[quote][b]Warning: Thread contains Inductive Reasoning[/b]
Commenting after reading this thread without understanding the nuances of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning]Inductive Reasoning[/url] may result in mass ridicule.
[b]Warning: Original Poster sucks at writing succinctly [/b]
For those of you who lack the stamina required to read well thought-out essays: you have been warned, I will make no compromises for your lack of focus.[/quote]
[quote][b]New Information![/b] Scroll down to the 7th post to read about a recent discovery that strongly points to the Spiker's return in Reach! It's more or less indirectly confirmed now!
[b]New Information![/b] Scroll down to the 7th post to see a picture from E3 where a Spiker can be spotted in the hands of a Brute.
[b]New Information![/b] Scroll down to the 7th post to see the first Video Footage of the Spiker being used by the Player![/quote]
[quote][/quote][b]Introduction[/b][quote][/quote]
Today I am here to discuss the past, the present, and the future of the [url=http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?cid=12237]Type-25 Carbine[/url]. Adept at filling the air with swarms of low-velocity superheated spikes, the "Spiker" is the primary weapon of choice for Brute Infantry. It is dual-wieldable, unique, awesome, and happens to be my favorite weapon in Halo.
Ever since that summer day in my AP Physics class where my class mates and I huddled around a single computer to watch the first Halo Reach Trailer with wonder and excitement in our eyes, I've been searching for signs of the Spiker in Reach. At the time of this writing, the Spiker has not been confirmed to be in or out of Reach by Bungie, and its inclusion or removal has been a fairly frequent topic in the Halo Reach Forum.
Although I have posted in many of these threads, sharing different evidence, insights, and reasoning, I've yet to hone and sharpen my thoughts and unite them together into one masterpiece. But now, after nearly a month of brainstorming, drafting, and revising, I bring you my evidence for why I believe it is likely that the Spiker will return in Halo Reach.
I've worked hard to step away from my emotions and fairly evaluate the probability of the Spiker returning in Reach with cold hard facts and intelligence. I've crafted this thread with several groups of people in mind.
First, for the intellectuals of the forum. Please, examine my argument, attack it with everything you have, and try to break it. You did a very good job of this with my [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=41989722]Spartan Laser Thread[/url]. Because you broke that argument completely, it helped me to understand why the Spartan Laser's return in Halo Reach wasn't as bad as I originally thought. Don't expect it to be so easy this time around however, my "hate" of the Spartan Laser is insignificant compared to my Love for the Spiker.
Second, for the people who might have seen me on the forums, but just assumed that I am some sort of Spiker Fan Boy who believes that the Spiker will be in Reach because [i]"Bungie wouldn't dare mess with my favorite weapon."[/i] Please learn how horrifically wrong you are. I've put a lot of thought into this, and I won't have you writing me off until you hear the full story. There is a reason to why I say [i]"The Spiker is likely to return in Reach"[/i] with such confidence.
Finally, to the people who blindly trust every word I say, I'd at least want to give you some background to why I came to this conclusion so that if you ever find yourself under attack for claiming that the Spiker will return in Reach, you will at least know how to go about defending yourself.
[quote][/quote][i]"Why do you think the Spiker will be in Reach"[/i] you ask? This is a bit of a difficult question to answer, and I'm not sure exactly where I should start. As a writer, it's much easier for me to explain my theory to you by presenting the common arguments for why the Spiker won't be in Reach, then counter them one by one. I've compiled six major arguments today, and I am willing to add more should you people craft some new ones which challenge my conclusion.
The original post is comprised of seven posts total, so I wish you luck with finishing it.
[quote][/quote][quote][b]Argument 1)[/b] [i]Spikers are weapons used only by Brutes. I heard that there won't be any Brutes in Halo Reach, so it makes no sense for there to be Spikers in Halo Reach.[/i][/quote][quote][/quote]
This argument commonly comes from people who haven't been following the development of this game closely. There is no crime in making an assumption like this when you don't have all the details available for you to digest, so allow me to quickly and kindly correct your misunderstanding.
Brutes are in Reach. They have been indirectly confirmed twice by Bungie. The first time that they were confirmed was in the First Halo Reach Vidoc: [url=http://www.bungie.net/projects/reach/vidaudio.aspx?c=58&i=24782]Once More Unto The Breach[/url]. At about 4:33 into the video, you will clearly see an artist working on a new brute model for Halo Reach (the brute model is on the left screen, Brute concept art from Halo 3 is on the right screen). For those of you who are lazy and don't mind my funny red annotations, I have a [url=http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab249/Hylebosaiden/Bnet%20Image%20Resources/OMGBRUTES.jpg]screencap[/url] of this picture for your viewing pleasure.
