Halo Reach Tips: What is Bloom?

If you're a beginner trying to get into playing Halo: Reach multiplayer, you'll probably find most online forums very confusing and disorienting. These days, people are constantly discussing topics that fly right over the heads of the uninformed Halo fan base. One of these topics is bloom (and no, they're not talking about flowers). Here's what bloom is, how it's changing, and how to use it to your advantage in Halo: Reach matchmaking.

The basic concept of bloom is a simple one. Bloom represents the inaccuracy or spread of a weapon in a first person shooter. In a game that doesn't contain bloom, your shots will always strike at exactly where your gun is pointed. The element of bloom adds a slight inaccuracy to your weapon, firing your shot at a random angle that is just off of a straight trajectory. You may be lucky and get a shot that fires perfectly straight, but your bullet may also land slightly away from where you were aiming. This effect becomes more pronounced at long ranges, as a bullet has more time and distance to deviate from its intended path. In most shooting games, the effect is communicated to the player in the size of their aiming reticle. Shots fired will land somewhere within the crosshair displayed, and not necessarily at the exact center of the screen.

The changing size of your weapon reticle in Halo: Reach communicates the severity of bloom.In Halo: Reach, bloom is used to replicate the effect of recoil on ranged weapons. As you fire weapons like the DMR or Needle Rifle rapidly, you can watch your aiming reticle quickly expand. Shots that are taken right after another will have a larger bloom effect. Trying to hit targets at a long range will be near impossible if shoot as quickly as your weapon lets you. If you leave some extra time in between your shots, you will see your reticle gradually shrink, representing an increase in accuracy. Pacing your shots slowly lets you hit faraway enemies that would normally be out of range. However, at closer ranges you may not need such a large wait between trigger pulls to still land your shots. If you're standing right beside your target, you may as well spam the trigger as quickly possible. Even maximum bloom effect won't cause missed shots at close range. Getting a feel of how to pace your shots at different ranges is a large part of succeeding at Halo: Reach.

Bloom has always been an element of the Halo series, but it is more noticeable in Halo: Reach because it is more obviously communicated to the player. Even Halo: Combat Evolved's overpowered magnum pistol had a slight bloom effect. Holding down the trigger would cause quite a large bullet spray. Tapping the trigger rapidly would lessen this effect, and taking slower paced shots would make it even more accurate. Nothing in the game telegraphed this to the player, besides the actual paths of the bullets fired. Even automatic weapons, like the Assault Rifle, have similar tendencies. Emptying the whole clip at once will result in a large area of spray, while firing in bursts gives a significant accuracy increase. Again, how to pace your shooting for optimal results completely changes based on the distance to your target.

The primary weapon of Halo: Reach, the M392 Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR), is affected by Bloom.Discussion of bloom in Halo: Reach has become a greater focus online since 343 Industries released a title update for the game in September. One of the features of this update was the added ability to tweak bloom. The effects of bloom can now be increased, decreased, or removed altogether. In Halo: Reach matchmaking, you will run into 3 variants of bloom: the default amount (sometimes called "Vanilla Reach"), 85% bloom, and zero bloom. With 85% bloom, weapons like the DMR and Needle Rifle are slightly more accurate. You can pace your shots slightly quicker and still get the same level of accuracy. It makes ranged weapons more effective in general, and removes some of the luck that a random spread of bullets creates. Zero bloom turns off any inaccuracy, causing every shot to land exactly in the center of the screen where you are aiming. Zero bloom removes any luck of bullet spread, and battles are won and lost based on aim alone. As of the writing of this article, these are the playlists where you'll run into the different variants.

Vanilla Reach (100% Bloom): Squad DLC, Team Slayer, Rumble Pit, Team Swat, Team Snipers, Living Dead, Action Sack

Title Update Reach (85% Bloom): Team Objective, Squad Slayer, Multi-team, Team Arena, Big Team Battle, Double Team

Zero Bloom (0% Bloom): TU Beta Playlist, MLG

Additionally, the new Anniversary playlists use different settings that try to closely emulate the multiplayer experience of the original Halo: Combat Evolved. The pistol is much more accurate, having a reduced bloom effect. Grifball is unaffected by bloom changes, as it does not utilize ranged weapons.

The Halo community in Major League Gaming has been very vocal about changes to bloom.These playlists will be altered over time by updates from 343 Industries. In general, they are slowly switching more playlists to the title update settings. The MLG playlist is also managed separately, and features custom gameplay settings. The playlist is transitioning to "Zero Bloom" gametypes, that also have no armor abilities. Pro players tend to favour gametypes with less bloom, because they leave less of the game in the hands of luck. Most MLG games are won and lost by very close margins, and it would be a shame if some unlucky bloom was the only reason a team lost out on a giant paycheck at the end of a tournament. I don't have a very strong opinion towards a specific bloom setting. I've always found Halo: Reach to be a lot of fun, and I still find it fun with Zero Bloom and 85% Bloom. I just don't like having to constantly switch my DMR pacing depending on what playlist I'm in. I just hope that 343 Industries chooses the settings that please the largest amount of players, and tries to keep those consistent across the entire game (with the exception of MLG, which will always have its own way of doing things). A larger player base and more satisfied community is a plus for everyone.

While on the topic of playlists, it's worth mentioning the other changes that the Title Update brought. In "TU" settings, dealing damage to players in armor lock causes armor lock to deplete faster. Also, players that are stuck by a plasma grenade can no longer save themselves by popping into armor lock. The title update also removes the very frustrating sword block behavior of Halo: Reach. Now the only thing that can block an Energy Sword is another Energy Sword, just like the previous Halo titles. Another aspect that has been brought back from old Halo games is damage bleed through. In Vanilla Reach, your health is only depleted if you had no shields when damage was dealt to you. With the update, a single source of damage can reduce your shields to zero, and also "bleed through" to your health bar, depleting it as well. They are all slight changes, but when combined they can change the feel of the game significantly.

Changes to weapon bloom and armor lock must be considered when playing matches with "Title Update" settings.Using bloom to your advantage is a tricky art to master. Tied the Leader has a fantastic article about the statistics of DMR behavior at various ranges. The article is very in-depth, and will give you a very good idea of the technical guts of bloom. Once you're aware of the concept, succeeding with bloom enabled weapons just takes a lot of practice. Unless you have a target at point blank, it's not a good idea to spam the trigger as quickly as possible. Even a very slight pause can greatly increase the likelihood of landing your shots. If your enemy is standing across the map, it may be a good idea to let your reticle shrink back to its smallest size before taking another shot. I find figuring out the pace for your shots one of the most satisfying elements of Halo: Reach matchmaking. Experiment with different techniques over many games, and you'll improve your skill with the DMR in a hurry!

Hex19.com has a variety of other Halo: Reach articles that you can check out here. Do you have a question or something to add? Don't hesitate to leave a comment below.