This game screams ESports, and is probably the major reason as to why the game’s designed like it is. It’s why the weapons and map design aren’t great. Why no teleporters? Competitive play. Why is the Gravity Hammer slower than past Halos? Why only start with BRs in ranked? Competitive play. Probably competitive play. Competitive play is problably the reason why overshield and active camo are equipment now and why the guns from racks don’t respawn until ammo runs out. Think about it. The game has ESports skins, and it was said that pro players were part of 343 or that they helped in development. Well, I feel that it did more harm than good to Halo Infinite.
Yea, and the NBA ruined basketball and the NFL ruined football too!
(Most of your points are just things that have been in Halo for a while now. I.E. asymmetrical/symetrical maps, weapon timers being impacted by their current use, etc)
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“Harm” is relative, but there was definitely a factor of influence. Getting the HCS off the ground and into the mainstream would be a big deal for them.
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Uuh weapon respawn limits weren’t a thing in Halo until Infinite, and while there were mirrored maps in past entries it wasn’t overdone or they were designed in a way that had them done so well.
I changed it back to ruined.
Yeah and its awesome best halo since halo 3 and possibly could be better ! Stopped playing after 3 as it went away from esports, now its back its awesome ! People enjoy for different reasons I guess they can’t please everyone, just glad its the sweaters turn this time round lol.
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The idea that Infinite is “Esports” focused is laughable, its complete nonsense.
The only two things with any lean towards competitive play is that ranked has precision starts and no radar(which are basic necessities in ranked.) and they sell esport team skins.
The rest of the game is purpose built to limit competition as much as possible lest they scare away the casual moneybags. Random weapon and vehicle spawns, huge amounts of aim assist and hitscan weapons, bringing back bloom, spread, and recoil to handicap better players. Most weapons are pitifully weak so no individual player can stand out.
Most of your complaints have nothing to do with “esports” and the pro team’s influence amounts to basically nothing when looking at the actual product on display.
You don’t want to admit 343 just makes bad design decisions so you’d rather scapegoat “esports” instead.
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343 did make mistakes. One of those mistakes was focusing on ESports. However, ESports was a thing before 343 took over.
None of those mistakes have anything to do with “esports.”
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Hmmm let’s see what you have to say.
There are some weapons that don’t beg to be picked up, and a lot of the weapons don’t have that “jack of all trades” balance as they did in the past. I would say that they balanced around PvP, but a lot of the sandbox differences seem to be tied to their use in Campaign more than anything.
As for map design, you’re going to have to be more specific. Personally I find the maps to be pretty thought out, easy to navigate, and generally pretty fun. There’s a few that aren’t as great as the others, but they’re not bad maps.
I dunno what this has to do with esports if I’m being honest, but if I had to wager a guess it’s that they just haven’t been implemented yet.
Balance reasons most likely. Why doesn’t it have displacement anymore? Why doesn’t it have lunge?
Honestly it needs displacement added back in, but given its massive AOE now, it makes sense that the swing time was reduced. It’s no longer just a clunkier alternate choice to the energy sword.
Besides it’s not tied to competitive play because there’s not a single map in the Ranked playlist that spawns a Grav Hammer 
Uh yeah, that’s what separates it from the casual modes my guy.
Instead of giving everyone in every mode a BR start, 343 just relegated it to a specific playlist.
Do you want AR starts in Ranked? Or BR starts in everything?
If I’m not mistaken, this was the reason for the power equipment pickup. But it’s also not a bad design choice. It factors in the requirement to be smart about your approaches and prevents you from outright bum-rushing the power up and hoping your polygons touch it first.
The weapon racks make sense as well, thinking back to at least Halo Reach, the timer for default spawn was way too long if you held onto the power weapons, they would spawn eventually but the time would be considerably long. When you emptied it and swapped it though it would speed up the respawn timer. It’s designed to give these mid tier weapons a bit more weight without replenishing ammo if you wait long enough.
It’s about time. Love being able to rep Fnatic.
But I don’t see how sponsored skins are a problem.
As was the case in Halo 5 as well.
But 343 also took input from a variety of other outlets. Casual, hardcore, competitive all have a representation within this title. If you’re going to single out one group, you might as well acknowledge the others that participated as well.
Short of any real explanation or connection of how exactly esports influenced this title, it kinda sounds like sour personal opinion of just how the game plays. If you don’t like it, that’s ok, but you don’t have to try and rationalize your dislike of the title by turning esports into a doormat.
You don’t like the maps, weapons, and game/sandbox mechanics, that’s fine. But “esports” is only one layer to this, there’s many many more that make up why the experience is the way it is.
Yeh that’s sadly that’s the problem with Esports and HCS because the dev’s spend so much time focusing on the so called ‘pro-players’ that they forget that many good/bad players just want to be able to enjoy the game. It’s exactly why I was annoyed when they removed radar from ranked instead of fixing it since it basically meant that their only focus was on HCS.
I also didn’t like the changes like the hammer being slower and yeh feels like 343i are more focused on the Esports stuff instead of general population. I kind of feel like 343i should learn from that mistake since Twitch viewers are down and Steam is -66% so there losing population fast and probably same on Xbox. I feel like if 343i don’t stop then eventually Esports will eventually drop Halo Infinite due to lack of interest.
Historically, MLG had always fixed some things that were broken in Default Halo. With HCS and the rebranding of Esports, I’m not so sure that is the case anymore. But, I do think BR starts are saving Infinite right now.
The idea that 343 is in any way focused on “pro players” or HCS is a joke. This is what you get when you focus on delivering a minimum viable product to farm casuals for MTXs.
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Infinite isn’t an amazing competitive Halo title, if you want a game that was seemingly built for Esports in mind then Halo 5 is much closer to that.
I don’t really take randos seriously when they say this though, like do you even know anything about Esports or about competitive Halo in the first place? Probably not. You probably just seen a few montage clips from Halo 3 days or something and have never actually watched any of the events from beginning to end.
Looked up OP’s stats, they’re a Gold 6… You realize that pro players play on like Onyx 2000+ right? They don’t play the same game that you do. This would be like a pro player talking about what Grifball should be like, stupid and is out of touch.
This is because the sbmm makes the social modes feel super sweaty for anyone who isn’t an absolute fps beginner. I got ranked plat 3 (which was odd because I thrashed several diamonds in my placements) and every match I get in social feels like I’m playing against (legit) high diamond/low onyx players.