I'm sorry, but that sorta sounds ridiculous. Not that I think there's anything wrong with the pistol. I actually quite like it. I know what we're playing isn't the final weapon balance though, that's for sure.And while I'm not quite as experienced in the Halo arts as you guys might be, I'm under the impression that Halo 3 was quite good.

Imagine for a minute SwordBase in Halo 3. Anyone with any sense would wield a BR if they could not get a power weapon, no matter what range of combat they were engaging in.

Bungie for their part have determined that the BR was too useful in too many situations. Specifically, there was no penalty for carrying it instead of an AR even at relatively short range.

What they want to do, is restrict the roles where the weapon is useful and thus we have the DMR which is better at long range than the pistol and less good at close range. Encounters in Halo: Reach should be dictated, in part, by the player managing the engagement distance in their favour. That's a fundamental decision on their part. As is, the notion that weapons used in their correct role should feel over-powered as to them, that is more fun for the player.

Whether you agree with this approach or disagree (and would prefer a game where everybody wields a similar weapon most of the time and a greater emphasis placed on player skill with a headshot weapon) is a separate issue from balancing the Halo: Reach that Bungie are trying to make.

Making the DMR more like the BR does not fulfil any of their design goals for Reach. Nor is it designed to be a straight 1-1 replacement of the BR either. The pistol and DMR collectively are the replacement for the BR with the intention that the player should be using the appropriate one depending on range.

Where I think the DMR could benefit with tweaking is that even at longish ranges, it's quite hard to use. Which parts of that they'll tweak I don't know but they'll do it in a way that doesn't overlap with the pistol if they possibly can. Increased damage might be one way as it wouldn't necessarily make it easier to use than the pistol at short range given the bloom.

Anyone with any sense would wield a pistol in Reach. There's little reason to wield the DMR in a map the size of Sword Base, and even in your own analysis, you're going to be wielding the combination of DMR+Pistol as a replacement for the Battle Rifle anyway. And those are simular tweaks to the ones I've suggested. Either reduce the bloom as to slightly increase the ROF (but keep it lower than the pistol) or up the damage to a 3SK, which would still make the pistol potentially more effective given its monstrous ROF.

What they're trying to accomplish aside, what works, works. There are plenty of things about Reach that are far from perfection at this point. One of those things? Weapon balance. Right now the AR borders on pointlessness, and while people seem to be okay with that, it makes me question why the weapon would exist period. It seems.. well.. pointless.

I'm actually surprised (in a good way) that people are on board so far with this game. There's been a lot of negative backlash from hardcore Halo 3 players. People can't stand the movement speed, the jump height, etc. Personally I think that stuff is pretty solid, especially since it's all going to be tweakable (assumption) in forge anyway, and MLG is going to give us a more respectable competition playlist than bungie has ever been capable of. I'm pretty happy with the beta as a whole, and while I still think that Halo 3 is much better at this point, there's still development time left for them to tweak things (weapons and gametypes). I think if they continue in the direction that they're going they'll have a winner, and potentially the best Halo ever. It just needs work, but, duh, it's a beta.

And while we're on the subject of replacement weapons: The focus rifle blows.

Yeah, there is no activation so to speak. You just need the disc. They can't tell one copy of ODST apart from another so far as I know. Unless they'll let you borrow the disc for the duration you want to participate in the beta, well, you're screwed regardless.

Yep, I quite agree.To the likes of you and I, perhaps it is. My reading of the intention is that good players will opt for the pistol over the AR and less skilled players for the latter itself. In a circle-strafe melee range scenario, the AR guy has every chance of getting the shields down first for the melee. That seems to be it's role (once double melee is fixed). TruSkill will in theory separate AR-heavy players from pistol players relatively quickly.As a much safer departure from Halo 2, the Halo 3 beta was definitely more polished. However, I'm quite encouraged by what I've seen from Reach. What I want to see in September is;-

* More shipping maps than Halo 3
* A diverse set of armour abilities that are as well balanced as the four we have now
* A sensible implementation of the cR system
* Fun coherent large scale battles & vehicle combat. (Invasion has potential but needs a lot of work)

There are plenty of scenarios in Boneyard where the DMR is well out of range too. It doesn't even take being across the map. If the reticule isn't turning red, there's a good chance that you're not going to land your shot. I'm not completely disagreeing with you, since it does have higher accuracy at range, especially since it's a single bullet instead of a 3 shot burst + spread. That's a fact, but I just think it could be better. I hope we get more tweaks to the overall weapon balance in retail. We already know frags and melee are being adjusted, but personally, I hope it goes beyond that.

I hardly think the pistol is a problem though.

I do think outlandish remarks about how it doesn't matter what Bungie wants are borderline ridiculous though.

Yes. That's how the Halo 3 beta worked with Crackdown, at least.

The guy got lucky. Introducing this random element, call it luck if you will is completely intentional and furthermore, they're perfectly aware players like yourself don't like it. In Greismer's GDC talk about balancing Halo 3, your issue matches their player category of "Pro players who hate all randomness" almost exactly.

This may not be to your liking and that's fair enough. There will be another game that is. It's impossible to please everybody at the same time. Ultimately, Bungie are going to make the game they want to make for the widest audience they see fit. That is what they should do.