Why would they show footage in the vidoc of a character model that won't be in the final game?
The second time that they were confirmed was in the [url=http://downloads.bungie.net/podcasts/Bungie_Podcast_30910.mp3]03/09/10 Bungie Podcast[/url]. The guest of this show was the Reach Audio Lead: Jay Weinland. At about 30 minutes into the podcast, the following exchange occurs:
[quote] [b]29:58 Brian Jarrard:[/b] And then I guess you guys are also dealing with redefining a Grunt speaking a native dialog versus an Elite versus all of the Covenant.
[b]Jay Weinland:[/b] Yup, it's a totally different take there I guess, totally different take, and we've come up with a way to actually write English words and then transmogrify them into an Alien Language which...
[b]Brian Jarrard:[/b] Yeah, I heard that a real formal language was created, sort of melding together some other things that are out there and then you guys are like: "guess we'll apply some processing to the final recording to make..."
[b]Jay Weinland:[/b] Yeah, apply some processing to make it sound more [b][u]Brutey[/b][/u], or more Elitey, or more Grunty.
[b]Brian Jarrard:[/b] That's awesome.
[b]Jay Weinland:[/b] So yeah, that's going to be good times, we've already recorded a couple of grunts, we're getting our Elites and [b][u]Brutes[/u][/b] here in Seattle.
[/quote]
Why would they need to record dialog for Brutes if they aren't going to be in the game?
Now, some of you might not be entirely convinced. I've heard all sorts of justifications for why Brutes won't be in Reach despite the prior two bits of evidence. [i]"Brutes will be in cut scenes only and we won't ever fight them"[/i] or [i]"Bungie says that all details are subject to change, so they could easily come to their senses and removes Brutes from Reach before they ruin Campaign."[/i] To be blunt, these are feeble weak arguments which aren't likely to occur. I understand that some of you people may be nervous about reintroducing Brutes into Halo Reach when they didn't do so well in Halo 2 or Halo 3, but there are a variety of reasons why Brutes in Reach won't suck as much as in prior games.
The important thing is that there are Brutes in the game, so we know that Spikers won't be taken out just because Brutes are absent. But Brutes have not been as consistent in their presentation throughout previous Halo games, which brings us to our next argument.
[quote][/quote][b]Continued on Page 2[/b][quote][/quote]
[Edited on 09.09.2010 5:46 PM PDT]
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Hey, am I the only one that remembers the live action movie for Halo 3, where the marines track Master Chief's falling body? (can't remember the name of it) Remember how nasty the spiker seemed in that video? I never used the spiker in Halo 3, as dual wielding wasn't my style. However, I totally agree with the arguement about it being in a very good position to be special in Reach. The Covenant, I've always felt, weren't as good in weapons, and I've always preferred human weapons over their Covenant counterparts. However, the spiker felt, to me, in Halo 3, a gun that could have been great but was left at the curb in developing other features of the game.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper They should definitely have some melee prowess over other weapons.[/quote] That's a bit difficult to do with the new melee system.[/quote] How so? (I do not fully understand the new system)[/quote] In Halo 3, when you punched someone, you did about 70 points of damage. If you depleted the shields with that damage, the leftover damage went straight to the health. In Reach however, to make melee fights more predictable and less "random gut-based" where you internalized the ammount of time needed before you could hit and kill, they made it so that the shields absorb all damage before dieing for melees. So if you have one point of shields left, and I melee'd you, in Halo 3, I would do one damage to the shields, and 69 damage to the health, but in Reach, the entire attack would be absorbed by the shields. So it isn't a matter of giving the Spiker a power boost. It either kills in two hits, or it kills in one hit.[/quote] I see. One blow would only take the shields down, and no health. So a stronger melee would be redundant. Unless they made it so it bypassed this system, and went straight for health.[/quote] Yes. Bypassing shields is always an option, but that might make the gun too powerful. Assuming that the health / shield levels are roughly the same as in Halo 3, then Spartans have 70 shield hitpoints, and 45 health hitpoints, for a total of 115 hitpoints. Normal Melees do 70 damage, the Spiker Melee does 72 damage. So in Reach, the AR needs to do 70 points of damage before a melee can kill. If the Spiker melee could bypass the shields as they sputter and die, then you only need to do 43 points of damage to the shield before a Spiker melee kills your opponent in one hit. To me, that sounds pretty overpowered, and the likely mechanism to balance this would be to nerf the weapon fire, which turns the Spiker into more of a knife than a gun. I'd rather just live with not bypassing shields to do damage to be honest, not worth it.
