HDM: a Weapon Balance Mod (Beta)
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 10:48 am
OK, here's the beta of a mod I've been planning for a long time, and finally began executing in the past couple weeks. Basically, the aim of this mod is to change and improve upon the weapon balance of Halo, without resorting to the same aproach as Halo 2.
For example, in Halo 1, it was perceived that in many cases, the mid-tier weapons, like the Assault Rifle Plasma Rifle, Plasma Pistol, etc, which were only effective to about 15 meters, had little chance against weapons like the Pistol, Rocket Launcher, and Sniper Rifle, which were effective almost anywhere. In Halo 2, Bungie aproached this problem with Dual-Wielding; since 1 weapon wasn't good enough, they let you carry 2. This placed the emphasis of successfull kills on volume of fire, rather than accuracy. In other words, to kill targets further away, you just have to spray more bullets, not really aim better.
In contrast, HDM has aproached the issue by improving the weapons' range and accuracy. The assault rifle has much tigher spread when firing in short bursts, and the plasma rifle has no spread at all. Also the AR, PR, and PP all do more damage with headshots. This does not turn them into super sniper long range weapons, it just allows you to stand a chance with them when engaging a target beyond 10 meters, and puts more emphasis on skill, accuracy, and intelligent positioning than the simplistic "rush to point blank range blindly spraying-n-praying" aproach you were forced to take with them before.
Another issue between Halo 1 and 2 has been the "pistol vs BR vs SMG vs Magnum" arguement. The Halo 1 pistol was too powerfull for a starting weapon, but it gave a spawning player a decent chance of defending himself in a variety of situations. Because the Battle Rifle is almost just as powerfull, it raises the same issues if you make it a starting weapon. Halo 2 starts you with the SMG by default, which is decently powerfull at short range, but it only allows the player to defend himself in a single situation; encountering an enemy by surprise at point blank range. The Magnum has better accuracy, but because it requires 13 headshot to kill, which is more than an entire magazine, and the accuracy is still far from perfect, it's range is only marginally better than the SMG.
HDM aproaches this issue by retaining the pistol spawn, but weakening the pistol in several different ways. It is much less accurate in rapid fire, but still capable of bull's-eyes using slow, staggered, deliberate shots, giving the weapon time to steady before firing. The power is slightly weakened, and the bullet speed is only about half as fast. Thus, the weapon provides a decent method of self-defense with rapid fire at close range, and it is still capable of hitting targets at longer ranges, with slower fire. Because of the decreased power, it is not overpowering at close range, and because of the slower bulelt travel speed, increased drop of the bullet, and slightly lessened accuracy, it is not extremely good in long-range combat either. The result, I beleive, is the optimum balance between being too powerfull and too weak, too accurate, and not accurate enough. I think it should succeed in areas which the original pistol, the SMG, the BR, and the magnum all fell short.
In the mean time, since the mid-long range marksman weapon became a sidearm secondary weapon, the Battle Rifle has been brought in from Halo 1 (courtesy of Wave of Lag's tags). However, rather than function like the BR from Halo 2, which made hitting somewhat too easier because of the burst fire, and thus could not allow less than 4 bursts to the head as the requirement to kill (for the sake of balance), the HDM Battle Rifle fires in single shots, from a 12 round magazine, and kills in 3 hits, just like the pistol. However, since you don't spawn with it, it is not really at risk of being overpowered.
Finally, I've always felt that Halo put slightly too much emphasis on rescource control over skill. The eptiomy of this was it's Rocket Launcher, which was very powerfull, but took very little aim to kill with. I've always felt like killing with the RL was 90% about getting the weapon and it's ammo, and only 10% about how well you actually fought with it. In my mind, it should be closer to 50/50. So, I have re-drafted the rocket launcher with a much smaller blast radius and a double-size magazine. The result; a player needs to aim, lead, and predict the opponent much more precisely to kill in one hit. It still has plenty of power to kill multiple people with it's 4 round magazine, so it's role as a power weapon is not really compromised.
There is a lot more, but I'll leave the details to the ReadMe.
As a disclaimer, I'd like to emphasize that this mod is not meant as a bash against either Halo 1 or Halo 2, it is merely meant to show an alternate way of doing things. Because the emphasis on skill in this mod in some ways harkens back to Halo's precessors in the sci-fi/fantasy competative arcade-shooter genre, such as Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Doom 3, I've opted to call the mod Halo Deathmatch (HDM) for now. If you think of a better name, let me know.
Since this is a weapon balance mod, aiming to change the weapon balance of the game in the original maps, I am not making new maps for this mod. This means most of the maps will probably be remakes of original maps by other people. Since TheGhost has allready provided BloodGulch scenario files for public use, that is the one map supported in this beta. Hopefully I can include some other maps in the future, but that is entirely reliant on generosity of community mappers, unless I get a shitload of time to do nothing but recreate maps which have allready been made by other people.
Rest assured though, this is not some "ChaosGulch" cut-and-paste job throwing a bunch of random over-powered hacks into the weapons. I have put a lot of thought and attention to detail in this to make sure each change is well justified, and well-balanced, so that each aspect is neither too powerfull nor too weak. It should make consderable changes to the game, without really changing what makes the game what it is.
So without further delay, here's where you can download it:
http://files.filefront.com/HDM_Beta_Blo ... einfo.html (File Front; sign up required. If the link doesn't work, try clicking here and scrolling down)
Sorry filefront's the only place available. I had direct-link mirror on web1000.com, which wouldn't require sign up, but for whatever reason it stopped working, and started linking people to porn sites.
That's about it. Feedback, comments, praises, criticisms, suggestions etc. are welcome. Fire away!
