Personally, this might be my least favorite btb ever. Lack of BR start, maps, and gametypes are underwhelming. I’ve enjoyed Every other halo btb until Infinite.
What are your thoughts?
7 Likes
I like it for the most part. I’d only ask that the timer on how soon tanks can spawn is lowered so they start spawning sooner, and that we get an update to Bot AI that allows us to have a BTB bot playlist. Ive actually enjoyed bot matches quite a bit, and its a little disappointing that you can only play arena maps with them.
edit: also move the pelican dropoff points closer to the respective team’s bases. It seems a little too easy for the enemy team to just walk up and yoink your team’s vehicle drops. Or maybe they can vary the drop locations so some are closer and some are further.
Not a big fan of BTB in Infinite, so I rarely play it. The reasons why I don’t like it:
- No BR spawns, and only one of the 3 maps seems to have a decent number of BR/Commando/Stalker spawn spots.
- The 18m radar is way too short. I know 343 said it will be expanded to 22m on BTB on the official December 8 launch, but even 22m feels too short, should be 25m like past Halo games.
- The vehicles don’t spawn often enough, most of them are too easily destroyed (Ghost being the main exception), and dynamo grenades/shock weapons disable them too easily and leave them disabled for too long. Also they spawn a bit too far from base which can make it easier for the enemy team to steal your vehicles
- Nobody plays objective on Stockpile, it’s the worst.
- Highpower is inherently imbalanced as one side gets better vantage points over the middle of the map, which is especially useful on Stockpile.
4 Likes
I do like having the AR on hand, though, so I’d appreciate the btb starter kit being AR/BR. I don’t like the ranked arena loadout of JUST BRs though.
idk how the game can change to get people to play the objective in stockpile more, though, besides maybe adding BTB objective pickup challenges.
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gotta have the right settings turned on and at least 60 fps. the game can pull that even with min req. if you set it up properly but i wouldnt even try playing it because the hits wont register and the pistol will be useless anything less than that. on pc anyway. you have to be able to at least keep up with xbox which is a smoothed over vsynced version of 30fps so its right around 60 after buffers and everything.
If there is no option for BR starts at launch, my thoughts won’t change: meh experience so far.
As someone who thought BTB got so badly mistreated in Halo 5 with the horrendous Forged maps and just as atrocious spawn locations on a good percentage of them, I’m very happy to see it bounce back in Infinite. From when I first got my taste of BTB in the Flight to this current Open Beta, I love it. The jump to 24 players and little quirks to it like the Pelican drops and the loot caves I enjoy.
It’s not without criticism though. I do feel the motion sensor needs its range expanded on a bit more, preferring it to be back to the range of the older games. The motion sensor was a great companion to help sort out the madness, even when you’re in the thick of the firefights with vehicles circling and exploding and power weapons detonating everywhere, and its definitely NOT that here in Infinite. There are still way too many instances of me just dying to people I didn’t notice when I usually would with the motion sensor in previous games.
And while I love Fragmentation, the other maps are…okay. Deadlock I’ve warmed up to just a little, but Highpower is my least favorite. They don’t have the loot cave feature that was showed off and was a nice addition to Fragmentation so that was a little disappointing, but whenever I play Stockpile - the one gamemode that I can honestly say I HATE -, it really exposes some of the imbalancing that comes with the design that puts one team in a better position to reach and secure the Power Seeds. The more openness of these maps and the lesser ranged weapon spawns when compared to Fragmentation also hurts them as well.
I actually like where the vehicles are right now. Typically those who are more careful can easily rack up the kills as I would just take apart entire enemy formations with a sneaky Ghost or feed the gunner in my Warthog the kills. Most of the time people just charge straight into battle and die very quickly. Wasps epitomize this, able to easily be annihilated by a Hydra or getting grapplejacked if the pilot slips up but if they stick to cover and push where its viable they will dominate the map. Scorpion Tank is the most world-ending juggernaut that its ever been before and I love it while Wraith Tank…I haven’t driven it enough to form an opinion. Chopper is a little bit of a difficult beast to tame but I usually meet success with it. If there was a vehicle that I think needs a little more love in terms of buffs it’d be the Banshee.
Overall though, I’m really happy with this BTB. Hoping for more, better designed maps at a scale like Fragmentation, some minor tweaks here and there, and an option to never play Stockpile ever again but even with how it is now I’m just so happy to have a good BTB experience again.
