The balance of Controller and M&K is a war that will never cease. That being said, I think they’re balanced pretty well in most modern games. In Halo Infinite however, the game is overwhelmingly top-heavy with controller players.
The reason for this is not Aim Assist, but Magnetism… or whatever we call a projectile’s generosity in relation to the actual reticle placement. It is incredibly forgiving for controller players and brutally punishing for mouse players.
Using a video recently uploaded by an awesome dude who goes by Shyway, I want to point out controller magnetism at even a top level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiiIGolII2Y
To quickly skip to my points of interest; play the video at .25 speed at 00:25, 00:56, the MOST EGRIGIOUS example at 01:16, and then another 01:21.
At 00:25 the player is nowhere near center reticle and is tagged by each shot of the burst; hence three hit markers. At 00:56 it’s a little bit closer but still fairly generous.
What I really want to talk about is what we see at 01:16. It is insane how far off this reticle is and still connecting shots. I believe this wildly strong magnetism is also partially responsible for how we die around corners. This is a pretty extreme example and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s something buggy going on with it, but it needs to be addressed one way or the other.
And lastly, at 01:21, it probably doesn’t seem too crazy unless you’re a m&k player. Anybody who picks up a Stalker with a mouse is going to be pretty envious at how forgiving that shot is.
These shots were chosen as examples for the magnetism purely because those would not connect with a mouse. Strong aim assist is already in the game as an equalizer to m&k and controller play, and magnetism pushes it past balancing to domination.
This is not to take away from anybody’s skills/abilities, or even to advocate to remove/tone down this magnetism. What I’d actually like to see is m&k get a little bit of a boost to help compete. It would allow the pace of the game to maintain and feel better to shoot for mouse users. I think not getting owned in every single 1v1 matchup would make this game a lot more appealing to m&k players and revitalize the playerbase a little bit as well. Not to mention, as a competitive game that seems to be taking no steps to bridge the gap in control input performance, the competitive scene’s integrity would be healthier for it. (Also I play with a mouse and am sick of getting destroyed 1v1 in Comp lol)
To push it a bit further from personal experience, I plug in a controller when I get challenges for “Perfect Kills” because they are quite challenging to get with a mouse. I also played a few ranked games with a friend just “because”, and it was immediately obvious to me how forgiving my shots (headshots in particular) were. I even had a case of killing somebody around a wall on Streets, at one of those crates at the corner in front of Cafe and A point. This doesn’t happen with the other input method.
I have no footage of m&k gameplay (because nobody uses it 
) to produce examples to further my case, nor do I have any to counter it as well. Anybody who has examples of m&k not being at a magnetism disadvantage is welcome to bring it to the discussion. I hope this gets a little bit of attention, I do care about this game in spite of all of it’s flaws and this is something that could kill two birds with one stone; improve balancing and adding to the fun factor a bit.