Unpopular opinion: The halo infinite weapon and vehicle sandbox is pretty small and boring compared to past halo titles.
Many of my matches involve there not being enough weapons to go around, people standing next to weapon pads/weapon racks, and camping vehicle spawns. (For example, the wasp spawn on high power usually has at least one person camping it, and shock rifle spawns have someone camping it from time to time too).
I miss previous halo titles sandboxes (H5, H4, reach, H3) a lot. I feel like they had more weapons and vehicles, and the maps had plenty of weapons, so it didn’t feel like you had to fight your teammates to get a useful weapon.
I think where my point feels most true is in halo infinite fiesta. I feel like fiesta is quite boring. There aren’t that many weapons, and it just doesn’t feel that chaotic. Compared to H5 super fiesta, husky raid, and big team super fiesta, Halo infinite feels like a serious downgrade in terms of fun, ridiculous, chaotic weapons. I think halo infinite’s sandbox is fine for ranked play and it’s really balanced, but when it comes to social modes, there just isn’t nearly enough content there.
I wouldn’t call that opinion unpopular. Many people I’ve spoken to about the sandbox has had the same opinion. It’s small and very boring after a little while. As for your point about people camping weapon and vehicle pads, that’s just what people do. They want that power weapon or vehicle.
The sandbox is small and lean without much overlap. While variety is nice, it’s not necessarily required. I will say that we definitely need a few more weapons and vehicles. Another air vehicle, a party one like the Falcon or Hornet would be nice. More Covenant/Banished vehicles preferably different colors instead of them all just being red. As for weapons we need more automatics and mid level power weapons like the brute shot or concussion rifle. I’d love to see the reach grenade launcher (with it’s emp still) or H4 Sticky Det.
Besides more weapons, some can flat out be removed and almost no one would care. Personally I wouldn’t miss the Bulldog, Pulse Carbine, Mangler, Plasma Pistol or Ravager if they are removed. And the BR after Nerf seems to have 50% Ghost Bullets now, so I rarely bother with it anymore.
Weapons and vehicles i miss are the DMR (which I heard is coming back), Spartan Laser, Rail Gun, Gauss Hog, Tracking rocket launcher, Falcon 3 person attack helicopter, Sticky Detonator pistol (Halo 4) and Original Magnum. The Sticky Detonator would be a great ground anti vehicle weapon too as a replacement for the Plasma pistol.
It might also be fun to have the Incinerator Cannon, Binary Sniper Rifle, Beam Sniper Rifle, Covenant Carbine, Saw machine gun, Scatter shot and Fuel Rod Cannon back too, at least in a limited fashion.
I also strongly agree that it feels like there aren’t enough weapon drops on the maps. There are quite a few power weapons, but not enough lower power ranged weapons (like BR, Covenant Carbine, DMR etc.).
Edit. I would also like the bouncy Halo Reach EMP Grenade launcher back too.
Edit 2: What is the point of the Plasma Pistol at all, which doesn’t even stop a vehicle if you hit it with a charged shot?
I can get behind a smaller sandbox, since Infinite’s sandbox has at least a weapon for engagements that I find myself in, but I do honestly prefer bigger sandboxes like the one Halo 5 had. In Halo 5, I had everything I could want.
I like Infinite’s weapon sandbox a lot, its vehicle sandbox a bit less.
|I think part of the problem is a lot of Infinite’s new weapons are either projectile based and/or have some sort of gimmick to the way you use them that previous weapons that filled the same role in past Halos didn’t have. Good example would be the pulse carbine, especially before the winter update, since it required you to be further away from someone than you’d might think for the tracking to work well. In that range it would basically force whoever you are shooting at to retreat lest they get deleted by a tracking projectile, but it wasn’t as good up close where the plasma/storm rifles would shine. As for fiesta, admittedly I have played very little of Halo 5 but I imagine the combination of REQ weapons being insanely powerful and how many of them there were made it far more chaotic. Infinite fiesta isn’t really that different from fiesta in 2 or 3, again some weapons just make you work for your kill more.
