Over on the
TeamBeyond forums, there's been a debate raging for weeks now over
what we believe the starting weapons should be for competitive
settings in the upcoming game, Halo 5 Guardians. If you've been
following the thread, you can skip to the section with bullets,
because I'm starting off be reiterating some of my points made in the
thread.
For a decade now,
it has been whatever the game's best-suited headshot rifle was
labeled (usually the BR). This has caused a schism in playlists,
where “casual” gametypes (and some ranked, in TS playlists) would
start with the game's standard automatic weapon and “hardcore”
gametypes would start with a headshot rifle. We've heard
counter-arguments during Halo 4 that in order to return to Halo's
past glory we need to “keep it vanilla” – and while moving
toward a more standardized weapon set across the whole of the game
would help, it ignores the reasons we moved away in past games.
In Halo 2, there
were three starting weapon options for UNSC weapons: SMG, Magnum, and
Battle Rifle. Let's take Lockout for example. Say everyone starts
with SMG/Magnum. One team gets control of Sniper tower and BR tower.
The SMG can't really fight at a range from building to building
capably in Halo 2. Nor can the Magnum (a shame it wasn't the HCE
Pistol). And a BR spawns on TOP of the BR tower. In the high
ground.
Let's move to
Warlock. 4 BRs on the map. All on high ground, that can only be
reached from two methods: Lifting up a slow lift and then jumping out
into the open onto the platform, or walking up a ramp from one
direction onto the platform. Very predictable methods where, if you
don't ALREADY have a BR, but your opponents do, it's damned near
impossible to grab one.
In Halo 2, the
range discrepancy between the BR and the not-BRs was high. To
exacerbate that problem, the BRs were often in places of optimal use
case already, so once you grabbed them, you had little reason to
move. Design-wise, this makes starting with not-BRs incredibly
snowbally. But it's illogical to say “We did BR starts because the
SMG can't fight the BR.” – the placement of BRs on map were
equally at fault. (Let's skip the irony that Bungie intentionally
stripped the Magnum of power from CE to 2 in an effort to gut skill
gaps to force closer games and then set up maps in an absurdly
snowbally manner.)
In Halo 3 we
returned to BR starts again, although the range discrepancy of the
weapons and their placement were much more sensible. (Granted, that
range discrepancy was fixed by nerfing the everliving fuck out of the
BR to the point that it was essentially useless on large maps, making
BTB a nightmare.) The pistol was still useless. A desire to stay
away from Spray and Pray anything fueled the decision to keep the BR
as the starting weapon, and rightfully so.
In Reach, the Beta
pistol showed promise, but at launch it was clear we had no option
but the DMRNG. In Halo 4, an enormous debate arose over whether the
BR or DMR should be the starting weapon (disregarding #TeamOrange who
all believed the Light Rifle to be the superior skill gap weapon to
use). Ultimately, the BR was chosen despite having random spread and
being burstfire, when the mostly-cosmetic bloom and single shot of
the DMR made more sense for a competitive rifle. Why? The DMR
shot too far. It was too oppressive in the game, and would
assist players in aiming over literally entire arena-sized maps.
Despite very correct and well-articulated articles opposing the BR,
the BR was healthier for the game and simply felt better. The Pistol
was a lot better in this game, but it was still ultimately a lottery
cannon.
With Halo 5,
however, things have changed. Automatics now have headshot
multipliers (they're more skill-oriented, and less spray-and-pray).
They have the definitely-not-ADS-nope-not-one-bit Smart Scope to
encourage using them at range. The Pistol is the fastest killing
headshot weapon in the game, and had what we were told were bugs
(flinch, recoil) that made it unwieldy. Additionally, the Pistol
could fight at a range beyond two feet in front of you, already
making it superior to the H2/H3 incarnations that we had to avoid
like the plague.
So let me repeat
that. THE PISTOL IS USEFUL AGAIN.
And less importantly,
the AR isn't a “let me camp around a corner and just shoot+melee
you” weapon. It is also useful at range.
The
reasons we avoided ARs and Pistols in previous titles are
gone/heavily mitigated in Halo 5. We have good reason to try them
out as the starting weapons from the get-go, and avoid separating the
entire community into our
we-don't-like-your-gametypes-we're-going-to-make-our-own...with-blackjack...and-hookers
“hardcore” settings.
But
before you rattle off all your reasons why you think the BR is more
skillful or use reasons like “we've used the BR for a decade, why
should we change now?” or “hodor hodor hodor” to try to
dissuade me from continuing my support of the AR/Pistol... let me
return to a rubric I've used in past Audley Enough blogs.
