For the past month the multiplayer and sandbox teams on Halo 4 have been working on retuning some of the weapons and improving the overall feel of Halo 4 matchmaking.
Last week, the studio invited top players and community members to get a behind-the-scenes look at the changes before they go live to the general public.
Battle Rifle
The biggest change is the new four-shot battle rifle, followed by the two-shot beatdown—that's when players using the battle rifle who land two of their shots can follow it up with a melee attack for a fast kill.
Automatic Rifles
The assault rifle, the storm rifle, and the suppressor will all kill in three shots less than what they currently do. The weapon tuning essentially buffs the automatic rifles in the game, which is balanced out by having lower auto-aim assistance—so you'll have to do quite a bit of aiming to land a kill, more so than ever before.
Chaingun
In addition to the weapons, the Warthog and the Mantis will have their chaingun damage increased by up to 35% in an effort to make vehicle play more interesting.
Movement Speed
To improve the fluidity of the gameplay in general, movement speed has been increased across the board by 10%.
DMR and Light Rifle
Up until now, the DMR has been the most popular weapon in the game. With the changes coming to the game, other weapons will be on par with the DMR and allow players who choose to stick to the DMR the ability to feel less like bandwagon jumpers.
Likewise, the Light Rifle has been boosted so that it fires at a higher rate while zoomed in, making it a much more viable weapon for long-range battles.
Covenant Carbine
The Covenant Carbine can now kill in seven shots.
