1.) Default controller settings. (This is self explanatory, I won’t go into detail).
2.) Theater Mode.
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Camera Shifts upon player being dead and using fast forward or rewind. Making it extremely hard to find moments you’re looking for. (In fact the entire theater UI is overloaded, and frustrating to use even after changing settings)
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By Default; doesn’t show player names. (Can be changed through options)
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Input isn’t being recorded often enough to make watching theater a viable tactic for improvement.
To go more in depth: Players will want to watch the gameplay of the guy who ‘pwned’ them. See what that person did right, and adjust performance accordingly.
Unfortunately; The game isn’t recording the enemy input as often as your own. When you watch your own gameplay; the reticule is pretty much exactly where it was in game. When you watch an enemies gameplay, the reticule will lag behind the players position. It ends up making gameplay look like the individual was using an aimbot.
3.) Grenades.
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AOE is too big with too much damage at farther distances. If the grenade is at someones feet; it makes sense that the damage should be what it currently is; not so much if it’s farther away.
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Possibly need to lengthen fuse time.
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Ranked Grenades are going to likely need to be limited to one on spawn without major changes to grenade functionality.
4.) Field of View.
- Set a fixed view for ranked. Higher values feel like cheating compared to lower ones. The difference between 80 degree FOV and 120 is way too high to allow it to be player chosen.
(FOV: 80 is default, lowest is 65, highest is 120)
5.) Ranking.
The system is placing people all over the board, and is adjusting underlying elo before rank.
Ever get a low plat or gold rank player in your diamond game? It’s because they placed with a low rank, then proceeded to stomp, their elo skyrocketed - but their rank didn’t.
Ranking up feels bland and there doesn’t appear to be any detriment to losing. Only once your rank starts to mirror your elo does it become affected by losses; and not to any meaningful extent.
It also doesn’t appear to be entirely win driven. This is a mistake. End result is that it will limit certain types of gameplay, promote others. Win based ensures all types of gameplay can occur. (Why would I grab an objective to keep it in play when I can just kill someone and have more elo added to my rank on a win, and have almost no penalty on a loss? If I do play objective and lose, well that death just lost me additional rank.)
6.) Armor in ranked
- Default armor/color for everyone in ranked.
Some will argue it doesn’t matter because hitboxes are the same regardless of armor.
I disagree, and think that there are subtle advantages to armor/color selection when it comes to blending in with environment - even with a character glow. (Character glow in and of itself should be limited in ranked as well - figure out which glow you want people to use, and do not allow other types.)
7.) Matchmaking Game Modes.
You added how many new modes? Not a single social playlist with BR start other than team tactical? (Easy fix: Switch up the slayer game mode from time to time so there are both AR and BR starts mixed in).
This is a big issue for those who want to practice for ranked.
8.) Non-symmetrical maps.
Look at halo 2. Look at halo 3. Look at when Halo esports died down in popularity. (Halo Reach into H4).
People want to feel like they have the same exact chance from the get go as their opponent. Asymmetrical maps inherently provide an advantage to one side over the other. This started in Halo Reach and hasn’t stopped since. There is no room for discussion on this one; at least for ranked.
In social, they can be quite fun and flashy.
9.) Menu UI is iffy at best.
BONUS: Ranked and Social need more options. I’m assuming that this isn’t the end result and is simply testing the waters. The playlists added make me think not a single dev has played competitively.
Maybe I’m wrong though; maybe they don’t want halo infinite to be played competitively, in which case - their decisions make a whole lot more sense.