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sounds a lot like valhalla
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I think eventually BR Starts should be in the rotation for BTB. Not the whole playlist. BR starts is fun in BTB but it incentivizes not picking up anything on the map. And not everybody likes to be spawn beamed every 15 seconds.
not a fan. vehicles spawn far too infrequently and in seemingly arbitrary spots in the middle of the map instead of at base.
2 Likes
I think the AR/Sidekick spawns are fine and what should really be typical in a game like Halo, especially this iteration of the AR which I feel is the best that its ever been - still a challenge against the tactical rifles as long as you play your cards right but when you do keep to the strengths of the BR and other weapons like the Stalker you’ll still commonly crush an AR user.
But a BR Slayer or a BR Starter game mode would be the right addition to have for people who really want them. Having played through those days in the previous Halos of BR starts and getting saddled with a useless AR, I’m content with how it is now with a very viable AR but the BR still able to come out on top easily if you keep to its strengths.
I like 12v12, and the maps are good, but there’s really not enough vehicle play in this, and far less heavy vehicle play than anything else. It makes me miss H3 BTB, even though there are things in H:I that I do genuinely like.
2 Likes
I feel like the Flag not needing to be home in BTB is something that actually limits some of the meta game team play.
Make the time to return flags higher, and require them to be home so all these damn players have something to do.
Being able to break off into groups to push, and protect gives the wider skill range of teams opportunities to fill roles.
The game already isn’t afraid of ties, but at least here, it’ll add some strategy back into the matches.
For me its as simple as BR BTB = 10/10 - AR BTB = 0/10
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I don’t want to see BR starts because the moment you give everyone a long range weapon at spawn you change the entire dynamic of the match. Now EVERY engagement is this long range shootout. And movement over open spaces becomes severely restricted because the moment you poke your head out your going to get shot at from everywhere. I think they have done a pretty good job at the moment with making the AR/Pistol good out to medium range, and breaking up line of sight so you can move around. It feels like there is a good mix of engagements both close, and sometime long.
As for criticisms though. I feel like there isn’t enough weapons/vehicles in the bases. We have 12 man teams now but the weapons available feel like it’s still designed for 8 man. Yeah the game randomly drops weapons sometimes but that’s a weird mechanic you can’t rely on. The vehicle drops are especially annoying because it’s so random. Will I get to drive at all this match? I never know. I just know I probably wont get to drive a tank as they are incredibly rare.
Also now that people are getting better at the game it’s obvious Stockpile is a very poorly balanced gametype. It often feels like it just gives one side the win by putting all the batteries near them. Why are they not initially spread out?
my main complaint of btb is how vehicle spawning works(not sure why the ghost and mongoose spawn that way instead of at base) just recently i had a match were the enemy team had 2 wasps and we couldnt do anything about it.,i miss the old system everything already being on the map and for heavy vehicles have a heavies variant or somthing.
If I have challenges active, I hate it. If I don’t, I love it.
Basically same as Arena.
I’ve got to start ignoring those damn challenges sucking all the fun away from the game.
This feels more like BTA (Big Team Arena) the removal of vehicles from the start and the fact that the vehicles are pretty underwhelming goes to show that the focus of multiplayer was in arena.
Also those maps are not vehicle friendly when compared to Coagulation, Valhalla, Highlands, Containment, Sand Trap and so on. The idea of BTB is to have epic moments from the off not just the last 2 minutes of the game.
As well as Halo 5 this shows that 343i have no real respect for the BTB community and the BTB experience.
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Stopped playing it. AR start is boring, the weapons don’t belong in Halo and literally no one said “We dont want the vehicles to spawn in from the start” so that change was completely unnecessary.
I remember seeing the presentation of BTB for the first time and watching some guy play, he was missing everything with an AR, talking how cool the pelican drop is and saying they want it to be as chaotic as possible… I remember thinking THIS guy is part of the problem, he’s one of the designers for the game and he can’t even play it… 
He has absolutely no idea how BTB should be structured and this is the result of that.
Not a single one of the people I have on my friends list (All BTB players) touch this BTB, I’m not just saying that either, not 1. They went to ranked or back to MCC. It is by far the worst BTB that’s ever been created in all aspects, I encourage them to get the help of people that know how it should run.
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Pretty fun and casual, although the vehicle spawns are quite frustrating when you need a specific vehicle for a challenge (I.e., get five kills with the Ghost’s plasma cannons)