: With regards weapon balance, it's not just that the H4 DMR has a quick kill
: time, it's that it's really easy to achieve that kill time and it's
: totally consistent in kill time out to a HUGE range. It's the perfect
: example of what people mean when they talk about a lack of a 'skill gap.'

I more or less agree with this. These days when I play Halo 4 I can achieve DMR kills while not scoping in half a map away. No, not because I'm pro (lol I am teh suck) but because auto aim is so generous and my target basically stops moving when I land a shot.

: See, the M6D in Halo 1 had a fast kill time but it was really hard to
: achieve it. Beyond 100m (I think) your auto-aim assistance was totally
: gone. BR in Halo 2/3 were easier to use but quite range-limited and
: especially with the spread in H3 you could only ping reliably with 1
: bullet per burst. The Halo: Reach DMR, for all it's flaws, required a
: cadence and that you should slow more and more with range. I could swear
: the red-reticle range was far less too.

: With how easy it is to die already in Halo 4, especially since you slow down
: when shot and can't knock people out of scope at range, these changes just
: sound like they're trying to make weapon choice a wash. Except you'll have
: fake variety since instead of getting shot by grey streaks through the air
: it might be orange or green a bit.

: (DMR clear community favourite, huh? Boy! Making the Forerunner weapons
: copy-cats so players would identify with them easily and use them more
: often sure paid off, huh?)

I don't fault 343 for this, and I don't know why a lot of other folks do.

It IS a fan favorite. Every generic-human rifle has been a fan favorite since Halo 2, or the Super Pistol surrogate in CE and ODST. I blame the players and the need for familiarity.

What the hell is the point of making an interesting gun if players won't use it anyway?

Players rarely deviate from what they know, or expect a weapon to function. It's bland because the majority wants bland, its safer. The lowest common denominator wins.

Yeah, you can make your own loadouts in Halo 4 to play with your weapon of choice, but who's going to choose the Carbine if they've been using the BR and DMR for the last two Halo games? Not many I'm afraid.

Hell, I chose the Carbine exclusively for the first few months of Halo 4, it was my top weapon and to tell you the truth, I LIKED that I stood out from the crowd while using it.

Eventually though, I stopped using it because I got tired of being out played by someone with a DMR in closer range where I should have been the victor. Maybe I'm just a BK, idk.

It's not like Bungie didn't make the Covenant Carbine an equal competitor, it had roughly the same kill time as the BR in Halo 2 and 3 and even excelled it in the right hands I would argue.

But they never made it a starting weapon.
They also didn't populate maps with a lot of them, leaving ammo scarce.
I also don't recall ever seeing it in SWAT even though it would fit well there IMO
When MLG Halo was popular, there was only one way to go and one way to be: BR.

How utterly boring.

Even when the Needle Rifle was tweaked and became "Dolphin gun: destroyer of worlds" in Reach I still hardly EVER encountered players using it when they had choice of DMR (excluding Invasion).

The Light rifle? Psh. 343 did a pretty good job of making it basically the only rifle type weapon in the later stages of the campaign, and perhaps they did it to get players to want to use it more in MM but its not much different than the DMR... because that's the way the majority wants it.

TL:DR

Rifle stagnation has always been topic of discussion since Halo 2, 343 didn't create that so its not fair to jab them in that topic. It's a circular argument, or vicious cycle that ultimately is in the hands of the players, I think.

Minority players: we're tired of gun X being the only gun you need 90% of the time

Bungie or 343: Okay, we hear ya. Gonna go tweak RoF, damage and range on gun X and maybe tweak the others to encourage more variety

Majority players: YOU RUINED MY GO TO GUN PLAYERS USING THE SPACE RIFLES ARE KILLING ME NOW WHAT IS THIS SHI- AHHHHH FIX IT OR I QUIT FOREVER GO COD

Bungie or 343: Well hold on now, give em a try! Maybe we'll change the starting weapons in some game types and you can get a feel for these other guns an-

Majority players: AHH MY K/D IS SHIT NOW FIX YOUR SHIT THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIIIYFE RIGHT NOW

Bungie or 343: Well then.. that puts us in a rather hard place. Tell ya what we'll tweak things so that gun X is *just marginally* better than the other guns. The other guns will rock you in the hands of the right player, but we're not going to put them on that many maps. Have fun playing Captain Bland's monotonous adventure.

Majority players: Yay!

Minority players: \\memeguy 'okay' face.png