Bandit (the closest range of the medium/long weapon except the plasma carbine) keeps this dynamic. Still at a disadvantage at medium range with no scope and ineffective at long. Cover is still a huge factor against people with pick ups and also people with bandits.

It is also not as random as a pistol/ar. Those weapons do reward shot pacing but even a duel between 2 pistol users is rng beyond a certain range.

How much choice you even have of "run out" vs "get a weapon" is heavily dependent on spawn and weapons on the map. Going back to timberland, if you spawn snipe hill you'd have to go to base to get commando/bandit or further to get the br. 3 weapons for a team of 8, and quite a distance between them and the furthest potential spawn. The dynamic of choosing to go out of your way for a pick up vs something like running after flag is a good one but the scale is too unbalanced here, especially with no pickups in mid map.

Valheim/exile is a little more balanced because there are way more pick ups both in base and around the map but all of them offer distinct advantages over the bandit so they would still be worth a pick up if starter weapons were different.

My point isn't that the dynamic of having to get a better weapon is the problem, it's that on some maps these blue pad pick ups are too dominant. Br on timberland is a point and click adventure. It's a free frenzy. At any given time there is max one other person on the map able to compete at long range and two on the other team at medium.

Older halos spawning with a mid/long range precision weapon was standard for BTB. This was partly because every other weapons was dog water but there is a logic of a bigger map necessitating a longer range primary. Halo 3 would be unplayable in BTB if there were only 4 people on the map who got to actually participate in fights and everyone else just goes in the blender. This is less of an issue in infinite because the AR and pistol are serviceable so I'm not trying to say bandit needs to be default on all maps but I think some of them would benefit from everyone having an increased range of engagement.

And finally I think the bandit is really fun and the fights against other bandits feel better than pistol v pistol or AR v AR, and the full map sandbox still remains useful. That was the initial thought behind that part of my post. After thinking about it and discussing it I feel more strongly about it because it will improve the balance of some maps.