Riot
Games' six core gameplay tenets they use for League of Legends. You
know, literally the most popular PC game in the world, and the esport
with the greatest success world wide in terms of viewership. I wrote
about this six gameplay tenets as they relate to twelve of my
favorite vehicles from Halo history in some blogs last summer, but
now it's time to relate them to guns!
As
a refresher, those six gameplay tenets are:
- Mastery – Mastery is essentially a constant ability to improve. In Halo, that can range anywhere from improving your shot, to route-taking, to map positioning; basically, any way you can get better at the game, there's always room to get better. In short: Mastery is your Skill Ceiling.
- Meaningful Choices – Meaningful Choices are where there are tradeoffs to your decisions made in game. Whether that means you have to mitigate weaknesses or simply take less risky plays, it means you're constantly making a choice that isn't already made for you.
- Counterplay – Counterplay means there is room for your opponent to outplay you with what they are provided. In League of Legends, this commonly gets confused with building certain items to counter things, when in reality it is focused on moment to moment gameplay and the ability to fight back regardless of build.
- Teamplay – Teamplay is where a team comes together to bolster their strengths, cover weaknesses, or simply work together toward winning the game. In League of Legends, this is focused around having team compositions need to provide certain roles to the game. Despite denial from pro players, this also exists in competitive Halo, where players' playstyles provide roles similar to a MOBA's “tank” “carry” or “support” roles.
- Clarity – Clarity is simply the presentation of information in a clear and precise way. Any important/relevant information should be communicated to the player. This won't actually be relevant for this discussion.
- Evolution – In Riot's definition, evolution more refers to their constant addition of new mechanics or rebalancing of old ones. For the sake of this argument, it will focus on how the weapons affect an evolution of a metagame.
So
first, let's start with Mastery.
It will be quick to go over. Regardless of the starting weapon,
there's a clear skill set related to accuracy with a gun. I'm not
going to argue either choice has an outright greater skill ceiling,
but I will point out that, assuming the Pistol has a shorter red
reticule range than the BR – then pistol fights at medium range
(for example, health pack/BR to Carbine on Shrine) or longer become
more about the player's dexterity rather than the game's assistance.
Based off the H5 beta, the Pistol was capable at Medium range. Less
so at longer. The BR, on the other hand, had aim assist across the
entirety of Truth, leading to much easier time killing players who
exposed themselves. While battles directly between the weapons in
their intended range don't have much discrepancy, encouraging more
skill rather than surefire kills in ranged battles is a good thing
(see: Halo 3.)
Now,
the tenet where I feel AR/Pistol greatly supercedes the BR:
Meaningful Choices.
If you spawn with a BR, you almost never have a reason to drop the
BR. Your BR is love. Your BR is life. You almost never have a
reason to swap to the Pistol, even if it kills faster. (Because why
should I go into the range where Pistol is better?) The situations
where a Pistol is better than a BR are outshined by situations where
other weapons in the sandbox are better than the Pistol (why get a
Pistol secondary for my BR when I could get an SMG?).
On
the other hand, if you start with a Pistol, you have a much larger
array of choices. Do I want to be more effective at range and sit
back with long range support fire? Let me drop my AR or Pistol for a
BR or DMR. Do I want to push harder? Let me drop my AR for an SMG.
I can't push now, should I drop my SMG for something else? Because
of the more limited range of engagement with your Pistol start (but
again, still more than capable in most regards, especially once the
recoil/flinch are removed), you have more room to shape your ability
in combat. You have clear tradeoffs of effectiveness at long range
versus effectiveness at close range based off which weapon you choose
to pursue. The pistol is strong, and a very capable Utility weapon.
But maybe you just like to play passive. You can bet players like
Roy or APG are going to be in your face with their Pistol, though.
Fuck your slow-killing BR!
Counterplay.
Now, this is where all the pro-BR supporters will chime in “HEY IF
YOU SPAWN WITH BRS YOU CAN FIGHT ANY RANGE OFF SPAWN BUT IF YOU SPAWN
WITH PISTOL YOU CAN'T HAHA, BR IS BETTER RIGHT?” But again, this
is where you're overlooking the fact that... oh, hey, the pistol's
actually decent at medium range. You CAN fight back off spawn. Even
on big, open maps like Truth. I do have issue with the BR spawning
P2 and DMRs in the bubbles, rather than being closer to the safe
spawning areas to readily equip a player to fight back off spawn, but
in general, the weapons are in positions where players can reach them
without dying, and use the amount of maneuverability tools available
in H5 to fight back. Granted, yes, BR starts are marginally better
with regards to counterplay than AR/Pistol starts would be, assuming
a situation like H2/H3 where one team has secured BR/DMRs and the
other are all dead. This discrepancy is more mitigated by map design
and weapon placement, however. Keep rifles out of power positions
and the players in them have reason to move – whether it be that
they ran out of ammo, or that they didn't already have a rifle.
