Gameplay

User:XScruffyDaSasquatchx/Sandbox3

From Halopedia, the Halo wiki

Many weapons exist across the Halo video games, all of which can be grouped together and classified in numerous ways. The following is an overview of classifications created by or officially recognized by the developers of Halo, and how they affect gameplay.

Weapon Classes

Main article: Weapon class

Weapon classes are the means by which the Halo video games group together different weapons with similar animations. Characters can only hold weapons belonging to weapon classes supported by their own set of third person animations. Grunts can carry pistols and launchers but not rifles, marines can carry rifles but not support weapons, and so on. Before being introduced in Halo 2 each weapon required its own set of animations per character. As such grunts in Halo: Combat Evolved could carry plasma pistols and needlers, but not the human pistol. Weapon classes remove this restriction by having these three weapons share a simplified set of pistol animations. Weapons may still posses unique animation overlays such as an adjusted hand position for the SMG's vertical foregrip or the shotgun's staged reload. Halo Infinite formalized weapons classes as information presented by the user interface. In this context the use of weapon classes describes the intended role of a weapon, combining its appearance with its functionality.

Melee

Melee weapons do not possess firing animations and rely solely on melee attacks. There are two subcategories that exist for players, although more exist exclusive to NPCs.

Energy Sword - Swords[1] are melee weapons that can perform powerful lunge attacks in addition to dealing increased regular melee damage via the cutting damage type.
Gravity Hammer - Hammers[2] are melee weapons that create explosions in front of the user without inflicting self harm. The increased physics impulses are also useful for pushing enemies off of ledges, performing splatters with physics objects, and golfing.

Multiplayer

Essentially the same as melee weapons, multiplayer weapons are classified under their own category presumably for organizational purposes. Multiplayer weapons are divided up into two subcategories.

Ball - Spherical multiplayer weapons held with sports influenced animations[3], and can also be thrown beginning with Halo 4. Originally comprised of just the oddball, the class now includes the assault bomb, throwable fusion coils, and power seeds.
Flag - Pole shaped multiplayer weapons used for CTF gamemodes[4]. Flags are dual wielded with magnums in Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians.

Pistol

Pistols are projectile weapons held either one handed or with both hands supporting the rear grip[5]. Despite their appearance pistols can possess any level of destructive capability, from the low damage per shot of the plasma pistol to the explosive power of the target locator.

Rifle

Rifles are projectile weapons held with two hands, one hand supporting the barrel from underneath[6]. It is the most common weapon class and has been divided into numerous subcategories.

Assault Rifle - Mid-ranged weapons lacking scopes, which operate in a niche between tactical rifles and SMGs.
Tactical Rifle - Mid-ranged, headshot capable weapons featuring magnified optics.
SMG - Short-ranged weapons with high rates of fire.
Shotgun - Short-ranged weapons that fire multiple projectiles at once in a spread pattern.
Sniper Rifle - Long-ranged, headshot capable weapons with high power scopes and considerable damage.

Launcher

Also known internally as "support_high" and "missile" weapons[7], launchers have previously been any weapon carried over characters' shoulders. Halo Infinite now classifies any projectile weapon with explosive damage as a launcher but this does not affect support_high weapons as an animation class.

Support

Also known internally as "support_low" weapons[8], support weapons are any weapon held in first person down by the character's hips. Support weapon animations are very similar to those of the flamethrower from Halo: Combat Evolved, which may have directly inspired the category. Only two support weapons appear in the finalized games, being the brute shot and sentinel beam. Both weapons, along with the class itself, did not return in Halo: Reach, marking Halo 3 as the final appearance of the weapon class. Later appearances of the brute shot and sentinel beam use rifle animations with overlays positioning character arms to hold the weapons in their typical support location. It is because of this reason that marines in Halo Infinite are able to use the sentinel beam for the first time.

Detachable Turret

Known simply as "turret" weapons within the game files[9], detachable turrets are essentially very powerful support weapons that switch the player camera to a third person perspective and restrict certain actions such as crouching, grenades, melee, and equipment. Because of their similar appearances, turret weapons are often called support weapons as well. The data core and power supply featured in Invasion use turret animations, and thus its inherent restrictions, to make players more vulnerable while encouraging cooperative play in escorting teammates to objectives.

Weapon Damage Types

Main article: Damage Groups

In addition to weapon classes, weapons may also be categorized by the type of damage they inflict.

Melee Damage

Most weapons are able to perform melee attacks, but for energy swords, gravity hammers, and multiplayer weapons this is their only means of attack. Some ranged weapons also feature increased melee damage, denoted by slow and heavy animations or by featuring blades and bayonets. The only games to feature ranged weapons with different melee damage types are Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Infinite.

Kinetic Weapon

Being comprised of multiple projectile types such as bullets, spikes, and the impact damage of explosives, kinetic weapons are the most common form of projectile damage. Often times kinetic weapons deal consistent damage against a variety of different materials but usually lack the ability to significantly damage vehicles. In Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 3: ODST bullet damage is reduced against shields, and in Halo: Reach and the Reclaimer Saga games the sniper rifle deals extra damage against vehicles.

Precision Weapon

The Sniper Rifle, a precision weapon, in action during a match of Firefight.

