I just realized something, the Spartan IV doesn't have the white stripes seen in the other bits of MP footage, I wonder if that is the way the will appear in SP when they inevitably show up. MP pic for comparison-
Actually, look closely. You can still see the stripes (the V is slightly present on the mouthpiece), they're just the same armor color in that screenshot. Also, just pointing out that the default gray Spartan IV suit looks a
lot like the original way the Crysis exosuit used to look.
And, elaborating on the ideas for not perks that have been tossed around lately (I was actually the first to post something like customized loadouts in this thread but it got overlooked), what if the first slot was something like:
Choose your Rate of Fire.
1-Shot | 3-Shot | Auto
Single shot is DMR, 3-shot burst is BR, auto is Assault Rifle.
Playing in Covenant games (where you use an Elite) would either have additional weapons, a separate "loadout" sheet, or the Carbine becomes a reskinned DMR, etc.
For your supplementary weapon, you get a Pistol, but instead of all of those options, you get to choose the model. I don't remember which is which, so let's just say for example something like this:
Halo 1 Pistol
-High damage, average spread, slightly above-average range, slightly below-average reload time, average firing speed. All pistols have a 2x scope.
Halo 2 Pistol
-Slightly below-average damage, slightly above-average spread, average range, average reload time, above average firing speed.
Halo 3 Pistol... and so on and so forth.
Alternatively, make weapon customization offer you a total of ~50 points from the beginning, which never increases due to credits or anything. Your pistol has 10 in each stat (damage, ROF, spread, range, reload) and you can customize your pistol to have a minimum of 5 or a maximum of 15 in each stat. You can only use 50 points total though. So you could have a Pistol with Halo 1 pistol damage, halo 2 speed, average range, and then ridiculously slow reload times and crazy wide spread.
And then as a gimmick, maybe add pistol attachments such as explosive (pro pipe grenade), EMP (pro pipe grenade when held down), grappling hook, etc. At the very least, I would be completely up for a minor "stat pool" sort of way to change your starting weapons as far as loadouts go.