343, you have had this series for coming up on 10 years. Each and every entry you have put out has been a complete failure for one reason or another. In my opinion, Infinite is the most egregious simply because you got so close to putting out a good game. For the first time in 10 years, you actually got the gunplay right. Sure, some weapons need tuning but at Infinites core, you did it. However, the supporting systems of Infinite are not only lacking, but they are also completely and utterly broken; and you should be completely ashamed of the product you have produced. This game has SO MUCH potential to be great and you are letting it slip for so many reasons.
Desync - I thought the F2P model was because “seRvErS eXpEnSiVe sO pAy fOr BlUe”. Or is it you had so much turnover in the studio that you don’t even know how the netcode works? The game has so much more desync than even Halo 3 which had BLOOD SHOTS all the time. Yet, Infinite, continues to no Reg with every single gun that it has when in MP. We no longer actually see the blood come from the enemy so we can’t call it blood shots. Doesn’t matter what gun, AR, BR, Mangler, Shock Rifle etc. It can be REPLICATED by EVERYONE with how bad the hit reg in this game is.
Anti-Cheat - How in the world did a game in 2021 release WITHOUT an anit-cheat after the colossal failure of Warzone? You removed Red Reticle from PC to “Combat” cheating and for what? You removed a key part of visual combat from PC players because you were too lazy to implement an anti-cheat? WAT. There isn’t even an in-game report button - we need to record clips and make a ticket on waypoint. This is such an absurd amount of work for the normal player, which have already been driven off due to cheaters. MCC LAUNCHED with Easy Anti Cheat on PC; why couldn’t Infinite at the very least? We need a KERNAL level anti-cheat for Infinite since so many Pro Tournaments are being held online. The HCS online qualifiers have been plagued with cheaters and 343/HCS has done nothing to fix this. Outside of suspending Royal 2 for Geofiltering even though over half the PC population is doing so.
PC Stability - You have known since Flight 1 of Infinite that the PC build has been unstable. Yes, you have made improvements since then but since full release you have yet to acknowledge the stability of PC builds. Despite the embarrassment you received at HSC Raleigh with numerous crashes back-to-back on live stream, you have yet to say a single work on this. Instead, HCS (Tashi) blamed the prebuild manufacturer? That is unacceptable and if I were the owner of the company that provided those PC’s, we would never do business again. How dare you blame the builder of the PC when the issue lies within the game you released. There have been so many complaints and tickets raised regarding PC stability - you need to address this. I myself, submitted a ticket regarding the constant crashes I receive. Do you want to know what 343 did with said ticket? They told me to submit a new ticket with each crash and closed my original. I refuse to submit a NEW ticket each time I crash with Event viewer logs, DXDIAG, etc. I will UPDATE my ticket, not create a new one.
MMR/CSR/Hidden MMR - Yes, you said you were reworking this, and ranks will be reset - but WHAT are you reworking?? Are you uncoupling social MMR from ranked MMR? Are you removing MMR from ranked so CSR is the only metric? Are you reworking the unbalanced rewards/penalties for Wins/Losses? Are you fixing team balancing? Communicate what you are doing with us, that is all we ask. You said you would be transparent with communication, and you have failed that at each and every turn. That’s all we ask - talk to us.
Store - You know what you did. You know you are completely over charging for everything. You know you are the most expensive store front for any F2P game. The “Reductions” you put in aren’t actual reductions; we are paying hand over fist for a single item vs the entire bundle you had. I understand servers cost money, but ffs stop being so greedy. You are owned by Microsoft, these Azure servers you are using are not that expensive. I run over 300 of these servers in my Profession and it doesn’t cost anything in relation to the profits you must be making with the store. Absolutely horrible excuse.
Servers - What is the tick rate these servers are running? I’ve heard they are running at 15,20,30. I don’t know, but they are for sure, 100%, unequivocally SLOWER than MCC servers. You had to add a hit reg update to MCC H3 because you increased the tick rate to 60 which completely ruined how the bullets travelled in H3. Why does Infinite have SLOWER tick rates than MCC? Genuine question, I can’t think of a single reason why these servers are refreshing slower. Maybe that is why the desync issue is so prevalent.
General Failures - 3 months to fix the alignment of cosmetics - bro for real? MONTHS to change the X/Y axis of a mohawk? Make it make sense. This SHOULD take MINUTES to resolve, not months. UI changes - how is this UI so broken that you can’t edit the shop or add heavily requested playlists on the fly? Who designed this UI and why can’t it be adaptable? UI should NEVER be an excuse as to why changes can’t be made - and we’ve seen this excuse numerous times!
- Shop Prices
Obviously overpriced
-Lack of content
Ranked has 5 maps. Come on, we need at least 1 more. (Don’t bring back behemoth; it’s far too big for 4v4)
-Inability to earn in game currency
Yeah, you said we will be able to in Season 2, but how much can we earn? Will we be able to buy the season pass with earned currency like Warzone? or is it a handful of tokens?
Idk what the actual issue is if its management, corporate oversite (Microsoft), turn over, whatever. It is clear there needs to be restructuring of this company. Bonnie Ross MUST be FIRED from 343 as every single Halo launch under her guidance has been an initial failure. Out of everything 343 has produced, 1 thing is for certain each and every time, we can expect a bad launch every time you put out a new title.
So this whole post isn’t negative and only complaints, I loved the campaign. Sure, I wish there was Co-op, ability to replay missions, etc. The overall experience was great. I really enjoyed this campaign to the point that it brought a tear to my eye with the speech from Cortana. 20 years of Halo and seeing that speech was awesome. I’m genuinely excited to see where you can take it from here.
343, you have a gem on your hands for the first time since you took ownership of the Halo Franchise. Don’t continue the trend of failure and let down for the first year of release (3 years for MCC). Communicate with us, give us the road map you promised last month, continue to improve, and most importantly LISTEN TO YOUR PLAYERS. I have been playing Halo since Halo: CE launched, I love this series utterly and completely. The last thing I want to see is this series fail, but you need to stop producing failures.
I have pretty much been playing MCC a lot more than Halo Infinite. Why? For the simple reason Halo MCC Works! Unlike Halo Infinite. 