We don’t need a long blog post explaining all the decisions and mechanics that have led to Halo Infinite having terrible netcode that feels much worse than other shooters. We just need you to FIX IT.
Please stop explaining to us why a bad thing is a thing, and just fix it so that it’s actually good.
–EDIT-- I am not asking for 343 to stop communicating. I am asking them to stop communicating excuses and gaslighting their community and actually provide meaningful fixes to their game. Every online FPS game has been solving these networking problems better than Halo Infinite for 20 years, and their blog post doesn’t really address anything about why that is the case.
Every FPS game on the market is solving the exact same problems with networking, and every other FPS game feels better than Halo Infinite to play in terms of netcode.
They don’t need to change physics, they need to change their bad decision making and they need to fix their bugs.
I am so tired of 343’s response to feedback… Community: Here’s a problem 343: Here’s a blog post explaining why that problem is actually a feature and not a problem at all
I feel like what they are saying the problem is may not be the actual problem; and if it is then it is only part of the problem.
Like you said, other developers have to deal with the exact same latency issues for their games and yet this is by far the worst experience with a FPS game that I have ever had.
I kind of like that they showed diagrams and explanations for why things are happening the way they are. Most people aren’t so tech savvy and could learn a lot from those posts.
Explaining how and why you’re doing something is not a problem
Except that I doubt that is really the problem. That’s a very basic issue that has been dealt with fine for 20 years. If they’ve got that messed up now, then they truly are incompetent.
I don’t necessarily agree. For example, they just assert the following as if it is unassailable truth:
This would be bad because it would result in a game where the shooter had to constantly lead their target based on their latency to the server.
Except that’s not necessarily the case. Halo 3 uses this model, where you have to lead shots in part based on latency, and while it isn’t perfect, I’d say Halo 3 plays much better than the Infinite does right now. 343 act like their decisions are infallible and cannot be questioned and the community is crazy for telling them something is wrong.
It is correct that in a hit-scan based game, you don’t want to need to lead your targets. But Halo is not a hit-scan game. It’s a projectile-based game. This “favor the shooter” model is not necessarily the best way to go.
Their posts today are a bunch of gaslighting nonsense that would be right at home in any abusive toxic relationship.
At least this is a consistent latency in Halo 3 that you can learn and adjust your play towards. Plus it’s not like it’s a crazy idea that if someone is moving, then you need to shoot a little ahead of them for your shots to hit.
A big problem with the latency in Halo Infinite is that it is so inconsistent, which makes it difficult, if not impossible to actually adjust to.
This game had trash tier netcode even on day 1 with 270K players on steam alone. Player population could be making things worse, but it’s not the cause of the problems.
I mean, they directly gave us current mitigation and next mitigation steps, which sounded at least reasonable to me… this post makes it seem like they didn’t address it at all…
I mean, if you actually read the posts then you would know that the issue with netcode is directly related to server latency. And if server latency is an issue then it has to do with server location and where the players are connecting from. If there is lower population in the game that means they have to search a wider region and select the most “central” server location leading to higher latency and more desync.
Please tell me what other FPS games have better netcode than Halo Infinite.
Yes. I am complaining that their communication is “We are awesome and have made excellent decisions and the only reason you, the community, are saying there is a problem is because you are all morons and don’t understand our excellent decisions”.
Them acknowledging the problem in a “yes this is a problem and here’s what it means for the people who don’t really get it” sort of way was something they needed to do regardless of the chronology. As for the premise of your post, the implied moral dilemma between “explaining why its bad” and “fixing it instead” doesn’t exist. The existence of this blog post does not imply that they simply aren’t spending their time and energy to fix it, nor the other way around.
Now, if we’re talking about the “actions are louder than words” logic? They already released an update, which if you made it this far, you’re probably aware of. They also mentioned another “February Update” in the developer blog that we don’t have just yet.
100%. Honestly the biggest takeaway for me the end of the blog post:
“Hopefully, starting with this post, we can foster a strong dialog between 343 and the community so that together we can help identify and resolve these issues, and that you as a community know that our goal is to make the game experience the best it can possibly be.”
Like everyone, I’ve been frustrated with the state of Infinite, but reading bad intent in everything 343 says and does isn’t going to make communicating with them better.
There’s multiple things that are causing issues. Some of them have clearly been identified as bugs (which definitely qualify as some things they made mistakes on) that are being worked on. This also includes stuff people have asked them to do (like showing other peoples latencies in-game).
They finally acknowledged the issues in detail (instead of just mentioning them in a tweet)
They provided explanations on how some of them occur and what their approach has been to them (we might agree or disagree with the approach - but it provides clarity on what’s happening)
They outlined already implemented or planned mitigation steps
I think this qualifies as transparency on what’s going on and what the next steps are going to be. Would it be better if everything was solved already? Definitely. Is it better if they give us that information instead of having us wait around in silence like they did up until now? that’s also a yes.