EDIT: You'll have to follow the filefront link for pics untill I find a new server (one that doesn't put up porn for 404's).
For example, in Halo 1, it was perceived that in many cases, the mid-tier weapons, like the Assault Rifle Plasma Rifle, Plasma Pistol, etc, which were only effective to about 15 meters, had little chance against weapons like the Pistol, Rocket Launcher, and Sniper Rifle, which were effective almost anywhere. In Halo 2, Bungie aproached this problem with Dual-Wielding; since 1 weapon wasn't good enough, they let you carry 2. This placed the emphasis of successfull kills on volume of fire, rather than accuracy. In other words, to kill targets further away, you just have to spray more bullets, not really aim better.
In contrast, HDM has aproached the issue by improving the weapons' range and accuracy. The assault rifle has much tigher spread when firing in short bursts, and the plasma rifle has no spread at all. Also the AR, PR, and PP all do more damage with headshots. This does not turn them into super sniper long range weapons, it just allows you to stand a chance with them when engaging a target beyond 10 meters, and puts more emphasis on skill, accuracy, and intelligent positioning than the simplistic "rush to point blank range blindly spraying-n-praying" aproach you were forced to take with them before.
Another issue between Halo 1 and 2 has been the "pistol vs BR vs SMG vs Magnum" arguement. The Halo 1 pistol was too powerfull for a starting weapon, but it gave a spawning player a decent chance of defending himself in a variety of situations. Because the Battle Rifle is almost just as powerfull, it raises the same issues if you make it a starting weapon. Halo 2 starts you with the SMG by default, which is decently powerfull at short range, but it only allows the player to defend himself in a single situation; encountering an enemy by surprise at point blank range. The Magnum has better accuracy, but because it requires 13 headshot to kill, which is more than an entire magazine, and the accuracy is still far from perfect, it's range is only marginally better than the SMG.
HDM aproaches this issue by retaining the pistol spawn, but weakening the pistol in several different ways. It is much less accurate in rapid fire, but still capable of bull's-eyes using slow, staggered, deliberate shots, giving the weapon time to steady before firing. The power is slightly weakened, and the bullet speed is only about half as fast. Thus, the weapon provides a decent method of self-defense with rapid fire at close range, and it is still capable of hitting targets at longer ranges, with slower fire. Because of the decreased power, it is not overpowering at close range, and because of the slower bulelt travel speed, increased drop of the bullet, and slightly lessened accuracy, it is not extremely good in long-range combat either. The result, I beleive, is the optimum balance between being too powerfull and too weak, too accurate, and not accurate enough. I think it should succeed in areas which the original pistol, the SMG, the BR, and the magnum all fell short.
In the mean time, since the mid-long range marksman weapon became a sidearm secondary weapon, the Battle Rifle has been brought in from Halo 1 (courtesy of Wave of Lag's tags). However, rather than function like the BR from Halo 2, which made hitting somewhat too easier because of the burst fire, and thus could not allow less than 4 bursts to the head as the requirement to kill (for the sake of balance), the HDM Battle Rifle fires in single shots, from a 12 round magazine, and kills in 3 hits, just like the pistol. However, since you don't spawn with it, it is not really at risk of being overpowered.
Finally, I've always felt that Halo put slightly too much emphasis on rescource control over skill. The eptiomy of this was it's Rocket Launcher, which was very powerfull, but took very little aim to kill with. I've always felt like killing with the RL was 90% about getting the weapon and it's ammo, and only 10% about how well you actually fought with it. In my mind, it should be closer to 50/50. So, I have re-drafted the rocket launcher with a much smaller blast radius and a double-size magazine. The result; a player needs to aim, lead, and predict the opponent much more precisely to kill in one hit. It still has plenty of power to kill multiple people with it's 4 round magazine, so it's role as a power weapon is not really compromised.
There is a lot more, but I'll leave the details to the ReadMe.
As a disclaimer, I'd like to emphasize that this mod is not meant as a bash against either Halo 1 or Halo 2, it is merely meant to show an alternate way of doing things. Because the emphasis on skill in this mod in some ways harkens back to Halo's precessors in the sci-fi/fantasy competative arcade-shooter genre, such as Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Doom 3, I've opted to call the mod Halo Deathmatch (HDM) for now. If you think of a better name, let me know.
Since this is a weapon balance mod, aiming to change the weapon balance of the game in the original maps, I am not making new maps for this mod. This means most of the maps will probably be remakes of original maps by other people. Since TheGhost has allready provided BloodGulch scenario files for public use, that is the one map supported in this beta. Hopefully I can include some other maps in the future, but that is entirely reliant on generosity of community mappers, unless I get a shitload of time to do nothing but recreate maps which have allready been made by other people.
Rest assured though, this is not some "ChaosGulch" cut-and-paste job throwing a bunch of random over-powered hacks into the weapons. I have put a lot of thought and attention to detail in this to make sure each change is well justified, and well-balanced, so that each aspect is neither too powerfull nor too weak. It should make consderable changes to the game, without really changing what makes the game what it is.
So without further delay, here's where you can download it:
http://files.filefront.com/HDM_Beta_Blo ... einfo.html (File Front; sign up required. If the link doesn't work, try clicking here and scrolling down)
Sorry filefront's the only place available. I had direct-link mirror on web1000.com, which wouldn't require sign up, but for whatever reason it stopped working, and started linking people to porn sites.
That's about it. Feedback, comments, praises, criticisms, suggestions etc. are welcome. Fire away!
EDIT: You'll have to follow the filefront link for pics untill I find a new server (one that doesn't put up porn for 404's).
