This weeks Halo Bulletin addresses the current state of the Halo 4 weapon sandbox tuning and information in regards to the updated join in progress parameters.

Weapon Tuning Status Update:

Battle Rifle

We announced last week that we’re investigating the feasibility of a 4-shot Battle Rifle and saw a lot of interest regarding how many bullets it takes to kill an enemy. There are indeed complications that exist around a BR that takes exactly 4 shots (or 12 bullets) to kill, and most relate specifically to latency and online play. While a 12-bullet kill feels good and rewards accurate players in a LAN setting, the vast majority of the game is played online, and the 11 -bullet kill provides a consistent online experience while still rewarding skill. Right now, we are testing a 4-shot BR that kills on the 11th bullet, which allows for a small margin of error in online play.

We had also mentioned the reduced rate of fire on the BR. When we brought the BR to a 4-shot, the weapon was dominating at all ranges. To balance it out, the fire rate now matches the DMR exactly in current testing.

DMR and LightRifle 

We’ve slightly reduced the range at which the reticle turns red for the DMR, and once again matched the LightRifle to this distance. This is based off some feedback we received last week that questioning whether or not it is currently too easy to engage people across the map. To maintain skillful long range battles, we’ve reduced this range slightly for this week’s testing. We’re also investigating slightly increasing the rate of fire on the LightRifle when zoomed, which increases its viability at range.

Assault Rifle

The current Assault Rifle kills in 16 rounds, making it technically possible to kill 2 players with one magazine if not a single shot is missed. Our current balance testing reduces the rounds to kill by 2 or 3 shots, making this feat a bit more achievable. However, a significant reduction in auto-aim makes this quite difficult and demands a bit more skill from players who wield the AR. Our current tests bring us to an optimal kill time range that lies between that of Halo: CE’s and Halo 3’s Assault Rifles.

As we tweak these values, we’ll continue to address some of the challenges associated with each and let you know where each week brings us. We’re currently in the process of building a release schedule for the new weapon tune, and we should have details about that next week.

Join In Progress Parameters as of April 22nd, 2013

Current Join-in-Progress parameters:

• Once a match has passed just over half of the total game time, Join-in-Progress is disabled across all game modes and playlists.
• Rumble Pit now has the smallest Join-in-Progress window, only allowing players to join during the first few kills of a match.
• In Slayer matches outside of Team Throwdown and Team Doubles, players will no longer join after one team has reached just over half of the score limit.
• In King of the Hill and Oddball, players will no longer join in the second half of the game in regards to score limit.
• In Grifball, players will no longer join single-round matches if over 3 goals have been scored by one team. We will be updating Grifball Pro to similar settings in the next update.
• In Team Throwdown and Team Doubles, players will no longer join after a small join window during and before the first moments of a match.

Check out the latest Halo Bulletin here!

– Chief Landless

Geronimo