When it comes to vehicle though, I think the pelican system is a massive misstep. Tanks, banshees, rocket hogs, choppers, and gungeese don’t spawn naturally at all, so it is random if you’ll ever see one or if they will spawn evenly for both teams (which they basically never do). You are just suck with the warthog, razorback, mongoose, and ghost instead, with the wasp spawning naturally on Highpower as well. Not only that, but while BTB’s player count as increased the same isn’t really true for the vehicle count. Shock grenades and shock rifles being as desirable as they are also means that chances are someone on the map has an easy way to EMP your vehicle and turn you into a sitting duck. Map design sucks for vehicles too, given how closed off they are,
definitely way smaller than h5. but pretty much on par weapon wise with every other halo except 5, technically has double since every normal weapon has an upgraded variant. vehicles do seem lacking too but again is on par with every other halo except h5.
they need to add flyable phantoms at this point. 1 pilot with main gun control and the access to it from the main fuselage, two door gunners, and walking space in the main body. maybe even a tractor beam thats constantly on for players to enter. that way teammates could easily enter and enemies would have a way to counter without heavy weapons. like, instead of hijacking the ship, you wouldnt be able to from the outside, but you would be able enter the ship and see kill the crew and see the pilot sitting in his seat and shot or melee him them take the phantom controls that way.
think how mickey and buck stole their phantom in odst to help paint the picture.
flyable pelicans would be cool too with variants like transport with single pilot controlled machine gun and maybe a rear turret like commonly seen in the campaign of old halos. And condor class gunship with crew controlled weapons so instead of one person dominating the field with an uber-unit of a ship, you would need to take 3 or 4 player off the field in order to make full use of the craft.
if you couldnt already tell, i really like the idea of vehicles that require a crew to be utilized fully. like how the old falcon was basically useless unless you had door gunners
The visible timers don’t make this any better. Now people can see that a weapon will be back in a few seconds, so they wait. Before they might’ve just past since there was nothing there, only for it to spawn an instant later.
I like the premise behind it. Not totally thrilled by the execution. For as unique as Infinite’s sandbox seemed on the surface, the more you play with it the more you realize a lot of weapons do the same thing.
The AR, Pistol, Sentinel Beam, Bulldog, Needler, Heatwave, and Disruptor? All the same. Some are just harder to use or stronger than others.
Commando, BR, and Stalker? Same deal, especially in 4v4.
Plasma Pistol, Ravager, and newly reworked Pulse Carbine? They all get used the exact same way.
Sniper, Skewer, and Shock Rifle? Yup, basically the same.
Sword and Hammer.
Cindershot and Hydra. Though this pairing is a bit more of a stretch than the others. They are still both about pew-pewing multiple explosive shots with an untracked mode and then some form of tracking as an alternative for longer range targets.
Honestly I think the Rocket Launcher is probably the only unique weapon in the entire sandbox… And yet you can argue it’s just the same as the Hydra’s base fire more but with bigger deadlier explosions.
There needs to be more separating these weapons to justify slimming the sandbox down.
Personal opinion, yes Infinite’s weapon sandbox is smaller, but I enjoy it more than any other game since CE. It is a soft-reboot for the sandbox. It lacks in quantity and has some massive gaps (like a classic shotgun, or railgun/spartan lazer) but it feels great, especially after the sandbox changes recently. Playing AR slayer feels good, and ranked/BR has its fans too. Both starter fans can have a home in Infinite.
That said its vehicle sandbox is easily the worst yet. Quantity we have plenty, but vehicles drive like crap, they have durability of crap, and are put on maps that play like crap. And this is where social hurts. Vehicles already suffer, but then you have all the maps be the same 3 lane design, then it drags everything else, including the weapon sandbox, down.
I feel like there’s too many almost power weapons that are slower and less useful than power weapons, Cindershot, Hydra, etc. and too many mid-long range rifles that take +3-4 shots to kill. BR, Commando, Stalker, Shock Rifle (if you don’t get the chained headshot). Yet at the same time there’s no other weapons to fill the gaps and mitigate the power gaps between weapon levels. Oh and cant forget about the two 3-shot-kill shotguns. Sure one shot and a melee is nice in a CQC encounter, but it would be nice to get a one shot and drop hand cannon again. The Needler shouldn’t be the only counter we have to power weapons. Because that’s boring, just stay far enough away, avoid getting sworded or rocketed and the kill is yours.
Oh, I totally forgot. The vehicles have GTA physics in the air and the Warthogs feel lighter than the Ghost. Vehicle collision is weird and feels like CE where a tap will give you a splatter but a fast graze wont.