"Particularly useful against delicate equipment—like brains."
— Halo: Reach manual description[10]

Precision weapons, sometimes called "anti-materiel" weapons[10], are any weapon capable of instantly killing a character upon hitting an area of their body marked as the head. As the name suggests this is the actual head of most characters, although there are some exceptions. Certain enemies such as drones in Halo 2 or the Warden Eternal are immune to headshots, while in Halo: Combat Evolved the exposed backs of hunters are susceptible to headshot damage. In all games up until Halo 5: Guardians scoring a headshot on an unshielded enemy with a headshot capable weapon will instantly kill them, regardless of how much health they had remaining. Starting with H5 weapons with headshot multipliers were introduced, and in Halo Infinite the shock rifle features a headshot multiplier that still applies while shields are active. The term precision weapon is retained to describe weapons that can still kill with a single unshielded headshot.

Automatic Weapon

While not exclusive to the kinetic damage type, automatic weapons are typically used to describe bullet based, fully automatic weapons that appear as starting weapons in auto slayer playlists, in contrast to precision weapon starts.

Plasma Weapon

Plasma weapons are Covenant or Banished weapons that are very effective against energy shields. While they always deal reduced damage to player health, this trait is not mutually exclusive against other characters.

Hardlight Weapon

Hardlight weapons are Forerunner in origin and disintegrate targets upon inflicting critical damage. Their use differs slightly from game to game. Introduced in Halo 4 they glow orange and possess a damage type similar to the covenant carbine, having no bonus against any material but able to destroy jackal shields and deployable cover. In Halo 5 they now deal bonus damage to vehicles and Promethean weakspots. In Halo Infinite hardlight is now purple and can kill vehicle occupants without destroying the vehicle itself.

Shock Weapon

First introduced in Halo Infinite, shock weapons are extremely weak per shot but are able to chain damage to multiple targets, as well as EMP vehicles.

Explosive Weapon

Explosive weapons are any weapon that creates an area of explosive damage. Explosives can also detonate other explosive projectiles and are effected by the explosives support upgrade and grenadier armor mod.

Weapon Roles

Over the years the Halo community has also created its own terminology based on the way weapons are obtained in multiplayer and their roles within the context of multiplayer gameplay. The following are notable multiplayer weapon terms both created by Halo developers and officially recognized by them.

Loadout Weapon

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Primary Weapon

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Secondary Weapon

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Utility Weapon

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Dual-wield Weapon

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Power Weapon

Power weapons[12], which were previously named "heavy weapons" in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, are any weapon with the potential to kill fully shielded players with a single shot (or extremely quickly in the case of the SAW).

Weapon Sets

Weapon sets are a custom game option used in multiplayer gametypes to replace weapons spawned on multiplayer maps. These can be by faction, role, weapon class, damage type, or any other form of organization the developers have made for the game. Some weapon sets also appear as category filters within the forge object menu of Halo 5: Guardians. Below are some examples of common and reoccurring weapon sets.

  • Human Weapons
  • Covenant Weapons
  • Brute/Banished Weapons
  • Forerunner Weapons
  • Pistols (Pistol, Magnum, Plasma Pistol)
  • Plasma Weapons (Plasma Pistol, Plasma Rifle, Brute Plasma Rifle)
  • Dual-wield Weapons (Magnum, Plasma Weapons, Needler, SMG, Suppressed SMG, Mauler, Spiker)
  • Rifles (Assault Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Battle Rifle, Carbine, DMR, Storm Rifle, Light Rifle, Suppressor, Sentinel Beam)
  • Sniping Weapons (Sniper Rifle, Beam Rifle, Focus Rifle, Binary Rifle)
  • Heavy/Anti-vehicle Weapons (Launchers, Detached Turrets)
  • Power Weapons (Heavy Weapons, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Melee Weapons, SAW)

Weapon Tiers

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Tier-1

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  • Loadout Weapons, Plasma Rifle, Sentinel Beam

Tier-2

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  • Shotguns, Melee Weapons, Grenade Launchers, Plasma Pistol, Needler, Hydra

Tier-3

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  • Launchers, Sniper Rifles, SAW, Detached Turrets

Weapon Variants

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Sources

  1. ^ Halo 2 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\melee\energy_blade\energy_blade.weapon
  2. ^ Halo 3 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\melee\gravity_hammer\gravity_hammer.weapon
  3. ^ Halo 2 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\multiplayer\ball\ball.weapon
  4. ^ Halo 2 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\multiplayer\flag\flag.weapon
  5. ^ Halo 2 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\pistol\magnum\magnum.weapon
  6. ^ Halo 2 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\rifle\battle_rifle\battle_rifle.weapon
  7. ^ Halo 2 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\support_high\rocket_launcher\rocket_launcher.weapon
  8. ^ Halo 2 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\support_low\brute_shot\brute_shot.weapon
  9. ^ Halo 3 Editing Kit, game file tags\objects\weapons\turret\machinegun_turret\machinegun_turret.weapon
  10. ^ a b Halo: Reach, manual
  11. ^ Halo: Reach, Invasion
  12. ^ Halo 5: Guardians, Forge
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