Imagine back to my Halo 2 example of Lockout's BRs spawned BR1,
Elbow, and Top Blue instead, or Warlocks spawned at the bottoms of
the ramps, rather than on the Plats. You've instantly better
equipped the “losing” side to fight back. Combine that with the
fact the non-BR weapons are already comparatively stronger than they
were in H2, and you've brought the gap to a manageable ratio.
As
I said in the bullets, Clarity
doesn't
really relate to this argument. The only relation to clarity would
be for casual viewers who tune into a competitive stream and wonder
“why are they spawning with different weapons than I spawn with in
matchmaking?” but given Halo's tiny viewership currently, I don't
believe this to be a relevant issue worth worrying about at the
current time.
Now
regarding the Evolution
of the game. I've written in the past about how I believe movement
to be the most important aspect of a competitive game. (That even
applies to competive card games, where the only things moving are
resources.) Longer range weapons promote more stale gameplay. We'll
probably never see DMR starts ever again, but DMR starts on large
maps in Halo Reach provided absurdly stale games, because players
simply couldn't push anywhere without being melted. (Note,
competitive people, I'm referring to BTB here, not MLG). Hemorrhage
was a joke that relied entirely on Wraith and Sniper usage to get
anything done, because they were the only things that could fight
from outside the range of a DMR or without dying instantly.
How
does that relate to the BR / AR+Pistol argument? Tangentially. Maps
with more open sightlines (see: Truth) lead to slower gameplay when
the player is more equipped to fight at range. If you can't poke out
without being chunked, you don't want to move. If you don't want to
move, the game becomes a stalemate. Stalemate games, while they
highlight a different skillset than the faster paced variety, also
give an advantage to the underdog. Take Pit TS for example in Halo
3. More upsets happened on that gametype than any other. Not
because “oh, this team was actually better all along” but because
stalemates make it easier to keep an advantage. If no one's able to
manage a pick-off, the stalemate keeps going until a viable power
weapon or power-up breaks it (Prophet's Bane not really good vs BRs,
btw.) If you got a lead in Pit TS, you kept that lead until Rockets
respawned unless you just fed kills to the enemy Sniper. If you got
the next set of Rockets, you probably kept the lead and won. No one
was going to push you while they didn't have rockets unless their
Sniper got a pick-off.
With
AR+Pistol, although the Pistol's kill time is faster, it requires
more care and precision to get those all-the-way-across-map kills.
(But in terms of base-to-tower, it's much more reasonable.) If you
have the Prophet's Bane you can sprint and thrust and actually move
from cover to cover without being melted from multiple angles.
You're encouraged to move and push! With more movement, there's more
room for in-the-moment decision making (more meaningful choices?!)
and much more excitement factor spread through the course of the
game.
Additionally,
with regards to Evolution
(off the topic of movement now), there's more room for player
identity, tying back into the choices a player makes. Aggressive
slayers like APG, Roy, or Ninja who like to rush constantly will
likely prefer the fast kill times of a Pistol over the sit-and-wait
approach of a BR. On the other hand, zone control-focused players
like Ogre 2 will likely prefer weapons more equipped to fight at
range. They find their comfortable corner of the map and position in
a place where they can put shots on anyone anywhere they feel like.
They'll go hunting for BRs or DMRs. Sniper players on maps without
the Sniper may hunt for a DMR for the “next best thing” in
marksmanship, disregarding their pistol entirely. This ties into the
tenet I realize I skipped in my ranting... Teamplay.
Individual playstyles have more room for “role” identification,
and teammates may cover gaps created by a player's choice in
equipment. The more open the sandbox is, the more the kids will get
to play in it.
That
pretty much covers all I wanted to say. AR/Pistol offers more
meaningful choices and room for evolution as a whole and as an
individual, with a comparatively small sacrifice to available
counterplay (the main area that forced BR starts in past titles in
the first place).
AR/Pistol
Starts for Competitive Halo 5, Audley for Color Commentator 2015.
Jet fuel can't melt dank memes.
