You honestly think that 240 second weapon respawn times are what Halo needs?
Okay, let me put it this way:
These guidelines assume the player (or team) is of average skill with minor to moderate experience with the learning curve, and has minimal experience playing.
TIER 1
Everything you need for
nonlethal, utility-based harassment spawns in 30 seconds.
Everything you need for
getting headshots and scoring kills spawns in 45 seconds.
- This is the disconnect where you can realistically
score kills or
control the map as a team and still have a fighting chance. -
TIER 2
Everything you need for
lethal, utility-based harassment spawns in 1 minute.
Everything you need for
killing individual enemies in a single shot spawns in 2 minutes.
Everything you need for
killing multiple enemies in a single shot spawns in 3 minutes.
- This is the disconnect where you can realistically
score killing sprees or
control the map as an individual and still have a fighting chance. -
TIER 3
Everything you need for
gaining a buff in player traits and/or killing one or more enemies in a single shot spawns in 4 minutes.
- This is the disconnect where you can realistically
counter strategies and initiate a pivot to
regain having a fighting chance. -
Essentially, Legendary Power Weapons assume the role that Personal Ordnance tried (and failed) to, but in a much more balanced fashion. Ultimately, Legendaries are superfluous
for experienced players; they should not offer advantages so substantial they're worth using over their traditional power weapon counterparts. As a rule, Legendaries are
always flashy and
sacrifice subtlety for enhancement. While still an individual-killing power weapon, and while still flashy to a degree, using the Energy Sword is still a "subtle" tactic for a player that allows them to delicately control map flow in a way starting weapons do not. Legendaries lack this sense of delicacy, instead opting for short windows of time in combat flow that would allow a team or player, down on their luck, to
dismantle a lynchpin keeping the enemy team at an advantage. Simply put, the purpose of Legendaries are to give losing players brief chances to brute-force their way back to tying or surpassing the enemy's lead. They are short-term "highs" in map flow, and do not offer the outright control or even consistency experienced players wielding traditional power weapons provide. Naturally, inexperienced players still acquainting themselves with the sandbox will be "legendary addicts," cruising from high to high searching for the next window of opportunity they can use to get back on their feet. As players level out on the skill curve, Legendaries should become more and more irrelevant - while they're power weapons all the same, Legendaries alone shouldn't be
relied on exclusively further down the skill pipeline - but seasoned players will operate in a much more balanced fashion, coordinating calculated responses with their team to consistently make use of map flow and combat control to instigate victory. By extension, skilled players will make use of all their available tools - all the weapons in the sandbox - according to fashion and function, rather than constantly finding themselves at a loss. Assuming a standard match length of 12-20 minutes, at a spawn time of 4 minutes this allows inexperienced players chances to gain ground anywhere from 3-5 times per match.
Personally, I think Legendary weapons should have maybe 50% the ammo their power weapon counterparts have (similar to the Spartan Laser's ammo capacity compared to, say, Rockets or Sniper) and not spawn at the start of the match to allow map flow to hit its stride first, but ultimately it's all in the implementation.
Good read! I'm curious about what kind of meta potential you see in clamber, though. I haven't played the beta so I have no idea myself.
I haven't played either, but I think a mechanic that allows you to overcome distance in a way traditional jumping can't means we're going to be seeing all sorts of ridiculous options open up. Just imagine playing on Hang 'Em High and hopping onto a tombstone -> clamber onto level 1 catwalk -> jump and clamber onto level 2 catwalk -> thrust over to top mid, for example. Clamber alone turns map movement into a completely different beast.