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the spikers new wireframe has just caused an explosion in my pants lol but yea so happy its in reach
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Custom Assassination animations. That is all. For example: I want to dig my Spiker deep into the gut of that Elite trying to invade my base, and then cut off [i]all four[/i] of his jaws with the blade, holding them up as a trophy glistening in the rays of the sun, before taking off my helmet and getting a good taste of Sangheili blood.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos So it isn't a matter of giving the Spiker a power boost. It either kills in two hits, or it kills in one hit.[/quote] It's really not just a matter of killing in one hit or two. Take the Shotgun, for example. It's damage "bleeds over" into the targets health, but may not necessarily kill them. Same with all explosives, gravity hammer blasts, and sword lunges that are melee-countered. I think for the Spiker to be included in reach, it would have to have this feature for its melee, otherwise, it's not going to fill a niche that isn't already filled by the AR and PR.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper They should definitely have some melee prowess over other weapons.[/quote] That's a bit difficult to do with the new melee system.[/quote] How so? (I do not fully understand the new system)[/quote] In Halo 3, when you punched someone, you did about 70 points of damage. If you depleted the shields with that damage, the leftover damage went straight to the health. In Reach however, to make melee fights more predictable and less "random gut-based" where you internalized the ammount of time needed before you could hit and kill, they made it so that the shields absorb all damage before dieing for melees. So if you have one point of shields left, and I melee'd you, in Halo 3, I would do one damage to the shields, and 69 damage to the health, but in Reach, the entire attack would be absorbed by the shields. So it isn't a matter of giving the Spiker a power boost. It either kills in two hits, or it kills in one hit.[/quote] I see. One blow would only take the shields down, and no health. So a stronger melee would be redundant. Unless they made it so it bypassed this system, and went straight for health.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper They should definitely have some melee prowess over other weapons.[/quote] That's a bit difficult to do with the new melee system.[/quote] How so? (I do not fully understand the new system)[/quote] In Halo 3, when you punched someone, you did about 70 points of damage. If you depleted the shields with that damage, the leftover damage went straight to the health. In Reach however, to make melee fights more predictable and less "random gut-based" where you internalized the ammount of time needed before you could hit and kill, they made it so that the shields absorb all damage before dieing for melees. So if you have one point of shields left, and I melee'd you, in Halo 3, I would do one damage to the shields, and 69 damage to the health, but in Reach, the entire attack would be absorbed by the shields. So it isn't a matter of giving the Spiker a power boost. It either kills in two hits, or it kills in one hit.
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You my good Sir have way to much free time.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hylebos [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper They should definitely have some melee prowess over other weapons.[/quote] That's a bit difficult to do with the new melee system.[/quote] How so? (I do not fully understand the new system)
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Yes Hylebos i want the spiker in it.I'm happy that it is in
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNSC Sniper They should definitely have some melee prowess over other weapons.[/quote] That's a bit difficult to do with the new melee system.
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We know the brutes will obviously be in the game. Now that must mean the Spiker must be in, common sense.
