this gun a group your DPS is about 200

So while individual its weak at 50DPS bumping it to 75 will jump group potential DPS to 300

It has to be though of “What happens if everyone runs the exact same load out?”

Which is where I get weapon loadout restriction from.

Predator is adjusted to one powerful boss type character. Is he weak, not in the least. Which is why I say buffing him directly is the wrong move.

Fireteam is 4 people. Four weapons, four set of heal kits and their syringes X4 (8), equipment X4