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They should definitely have some melee prowess over other weapons.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] AX NeXus One would be to give the Spiker's rounds a knock-back effect in gameplay, literally pushing a struck target away from the player. This would give the weapon a unique ability to counter close-quarters weapons like no other weapon currently does, by delaying or halting the enemy's advancement on your position, preventing them from getting in effective range. On an off note, an enemy killed next to a wall could be pinned to it with this effect introduced, which would look cool. [/quote] This would be a cool effect, I suppose at first glance it seems overpowered, but it depends on how much it effects the speed of the other player. The important thing is not for players to become frustrated because they feel like they are moving through a lake of mollasses and razor blades as they try to approach the Spiker user, but to create a feeling of "No, I'm not going to let these spikes stop me! I'm almost there! Going to kill him with that sword lunge soon!" Unfortunately I can't really comment on most of the rest of your OP anymore now that we know that it seems (aesthetically at least), the [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/reachstats/weapons/spiker.png]Spiker[/url] hasn't undergone any significant changes from Halo 3. I will admit though that perhaps my vision for what the Spiker oculd become was rather narrow and limited in the OP, but weapon creation isn't really my forte =\ [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] LegendaryFluffy Great read. The argument based on the need for the Brute peon to have a unique weapon alone convinces me. Just for fun, I made up this little beauty. [url=http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae306/hyrumwhite/wellsee-1-1-2.jpg?t=1272131156]The Spike Rifle[/url]. One of the blades will probably have to be removed or modified to accommodate a two-handed grip.[/quote] Nice. Reminds me almost of the Mass Effect Shotgun for some reason. As for undermounted blades, they wouldn't need to be removed, when single wielding the Spiker, you hold it by the back and you slip your hand inbetween the bottom of the gun and the blunt side of the blade. It does look really nice though. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Kalriq Here's a question for you in conjunction with Old Papa Rich's xomment about an entirely new weapon: What else could the main armnament for Brutes be if not the Spiker, could a new weapon not fulfil it better from a player scavenging point of view? [/quote] Perhaps take the Gravity Shot idea and turn it into more of a rifle perhaps. I'm not entirely sure, I'm not good at this weapon innovation stuff =\ [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Mestizo DDS [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Kalriq [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Mestizo DDS You shoudl also be aware that Hylebos thinks blood gulch is just a big flat field, i challenged him to a debate him saying why bg is dookie and me saying the many great unique feature BG has. He never responded, guess hylebose is like a rapper who writes his stuff down and I am a freestyler, no wonder he doesnt wanna battle lol[/quote] lol Hylebos is an incredibly smart guy, he knows what he's talking about. For your information, Blood Gulch is just a big flat field. The chances are he didn't reply because he was busy with other projects, and because of the ammount of hate mail he gets. -K-[/quote] The fact that you think that as well shows you have never played on that map for any decent amount of time. No hylebos just cant think on his feet if precedent says anything.[/quote] It's more of an issue about "I don't like bloodgultch compared to the map it could become, I know that it isn't coming back in it's original form with the creation of Armor Abillities, and I'm not really willing to argue over it because it's my opinion, nor do I want to convince you that it is indeed a simplistic map." [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Shotgun786 You should make a poll to see how many people actually read your post lol. I did not even try to attempt the mountain of text. But i'll take your word for it.[/quote] I don't like the poll feature. First, people tend to vote in polls before they read the original thread, or worse, just vote in the poll then leave. I want them to read the post body. Second, it can't really be used in any form of statistics because the sample size for the population isn't randomly selected, it's a small part of the Halo community who just so happened to stumble on the thread. Third, there is nothing I could learn from a poll that I couldn't learn by looking over all the responses to the thread. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Guerilla Creed You have way too much time on your hands.[/quote] Yeah. College sucks. You'll die if you don't learn how to ration out your time so you're always doing something. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] UNKNOWN iXi Because it seems 99% of these forums couldn't come to that conclusion on their own. It's very sad really... [/quote] It's not so much that they couldn't come to that conclusion on their own, but they didn't have the motivation / time to come to that conclusion. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hsad That was beautiful. I also hope that the spiker is in reach, when I heard that ODST was cutting duels I instantly became excited at the notion of a spiker that was good. (Sorry Hylebos but its was fairly worthless, although I have more kills with it than the SMGs, probably because its so damnfun killing people with it.) Sadly I think your right about the lack of maulers in reach, which is my spiker because I could take down shotgunners and swordsmen with its instant shot/melee pwnage. Could you write an essay for my AP Euro class, Cuz DAMN!!![/quote] History / English bores me. Science is more of my sort of thing. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] supertripon You should make one of these threads for brute shots. I need some reassurance.[/quote] It would more or less be the exact same thing as this thread, except that I would have elaborated on and expanded apon the part about the Brutes in Arguement 3. I still have the hunch that the Bruteshot will make a return in some form. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] tinyohyeah [url=http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc236/tinyohyeah/spiker_reach.jpg?t=1272166317]Here it is, A [b]Spiker Prototype[/b] in 3D[/url][/quote] It's very pretty. Though the handle needs work >_> [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] NsU Soldier You know what's not a waste of time? Pics of the new Brute weapons in all their HD glory! :D [url=http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/8808/bruteweps.png]The Shredder, Blender, Slicer and Impaler confirmed!1!1!![/url] (Courtesy of KitchenAid) [/quote] I laughed. [quote][/quote] 16 pages down, four more to go.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TallT66 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TallT66 What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.[/quote] For those with no funny bones, this is a quote from a movie, I actually liked the post :)[/quote] dont worry dude, i got the joke
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Tesla 123 china called, they want their wall back[/quote] Go and have sex with a bucket will you? I'm actually proud to have read the entire topic, it waswell written, and I'm dazzled by his dedication to the Spiker Rifle and his knowledge on the subject. You should seriously reconsider your decision about not reading OP's entire post, it's great reading.
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I would never read this much on a forum. sorry
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Cyrius you said "gravity faries" o no. you need to be put down like ol yeller! this is the most pointless therad EVER![/quote] The Gravity Fairies Exist Brah, they are in your cores, messin with ur weight.
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forget a wall of text ... thats a -blam!- mountain of text
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you said "gravity faries" o no. you need to be put down like ol yeller! this is the most pointless therad EVER!
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TallT66 What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.[/quote] For those with no funny bones, this is a quote from a movie, I actually liked the post :)
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What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] RtF Elemental I shall decimate your argument in one swift blow: Bungie doesn't care. They do not care about your spiker, as it fills no real void. Brutes CAN only wield plasma weapons, because this entire game is theorized. Every argument you can possibly come up with can be countered with "Because". Because every scenario is THEORIZED. You are arguing in an undefined field. And If that isn't good enough for you, why can't you duel wield spikers in Reach anymore? You can't answer that, because there is always some random thing you can make up to rectify the issue. Why aren't spiker rifles in the game? They haven't been developed by the brutes yet. That's why. [/quote] I'm holding my lab notebook in my hands, and soon, I will drop it. It will not touch the floor, because all the gravity fairies that live in the center of the Earth decided to go on strike for a better dental plan, as the tooth faries have been raising their prices in a direct response to the Jungle Troll Wars. When you can bring me proof of Bungie not caring about the Spiker, I'll bring you my proof of Gravity Fairies.
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] RtF Elemental I shall decimate your argument in one swift blow: Bungie doesn't care. They do not care about your spiker, as it fills no real void. Brutes CAN only wield plasma weapons, because this entire game is theorized. Every argument you can possibly come up with can be countered with "Because". Because every scenario is THEORIZED. You are arguing in an undefined field. And If that isn't good enough for you, why can't you duel wield spikers in Reach anymore? You can't answer that, because there is always some random thing you can make up to rectify the issue. Why aren't spiker rifles in the game? They haven't been developed by the brutes yet. That's why. [/quote][url=http://www.bungie.net/images/reachstats/weapons/spiker.png]I beg to differ[/url] look at the URL Kudos to Hylebos, this is a very well thought out argument and it wasn't boring to read. You've convinced me [Edited on 05.02.2010 5:52 PM PDT]
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] RtF Elemental Bungie doesn't care. They do not care about your spiker, as it fills no real void.[/quote]Err... we don't know what Bungie, as a collective, feels. The Spike Rifle could fill as much of a void as the Needler (which is to say, something fun-tastic). We can speculate all day on which way they lean, but it won't accomplish anything. This is a pretty solid line of reasoning, Hybelos. I hope that Spikers return with some new twists, or that we are given a Plasma Repeater-equivelant that has its twists. I agree that the ricochette could be what's needed to help make the weapon interesting. I'm thinking that making the ricochette extreme would be great. It'd make the weapon a monster in tight-knit corridors. Also, I'd prefer if the weapon's rate of fire didn't pick up and its ammo damage simply doubled. An automatic weapon with that slow a rate of fire would be preferable. If it fired faster, it'd be tougher to distinguish it from the crowd of other automatic weapons. This gun needs to stand tall and alone if it's gonna be remembered.
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I shall decimate your argument in one swift blow: Bungie doesn't care. They do not care about your spiker, as it fills no real void. Brutes CAN only wield plasma weapons, because this entire game is theorized. Every argument you can possibly come up with can be countered with "Because". Because every scenario is THEORIZED. You are arguing in an undefined field. And If that isn't good enough for you, why can't you duel wield spikers in Reach anymore? You can't answer that, because there is always some random thing you can make up to rectify the issue. Why aren't spiker rifles in the game? They haven't been developed by the brutes yet. That's why.